Marie Bashkirtseff

“ This word-picture never took shape in line and colour. But it haunts you with a suggestion of lofty possibilities to be reached by Marie Bashkirtseff as an artist had she only lived to carry out her conceptions. And as the poet declares “songs unheard” to be sweeter than any that we may ever hear, so it is with this unpainted picture as compared to the painted ones; for, remarkable as her work is, it is to a great extent remarkable as having been done by so young a girl after only a few years of study. It is as a promise even more than a performance that it claims our admiration. ”

“ My voice. To preserve it I must take care of my health. Another week like this one, and good-bye to singing!
No, I will be sensible, I will pray to God. I will go to Rome. I am desperate, I will implore the Pope to pray for me. In my madness, I hope for that.
To-morrow I will talk with Mamma about my idea; aid me, my God.
Thursday, December 23d, 1875.
I am sorrowful and discouraged. My departure is an exile to me. I want to stay in Nice, and it is impossible. We always insist upon the impossible. The simplest thing, by resisting, gains in value. ”

“ Marie Bashkirtseff, who was always ready to barter everything for something she called Fame.
‘If I don’t win fame,’ says she over and over again, ‘I will kill myself.’
Miss Blind is, no doubt, correct in her assertion that, as a painter, Mlle. Bashkirtseff’s strong point was expression. Certainly, she had a great gift that way with her pen. Amidst a mass of greedy utterances, esurient longings, commonplace ejaculations, and unlovely revelations, passages occur in this journal which bid us hold. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ I was particularly fortunate this year in finding in Marie Bashkirtseff’s studio a picture by Bastien-Lepage, L’Annociation au Bergers, which he painted in 1875 to compete for the Prix de Rome. It was interesting to compare these two artists in their likeness in unlikeness. The same uncompromising realism applied in different ways, and the same power of catching expression and pinning it down as you would a butterfly without losing any of the delicate shades. ”

“ The mournfulness of the misty avenue is like a feeling in the air. A mood of nature has been caught which corresponds to a mood of the human mind. The sense of desolation, decay, and impending death seems to breathe from the canvas, as from some actual presence, which though unseen, is none the less there. I cannot help thinking that the artist’s own state must, by some subtle process, have literally passed into her canvas. How intensely Marie Bashkirtseff had identified herself with this picture is shown by Julian’s remark on meeting her just after she had painted it. ”

“ But let us go back to an idyl little known of Marie's twelfth year. The fact itself is not very extraordinary. The little girl is training herself for motherhood by lavishing caresses on wretched papier-mâché baby dolls. She is practising for her part of woman by playing at being in love. Artless little affairs outlined in the catechism, pervaded by the fragrance of incense. Very similar to these appears to us the enthusiasm the little Slav felt for the Duc de H——. Candid, affectionate little girl, she says deliciously: "I love him, and that is what makes me suffer. ”

“ His passionate sympathy with the outcast and oppressed drove him into excess both in thought and expression. His achievement, like that of Marie Bashkirtseff, derives much of its interest from his sadly premature end ”

“ There was a strong tie between these two beings, who seemed only destined to exert a passing influence over one another.
They were both ill when they made each other’s acquaintance: life, with its deceptive pleasures, had ruined the health of Bastien Lepage; and [173] Marie Bashkirtseff was ill from want of life,—her youth, her beauty, her vitality, had all been wasted.
It is the usual fate of the cultured young people of our time: he comes to her ruined, because he has satiated his thirst; she comes to him ruined, because her thirst has never been satisfied. ”

“ Only a strong and deeply interesting personality could worthily give rise to such a conflict, and such a personality Sonya Kovalevsky presented. She had no morbid self-consciousness, no precocious sense of her own importance to the universe, present and future, which could inspire her to keep a diary from the age of twelve, such as that of Marie Bashkirtseff, hitherto the best-known of her countrywomen so far as the revelation of inner life is concerned. ”

“ Most of them succumbed in the struggle.
A woman who seeks freedom by means of the modern method of independence is generally one who desires to escape from a woman’s sufferings. She is anxious to avoid subjection, also motherhood, and the dependence and impersonality of an ordinary woman’s life; but in doing so she unconsciously deprives herself of her womanliness. For them all—for Marie Bashkirtseff as much as Sonia Kovalevsky and A. C. Edgren-Leffler—the day came when they found themselves standing at the door of the heart’s innermost sanctuary, and realized that they were excluded. ”

