Tuesday, 22 November 1881

I cried so much yesterday that my aunt came to ask whether something hurt, a touching concern to which I replied that I had a sore nose. It is impossible to imagine how despairing this exile to the South is for me. It seems as though everything is going to be over. I, who had come back intoxicated with the idea of staying quietly and working — working hard, without respite, following the movement… And now everything collapses again! And while others will go always forward in the midst of artistic Paris, I shall be there doing nothing, or chasing after an outdoor painting, which is a frightfully difficult thing… Look at Breslau¹ — it is not her peasant woman that brought her anything. In a word, my heart splits and breaks before all of this. This evening I saw Charcot,² who says the illness since last year has not worsened; as for what I have had these past eight days, it is a chill [blacked out] and will go away very quickly. As for the Midi, it is the same story — one must go, or else shut oneself up absolutely like a prisoner, otherwise a constant risk of taking on something serious, since the right lung is affected — and yet, it seems, I am fortunate: it is a curable illness that has localized and is not increasing, despite all my alleged imprudences. He told me the same thing last winter and I simply refused to listen; now I hesitate, and spend four hours weeping as I did yesterday at this idea of leaving Paris again, of interrupting myself… It is true that if I am often as I have been these past days, Paris will do me little good… And that is what drives me to despair. To surrender. To admit defeat. To say, yes, the doctors are right. Yes, I am ill. Ah! No — everything is decidedly going badly.

Gioriae [Gloriae] Cupiditas³ Book the 94th from Wednesday 23 November 1881 to Saturday 29 April 1882 Paris, 34, avenue Montaigne — Nice, from 29 January to Wednesday 13 April.