Tuesday, 30 March 1875
My wretched brother is leaving for Russia with Sacha. That creature squeezes money out of everything. He has just sold me his Dumas, Hugo and Walter Scott for sixty francs. Note well that he could not take them anyway — for to bring books into Russia they must pass through the comité de censure,^[The tsarist censorship committee (comité de censure) that vetted books imported into Russia — a process lasting two months and involving endless complications.] which is a matter of two months and endless trouble.# Mardi, 30 mars 1875. Mon fichu frère s'en va en Russie avec Sacha...
Nadia and I were at Nina's. I have grown accustomed to this family, though it offers nothing particularly agreeable. This evening at the opera, Il Barbiere.^[Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, 1816) by Gioachino Rossini.*]
We have a box directly opposite the stage (blue dress, very good).
The first act had passed; Sacha and Nadia being absorbed in a family dispute held us back, and Nadia did not come — so that I am alone with Marie and Sacha.
Girofla seems charming to me and I am most put out that he goes to Mlle Bueno's and pays court to her. Marie, who suspects nothing, insists he does it on purpose. I come home quite unshod and with my tail between my legs, like a maltreated dog. This will teach me another time not to single out people who do not single me out. And if it were some plobster [sic]^["plobster" — manuscript reads thus; possibly a transcription error for "plébéien" (plebeian), or English slang.] — but a man like that one! Fie! I am humiliated.