Monday, 26 November 1883

Irma poses and I am less pleased — she is too womanly; what is needed is a girl of fifteen, and she is twenty-three. 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 proposed to Maman; he is now very highly placed. Mme Zarondny, who is Mme Staritsky's sister-in-law, has a daughter who wants to paint and is studying at the St. Petersburg Academy; she is here, and these ladies have heard a great deal about me... from the Russian papers and otherwise. They asked Maman whether I am very beautiful (so they have been told!!) and whether I have large dark eyes! When they see me, farewell all prestige. When Sarah Bernhardt arrived in St. Petersburg, the reporter who was present at her arrival at the station related that the public was greatly disappointed to see a small blonde woman with grey eyes... a few whistles went up from the crowd; the newspaper had led people to expect — and I quote — large dark eyes, bold and dashing, and very dishevelled black curly hair. By received ideas, I am neither pretty nor an artist. Were I not modest, I should say that to admire me requires very refined taste... But there is something you do not know! Imperceptibly, I am beginning to take myself seriously, and my conduct resembles that of someone with genius. I am naively [word blackened: proud] and calm as strength itself, and indifferent as a superior mind... I feel myself entering into the skin of Bastien-Lepage: I speak to people with a tranquil air and seem to say, [words blackened: and when you?] if you wish to see me, come... but not too much; as for me, the preoccupations that hold me at these heights... I am laughing at myself underneath, you know — only I pretend to believe that it has already happened, for the benefit of others. And sometimes — for one must say everything — sometimes I feel myself living as I imagine men of genius live... The question is whether I am right to do so. If I lived among reasonable people I might not esteem myself at all — but the idiots who surround me make me swell with vanity while simultaneously stupefying me.