October 1926 ~ March 1927

October 16.

This morning we are driving to Morlaix to spend the day, Camille, Mimy and I - because I have a little Mimy in my life.

Mimy followed me, led by friendship, drawn by my grief. She followed me, ardent, passionate, true and beautiful - oh, so beautiful! Mimy never leaves me by day or by night. She is here with her fervent and splendid soul, her fierce Italian love.

My husband is in correspondence with Maitre Collet, to whom he writes false and insinuating things such as: 'Do everything you possibly can, dear Maitre, to help my wife, of whom I never stop thinking with immense grief.' Then: 'If my wife considers our separation to be final - something which I am unable to believe (!) - I ask that she send me all the letters I received from her, which are in a casket together with all her photographs.' - And then this: 'You hold my will, which is in my wife's favour. It will remain so. Be good enough to attach this letter to it in confirmation.'

Nathalie Barney flew to my side as soon as she heard of my arrival at Margot's little flat at 91 boulevard Malesherbes. She knew Eugene Thiebaut, a former diplomat at Washington, who was Manon's uncle. Nathalie brought him to see me. He showed me a letter dated July 6 in which Manon asked him to let her family know of her 'departure with Prince Ghika for abroad, and for many long years.' She had no doubts about it, but she did add that she was very sorry for the distress which she was about to cause her family, and for ruining Princess Ghika's life. At bottom the Thiebauts are divided between shame and the wish to see their Manon become Princess Georges Ghika as soon as possible. As for the Ghikas, they must certainly be satisfied at our separation, but worried about what that idiot Georges is getting up to now ! At twenty he wanted to kill himself for Ventura (of the Comédie-Française); at twenty-six he married Liane de Pougy! Now, at forty-two, he lets himself be abducted by a little schemer. All this is likely to cost money, and Georges has none. I have my little income; while he was with me he fell into neither debt nor folly.

October 18.

I have Mimy. It happened like this: during the summer Nathalie wrote me a line saying that she was in love, madly in love with a woman, and that this love outstripped all her other loves by a long way. Rather vexed, I answered : 'The best in your life was me ! Me! Me!'

As soon as I arrived in Paris, in Margot's charming little flat, I called Nathalie who came to me, affectionate and approving: 'You have done the right thing, Liane, I am so glad. You must keep it up...' She held me in her arms, listened, advised, sent flowers, took me to the Duchess's, showed me the sweetest and most compassionate tenderness. My friends rallied round, adorable to me and indignant at Prince Ghika, saying : 'It's abominable ! How could he fall so low ! You were his whole truth. He will be sorry - but don't ever take him back! He was such a bore; he got on everyone's nerves; he diminished you.' I heard endless versions of this. In short I was made much of, comforted, smothered in flowers, almost celebrated. Jean Cocteau came, very shocked, to pour out calming words, floods of healing poetry with which to express my agony. As he will also come, I hope, to sing my deliverance.

October 19.

My little Margot offered me a room and a bathroom in her new apartment at 15 rue Verniquet, and it was a life-raft. I accepted with affection and enthusiasm. Camille had a little mattress in the bathroom. She never left me, my faithful newfoundland, devoted, alert, rather crusty, a little bit mangy, but mine come what may with all her loyalty and love.

And Nathalie was there. I - who am so scared of her thunder and also so afraid of doing her the least harm because through it all I love her deeply - this is what I did or rather had done to me, because nothing was started by me except a loyal and determined struggle in which I was defeated because Mimy, my Mimy is here, she's asleep in the room next to mine as I write these words and I shall soon be going in to kiss her awake.

Nathalie, sitting by my bed one day: 'Liane, the one I love is waiting outside. You are so beautiful, you have been so great, so admirable, may I bring her in to see you for a moment so that she can contemplate you, so that you can see her?' - 'Yes,' I said without much interest. 'Bring her in, go and fetch her.' And in she came, tall, slender, white as a magnolia flower, her enchanting gestures so graceful, small, rare, precise, fiery eyes, an almost unreal fineness. She bent over me, over my cruel suffering.

We talked. I told my pitiful story for Mimy. She didn't say a great deal. Nathalie wanted them both to carry me off to the country. I refused, overcome by weariness. They left me. But did they really leave me? Two minutes later a bunch of fresh roses was brought in which they had left for me at once, before going right away.

October 20.

They came back. It was in the middle of the night. I awoke to hear Nathalie's voice calling me. Camille went to open the door. It was her, then Mimy with a violinist friend of theirs, Pola (who was a pupil of Sarasate). It was like a lovely dream. Nathalie on one side, stroking and caressing me; Mimy on the other, her lips on mine; Pola playing for us in the next room...

They came back - often. They made much of me, they took me out, they dressed my wounds. Mimy and I loved each other. Her presence was my heaven of joy and forgetfulness.

Nathalie became jealous. Nathalie loves in her own way. She wants her friends to be happy up to a certain point. She is dissolute; she adores directing love's revels, leading them on, halting them, starting them up again. What she loves is bodies, and reactions. We ran through the whole gamut - but Mimy loved me and I found her adorable.

