Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 24 June 1884

Idem. It is magnificent.
The canvas has been brought and I have sketched the wrestlers.
The composition is there. It is very amusing.
It seems we shall have cholera. It is already at Toulon. It is those infamous English scoundrels who, for financial interests, allow thousands of men to die. For a people devoid of all sympathetic qualities, they are one. Prudent and repellent. Selfish, treacherous, and cowardly.
Look at history.
More than eight thousand people have left Toulon — a good many are coming to Paris on this morning's train. Very pleasant for Paris.
It seems that in the Chamber they were so agitated that the Egyptian question no longer excited anyone.
Ah! Man is interesting to study when he becomes entirely natural again, faced with a question of life or death. Everyone becomes primitive, and Jules Ferry will wear the same expression as my little six-year-old model.
Do you see them — these creatures in frock coats and jackets going to demand explanations from the Minister of the Navy? Do you see this herd? A herd destined to die sooner or later, which knows it and stirs about nonetheless! What is the use? We all die, whatever we do — as Maupassant says, from whom I have no more news. Why?
He has grown offended — my letter perhaps seemed too mocking to him.
We know that we all die, that none escape it — and we have the courage to live under this dreadful threat!
Is it not this terror of the end, of ceasing to be, that drives certain men to leave something behind them? Yes — those who are conscious of this inevitable end have a horror of it and wish to survive themselves... Is this instinct not a proof that there is a... or that we should desire an immortality?! Oh! To end!! Oh! To disappear! And others will come after... Did I not wish to die last year because I shall leave no name comparable to that of Michelangelo?