Friday, 2 August 1878

They are still talking about it at Soden — it will be recounted to the visitors of next season. The general laughter has spread even to my two princes themselves. As for my two princes... nothing.
I had prepared to be kind and to refrain from mockery — well, entirely in spite of myself I was of an insolence... despairing... With benevolent intentions I glanced sometimes to the right, but catching myself at once I turned away and launched yet another of those jibes that exhaust me so and amuse our company.
[Poem by Multedo, "Dona Juana."] Your age is pitiless — that is what excuses you, / But it is a cruel game, the one that amuses you... / Fountain of coral with jets of diamonds! / [...] / Do not make, as they did, this horrible confusion. / They were the demons, and you are an angel... / But if nothing moves you... / Well then! Go on — laugh!
When everyone had gone I had an impulse to write that I am in love with the dark Prince... not seriously, merely to prove I am fickle... Besides, since two Germans are mad about me, I am quite entitled to fall in love with a third. His sister — married to Prince Reuss — has arrived. This vexes me; he will no longer come to dinner.
That is what gives me a warm feeling at the heart and a cold shiver down the back; moreover it leads me to declare that I have two ounces of tenderness for Auguste... the name begins with an A — that is already a sign... Audiffret, Antonelli, Alexandre, Alfred... For Alfred I loathe him so that I cannot touch his letters without wrapping my fingers in a handkerchief.