Tuesday, 25 January 1876

I am homesick.

I take a singing lesson, then go out with Maman. We visit M. d'Épinay's atelier; he asks permission to present us to a most distinguished artist, also very well-connected and received everywhere — a M. Besnard.

From what he says, this Besnard sounds like a Galula.¹ He tells us a great many things about Rome. From there we go to de Falloux's (who yesterday sent to ask whether we had had our audience) — this priest improves the better one knows him; he has even been spreading gossip, called the court riffraff, the new government a pack of thieves, and said that word of me had come his way: I was seen at the Opera, my white dress much remarked upon.

[Crossed out: From there to Mme Soukowkine's, who is the most agreeable woman]

He says that to attend court one need only write to the minister or the ambassador. — I should like, he added, to open the other door for you as I have opened the holy door.

— Oh! Monseigneur, I said, the holy door is greatly to be preferred.

From there to Mme Soukowkine's (the archimandrite had warned her and she was expecting us) — the most agreeable and the ugliest woman in the world. She receives us most charmingly and we immediately speak of the Quirinal; she says one need only write to the minister. She seems to take the matter to heart and promises to do as she did for herself. This evening there is a reception at the Quirinal and she is taking her daughter — a young person I noticed last Sunday at church.

I am glad to have made her acquaintance, and I emerge light and gay, which proves that the lady received us with genuine warmth. It is only on leaving that one feels how one has been treated.

We take Dina and go to the Pincio, but do not stay long — the band has finished. The whole time we are followed by two gentlemen in a one-horse carriage, like Soroka.² This amused me; I had us driven to the Corso, they followed; we stopped near several shops, they did the same at a respectful distance. Then it grows dark; we stop near a watchmaker's — they pass us and halt a little further on, but instead of continuing straight ahead I tell Luigi to turn back and drive home. In this way we lose them. Previously I would have been most careful not to do this — but now I would always do otherwise...

I am resolved no longer to do anything, no longer to stir a finger for anyone. For when someone wants you, when you please, do what you will, they will find you — whereas when they do not want you, strut and parade as you like, nothing will come of it.

As I used to say to myself: perhaps it is because I did or said this? Perhaps because I went there, or did not go there?

How wretched one is when one searches for excuses, when one believes oneself at fault, when one tries to mitigate. It proves one is done for.

The moment one finds oneself a little abandoned, one immediately begins to search one's own conduct for faults and wrongs — one accuses oneself, one says: ah! if only; ah! if only I had not done that! Or: ah! if only I had said such-and-such instead of such-and-such.

Poor madwoman that one is!

I repeat: it is a very bad sign when one begins these self-reproaches, these analyses, this anxiety about one's own conduct — a very bad sign!

I am resolved to do nothing more, to move not a little finger for anyone. For when someone wants you, when you please them, no matter what you do they will find you; whereas when they do not want you, parade yourself as you will, nothing will come of it.

And I have had, and will no doubt again have, the stupidity of not being persuaded of this plain truth!

Bihovetz writes me a charming letter and signs it Bibi. He says that in Nice at present: "it is the most brilliant season — races, shoots, balls, concerts, a mad crowd everywhere, one has no time even to blow one's nose."

These few words plunge me back into a profound desolation. Vigier is going to sing. The Promenade is thronged; all that world I know so well, the whole city lives, talks, gesticulates — Nice has the air of an immense drawing-room; they vie in elegance, everyone knows everyone, they rush about, they see each other, they are breathless with gossip and pleasures varied and countless; I have seen Nice in this season and I know it, I love it... I grow dizzy, I weep!

Brute!

But I do not want to go back — for alone, among all those happy beings, I am a stranger to all their pleasures, excluded from all their gatherings; I go only where one pays! And where one pays, alone and miserable I am!

And here I have no well-isolated room in which to shut myself and weep like a madwoman, as I did in Nice!

Everything worries me — the lawsuit above all. I tremble so violently at the thought that I almost never allow myself to dwell on it; misery enough when the blow falls without having to weep over it in advance — it would be too much.

Ah! Nice. One thing consoles me a little: that I left it of my own will.

And another thing would console me entirely, that is if I knew that:

— that I could live there as I love to live. Then I should hardly want to go there at all. I desire very much to go to court, because that presents difficulties; whereas going or not going to the Pincio is perfectly indifferent to me, because that depends on my own will, and anyone may go there as well as I. I express myself poorly — I could do better, but I grow irritated when I search for words.

I hope that those who will never read my diary have understood me. [sic]

What preoccupies me most now is my singing: if only I could perfect it and place myself gloriously on the stage, I should ask nothing more. I will never face the public before I am sure of myself, before I have obtained private successes, before I have consulted every competent person in the world.

I do not wish to risk it, for if they whistled at me I should kill myself. Oh! No — never; I shall go somewhere far away, to America.

Do you want to know my dream?

My dream is to go, in a year or two, and sing Mignon — the entire opera — at the Cercle de la Méditerranée, for the benefit of the poor. If no misfortune comes, and if my voice follows its natural course, in two years I am certain of a brilliant success. Can you imagine my joy at the thought?

I shall play Mignon as no one else can — first, because I have great talent for the stage, and secondly, and above all, because I understand and adore this role; I feel myself to be Mignon...

I notice with terror that I write worse and worse — my style is atrocious, my sentences poorly turned; I am dull-witted and fear making spelling mistakes. I hesitate over the simplest words I have known for a hundred years.

I am not sure whether caffè takes one f or two.

It is the Italian shop signs that confuse me.

Today there was a magnificent funeral — the cortège passed through the Piazza del Popolo while we were climbing to the Pincio. There was a crowd of people in red and black robes as at carnival, soldiers, military music, torches, carriages.

I love all kinds of pomp. I should like a triumph like that of Caesar — Caesar must have felt more than human; one must feel thus when ambition is satisfied.

My motto should not be Audacer et amanter³ but rather Gloriae cupiditate⁴. I shall change it.

Who is this Turpis rana⁵ they call the Olive? Turpissima filia!