Monday, 9 August 1880

Up there, up there on the mountain,
You see well that fine castle.
I... I have only castles in Spain now.
I am on the third floor of the hotel.
This takes me back along the course of my blessed existence to the year of grace 1875, and then I come back down to my meeting with the Surprising One last year at Mme de Lesseps', and this second memory appears to me as something touching. God knows why! Then quite naturally I come to the little Audiffrets, and then even more naturally I rage.
Who will ever know all my miseries!!
I saw the Surprising One with a young woman hanging on his hand; for a moment I believed it was his wife, and I confess that this did not exactly thrill me.
"Who is this young person?" I asked him.
"Why, it is my sister."
And I did not dare ask him to introduce me to her!
These two young girls have the gift of awakening all my grievances... and a mad rage to bite marble.