Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) Part 4

We are going to the S----'s. I do not see M----. She is shut up at home. This is what has happened--during the two months since the C---- family arrived from Mexico, he has no longer written to her.

I know that people who say what I have just said are not popular. We prefer those who, like Dina, veil what they know by a false sentiment of sham delicacy and misplaced pity.

Listen carefully to these commonplace, but true words. C---- deserts you. Write him a letter full of pride and withdraw with honour.

I am very sorry for M----. C----will leave Europe in three days.

Poor M----. This is what it means to love with the heart. I understood at once when she told me that C---- had not written to her for so long. On account of anonymous letters he received; because he thought that he no longer loved her. I instantly comprehended his object. I am frantic for her, when I think what a satisfied face the b.o.o.by will take with him to Mexico! And that poor girl has been crying ever since this morning. I am pleased. I foresaw everything, we must hold ourselves proudly, especially when the man wants to draw back. He invents excuses, and the poor woman believes she is deserving of reproach, and this, that, and the other thing, while in reality she has no cause for blaming herself. I always try to protect myself against every affront.

"Yes," said Mamma, "I was told that you received him yesterday from the summit of your grandeur."

"Not only yesterday," my aunt interrupted, "but for a long time past."

"That is true," I replied; "otherwise I should never console myself, for he has wounded me by confounding me with other young ladies."

"How glad I am that we have no C---- in our house," remarked Mamma.

"My daughter is pure and free from any love."

"Oh! oh!" said my aunt.

Oh, women, women, you will always be the same.

Learn to behave yourselves, wretched s.e.x! See how man marches straight on, without fear, without reproach, and without being afraid of wounding you; he abuses you, and you endure and bow before it. Oh, you men, if you read this, know that I am grieved to the bottom of my heart to allow you so much importance, but it would be both bad taste and bad tactics to decry your worth; the value of our enemies enhances our own. What credit is it to conquer dunces?

Know, you who wear trousers, know that in me you have a foe. I take pleasure in magnifying you men in order to maintain in myself the n.o.ble ardour which animates me.

Sat.u.r.day, October 23d, 1875.

I forgot to tell my yesterday's dream. I saw some mice, against which I threw cats that choked them. Then these mice became serpents and went into their holes, while the cats rushed upon me, especially one that scratched my right leg. It is a bad dream. Ah! yes; malediction! I see that there is nothing good for me in this world.

Why do you want to live when everything fails, everything goes wrong? We have courage up to a certain point, we make ourselves bold, we hope, but a moment comes when we have strength no longer.

Well! Jeer at me, you hardened people. What! you will say, you dare to utter such words, when your mother is living, when you have an aunt who worships you, a mother who obeys you, a fortune at your command, when you are neither infirm nor ill. You are tempting G.o.d.

That is what you will tell me, and I shall answer that life is made up of little things as the body is formed of molecules. When all the molecules decay and go to the Old Nick, the body can no longer live.

It is the same with life when all that composes it, colours it, makes it lovable, is lacking, turns out badly, when everything escapes, when not the slightest wish is realised, when everything vanishes, everything deceives. No, to go on in this way is impossible. So I believe that G.o.d will recall me soon. It is not in vain that two mirrors were broken this year. People will say that when we are young, we often feel a desire to die, but that is nonsense. I have no desire to die; but I foresee my own death, for a life so useless, so miserable, cannot last.

I have interrupted myself ten times to weep and to think of this summer; when I compare it with the present I am thoroughly wretched.

How many lost illusions! What hopes deceived! And I am rid of them.

I was going to say that my heart is torn, but it is not true; my heart is whole, my mind is embittered, and deceptions destroy man.

Let us surround our hearts with triple bra.s.s. I will trouble myself no more about this man. I will no longer think of him, I will no longer speak of him as before, I forbid myself to do it.

October 24th, 1875.

I boasted of my conduct yesterday; there was no reason for it; if I appeared indifferent it was because I was indifferent. These people don't know how to talk; the Arts, history, one doesn't even hear their names. I feel that I am gradually growing stupid. I am doing nothing. I want to go to Rome--to take up my lessons again. I am bored. I feel myself being gradually enveloped in the spider's web which covers everything here, but I am struggling, I am reading.

