Deník Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie's unfinished novel (1875-76)

Také známý jako: mon roman, commencé à écrire un roman, Marie's novel, Marie's first novel, roman de Marie

Kultura · Literatura

Overview

Between November 1875 and spring 1876 Marie began a novel and wrote at it in bursts. It is her one attempt at sustained fiction before the diary's later wish to "écrire des livres". As far as the project can tell, no text of it survives and none is quoted in the diary: everything known is what she says about it in about a dozen paragraphs. She stopped after two chapters, took it up again for three pages in February 1876, and by April had stopped writing it.

What the diary says

The idea starts with someone else's book. On 12 November 1875 (049.0359) she hears that Olga is writing a novel, reads two pages, stops, and proposes that the two of them write one together: "Je donne l'idée, tout, tout, tout, et la fille s'imagine qu'elle compose aussi. Ce sera l'histoire de Dumas avec La Tour de Nesle mais je ne ferai pas valoir mes droits." Two days later (14 November, 049.0388) it is hers alone: "Mon Journal souffre, car j'ai commencé à écrire un roman, et je réussirai ... En deux jours deux chapitres", read aloud to Dina, who is interested.

Over the next fortnight the novel is a steady occupation. She "passe quelque temps à écrire mon roman" (21 November, 050.0104), notes that "le roman ne me fait plus pleurer" (050.0108), swears "je ne l'abandonne pas, il avance. Je suis en ce moment à la recherche d'une situation inextricable" (24 November, 050.0188), and on 26 November waits for a notebook her aunt has gone to fetch "pour continuer mon roman" (050.0206). On 29 November, after an evening of Nice gossip, she writes that she has "appris un tas de saletés de Nice, un tas d'aventures et de scandales que je placerai dans mon roman" (050.0314) -- so it was to be a novel of Nice society.

On 11 February 1876 (053.0518) she tells the diary that the novel, "abandonné au 2ème chapitre depuis très longtemps, se continue, j'ai écrit trois pages. J'ai toutes les scènes principales depuis longtemps, mais le détail m'embarrasse beaucoup, les personnages secondaires, les accessoires, le fond en un mot." Eight days later (19 February, 054.0298) she copies out a newspaper description of Audiffret in costume at a ball and says that it is "la description du héros de mon roman, qui est son portrait". On 4 April (056.0408): "Je n'écris plus mon roman, j'attends l'inspiration qui ne vient pas."

Open questions
  • "Roman cérébral" (046.0266, 8 October 1875). Five weeks before she says she has begun a novel, Marie writes that she will read a little and "puis irai continuer mon roman cérébral". This may be a figure for her mental romance with Audiffret, or an earlier attempt; it is not treated as this novel here, and the inventory's link to it should be reviewed.
  • The 12 November joint project with Olga (049.0359) may be where the idea came from, but Marie does not say that the later novel is the same plot.
  • No title, plot summary, or manuscript is known. The notebook she sends for in 050.0206 was presumably one of her ordinary exercise books.

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources
  • The diary itself, carnets 049-050, 053-054, 056 (French originals in `/content/_original/`)
  • No secondary source consulted; the identification of the novel with a lost manuscript is not made by any source known to the project