Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) Part 3

I am a rarity. I shall be highly educated, _if G.o.d wills that I should live and blesses me_. I am perfectly formed, my face is pretty enough, I have a magnificent voice, intellect, and I shall be, withal, a woman. Happy the man who will have me. He will possess the earthly Paradise! Provided that he knows how to appreciate me!

I lack everything here, and yet I adore Nice. We always love what does not love. _Sic factae sumus_. Everywhere else I am visiting, at Nice I am at home, and the proverb says: However well off we may be while visiting, we are better off at home. Nice! Nice! Thou ingrate!

I adore Nice and admire it from my window. I am happy and animated.

Why? I don't know. After all--Ah! let me alone! The cards tell the truth, I believe in the cards; they have always said yes to me. I must have an occupation, I am of a warlike disposition. I am ready for everything. I ask only an idea. No doubt I shall be depressed to-morrow, for this evening I am certainly on stilts.

The tower clock is striking nine. Lovely tower; lovely I! Ah! H----.

October 8th, 1875.

We went to N----'s. The good woman vexed and made me laugh at the same time.

"The first thing to be done in Rome," said Mamma, "is to get teachers of singing and painting."

"Yes," I replied, "and I am going to visit the galleries."

"But what will you do there?" asked Madame S----.

"Why, copy, study."

"Oh, but you are so far from that point," she said earnestly.

You understand, this foolish woman judges me in that way; but pshaw.

What do I care? Yet put yourself in my place, and you will comprehend my annoyance, my irritation.

The good G.o.d is cruel. He gives me nothing. To ask the simplest, the most possible thing, to ask it as a mercy, as a happiness, to believe in G.o.d, to pray to Him, and to have nothing! Oh! I can see people scoffing at me because I bring G.o.d into everything. The poorest thing, by resistance, gains value! My ugly temper gives importance to everything. No, frankly, I must become sensible and mount on my pedestal, raise myself above my troubles. Has it ever happened that everything goes wrong with you? The hair dresses badly, the hat tilts every minute, the flounce on my skirt tears each step I take, pebbles get into my slippers, cutting through my stockings, and p.r.i.c.k my feet.

I returned exasperated, and that horrid dog, F----, leaped joyfully upon me. I went upstairs and it pursued me with its caresses. I kept my patience, but when I reached my room I gave it a kick, and it ran howling under my bed, but after a couple of minutes came back, wagging its tail, and looking at me as if asking my pardon. Oh, the dog! the dog!

No, never shall I be understood!

I should like to have whoever reads my words be myself for an instant in order to understand me, people cannot comprehend what they do not feel, to do so it is necessary to be myself!--and also myself in my lucid moments.

M---- is seventeen to-day, and we lunched at W----'s. I was horribly bored. Imagine running down a long corridor, so long that you cannot see the end, springing forward and finding only a delusion, coming with your outstretched hands against a wall. That is I!

I rate myself above everything, and the idea that I am placed on the same level with any one, that people do not consider me different from the rest of the world, the bare idea makes me angry. I wish them to forget, to trample everything under foot, to scorn and destroy all that has preceded me--I desire that there should be nothing before, nothing after--except the remembrance of me. Then only I should be content.

When an opportunity offers, I will express my meaning fully.

I went out with neither pleasure nor eagerness. N---- and her children were going to walk, and we enlarged their party.

"Ah! if you knew how I have treated the human race this morning," I said to M---- in answer to a remark I no longer remember.

"Ah! if you knew how little it cares! it is a matter of no importance," replied M----, very wittily.

How dreary it is to have n.o.body to care for!

My head is heavy and my eyes are closing, yet at the same time I want to write more, the pen glides easily over the paper and, though I might have nothing to say, I go on for the pleasure of filling the white pages and hearing the pleasant scratching of the pen.

"My head is heavy and my eyelids close, Yet still my gliding pen I will not stay, Fain would I tell all my heart's joys and woes, But cannot--though so much have I to say."

I am not successful with serious poetry.

Sunday, October 10th, 1875.

I was going to talk with my aunt, but why appeal to human beings?

What can men do? G.o.d alone can help! G.o.d does not hear me! Just G.o.d!

Holy Virgin! Jesus! I am not worthy to be heard, but I pray you for it on my knees, I pray so earnestly! Is not prayer a merit, however small it may be? Do not the most unworthy obtain what they ask through prayer? Is it nothing to believe and to turn to G.o.d? And though I should write until to-morrow I could say nothing but the words:

"My G.o.d, have pity on me!"

I who thought I must succeed in everything, see that I am failing everywhere. I shall never console myself for it. How everything in this world repeats itself! I went lately to the Aquaviva terrace and looked to the right. It was in winter, and the mist was gathering on the Promenade. I saw the Duc de H---- go into G----'s, and now it is precisely the same thing, only then I ordered myself to love him, and now I forbid myself to love.

Then I was crazy over the man; now he interests me because he looked at me.

In a word, why and how? What do the reasons matter? I do not love him. Oh, but I am so provoked! "Come," I said, "rouse yourself, I won't cry about that."

To straighten myself, throw back my head, smile scornfully, then indifferently, and that is all; moisten the ropes, as they did in moving the obelisk of Sixtus Quintus, and I shall be on my pedestal--and I have not an instant's strength. I preferred to stay in my armchair and murmur:

"I fail in everything now."

Confess, you who will read these lines, am I a man? Confess that I have reason to be angry over it.

I, the queen, the G.o.ddess. I, who should be wors.h.i.+pped kneeling; I, who do not want to move my little finger lest I should bestow too much honour; I with my ideas; I with my ambition; I with my pride! I confess that, after having seen him go into G----'s like a master, I feel a sort of respect for him; he acts the duke.

This evening "_Alice de Nevers_," a comic opera by Herve, was given for the first time. Our box had been engaged a long while, first proscenium at the right. I was dressed with more care than usual; hair arranged in Marie Antoinette style, without the powder. The whole was drawn up, even the fringe in front. I left only a few little locks at each side. My beautiful white forehead, thus bared, gave me a royal air, and at the back I let two curls hang, waved just at the end.

Gown of dove-grey taffeta and a white fichu. In short, Marie Antoinette in miniature. I felt well satisfied, and gazed at the base mult.i.tude from the height of my grandeur. Lighting _a giorno_.

I was looked at quite enough.

He could not help staring at me like the rest. Everybody came to our box.

At every intermission I went to the back, so that I would not have to turn my head at each visit. Just as the curtain was rising the Prefect's son and A---- entered our box. I received them with perfect ease; he has a foreign air.

"What, Mademoiselle, are you really going away?"

"Oh, yes, Monsieur."

"No, no," he said, as if he had been p.r.i.c.ked by a pin, "Mademoiselle shall not go."

I did not deign to answer. I was courteous, agreeable, but cold. He turned and asked me if I always gave trouble.

"Yes, always."