Marie Bashkirtseff | Page 9

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 God 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
God, to pray to Him, and to have nothing! Oh! I can see people
scoffing at me because I bring God 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 prick 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 nobody 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? God alone can help! God does not hear me! Just
God! Holy Virgin! Jesus! I am not worthy to be heard, but I