Saturday, 16 April 1881

I dreamed of Cassagnac — he had committed suicide; I walked through puddles of his blood, then flinging myself into his arms I cried that I wished to die with him.

Then I was at Julian’s, and he, sniggering, showed me Cassagnac lying on an improvised bed and rejoiced at the spectacle of this romance — me nursing the wounded man. There was a great crowd around, and I kept hiding so as not to be seen by Cassagnac, who after twenty-four hours was quite recovered, at which I was somehow displeased.

Whereupon I woke up, and was sorry to. Is it not humiliating to keep coming back to this man who perhaps no longer knows whether I exist, who never thought of me as someone agreeable, who has a poor opinion of me, whom I knew when my mind was only half-formed — saying blundering, extravagant things... In short, a great many rough edges that have since been rounded off. Perhaps I was more interesting then... all that, all that, all that... In short, what is clear, and what must explain everything: you know what he is to me. And I am Nothing to him.

Now that is humiliating and stupid! But truly it is mad, idiotic, imbecilic — it is provincial, it is fit for a concierge, it is bourgeois, it is old-maidish — to cling in this way to the memory of an indifferent man!!

Here in the middle of Paris, with painting in full progress, I have been so obstinately fixed on this same idea for nearly three years — the three years since he married?!! If it were the famous Love — well, I should be suffering from it, since one is apparently made ill by it, one dies of it. I am indeed ill, but it is not on account of that. It is simply a ridiculous side of my nature, or else I am becoming an old maid at twenty-two — but I have always been like this. And then the lack of distraction: I am in the middle of Paris, yet I go out once and then live shut in for months. A slight creature like Gabriel could hardly distract me. In sum, if this clerical Cassagnac were nothing to me, I should not think of him in any case — I should be an absolute recluse.

I had myself photographed at Waléry’s¹ in costume — Dina too. We have company: Tchoumakoff, Goldsmid, Kireyewsky, and Mme Gavini who stays a long time and recounts that Appletcheieff has declared he bears Mme Gavini eternal hatred because she got us invited to Dalmas’s and because Le Sport speaks of me and not of his wife. It is no doubt he too who gossiped at the Queen’s. Mme Gavini received an invitation; we did not. The Queen invited verbally, but it is the Altavillas who send out the cards — and after Appletcheieff they no doubt made enquiries at the embassy with Bachmetieff. So that crowns it. And all this because of the lawsuit! Good Lord! My father himself says there is nothing in it worth making a fuss about, and that if, instead of tacking, temporising and dragging things out, one went to Russia to settle it, there would be nothing left of it. Like the Soulima affair! — how much was said about it, what a commotion it made, how much one was dragged through the mud for it! (The Babanine brothers boxed a district police chief’s² ears.) Maman, the moment she arrived in Russia, presented herself and was immediately removed from the case then pending, since she had no business being mixed up in it. I write like a drunkard but these things are too vexing for me to express them well.

You will never form any idea of the ineptitude of my family! One might think they had some particular interest in harming themselves. The other day my father spoke at length to my aunt to persuade her to leave. Much good that did! She believes it elegant to speak ill of Russia and strikes poses.

Ah — it is enough to make one sing with fury.

In the meantime it is I who suffer. Not to be invited to the Queen’s... people will hear of it — and Cassagnac may also get to know. In the end it becomes amusing, it is so persistent. I am flattered by heaven’s attention and determination in persecuting me.