# Thursday, 1 December 1876

Thursday, 1 December 1876

Yesterday at nine o’clock we left Paris. Maman with her thirty-six packages reduced me to despair. Those cries, those panics, those boxes — it is disgustingly bourgeois. Well.
This morning at Marseilles I was seized with giddiness at returning to this Nice, so beautiful, which I am obliged to hate.
We arrived that evening. I was content, for fate had granted us two men from Antibes who took us for Russians on their first journey and asked the most naïve questions.
M. and Mme Anitchkoff and their children, together with my aunt, Walitsky, and Trifon, were waiting for us. Those excellent Anitchkoffs.
They are deadly dreary, but I adore them. There were never people more honest and upright, more loving and more devoted.
As I have put on weight, there was not too much outcry.
During dinner General Bibi appeared — a charming man who laughs and amuses himself over everything like a child. I brought him cigarettes, each one stamped with his name. The delicate attention delights him. Walitsky, my aunt, and Barnola will have the same gift.
I am once again in my blue paradise. Ah! what a pity... It is so lovely here and my eyes rest upon graceful and costly things... and I must leave!!