Sunday, 20 May 1877

We were all supposed to go to Monaco to see a performance by the celebrated Captain Boyton,¹ but we missed the two o’clock train; after that I no longer wanted to go, and as it was raining I stayed with Grand-papa.

In our very monotonous life everything is momentous. This evening the dogs fought — poor little Pincio, known as Pintchik, was bitten and knocked about. I rushed out and found the combatants in a fury, all our little girls weeping around them, and Walitsky not daring to intervene. At last Lise seized the little white one by the tail, and he was nursed, but the poor child nearly had a fit of nerves and kept repeating: “They’ve killed him, they’ve killed him!”

Ah! I have received a most agreeable letter from Commander Marcuard! He tells me that as for the matter of the young lady who plays the harp,² one must speak to Alexandre — who is in Pesth³ so accustomed to Hungarian women and the Magyar style that there is no question of his returning.

I do not know how to account for it, but contrary to all expectation I am calm with regard to the traveller. If he dies, I am delighted. If he is in love, it will pass — nothing lasts with him and he changes three times a day, sometimes more. If he marries... there are means of taking him from his wife. In short, we shall always find each other again. The essential thing is to secure ourselves a front-row position — the rest is easy, the more so since he does not love me, and I therefore have nothing to lose and nothing to fear.

I speak of it, we laugh, I joke, and that is all — the rest is buried so deep, one doesn’t know where, that I can find nothing left of it, or almost nothing.