Tuesday, 30 April 1878

On what do impressions, opinions, senti-
ments (??)... depend?
A few days ago Paul de Cassagnac was still a god, and after his visit he is barely a man.
To speak of something else — I shall tell you that I believe I shall never be seriously in love. I always, always discover something comic in a man, and then all is lost. If it is not ridiculous it is clumsy or stupid or tedious; in short there is always some flaw — the tip of the ear showing.
"You would need someone more intelligent than yourself," says Blanc...
"Quite so."
"Yes, and that is impossible."
"Oh! Blanc!"
"No doubt there are men with the serious side more developed, stronger in certain things — but for being in general more witty, more intelligent, more shrewd, I [Word blacked out: guarantee] you there are none, joking aside. And so long as you do not feel an intellectual domination above you, etc., etc."
It is true — until I find my master I shall not let myself be taken in by any charm; thanks to this mania for ferreting out people's faults, it will prevent me from falling for all the Adonises of the earth...
How stupid are the people who go to the Bois, and how impossible it is for me to understand their empty and stupid existence.

Notes

Montrer le bout de l'oreille: to show the tip of one's ear — a French idiom from La Fontaine's fable of the donkey disguised as a lion, whose ears betray him. To reveal one's true, less flattering nature.