Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 18 January 1884

Yesterday the maréchale came and prevented me from adding the final touches to Charles's profile — one always imagines that everything can be saved at the last moment.
In a word, today I am in a mood to weep — the thought of seeing yesterday's painting again is joined by the terror of finding it poor, and I weep... real tears. What would you have — I am a passionate creature, like nineteen-year-old students in Germany. Neither Villevieille nor even Claire understands me. They call me touched.
And my holy, deep-felt indignation upon discovering a brazen theft committed by Bouguereau at Raphael's expense — it makes them laugh.
Such things do not touch these ladies. No, it is unimaginable... the borrowings, the infamous thefts, that one finds in all our academic painters.
These ignoble swindlers come into the world with the express purpose of "following the tradition of the masters," and spend their lives transposing the masters' compositions. To one, a single figure; to another, an entire group — all reversed from left to right and rechristened, and the trick is done. Those who are not outraged as I am will find this perfectly acceptable. One might, at a stretch, excuse the practice by saying that these contemptible cheats are inspired by the gods of art. What vile roguery, how shameful... In the abstract world [blacked out: so to speak], in the domain of art, of thought, of ideas... Well — among those who occupy themselves with these fantastical domains, I have not had the good fortune to know a single one.
I know society people, and three artists in all... People like Mme and Mlle Bogdanoff, who dined here yesterday.
I have redone a sketch of the women. The whole thing lies in the charm I shall be able (?) to give the atmosphere. Yes, it must truly be evening, truly be the air, truly this fleeting hour when the crescent moon appears still very pale... And that on a large scale?! I shall never manage it!!
Bastien must have made fifty studies to capture that effect... Well, I shall make fifty-five! After the 15th of March. And it will have to be done...
This is no way to live.
Saturday, 19 January 1884 Villevieille and Claire are here every day, and it is beginning to vex me to see my brushes used up, my paint tubes squeezed crooked, my habits disrupted... In any case... And all the more so because the weather is poor, I am displeased with my work [blacked out: illegible], in a bad humor, in a state of irritation pushed to the extreme... These ladies grate on me; even their perfectly natural cheerfulness sets my nerves on edge; they tease my bad temper in good friendship, and I could throw them out of the window — furious at these strangers, not strangers by race, but strangers in ideas, in mind, in feeling.
Villevieille is rather ignorant — like most society women, for that matter — and full of absurd ideas... And I, full of ideas in the Victor Hugo vein... universal happiness, philosophy, liberty, arts, edifying instruction... In any case, it would take too long to say, and I say nothing of it to them... Nor here either — what would be the use? I am discouraged.
Claire has taken on boyish manners now that we are very intimate — she plays schoolboy pranks: one moment she flings a brush at one's fingers hard enough to hurt, and this afternoon she hit me on the shoulder with a book. Then, hiding her face: "give it back."
It would degenerate into fisticuffs, then.
And indeed it makes me angry — a stupid anger, like the joke itself is stupid. It is strange how, every day and with almost everyone, one encounters things that are foolish, shocking, that I would never think of doing myself.
I cannot tell you how much this child made me angry, and I do not know how to stop her, for getting seriously cross would be ridiculous and humiliating... This evening at the Italiens, I am rather pretty... Bojidar was there, and M. de Rochefort (not Henri) — just appointed embassy secretary at Rio de Janeiro. This sensitive diplomat reminds me of the sensitive and perfect Gabriel Géry.
Sunday, 20 January 1884 I work on Claire's painting and hope to finish it in two or three days.
The flower-seller is already painted. What I am doing here is not quite honest, and I feel a certain disgust at it — mixed with satisfaction at being able to do so easily what these ladies will never manage.
The girl has painted a few bunches of flowers, but I shall add more and repaint, so that... The painting shows a street vendor with her barrow full of flowers, life-size, if you please. It is false naturalism — but no matter.
Old Boulanger indicated the pose for the vendor, and I have dutifully executed what he said so as to bear no responsibility — though I find the pose idiotic and ordinary... It is a street vendor posed according to the rules of composition... Ugh!
Let us speak of something else.
I have no friends, I love no one, and no one loves me.
If I have no friends it is because — I feel it clearly — in spite of myself I let it be seen too plainly from what heights "I look down upon the crowd." No one likes to be humiliated.
I might console myself by thinking that truly superior natures have never been loved. People gather around them, bask in their light — and deep down loathe them, and the moment they can, they defame them. Just now there is talk of a statue to Balzac, and the newspapers publish recollections and information gathered from the great man's friends. It is enough to make one sick with disgust — such friends! — each racing to reveal some ugly trait, some absurdity, some baseness. I prefer enemies; one believes them less.
Monday, 21 January 1884 Mme Sapogenikoff is passing through Paris on her return from Nice, and I find again the good Nina of Nice when I send word to the architect: "My regards to Mr. Jules." This good brother came this evening because I had sent him a small Russian napkin with Jules's head embroidered in the centre in red cotton, with these words above in blue cotton: HIS HEAD. I know that head by heart — I stitched it once on the sewing machine, and this time embroidered it on canvas. With Nina and the priest gone, I bludgeon him again with: "no, but admit he has a vile character — and ugly with it!" — "An ignoble disposition!" — "A cretin, for he does not appreciate me!"
You understand — it is from the Auvergnat point of view that I speak of appreciating; well, those who do not appreciate me I despise, for they are idiots."
— If he does not appreciate you sufficiently, it is because you are not yourself when people do not know you!
— Why doesn't he know me then? He is a sluggish, whining creature!
— You saw him when he was ill.
— No matter.
But I am telling you all about these verbal jousts as if the real Jules were to be informed of them — whereas his architect of a brother tells him nothing; oh! but he will...
— Come now — here is Madame (Nina), who is an intelligent woman and appreciates me; here is Monsieur (the priest), who is equally intelligent, and he appreciates me; and you, whether intelligent or not, appreciated me at once, whether I was natural or not. Therefore he is worse than an old empty paint tube.
— But I was dazzled at once...
— Yes, turn it into a joke, I advise you to — it is no less horrible for that.
What a vile disposition.

Notes

The Théâtre-Italien, Paris's premier opera house for Italian opera. ↩
To distinguish him from Henri de Rochefort (1831–1913), the famous radical journalist and politician. ↩
Auvergnats were stereotyped as shrewdly practical and hard-nosed in their judgments. ↩