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THIRTY-ONE

It is a very, very dark day. My father passed yesterday.

He has always been sickly, but I did not think he was that sickly.

I keep wondering where he is if he’s not here, and this makes me cry.

Maman says he is in heaven, but I do not know where that is except that it is far away and he cannot get back from there.

The Manets are all very upset, especially Grand-Mère and Oncle édouard.

The only one who does not seem upset is Tante Suzanne.

She is married to Oncle édouard, but I do not know why he would ever have married such an unpleasant lady.

She always has a sour expression and is not kind to anyone except her brother, Léon.

The funeral is over, and all the relatives have finally gone back to their own houses.

I am relieved, and I can tell Maman is too.

She has begun painting in her studio again.

Even though she stands in front of the easel for many hours, she is not painting as much as she usually does.

Isabeau and I are back in school. It is good not to be around all those sad people.

Isabeau is still sad and doesn’t want to go to school.

Maman says that she must, and this makes her cry even more.

2 May

I suppose I should officially introduce myself.

I am Aimée Morisot Manet, and I never thought I would like to write in a diary.

But now that I have begun, I like it very much.

It is nice to have someone to talk to who I can tell what I think, instead of always having to be polite and say what other people want me to say.

I am often naughty and can have some bad thoughts.

I do not always do the things Maman asks me to.

For example, saying my prayers every night or bringing the silver into the kitchen after breakfast, which I let Olivia, our maid, do.

Although I have never admitted to these wrongdoings before, I believe that you, my dearest diary, care little about my prayers or the silver.

But I worry you will think less of me if I admit to some of my thoughts.

I hesitate, but now I will say another here.

I think Father never loved me as much as he loved Isabeau.

He was never mean to me, but many times it seemed as if he did not see me when I was right there.

It makes me feel bad even to think this, especially now that he has passed.

It is also possible it is not true. So now you know me better than anyone else.

14 May

Oncle édouard took me on an outing today.

It is a Saturday, and we went in his carriage to Bois de Boulogne, a park I had never been to before that is at the end of the city.

He invited Isabeau too and suggested we all paint together.

Isabeau doesn’t much like painting and said no, but I was happy to leave our unhappy house.

The park is very large and full of winding roads and paths and lots of different kinds of trees.

There are flowers everywhere, and Oncle said May is the best time of the year to see them.

Everything was so beautiful as we rode along, and I asked why we did not stop in any of these places.

He told me he had a special place in mind for our painting.

He brought me to a real Swiss chalet that was built in Switzerland.

He said it took months for it to get here on horse-drawn wagons that had to go over mountains.

It was all in pieces and had to be put together in the park.

And it is on an island in the middle of a lake! It is like a fairy tale come alive.

I did not use paint like Oncle did. I used crayons that were Isabeau’s.

Most of them are broken or do not have pointy tops, but they still worked.

Isabeau doesn’t like them anymore and said they are for babies.

I am not an artist like Maman or Oncle, but I had such a good time with my crayons trying to draw the chalet.

Oncle and I laughed a lot. I was sorry when we had to go home.

10 June

Maman is a very famous painter. Everyone in Paris knows who she is and thinks she is wonderful.

Oncle édouard is also very famous, and their friends like M.

Monet, M. Degas, and M. Renoir are too. I have heard discussions about which of them is the best Impressionist, and it seems many people believe my mother is.

I am very lucky to know so many famous artists and to be related to two of them.

15 July

It is very hot in Paris. Every other summer we go to the country, but it is not proper to take a holiday while we are in mourning.

20 July

It is a little cooler today, so Maman and I went to see an exhibit of the Duret collection. Isabeau did not join us, so I had Maman all to myself. Maman pays a lot of attention to Isabeau because she is always sad, but today she only paid attention to me.

This exhibition was especially wonderful because there were many of Maman’s and Oncle édouard’s paintings.

A picture of Tante Yves and Tanta Edma sitting next to each other was there, and it is one of my favorites.

They are both very old now, and I cannot believe they were ever that young and pretty.

But Maman paints a very good likeness, so I suppose I must believe it.

Oncle’s paintings are darker than Maman’s, and they look more like what you really see.

I like Maman’s better because they are so light and airy that they almost breathe.

And even though they can look blurry, when you step back you see they are not blurry at all.

They are more real than what you really see.

There were some of Oncle édouard’s paintings of Maman.

In the one called “Repose,” she is sitting on the red humpbacked sofa I have seen in Oncle’s studio.

Isabeau says this was when Maman told Oncle she was going to marry Father, but I do not believe this, because Maman does not look happy.

She is sad, of this there is no doubt, but her expression also makes me think there is something that would make her happy if she could only find it.

Can a person be sad and happy at the same time?

Maman came to stand behind me while I was looking at it, and I took a deep breath of her perfume, Violette de Paine, which smells light and airy, just like her paintings.

It is a scent that always makes me happy, because it means I am near my dear mother.

I asked her if she was both sad and happy when Oncle was painting it.

She looked at the picture for a long time before she answered. Finally, she took my hand and pressed it between both of hers. “It was a long time ago, my darling,” she said. “And I was so very young.” Then her eyes turned all sparkly. Sometimes grown-ups do not make any sense at all.