Bashkirtseff
Orig | CZ

New Year's Eve

Basic Aktualizováno: 2025-12-07

Research Status: Basic Last Updated: 2025-12-07 Diary Coverage: Up to 1873-12-31

Overview

New Year's Eve celebrations and rituals as experienced by Marie Bashkirtseff in Nice. The most significant entry is December 31, 1873, where Marie performs an intimate midnight ritual with the Duke of Hamilton's photograph.

Key Observances

December 31, 1873 - Midnight Ritual

Marie describes a powerful private ritual:
  • Leaves theater early to be alone at midnight
  • Locks herself in her room
  • Hair loose, in chemise (nightgown)
  • Hamilton's photograph placed before her
  • Brings salon clock to hear midnight strike
  • Tradition: write your wish as the clock strikes midnight
  • Her wish: "Marry a very rich English duke, live" - wanted to add "live as I love" but ran out of time
  • Trembling, heart beating "like a hammer," barely breathing
  • Reflects: "I meet this year with her [his wife], and me, all alone with the bit of his nape and back before me [the photo]"

Social Contrasts

Marie bitterly compares elegant Nice society celebrations (Mme Prodgers with champagne, Gioia's "extraordinary cataclysm") versus her family's celebration which she describes as "like animals... worse than animals." She prays to God to "deliver me from this odious way of living."

Emotional State

She notes that domestic misery makes her "forget Hamilton" - using the metaphor: "When you have a headache you must cut the skin, one pain will make you forget the other but not calm it."

Cultural Context

The midnight wish-writing tradition appears to be a 19th-century European custom. The intimate ritual with a beloved's photograph reflects Victorian romantic practices, though Marie's intensity and the physical description (hair loose, in nightgown) suggests deep emotional/erotic elements unusual for a 14-year-old girl of her class.

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