Thursday, 21 August 1879

I was wakened in the night to be given the following telegram: I have seen Joseph: signed Berthe.
I reply immediately with the refrain of the well-known idiotic song: Ah! ha! ha! signed: Marie.
Da Costa is rather nice, well-bred and a gentleman; with him, Zurlo and sometimes de Plancy, it goes well enough when one adds the princes. Tomorrow the races, Dieppe is lively and elegant.
This morning I went to make a pochade of Mother Justin who is seventy-three years old and who has had nineteen children and who sells sand. People came but I pretended to see no one and then a troop of soldiers came to do I know not what exercise on the beach and almost immediately a driving rain but I shall return tomorrow. It amuses me so much to make studies, in the open air, these canvases will give chic to my studio. It is understood, is it not, that I affect none of the artistic exterior and all those ugly poses of people who daub without talent and dress like artists.