[Footnote A:  Marie Bashkirtseff’s governess.]

If, when I am grown up, I should marry B——­ what a life it would be!  To stay all alone, that is, surrounded by commonplace men, who will want to flirt with me, and be carried away by the whirl of pleasure.  I dream of and wish for all these things, but with a husband I love and who loves me—.

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.

B——­ isn’t worth while.  I shall never marry him.  If he begs me on his knees, I shall be—­oh, I forgot the word—­I shall be firm.  No, that isn’t the word, but I know what I mean.  Yet if he loves me very much, very deeply, if he cannot live without me—­vain phrases!  Do not let us meet.  I don’t wish to be weak.

I am firm, I will be resolute.  I mean to have the Duc de H——.  I love him at least.  His dissipated life may be forgiven him.  But the other—­no!

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.

I love the Duc de H——­ and I cannot tell him so.  Even if I did, he would pay no attention to it.  O, God!  I pray Thee!  When he was here, I had an object in going out, in dressing.  But now!  I went to the terrace hoping to see him in the distance for at least a second.

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!

Oh, dear!  I imagine him dead, and that nothing can draw him nearer to me.  What a terrible thought!  I have tears in my eyes, and still more in my heart.  I am weeping.  If I did not love him I might console myself.  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.

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.