Monday, 30 December 1878

I have resumed my work.
Antoine Gavini dined with us — he and Paul are carousing in the Quartier Latin. Young Antoine has just qualified as a barrister; he will now plead for nothing until he is of age, and then stand for election.
We were speaking of the trip to Corsica we were to make two years ago to buy me two small horses; and the young man offers me some from his own estate.
"Antoine will escort you home," she says to me one day. "You understand — you must get used to it, since it will happen often. Antoine is like my son; and if I had a son you could perfectly well go out with him, could you not?"