Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) Part 9

"I wish to stay and I wish to go, How it will end I do not know."

I cannot lie down. I am sorrowful, excited.

Oh, calm yourself, for Heaven's sake. It hasn't anything to do with M. A----, but simply that I am going. The uncertainty, the vagueness, leaving the known for the unknown.

Sunday, January 2nd, 1876.

"I shall go Sunday at three o'clock," I said or rather shrieked, and Sunday at one o'clock everything was topsy-turvy. The trunks were still empty, and the floor was covered with gowns and finery. For my part, I put on a grey dress and waited quietly. C---- and Dina worked, and so well that everything was ready for the hour of departure.

At half past two, C---- and I got into a little cab and went to hear the band, and I listened once more to the munic.i.p.al music of Nice.

"Come," I said to Collignon, "if this piece is gay, our journey will be, too. I am superst.i.tious." And the piece was very lively. So much the better!

I saw G----, who bid me good-bye once more. I haven't seen the Marvel, but that doesn't matter.

We got into the landau again, and went to the station. Our friends came there, one after another. I skipped about, I laughed, I chattered like a bird. How kind they are, and how hard it is to leave them.

"You feign this gaiety," said B----to me, "but in your heart you are weeping, I am sure of it."

"Ah! you think so? No!

"When to Nice you bid good-bye, Unfeigned joy is in your eye.

Easy 'tis from Nice to part, For she never wins your heart."

"Bravo! Bravo!"

The quatrain was made one evening when we were capping verses with G----.

"Give me some cigarettes," I said softly to my aunt.

"Very well, later."

I thought she had forgotten, but at Monaco she wrapped a number in paper and gave them to me. She, who cries out when I ask her for them at home. At Monaco we parted, and those horrid cigarettes made me cry. I was sorry for the poor old grandfather, my aunt, everybody. I am vexed to have to go with Mamma. I was with her at Spa and, besides, I am used to my aunt.

Oh! torture! Imagine the tediousness of a journey in Italy. Mamma and Dina do not know Italian. I refused to use my tongue; I can scarcely use my limbs. By dint of complaining because I was not with my aunt, and saying: "Who asked you to come with us? I ought to go with my aunt. Why do you come with me?" I obtained a pa.s.sive obedience and an alacrity impossible to imagine.

Night found us in a car. I complained, wept softly, and said the most provoking things to my mother, like the brute I am.

At last, toward three o'clock, Monday, January 3d, ruins, columns, aqueducts began to appear on the dreary plain called the Roman Campagna, and we entered the station of Rome. I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I was utterly limp after these twenty-four hours without sleep.

We were taken to the Hotel de Londres, Piazza di Spagna, and we occupied an apartment on the ground floor, with a yellow drawing-room that was very fresh and neat, I was tired and depressed, in the condition in which I needed some one to sustain me. And Mamma was crying. Oh, dear!

We must set to work very, very quickly to look about us. There is nothing I hate like changing.

New streets, strange faces, and no Mediterranean. Only the miserable Tiber. I am utterly wretched when I am in a new city. I shut myself up in my room to collect my scattered wits a little.

Tuesday, January 4th, 1876.

Yesterday Mamma wrote to B----, the brother of the empress's physician, and to-day he came to our house. He devotes himself to painting. After this visit, we went out. Oh! the ugly city, the impure air! What a deplorable mixture of ancient magnificence and modern filth!

We went through the Corso, the Via Gregoriana, the Forum of Hadrian, the Forum of Rome, we saw the gates of Septimus Severus, and Constantine, the Via Pia, the Coliseum, but everything is still vague, I don't recognise myself. The drive on the Pincio is charming, the band was playing, but there were not many people when we were there. Statues, statues everywhere. What would Rome be without statues? From the summit of the Pincio we looked at the dome of St. Peter and also the whole city. I am glad to find it is not over large, it will be easier to know.

On the drive we were amused to meet the S----'s, A----, and P---- of Rome. The sun did not appear, and the weather was dull and dreary.

On arriving in Rome, I had no artistic feeling. It is Rome that opened my mind, so I have worshipped her since. I don't want to visit anything before we are settled. The evening was spent in consulting the cards and in writing letters.

This stay in Rome seems an exile and it is with unequalled joy that I think of returning to Nice. The cards predict much good, but can the cards be believed?

Ah! if I could marry some prince! Then I would return to Nice and make a triumphal entry. But no, it is indicated that nothing will succeed for me; so I shall make no more plans or, if I do, it will be with the sorrowful conviction of their uselessness. Each time I have been disappointed.

Wednesday, January 5th, 1876.

This is what I wrote to the General:

"I am in Rome, and it is very wonderful (ah! it is very wonderful, very marvellous). It is cold as Russia, the water freezes in the fountains, but the cold would be nothing if it was _only_ the cold.

Since morning we have been in search of an apartment, and we have seen only one. I did not have courage to go up when they pointed out a black, yawning hole, dirty and frightful. I have looked in vain for a house with any resemblance to the French houses. I find only ruins or cracked columns. No doubt it is very beautiful, but agree with me that a good, comfortable apartment is infinitely more pleasant, though less artistic.

"I believe we shall end by lodging in the baths of Caracalla or in the Coliseum. The foreigners will take me for the ghost of a Christian martyr, devoured by some fierce tiger in the presence of some carnivorous emperor. As to the furniture, we will be content with fragments of statues or a few bones, the sublime remains of a henceforth impossible past. After my installation in the Coliseum, or in the Forum, I will give you the most minute details concerning the Eternal City. Meanwhile, I shall expect a letter from you, my dear General, which will be, I know, kind and charming. Now good-bye until we meet again.

MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF."

It is the truth, there is not a habitable apartment; where are we?

Can this horrible city be called a capital? We are not in Europe!

Not a house fit to rent. I am discouraged, tired, but I will not stir before May.

O Rome! I think that we shall take a larger apartment in the hotel, and stay there. One can breathe only in the Piazza di Spagna. It is impossible that this is Rome! What a mixture of beautiful antiquities and modern trash!

Thursday, January 6th, 1876.

B---- has been here again and brought the addresses of some professors. Then we took a carriage, and Mamma went to the Russian priest's, the archimandrite Alexander. Being an archimandrite, he is married, for in our country priests and deacons can be married once.

Mamma says that he is charming. Our emba.s.sy makes no show, and has not even any regular reception day.

This society makes me love Rome. I scarcely regret Nice, the ungrateful, wicked city.

Sad and irresolute yesterday, I am gay and confident to-day. I have written to my aunt to send me F----, the ugly little negro will be very nice to have here.

I have had a good dinner, and spent the evening in reading the history of Charles the Bold.

I thought, "in my ingenuous candour," that there was no society except in Nice, but there is a great deal, and even very excellent.

After the drive we went down the Corso, thronged with carriages, between rows of pedestrians of all cla.s.ses. D----was among them. Now that my eyes are opened to see the beauties and antiquities of Rome, I am growing curious, eager to visit everything. I am no longer drowsy. I am in a hurry to be everywhere. I want to live at full speed again. Ah! if only I could!... Again a longing for Nice. The poorest thing, by resisting, gains worth. Be thoroughly convinced of this genuine truth. Do not believe that I am stupefied to the point of not seeing beyond the city of S----; on the contrary, I am more ambitious than ever. But meanwhile, to spit upon some one who has spit on us, to give the person a kick, is a pleasure which every well-born soul can permit itself.

Friday, January 7th, 1876.