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November 10, 2008, 09:29 AM ET
After Reading Marie Bashkirtseff at 21
( I came across the diary of 19th-century feminist artist and writer Marie Bashkirtseff when I was living in England in 1978; her life terrified and enthralled me in equal measures. I wrote this in my notebook 30 years ago today.)
The canvas, big as a door, absorbs the Paris morning light. Pencil sketches made in the rain lie overturned. White paints rub into your hair, red oils stain your fingers; you move in sudden gestures and broad strokes, murmuring to yourself: “Paint more quickly.”
As a child writing in the night you recorded premonitions: three candles lit in a room, a sparrow caught in the greenhouse, flying against the glass. You feared your death as shopkeepers fear thieves.
Yet darker words written by an older hand say that magic and signs have little power.
Tragedies do not happen, Marie, because mirrors break; mirrors break because tragedies will happen.
You were thankful, you wrote, for the warning. Brush and pen like the hands of a clock, you worked against the days.
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