The Jetsam - Lara Biyuts (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

In her lifetime, according to her contemporary writer Sergey Andreyevsky, she never had a real love affair, unless the only case of affection. Her Diary is free of even a slightest sensuality; in her book, she identified herself as a female merely “in appearance,” despite her unquestionable beauty as a child and her attractiveness and gracefulness in the rest of her life.

The famous French critic François Coppe emotionally describes the image of Marie B in the prime of her life and talent, several months before her death:

“At the moment, Mademoiselle Marie came in. I saw her only once in my life, for an hour or so, but I won’t forget her. Aged 23, she looked younger, of average stature, slim, with a perfect roundish face and golden hair. Her dark eyes were keen, shining with desire to see and know everything. Her lips expressed strength, looking kind and dreamy at the same time. Her nostrils moved like an untamed horse’s. Mademoiselle Bashkirtseff produced an uncommonly strong impression at first glance, impression of strength and tenderness, a latent energy and charm. All in the lovely girl revealed her sublime wit. Despite her female loveliness, one sensed her firm, purely masculine strength. To my congratulations, she replied in a melodious, pleasant voice, confessing, without prudery, in her grand designs, ambitions and desire for fame. We went upstairs to the studio to see other works. My curiosity led me to the darker part of the studio, where I could see volumes on long shelves. There were all creations of human spirit, and all of them were in originals -- French, English, German. Ancient Greeks, Russians and Italians. And the books were not for display. Those books were worn, read, reread and studied. The open grand piano was nearby. Marie’s beautiful hands played all musical authors…” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

His essay sounds like anything but a description of a “blue stocking.”

 Next, he writes, “It was time to take a leave. Strangely, all of a sudden, I felt a latent alarm, a fear -- I don’t venture to say: a presentment. Seeing the pale, passionate girl, I imagined an uncommonly rich hothouse flower, uncommonly fragrant, and a secret inner voice as though whispered to me: ‘Too much at once!’ It was too much indeed.” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

The heroine of his essay herself had time to describe her own life. Her Diary, first published in French, in 1887, in Paris, caused a sensation.

People became possessed by the Diary – some in raptures, some rejected it, some scorned it and even doubted its authenticity -- but nobody, who read it, remained indifferent. The ultimate candidness of the Diary may be a reason why the book was castigated so furiously. In my view, her book as documentary evidence of the epoch will forever remain of great importance, regardless of our judgment or the author’s personality itself. Worth remembering, in regard of criticism and the author’s homeland, the fact that in Russian her book has not been republished till 1999; not a single exhibition of her paintings, therefore, only a few people in Ukraine knew her as a talented artist.

“It seems to me that nobody can love everything more than I love, art, music, painting, books, noise, silence, laughter, sadness, languor, jokes, love, cold, the sun, any weather, all season […] and the mountains surrounding Naples, the snow in winter, autumn with the rains, springtime with its anxiety, the quiet bliss of summer days and the beautiful nights full of bright stars… I love it all, I adore it all. I want to see all, to embrace all, to have all, to merge with all!” [from her Diary, translation is mine. -- L.B.] For me, the optimistic intonation of the statement seems akin to that pivotal to the last monologue of Faust in the tragic play by Goethe.

Next, she writes, “I am like a candle, cut in four, with all ends burning.” 

As author and thinker, she was blamed for excessive evenness of temper in virtue of the fact that she never fell in love with a man but she loved Art, being determined to devote her entire life to Art. True, her famous motto: “Nothing before me. Nothing after me. Nothing but me” -- but without her devotion and labour, the number of her paintings, over 150, could not be created for the short period. The choice of this extraordinary girl was not mysticism, in life as well in art, but naturalism and labour. Her prolificacy is the big difference between her and Oscar Wide, who could have assiduity too, when a student.  

Those, who said that she had more masculine qualities than female ones, that her mind was cold as ice, never read her letters to Maupassant. We can’t do this either, for the correspondence remained only in fragments.

According to some biographers, she never looked for a meeting or a date with the 30-year-old famous writer, but her letters, emotional, brilliantly written, with references to the ancient and modern authors, latently sensual, feminine, witty, with a little bit of melancholy, touched Maupassant’s sophisticated mind, making his heart open to the new affection. Feeling charmed, he desired for new messages. Perhaps, in order to guard himself from the avalanche of tender feelings, which could overflow his mind, he wrote the cynically candid letter, which she decided to regard as offensive. Bashkirtseff replies him for the final time:

“You are not the one who I am looking for. However, I am looking for nobody, for I believe that men must be only accessories in the life of strong women. You and I scarcely were made for each other. You are not worth me, and I am so sorry for this. I’d love ever so much to see a man who I could talk with.” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

The correspondence stopped as well as this odd epistolary love affair, and all Maupassant’s attempts to begin it again were in vain.

