Monday, 25 November 1878

I turned twenty yesterday, or I am turning twenty today.
Blanc was at the theatre, and knowing myself to be looking plain, I removed my gloves and posed — for the hand and a completely lost profile. That old Blanc — he reminds me of the Deceased, and before him I always feel an urge to pose.
We visited the Museum of Antiquities with Nadine. Ah! How banal and unbelievable it is — and yet how true: the moderns will never equal the ancients, and Michelangelo was right to cry out when he wished to add legs to the antique torso: a man cannot continue the work of the gods!
Ah! Greece will never repeat itself.