It means absolutely nothing to me when he kisses my hand.
I want to mesmerise people — I am certain I can do it.
Berthe is chattering and stupid, though sly and occasionally amusing. The Comte d'Abzac is in the drawing room; I have lowered the blind and closed...
Tired — and I shall have to redo my morning drawing.
I called Fortuné and asked him what it was.
What luck that I did not fall asleep! Once the gentlemen are gone, we set about recounting any number of more or less risqué things — women among...
I was dressed in an original and charming fashion; my hair was done as well as possible.
I am sorry Cassagnac does not pay more attention to me. It seems to me that I think about him so much only because this detestable family keeps...
This lie, like all lies, revolted me — all the more so since, I must say to the credit of the human race, those whom I had defended in the affair of...
Berthe arrives during dinner; she has intercepted a letter from her beau making an appointment with a lady for tomorrow. He is deceiving her, she is...
I showed her a letter from Cassagnac, carefully wrapped so that she might touch the cards to it and tell me... she talked nonsense. This man is...
That blue flannel and that red piping.
Yesterday we dined at the Boyds'. I wore the same outfit as last Sunday, in case Popaul should come in the evening.
Instead of working, we go with the Boyds to Alexis. What can I tell you but that it is astonishing. I gave him a letter from Cassagnac, took him by...
Add to this that Breslau and Schaeppi have begun painting my feet, and it is not going as I wish. I could burst into tears over nothing.
Berthe was with me when I received the following telegram.
Florence, 20 February 1878. Dear Mademoiselle,
In this wretched atelier they are saying I am to marry Cassagnac. There you are! That was all we needed! To separate him from us.
The doctor and Blanc said such persuasive things that they were downright harsh. As for me — after weeping, imploring, screaming, after two attacks...
I go to the atelier all the same; only, at lunch and dinner, instead of quarrelling, we tell each other the news from Russia.
Berthe in the evening.
M. de Beaurepaire came with all his stupid arrogance, affecting to treat me like an ignorant little girl, a foreigner. I affected to treat him like a...
Don Carlos, Paul de Cassagnac, and the tangerines I eat all day long — dry and too sweet — all of this stupefies me, not to mention the commotion in...
Not one of those wretched creatures who make up my so-called family has done anything; they have merely carried on with their idiotic petty torments!!
Etienne wants me to do his portrait. I am doing it in the afternoon, and consequently go to the atelier only in the morning and evening. And already...
Imagine — I open the door into the dining room and have just time to see that... Georges slip away, hiding himself in grandfather's room at the sight...
[Undated] [To M. F. de Marcuard] Someone has just stolen my white dog, Pincio — the one you saw at our house. It is horrible. I believe he has been...
Very well. In the meantime Blanc and these ladies come to dinner, and in the evening we go as arranged to the Folies-dramatiques. Two stage boxes...
I try to turn her head with the love Cassagnac has for her. She amuses me. There was no one but her and M. d'Alt.
And then I was bored, as every Sunday — rather more disagreeably perhaps, for I was afraid Cassagnac might not come. That would have been a...
This evening I suddenly invented a charming scheme that will refresh me — besides, the fear is beginning to pass — but all the same I should prefer...
Madame de Fayet spent at least an hour with us after my guitar lesson. We had as much fun as two madcaps — I had her jumping to the ceiling. She...
I speak of this to you because I have an idea that you follow with interest this gentleman's appearances in my story. And of what else should I speak...
Then I am told that everyone already knows me as a wretch, a brigand, a horror, and that it is for this reason that introduce me into society.
[Saturday, 16 March 1878] Traitor — what will Victorine say? I run to put her off, but I doubt she will keep until next Saturday.