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Tuesday, 29 May 1877
Now and then I have felt like striking out my opinion of two years ago on the Venus de’ Medici. I had rather forgotten the statue and was a little ashamed of my barbarous judgement when, reading Alexandre Dumas’s travels, I found that this man of wit was of the same opinion as I. I am very flattered to have said the same thing two years before reading the “Villa Palmieri”. I have a horror of usurping, and if my records were not in such fine order one might say that I was retailing, in execrable French, ideas stolen from all sorts of books.Mardi 29 mai 1877
While Laurenti was with us, a letter was brought from Count F. Caracciolo. The good fellow! An excessively flowery epistle, but kind at heart, and with spelling so fantastic that I laughed like a madwoman over it with Laurenti. Caracciolo writes to Madame my mother, not to me.
Pendant que Laurenti était chez nous, on apporta une lettre du comte F. Caracciolo. Ce brave garçon ! Une épître excessivement fleurie mais bonne au fond et avec une orthographe tellement fantastique que j’en ai ri comme une folle avec Laurenti. Caracciolo écrit à Madame ma mère, pas à moi.
Rosalie says that Emile detests the Collignon woman for the gossip she spread about him with the Sapogenikoffs, gossip which is supposed to have spoiled his prospects here.
Rosalie dit qu’Emile déteste la Collignon pour les cancans qu’elle a débités sur son compte avec les Sapogenikoff, cancans qui auraient brouillé ses affaires ici.
It is true that Collignon has always turned up her nose at the young lord of the manor1; as for his grief... I do not set much store by Nègre the coachman.
Il est vrai que Collignon a toujours fait fi du jeune châtelain, quant à son chagrin... je ne m’en rapporte pas beaucoup à Nègre le cocher.
Maman maintains that whatever his thoughts about us may have been, and his conduct, this fickle man has never truly loved anyone but me, no matter how long that genuine feeling lasted. To such assurance I do not know what to reply, and at present I hardly care.
Maman prétend que quelles que fussent ses pensées à notre égard, et sa conduite, cet homme si volage n’a jamais aimé vraiment que moi, peu importe la durée de ce sentiment véritable. A tant d’assurance je ne sais que répondre et peu m’importe à présent.
The further I advance towards the old age of my youth, the more indifference settles over me. Few things stir me now, and everything used to stir me, so that, rereading my past, I attach too much importance to trifles, seeing how they made my blood boil. Trust, and that sensitiveness of feeling which is like the bloom of one’s character, were quickly lost. I regret that freshness of sensation all the more because it can never be found again. One is calmer, but one no longer enjoys things as much. Disappointments ought not to have come to me so soon... had I not had them, I should have become something supernatural, I feel it.
Plus j’avance vers la vieillesse de ma jeunesse, plus je me recouvre d’indifférence. Peu de choses m’agitent et tout m’agitait, de sorte qu’en relisant mon passé, j’accorde trop d’importance aux bagatelles en voyant comme elles me faisaient bouillir le sang. La confiance et cette susceptibilité de sentiment qui est comme le duvet du caractère ont été vite perdues. Je regrette d’autant plus cette fraîcheur de sensations qu’elle ne se retrouve jamais. On est plus calme mais on ne jouit plus autant. Les déceptions ne devraient pas m’arriver si vite... si je n’en avais pas eues, je serais devenue quelque chose de surnaturel je le sens.
Notes
In French in the original: châtelain. ↩