October 21.

Before I left for Deauville with Margot and Camille I decided to end things, avoid goodbyes, behave as though I were indifferent.

I arrived at the Normandy and I had not yet taken off my hat when I saw Mimy's maid pop up in front of me with a note from Mimy telling me that she was there, loving me and waiting for me. I stamped my foot in a moment of rage at my courage being wasted like that; then, with my heart leaping, I followed Suzanne and fell straight into the arms of Mimy: a tired Mimy, a Mimy in bed, a Mimy who loved me and wanted me and pursued me.

October 23.

Clos-Marie(her apartment.) is no longer mine: I have just leased it for eighteen years to my Mimy, to the adorable woman who has shown me that I can still be loved - oh joy! - and still love - oh happiness! She is beautiful and vital, fervent, subtle and fine, amusing and gay. She brings together every one of Heaven's gifts. She is charm itself. She laughs, and everything around her becomes joyful. She walks, and the dance of her graceful body dazzles those who watch. She speaks: her voice is serious and soft, arresting, a little husky. She sings: one is conquered to the very depths of one's being by the warm, velvety, harmonious, enveloping timbre. She is tall - the tiniest bit taller than I - fine boned. She has the prettiest gestures. She is white, her eyes gleam, a greenish hazel, her eyelashes throw shadows, her eyebrows are delicate. Tiny blue veins are visible under the transparancy of the skin on her face and neck, on her body too. She has the most ravishing legs in the whole world, long, with amazingly delicate joints.

October 27.

Mimy's love is ardent, impassioned, whole, jealous. Love in the Italian style! It sings, it shouts, it howls in keeping with her beauty, her gestures, her fiery glance. Mimy is a creature of excess.

We stay in bed late of a morning; we have breakfast; we tease; we laugh; we kiss. We open our letters. She gives me an Italian lesson: verbs, vocabulary, dictation, translation. We have a very good time. She sings me the blues, which I adore, or else Italian songs, in her deep, vibrant voice. We separate, then meet again on the little rockbeach. Mimy hunts for pebbles. She loves stones and discovers marvellous ones with bright colours and unusual shapes. We trim the shrubs in the garden. We go into the town. Everyone loves my Mimy, everyone smiles at her and gives her flowers. We take heaps and heaps of photographs. We come home again and Mimy plays the gramophone. She opens a book: D'Annunzio's poems or the stories of Mark Twain. I read too. Time passes so quickly. Everyone is amazed by my cheerful face, suddenly so much younger. They all say to me: 'Your expression has changed. Monsieur le Prince never used to laugh, you used to look as though you were bored.' It was true, yet I thought I possessed a marvellous treasure!

Sometimes we have quarrels: Mimy has already accumulated so many memories ! Me too. We tell each other - and that's a mistake. The one who is listening suffers and becomes angry.

October 29.

...Two days later I left Venice, and hardly was I in the train before my temperature shot up. My companions didn't know what to do. I had the courage to carry on as far as Lausanne. There we left the train at dawn and I was put into the Royal Hotel. A doctor was called who diagnosed congestion in both lungs. Margot sent a telegram to my Mimy who answered at once : 'Will be in Lausanne today all love.' The darling! So Lolo, who had to be in Paris urgently, was able to continue his journey after finding a flat for me and my friends, paying for it and leaving me some money. Margot was ready to stay with me but I know how crazy she is about her Lolo and how she needs him, so I insisted absolutely that she should go with him. I was getting better. Stuffed with drugs and shattered by that frightful journey, I plunged into sleep and my body's natural defences did the rest. When Nathalie came into my room next morning, followed by Mimy, they found me so far on the road to recovery that - although Mimy dared to rejoice - Nathalie was quite cross with me for not being dead after upsetting them with such an alarming telegram.

I had to stay at Lausanne for five days. Meanwhile Nathalie sent to Paris for her car, her smooth, shiny, silent, Buick; and after entrusting Camille to the express and her own resources, Nathalie, Mimy and my almost recovered self set off.

The first stage was as far as Thonon. The Hotel du Pare welcomed us agreeably: two nice communicating rooms, one with two beds, sharing a bathroom. That was how we lived for five days. We covered 1,500 kilometres, laughing, singing and - Mimy and I - loving. We restrained our love in order not to give too much pain to Nathalie who began to torment me with the most bitter reproaches, really absurd, and to make the most unexpected suggestions: 'Do this to her, not that; give her this and not that.' I told her: 'Nathalie, I am me. It was you who brought her to me and threw her into my arms. Instead of frivolity and naughtiness, what happened was the birth of feelings which both of us need.'

October 30.

One evening we slept at Bourg. Still Mimy in the double room chosen by Nathalie and me next door in the little single room as though I were their daughter. Although we did try very hard, Mimy and I ended by joining each other. She made me laugh so much when she said plaintively: 'Since when have mothers-in-law insisted on travelling with young couples?' We were cruel in the way we let ourselves go. All day in the car we held hands, our lips met.

