Prince Michel (Michka) Eristoff

Who he was

A young Georgian-descended prince of the Poltava region and a neighbour of the Bashkirtseffs in Little Russia. Marie writes his full name once, in a dedication she dictates to him on 25 September 1876: "prince Michel Andryevitch Eristoff d'Aragwa" (066.0463), "d'Aragwa" referring to the Eristavi of Aragvi, one of the princely houses of Georgia that became Russian princes. "Michka" is the Russian diminutive of Mikhail (the footnote at 096.0389: "diminutive of Michel/Mikhail").

When Marie meets him on 20 August 1876, on her first trip to Russia, he is "un garnement de dix-huit ans", so born about 1858, and "un parfait petit gommeux, exécrablement amusant, bête, ridicule, saluant bas, englouti dans un pantalon trois fois la largeur naturelle et dans un col jusqu'aux oreilles" (065.0062). She tells her diary that his late father, Prince Eristoff, "un bouffon et une brute, mais riche", had married seven or eight years earlier Nathalie, the second sister of Marie's father (hunchbacked, ugly but good-natured); he died six months later, leaving "à sa princesse deux fils et une fille de son premier mariage". The elder son is Prince Constantin; "le prince Michel est un garnement de dix-huit ans qui mange l'argent à papa" (065.0064). In other words he is the stepson of Marie's aunt, and no blood relation of the Bashkirtseffs, although in the dedication she calls him "cousine" ("ma cousine Marie Bashkirtseff").

Identification. "Michel" (1876, 1881) and "Michka" (1877-1883) are the same man: the Mon Journal indexes give «Eristoff (prince Michel Andryevitch d'Aragwa) [Hamlet], [Kissou], [Michka], [Le Gommeux] (fils du prince Emile Eristoff)» (t.9), «Eristoff (Michel prince) [Michka]» (t.10), «Eristoff prince (Michel, Michka)» (t.13), «Eristoff (Michel, Micha, prince)» (t.14) and «Eristoff (prince Michel) [Michka]» (t.15). The diary agrees: "Michel" in 1876 (065.0060, 066.0463), "Michka Eristoff" in 1877 and 1879 beside the same Pacha Gorpintchenko (073.0390, 086.0401), "Michel Eristoff est arrivé" at Gavrontsi on 31 May 1881 (092.0082), and in 1882 "Michka" the Poltava neighbour on close terms with the Kotchoubey princes of Dikanka. Not to be confused with Michka Gautier (Michel Gautier, Albert's brother) of the winter 1876–77 Nice entries, whose nickname Marie says came from a Hungarian lady (068.0823; see Michel Gautier); nor with the Princess Eristoff of Spa (1874; see Princesse Eristoff).

Marie and Michka

1876: Poltava. He and Pacha come with her father to meet her on her arrival in Poltava on 20 August 1876 (065.0046, 065.0060) and compete for her. He sends for games for her amusement: skittles, croquet, a microscope with a flea collection (065.0375, 24 August), keeps score at croquet "en minaudant humblement" (065.0586, 29 August), and calls for bottle after bottle of champagne at the supper of 21 August (065.0239). On 29 August her brother Paul tells her that Michel, "un bon garçon mais il n'a jamais été qu'avec des femmes à souper", with "une mauvaise langue", has upset her suitor Gritz by something he said or asked; Alexandre and "la tante Nathalie (Eristoff)" agree that Paul ought to have boxed his ears (065.0592). On 25 September 1876 she makes him write on the back of his own photograph that he is "le plus dévergondé des gommeux du gouvernement de Poltava ... le très humble et très dévoué serviteur de ma cousine" (066.0462–066.0463). Later, in November, she compares the Italian Antonelli, who deceived her, to "une espèce améliorée de Michel Eristoff" (067.1013).

1877–79. In her 1877 catalogue of her admirers, written on 11 August 1877, she lists "la vilaine petite passion de Michka Eristoff et le bel et noble amour de Pacha" (073.0390). In October 1879 the Russian Miloradovitch, one of her earlier admirers, tells her mother in Paris about the wrongs done to him at Gavronzi by "le distingué Pacha et Michka Eristoff" (086.0401): Marie adds "Oh ! les canailles ! Heureusement que cela ne me faisait rien !".

1882: the Pomar princes. In September 1882 she remembers that "l'année dernière" (1881) she had said in the diary that she got up at seven to walk, and the next morning at seven "Michka se promenait dans le jardin avec des gants gris-perle tout neufs": a story of his morning stroll that she connects with Rosalie (096.0198). She is on her way to Poltava to meet two young princes, the Pomar brothers of Dikanka; one, Vassily, "est celui qui avait volé mon portrait à Michka", and her half-brother Paul wants her to marry him (096.0199). On 15 October, arriving at Gavronzi, she finds that Michka went to the Pomars instead of meeting her (096.0389). On 16 October, when the princes fail to come, she decides that Michka, "l'être le plus envieux et le plus méchant du monde", has lured them to his own house to keep them away from hers (096.0391). The princes come on the 19th with Michka, who stays on after they leave and tells her all evening that he still adores her (096.0414). For the rest of the month he is part of the hunting parties, the nights of drinking and the dances (096.0425–096.0471; the hunt at Dikanka, 23 October, with Michka firing; he waltzes three times round the room with the district policeman on his shoulders, 096.0438); on 29 October he tells her that his neighbour Lihopoy is in love with her and would follow her to Paris (096.0463).

In November she writes that her days pass in "battre Michka", to whom she gave a real slap on the 6th (097.0035, 097.0041); on 31 October she had been annoyed that Dina "agaçait" him and beat him for real (097.0011). On 7 November the "noble société" of Poltava hotel evenings includes Michka, who is wrapped in bandages by the ladies and left lying on the floor (097.0045). He and Nicolas see them off at the station on 15 November (097.0064). In January 1883 he follows the family to Paris: "Michka vient d'arriver" on 11 January (097.0421); after the ball of 13 January they spend the evening "en famille avec Michka et Emile Bastien" (098.0005); "Mais il n'y a que Michka !" (098.0053); he is at the family's dinners of 2 and 6 February (098.0264, 098.0298, as "Michel"), and "Michka est parti pour Nice" on 8 February (098.0304). The t.15 index puts these pages under «Eristoff (prince Michel) [Michka]». On 12 April 1883 Marie retells the scandal of the Eristoff household after the old prince's death, when the princess tried to pass off an Italian as "le précepteur de Michka", then thirteen (099.0118).

Related entries

Sources

«Micha» (1881)

In the summer of 1881 Marie calls him «Micha» (merged entry MICHA; Mon Journal t.14 index «Eristoff (Michel, Micha, prince)»). At Gavronzi and Poltava he is always about the house: «Micha est toujours fourré dans nos jupes, il a vingt-trois ans mais c'est comme s'il en avait seize» (092.0241); she dresses him in her cloak and hat to gallop past the windows (092.0160); he breaks a tooth lifting Sperandio and Paul in a home-made circus (092.0240), dances the quadrille with her at Paul's wedding (092.0245), and goes ahead with Lihopoy to Kharkov (092.0264).