Friday, 29 November 1878

I dream that Walitsky comes back, and that Dina and Rosalie, dead, come back too. I beg them to go away: "You are dead — go away, I am afraid!"
To this nightmare another succeeds, in which Cassagnac takes my arm — no sooner had I slipped my arm into his than his cheek pressed against mine with such a feeling of reality that I still feel it.
To this the great man replies that he adores us all, but that he kept his distance because of a quantity of anonymous letters telling him horrible things about his wife and praising me — adding that I am madly in love with him, and all... that you know.
And Cassagnac is truly a knight of the Middle Ages. One of two things. Either it is not true, or it is true. If it is not true, he had no reason either to "fear a confrontation he desired," nor to keep his distance. Or it is true — and then it is truly cowardly of him to inform Blanc and the others.