Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) Part 10

Goodness! What prices people ask in Rome! For 1,800 francs one has only the barest necessaries! At the Hotel de Rome I saw an apartment so large and so fine that it made my head ache. In France we have no idea of this grandeur, this ancient majesty. After much searching we have taken an apartment in the second story of the Hotel de Londres, with a balcony looking out upon the Piazza di Spagna, a handsome drawing-room, several bedrooms, and a study. We went to B----'s studio. He has very fair talent.

Tuesday, January 11th, 1876.

We did not go out, but the artist Kalorbinski came, and to-morrow the lessons will begin. Monseigneur de Faloux, being unable to go out himself, sent the Chevalier Rossy to bring us a number of pleasant messages. I received him. I have learned a great deal about affairs in the city.

I am very proud of receiving some one myself. It seems like a sovereign's first decree. The Russian priest has come to call on us too. I like the cowled monks in Rome. They are new to me, and that pleases me.

At last I have a teacher of painting; that is something. This evening I see everything in rose-colour, and I am already thinking of a letter in which it will be said of A----: _Et eum dicat super malitiosum, improb.u.m, inhonestum, cupidum, luxuriosum, ebriosum!_ Exactly what Septimus Severus said of Albinus.

If only the winter would pa.s.s more quickly. With all my misfortunes, I feel better in Nice, I can give myself up to despair as much as I please. Only last Spring, there was n.o.body there. The best people gathered around us. P---- was deserted, so were the others. While this Spring there will again be n.o.body, but P---- will have Miss R----. These ladies, under the leadership of T----, will form a sort of court, like that of the young Princess G---- and Mme. T---- three months since. Both died three months ago.

We shall see. Meanwhile let us study, and try to go into society.

Let us pray to G.o.d, and amuse ourselves by writing letters.

Wednesday, January 12th, 1876.

B---- and his cousin have called to see us. When these Russians go, I put on my dressing gown again, and say a lot of things, and rank myself among the G.o.ddesses, then descend to calling myself a little bundle of dirty linen.

I like to indulge in extravagant speeches, and make Mamma laugh. I received a letter from B----, this charming friend gives me the news of Nice. P----has had a reception, and everybody went. It seems that we were mentioned in the presence of quite a large number of persons in the consul's house, and the consul and his wife said nothing but good about us.

"I was glad," B---- wrote, "to see that they were your friends, too, though you no longer went there so often."

After all, I am very happy, very calm, and I am going to bed.

Thursday, January 13th, 1876.

Mamma and Dina are at church. It is our New Year's Day, and I have stayed at home to sew. That is my whim at present, and I must do what I wish. B---- called to offer his good wishes.

Not until four o'clock did they succeed in dragging me out of the house and, at five o'clock. Mamma is going to the emba.s.sy. That is the hour Baronne D----receives.

We had a telegram from Barnola. He congratulates us, and reminded me of the promise I made to drink a gla.s.s of water at the Fountain of Trevi at two o'clock on the Russian New Year's Day. He vowed friendship, I did the same.

I received a letter from my aunt, in which she told me that A---- was paying attention to an English girl whom she has nicknamed Olive. My aunt has so lively an imagination. At the end of three days of our acquaintance with the Marvel, she told me that the poor fool was in love with me. And she pitied him with eager kindness while predicting for him the fate of the Polish count. Now she has seen him at Monaco with the girl, and she is already marrying them.

Oh! it is really atrocious--always conjectures! Ah! if I could know the truth. Have patience, that is easy to write. But to show it!

Patience is the virtue of sluggish--but gentle, foolish souls.

I don't think I love the Marvel, I don't find him in my heart; but at any rate, the surface is very much occupied with him. If he loved me, I shouldn't care very much, that is the truth.

Friday, January 14th, 1876.

We met on the Pincio Count B----, who started at seeing me, then bowed to my mother.

At five o'clock we went to see Monseigneur F----, a thin, black, agile old priest in a wig, a Jesuit, a hypocrite. He received us very courteously in his remarkable drawing-rooms, filled with things in the best taste. Gobelins, pictures, and all this in the dwelling of a detestable Jesuit. Well, well!

