Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 8 August 1884

I have just come back. Ah! but it is because the architect came this morning at nine o'clock — I called him a pig, after which things were arranged and we went there for luncheon.
I am so afraid of not being welcome that someone must come to fetch me... Yes, and Emile was afraid that Jules might ask why I do not come, and if he guessed I considered myself offended — as a sick man he would fall on Emile...
Ah! Yes — let us not forget poor Bojidar; he is at Gastein with all his family. His father died the day before yesterday.
And Jules is very weak in this heat especially, poor dear.
Now things are exactly as I want — we are on intimate terms. We shall go for a fortnight to Damvillers as soon as he is well. At luncheon I sit beside him.
— Serve me.
— With pleasure.
— But no splashing.
— Oh! no!
And I nearly overturned the dish.
Yes, and before this, Emile said that his brother was very exacting, very hard to please in his friendships — but that we really... In short, the most delicately flattering things, coming from the heart and not from mere conventional politeness. Yes.
After luncheon he went to sleep in the studio, then came back and asked Maman to cut his hair again. This was done while I was sewing the cuff of a silk shirt his mother is making for him. Can you picture me seated at the window, doing needlework? He looks at me and smiles several times.
Emile has commissions; he left after luncheon to work on his panel [Words blacked out] for a M. Klotz — a panel above a chimney-piece, M.K. A fine mansion, M.K. Klotz. So it might not be Mackay after all??
My aunt came to collect us, and we leave him with his head in his hands. What should give one an immediate sense of his character is the way he shakes hands. It is frank, warm, wholehearted, good — he shakes firmly but without brusqueness or roughness.
So all is well?
Except... as we were leaving, a woman arrived with a bouquet — she took off her hat like a regular visitor. And I imagine she is Mme Mackay's lady's maid, come to keep him entertained with sentimental stories, as the servants of those hussies know how to do. Perhaps it is nothing of the kind. But I would very, very, very much like to know how matters stand.
[Written across: It was a friend of his mother's.] As for me, tired by this stormy hot weather, I abandon my painting and fall asleep on a divan. Willing to take it up again tomorrow.
What happiness to be Jules's friends! Is it really true, at least?
— It is at least a fortnight since I have seen you! he said to me.
He is using the pillow.
Yes — we are people he is fond of. Emile, who is his faithful echo, says to me, speaking of us: do you believe there are many like that? But do you know, I don't know many myself — no. Ah! no indeed.
Yes, it is good. But in all this there is nothing for me personally.
Provided I do not let my family see it — they will look foolish and commit a thousand blunders trying to persuade me that he thinks of no one but me.
And why?
These ladies are... They speak of Mackay as if she were an eternal fixture, so as not to give me false hopes. All this without admitting it to themselves, of course.
Nor must I appear pleased. An initial... a word upsets all my thoughts, and it would be too foolish to let it show. One must be ready to say: but I always knew it. Did you think they were separated?
Once he is well, we become nothing again — people one sees twice a month. One must prepare oneself for it.

Notes

Damvillers in the Meuse, Bastien-Lepage's birthplace, to which he returned whenever he could. ↩