Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood)

Excerpt

NEW JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF

JANUARY, 1873

(Marie was then twelve years old.)

I must tell you that ever since Baden I have thought of nothing except the Duc de H——. In the afternoon I studied. I did not go out except for half an hour on the terrace. I am very unhappy to-day. I am in a terrible state of mind; if this keeps on, I don't know what will become of me.

How fortunate people who have no secrets are!

Oh, God, in mercy save me!

The face makes very little difference! People can't love just on account of the face. Of course it does a great deal, but when there is nothing else—. They have been talking about B——. He has exactly my disposition. I am fond of society; he likes to flirt; he likes to see and to be seen; in short, he is pleased with the same things that please me. They say he is a gambler. Oh! dear! What evil genius has changed him!

Perhaps he is in love—hopelessly?

Happy love ought to make us better, but hopeless love! Oh, I believe it must be that!

No, no, he is simply dragged down like so many young men by that terrible gulf. Oh, what an accursed place! How many wretched beings it has made! Oh, fly from it! Take your sons, your husbands, your brothers away from there, or they are lost. B—— is beginning. The Duc de H—— has begun, too, and he will go on, while he might live happily. Live and be useful to society. But he spends his time with wicked men and women. He can do it as long as he has anything, and he used to be immensely rich.

Dr. V—— has said that Mademoiselle C—— is ill, that she may live five years or die in three weeks, because she is consumptive. How many misfortunes at once!

If, when I am grown up, I should marry B—— what a life it would be! To stay all alone, that is, surrounded by commonplace men, who will want to flirt with me, and be carried away by the whirl of pleasure. I dream of and wish for all these things, but with a husband I love and who loves me—.

Ah, who would suppose it was little Marie, a girl scarcely twelve years old; who feels all this! But what am I saying? What a dismal thought! I don't even know him, and am already marrying him—how silly I am!

I am really much vexed about all this. I am calmer now. My handwriting shows it. The spontaneous burst of indignation is a little quieted. It is soothing to write or communicate one's ideas to somebody.

B—— isn't worth while. I shall never marry him. If he begs me on his knees, I shall be—oh, I forgot the word—I shall be firm. No, that isn't the word, but I know what I mean. Yet if he loves me very much, very deeply, if he cannot live without me—vain phrases! Do not let us meet. I don't wish to be weak.

I am firm, I will be resolute. I mean to have the Duc de H——. I love him at least. His dissipated life may be forgiven him. But the other—no!

While writing I was interrupted by a noise. I thought some one was going to surprise me. Even if what I have written were not seen, I should blush all the same....