Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 23 January 1884

Today Basile Kotchoubey was married — he has wed Mlle Serran, the daughter of the marshal-ambassador; my aunt went as an onlooker.
Naturally, that great horror Kotchoubey did not invite us.
Ah! there is so much still... in life. Maman has done nothing in Petersburg and I shall never get out of this muddle.
Painting... Oh, as if! Meanwhile I grow thin, I go out not at all, I see no one — this is no life.
[Crossed out: My family] I am 2.... years old.
These ladies are mad and dream of a Prince Charming who will never come to find me beneath my black smock stained with colours — one would have to organise my life, and how?
Saint-Amand? But that would require building a house, organising the practical side — and my wretched family will never bring itself to do so. [Two and a half lines blacked out]
With Saint-Amand I would have an interesting salon — it would be a life, while still working...
The days follow one another, time passes, life slips away.
A respectable talent will not repay me for all these years of obscurity and suffering — what is needed is a blaze, a triumph, one that would be called Revenge!
And I am twenty... years old and I am....
And I grow thin — I am already thin.
[Twelve lines blacked out]