I don't want public pity, but I should like to have one creature to understand me, compassionate me, weep with me sincerely, knowing why she was weeping, seeing with me into the farthest corner of my heart. What is there more dastardly, more ugly, viler than mankind?
We went to see Mme. du M——. She gave me seven letters of introduction for Rome. May God grant that they will be of the service this excellent woman desires, she loves me so much! No doubt everybody has trouble. One is ill, another is in love, another wants money, another is bored. You will say, perhaps, "Poor little idler, she thinks she is the only person who is unhappy, while she is happier than most people." But my sorrow is the most hateful of all.
We lose a beloved one. We mourn for a year, two years, and remain sorrowful all our lives. The greatest grief loses its force with time, but an incessant, eternal torment!...
I have just read Mme. du M——'s letters. No one could be kinder, no one could be more charming. And, just think, the greater part of the time those who would like to do things cannot. It is six years since she left Rome and I doubt whether her acquaintances remember her; and then, her influence was never great.
"Have you suffered, wept, and languished,
Thinking hope was all in vain,
Soul in mourning, torn heart anguished?
Then you understand my pain."
Sapphowas given to-night. I wore a sort of Neapolitan shirt of blue crêpe de Chine and old lace, with a white front. It can't be described—it was as original and charming as possible, with a white skirt and an alms-bag of white satin. We arrived at the end of the first act, and were near P—— and R——, and I heard the voice of the Marvel. Nothing can be said against her face, it is blooming; whether real or artificial is of little consequence. She has hair—oh, I don't know. At Spa, she was fairer than I; here, she is darker
"d'un serpent, jaune et sifflant."
Now the American has gone home, and is doubtless in a sleep which will preserve her twenty-seven-year-old complexion, while I am awake. Just now I fell on my knees sobbing, beseeching God, with my arms outstretched, my eyes fixed on space before me, exactly as if God was there in my room. I believe I am uttering insolent things to God.
The S——'s came, and after dinner we began to tell fortunes and laughed almost as much as we did before, that is, the others did, but I could not. Then we poured melted wax into cold water (it is the shadow that is looked at). I had in succession a lion couchant with one of his front paws extended, holding a rose; isn't it odd? Then a great heap of something surmounted by a garland held by Cupids.
As for M——, her wax figure cast a horrible shadow. A woman lying as if dead with her hands crossed on her breast. O—— and Dina had insignificant shadows. And, at fifteen minutes before midnight, four mirrors were brought, two for Dina and two for me, and we took up the great fortune telling.
I looked with all my eyes, without stirring, almost without breathing. In the proper costume of night-gown and unbound hair. But everything was very vague; it quivered, danced, formed, and reformed every instant.
Here is the new year. Greeting and mercy. Well, the first day of 1876 was not so bad as I expected. They say the whole year is spent very much like the first day, and it is true. I spent the first of last January in the cars, and I have really travelled a great deal.
To-morrow, yes, to-morrow I shall be glad to go. I am perfectly happy, for I have made a plan—a plan that will fail like the others, but which amuses me in the meanwhile. If it were not two o'clock in the morning, I would write a whole story of the sale of a soul. The brutes—I have not wept, I have not felt sad once. A very pleasant day to commence the year. I shall go and think only of returning. No doubt I shall change my mind in Rome. All the same, this is where I should like to live.
I had already closed my book, but I and a lot of things to say. I have looked at the great caricature, there are five of us. I have thought of everything; of Mme. B——, of the English, of the people of Nice, of S——, of "Mignon." In a word, a quantity of things. I had a great deal to say, and lo! I stop.
It is tiresome to go, but it is horrible to stay. P—— has dramatic emotions so genuine that she delights and thrills me. Come, what was I going to write? That I am calm and agitated, sorrowful and joyous, jealous and indifferent. It seems to me that fastidious society is possible to have and, at the same time, it is impossible.
"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.
"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 municipal music of Nice. "Come," I said to Collignon, "if this piece is gay, our journey will be, too. I am superstitious." 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 passive 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 Hôtel 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.
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.
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 wasonlythe 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!
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 embassy 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 classes. 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.
Goodness! What prices people ask in Rome! For 1,800 francs one has only the barest necessaries! At the Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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.
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, improbum, inhonestum, cupidum, luxuriosum, ebriosum!Exactly what Septimus Severus said of Albinus.
If only the winter would pass 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 nobody there. The best people gathered around us. P—— was deserted, so were the others. While this Spring there will again be nobody, 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 God, and amuse ourselves by writing letters.