She was lonely again, but her isolation was that of a scholar, a young scholar; in her shell, in the shell of the bright young thing of her time, there were music, paintings and books. The book-fever possessed her. The thirst for new knowledge.

She began reading in Latin, French, English -- books and a dozen newspapers a day. Ignoring doctors’ advices, she played piano several hours a day – harmful to her health. Ignoring her own carnal weakness, never talking about her illness, she jested at her cough, and she agreed to take care of her coughing problem seriously, when it was too late. Paris was always a wrong place for TB patients. If Marie agreed to live a life of a plant in a high-mountain sanatorium, she could live longer or get better. But no; her dream was to give herself to painting entirely, as the art the only aim worth her effort; and in 1877, in Paris, she entered the Académie Julian.

According to memoires, Professor Julian said about her: “I thought that it’s only a caprice of a spoilt child, but I have to say that she does work, that she has willpower, and she is talented. If it lasts, then in three months her drawings may be submitted to le Salon.”

Her drawings were accepted, and the beautiful brocade of her Diary had got a new gaudy ornament, as the author began sounding as a true artist:

“The point is not that one must work as a machine; the point is that one should be always busy, thinking of one’s business. This is happiness… Then, everything looks differently; then, minor misfortunes cannot upset you. You feel above all minor; your entire being seems to hold something irradiant; you have a divine condescension to the pathetically mobbing people who cannot know the secret, disturbing and diverse reasons of your bliss – the bliss more perishable than any of most tender flowers… My eyes are opening little by little. In the past, I could see only a picture’s drawing and plot. Today… oh, today, I would do it as I see it – I would have talent! I view Landscape, I view and love Landscape – water, air, colours – yes, colours! I feel like I’ve entered a new phase. Everything seems insignificant and uninteresting, everything, with the exception of my work. Life could be wonderful, if it came down to this alone.” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

At the Academy, she worked hard 12-14 hours a day, nearly spending whole nights at the easel and canvas. Looking at her works, the teachers kept asking her, a beginner, whether she painted the pictures herself or with somebody else’s aid. There was a rumor in the Academy that most of her pictures were made by the artist Bastien-Lepage, the master of realistic landscapes, with whom the “possessed Russian had a love affair.” Marie wrote in the Diary that as a teacher, Bastien-Lepage could not inspire for long, and that if she seemed to imitate Bastien-Lepage unwittingly in her art, then this impression was wrong. 

A votaress of naturalism in Art, she wrote about life, colours and hues that were “real and singing.” She won medals and prizes at exhibitions; she did know her lifetime Fame, but she never was tempted by it: 

“I don’t feel a victorious joy, because the travail is the cost of my victory, and nothing unexpected is in it. I feel I am on the way to something more sublime and perfect, so, all what have been created cannot satisfy me.” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

True, she was on the way to the sublime, but it was to be out of the life. The advanced tuberculosis has sapped her last strength; she had to spend a lot of her time lying in bed which was greatly interrupting her studies -- but in her last, incomplete picture we can see a young woman sitting on the grass in the sunlit garden in springtime.

She died on the rainy 31 of October, 1884.

Le Figaro’s obituary reporting her death on 1.11.1884 sounds authentic and somewhat funny:

“We inform about death of the girl famous for some achievements in fine art […] Mlle Bashkirtseff passed away. At the latest exhibition of le Salon, her painting The Meeting attracted attention of many viewers. Her income was 200000 francs, at least. She was going to get married, but her fiancé disappeared. Consequently, with her broken heart, she tried to become famous for her talent. One morning, she caught a cold, when drawing sketches outdoors. She expired in two weeks, and her last breath was on the day when her aunt’s fund-raising amounted to 2 million francs for building a wonderful mansion-studio for her.” [translation is mine. -- L.B.]

Many wrote about Bashkirtseff’s strong self-adoration, ambition and pride, but I believe that there was something other in her nature and life and on her mind. Like every outstanding person, she quickly outgrew the level of the people, who surrounded her – however loving and devoted they were -- and she began to live her own life, realizing that she was fated to loneliness. “For of those to whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48). Her life, short and bright like a falling star, proved this saying. Her talents and knowledge of literature, music, fine art and chemistry amazed her contemporaries, but her brilliant debut and the cascade of delightful expectations ended rather rapidly.

 Her legacy is the thousand page book and several canvases in art galleries of Paris and Nice. 

Her relatives took away the rest of her pictures which were largely destroyed afterwards, in the beginning of WWII, when a bombing of Kiev suburbs began. And yet her name did not pass into oblivion. French Government commissioned the statue of Immortality, and among names inscribed on the scroll in hands of Immortality there was her name.

The serious illness robbed her of her vocal ability; her paintings are mostly lost to viewers; the survived ones look somewhat unimpressive – but the name of