They are decidedly pleased with me at the atelier — it seems I am doing astonishing things.
Notwithstanding the presence of the frigate captain, I slipped away to draw for two hours in the rue Vivienne.
— The contours are still naïve, no doubt, but the suppleness and truth of it are astonishing. That movement there is really very fine. You lack...
Cassagnac had almost promised to come to dinner, around seven o'clock, if he could return by that particular train from the place he had gone to...
I ought to be very sad. Georges is on one of his drinking bouts in our house. I treated Maman horribly, calling her the harshest names. I do not do...
The harp is magical, it seems — I begin to play and in comes Marcuard, then Berthe and her sister. The young harpist, who is sixty years old, is...
It is grey and damp. I live only in the bad air of the atelier. The city, the Bois — that is death.
— I only enjoy myself here, Monsieur.
Poor des Perrières — I find him here when I come home from the atelier at ten. He is saying his goodbyes; he is leaving for Nice, and then for good,...
We then made sketches; one of them, slightly caricature-like, was a success — Julian had me sign it and placed it in his album.
*Aïda*, *Mignon* and *Faust*.
Des Perrières is here — I found him when I came in, and it is six o'clock now. I think I shall go back to the drawing room; it is too late to go to...
There is to be a competition. First, a competition for places — so that chance does not sometimes give a poor place to the strongest student and a...
I am delighted — the streets were full of students coming out of the schools, those narrow streets, those luthiers' shops — all of it, in short.
One girl had a nervous fit bordering on epilepsy; she tore up and ate her sketch.
Breslau lodges there, along with several other budding artists. Sketches, studies, a host of interesting things. That artistic contact alone, that...
The competition was judged. Eighteen competitors — I am thirteenth. There are therefore five after me. It is not too bad. The Polish girl was first....
In the evening I made a sketch of my washstand — or rather of Rosalie before the washstand. It holds together and is fairly convincing; the...
At one o'clock my aunt and I set off for Versailles; I am wearing an otter-fur toque and a long otter-fur overcoat that comes nearly to the ground,...
Little Zurlo came. And the Baron d'Alt paid a visit.
I believe I quite *stunned* them — not to use a more flattering word for myself. We talked of everything: of Naples, of its exhibition, and a...
That rogue Breslau has made a composition, *Le lundi matin ou le choix du modèle*. The whole atelier is there, the models on the table, Julian beside...
This evening at the atelier there was only Amélie, myself, and Julian. The maid and Rosalie.
The prayer for the living victors, followed by the prayer for the souls of the soldiers fallen on the field of battle, were profoundly stirring.
It is hideous when one thinks that the other two contain scented paper and visiting cards from Naples, and so forth.
— Ladies, the gentlemen have ranked only six heads below the medal — which has been won by Mademoiselle Delsarte (the Frenchwoman), as you already...
In any case, the captain is still in the drawing room playing cards — that reassures me.
One enters a house with a vaulted ceiling, a portico, a dark staircase — just like Italy. The neighbourhood (near the Luxembourg) completes the...
— I who thought the mandolin was a sort of guitar one strummed! I did not know it could sing like that — I could not have imagined that such sounds...
Two hours later we received a note from the great man, who had understood nothing and was asking what it was all about. And afterwards we had onions...
We paid a few calls — on Mesdames Kanschine, Doubelt, de Fayet, Boyd.
Salvini, the celebrated Italian tragedian, is here with his troupe — this evening we go to see *Othello*. The pleasure of finding oneself opposite...
Blanc left early because the budget has been rejected and because this evening there is a meeting at the Café de la Paix. That wretch Cassagnac...
It was dark all day, one could not draw, and I went off to the Louvre with a Finnish woman named Wiik — and since she looks like an English...
No — listen — I am a wretch, an unhappy woman, a failed creature!
If they were here, Nina would go to the atelier "to see naked men", she would invite the models to tea at her house, I believe, and the jaunts we...
Let us reason. If nothing comes of it, it should not interest me — and in fact I do not care. If on the contrary something does come of it, it would...
Madame York and Berthe came, and I went out for a moment with them. Then Baron d'Alt called, and finally Marcuard.
If Grand-papa were to die, the presentation would be put off to the Greek Calends... It is detestable of me to think of such things at such a moment,...
I received a letter from Hall; the Boyds and Marcuard sent to ask after him. Marcuard came himself afterwards. He is very civil.
I went to the famous palm-reader Desbarolles, with Rosalie, and modestly dressed. He took me for a working woman and told me platitudes for...
Grand-papa is if not better at least no worse, and la Fayet came this morning because we had written to tell her that we would not be coming this...
At the Trocadéro no one knew Madame Romanoff, and he decided to take a cab while cursing the stupidity of Parisians.
And I! They found some very good things in my head and some not bad in my academy figure.
Morning at the Swiss girls'. Visit to Berthe.
I am good for falling asleep and nothing else. Yet I have just written a note to Blanc.
On the 15th of next month an art exhibition opens in Nice. I shall send a sculpture group. This very evening I asked for a meeting with the patron,...
It is not the cause of the *Good Lord* that I am pleading — He would lose nothing by having created the races gradually, if one wishes it to be He...
And in truth I was discouraged. From the moment I do not astonish, I am discouraged. It is unfortunate.