We all went to walk in the Villa Borghese, which is more beautiful than the Doria. There was a crowd of people, and the pretty Princess M---- was walking like any ordinary mortal, followed by her carriage, with the coachman and two footmen in red livery. This quant.i.ty of carriages with coats of arms saddened me. We know n.o.body, G.o.d help me! Perhaps I am ridiculous with my complaints, and my eternal prayers! I am so miserable! This evening Mamma asked the date of last year's carnival; I took out my journal and, without noticing it, spent two hours turning over the leaves.

I said to myself: I am living to be happy! Everything must bow before me! And see how it is--the idea that I could fail in anything never occurred to me.

A delay, yes, but a complete failure, nonsense!--And I see with terror and humiliation that I was deceived, that nothing happens as I wish. It is not because I love some one; I do not love anybody seriously; I love a coronet and money. It is terrible to think that everything is escaping. Each instant I long to pray to G.o.d, and each instant I stop myself. I shall pray again, let what will happen!

My G.o.d, Holy Virgin, do not scorn me, take me under your protection.

Sunday, January 16th, 1876.

I feel that I shall write badly, for I have just been reading my old journal. Mamma begged me to read the period of G----. I read it, pa.s.sing over a number of things. What is perfectly simple when written is no longer so when read aloud. My face burned, my fingers grew cold, and I ended by saying that I could not go on.

"She will read it to us in two years," said Mamma.

After St. Peter's, Mamma went to Baron d'I----'s, the amba.s.sador's cousin. She made his acquaintance at the amba.s.sadress's. These people are very simple and agreeable. I liked the baron especially.

There was a crowd on the Pincio, the Corso and the Piazza Colonna were thronged with carriages and people returning from the Pincio.

We dined at the table d'hote because the son of the Grand Duke of Baden was to dine there. A number of society people were present, and the Grand Duke is a pleasant fellow enough--for a Grand Duke.

Wednesday, January 19th, 1876.

We went to the Pincio, there were a great many people. The Duc de L----, son of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess M----, the emperor's sister, was there with Mme. A----, the wife of a Russian prefect. The Duc de L---- saw her and was captivated. Since then she is always with him.

It is said that they are secretly married and live abroad. That is what people call having happiness. She had liveried servants and magnificent horses--suitable, I should think, for the niece of the Emperor of Russia.

January 19th, 1876.

At the church of St. John we met Baronne d'I----, the amba.s.sadress's cousin, who came up to Mamma and talked with her a long time, apologising for not having yet called, on account of her husband's illness. Mamma went to her house last Sunday, three days ago.

From there to the Pincio, then to the Corso, crowds everywhere, I like this animation.

My aunt wrote that the Marvel, but she doesn't call him that, everybody at Nice in our house calls him nothing but the "shaved magpie," so my aunt wrote that the "shaved magpie" was at the opera, and did nothing all the evening but weep, actually weep.

There is news from Russia, nothing good, I think of nothing but praying to G.o.d, and am in fear.

I pity myself _now_, what would it be if we should lose our fortune!

Horrible!

I pray to G.o.d and tremble. G.o.d will not abandon me.

Rome bores me; Nice is my beloved country. I see Rome, Paris, London, kings, courts, but there is nothing so pretty as my dear villa. If ever I am rich, t.i.tled, and happy, I shall not forget it.

I shall spend several months of the year there! no, several months--I could not do that, for everywhere, except in London, winter is the princ.i.p.al season.

We went to the photographer, S----'s, to tell him that I would come to pose on Monday. I saw there a number of portraits of people I know. While looking at L----, his wife, and L---- D----, it seemed as if he were going to bow to me. Then a bewitching woman with big, deep eyes, and heavy eyebrows above a straight nose. She resembles R----. Dina says it is she. But no, she has not that round chin with a dimple, and those magnificent eyes. No, it can't be, she is not so beautiful.

Then to the Pincio, then to a milliner to order a Marie Stuart cap, and a Marie Antoinette turban. The woman showed me a gown she was making for a ball at the Quirinal, day after to-morrow.