Tuesday, 14 December 1875

Even worse than yesterday!

We go to the concert and see everyone. People draw near one another beside their carriages, they laugh, they chat about the everyday — who they have seen, who has called on whom. And I — cursed creature — I listened and stored up in the depths of my heart the tears that I have been shedding for the last hour!

It was my mother who began — I begged her not to speak of my eternal torment, but they continued, and there in the middle of the Promenade while there were still people about, I burst into tears. Everything disagreeable and humiliating that could be said was said to me. I was reproached for my slightest jokes of this past summer; every foolish thing said in a moment of gaiety was recalled in the most wounding manner — and finally, with an air of malicious triumph, I was reproached for my failure with Audiffret.

I could answer nothing — I only closed my eyes, cravenly consigning everyone to the devil!

While Dina was at the Sapogenikoffs’ and I was weeping as I waited for her in the carriage, Mme de Lewin and several others came out of No. 7, laughing and talking loudly. They are happy, they are!

What can I expect! Was I not told quite plainly today, in the carriage, that dreaming of living in society is useless — since the lawsuit¹ closes every door to us everywhere.

If that is how it is — then I beg You, my God, in the name of everything holy and sacred in this world and the next — take me!!!

Do you think it is agreeable to show oneself in fine dresses, go to the theatre, be noticed everywhere and by everyone — only for them to answer when asked “Who is she?” — “She is a Russian, but one never sees her anywhere; the family is not received at all and they are entirely outside of society.” And every wretch will say that, or something much like it!

For five minutes I paced up and down my room in great strides — like a madwoman, desperate, demented! Then I sat down and told my fortune — which, if it did not calm me, at least numbed me sufficiently that I no longer wept.

And no one will stop to ask: am I guilty or not! Cursed, cursed, cursed! Besides — I have cursed myself!

To be like plague-carriers — everywhere, always!!!

And no one knows what I suffer — and they slander, they calumniate, without understanding that they are killing me.

Ah! if only someone would kill me properly once and for all — but no, no one will be found to do it. They martyr me — and that is all!

That is all! But what have I done to them! What have I done to them!

What have I done so atrocious in the sight of God!

And I dream of thrones! Mad creature, unhappy, miserable! On reading it seems like nothing — but let someone else feel what I feel! Whole days, weeks, months in tears, in grief, in humiliations — at every moment, every hour, everywhere!

Forgive them, my God! They know not what they do!

To stay at home in the evening is to cry and ruin my eyes, my skin, my blood.

I dress, do my hair a little à la Catherine II, with my forehead quite bare, and go to the Opera with Giro and my aunt. The Barber of Seville, a full house and an icy mood.

That foul Galula stays in our box quite a long time; Pépino is behind his pillar. I do not look at him, and he goes away.

Giro was dying of thirst; I went to call the box-attendant and, instead of the attendant, I found M. de Mauldre, who came into our box, stayed a long time and was most amiable to me. He also said that there were no gentlemen in Nice (which I know without being told), that the ladies who receive are going to keep the gentlemen indoors so that they do not catch cold, for then there would be no one to dance with; today, at Mme Sabatier’s matinée, a crowd of ladies and three and a half gentlemen. Pépino told me the same thing the other evening.

During Rosina’s lesson scene, after “Il segreto” sung by Dory, the tenor sang “Dormi pure” — my romance, the one I sang at Saint-Jean and at home and everywhere.

Audiffret listened to it standing, very attentively; Galula bowed to me from his armchair. I did not stir.

“Look,” Olga says to me, “Bibi listens to your romances standing up — he doesn’t dare sit down, just as in Russia when they play the imperial anthem, God Save the Tsar.”

“Marie, Marie,” she says again at the beginning of the last act, “he is straightening his cravat — he is going to come to our box.”

And so he does: the man comes².

He speaks to me about my new hairstyle, then: “You looked charming yesterday in that little carriage.”

Giro made an involuntary movement.

“Both of you,” he added with a bow.

“And who is above us?” asked my aunt.

“A whole crowd. There is Mme Prodgers — but she is a man — and then...”

“Who is with her?”

“With her, Mlle Robenson, and then several other people I don’t know.”

I wanted to say something to make him tell me more about the American, but I could think of nothing.

As I am in a mood to expect every vileness on earth, and have besides quite lost the habit of the Surprising One’s amiability, I am almost astonished to find him amiable.

He goes so far as to say that he has looked across at our house.

“I looked, but nothing stirred — everything is shut. It is not as it used to be.”

“You did not look at all,” my aunt interrupted.

“Oh!” said I. “Why not — once a year.”

“Not at all, Mademoiselle — once a year!”

When he pressed my hand on leaving, I strained all my senses to feel whether the jolt³ would come; there was something, but so little, so very little, that it cannot be called a jolt.

At the exit Danis, who had been hiding all this time heaven knows where, comes up to me. He has been ill for a long time, it seems.

Did Audiffret go to the Robenson girl’s box? I do not think so; he did not leave his own box, or if he did, it was only for four or five minutes, even less.

Does he still love her? Did he ever really love her? Does she love him?

Does she want him?

To this last question one may answer with an immense yes. It is only I who, with neither position nor anything else, play the disdainful one and dream of thrones and crowns, of castles in Spain — when there is one in Nice, and a very magnificent one too, upon my word.

What would you have? That is how I am made, and nothing changes my ideas. If I laid siege to the Tower, it was not to make it my capital but simply out of a spirit of conquest. I am like Pyrrhus, I am.

Besides, I believe the Tower will surrender only when provisions run short, as in the song of the “little ship that had never sailed”. Only this stronghold — or rather its governor — has sailed a great deal, a very great deal, and will sail as much again, if not more.

And with that, let us close my wretched diary and go and pray to God. I have so much to ask of Him!

If only Audiffret would come back, it would be a distraction in the midst of my dark, sad, desolate thoughts.