Tuesday, 3 April 1877

— Not too much Larderel, eh? said Doenhoff as he left.

Today is the day of the famous excursion to Sorrento, which I had opposed several times.

Already on the train Larderel was beginning to irritate me, gently, by talking to Dina. I grow uneasy every time he speaks to anyone but Maman or me.

From Castellammare to Sorrento we arrange ourselves in a carriage: Maman, Dina and Melissano on the forward seats, Marcuard and I on the bench facing them, Bijou¹ up on the box, a street idler² clinging to the back of the carriage, and our considerable luggage of eight pieces — and off we go.

All of this passed in teasing, general and particular. We snatched handkerchiefs, hats and gloves from one another. For the rest, I was fairly calm — Larderel could talk to no one but the coachman — but soon I grew jealous of the coachman, and I made the sublime reprobate hold my parasol, and on his arm I leant my head, as if on account of the jolts, with a quite particular pleasure.

On entering the Hôtel de la Sirène, Melissano and Marcuard began to tease Larderel about Sirène, substituting the l for the r: Silène.³ That, judging by everything that was said afterwards, is the name for La Righi — which I pretended not to understand, and learnt by heart.

Almost at once we took donkeys and went to Massa, a wretched village admirably situated.

It was still light; Larderel kept leaving me, my donkey went badly, I fell behind, and I suffered agonies at being seen like this by Maman, who understands and feels everything as I do.

By the time we reached Massa it was dark. I was frozen and in a foul mood; we sat down in a miserable tavern yard, where a drunken street idler came and sang a song that seemed composed for Larderel and... Silène!! He listened, pale and distracted; I was seething.

On the way back we were alone together almost the whole time. I cannot think of that hour now without shivers of pleasure.

We walked side by side along that magnificent road; in the dark we could barely see each other; I had veiled myself, and we talked in the most natural way in the world about the masked ball, about letters, about his duel. From time to time he took my hand, and I lost myself in sensations new and adorable. I told him he had interested me, at the same time as he was saying that I was charming and that he loved me madly. I would rather not have heard it, because I deserve something better than this passing declaration, this sort of amusement.

— I have no wish to serve as your consolation... And what would you do if brigands attacked us? You no longer even have an arm to defend us with.

— I have this one; and besides, the Eternal Father is very kind: He has taken away the use of my arm, but He has given me a magnificent pair of horns!⁴

— A pair of what?

We lose ourselves in evasions.

I no longer remember whether dinner was merry; I know that we were sung to and played to on a whole heap of instruments.

Mme Hamontoff has been in Sorrento for three days; we go to call on her. To go anywhere at all, so long as it means walking through dark streets on Larderel’s arm. Marcuard is courting Dina, who has grown much prettier, and Melissano is with Maman. Already at the end of dinner — during which they had talked of that execrable woman in veiled terms, so that had I not known, I might not have guessed — already at the end of dinner I noticed with pain that Larderel was tipsy.⁵ I took his arm all the same, and I shall long remember that walk, mingled with suffering as it was.

He was there beside me, saying any number of tender things that outraged me because he was thinking of the other woman — and he was drunk! I kept telling him so, heaping insults on him, but it did not sober him, and truly the pain was enormous, tempered only by the happiness of leaning on his arm, of feeling my hand foolishly caressed by his!

— You are drunk, but no doubt you understand that you are abominable and improper; I am staying with you only to cure myself of you, do you hear!

And I kept repeating it to him endlessly.

The terrace of the Hôtel Victoria would be charming had this man not taken it into his head to chat with Dina. On the way back I took his arm, repeating to him that it was to cure myself of him.

But listen:

There was a king of Thule⁶ Who, faithful unto the grave, Kept, in memory of his fair one, A golden cup, finely chased...

— And your fair one, I said, breaking off my song, what did she leave you?

— Ah! yes, she left me debts.

— And?

— And a little girl.

— And... what?

— Good Lord, yes, a little girl, I have a little girl; my little Alexandrina.

The tenderness he put into my little Alexandrine turned me to stone, and it makes me furious!

— You... have... you! Oh! How dare you tell me this!!! You are mad! Drunk! Ah! if it were not to cure myself of you!!

