One begins to see a few new people, and though it does not rain, the beginning of the season begins.

I went out on foot with Paul (grey dress, yesterday's hairstyle — good; ankle boots from the new shipment from Ferry; small feet — they were noticed). I saw on the right, on a bench, with her back to me, the red-haired Scottish woman Menzies, whom I met at Ostend through Florence Foster. I passed her, but can I pass unnoticed? In a second I heard someone running behind me — it was she. Accosted thus, I was very amiable; we went as far as the public garden, then climbed back up to our house and visited the garden.

Nina (Mme Sapogenikoff) and Paris (Yourkoff) — so nicknamed by Nina's children, who named him Paris — and a certain Monsieur and Madame Laloff, in Geneva, Menelaus and Helen, by revealing a so-called fickle character. Nina tells everything herself.

Nina and Paris, as I was saying, have been here for an hour and will sleep here — one would say together, but... Ange takes tea and plays four hands with Dina.

Papa growled when I made him an absolutely necessary observation in a whisper, for he was saying that they play badly, and when Paris sang, he said that without a voice, singing is worth nothing, et cetera. He sent me to the devil out loud. I do not know whether this man ever had any wit; now he is stupefied — he tells stories with superfluous details to the point of absurdity, believing he narrates like Turgenev, yet finds nothing to say but impossible obscenities that make me blush before the servants.

I have heard this since I was born; I have never lived otherwise, and the further I go, the more I am indignant at these improper vileness uttered at every instant and without regard for my presence, before the servants and the people who come to see us. This complete absence of understanding — I no longer speak of delicacy — astonishes me ever more. But what astonishes me most is that I am still astonished. La Rochefoucauld said much the same thing.