Sunday, 5 August 1883
In short, it is a matter of indifference to me.
But I am twenty-four. Young, you will say — but I see that all the people I know seem to give me more. People are already saying I shall not marry. The Gavinis, after offering a heap of suitors, are offering no more.
And it is evident that in Paris I shall never find a wealthy match. Women more beautiful than I have married men without fortune when they had a dowry, or remained old maids when they had none.
Et il est evident qu'a Paris je ne trouverai jamais un parti riche. De plus belles que moi ont epouse des gens sans fortune et lorsqu'elles avaient une dot ou sont restees filles lorsqu'elles n'en avaient pas.
But what makes marriage difficult is that since I am like J.J. Rousseau, I need infinite consideration, indulgence, and delicacy.
Mais ce qui rend un mariage difficile c'est que depuis que je suis comme J.J. Rousseau il me faut des menagemens, des complaisances et des delicatesses infinies.
I shall find that only by taking a Saint-Amand as husband — I shall be free, and if I love someone, that someone will not be a husband with whom I live constantly and who could wound me. I shall see little of the world; I shall make almost no calls; and I shall receive for music, so that all will go well.
Je ne trouverai cela qu'en prenant un mari Saint-Amand...
But to marry a man who will marry for his own advantage — and who will be fine and rich... That is nowhere to be found.
Mais epouser un homme qui se mariera pour lui, qui sera bien et riche... C'est introuvable.
Or a very fine young man who will marry me for the dowry and will naturally wish to benefit [Words blacked out: and is that not entirely natural] and is honourable and like everyone else? And what would become of me then?
Ou un jeune homme tres bien qui m'epousera pour la dot et qui voudra naturellement en profiter avec la femme [Mots noircis: et n'est-ce pas tout naturel] et honnete et comme tout le monde ? Et qu'est-ce que je deviendrais alors ?
Even if I am loved? He will bore me, prevent me from working even without meaning to. And even if I were not like Rousseau, I could not accommodate myself to an ordinary existence — how can one bind oneself to an indifferent person, endure him, share one's life and time with him? Make calls, have children — and he will take more of my money for his election campaign or even for his kept women!
Meme si je suis aimee ? Il m'ennuiera, m'empechera de travailler sans le vouloir meme. Et meme si je n'etais pas comme Rousseau je ne m'accommoderais pas d'une existence ordinaire, comment me lier a un indifferent, le subir, partager une vie et mon temps avec lui ! faire des visites et avoir des enfants et il prendra encore de ma fortune pour sa deputation ou pour des cocottes meme !
Ah! No.
A very rich prince would not marry me for love — and even then, one would have to spend an entire season, five or six months posing, dancing, doing nothing but going about in the world... I would not resolve to run that risk. For there is no guarantee of catching a prince. Look at the Martinoff woman — she does nothing else; her aunt takes her everywhere, every season, every ball — it has been going on three years and still no husband.
Go back to Italy? That is what I shall probably do if we have successes at the Embassy. After six years? Unmarried? Shall I find admirers again? I shall be regarded as faded. Whereas if I return married, I shall be dazzling — and I should so like to take my revenge in Rome. All those ladies and the Court itself — they all paid attention to these very rich foreign women who stayed there three months without going into the world.
Ah! What great innocents we were!
Only Spanish customs resemble somewhat our Russian provinces. We had not the slightest bearing... It is regrettable.
Oh! To take my revenge before all those people. That will not happen while I am a young girl. No — I must marry Saint-Amand or Bojidar. Bojidar is a companion, a tidy little fellow, economical, even fussy — he would be the ideal estate manager. But he would be a real husband — yes, but that would be nothing...
His cousin Pierre is marrying Princess Zorka, daughter of the reigning Prince of Montenegro — a marriage that may well help him to the throne of Serbia; Pierre is the chief, the active pretender with real chances. Bojidar would then be a royal prince. That would be perfect — especially since I must confess here my inexplicable weakness for the title of princess.
It is elegant, it is artistic, it is ravishing. Countess, marchioness, even duchess mean nothing to me. But princess fascinates me like a work of art.
