At one time Mlle. Bashkirtseff had suffered with her eyes, and, getting better of that, she had an attack of deafness. For these reasons she went, in the summer of 1880, to Mont-Dore for treatment, and was much benefited in regard to her deafness, though not cured, and now the condition of her lungs was recognized, and what she had realized for some time was told to her family. She suffered greatly from the restrictions of her condition. She could not read very much, as her eyes were not strong enough to read and paint; she avoided people because of her deafness; her cough was very tiresome and her breathing difficult.
At the Salon of 1881 her picture was well hung and was praised by artists. In the autumn of that year she was very ill, but happily, about the beginning of 1882, she was much better and again enthusiastic about her painting. She had been in Spain and excited admiration in Madrid by the excellence of her copy of "Vulcan," by Velasquez. January 15th she wrote: "I am wrapped up in my art. I think I caught the sacred fire in Spain at the same time that I caught the pleurisy. From being a student I now begin to be an artist. This sudden influx of power puts me beside myself with joy. I sketch future pictures; I dream of painting an Ophelia. Potain has promised to take me to Saint-Anne to study faces of the mad women there, and then I am full of the idea of painting an old man, an Arab, sitting down singing to the accompaniment of a kind of guitar; and I am thinking also of a large affair for the coming Salon—a view of the Carnival; but for this it would be necessary that I should go to Nice—to Naples first for the Carnival, and then to Nice, where I have my villa, to paint it in open air."
She now met Bastien-Lepage, who, while he was somewhat severe in his criticism of her work, told her seriously that she was "marvellously gifted." This gave her great pleasure, and, indeed, just at this time the whole tone of the journal and her art enthusiasm are most comforting after the preceding despairing months. From this time until her death her journal is largely occupied with her health, which constantly failed, but her interest in art and her intense desire to do something worthy of a great artist—something that Julian, Robert-Fleury, and, above all, Bastien-Lepage, could praise, seemed to give her strength, and, in spite of the steady advance of the fell tuberculosis from which she was dying, she worked devotedly.
She had a fine studio in a new home of the family, and was seized with an ardent desire to try sculpture—she did a little in this art—but that which proved to be her last and best work was her contribution to the Salon of 1884. This brought her to the notice of the public, and she had great pleasure, although mingled with the conviction of her coming death and the doubts of her ability to do more. Of this time she writes: "Am I satisfied? It is easy to answer that question; I am neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. My success is just enough to keep me from being unhappy. That is all."
Again: "I have just returned from the Salon. We remained a long time seated on a bench before the picture. It attracted a good deal of attention, and I smiled to myself at the thought that no one would ever imagine the elegantly dressed young girl seated before it, showing the tips of her little boots, to be the artist. Ah, all this is a great deal better than last year! Have I achieved a success, in the true, serious meaning of the word? I almost think so."
The picture was called the "Meeting," and shows seven gamins talking together before a wooden fence at the corner of a street. François Coppée wrote of it: "It is a chef d'oeuvre, I maintain. The faces and the attitudes of the children are strikingly real. The glimpse of meagre landscape expresses the sadness of the poorer neighborhoods."
Previous to this time, her picture of two boys, called "Jean and Jacques," had been reproduced in the Russian Illustration, and she now received many requests for permission to photograph and reproduce her "Meeting," and connoisseurs made requests to be admitted to her studio. All this gratified her while it also surprised. She was at work on a picture called "Spring," for which she went to Sèvres, to paint in the open.
Naturally she hoped for a Salon medal, and her friends encouraged her wish—but alas! she was cruelly disappointed. Many thought her unfairly treated, but it was remembered that the year before she had publicly spoken of the committee as "idiots"!
People now wished to buy her pictures and in many ways she realized that she was successful. How pathetic her written words: "I have spent six years, working ten hours a day, to gain what? The knowledge of all I have yet to learn in my art, and a fatal disease!"
It is probable that the "Meeting" received no medal because it was suspected that Mlle. Bashkirtseff had been aided in her work. No one could tell who had originated this idea, but as some medals had been given to women who did not paint their pictures alone, the committee were timid, although there seems to have been no question as to superiority.