Friday, 2 December 1881

December already. I ought to be at work, searching for fabrics, the large vase that features in the background... What is the use of these details, except to make me weep. And I feel so much stronger — I eat, I sleep, I am almost as strong as usual. But there is the pulmonary congestion, lower left. The right side, the chronic [condition] is better, it appears. But that is of no concern to me; it is this acute illness — which can be cured — that keeps me shut in for some weeks yet. It is enough to make one go and drown oneself. Ah! how cruel God is; [Blacked out: never] the family humiliations and sorrows — but those hardly touched me, could not reach down to the core of my being, and against them I had enormous hopes; I lose my voice — the first personal assault — then I begin to hear badly; well, I accustom myself to it, I resign myself, I manage. I remain until I am twenty-three without seeing anything of society, deprived of every chance of marrying. I console myself even then. Ah! since you adapt to all of that, very well — they will take from you the means to work. No studies, no painting, nothing at all, and an entire winter's progress lost — I who had put my whole life into my work. Only those who have been where I am can understand me.