Princess is an exquisite plume that I should grieve not to see on my head.
Princess is worth five hundred thousand francs' income. With Princess one is imposing while spending only sixty thousand a year.
A well-appointed mansion, princess, and the Fine Arts. The rest depends on me. But Love?
Deceive Bojidar? To deceive — never — no one.
But in any case we have divorce — and if I find some extraordinary opportunity I shall remarry; and then often between spouses there are separations; I could invent health reasons, and then it would not be deceiving: that is, it would not be sharing, and that is enough.
But perhaps I shall love no one. With Saint-Amand there would be the most complete freedom, and it seems to me I should use it.
You know that while joking he speaks of this possible association.
It is agreed that he will be only my friend; that I devote myself to art; and that if I am unfaithful to one or the other, no one will ever know.
"I am resolved to be a cuckold," he says. "Napoleon was one — and if I am not, that will be a pleasant surprise. But you will take care of my honour and my name."
— You are as stupid as the rest, Saint-Amand. It will be neither your honour nor your name — but my honour and consequently my name, and therefore no one in the world can be more jealous of it than I. Besides, the Fine Arts leave me no time to think of frivolous things.
— Say rather that your virtue will prevent you.
— If you wish — in any case, my dear, no one will ever know. Association, friendship, select receptions, Arts and glory — that is all.
But he will want a carriage; he shall have one — and that is all: lodged, fed, at peace, protected from changes of ministry...
Those are his advantages. The Academy in prospect following good dinners... He does not deserve it — for he is a literary journalist — but with protection, intrigue, with everything in the world. And it will amuse me to have M. Roland, Academician. But — Baron. Baroness — that is stupid.
One might... There is quite a quantity of blackened paper.
We go to surprise the Canroberts and stay an hour. Return at eight o'clock, heat, fatigue, smell of coal. But it is amusing all the same for an observer — I plunge my eyes into a thousand existences, as Balzac says — while my aunt picks quarrels with Dina or with me.
Oh! Families that quarrel — it is indescribable.
Jules must be in Paris, and his lesser brother the architect does not appear — for he would probably like to bring him to prove to me that he does not hate me. I shall invite Émile to dinner — without the other! No — he would think it a roundabout invitation.
On the other hand I shall see this idiot architect and we'll say to each other: "My brother has just left for Damvillers..." Let him go there, damn it — but let him not think I am disappointed.
Unfortunately my past language authorises him to think so...
That Cassagnac is truly a base nature. In an article written about him two years ago — naturally inspired by him — there was mention of a very wealthy young foreign woman who, "smitten with this knight," had wished to marry him, but he preferred a cottage and a heart. That is already not very nice — what do you say? And then in almost all his feuilletons in Le Pays there is a woman called Moussa — an insipid name they used to annoy me with at home, and which the Mouzay woman employed. Always Moussa. It is he or his wife writing under pseudonyms — or else people know there was a young foreign woman who, smitten, etc. And these heroines are Russian.
Going to Versailles, we bought Le Pays — which I read very rarely — and I fell upon this feuilleton and the Russian Moussa. It made me blush and purse my lips in disgust.
I should like to see the Presseq woman.
That great fool perhaps imagines I do not marry out of love for him. Ah! The enormous simpleton. A base nature. All the low instincts. A pimp's nature — seductive and repulsive. My God — since You are just, why do You allow things to be believed that are not true, and that are so injurious to me? Yes — people say I had a romance with Cassagnac, and that is why I do not marry; for they cannot otherwise understand why, having a fine dowry, I am still neither countess nor marchioness.
Fools. Fortunately you — handful of superior beings, you dear and beloved confidants who read me — you know what to make of it. But when you read me, all those I speak of will probably be dead; and Cassagnac will carry into the grave where his fat reposes the sweet conviction of having been loved by a young and beautiful foreign woman who, smitten with the knight, etc. [Word blacked out: Cassagnac.] The fool. Others will believe it too. Fools.
But you know it is not so — it would perhaps be poetic to refuse penniless little marquises for love; but alas, I refuse them for reason.
