Friday, 17 April 1874

Well, what an affair! Mam'zelle Dina writes. Do you understand -- she writes, she writes! And at my place, before me, beside me, while I write. She is writing to her august mother, I suppose; besides, it does not matter -- the main thing is that she writes. What an affair!
[Crossed out: All] My winter dresses are done for -- dirty and even torn. Simone ruined two of them; finally, in despair, I ordered one from New Scotland. I did not go to the exhibition because this wretched covering for my body was not ready.
We take Bete out while everyone is at Monaco. Barely have we entered the Promenade when something passes us so fast I hardly saw it and did not recognise it. Dina looked for a moment, then: It is Wittgenstein. -- Where? -- Where?
I would never have believed it was he. A cabriolet like old Emile's, drawn by a black horse, Russian and quick. With Rosalie. They looked wretched, like bourgeois. I cannot form an idea of this prince -- to live with this woman as with his wife, calmly; to stroll, drive, ride, drink and gamble!
Every day, exactly, he comes home at six o'clock; madame receives the doctor's visit. All this is so calm, so ordinary, so patriarchal.

Notes

In English in the original.
In English in the original.