MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF
(From Childhood to Girlhood)
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
MARY J. SAFFORD
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1912
CONTENTS
NEW JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF
PREFACE
THE SOUL OF A LITTLE GIRL
Marie Bashkirtseff, beginning at twelve years old, wrote her journalingenuously, sincerely, amusing us by her whims, thrilling us by herenthusiasms, 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 amemory, and have already gathered a volume, precious, not because itdescribes such an entertainment or such an event, but because itreveals 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 thesuccessive impressions of a changeful, sensitive nature.
Very few documents exist concerning children, in whom the nineteenthcentury alone began to interest itself.
In fact the real personality of the child is very secret, for itdistrusts these comprehensive and authoritative beings, "grown-uppeople." And it hides its ironical observations, its dreams, all theardour of its little soul.
Children play. They have built, with sand and twigs, a fantasticworld peopled with their familiar toys: a grey cloth elephant, amulti-coloured duck as big as that white plush bear. And they are inthe jungle, tracking, hunting, killing. Then they dance round to asecret rhythm. Stop to look at them, the game will end. The littlemouths will become silent. The child will always hide the ingenuousobservations it makes with its clear eyes.
Therefore it seems to us very interesting to show a little girl'sexistence, not told from the distance of past years, but written dayby day. Marie Bashkirtseff was a child of precocious intelligence,ardent will, extreme intensity of life. Maurice Barrès defines itsensibly in saying that she had, "when very young, amalgamated fiveor 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 variedlives with the versatility of children, but she knew how to reserveher personal life of study. It was a strange intellectual solicitudeof the little girl living among idle people and dreaming of"becoming somebody famous." And, completely surrounded by refinedluxury, she knew how to see the humble folk, whose expressivefeatures she has inscribed in a way not to be forgotten in herpictures.
If this journal reveals a precocious intellect, it preserves—andthis is its charm—a spontaneity of childhood—for the little Slavwas a bewitching little girl, with rosy cheeks and clear eyes. Hasshe not evoked all the marvellous imagination of the little ones inthese words: "Because I put on an ermine cloak, I imagine that I ama queen"?
Marie's sentimental life has greatly perturbed her biographers. Theyhave accused her of having a co