Wednesday 1 September 1875

I have dark rings under my eyes! Ah, my God!
I reply to Berthe:
Dear Berthe,
I received your letter in Paris, where I have been for three days. My mother, who has stayed on at Schlangenbad, sent it on to me. Madame your mother is most kind to think of me, and I am quite impatient to make her acquaintance.
I believe we shall remain here some time longer. I am with my aunt, Madame Romanoff — I think you know her.
How I should like to spend some time in the same city as you — we could at least see each other.
It is tiresome to meet barely twice a year, exchange a few words, and then be once again one at one end of the world and the other at the other.
Let us always write to each other. I met you in the very first year of my stay abroad, I was always drawn towards you, and something tells me that one day we shall live more closely bound than we are at present.
We are staying at the Grand Hotel, no. 281.
Goodbye, my dear — think of me as I think of you.
Good day!
Marie Bashkirtseff
I am not writing well today — Berthe will get a sorry specimen of my eloquence.
Editors’ note
(Written on headed paper: Grand-Hôtel, Boulevard des Capucines. Paris.)