"Upon my faith, I find you absurd! What more do you want to be done to you? I shall not greet them, and if you do, apart from the impropriety of such an action, they will invent yet another new piece of nonsense."

I had no difficulty in not greeting them — for they kept their eyes lowered, looked abashed, and had clearly been ordered not to acknowledge us.

But had we been established in society, no riffraff could do anything to us. Let them try to dislodge the Prodgers, or Madame Sabatier, and so on — but basta!¹ One knows all the circumstances well enough. Our story is necessary to my journal; I shall end it where my journal proper begins.

I am going to the opera. (Pink dress and my hairstyle — good. I look as if I were twelve, Maman says. So much the better.)

I am writing; Dina comes in, and I compose this acrostic for her:

On arriving I was nearly in despair to find the house empty — but by the middle of the evening it filled; one even saw the Audiffrets, father and son, Lambertye with little Parachewsky.

Presently Prodgers arrived at d'Audiffret's box — but they had scarcely been alone five minutes when the Commandant arrived; the moment he came in, d'Audiffret slipped away, went to Lambertye's box, and into the box separating Prodgers's from Lambertye's (in which there is a sort of actress) — and he did not return to Prodgers's. The father kept going in and out. The poor bespectacled woman, after half an hour's company of the immovable Commandant, seized her fur coat with evident ill humour, and her scarf or muffler with still more, and departed.

Constantin had retired with Enotëas³ to a box on the second tier (the bel étage), next to the main box — concealing himself; occasionally I caught a glimpse of a pair of opera glasses appearing from behind the column that divides the boxes.

[Crossed out: As we left] They are giving Il Trovatore, and Eleonora is so comical that I enjoy this opera better than any other. At the last act, when she began — fuggi, fuggi sei perduto⁴ — I burst out laughing, for she is particularly ridiculous at this point, and I imitate her rather well. The tenor, as stout as she is, who was supposed to support this large Eleonora as she went off dying in the most ungainly manner imaginable, was also laughing; and at the moment of saying — ed io osava quest'angelo maledir⁵ — he lowered his head and laughed. Dory-Azucena, lying on her pallet, was smiling too. Only Pastalis was not laughing — she was in earnest, and was dissolving herself in grimaces.

On leaving, Galula greeted us, apologising on account of his dress for not having come to the box. Almost at the moment we were getting into the carriage, Dina began to beg us to wait a minute — her father was coming — but as no one was stopping, she said he was with his son. For some mad reason I turned round and searched the crowd, thus remaining a few seconds longer.

At home I told this piece of Dina's foolishness — whereupon she cried:

— "Well, do you know why I wanted to wait?"

— "Pardieu — to see that beauty," I said.

— "Not at all! It was because Constantin was running towards us at full speed."

— "Nonsense!" — then after a short pause: "Swear to me it is true."

— "I swear."

— "Give me your solemn word of honour."

— "I give it."

— "Then you have lied; the man was not there — he had gone out long before the end."

— "No, I swear it is true; he was running down the service staircase and was pushing open the door in a hurry — you know, the door to the foyer!"

— "I tell you only that you are inventing improper things and making me laugh — that is all."

— "Nobody is inventing anything," said Maman.

— "Why do we not invent something about Audiffret, Lambertye, Jarakowsky, or Arnim?" my aunt added.

— "Yes — why do we invent nothing? Because there is nothing; but when one sees, one cannot not see. Besides, he is a vieux fou — the man must be thirty! I am astonished at his presumption." (Up to this point I was translating into French; now I shall let her speak Russian as she spoke⁶.) "What insolence — he has an old wife and he has taken on something, the scoundrel."

— "The swine," my aunt continued, as Maman paused. "How does he dare." Then both together, in chorus: "He has quite lost his mind — he has quite lost his mind."

Very well — what am I to believe? I want to believe it is not true — what? No doubt there is nothing: that is to say, he is not in love with me; such a thing I only believe after many doubts and only when it is proved one way or another. But simply — he watches me, he finds me pretty. That is all. I think I am speaking far too much for a man from Nice; but since I write what I think and say what I write, I cannot omit the Marquis de Constantin without failing in my promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth — which I have no desire to fail in regarding this person, as I understand myself. Besides (mio eterno d'ailleurs⁷) — from wherever admiration comes, it is always flattering; and a true woman is always concerned with these things, whether they come from above or below. My case is not quite in the lower depths — but squarely in the middle.