Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 15 August 1883

I receive a note from Julian, who is in the country and appears to believe I shall send something to the Triennial Exhibition. The first of these exhibitions opens in a month: only a small number of pictures are admitted. It is a purged Salon.
I had almost given up the idea of sending something… I no longer thought of it…
And here I am completely agitated. Oh! Completely.
Moreover, if the Eternal Father does not take pity on me, I am finished. I am ugly, I cannot hear — this atrocious torment is beyond anything I could ever express.
I have anxieties about my eyes. These assorted charms together form a daily existence so intolerable that it will end in some kind of madness. Or else in death. And the Triennial Exhibition — shall I submit? If Tony says so himself, or else under a pseudonym, like that… For the true merit of a painting must count for very little in this business — all the established artists send six or seven canvases, and the number of works admitted is very limited. I write to Julian of my perplexities.
What kills me is seeing myself destitute of every merit — I am not even pretty, and besides, no one sees me. One must…
And I am twenty-four years old. Wretched creature that I am.
I restrain myself from weeping on account of my eyes. And fortunately no one knows of all these sufferings… That is why I would want to love someone… But no — my pride would never make such disastrous confidences.
Better to die… And then?!
Where is a life more miserable than mine?
Who is more crushed by ridiculous, humiliating, unbearable calamities? Ah! Wretched creature that I am… I shall never be more unhappy than this.
Mme Cartwright sends me flowers with a letter in which she says a thousand kind things and explains that she is not coming because she received from Maman a note that wounded her deeply, but that she does not hold me responsible, etc., etc., etc.
I wanted to reply with declarations of friendship but stopped at a verbal message, out of caution — my letters in that woman's hands would be read by all those to whom she would boast of being received here, etc. Yet I have great affinity for her; she is linked in my mind to Bastien, and I regard her almost as if she were Mme Mackay herself.
But… Mme Mackay herself has kept her distance; this abominable hussy seeks to establish herself as respectable and receives a few people of standing. That is what enrages me — she will not have…
On the subject of the cancellation letters for our evening: it was not Cartwright at all — she was accused by the Bari woman, who was the true author of them. And the Bailleul came here to spread this scandal, in order to deflect suspicion from her dear courtesan-Countess of Bari. You see perfectly well that I was quite wrong to imagine that Stéphanie was occupying herself with me. Everyone knows it was the Bari.
Well then — what else?
Bastien is here — Tchernitsky ran into him this morning.
It is as I thought.
And then what else?
I hate myself, I detest myself, I despise myself, I mock myself; I am ugly, foolish, ridiculous, stupid, repulsive…
It is like something dreadful falling from the sky — an ancient curse.
It is a ridiculous terror that sends heat up my back and seizes my legs before rising to my face.
What, who? Nothing, no one.
Anything may happen now — I see no reason why a great many mad things should not happen. It has the air of a nervous state, yet it is not — everything could be explained logically… There are reasons.
1st — The Triennial Exhibition.
2nd — The fear of feeling attraction to this little painter, and above all the fear that someone should know it. That is to say, the fear that anyone should know I wish to conquer him — and since I shall not, I am ashamed in advance and so humiliated it is as if I had been beaten.
Yet let us see… Say what you will, there are undeniable facts: I want him and I do not have him. I experience a defeat before my own pride, and that is a hard thing… If at least I had something to console my self-esteem… But in Paris a young woman does not make herself loved — one marries, and there is the dowry! Besides, I see no one. I feel the need to remind myself of a little Spaniard from the embassy who was very attentive at Mme Aanchine's, and of two or three or four others who were also attentive at the poor two or three balls I attended. All of that bores me — I would like to go to Italy, where people walk beneath windows… Can you picture Bastien walking along the rue Ampère… If he were truly in love… I believe I would forget many a grief…
Saint-Amand dined this evening.
It is an omen, all the same… Walking on one's balcony in the evening and not knowing whether the quarter-hour has struck at the neighbouring church, and saying: well, if it is the quarter-hour first, or the half-hour, that means… he will be in love with me. The quarter strikes, and is followed by a beautiful beaming, happy, involuntary smile — for me alone, in the dark. Had the half struck, I would have been quite saddened… In others such things matter — but in me they signify nothing.
The imagination… and the perpetual fear of great unknown misfortunes…