A succession of extraordinary events: Dourassoff is introduced to the princes by Fritz the wine steward. I fancy I'm being very mischievous saying...
Princess Thyra is to marry Napoleon IV... It is a blow to me.
A heap of things — trifles in truth, but they set my nerves on such edge that I yawned the whole evening; yawning is contagious, and within five...
Yesterday Dourassoff talked with them for at least an hour on the terrace, and here is the quintessence of all that conversation: they have no strong...
For two days I have been singing "*l'oiseau s'envole*," for even the dishwashers have taken to singing. They say someone is getting married.
The Coubes are going to Wiesbaden and I entrust them with dispatching the following note — in German.
I am a Christian — alas!
After an exchange of telegrams we are going to Paris. However foreseen and natural it would be, I should be devastated if some dreadful misfortune...
This morning we were still at Soden. I had promised five hundred prostrations if I found Grand-papa alive. I kept my promise. He is not dead, but he...
Nothing of note happened on the 15th of August — a simple mass, nothing more. Outside of Soden, Schwarz and Gans are nothing at all. Everything is...
There is something in our household I cannot bear! The petty vexations about nothing, the incredible carelessness in matters of consequence — that is...
I forgot to mention that my Uncle Nicolas has been here for three weeks or more. He is very ugly, and he is a nihilist — a narrow-minded nihilist. I...
The Exposition has worn me out! Poor Grand-papa — he can no longer say yes or no except with his hand or his eyes, and yet he takes an interest in...
I am beginning to believe that no one will ever have the patience to read this manuscript. This morning I bought the photograph of Paul de Cassagnac...
Barnola came. One idea torments and absorbs me. I am nearly twenty. And since at fourteen I looked seventeen — judge, then, what age I must appear...
I spent an hour making a sketch of Grand-papa lying down. It is on a size-3 canvas. They say it is a success. But you know — those white pillows,...
We were at church, where Grand Duke Constantine was present.
I have resumed my work with all the ardour and love that come of a long rest and the impatience with which I awaited this day. Among the old hands...
I shall never forgive my family these three years of suffering, at the age when all girls in a situation like ours enjoy themselves and go into...
Last night it seemed to me clear as day that I was about to die very soon, and I rose to write the two words I triply underlined in the darkness....
By what Providence I know not, I was running late, and at nine o'clock was not yet dressed, when someone came to tell me that Grand-papa was worse. I...
It is impossible to paint the horrors we endure from that monster whose name would soil my pen.
At noon everyone was gathered, and Georges prevented the ceremony from taking place; it was put off until six.
Is it possible, when one reads things like the piece you will read in today's *Le Pays*!
I have resumed my work, so unfortunately interrupted on Thursday. I am in a daze. We have received several letters and condolence cards — from Mme...
Yesterday some ruffian brought M. Georges round to us; the concierge would not let him come up, and we sent him to the devil — not without my mother,...
Multedo writes. Mme Sarasin de Bock and several others have sent their cards; the Gavinis as well. When all our encounters with the Deceased run...
Letters and cards arrive from Nice. Florence writes to me. I reply; she invites me to spend some time at her country place in England — the hunts and...
Today is the last mass beside the coffin; the priest throws a pinch of earth on the lid to simulate burial — and all is said.
I saw Robert-Fleury, but had only a single drawing to show him — on which I had worked only one day (this week there was illness and a change of...
To mass and then to the promenade (not round the Lake). A crowd of Neapolitan acquaintances, but there was no speaking to anyone in that hell of...
It is sad — very sad, a life like this!
A scene has occurred which, though I ought to be used to such things by now, drove me mad with revolt.
The Bois is most amusing at present. Everything is there — even two Grand Dukes, even a Larderel on horseback. All of Rome and Naples and Florence...
Florence writes and invites me. I shall perhaps go in October.
The Mouzays to dinner. At the end of the evening the talk turned to Cassagnac and his inexplicable marriage to the daughter of the *Comte and...
I take Mme de Mouzay and we go to see M. Albert Gigot, Prefect of Police of the French Republic. I must say, to the credit of the French Republic,...
Yes, it is a horrible life, horrible, horrible.
I dreamt of cats and serpents, and I upset a salt cellar at luncheon. It makes me quite apprehensive. What is going to happen to me? And my left ear...
Mme Antonsky came to see us.
I woke in tears, my pillow soaked. I had dreamt that Paul de Cassagnac came to assure me he was not married, and that he had cut off half his...
Mme Antonsky came to luncheon — and then nothing.
Julian came to tell me that M. Robert-Fleury is very pleased with me and, summing it all up, considers that I am doing astonishing things for so...
*Villa Fortunée, Carabacel*
Yesterday, in a most unexpected way, Pincia had two little ones — white and pretty as herself.
Doenhoff dined with us. Five minutes before his arrival, Maman receives a telegram which I read almost by force and confiscate, for it is from that...
The Coubés dined with us; we recalled Soden and laughed a great deal.
I am doing my first official painting. I was supposed to do still lifes; I therefore did, as you know, a blue vase and two oranges, then a man's foot...
I have letters from Abaza and from Florence — I am decidedly not going to stay with Florence; I prefer the Exposition and the rest... the atelier....
Doenhoff lunched with us, tried on my pelisse, made himself agreeable. On returning from the atelier I found him in the salon — Mme Coubé as well.
At eight o'clock I thought it already eleven. So I began playing scales on the mandoline while reading Balzac. Why do they say Balzac is...
I paint in the mornings and draw in the afternoons.
The women's atelier shares in this lustre, and Robert-Fleury rivals Lefebvre and Boulanger. At every turn Julian says: "What would they say...
Marcuard informs us of his father's death. He must have inherited quite a bit of money.
Maman lost consciousness while trying on a dress. Her health is deteriorating little by little — but continuously. She worries me.
My academic study was judged very good, very good, very good.
No — the Deceased does not combine the grandeur and the holiness that my adoration demands.
"It is packed downstairs," said Julian, "I am going to take your academic study down — give it to me."
It is a *fichue* existence — and I am still lucky enough not to have to say: an existence *fichue*.
It is stupid, but the envy of these women pains me. It is so petty, so base, so ugly. I have never known how to envy.