I have just re-read, by chance, a few pages of my life in 1880. And I find myself far happier now. It is quite remarkable — in comparison, and even...
I truly work like a raw beginner — I have to invent my own methods. Wolgren and then the other one showed me well enough how to put up an armature,...
But at my age, and besides... It is not that. I should have left, gone somewhere — anywhere — for I am... as though a spell had been cast on me...
We went to the theatre this evening, in a box on the stage side, very well hidden, and left before the end so as not to run into anyone. At the...
It is true that I care no more about Cassagnac than about the year 1851. Good riddance!
Yesterday there were the Engelhardts and Mme Bogdanoff; this evening the Karageorgevitches. I never talk with any of that lot, besides...
A few days later I say to myself: well, and Jules — do I no longer think of him? Not at all.
You can imagine how cheerful it was. Well then... I think I shall go and paint the forest — I shall have to move out there for a month.
Well then, I can see nothing clearly and do not know what I want!
Bojidar came with me, fortunately, for I had not thought that it was a holiday, and when we arrived there we found crowds of boaters — and Rosalie...
I very much want a painting... after which I shall not paint outdoors again this winter; it could be done in a month, November.
Then the Princess Karageorgevitch, who comes as she does nearly every day to play piquet and dine. I am tired of her; she bores me.
There were six of them at this morning's mass. The Grand Duchess Anastasia, Vladimir with his wife Marie Pavlovna, Alexis, Serge, and Paul. If with...
Since I began dressing myself in Paris I have waged war against stupid, unbecoming fashions. For five or six years I have been asking for draperies,...
He has, it seems, been away, a thousand things to do, and the day after tomorrow they leave for Damvillers — the architect for a month, and Jules...
I have a slight headache, and as this is a rarity for me I am glad of it.
And among the names listed I read: Bastien-Lepage. This plunges me into an extreme state of agitation; I am almost weeping.
I am working at home. Sculpture.
Sudden change of scenery. Everything is cheerful, calm, and beautiful.
He dislikes the type of work I do, but pays me great compliments while asking in bewilderment how it is possible that I — surrounded by elegance and...
I did not look very pretty, did not enjoy myself... Despite Gabriel, who is pleasant and has very tender eyes. But to conceal it I adopt a...
And now I am reading a study on Chopin and Liszt — there is Paganini. There are men who seized hold of their world.
I have had a magnificent organ for the past few days. My family finds the toy somewhat expensive but says nothing about it, and I am grateful to them...
At five o'clock we go for tea at Safonoff's.
Sleeping in a loft — a kind of cupboard that served as a bedroom — no linen; and eating olives, cucumbers, and cold water... She did not write to her...
After that great turkey Léonie, who speaks of her sorrows with so tranquil an air, I go to see that great simpleton Gabriel.
A large landscape, the Bojidar portrait, a sketch, and a woman's head — that is all, and in all of it nothing...
It is the largest Russian illustrated journal, and here I am, quite at home there.
Something astonishing has just happened and gives me great pleasure. My fisherman, which I had donated to the Ischia lottery, turns out to be at the...
The Princess, the Engelhardts, and Dusautoy to dinner. These people bore me.
Maman went this morning to the Hôtel du Louvre to call on a lady just arrived from St. Petersburg with a letter from Mme Staritsky. M. Staritsky once...
I explain to her nature, open-air painting, the necessity of painting objects in their own setting — Paris, the modern Athens!
The young woman from yesterday, leafing through my albums, made me rediscover an old sketch: the murder of Caesar. It seized me.
But there is a good answer to these doubts of my vulgar self: I truly had nothing better to do; everywhere else, living as others do, I should have...
Then to the Gavinis'. In the evening, Tchoumakoff and the Karageorgevitches.
Am I truly someone, or am I truly going to be someone in art? What do I think of myself?
gives me an air as concentrated and as disagreeable as Bastien-Lepage — and I am flattered by it, just as formerly I was flattered to wear a skirt...
Maman came home quite elated.
I am making sketches for Julius... Caesar. It does not grip me, but one can find interest in it, put something amusing, something of one's own into...
Yes — I fear he mocks my music; all these instruments...
Evening: the Karageorgevitches and Count Mazewsky.
By gaslight: a drawing, a woman reading beside an open piano. Finished.
All mounted together in one frame.
Seated before a pink Japanese screen, sucking his cane and barely laughing, in three-quarter view. In evening dress and white cravat. By gaslight — I...
I have angelic patience — but by dint of containing my rage, towards four in the afternoon I fall into an atrocious despair. It is worse than...
I am nothing. Everything I do is bad — nauseating as technique, cardboard-flat; the sculpture too is going very badly; my Nausicaa means nothing, one...
Bojidar draws and Claire paints. I think they amused themselves a little at my expense because I do not hear well... But it is only human... And I...
Claire comes, and then the Gavinis, Odette, Zuccarini, Basilewsky, Engelhardt, Linsingen.
When one is truly working and devoured by ambition one is good for nothing else — everything disappears; one can barely tell whom one is looking at....
The idea that the Marshal would pay a personal call on a twopenny greenhorn is also far too amusing. He is truly entirely ignorant of what goes on in...
He is delighted with it and said the exquisite words — charming, very good, gripping, etc., etc.
We lunch at Count Mazewsky's, who has asked ten times that we do him the honour of coming to see his townhouse and his works of art.
He would like the urchins to have more atmosphere... more... I agree and shall do it. He is a good man — but he believes me incapable of doing the...
If I become famous and this diary is read, and if people judge a family by what I say of it, or call these people imbeciles as I name them, I shall...
Father Géry comes in the evening, and once the others have gone I describe them to him in detail.
My statue drives me mad — at moments it seems to me deranged, then superb, then hideous...
But I have never done anything immoral! And when I think — it is my own fault.
As yesterday, many people come — it is tiring. Nina found me somewhat thinner (after seven years) and above all less robust, less assured... She is...
I modelled — but too little. This statue... I no longer know... So let me quote you a whole passage from Balzac whose truth will strike every artist...
Then, dinner at the Karageorgevitches' — only ourselves and the Marinovitches.
My aunt Hélène, my father's sister, died eight days ago; Paul telegraphed us the news, which moved no one in particular. Another telegram today: my...
The Marshal sent me flowers.
I work on the portrait of young Randouin; Villevieille and Claire are there.
Maman used to say that he had left out of despair in love, but even she did not quite believe in this departure for savage lands. And it turns out to...
A few visitors in the afternoon.
"It is revolting! Where are we going!" I agree with him so thoroughly that Claire wanders off to rummage in the corners of the studio so as not to...
This is a day that may count for a year of ordinary life — of dances, races, etc.
I write letters: one to the architect in which I say "a member of your family whom delicacy — and even decency — prevent me from naming" — her, and I...
At two o'clock, a visit from Boulanger, who said the same as Franceschi — save for the words "medal" and "Wolff."