Thursday, 17 November 1881

Bad nights full of fever and nightmares — the new ministry haunted me, and I kept seeing, God knows on what pretext, General Campenon¹ and his wife who apparently governs him [blacked out: perhaps hounded all night]. Then I would clearly see eight o'clock when I woke, and it was pitch black — then impotent rages: it is my aunt, it is Rosalie, it is the end of the world and they are hiding it from me! And I could feel all around my neck the aromatic herbs my aunt had placed there for my health. Almost delirium, in short — which meant that yesterday I could not drag myself anywhere, with pain in my chest, my throat, my back, coughing, stuffed up, unable to swallow anything, going from cold to hot ten times a day. I am somewhat better today — but it is all the same, for someone who is being treated by the greatest physicians in the world! And for so long! For ever since I had my first losses of voice, I have been treated!… Yes — there is the Ring of Polycrates,² which I throw into the sea quite against my will. Well, since this dreadful illness has its hold on me, it ought to serve as a counterweight to my other happinesses. They will not say I have everything… If I ever arrive at anything. That ought to reassure me…