Sunday, 11 September 1881

What I had long suspected is true: the Tchoumakoffs, so flat and so flattering, are viper tongues. The mother says dreadful things about us. I thought her vile — she is. It is Bojidar who tells me. He lies when spinning stories, but for as long as he is someone's friend he is genuinely so; just now he is our friend and I believe him. And since he loves gossip and I am inquisitive, I have had the details. They attack my family — well and good; but they also attack me. Bojidar says — "vile things." What was I telling you the other day? Only three years ago this would have driven me to despair; now it is too well known, I am used to it. Soutzo has apparently been saying that Robert-Fleury, old Gavini, a whole string of others, have been my lovers, I believe. Why dirty one's pen? So that one may know what to believe of such talk. You who will read me, who know my life as I know it myself, will see what people say — and after that you will know what to believe of what they tell you about others. Do not be credulous, be mistrustful — but when someone tells you some infamy about a person who is not even your friend, strike back at the coward, for a man of standing rarely repeats horrors [word blacked out: even] those he is certain of. In short, I know I have rather an entertaining reputation.