Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 7 May 1884

I receive from Düsseldorf a request to engrave and publish my painting, and also other works of mine should I judge it appropriate.
It is amusing. But you know, I cannot quite believe that this is happening.
On the whole, yes, it is a success — everyone assures me of it; they were not saying so last year. Last year there was a modest artistic success with the pastel, but this year...
Only it is not a thunderclap. No — and if my name were announced this evening at a society gathering, no stir would follow, unless that gathering were full of painters. For a success to reach my heart and make me happy, that is what it would take.
Yes — at the announcement of my name conversations must stop and every head must turn.
Since the Salon opened there is not a newspaper that has not mentioned my painting — yes — but it is not yet that!
This morning there is a lead article by Etincelle: society lady painters. Very smart. I come immediately after Claire and have as many lines as she does. I am a Greuze — blonde, with the determined brow of one who will be somebody, with deep eyes. I am very elegant, I have talent, and I produce good realism in the manner of Bastien-Lepage. But that is not all — I have the smile and the winning grace of a child.
Le Sport celebrates me as well. It was I, after all, who furnished Etincelle with most of the information about the society artists. And Le Sport too. But I did not compose the notes about myself. As for Drumont (Sport), he may well mean it [Crossed out: he writes it], since I received a letter the day before yesterday in which he begs me to accept his compliments — not as a man of the world or as a polite man, but as an artist — on the Meeting, which is certainly one of the finest things in the Salon. Well, I never! And I am not transported. Not in the least.