November 1.

We left for Roscoff like two children going on holiday. Nathalie left for the South of France. She must have been furious with me.

When I and my burden came into Mimy's life she reached out to offer me help. She sensed the truth of my grief and my life. She loved me, she still loves me. It cannot last - nothing lasts. But it's so beautiful, so simple, so complete. Perhaps this morning, when my kiss wakes her, I shall feel that her love has vanished during the night ... I am alert for anything, I clutch at nothing, I let myself drift. I pay attention only to the present, I let the minutes run through my fingers and see only the last of them. Grace is refused me. I love Mimy, but whether she stays or whether she goes my love will not be transposed. She is there and she is not there. I hold her and I can't feel her. I hold her and I see her going. I believe in her love and already I'm sacrificing it. When she tells me 'Always', it is I who want to leave as the word is uttered. When I answer 'We will never part' I feel the wish to disappear for ever, to flee without looking back. I don't really know what I want; I don't really know what I feel. If I spend an hour apart from her I truly believe that it will be for ever. Georges killed all the trust in me, even trust in myself. I say to the Lord : 'My God, it is You I love, it is You I want to serve, it is You I want to find! I do not live according to Your law, but what am I to do ? I deliver myself utterly into Your hands. Tear out that which displeases You, make me what You would have me be.'

November 7.

Here I am installed with my Uncle and Aunt Burguet; Mimy has gone home to 44 rue du Bac, feeling ill with a bronchial infection which she thinks has been building up for some days. Away from her and her charm I breathe better, I feel more myself. I think more freely, I live more healthily. Mimy never stops smoking, loves sauces, rich cakes, staying in bed, making scenes, reading funny magazines, running down her friends. She is fanciful, bossy, wounding, inconsistent. She is a conquest-maker. She loves me, but she indulges in a lot of little affectations which don't, in fact, conceal much. I have to say all this in order to recover my freedom of thought and action; and I am able to say it because I am clear-sighted and at present am incapable of a great love or even of a serious infatuation.

November 15.

The most frightful things are going on! Georges demands that I should forgive him and says that if I don't take him back there is nothing left for him but death. So that is what the little schemer has reduced him to. I sent my answer to Madame Morel by Mimy. 'There's nothing left to hope for. I am going on with my divorce.' I see Maitre Moro-Giaferi every day. I am not a good Christian but I have been brave in my renunciation, oh God, I have given myself over entirely to Your will. Come to my aid. I say today, as I did then: 'Make me say what You want me to say; make me do what You want me to do.' But... what a terrible confession I am going to have to make to Your representative. I dare not approach it. Help me!

**1927

January 1.

1926 over and done with: a year which - without doubt - I must consider one of deliverance. I welcome you with open arms, oh my destiny! Thank you for the flame which lights my hearth, for the good fire which warms me. Thank you for friends, for gifts. Thank you for what I am still able to detach from myself and give to others. Thank you for Jean Cocteau's intelligent and soothing telephone call, for Max Jacob's feeling letter, for the dear Burguets' heartfelt hospitality, for Mimy's love.

What a lot of blessings I owe you already, first day of the new year! Smiling resignation, calm, cheerfulness.

Thank you, God, for everything.

(a note from the translator, Diana Athill)

That entry is followed by two months of silence. When Liane takes up her pen again Georges is back. She does not explain how this came about. Her new name for him, 'Gilles', is evidently an attempt to convince them both that they can make a new start.

March 1.

With him I am alone. Gilles still contains Georges Ghika, his faults, his instincts, his baseness. He gives me all of it, wrapped up in his love and remorse, and in a good deal of reserve. So the gift he makes of himself is complete ! Ought I to feel sorry for myself? I let my life drift; it carried us along, separated us, brought us together again. I have left Mimy Franchetti who would have liked me to live against my inclinations, against what I firmly believe to be my truth. I am afraid of every word we pronounce, I don't speak unless I cannot avoid it. I also distrust the silences. Gilles is shrunken, older, grinning, maniacal. We are living in the house of Jane Henriquez, the former singer reduced to this work by the cost of living - really rather hard for a nightingale ! We go for walks . . . Mimy Franchetti was dreadfully unhappy when I left her. I was unhappy. Our sensuality had its dear little habits. I tore all that up in one minute.

March 10.

I am so unhappy I could die. I told Jean Bouscatel to introduce Mimy to Emilienne d'Alençon. Today Bouscatel wrote to say that he is going out with the two of them all the time. And it pierces my heart! My Mimy is going to forget me, to find consolation. She is with Emilienne; for me it's all over, over for good. I loved her so, so much... Letter from Salomon Reinach. He is ill. He is wrong in supposing that the present blue notebook will be edifying and fascinating. Our life is pretty awful and I absolutely refuse to expatiate on it. I don't even want to think much about myself, I want to keep busy, devote myself to something... My aspirations are always lofty. Will they ever be crowned in keeping with their elevation?

Source: Liane de Pougy, My Blue Notebooks. Trans. Diana Athill. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002.

#memoir #blue