Tuesday 7 September 1875

What a situation, good Lord, what a situation! We must leave, stopping at Marseille to pawn my diamonds there. Waiting for the money here is impossible; we would miss the festivities in Florence.

There is nothing in the world more dreadful than being short of money. Ah, those who have known it will understand me. It is the utmost degradation of human intelligence; one becomes the equal of a table, a log, a stone. One is bound hand and foot, wretched, pitiful. Ah! By Jove, by Jove!¹

Having written this passage, I read it to my aunt, and:

— You see, Madame, what I am writing, and how much it is about... Monsieur Audiffret, I tell her in an indifferent tone, depriving the gentleman of his particle on purpose.

I say this to my aunt because ever since the theatre, or rather since the café where she saw the illustrious young man, she keeps telling me that I am vexed and furious on account of Girofla. Note that it is not I who give him that name.

We have just come back from the Gymnase; they were giving Frou-Frou², a comedy that leaves something to be desired but is well acted, and there are some very fine scenes, though I do not admire the whole as I did with Le Sphinx³. Frou-Frou, the spoiled child of the house, marries de Lertoris. The gentleman is loved by Louise, his wife’s sister. One fine day Gilberte, the wife, takes it into her head to have her sister come and live with her. After two months the sister, without the least ill intention, has won the love of her nephew, a child of seven, and of her brother-in-law — not criminally, God forbid I should say that. Now, de Valréas, a young man who had asked for her hand, Gilberte’s hand, loves her still, and about this time so strongly that he declares himself in earnest; she orders him to go away, though she loves him, but after a scene with her sister — exasperated, wounded, jealous — she goes off with him. The fourth act finds them in Venice, Gilberte and her bon-ami⁴, as they say in Nice; the husband turns up, fights the lover, kills him, and having done this fine deed goes quietly home. In the last act the dying wife comes to his house, after a year of nursing⁵ the poor, of sacrifices and a heap of such things, and the cad of a husband forgives her on her deathbed. And she wants him to marry her sister, which the wretch will not fail to do, I am sure of it. I understand it differently from you: the woman does not die of remorse, she dies because they have killed her lover. Only I find the characters of the husband and the sister very poorly drawn. Louise is virtuous, but quite innocently she has brought about all these fine goings-on, and the husband, while loving Frou-Frou, grows attached to her. Poor Frou-Frou! You are very silly, my dear. When you saw that rogue of a husband treat you as a child or as a mistress, as you put it, you should have taken your revenge — though for my part I would have been content: your husband treated you adorably. But you were jealous of your sister; your sister looked after your son, she ran the house, your husband turned to her for everything serious; you were piqued, poor silly thing. But after all, since you were jealous, and above all since you loved Valréas, well then, you should have taken him in at home, secretly, and not made this absurd scandal by running off to Venice!

I would have done it that way.

The actor who played de Valréas was ugly, but he reminded me of d’Audiffret, especially by his accent.

It is dangerous to go to the theatre: a play awakens a host of ideas, makes one think quite differently from before, puts romantic notions into one’s head.

That does not show in my analysis, but it will show presently. In a word, my mind is troubled; I long, I long to love someone; I imagine I am Gilberte — well, you can guess what I mean, to put it as gently as possible. I am horribly vexed at my defeat; I remember everything from the beginning, this winter, and this spring above all. I am irritated and grieved — no, angry, furious. I would gladly give him a thrashing with a stick, and punches⁶ (now I no longer know how to spell that word) in the face; I would like to drench him with cold water, send him rolling in the mud, tie him up, beat him again and then throw him into a pit full of filth.

That is how one takes revenge! Oh, never have I been so vexed, so humiliated. I, who was thinking of mercy, of clemency — I am humiliated, disdained! The word is harsh. But hang it⁷! It is true. That will teach me to imagine myself a divinity who has only to make a sign, only to form a wish, to be obeyed.

And my aunt, who, on seeing this ignoble creature sitting at the café on the boulevard, starts saying things that sting my pride. I had stopped thinking of this man as a personal matter, and thought of him as of an affair like the one with the Howards. In an instant he ceased to be Girofla — no, not in an instant, but little by little since we left Nice — he became a gentleman who was dropping us, us, mark you, not me. I no longer thought of him as a man who had disdained me, but as a gentleman who was gradually ceasing to know us, who was turning away like so many others. And that was such a consolation, a joy even. But now they awaken other ideas in me; they strike the woman’s sensitive chord, the woman’s pride. In no other woman is it as developed as in me. I have ambition in everything, and Be it vice or virtue, My heart, unburdened, Is willing to be laid low.

I have put the lines in the wrong place, but no matter, the sense is right.

You must admit that mine is a very pitiful part. Disdained — I! And by whom? By a man I do not love, whom I have no use for, whom I wanted as a pastime, whom I thought I had, whom I thought my due.

Ah, the thing is, the animal showed such fine promise!

Ah, you triple scoundrel! Ah, if I could catch you, I would gladly do you to death, I would roast you over a slow fire!

I have told my aunt all I think of M. d’Audiffret; I have even told her almost all I think of Girofla. She insists on speaking of him as Girofla, and it is she who makes me write all these fine things.

I have told everything — I always tell everything, except a few private reflections, which in fact mean nothing other than what I say aloud, but which because of their form are not easily said.

Ah, I am exasperating: I take up this diary to write what I feel, and before I have written it, what I feel changes and I think quite differently. And there are twenty such changes a day. I never know what [I] think or what I write.

I remember the time when he was courting me — for he did court me, that triple monster, that scoundrel!

I am like those characters in plays who are brought some piece of news: they mistake its meaning, beam, put on a conquering air, and just as they are about to be magnanimous the thing is suddenly explained and they are left thunderstruck, disappointment spreading over their faces before the satisfied look has quite left them — which makes the most ridiculous and pitiful countenance on earth.

It is above all because of the people around me! I am quite willing to be humiliated, but not in front of everyone. The thing is, this countenance I have tried to describe is not only mine but the whole family’s. Oh, how ugly it is! I want to write; I would have written all night, but I have run out of paper, and of candle too.

I want to do so much: I see a dancer dance well, and I want to be a dancer; I see a good actress, and I want to become one — oh, that above all; I am sure I shall play dramatic parts admirably. One day I shall act, as an amateur at least.