*Monday, 6 August 1883*
*Tuesday, 7 August 1883*
I turn quite red at the thought that in a week it will be five months since I finished the Salon picture. What have I done in five months? Nothing yet.
Sculpture, it is true — but that does not count yet. The urchins are not finished!!!
I am very unhappy. Seriously. Saint-Amand dined here and recited to me the entire catalogue of the Louvre museum, indicating almost every picture in its place. He studied this in order to win my favour. He believes it possible that I might marry him. He must suppose me at bay to put that in his head. It is because I do not hear well that he thinks me brought low. After his departure I nearly fainted with grief. What have I done to God that He always strikes me!
I did not have enough miseries — He had to make me an invalid into the bargain, at the mercy of!... Of servants even. It is enough to drive one mad!
What does this modern Potiphar think? If he is not convinced that I shall love only Art — what does he think?
Does he resign himself to being deceived? Or does he suspect me of some dreadful vice?
One sees in Paris such odious, such shameful things — and they are printed and read — and I have the misfortune of understanding all the filth in shorthand, or almost all. A Saint-Amand marriage would be a shameful marriage, for people would warn us — they have already warned us — and so I would be marrying knowing all this?
Bojidar then? I do not mind — but... For one must not dream of any conquest: one can have them when married and in fashion; otherwise no... Love-match: impossible to find... In any case, within a year it will be decided.
Who do you suppose would adore me with this defect? There is no excuse — it exists in no novel, it has never been seen: at twenty, pretty, and such as I am!!!
I shall go mad with it, and my hair will turn white.
And now I try to console myself... At a ball, when there are many people it is not noticed — but those who know raise their voices, and it is as though I were being struck. Only a recognised, immense talent could mitigate this nameless bitterness.
Yes — I prefer Bojidar. Bojidar would be proud, in love, content — a good companion in short. Saint-Amand would be the culmination of everything!
It is enough to sit down and weep. I wonder whether I am going to pray — or say that God does not exist. If He exists, He is like me: He does not hear!
Then what is it that growls, that chafes, that makes ordinary life seem miserable to me? It is a real force within me — it is something that my poor writing does not know how to say!
The idea of a picture or a statue keeps me awake entire nights — the thought of a charming young man has never managed so much.
I went to the Louvre this morning to look at Raphael, following a reading of Stendhal. Well — whatever I do from what I see there, I cannot love him. I prefer even the naïveté of the Primitives. Raphael is cunning and false.
Divine, divine... divine — is he divine? The mark of the Divine is to transport us and carry our thoughts into celestial regions. Raphael tires me.
Then who is divine? I do not know. Why does Stendhal say Raphael paints souls? In which of his pictures?
That is an admiration I shall have to work at. The painter of souls is Bastien — however enormous and monstrous that assertion may seem to you.
Saint-Marceaux also represents souls. And the Primitives — naïve and admirable artists — of whom the already somewhat precious Perugino is almost one.
But what do I care for those absurd large machines full of science and correctness — or even the heaps of flesh in Rubens! They bore me! What am I to do with the Wedding at Cana? Or Raphael's Virgins?
That is not divine! This Virgin is ordinary — and that Child... Actually one would have to see again what he has in Italy. The memory I retain of it is not favourable. The Madonna della Sedia is a pretty Italian chambermaid type, delicate. I see more of the divine in Michelangelo — Raphael Sanzio — listen to that precious name. And then Michelangelo even Buonarroti — that is as grand as God.
And I! One day I shall do a divine subject — to see...
A Christ preaching from a boat. But Christ is human...
I would represent only things that grip, that move, that make one's heart beat or dream — something that catches at the heart, like Cazin's small simple canvases; dimensions matter little, but if on a large scale one arrived at that effect... That would be superb. But how many people understand Cazin?
And Nausicaa and Ariadne. The beautiful things! And if my Printemps is a deferred dream... Nausicaa might, or — no — Ariadne will see the light soon.
Both begin with A. Le Printemps will be done — but I am afraid of being ridiculous in beginning there. No matter — I shall make the sketch and then we shall see.
That calms one.