Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 17 July 1884

The priest's wife and daughter came.
This time they say it is serious — cholera is in Paris.
And how could it be otherwise?
Seventy people a day are dying in Marseille and thirty in Toulon, and travellers circulate continuously between these two plague-ridden cities and Paris. All the same, there are strange ways of going about things.
Toulon has cholera — isolate Toulon and you save Europe.
No, one does not dare isolate Toulon — how is one to prevent people from leaving?! Absurd. What is the interest or the death of a few in comparison with the interest of all? It would cause an outcry but it would be very right. Now cholera is in Marseille, in Aix, then other cities — because they did not dare inconvenience a few people.
I know perfectly well that if a city were isolated there would be howls. But I repeat — Toulon on one side and all of France on the other: can one hesitate? One ought to shoot those who tried to get out. I know there would be dreadful protests, ladies screaming that they are going to find sick children or daughters in childbirth. That is precisely what I would not care about if I were the government. Is it possible that an entire country should be infected so as not to inconvenience one small city — and in sum those who left did not save themselves, they merely carried cholera elsewhere, that is all.
I am not afraid — I only fear diseases that disfigure.
Bojidar arrived from Bucharest, from Gastein, from everywhere. This gives occasion for gossip, especially as it is raining and my canvas is not yet stretched.
There was an artist's funeral in our street, and Albert Wolff was among those present. That moved me.
And afterwards I thought for an instant I saw Madame Mackay pass. It is strange how that woman makes my heart beat — quite inexplicable. For after all, I do not love her Jules, do I?
Bojidar gone, I explain to Dina that Bastien-Lepage is not kind. I reproach him for nothing; only I no longer wish to show such warm friendship, since if I felt some sympathy, I would be three times more amiable — but if I felt at ease... I would have gone every day! It is not his fault nor ours. He does not dislike us; he finds us quite amiable no doubt, but he has friends he prefers, with whom he opens himself, with whom he is more at ease. I myself — well, Julian might come in and I would always be very glad, but I would be more reserved with Gavini or Engelhardt.
One loves one's friends more or less. Only since we are not the chosen of his heart, he ought to be conventionally polite — and he is not. He dispenses with small courtesies and ceremony, and he does not love us. So!
It is very humiliating to observe. One would far rather say he detests us — that would be more acceptable. But to be for him what the Engelhardts or the Tchoumakoffs are for us!... That is hard, when one goes with one's whole heart...
Dina finds that very just... I hope therefore that these ladies will send him nothing in secret from me.
So there it is, it is said. We shall occupy ourselves no further. That is a resolution.
Good.
Then Emile came in the evening. That pig Jules and his mother spent three days in the country with a certain Madame Bouchardon or Bouchardier who has a son who is Jules's friend. So he has the strength to go elsewhere, the rogue!
Emile also dispenses with thanks — he seems to find all of it quite natural and treats us as dear friends.
It seems the salmon of the other day gave Jules a ferocious appetite and he devoured it.
He also loves chicken soup very much, and Emile asks how it is made, so Dina says it is simpler if we send him some — he agrees, and in fact he does.
And since we received some smoked fish directly from Russia we give him some to take away in a packet. This good fellow slings it on the end of his walking stick and goes off like a pilgrim.
Well yes. All the same, I do not feel that he loves me.
We are like family — he accepts our friendship with gratitude, very simply, without affectation. He proves by this that we are good friends with whom he stands on no ceremony. And yet I do not feel at ease.
I do not feel that he loves me — he has thirty people he prefers to me or loves as much as me.
That is unacceptable. And yet it is a thing of which one cannot reasonably complain.
Why is it that I am very glad to spend hours with Julian or Emile and send for them, whereas I merely tolerate the Engelhardts?
That is how it is.