This is a painting by Marie Bashkirtseff, who from the age of twelve to twenty-five, kept a journal, and painted in France. She died at twenty-five in 1884. The Journal was just sitting there lonesome, waiting for me. I loaned it to my daughter, who just returned it after a year, deciding that she was never going to read it it. It seemed a natural companion to balance Madame Bovary, which I've also started to reread this week. The first ten pages of a gushing twelve year old is just the stuff to extinguish the hate in Flaubert's eye. I'm rereading Flaubert because I want some his hatred in this new book I want to start. Almost every character in Madame Bovary is described in the most mean-spirited way- dear Madame and the good Doctor are more sympathetic because they are portrayed just as losers. Open it anywhere and look at the description of the characters. This is not realism, this is hate.
But who doesn't believe in romance. C'est moi?
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