At the theatre P---- with R----, her good friend, as they say in Nice, began to yawn when she saw all the people in our box.

Why do women yawn when they are jealous and curious? My mother has noticed it a hundred times, and I, too, in my short life.

Wretched feminine position! Men have all the privileges, women have only that of waiting their good pleasure.

I should be quite proud if I could make myself really loved by this man.

Wild, reckless, ruined, vicious, fickle, brutalised by a.s.sociation with wicked women! His feelings of delicacy, of true love, of virtue, which are the bloom of the human heart, have been early swept away from him. The desire for money holds the first place, money to lead a gay life, to support the riffraff he has in his train.

How much women are to be pitied! It is the man who first takes notice, it is the man who asks to be introduced, it is the man who makes the first advances, it is the man who gives the invitation to dance, it is the man who pays attention, it is the man who offers marriage. The woman is like this paper, this nice paper on which we write whatever we please. G.o.d does not hear me, yet I will not doubt G.o.d. Often a desire to do it seizes possession of me, but I am very quickly punished.

Pshaw! Life is an ugly thing!

Before dinner we went to walk, it was wonderful moonlight. I said a thousand foolish things to O----, and if Dina and M---- were as crazy as we, a great scandal would have happened, for we wanted to dance a ring around a priest who was pa.s.sing.

O---- is writing a novel, it appears. After dinner we went in search of her; I shut myself up with her, and the good girl read it. But at the second page I stopped her and proposed that we should write one together. I gave the idea, everything, everything, and the girl imagines she is composing too. It would be the story of Dumas with the _Tour de Nesle_, but I shall not a.s.sert my rights, I am giving her a love scene for to-morrow. She makes no pretensions, and asks for ideas, details, and love scenes with perfect simplicity.

As for me, I set to work and, at one dash, wrote the first chapter, in which my hero bursts open a door and leaps through the window.

People are doing me the honour to busy themselves very much about me, to gossip a great deal over me. Haven't I always desired it?

My journal is suffering because I have begun to write a novel, and I shall succeed. Thank Heaven, I am capable of doing everything I wish. Two chapters in two days is going on finely. I have read it to Dina, and my story interests her. But I am able to judge for myself personally, and I believe it will go.

While we were walking, surrounded by a group of young men, I was happy, proud, and of what? I am little and vain; I took good care to express a wish to return to the carriage, before my cavaliers desired to leave. They even begged me to take another turn. That was all right. They escorted me to the landau.

Monday, November 15th, 1875.

All day long the day of the opera I was restless.

At half past eight o'clock we set off. I was dressed in a white muslin gown, a plain skirt with a wide ruche around the bottom, Marie Stuart waist, and hair arranged to match the costume. A very pretty auditorium. Everybody admired me. Toward the middle of the entertainment, I began to feel as lovely as possible. In going out I pa.s.sed between two rows of gentlemen who stared at me till their eyes bulged, and they didn't think me bad-looking, one could see that. My heart swelled with pride and joy. Leonie came to undress me, but I sent her away and shut myself up. As I entered I suddenly saw myself in the gla.s.s. I looked like a queen, a portrait that had come down from its frame. I no longer had to say: "Ah! if I dressed as people used to do--" I _was_ dressed as people used to do. I was beautiful.

It always seems as if others did not see me as I am. How unfortunate that, instead of these little black letters, I could not trace my portrait as I was--my wonderful complexion, my golden hair, my eyes so dark at night, my mouth, my figure! Those who saw me know how I looked.

While remaining simple, as suits one of my age, barely beyond childhood, I was gowned like a grown person. That is where the difficulty lies--to be like a grown person and yet not extravagant and overdressed.

Later I felt very unhappy and began to sing: "Knowst thou the land?"

and fell on my knees, weeping. Why? It is a relief to lie on the ground. Because, in the last scene, a love scene, P---- had in her voice--it gave one a thrill--I would die for the truth--and joyfully.

This is it, he who slays with the sword shall perish by the sword.

It seems as if I had loved. I feel in despair; I don't know why, but it was a torturing feeling and made me weep.