Thursday, 23 September 1880

My doctor told me the day before yesterday that I may recover and that in any case I shall hear better than at present... Well then! And today there are dreadful noises in my ears and I don't know how to escape the torment of not catching what the good Tchoumakoff is saying as he smokes with my aunt after dinner.
Yesterday we were at the Opera, in the Casa-Riera box, and I was well.
It was Cerny who had the box; she had brought her friends M. and Mme de Haynin — the naval officer, rather plain and very rich; his wife, a nineteen-year-old Italian, beautiful as the day and formed like a goddess. What a figure, what hips, what arms, what hands! Saint-Amand, who had come during the day, had announced that Gavini would be at the Opera.
I wore a dress of saintly muslin made in the child style and was not too bored chatting with that dear archangel who has, as I have told you, lost some of his charm.
"You have grown less handsome," I informed him. But I cannot write all these airy flirtations while I am unwell — cheerful things seem inept to me in this condition!
Ah! What wretchedness.