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Ebook has 371 lines and 22137 words, and 8 pages
MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY MARY J. SAFFORD
PREFACE THE SOUL OF A LITTLE GIRL
Marie Bashkirtseff, beginning at twelve years old, wrote her journal ingenuously, sincerely, amusing us by her whims, thrilling us by her enthusiasms, touching us by her sufferings.
We have gone through these note-books bound in white parchment, slightly discoloured, like the winding sheet in which sleeps a memory, and have already gathered a volume, precious, not because it describes such an entertainment or such an event, but because it reveals the mentality of a young girl.
This time we have been especially interested by the first books, written in a large, unformed hand, dashing, variable, following the successive impressions of a changeful, sensitive nature.
Very few documents exist concerning children, in whom the nineteenth century alone began to interest itself.
In fact the real personality of the child is very secret, for it distrusts these comprehensive and authoritative beings, "grown-up people." And it hides its ironical observations, its dreams, all the ardour of its little soul.
Children play. They have built, with sand and twigs, a fantastic world peopled with their familiar toys: a grey cloth elephant, a multi-coloured duck as big as that white plush bear. And they are in the jungle, tracking, hunting, killing. Then they dance round to a secret rhythm. Stop to look at them, the game will end. The little mouths will become silent. The child will always hide the ingenuous observations it makes with its clear eyes.
Therefore it seems to us very interesting to show a little girl's existence, not told from the distance of past years, but written day by day. Marie Bashkirtseff was a child of precocious intelligence, ardent will, extreme intensity of life. Maurice Barr?s defines it sensibly in saying that she had, "when very young, amalgamated five or six exceptional souls in her delicate, already failing body."
The nomad life led by her parents, residences in Paris, London, Nice, Rome, hastened the development of a vivid intelligence.
This little "uprooted" girl accommodated herself to these varied lives with the versatility of children, but she knew how to reserve her personal life of study. It was a strange intellectual solicitude of the little girl living among idle people and dreaming of "becoming somebody famous." And, completely surrounded by refined luxury, she knew how to see the humble folk, whose expressive features she has inscribed in a way not to be forgotten in her pictures.
If this journal reveals a precocious intellect, it preserves--and this is its charm--a spontaneity of childhood--for the little Slav was a bewitching little girl, with rosy cheeks and clear eyes. Has she not evoked all the marvellous imagination of the little ones in these words: "Because I put on an ermine cloak, I imagine that I am a queen"?
Marie's sentimental life has greatly perturbed her biographers. They have accused her of having a cold, indifferent heart. Others, more penetrating, have seen that Marie considered love as a religion for which a god was necessary. Hence her dream as a young girl: "to love a superior being." And she wrote to Maupassant.
Jean Finot has pointed out that there was something "infinitely tragical in the approach from a distance of these two sublime beings already stamped by death." Besides, Marie did not know the novelist.
Another person interested the young girl, Bastien-Lepage. Their double death-struggle drew them together for a moment, and death permanently unites their names in our memory.
After such a passage of captivating vivacity, in which work and pleasures inflame this ardent vitality, other days,--numerous, alas! have the mere mention of a date followed by a dash. These are the stations of the disease when the charming body was weakening like a dying flower. And there were the alternations of hope, the physicians consulted when at first she believed everything, to doubt, later, all the remedies with which their pity beguiles anxiety, at last the resigned almost certainty:
"And, nevertheless, I am going to die."
Should the shortness of her existence be regretted for Marie? Certainly, thoroughly in love, she would not have found happiness in marriage, which fashionable society too often transforms into a partnership of egotisms, interests, and hypocrisy. But would not maternity have consoled her, affording her a delicious refuge, her who bent patiently over the faces of the very little children, expressed their fleeting occupations, their intent looks?
Sly death did not permit her to finish her destiny, and the little Slav preserves for us her disturbing virgin charm.
In that villa in Nice, where Marie Bashkirtseff lived, clearly appears the vision of a young girl, harmonious in the whiteness of her usual clothing, with a gaze sparkling with ardent life, her who, Maurice Barr?s says, "appears to us a representation of the eternal force which calls forth heroes in each generation and that she may seem of sound sense to us, let us cherish her memory under the proud name of Our-Lady who is never satisfied."
REN?E D'ULM?S.
NEW JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF
JANUARY, 1873
How fortunate people who have no secrets are!
Oh, God, in mercy save me!
