Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Saturday, 21 April 1883

I have had a rather amusing week. The studio has its charms from time to time. I have finished the competition piece and am amusing myself doing caricatures.
And while I am amusing myself with these trifles, Saint-Marceaux comes to call. He found only Maman. Ah — that is really too much!
In the end, this evening there is an impromptu and very amusing costume dinner.
Émile Bastien was going to a costume ball and came to show off his brigand costume. So we all disguise ourselves. I make a very pretty Mme Récamier — they posed me in the manner of David's portrait. Alice as Louis XV, Dina as a little Russian girl, Villevieille powdered and patched.
And Tony, who arrived in the midst of this carnival, improvises a costume as an emir.
I have so many things in the studio that we even found him red boots.
Julian alone stays in his ordinary clothes — but after dinner I crown him with roses as the god Pan.
And then who should arrive but M. de Rochefort, a young attaché at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and we all hide.
Just think — young men of society do not understand this; they know stiff formal society and they know improper society. But the charming informality of artists would disconcert them; they would commit improprieties. And I am quite happy to dress up, laugh, have fun — but let everything remain correct; not a word, not a gesture… impure!
These people will not believe in my enthusiasm for Saint-Marceaux.