Saturday, 3 April

in the marginnote de Marie sur une page liminaire du Livre 31
[Annotated page: Journal begun 6 August 1872 May 1872: Monday, 13 October Friday, 13 December Saturday, 14 December Monday, 16 December Wednesday, 18 December Friday, 20 December Wednesday, 25 December Sunday, 5 January 1873 Sunday, 19 January Monday, 20 January Friday, 24 January Friday, 7 February Saturday, 8 February Sunday, 9 February Wednesday, 12 February]
At one o’clock I leave for Cannes with my aunt (grey dress and a hat trimmed with a Valenciennes lace fichu, held in front by a perfectly adorable diamond worth twelve thousand francs).
Collignon is with them; we spend the evening chatting, talking about everything under the sun, possible and impossible.
— Would you like to marry? Maman asks me. I have found someone for you: Count Jarochewsky.
— Oh! If I were certain of his standing at court, I would accept on the spot.
Then when I went to bed — I don’t want to sleep with my aunt, it’s too hot, someone give me another room.
— What then, and what if you had to sleep with Jarochewsky?
— Ah, Maman, if I married Jarochewsky, it wouldn’t be for him! — and I left. Collignon was no longer there.

Notes

Written in Russian in the manuscript; French translation by the editor. ↩