Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 27 January 1884

Jacques sits for me and I cannot manage — he does not sit. Ah! wretchedness.
Carolus-Duran exhibited a portrait of his mother four years ago — the head alone. An old woman in a white calico bonnet, strings tied under her chin. The air of the concierge of an unfashionable building. Bastien should have put a bonnet on her.
After all — am I or am I not on a level with him as he was ten years ago? This question is worthless. I may be on his level, but he possesses and possessed qualities I lack. And besides, since I have known anything at all, I have painted only children — who do not sit — and I do not know myself what I might do with a well-behaved model.
The portrait of Mme Drouet struck me as very thin and flat as cardboard. Ah! no! I am mad — it is superb, and I cannot hold a candle to him. It is even a sign of insanity to dare make the comparison... even if only to conclude that one cannot.
This portrait of Jacques is bad... I build too much on it — that is why.
Ah! Monday, 28 January 1884 I start Dina's portrait again, but it is still unspeakable toil — she does not give me what I want; finally around five o'clock I manage to sketch her in charcoal. As for Claire, she does nothing and is greatly amused watching me fret and listening to me make my observations, my digressions, etc., etc.
At five o'clock I try a new model for Nausicaa. Irma is twenty-three, and though very beautiful, twenty-three is not fifteen.
Better to have simpler... forms but youth and naivety. The little one is sixteen, but... well, we shall see.
And in the evening I write — what? But I don't know; I have not yet found the mould...
Only this much is undeniable: it is more natural for me to write than... to paint. Look at real painters — they draw, sketch, compose, knowing nothing, children on their own... I drew too, but not much; it has always been rather this idea: "I am gifted for painting and one day I shall do it." Whereas for writing, I have masses of literary sketches, going back to age ten, and now and always... Impressionist, ignorant, poor-foreigner drafts from someone who cannot even express herself well (oh, modesty — quickly disabuse me!) — in short, like the preparatory study of a painter who knows nothing but has the vocation.
One cannot do so many things... But yes one can...
Paint as long as there is daylight, model until dinner, and write when it comes — or before sleeping.
And live? Live? When I have talent and when Bastien-Lepage is in love with me.
Ah! Indeed? And if I die first? I shall regret nothing. Dear angel, I am admirable and I adore myself.
It is because I worked well today.
I also tried on dresses. Sublime, sublime...
For after all... what is needed? Failing to have fully lived... But who has fully lived? So, failing to have fully lived, one must feel very keenly and live wholly in imagination...
That... and all the more so as I am sixteen and nine years old (add them up) — at that age, it seems one is... one can even have visions... But I have no time, and besides, after spending several hours on one's feet with arms raised, working clay, one has but one aspiration: to sleep and begin again the next day.
I am very happy.

Notes

Carolus-Duran (1837–1917): celebrated French portrait painter, later teacher of John Singer Sargent. ↩
Nausicaa: the young princess in Homer's Odyssey who discovers the shipwrecked Odysseus on the shore; a subject requiring a young, innocent model. ↩
Marie's coded reference to her age: 16 + 9 = 25. ↩