Sunday, 4 November 1883

(continued from Saturday) ...and I would drop you with the greatest ecstasy for the Grand Duke I saw this morning at church. There is at present in Paris a whole string of Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses. 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 those four magnificent brothers our Emperor cannot triumph over nihilism!¹ It is Alexis above all who is beautiful. He had a youthful romance, which is why, at thirty-two, he is still unmarried. He is tall, strong, harmonious — dark blond hair, the eyes of an honest man, a handsome blond beard naturally curled. And in his whole person something at ease, tranquil, agreeable; I would say bon vivant [words blackened: if that] could be reconciled with the build of a Homeric hero and an air altogether imperial. Leaving church, we went to luncheon at the Gavinis'. An exquisite meal, twelve guests: Denis and Adeline, Maman, my aunt, myself, the Princess and Bojidar, Saint-Amand, Géry and Gabriel. With Gabriel... it is amusing — I have the feeling I please him, and if he has not been offered to me it is because the Gavinis know my views... the ones I tell them. Father Géry adores his boy and would wish him a wealthy match. But Gabriel... if I wished... He does not love me, this mechanical secretary — but... perhaps he loves me in his fashion. A charming boy, but what should I do with him? And I do not love him; I do not even feel the slightest inclination to kiss him. One closes one's eyes and asks oneself: now, would I kiss such-and-such a gentleman? And he says nothing to me — nor do the others. Jules Bastien-Lepage is something else entirely... Something... else. And Maman, and my aunt, and all of them adore this Gabriel and would like me to do the same. It would be a convenient disposal — I should at last be settled, placed, numbered. What should I do with him? Even if I did feel like kissing him, well, it would last six months... And then to wake up as Mme Géry, wife of a legation secretary.² It is too vulgar for me. And yet I should like to be very coquettish with him... But I am too loyal. I am persuaded it would be easy enough to kindle a love in him — and then what? It would cause him too much grief. Better to leave him in peace; his father has no doubt found him a fortune and a wife, and they will be happy. Could there be some way of convincing myself that this young man is not particularly concerned with me, and that I need not play the magnanimous one? That would allow me to flirt in peace. But to return to the Grand Duke... it seemed to me that he looked at me... Oh! do not exclaim, I have just re-read my horoscope from Edmond.³ Re-read it — September or October 1877. That is long ago. He promises me a thousand vexations — but, whatever I do, whatever happens, whatever desperate moments I must live through, I shall get the better of everything. Fear nothing, he tells me, and above all regret nothing, and climb, climb always. What surrounds you, you will leave behind on the road, and you will rise to the pinnacle. Do not look at those around you — you will live among sovereigns. And the blond man with the broad forehead, the name that bears a crown, who is destined for me. And his formidable family who must persecute me. Oh, listen: I am reasonable enough; when I was eighteen — with a voice to make the fortune of an opera house, an iron constitution, and above all the bloom of that early youth which makes even the plainest pretty — oh! then I should not have entertained such immense pretensions. But now that I am past twenty-four, now that I am approaching the abominable number of the grand majority,⁴ now that I am ill, now that I know half of what I know — like Jean-Jacques Rousseau⁵ — now everything is possible. That sounds like a paradox — and yet look at real life. It is the faded women, the ones who have already been much used, who have the most luck in that line. Look even at the courtesans, the actresses, the models: beautiful ones, young ones, fresh ones disappear and go under. While horrible carcasses float along in eight-spring carriages.⁶ Our very Grand Dukes have married... shepherdesses,⁷ such as Mme Akenieff, who is the wife of the Duke of Leuchtenberg, older than he and with an eventful past. One sees extraordinary things of this kind every day. And the less I acknowledge any merit in myself, the more it may be that my happiness will be great... Grand Duke. What a pleasure it would be to love a creature like that! It is obvious that I prefer a little Jules Bastien-Lepage to a handsome fool — but if beauty and strength (inseparable in my view) are joined to intellectual attractions, it is ravishing. He must be intelligent and good. Suppose I adore Jules Bastien-Lepage: well... I was about to say that it would displease me to see him small and a little shrivelled — and at the very moment of saying it I perceive that when I love him his appearance disappears entirely. Then am I so truly a superior sort of person, to love [crossed out: thus] with head, heart, and soul to the point of contemplating with joy the prospect... of kissing a very ugly little man? His wit, his genius, his heart — these suffice to make me find him beautiful? That is true. Yet, all the same, even if one feels no displeasure at loving a small and ugly man, one must feel a certain pride and a very sweet satisfaction in seeing that one's chosen one is tall, strong, and handsome. Do you know something? When Bastien once made a pen drawing here, I placed that pen in an envelope on which I wrote these words: Bastien's pen. And I have kept this relic at the back of a drawer. It is rather childish — but it is one of the only things of value in this life, along with... the rest.