Wednesday, 26 January 1876

"Connais-tu le pays où fleurit l'oranger?"¹ The orange-tree blossoms — and one walks on serpents! Wretchedness of wretchednesses!

Maman and Dina have gone out — I am alone, thank God. I cannot sing as I am unwell, but I act out Mignon and look at myself in the mirrors. I shall do very well on stage.

I slept too long, half-waking I dreamed that I arrived at the Nice station and found the Sapogenikoffs there — and with the Sapogenikoffs, Audiffret. He approaches me and greets me.

— Are you departing, Monsieur? — No, Mademoiselle. — Then you are arriving? — Why, no — I heard that you were arriving and I came to meet you with these ladies. — Ah! You have been to school, then? — Why? — Evidently: I left you rude and I find you amiable. You have made real progress.

If such a thing occurs, I promise to say exactly what I said in the dream.

News from Nice! The Olive is dressed all in white, with a white hat like mine! — "No doubt," says my aunt, "it is Soroka who had a hat sent from Reboux's for her, since he knows."

This puts me in such a rage that for some time I do not speak. This turpis rana, abominable frog, dares to vex me — she waited for my departure to do it! Lava of Vesuvius! Slime of the Tiber! Barrel organ!

[In the margin: Quaerens quem devoret²]

Nothing in the world would put me in such a rage as this! This rage produces three letters:

1st — To M. Albert Leroy, editor of La Vie Mondaine, avenue de la Gare, 13. Monsieur, Kindly insert in one of your forthcoming issues an article on the subject of the ridiculousness of imitations — especially imitations of dress, and especially of distinctive dress, white for instance, or an ensemble long adopted by a particular person. The sooner this article appears, the better.

2nd — To Mme E. Prodgers Promenade des Anglais, 17 To be delivered, after opening, to the English lady of whom M. Émile has recently made himself the champion. — In vain have you dressed yourself in white, like the young Russian, so pretty and so elegant, to whom white belongs because it becomes her and because she adopted it first in Nice! Beyond the ridiculousness of an imitation so manifest that it might easily be called singerie,³ your small and ugly person dressed in white throws your inferiority into cruel relief and makes it plain that you are a copy — and a bad copy.

3rd — To M. le Comte d'Aspremont, rue de la Préfecture, to be delivered to M. Émile d'Audiffret — Why counsel the one you know to dress in white? Is it to show the whole world how much inferior she is to the one who so cruelly disdained you? Or is it to remind yourself, at least in caricature, of the one who would have none of you, and whom you still weep over?!

The way in which I speak of myself in these letters will never lead anyone to suppose that I am the author.

It is the hotel concierge who copies them and writes the addresses. I had him sit in the salon for this operation and gave him five francs. He has a fine hand.

It is he who has dressed her in white. Why, Turpissimus omnium homo!⁴ He knows I am the most elegant everywhere — he could have chosen blindfolded among my ensembles some outfit for this vile Englishwoman, without fear of dressing her ill. Gioia dressed in white; this creature dresses in white!

But I am the one, the true dame blanche. They will have neither the taste nor the patience to persevere. An Englishwoman always wears coloured petticoats... so as not to wash them.

Woollen petticoats that smell! However elegant she may be, an Englishwoman is always dirty under her skirts, always has feet like boats and unworthy chignons. As much as English men are handsome, just so much are English women ugly and dirty and stupid.

We receive La Vie Mondaine here — I shall see the article. Besides, I have written to my aunt to pay for it. Since this morning I have written her two letters, one of which is so full of complaints and rage that I wept while writing it.

The dress I have had made is exactly the costume of Pagano in I Lombardi alla prima crociata.⁵ There are also monks in Rome dressed thus. I must say this dress becomes me ravishingly. Béatrice's will be equally fine.

One day I read the names of Mmes Malone and Greville cited alongside that of Prodgers at a dinner at the London House. Today I read among the names of the marksmen at Monaco: MM. Malone and Greville.

