The confessions are by no means a human document in the sense that her three patron saints—Zola, Maupassant, and Goncourt—would have used the word. They do not contain a single naked reality. They are modest, not only with the modesty of a child of nature, but with the modesty of a young hot-house beauty, a delicate lady of fashion, beneath whose snow-white resplendent dress—the work of a Parisian dressmaker—are concealed the bleeding wounds and the pitiless signs of death. But she lets us follow her from the rich beginnings of her youth onwards, until the stream of life trickles away drop by drop, leading us on to the weary resignation of her last days.
This exhaustion begins to show itself immediately after the two years of reckless overwork and study in Julian’s studio; but the cause of it was mental rather than physical. Julian’s last words were: “You have learned all that it is possible to teach—the rest depends upon yourself.” And Robert-Fleury, the principal academical professor, nodded his approval. After that they left her. But where was she to begin? Where was the rest to come from? What was she to do—she, who had been such a phenomenal pupil? How was she to obtain sufficient individuality for original production? Learn! yes, of course. A girl can do that better than the most painstaking young man of the faculty. There is nothing to prevent it; her sex will slumber as long as the brain is kept at work. But artistic production is another matter. Whence should it come? Not from herself, for she has nothing; she has had no experience. She can represent what she has seen, or she can imagine, but that is all. Marie’s nature was too truthful to be satisfied with imitation. The old academical art did not appeal to her, as was very natural, and the new was just bursting its shell, and contained all the impurity and rubbish that belongs to a state of transition. The imperfect in her desired the perfect; she who was an incomplete woman felt the need of a perfected man.
She made no progress. She painted at home from models, and she went out driving with her maid, accompanied by some young Russian friends, and sketched street scenes from the carriage. So great was her need for ideas that she attempted pictures on religious and historical subjects, and with some difficulty she finished a picture for the next Salon,—went half mad with empty pride, but had to admit that it was very much inferior to the former one which she had painted under Julian’s supervision. For two years she meets with no success. Her pictures contain nothing that is characteristic; she has no individual style, no personal experiences, and no original ideas. But her individuality, though dormant, is too strong to allow her to imitate the style of other lady artists, one half of whom are too amateurish, and their painting too devoid of character, to content her, while the others have betrayed their sex, and adopted a severe, masculine style.
At last the day came when Bastien Lepage was a public celebrity. Marie Bashkirtseff saw his pictures, became his pupil, worshipped him, and ever after sang his praises.
Yet, in all this, there was something lacking.
His bright coloring, and the atmosphere of his landscapes, with their pale, sultry heat, the aggressive physical character of his people, etc.,—all these points appealed strongly to her South-Russian nature. He set free her national feelings, which had hitherto been bound and suppressed beneath academical influences, and she discovered a kindred spirit in him, a primitive element at the root of his being, which made her tenderly disposed towards him. But she had no intention of remaining his pupil. She was too deeply conscious of the difference between them, and saw clearly that his influence was not likely to be more than a passing phase.
She worshipped him from a long-suppressed desire to worship some one, but her worship was calm and passionless. This little Bastien Lepage was not the man to arouse her deepest affections; he was too bourgeois, and his fine art was too tame.
And yet she praised him, half mechanically. Saint Marceaux, the sculptor, had appealed to her feelings more deeply than he had done.
There was a reason for it. 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 Marie Bashkirtseff was ill from want of life,—her youth, her beauty, her vitality, had all been wasted.