Sunday, 13 April 1884

Easter.
I stay at home to reply to the unknown.
That is to say — it is I who am the unknown to him.
He has already replied to me three times. It is not that he is a Balzac one adores completely — he is not even a Zola. And now I regret not having applied myself to Zola, but to his lieutenant, who has talent — and a great deal of it; he is probably among the young writers the one who has the most — but...
One fine morning I woke with the desire to have the pretty things I know how to say appreciated by a connoisseur; I searched and chose him. A Naturalist!
The letters are appended to this notebook. A Naturalist — it would be very good, but I fear he may be insufficient for me... In all his books there is nothing completely delicate, nothing that makes one want to write to him or exclaim: "now there is my sort of man." I express myself as best I can.
This notebook, many pages of which are nothing but the delirium of a sick woman. The fever made her suffer too much and her imagination made her unhappy. What is and was unhappy is that she was ill, that I have lost her — for I adore her and shall adore her always; she was good, very good, and I dare say with conviction that she loved her family.
M. Bashkirtseff, mother.
Gloria Cupiditas [Book] 104 from Monday, 14 April 1884 to Tuesday, 1 July 1884 — 30, rue Ampère, Paris Monday, 14 April 1884 Tuesday, 15 April 1884

Notes

The anonymous correspondent was Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893), then at the height of his fame following the publication of Boule de suif (1880) and Une Vie (1883). Marie initiated the correspondence under a pseudonym; the exchange of letters has survived and is known to scholars.