Wednesday, 16 August (4 August 1876)

[eight lines crossed out] A crowd of neighbours, ladies and gentlemen, the cream of these noble parts. A lady who has been to Rome, loves Antiquity and possesses a daughter who does not speak. In a manner as sudden as it was unexpected, three angels descended upon us: the examining magistrate, the notary and the secretary. My uncle, who has been a justice of the peace for seven years, always has dealings with these officials.

In two years he will be a Councillor of State, and he is itching to be decorated. I put on blue silk, with my bonbon-box shoes¹.

The fine gentlemen did not make me angry the way dusty people do; they only made me laugh heartily. Besides, they did not dare come near; we admired one another from a distance.

Hamsley is the only one who is at all presentable... comparatively.

Yssayevitch’s sister, married to a moneyed brute, is a very nice person; her name is Dina.

Domenica’s sister reminds me of her very much: the same defect of the tongue, that is, a pronunciation faulty by nature, the same coppery complexion and greying hair, but strong and robust for her sixty-five years.

Maman writes to me from Schlangenbad; I was already beginning to be anxious, but she reassures me and even gives me good news. It seems that Lôbbecke is most assiduous in his attentions to Dina. So it is she and not I; our doubts are dispelled and I am very happy. I so want this match. Lôbbecke is rich, of good family, a handsome fellow if you like, with an excellent heart and wit enough — a fine fellow, in a word — on the one hand; on the other, Dina would make a gentle and loving wife. She so needs a change of life. They would be such a happy pair! You know, Dina is not bad-looking; in full dress she even makes an impression, and a considerable one.

My father asks by telegraph when I shall arrive. He would not come to Petersburg, so here are the few words I am writing to him:

“I am keeping Paul here until Saturday; these few days are necessary to me, as much to rest as to thank my uncle, who had the kindness to escort me all the way from the frontier, leaving all the work in his fields at the height of summer to oblige me, and so risking great disorder in his household. On Sunday we shall be in Poltava.”

The lady who has seen Rome and her daughter, with whom I tried in vain to strike up a conversation, left early, and, as we were now just the family, I tried to sing with Dina accompanying me on the piano — the Dina from here. But my voice was quite as unwilling as the daughter of the lady who has seen Rome.

So here I am, sad and unhappy.

I lay down fully dressed, and Paul came to tell me the strangest things about the kind of court that is paid to Marie Zankowski. It seems that, having fallen on his knees before the fair one, he began by improvising a declaration that reeked from ten leagues off of Xavier de Montépin translated into Russian.

“I do not even remember what I said any more, but it was very well turned; I was as if inspired, for I was madly in love.”

“And then you kissed her on the face?” I asked, under the weight of my own defiling memories.

“Pooh! Her bare knees, even.”

“How so?”

“Bare.”

“What?”

“Bare.”

“My son! And how?”

“I lifted her skirt and kissed her knee between the stocking and the drawers.”

“And she?”

“As if it were someone else.”

“And the skirt?”

“Stayed up.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing; I stayed there admiring her knee. Besides, Yakowleff told me the same thing, and when I told it to Grichko, he said he did the same every time he saw her home from the Town Garden.”

“He too!”

“He too — and where women are concerned he even has a very practical method. ‘You see,’ he said to me, ‘to make sure of a woman’s inclinations, this is what I do. When I get into a carriage with her I put my hand on the cushion she is to occupy; if she sits down on it and says nothing, all is well; if she makes a movement, I withdraw my hand and apologise most sincerely.’”

“Perfect! But tell me — was the knee beautiful?”

“I do not know; it was dark.”

Left alone, I opened my notebook and saw Antonelli’s letter pinned to a page.

I read it and reread it twenty times, then repeated it to myself by heart, dwelling on “I love you²” and wondering what he could have been thinking when he wrote those words.

For pity’s sake, do not picture me in the eternal role of the deceived woman; there is nothing more ridiculous. He loved me, that is certain, but pitifully — each according to his character, after all. And let us have done with it. He is an obedient son, like almost all Romans — there, it seems we are going to start all over again... no, it is simply so that no one should think I am complaining or weeping over “a faithless one.”

It would be stupid to cry out: “Ah! he deceived me, he did not love me.” Certainly he loved me, but not enough..., not enough. And the day he loves enough not to care a fig for his father, if you want to see a very humiliated person you need only look at me.

The reasons for his impoliteness matter little to me, all the more since I cannot make sure whether those reasons are the true ones; I know only — and you know it too — that I have the right to be horribly wounded and angry; and I am, thoroughly.

What a miser! “Fatal moments! I cannot master myself; I am obliged to tell you: I love you, and I need the consolation of a word from you.”

Instead of the contempt I meant to provoke, I felt nothing but tenderness and love as I wrote these lines, so much so that I had to stay a few minutes in an armchair to calm myself and to remember.

So I love him? Who knows? Not I.

In truth I have a feeling heart. My heart overflows... onto what? Onto stones — onto Pierres.

But since it is forever being filled from unknown springs, let it overflow.

Brute!

Alecto.

Castruccio.

Serbian corresp. human interventions. the soul in Serbia.

I must publish this work! On love, on God, monarchy, or on the soul... of Girofla.