I have also prepared in charcoal a *tableau* conceived as follows: a desolate beach with a tall palm tree in the foreground; beneath this palm I...
I tweaked Walitsky's nose for this fine news and wished him good night, all the while thinking of the eggs and the rat. I let him go upstairs and...
We left my rooms and went to the Anitchkoffs', where there is a great gathering of gangling Russians. Mme Kondareff seems to enjoy my company, which...
"Marriage is like a besieged fortress: those outside want to get in, those inside want to get out."
Torlonia was drunk, and so instead of saying good day, he seized Alexandre by the shoulders and presented him, saying: "Madame, here he is." You can...
I was already prepared to enlarge upon "this bizarre adventure" — the southern dusk, the fireflies, the apparition, the disappointment, and so on....
I was thinking, with a certain sharpness of wounded pride, that he would fail to appear today. But no — he came. I teased him about my mother's...
We spoke of Larderel. M. Anitchkoff still wanted me to marry him; I protested tooth and nail, as you may well imagine. There is a great deal of wind,...
In short, today they drove me into a state fit to bite through iron! At the very moment of departure the same pretexts as always, advanced with a...
It is therefore only the family, including Mme Kondareff and Lise. And then, quite unexpectedly — Torlonia… He is leaving for Rome, and as the Paris...
What exhausts one to the utmost degree is getting in and out of the carriage more than twelve times. And this *business,* as Rosalie calls it, will...
Why do they say, then, that it is rare for both to love?
At last — perhaps for the first time in my life — I am somewhere for a reason. I need no longer torment myself: why am I staying in Paris, why in...
I am at this moment excavating through my journal; I want to unearth the foolish things said lightly under the pretext of Antonelli. I deny them and...
At first I thought it was Alexandre… then I do not know what — only I was terrified.
Returning from our exhausting shopping rounds in the cab, we find the cards of Berthe and her mother. I had written to her.
Soon the chaise longue and I shall form but a single person. And so it has been since the first day of our arrival. Until I have my full arsenal I...
What I desired with such ardour three years ago is now within reach of my hand: a portrait of the Duke of Hamilton. You know that Berthe loved him as...
The Comtesse de Bailleul came this evening to the Mertens'.
First, dresses were brought to me — not one of them suitable. After bad food, anger is the most disagreeable thing there is. we set off at nine...
In any case it matters little, since God does me the grace of leaving me indifferent to everything. For conscience's sake I made a few efforts to...
We visited M. Worth's château at Suresnes; Mme de Mertens had arranged this through a close friend of Mme Worth. I was exhausted and irritated to...
No — seriously — here is something to my taste. Old nobility, splendid châteaux, magnificent town houses… stables… jewels.
Fauvel delighted me by saying that it is going like clockwork; he also explained various things concerning the voice, so that I take heart again.
I *practice* these fantasies without excitement or love — out of laziness and fatigue. Last year I recounted them without commentary, which may have...
Worth and Laferrière are holding all my bodices — which have to be done over and each time turn out worse. What is curious is that after three or...
I have not sent the Vienna letters to the Comtesse de Larderel. Should the truth be discovered, it would amount to gross incivility on my part toward...
And here, word for word, is what she told me — though she began by saying that the cards could reveal only the past and the future as they...
I dreamed of Alexandre. My aunt and Maman say he will end like Georges. Never! Never — because if he had the misfortune to fall into such a state I...
See if it is not curious — how everything I have undertaken on a Friday or a Monday has gone wrong. In Russia these are two unlucky days. And for me,...
We have visited townhouses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. That is where I should like to live, for there it is not the scheming Paris I detest. One...
No — listen — it is wrong to write Jocelyns! M. de Lamartine perhaps did not care — but there are decent people for whom this martyrdom told so...
I have at last found a townhouse I genuinely want to live in. It is the old Princess Radzivill's, on the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. There is only...