Tuesday, 27 January 1874

My hair is rebellious; it escapes and tumbles into curls despite pins and combs. Three-quarters of an hour was barely enough to arrange it. I go out all alone, not having found Maman and Dina at Simone's; I go to look for them at the Promenade, which is brilliant -- there is a military band concert.
I see pass before me the tall Audiffret, Gioia (in Les Decaves they describe a supper where she dances the cachucha. Wittgenstein's real name is Rosalie Leon), Prodgers on horseback, Mmes Souvoroff and Galve, and all the world. I had the carriage turn before No. 77, and near the public garden I meet Maman and Dina in a cab.
We meet Mme Fedoroff and take a turn on the Promenade with her. Mme Fedoroff stays at home, and we go to the house to collect my aunt and Stiopa.
We arrive at the station at the same time as Souvoroff and Galve; those two looked at me today as if they knew me.
From there I run to Simone's to see the fabric from which she will make the clothes for the Galves, who gave the grey jacket as a model. It is made in London -- Wolmershausen, No. 49, Curzon Street, Mayfair. W. -- and not at Manby's. Then I go home to take my Latin lesson with that execrable teacher.
The thought that occupies me most -- that is, the only one that occupies me at present -- is which hat will succeed the one I wear and which bores me so, and then what dress I shall have now. These two questions overwhelm and dominate me. I am burning to leave Nice for Paris. But what I desire even more is to go to England -- it is there that I shall get my hats.
Paul has been ill since yesterday, a sort of bronchitis. If by some misfortune someone were to read my journal, he would conceive the
meanest opinion of me.
I write three pages about a hat and devote barely two lines to my brother's illness. But what does it matter.
This evening, while writing, I saw him like a flash of lightning; I was so happy that I was frightened, I shook my head and passed my hand over my forehead. It was foolish.
At the Strait of Flies, the Labanoffs seem nailed down. Every day, always, one sees them with their usual escort -- Lambertye, Woerman, and another I do not know. The daughter with her amorous Beak always open, stretching from one ear to the other.

Notes

In English in the original.