Friday, 13 July 1883

Accounts to settle with myself. A need to plunge back into — no, not that. To collect myself. Write letters to Russia. Paul and his wife are behaving like swine toward Maman, and I write Paul five pages of abuse — perfectly merited. I am so revolted by Paul's ingratitude and his ignoble wife's that I tremble as I write. Dirty scoundrel, go on! So the afternoon will be devoted to taking stock of the nothings that... do not occupy me. The void. The Void. And in that void, trivialities swell to idiotic proportions. Am I given to romantic fancies? In the ridiculous sense of the word? Or am I truly above the common run, since my feelings accord only with what is most elevated and pure in literature — and Balzac admits that writers deck themselves in it like make-up? Then??? In short... And Love? What is it? I have never felt it — those passing, vain infatuations do not count. I preferred certain people because my imagination requires an object; they were thus preferred because it was a need of my "great soul," not because they imposed themselves. That is the whole difference. It is enormous. Example: I need a hat and go looking for one. Or I pass by and go mad over a head-dress and want it at any price... As for physical love — I should be very curious to know it, and I believe it must contribute to establishing the balance of one's existence. But— Mme Presseq replies to a polite note from me with a billet that ends: "and I assure you that no one in the world has more sympathy for you than your devoted etc." This means she believes in a shared misfortune. She thinks me the victim of her great Paul. That too is rather stupid — for the past few days he has been making a great noise, an ultra-scandalous incident in the Chamber and articles in which he converts himself to some Orleanist compromise. It is absurd and leaves me entirely cold. And that mad Presseq imagines I am stirred by this uproar, which leaves me as cold as the hearthstone on which Coco stretches out during the great heat. Without transition, let us pass to Art. I do not see where I am going in painting. I follow Bastien-Lepage and it is deplorable. One always lags behind. One is never great until one has discovered a new path — one's own nature, one's own means of rendering particular impressions. My art does not exist. I glimpse it a little in the Holy Women... and even then? In sculpture it is different. But in painting... I imitate Bastien-Lepage, and it is such a shame that I turn red when I think of it. In the Holy Women I imitate no one, and I believe in a great effect — for I want to put great sincerity into the material execution, and all the emotion I feel on that subject. And since along with that I shall not commit faults of drawing, arrangement, or costume... For emotionally-driven painters generally cannot draw, and dress their Madonnas in Louis XV style or 1883. The urchins make one think of Bastien-Lepage, though I took the subject from the street and it is a very common, very true, very everyday subject. And... Besides, that painter always gives me some indefinable unease. The newspapers have set us at odds, and then I have praised his work so extravagantly that he thinks himself rather my sovereign — and I seethe at the idea that he believes I imitate him servilely, and see no further. He has reasons to think so, alas. Moreover I feel he has an antipathy toward me; I feel myself before him as a base creature before one who has seen through its baseness. For I feel he does not like me. And such things afflict me coming from anyone. But from this moment I resolve to pay it no more attention — in words above all — and I shall even say everywhere that we know mainly the brother. No matter — he will not believe it; just yesterday his brother came in and there lying open on the piano was the photograph of L'Amour au village, a studio parody Jules sent me: two young people posing, surrounded by lettuce. Quite funny. He went right through to greet the Maréchale and ran into the photograph of Sarah Bernhardt's portrait. A little more and he would have found the English pamphlet with the biography and portrait of his brother. I shall have to work hard to make people believe that is all over. I have just had a visit from M. Carriès, the famous sculptor of the other day. He did not bring his busts; I was alone, but I received him because he lives very far away and a cab is an expense... And then to the studio. There, by chance, are my five clay sketches — he is astonished. "You were born to sculpt." He looks at everything with great naturalness, saying aloud what pleases or displeases him. What pleases dominates — his admiration and astonishment have such a sincere air that I am very pleased. It puts us so entirely at ease that most naturally in the world I play him the mandoline; he had heard me playing on arrival and asked what the instrument was. This visit delights me! A sincere compliment is worth forty-nine thousand social admirations. The architect asserts, affirms, swears that his brother holds my abilities in very high esteem. That is not possible — or else it is mere indulgence... I believe myself now a genius and now a nothing. That is to say: I believe I am going to have talent, but I despair of the present result. The Engelhardts and Mme Bogdanoff to dinner. Yesterday it was Bojidar and Dusautoy. Always more or less the same thing. The article in the Novoye Vremya has been reprinted in all the Russian newspapers, and the reverberations are great. The Maréchale said she would have Wolff brought to me by Francesqui!