Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 25 June 1884

Re-read my notebooks from 1875, 76, 77. I lament there about I know not what — aspirations towards something indefinite. Every evening I was left bruised and discouraged. Spending myself in searching what to do with fury and despair. Go to Italy? Stay in Paris? Marry? Paint? What to become? By going to Italy I would not be in Paris, and it was a thirst to be everywhere! What forces were there!!!
As a man I should have conquered Europe. As a young girl I dissipated myself in excess of language and eccentric follies. Wretchedness!
There are moments when one naively believes oneself capable of everything. If I had the time I would sculpt, I would write, I would be a musician... It is a fire that devours you...
And death at the end, inevitable, whether I consume myself in vain desires or not. [three lines cancelled]
But if I am nothing, if I am to be nothing — why these dreams of glory ever since I have been able to think? Why these wild aspirations towards greatness, which I first conceived as riches, as titles? Why, from the moment I could string two thoughts together — from the age of four — this desire for glorious, great, confused but immense things?
All that I was in my child's head! First I was a dancer — a celebrated dancer that St Petersburg adored. Every evening I had them put a low-cut gown on me, flowers on my head, and I danced in the drawing-room, very solemn, while the whole household watched.
Then I was the foremost singer in the world. I played the harp while singing and was carried in triumph — by whom and where I do not know. Then I electrified the masses with my speeches, and the Emperor of Russia married me to maintain himself on his throne. I lived in direct communion with my people, I addressed them in speeches explaining my policies, and sovereign and people alike were moved to tears.
Revolutions? What use, since I govern with my people. I am adored. But miserable assassins strike me down and I die. And I wept over my own death!
Yes, death... whatever we do — as Maupassant says; he did not invent it, but how I feel it...
Then I reigned in France, in Spain — I founded perfect republics, everyone was happy. Not forgetting personal satisfactions: all men were mad about me, I sang like no one else, and I was acclaimed leaving the Palais de l'Industrie as a painter. With the money earned from my paintings I make an entire country happy; all the courts load me with grand decorations. I become an all-powerful spiritual sovereign. My word is heeded, and the kings who pass before my house come up to pay their respects. I have written books also.
And I loved. The beloved man betrayed me — and if he did not betray me he died in some accident, usually a fall from a horse, just at the moment when I felt I loved him less. Then I loved another, and another. But it all worked out very well, very morally — since they died or betrayed me... I was only consoled over the dead; but when I was betrayed it was a revulsion and despair without end, and my own death.
In short, in everything — in all the branches of all human feelings and all human satisfactions — I have dreamt greater than life. If it cannot be realised, it is better to die.
Two things I do not understand.
1°. Why my painting did not receive a medal.
2°. The silence of Maupassant.
The medal... The fact is, many of them must have thought I had been assisted.
It has happened before that medals were given to women who had their paintings done for them, and once the medal is given one is admitted by right in subsequent years, and can send the most flatly dreadful things. Last year Mme Dermont (née Jules Breton) received a second-class medal because her father painted the picture. And this year she has sent an atrocity — but she is Hors Concours and on the cimaise.
And I — young, elegant, mentioned in the newspapers. All these people — Breslau for example said to my model that I should have far more talent if I went out less to balls. All these people imagine I go into society every evening. How deceptive appearances are!!! Except that the painting being not mine is too serious a matter — it was not said; God grant it had been. Tony told me he was astonished at the outcome, for every time he spoke of me to his colleagues on the jury they replied: it is very fine, it is a very interesting thing.
— What do you expect one to think, when one hears that! — says Tony.
So it is this doubt.
And Maupassant... he went at it with such eagerness... and then suddenly... besides, he no longer writes in Le Gaulois, nor anywhere. So? What does it mean? Why?
Yes — the more I think about it, the more it must be that, regarding the medal.