I felt weak this morning and resolved not to go to church, but as it is nearly two weeks since I have gone out or seen anyone, I longed¹ for the hour of the Promenade, for the wretched society here are still living souls. [Crossed out: but I] We went out at three o'clock and drove to Gambart's. He is away, but we wanted to see his new marble palace; Georges is with us. To our astonishment we find Ernesto back from Venice. He shows us in and talks in that jerky, extraordinary manner of his. His manners might well scandalise those who do not know him; I am not yet entirely used to them, but he is very pleasant. At the music, only Nice folk, nothing but Nice folk — it is tedious. Here I am in this Nice I longed for at Ostend — but it was another Nice I imagined. Nice was the Promenade after a rain, beginning to fill with people, as I love, in their rain clothes, and Blackprince with his dogs and even his bitch. And the thing is, Nice is no longer the same. I was forgetting to note a rather curious thing. Every time my mother is very ill and I am at her side, I seem to see Prince Wittgenstein in his yellow jacket, walking on tiptoe and peering into the room with great dark Prater eyes. The first time I saw him was when Maman was so ill during the night at the Villa Baquis, and they sent to wake the Anitchkoffs. I happened to look at the door and he appeared in the corridor. The second time was last Thursday, while I stood beside Maman on the balcony, for she felt faint and needed air. He wore the same clothes as the first time. One must not think I saw him in flesh and blood, but simply in my imagination, without believing in any vision or phantom. What seemed singular to me is that I see him only in the cases I describe, and always with the same posture and the same yellow jacket. Papa, in front of Mme Daniloff, said that my aunt loses too much money; to which I said she lost her own. Then Papa said that part of the money was his too. At this I was indignant, because he meant to say, before Mme Daniloff, that we live at his expense — which is a lie, as it would be a lie to say he lives at ours. I go up to my room, and by these words Papa has almost given me back the downstairs room, for he took a tone that is not fitting, in my eyes, to take.