Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 30 July 1879

We have a visit from Blanc! We had encountered him several times and he would approach us as if nothing had happened. Now here he comes to call. It is all the same to me, except for a slight feeling of discomfort at first.
We do not do this individual the honour of taking offence at his absences. Everything is as it was a year ago, except that the Countess Couvelet has replaced the Hungarian woman. Blanc tells me several things I knew, and others I did not. [The chivalrous] Popaul gives his mistress's name to his wife. He calls her Ninette so as not to make mistakes. Ninette "chatters all day long" — enough to exhaust a regiment. She claims to dictate his newspaper articles to the chivalrous Popaul, who has grown thin, while Ninette has grown fat — not from the waist, [adds Blanc. Her face is covered in] pimples. I am disgusted merely from writing it. Do you remember the magnificent Popaul saying that if he sees the slightest blemish on a woman's face he is revolted by her. I asked nothing; Dina questioned very little and in jest, and the Captain needed no urging to tell all.
He says Paul's wife talks far too much. So I told him with a serious air that it was the exuberance of youth. He protested.
— "Surely, Monsieur — she is sixteen or seventeen."
— "Who told you that!"
— "Several people. Is it not true?"
— "But no — she is a woman of... twenty-six."
He already admits to twenty-six... but all this is mere trifling...
I believe it is he who has my letters... I do not care.