Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 8 February 1875

I had not thought of going to the Cours, but Paul comes at half past two with Marie and we go. The same battle as yesterday; within two hours we are back.
I have noticed a singular thing: the more noise there is around me, the more people laugh and amuse themselves, the more serious and withdrawn I become.
I cannot accustom myself to hearing Stiopa and Julie speak and reason quite wisely, with that naive gravity peculiar to children — Stiopa, whom I last saw barely two years old, and his sister in the nurse's arms.
Nadinka and the children were with us. Paul is rather amusing and has the wit of comic operas and music-hall actors (misery and woe!). Masked as he was, he said foolish things to everyone. — Good day! he cried at a child of seven or eight. How is papa Hamilton? — and accompanying these words with a dandyish gesture, he turned to me:
— You know — it's the son.
— What? I said, fixing my eyes on the child — is it possible that her children are here? — and after saying that I fell into a kind of stupor, staring at the boy without seeing him, until we had gone into the alley. In a dream I went home and stood before the mirror until dinner.