Perhaps he is in love--hopelessly?
Happy love ought to make us better, but hopeless love! Oh, I believe it must be that!
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.
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. Everything I wrote previously now seems nonsense. Yet it is really exactly what I felt. I am calm now. Later I will read it over again. That will bring back the past.
O God, relieve my suffering! I can pray to Thee no more. Hear my petition. Thy mercy is so infinite. Thy grace is so great, Thou hast done so many things for me! Thou hast bestowed so many blessings upon me. Thou alone canst inspire him with love for me!
I could not say, "On such or such a day I met a young man whom I liked." I do not know when I noticed him. I cannot even understand these feelings, I cannot find expressions. I will only say, "I do not know when, I do not know how this love has come. It came because it probably had to come." I should like to define this, yet I cannot.
Now, if he were paying me attention, he would think he was doing me honour, but then I should make him see that it is I who honour him by marrying him, because I am giving up all my glory. Yet what happiness can be greater: To have everything--to be a child worshipped by its parents, petted, having all a child can have. Then to be known, admired, sought by the whole world, and have glory and triumph every time one sings. And at last to become a duchess, and to have the duke whom I have loved a long while, and be received and admired by everybody. To be rich on my own account and through my husband; to be able to say that I am not a plebeian by birth, like all the celebrities--that is the life, that is the happiness I desire. If I can become his wife without being a cantatrice, I shall be equally well pleased, but I believe that is the only way I shall be able to attract him.
Oh, if that could be! My God! Thou hast made me find in what way I shall be able to obtain what I ask. Oh! Lord! Aid me, I place all my hopes in Thee. Thou alone canst do all things, canst render me happy. Thou hast made me understand that it is through my voice I can obtain what I seek. Then it is upon my voice that I must fix all my thoughts, I must cultivate, watch, and guard it. I swear to Thee, O Lord, no longer to sing or scream as I used to do.
Monday, our day. We have plenty of callers. I went in only a minute to ask Mamma something, in my character of a little girl. Before entering I looked at myself in the mirror hanging there: I was good-looking, rosy, fair, pretty.
Suppose I should write everything I think and everything I intend to do when I grow up, everything I mean to forget, and everything that is extraordinary? A dinner service of transparent glass. On one side a certain costume and arrangement of the hair; on the other side a different costume and a different arrangement of the hair, so that on one side I shall be one person, and on the other side another. To give a dinner by letters. I have determined to end this book, for extravagant ideas rarely come to me in these days.
March 14th, 1873.
I think only of him, I pray God to keep every trouble from him, protect, preserve him from every danger.
At last I can enjoy some bright weather on the Promenade. I have seen everybody, and I am happy. An hour driving, then walking, but the rain surprised us.
I don't intend to behave so any longer. I must finish what I am learning quickly, that I may begin serious studies, like those of men, and occupy myself more with music, commence lessons on the harp and singing. These are great plans. They are sensible ones, too. Are they not?
March 30th, 1873.
"I was talking with her. I made her sit down and I spoke of you."
Oh! he talked to her about me, and it was on my account that he spoke to her! How happy I am! At last my prayer is granted! Then he brought some kind of paper or something, I don't know exactly what, to ask for an address to get clothes, I believe. He was in the large drawing-room, talked to me in low tones, encouraged me by his frank manners, then I saw mountains on the pictures at which he was looking. It is strange that I felt nothing extraordinary, and I was less excited than when I am awake.
I was happy, I was calm and content.
These transports overwhelm me at the mere sight of his name, for I am not sure of my happiness, and I ardently desire it. But when we have what we desire and love, we are calm. So, in my dream I was calm, for I no longer had anything to desire. I said nothing, in order not to interrupt my happiness. I let myself go gently and quietly.
Tuesday, April 8th.
Good Friday.
At this vision, an idea came to me. There were a great many flowers near the tomb. I took a daisy. The flower is holy, it was near our Saviour. It will tell me whether our desires will be realised. With a throbbing heart, I pulled off petal after petal. Yes--no--O, God! I thank Thee! I believe this prediction, it is holy!
I don't want to wait any longer. I shall die if I stay in this furnace. It is too warm. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. I believe that, it is my consolation. We are going to Vienna Saturday, but Mamma will stay. There is no pleasure without pain. That is a great truth. So we shall start Saturday, I, my aunt, Dina, and Paul.
July 29th, 1873.
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