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THE SOUL OF A LITTLE GIRL
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
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JANUARY, 1873
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
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Sunday, December 26th, 1875.
Sunday, December 26th, 1875.
We went to hear the band. G. M—— came to talk to us and, among other compliments, said to me: "M——, I would like to give you some of my experience, I love you so much! No, really, Madame,"—addressing my mother—"she has such an extraordinary mind, so developed, so broadened. But it lacks experience. M——, my child, I will give you some advice." "Give it, Monsieur, give it." "Well, never love seriously, for there not in me whole world a man worthy your love." "Yes, I know that. I know that men are
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December 28th, 1875.
December 28th, 1875.
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?...
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Wednesday, December 29th, 1875.
Wednesday, December 29th, 1875.
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,
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Saturday, January 1st, 1876.
Saturday, January 1st, 1876.
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 wh
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Sunday, January 2nd, 1876.
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 municipal music of Nice. "Come," I said to Collignon,
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Tuesday, January 4th, 1876.
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
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Wednesday, January 5th, 1876.
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 on
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Thursday, January 6th, 1876.
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 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 confi
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Friday, January 7th, 1876.
Friday, January 7th, 1876.
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 talen
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Tuesday, January 11th, 1876.
Tuesday, January 11th, 1876.
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
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Wednesday, January 12th, 1876.
Wednesday, January 12th, 1876.
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
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Thursday, January 13th, 1876.
Thursday, January 13th, 1876.
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'cloc
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Friday, January 14th, 1876.
Friday, January 14th, 1876.
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
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Sunday, January 16th, 1876.
Sunday, January 16th, 1876.
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 p
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Wednesday, January 19th, 1876.
Wednesday, January 19th, 1876.
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....
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January 19th, 1876.
January 19th, 1876.
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 th
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Thursday, January 20th, 1876.
Thursday, January 20th, 1876.
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....
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Friday, January 21st, 1876.
Friday, January 21st, 1876.
I want to have a gown like the one worn by Dante's Beatrice....
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Saturday, January 22nd, 1876.
Saturday, January 22nd, 1876.
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!...
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Sunday, January 23d, 1876.
Sunday, January 23d, 1876.
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 the Vestal and a ballet. I wore white with a Greek coiffure. There were a great many people, and
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From Monday, January 24th, to February 10th, 1876: Rome, Hôtel de Londres, Piazza di Spagna.
From Monday, January 24th, to February 10th, 1876: Rome, Hôtel de Londres, Piazza di Spagna.
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 fro
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Tuesday, January 25th, 1876.
Tuesday, January 25th, 1876.
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 attentio
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