These ladies are the Olive and her sister, and these gentlemen are their husbands. I wonder why? I don't know, but it must be so. My aunt has not yet been able to find out who the new woman in white is — she asked the maître d'hôtel of Monaco (what does she not do for me! Besides, this man has served her for five years — he is like a household servant), she asked the maître d'hôtel at Monaco, named M. Adam, who does not wear a tailcoat like the other waiters — she therefore asked him who the Olive was, and he replied: "Oh! Madame, she must be an adventuress!"

But I ask you, has anyone ever seen such an address as "To M. E. Prodgers, to be delivered, after opening, to the English lady of whom M. Émile has recently made himself the champion"?

And Audiffret is going to receive a letter via M. d'Aspremont.

Audiffret drove the Olive in the break⁶ that took us to Saint-Jean and the Loup — my aunt writes it. And Maman says this break is a kind of rank, a mark of courtship⁷ — that he drives in it the women he courts, and the learned Ambroise told Maman so.

I often review everything from the beginning — I reach the end with such an accumulation of anger and spite, such a rage, that I run at once to fetch my diary; then halfway there I realise I have already said it all, have told it so many times, have raged and howled and filled hundreds of pages with bloody complaints and imprecations. I, I, I treated like the others! Like anyone!

This man did not pause before me as before me — to love me or to pass by without indifference, no! He passed before me as before all the others, and his profaning contact tarnished my golden surface for a few moments, as an abominable breath wilts a flower.

He has not distinguished me from the others — not in love, not in indifference — no, he has confused me with the vile multitude of other women, women of every kind, women who pomade their hair and change their linen twice a week! That is what makes me rage. It is not his disdain — oh no! But it is that! And he speaks of me with a cynical smile, with that indifferent or contemptuous air, as he has spoken of the others! God, I am choking.

I demand that everyone see me differently from other women — that in love, in hatred, or in simple indifference I be always apart, always respected, always sacred!

And this reptile has dared!

Heaven and earth, hell and Paradise, Dog and cat, canaries and parrot!

You will not imagine, I hope, that I am in love — bigre, no; I am too humiliated for that! For another, what I call humiliation would be nothing — for after all, do I have the right to demand that one honour me like the Virgin?

No matter. I swear that M. d'Audiffret shall never through me have either rest or happiness, and before me neither grace nor mercy. He will manage perfectly well without it, I suppose — and who knows what may happen.

[Written across the page: What nonsense.]

I have written to de Mouzay.

I am annoyed at having to wait until Monday to resume my singing lessons.

In the garden scene in Mignon, where she is alone, when she sings: ==folle divengo di rabbia e di furor!=⁸ — instead of an octave and a half as indicated, and the two octaves sung by showy singers, I sing nearly three octaves.

It is a passage that gives me the finest occasion to show the compass of my instrument in the most brilliant manner.

Ah! son felice, ah, son rapita.⁹ Now it must not be thought that it is Fiacciotti who makes me perform these feats of strength. Fiacciotti exercises my medium, which is not right — there is one note, the passage from one register to another, that breaks. As for Mignon, I sing it mezzo voce and alone, for pleasure.

Fiacciotti says that in two years I shall be able to sing quite fully on stage — that is, to sustain all the fatigues, but also the triumphs! And what triumphs! God — when I think of it I choke with Gloriae Cupiditate.

As for singing an opera for the poor, I undertake to sing it next February 1877 — and to sing it well.

But I recall that it is not this year I began to wear white — when the princess, dear Princess Galitzine, was with us, and when Audiffret was with the Durands, all that summer I wore white dresses and a hat covered entirely with white feathers, set slightly back so as to show my little curls at the forehead. It was a ravishing hat, taking the shape of the head almost like a turban.

Nothing is uglier than those great hats that go swaggeringly back and look as if they were challenging people to single combat.

I notice with dismay a deplorable thing: I write a great deal and have very little wit.

God, give me wit, I beg you.

God, give me wit! Now there is a gem. Oh, how stupid I am — no, it is a naivety; and, I fear, an affected naivety.