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 goddesses, 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.
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 embassy. 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 glass 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.
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 quantity of carriages with coats of arms saddened me. We know nobody, God 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 God, and each instant I stop myself. I shall pray again, let what will happen!
My God, Holy Virgin, do not scorn me, take me under your protection.
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, passing 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 ambassador's cousin. She made his acquaintance at the ambassadress'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'hôte 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.
We went to the Pincio, there were a great many people. The Duc de L——, son of the Grand Duchess 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.
At the church of St. John we met Baronne d'I——, the ambassadress'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 God, and am in fear.
I pity myselfnow, what would it be if we should lose our fortune! Horrible!
I pray to God and tremble. God 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, titled, 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 principal 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.
This plunges me into inconceivable torture. If you knew how I dread spending the Carnival without a single amusement! We found the ambassadress's card at our home, so she has returned the visit. It is rather late, all the same. Her cousin came at dinner time. The Grand Duke of L—— asked who we were (who is that pretty Russian?). B—— says Mamma ought to go to call on the Marquise de M——. He says it is the custom here, especially from a foreigner to a Roman lady. Let Mamma go anywhere, provided that I can go where I like. My torture has no bounds, I am dying of it every instant. Do you want a proof of my despair? There are times when I hope to marry A—— and be something at Nice with P——; that gives the measure of my discouragement, my desperation.
I have had this humiliating thought once or twice. I tell you to show you how low I descend, how vexed, how martyrised I am to live in this way. Who will restore my lost time, my best time? I have used every expression, and am dying because I cannot make myself understood.
I have written to C—— and to B——. I was in a hurry to tell them the good news. I have the very weak middle notes which accompany the abnormal compass of my voice. I have found a method of singing that strengthens them wonderfully, so that they are almost as strong as the rest. This delights me, and I am eager to write about it to B——, who is so much interested in my voice. But for that, it would have required two years study to render them satisfactory. I thank God, and will pray to Him for the other things.
After three years study, if no accident happens, I shall have a voice such as is rarely heard, and I shall not yet be twenty.
F—— is severe and just.
I am afraid to say all that I think of my voice; a strange modesty closes my lips. Yet I have always spoken of myself as if I were talking of some one else, which has perhaps made people think me blind and arrogant.
I want to have a gown like the one worn by Dante's Beatrice.
Still another proof of the falsity of the cards. Yesterday I had a sort of sorceress come and she pretended to give me good luck. She told me to call the person I wanted. I called A—— and that woman told me he could not live without me; that he was dying of grief and jealousy, and he was especially jealous because a wicked woman had told him that I loved another man.
May all the witches die! May all the cards burn! They are nothing but lies!
I am making a large white garment for the house, for the spring, in Nice. Nice, miserable city, why cannot I live there as I like? In Nice I know everybody, but to live in Nice except as a queen isn't worth while.
I am sad, I am in a foreign country, I long to return home, just for a single day, for if I stayed longer, I should want to go back.
In the evening we went to the Apollo theatre, they gave theVestaland a ballet. I wore white with a Greek coiffure. There were a great many people, and an especially large number of men. Not a single woman between our box and the stage.
I swear that all these tragic and jealous remarks about A—— were written under the influence of romantic reading, and that I only half believed them while I was writing, exciting myself for the pleasure of it, and I greatly regret these exaggerations.
The archimandrite has been at our house. He is a charming man who, after having been a soldier, turned monk from despair at having lost his wife. He told us that there was a Madame S—— who greatly desired to make Mamma's acquaintance.
Returning from the photographer's, such dismal thoughts filled my brain that I did not dress and let Mamma and Dina go out without me. Being left alone, I am very sad, I am singing "Mignon."
I am homesick. I took a singing lesson, and then went out with Mamma. We went to M. de E——'s studio. He requested permission to present a very elegant and popular M. Benard, received everywhere in society. He told us a great many things about Rome.
From there we went to Monseigneur de F——'s, who yesterday asked if we had had our audience.
This priest is turning out better and better, he has even made scandals. He told us that I had been noticed at the opera, my white dress had attracted attention, and said that to go to court we need only write to the Minister or Ambassador.
"I should like," he added, "to be able to open to you the other door, as I have opened the Holy One."
"O Monseigneur," I replied, "the Holy Door is far preferable."
From there to the residence of Madame S—— (the archimandrite had told her, and she was expecting us), who is the most charming and the ugliest woman in the world. She received us in the most delightful way, and immediately spoke of the Quirinal.