Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 6 May 1884

Literature will make me lose my mind. I am reading Zola — all of him. He is a giant, you wretched Frenchmen — yet another one you pretend not to recognise.
I am mad to want to write. Am I capable of it? I have not the strength, I know nothing. I know nothing. I know nothing.
And yet an invincible force drives me to it. Oh! it has been a long time already. Since the novel begun in 1876 and never finished — verses — before that and after and always. Now I have arrived at a point where all these dreams and all the observations caught on the wing insist on taking shape.
It feels as though one has the subjects of ten books in one's head; one does not know where to begin, and when it comes to realising these dreams one is stopped after a dozen pages.
Besides, I mention it because I note here the particular states of my mind. There is quite a quantity of things already written. But I laugh at my own pretensions. What a fine piece of absurdity — to write! Well then, I renounce it; I say no; I laugh at myself — because I am too afraid of being ridiculous, and because the urge is irresistible.
It would take so much time... Since last Monday I have not touched a brush — eight days now — so it is still bearable, but I shall have to start again... Well, it is a sweet madness that makes me happy [Crossed out: merely to think of it, but] and before which I am troubled, moved, as if I were thinking about it seriously. And I am thinking of it — perhaps too seriously to confess even here. But a lifetime would not suffice — least of all mine. To touch everything and leave nothing behind one! Ah! God, I certainly hope not! Ah! God, I am quite a coward — and under the blow of such terror I am ready to believe in priests!