I was making my way along the Promenade to Madame Sapogenikoff's. One ought not be surprised to see me going to the Rue de France by way of the Promenade when I live on the Rue de France — but I go everywhere in the world by the Promenade. I was going, then, to Madame Sapogenikoff's, when all at once I catch sight of something hideous to the right — that something hideous, yellow, dreadful, raises its hat and greets me with a bitter smile.

[Written across the page: It was Merjeewsky.]

Oh, horror — I was quite sick with nausea, and at once went with the Sapogenikoffs to Rumpelmayer's at the club to cure that alone. All my senses were disagreeably, hideously struck by this abominable creature; unfortunately I could not rid myself of the sensation. At five o'clock I escort the Sapogenikoffs home, but at six I come back on foot to fetch them to dinner and then to the theatre in the evening. The Poor of Paris and Bagatelle. Poor Bagatelle, disfigured and unrecognizable with Laffitte and Alain. The house is empty; I am bored, but I laugh with the Sapogenikoffs — one always laughs with them — they are young, childlike, good, simple. It is astonishing how an air of music, a scent, a ray of light recalls things past. At the first chords of this Bagatelle music, without any jolt or flutter of the heart, I was transported to Paris, to our little drawing room in the Hôtel des Îles Britanniques, where — after a drive in the Bois, a good dinner at the hotel, when Maman, Dina, and Paul had gone out and I was left alone — I would put on a dressing gown, gently close the shutters, and look out through that beautiful Rue de la Paix where, one by one, all the sounds died away, the shops with their brilliant displays closed up, and only people hurrying home still passed.

Then the score of this Bagatelle, which we had seen born at the Bouffes, on the piano and a newspaper from the Duke's time on the table, I would spend my evening singing, reading, commenting on what I had just read, and thinking — thinking under the influence of a gentle May or June evening, under the influence of magnificent equipages and splendid dresses, under the influence of all that world I had just seen, that world to which I aspire, of which I want to form part, without which I cannot live — thinking always of the one same thing: that world, and the means of entering it. Then I regretted the Duke more than ever and went to bed sighing. I came out of the theatre with these memories, seeing what was around me only through a veil, when I saw Léonie who had come to fetch us — Maman had been taken ill.

No words to say how frightened I was; my heart stopped beating and I could not speak. Such was my fear that I was as it were petrified — I was calm to the point of terror, preparing myself inwardly for something terrible. I left the Sapogenikoffs below and went up the stairs, but God had mercy on me and I found Maman in bed, and better.

— Why did they send Léonie? I asked slowly and aloud, as I always speak when I am moved to the utmost degree. — Why that.