Sunday, 22 July 1883

Last night I cauterised my chest — above the right breast, at the place where the lung is affected. I finally made up my mind to do it: it will leave a yellow mark for three or four months, but at least I shall not die consumptive. I need to be very strong. What if people find this beautiful thing insipid? Why? Spring, evening, night, sleep... These are always allegories whose splendour or insipidity depend entirely on who treats them. Then? I am full of doubts... It seems to me too beautiful — but perhaps it is too beautiful... A cliché... And then, what likelihood that I shall produce from inspiration like this something colossal, something difficult?... They will say it is not by me! For it will be good! Come — I know how to draw, and most sculptors do not; and they are stupid, and without invention. It is much easier to sculpt a figure than to paint one. The difficulty in sculpture begins only at talent — and there too... It is a paradox. It is easy to model in an ordinary way. But if one can do more... It is no longer a question of difficulty but of talent and temperament. The craft I do not know. But I shall not make grammatical errors. And when one knows one's grammar, talent is either there or it is not — one can only learn the grammar. I place my figures very correctly in space; it remains to be seen how I can execute an arm or a leg... It seems so like a city already taken that it seems no one will believe it... And what a sensation! This is not a work of sentiment like the Holy Women, which might, alas, pass unnoticed — but this will impose itself on everyone; a brutal success that will force attention to the sentimental abstractions like Nausicaa or the Holy Women. I see this enormous uproar — people will want to be introduced to me, as I want to meet people I admire... Artists will want to know who made this for me. They will not believe it. Do I seem mad with confidence? No — I am dreaming and sharing my reveries with you. Besides, others might have made a work this large and attracted attention by that means — yes, but often those capable of executing it cannot afford it; a group of two or three figures already costs a great deal. Those who think of doing a single figure, unnoticed, could attract attention with a large composition, but the money is lacking. And for a statue to bring glory, it must be truly admirable. It seems to me I am depreciating it in advance by attributing the success to its size... And yet — to compose is still something. No one knows the subject, and I shall tell no one, from superstition. I shall make a life-size sketch and show it when it is well advanced. Those brutes who have been sculpting for ten years will not believe it. Incompetents. To dull the burn, I fell asleep last night with opium, and all morning felt on the point of fainting — and now it is almost passed, and I work on the sketch. Prodigious, my dear. But in short, if I succeed, my biography will make a host of people — all the proud, all the vain incompetents — believe they too were simply aware of their genius. And if I fail — what a lesson! Rosalie says she is dumbfounded to see Mademoiselle undertaking things like this before having made so much as a bust. She may be right. Am I not mad? *Monday, 23 July 1883 Entirely given over to decoration — I see great machines, avalanches of human bodies, monumental façades with figures and decorative fantasies. There lies a field open to my frenzy for the grand and the beautiful. Babylonian things — Dante's cantos put into sculpture. Bands of the damned and choruses of angels. Who has done this? No one. Our sculpture is poor — and if everything has been done in painting, there is a fine place to be taken in the carving of stone. It is impractical — for where would you put it? Practically speaking it is madness; there are no longer monuments to decorate. But how beautiful it is! No — it is truly beautiful. Tuesday, 24 July 1883* Perhaps it is not beautiful. Perhaps it is not achievable. I have not seen anything like it at the Salon. Nor in museums! Then? Is it insanity? It has been raining for several days, and to not waste time I begin a portrait of Dina. The architect comes around six o'clock; he brings the drawing of the building where he has proposed I do some small decorative sculpture. I would accept if it were more important. I continue making no jokes about Jules; I lavish praise on other artists, and even say without affectation that I feel a mutual coldness between Jules and me — naturally Émile protests, but I say: no matter, he is disagreeable to me. Countess Malewska came, and also the Viscountess de Janzé, Gavini, Linsingen.