aying 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. Take away this grief,
and I shall be a thousand times more unhappy. The pain makes my
happiness. I live for it alone. All my thoughts are centred there.
The Duc de H---- is my all. I love him so much. That is a very
ancient and old-fashioned phrase, since people no longer love."

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 Barres says,[A] "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."

RENEE D'ULMES.

[Footnote A: _La Legende d'une cosmopolite_.]

NEW JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF

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