Monday, 28 June 1875

I go bathing and there I see Saëtone, my uncle Saëtone. Bihovetz is chatting with my aunt.
Did you see Audiffret before he left? my uncle asks me.
No, Monsieur.
What! he exclaims, as though I had said something incredible.
He called, but we were out, so he only left his cards.
Ah! said my uncle, as if to say: ah, that’s more like it, that I can believe. Then:
Besides, he will be here the day after tomorrow. I had a letter from him today; he tells me he will be here tomorrow or the day after.
At this point my aunt joins in the conversation.
At home she tells everyone that Saëtone said it to me in an undertone, that the other one wrote that letter so that my uncle Saëtone would tell me, etc.
So the man is coming back in two days — and I thought he had arrived this morning, his shutters were open. Because of it I was even impatient to go out, and I missed translating a chapter of Caesar and practising a Chopin tarantella.
In the evening everyone gathers at our house: Bihovetz, Saëtone and Galula, Galula wearing my sou as a charm on his chain.
We dance Sir Roger de Coverley, play a great many parlour games, and laugh as happily as the blessed.
These rascals stay until two in the morning and would have stayed longer still if Marie and Olga had not given the signal, and even then they did not look as if they wanted to leave.
Maman was in her room, ill and in bed.