Monday, 2 January 1882
I have the fever again, having caught a cold while working near the window where there is a draught! Well, no matter — that can happen to anyone.J'ai encore la fievre ayant pris un rhume en travaillant pres de la fenetre d'ou il vient du vent ! Enfin n'importe, cela peut arriver a chacun.
A fine lady from Poltava, Mme Volkovitsky, dined with us; she saw me with a cold... Ah! I am furious to be told I am ill.
Une belle dame de Poltava Mme Volkovitsky a dine chez nous, elle m'a vu enrhumee... Ah II je suis enragee qu'on me dise malade.
I have nothing wrong with my lungs and yet I pass for a consumptive! And since I do not marry, there are perhaps gentlemen who imagine I nurse unhappy passions for their carcasses! This would call for explanation; [blacked out: and I have] the dreadful thought that they will spare me at Tony's because I am ill! But thank God my appearance is still presentable... Shall I tell you something? Well, I am half mad from my family's petty miseries! I have reached the point of seeing health-related traps everywhere. In every gesture I see a pill, my [blacked out: potion] or some coverlet to shield me from a draught. One must have been subjected to these thousand loving persecutions to understand how much they wear on one's nerves.
Je n'ai rien aux poumons et je passe pour poitrinaire !...
I no longer believe in the sincerity of any advice. They wore me out with the thousand little things that compose the insufferable grinding of my illness; I had the bad judgment to complain, and the more I complained the more they tried to conceal their fussy solicitude — and you can imagine all these petty, stupid, naive little stratagems, which only succeeded in irritating me further. Whenever a window needed closing, Maman would pretend to shiver, or else relate the exemplary wisdom of such and such a woman who, for a simple cold, took to her bed and wrapped herself in flannel. In short, these good people have made me suspicious and obsessive as a true invalid... And even as I write, I feel you believe me ill — very ill — done for — and all the more so because I protest! I tell you, it is a madness of which I am fully aware.
Je ne crois plus a la sincerite d'aucun avis...
And [it has been] a [long time] since I go out [without begging] for permission and so on. They reproach me so much for being reckless that I put on flannel-lined ankle boots and a woollen dress and a great otter coat — dressed, in sum, for ten degrees below zero. Very well. We go out in a coupé, three of us, all sealed up; within ten minutes it is twenty degrees inside the box and I am bathed in sweat. At first I said nothing, exaggerating my good behaviour like a great converted sinner — but today I go out at two o'clock in fine weather, two or three degrees above zero; I invite Dina and Nini to come with me, to be merry and to avoid the nagging of the elders...
Et [il] y [Mot noirci: longtemps] que je sors [Mots noircis: sans mendier] la permission...
I open a window; Dina turns away to contain her indignation and not voice it, and Nini is all entreaties and tears!! Just imagine my expression. And I who had the mad plan to spend two months recuperating and painting en plein air with Paul, his wife and Dina! Farewell bright hopes of good humour, of energy, of calm and work — farewell travel, farewell carnival [words blacked out: of Naples — the pleasant holiday, the story of the festivities.]
J'ouvre une fenetre, Dina se detourne pour contenir l'indignation et ne pas l'arreter...
I describe my manner of going out to the doctor, who authorises and orders [the window to be] left open.
Je raconte ma facon de me promener au docteur qui autorise et ordonne de [Mots noircis: laisser la ] fenetre ouverte.
Ah! How exhausting all of this is!
Ah ! ce que tout ca est fatiguant !
We encountered Cassagnac in a friend's carriage, driving a pair of fine horses. You will recall that Maman caught sight of him this way some time before his marriage, and that I was once indignant about it for some reason I cannot explain — Cassagnac in a high-wheeled young man's carriage seemed to me a kind of comedown. We told the coachman to drive faster: we want to catch someone up — and the coachman manoeuvred so as to bring us across him three times; the man had guessed it, I'll wager: three young women and Cassagnac going by... Neither a coachman nor a concierge would have any doubt about it.
In that class, he is a legend.
Nous avons rencontre Cassagnac dans la voiture d'un ami...
The first time we passed so close that when his eyes met mine I almost drew back — the coupé wall hid me at once in any case. I am most dissatisfied: I was looking wretched, bundled up in my furs between those two women, seated in the back and pressing my knees against the [words blacked out: thing] opposite.
La premiere fois nous nous sommes passes si pres que lorsque ses yeux eurent rencontres les miens j'ai presque fait un mouvement en arriere...
Besides — he means nothing to me, up there in his carriage... All in all, I am indifferent. It is postponed, postponed, postponed — I am always waiting, poor innocent, for all the scores I have to settle... And what truly captivates me is my painting. I do not feel worthy to say my Art — [words blacked out: that would seem presumptuous] on the part of a nonentity. To speak of Art and its aspirations or inspirations, one must already be someone; otherwise one looks like a ridiculous amateur, or rather there is... I know not what indistinctness about it that wounds what is [words blacked out: superior] in my nature — it is as if one were confessing to some fine action... a false shame, in short.
Du reste... il ne me fait rien, du haut de sa voiture...