— Yes, and I am giving her a special upbringing; she will be a celebrity. She drinks nothing but cognac.

I was crushed; I am furious! Enraged!

If I listened to the few lines I scrawled in pencil in a dark room, I would cry out that I love him, I love him, I love him! He is drunk, he is mad, mad — not mad in fun, but mad in sickness! Lost, senseless, drunk! And I love him!!

Instead of taking me back into the hotel, he suggests a turn in the garden; I let myself be led. Have I any will of my own — I, broken; I, humiliated; I, frightened!! These words of love, these drunken caresses on my poor hand, outraged me and made me lose my head.

He was saying some banality or other about Faust⁷ and Marguerite. We had talked of it before dinner.

— I confess, I said, that I have never understood Faust. It has always seemed to me dirty, cowardly and base.

— Yes, because Marguerite is deceived?... But that happens so often. Faust deceives, or Marguerite deceives...

— It is not the same thing.

— Marguerite deceives more often?

— You have good reason to hold that view.

— Eh? Why?

— Because — because I cannot tell you everything... although I do not count you as a young man like the others; to me you are forty-five, or else you are a woman — that is why I am so free with you.

— Oho! What? Well then, tell me why! Why not talk like two good friends? I should like to know your opinions...

— Very well: because a deceived Faust is merely supremely ridiculous, whereas a deceived Marguerite has nothing else to do but what she did: die.

That was on the road to Massa.

And in the garden he was drunk!!

— Five more minutes, he kept saying, five more minutes. So you are cured of me?

— Almost...

— Yes or no?

— You are drunk!

— Yes or no? I want to know.

— Almost; and before, you interested me.

— Yes? Only that?

— Perhaps more...

— Oh! well then, let that more go on a little longer — five more minutes, these five adorable, divine minutes... I love you... I love you.

— I am giving you those five minutes, you see...

— Yes, you are charming, sweet, I adore you, I would spend my life at your feet. You have only one fault: you are an unmarried young lady...

You see! You see! I was terrified and wretched.

— Give me your hand to kiss, he went on, I beg you — come now, what can it matter to you...

I ended by giving him my hand — not cold and indifferent, but frozen, and full of mad tenderness for him. He kissed it.

O dignity, O sanctity of love! Go and crawl under the seat, you old Lustucru,⁸ you old stuffed goose, you old Swiss of the thirteen cantons!⁹ As Larderel says to Marcuard.

I sat down on the steps of the porch; he sat at my feet and took my hand, bending his face over my knees — a face which in the night, painted and reshaped by the shadows, seemed to me of a rare beauty and refinement.

I was sad; he was half tipsy! He — drunk! Drunk!!

Just think — drunk!! That was all that was wanting!

I believe he said something obscene to me. I did not understand. I love him.

I did not know how to get back in; the evil genius, the faun¹⁰ Melissano, came to my aid by joining us.

The party had gathered in the large anteroom. Larderel was talking of leaving tomorrow morning; Marcuard, hurt and offended by this rudeness, replied that he would stay to escort the ladies.

I did not know what to say and felt ill. Tea is served; Larderel wanted cognac; I look at him with fear and pain. I remember my little Alexandrine and throw down my cup, which shatters into a thousand pieces on the marble flags.

We said good night with a rather unpleasant chill.

I no longer existed. All the rooms adjoin; closing the door, we find ourselves in Larderel and Melissano’s room, from which we go out to return to our own. I had barely given Larderel my hand and gone out first when he caught up with me in the corridor and, with a swiftness of which he alone is capable, kissed my hand.

At once I set myself to listen. For a long, long time I had been writing a heap of nonsense with Melissano, only to hear this at last!

— Well, asked Melissano, how did it go, out there?

— Pooh! replied Larderel, getting into bed. I kissed her hand.

— Only that?

— Well, my dear fellow, she had an answer for everything.

With my breast pressed against the door I listened to these cynicisms; it is too much for one day. I began to rage aloud at everything, everything, everything!

Then I remembered the dignified things I had said, and was glad of them...

I love him, he does not love me, he is mad, drunk, lost!

I prayed for a long time and tried to weep, but I was too overwrought, in too much pain.

Have I come to this, then, for — !!!