“ And where would Bastien Lepage get these contours? We have never seen lines more carelessly drawn, and yet so true; there is real genius in them. This picture is a primitive bit of Russian nature, child-like in its honesty, and the painter is Marie Bashkirtseff.
Near the door hangs a little portrait of a young woman dressed in fur. She has the typical Russian face, with thick, irregular eyebrows, from under which a pair of Tartar eyes look at you straight in the face with a curious expression. What can it be? ”

“ 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." ”

“ He would suit me for a husband in every respect. I love him, and that is what makes me suffer. Take away this anguish, and I shall be a thousand times more miserable. My grief makes my happiness. I live solely for that. All my thoughts, everything is centred there. The Duc de H—— is my all. I love him so much! It is a very old-fashioned phrase, since people no longer love. Women love men for money, and men love women because they are the fashion or on account of their surroundings. ”

“ 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.
Friday, January 14th, 1876.
We met on the Pincio Count B——, who started at seeing me, then bowed to my mother. ”

“ The weather is magnificent. A tremendous crowd when we go out. We move at a walk, between hedges formed of the young men of Nice. They all take off their hats, and it seems as if I were the daughter of a queen whom they salute as she passes.
We met the Marvel, who alighted from his carriage and raised his hat to us twice. ”

“ It has never happened that people wanted it, and did not have it! I have the most comprehensive ideas in the world. A fig for all that! Do I want it? A hundred times, no, a thousand times no! I was born to be a remarkable woman, it matters little in what way or how. All my tendencies are toward the great things of this world. ”

“ It is not in vain that two mirrors were broken this year. People will say that when we are young, we often feel a desire to die, but that is nonsense. I have no desire to die; but I foresee my own death, for a life so useless, so miserable, cannot last. ”

“ I imagine myself the wife of another. He speaks to me. Oh! no, no! I should die of horror! All other men disgust me. In the street, at the theatre, I can endure them, but to imagine that a man may kiss my hand drives me wild! ”

“ Wild, reckless, ruined, vicious, fickle, brutalised by association with wicked women! His feelings of delicacy, of true love, of virtue, which are the bloom of the human heart, have been early swept away from him. ”

“ To-night we are going to the theatre. This is Paris! I can't believe that I am here. This is the city from which all the books are taken. All the books are about Paris, its salons, its theatres, it is the perfection of everything.
At last I have found what I have desired without knowing it. To live is Paris—Paris means to live!
I was tormenting myself because I did not know what I wanted. Now I see it before me. I know what I want. To move from Nice to Paris. To have an apartment, furnish it, have horses as we do in Nice. To go into society through the Russian ambassador. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shall I ever believe that God has commanded a tabernacle to be built to have His oracle heard from the ark in it? No, no! God is too great, too sublime for these unbearable Pagan follies. I worship God in everything. People can pray everywhere, and He is everywhere present. ”

“ Whoever lives under His protection will find repose in the mercy of the Omnipotent One. He will cover thee with His wings. Under their shelter thou wilt be in safety. His truth will be thy shield, thou wilt fear neither the arrows that fly by night ”

“ How I pity those who are not like me! They do not understand how much truth there is in this familiar fragment that is sung in every drawing-room. Yes, there alone to live my heart doth yearn. Yes, at Nice, in my beloved villa. People may go through the world. They will find sublime landscapes, impressive mountains, frightful gulfs, wild beauties of nature, picturesque towns, great cities; but, on returning to Nice one would say that elsewhere it was beautiful, magnificent! ”

“ 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." ”

“ Nowhere else does one breathe as freely, as joyously. Nowhere else is there this extraordinary blending of the real and the artificial, the simple and the exquisite! Finally, what shall I say? Nice is my city. I am going, but I shall return.
Go, but still regret it,
Regret has its charms,
as one of the pleasant simpletons called poets has said. ”

“ It is the same with life when all that composes it, colours it, makes it lovable, is lacking, turns out badly, when everything escapes, when not the slightest wish is realised, when everything vanishes, everything deceives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”