We tear ourselves from Julian's company to go to the Cartwrights, who, not seeing us arrive, send their servant to ask whether we are coming.

They say she is not a lady one should be seen with... One can see her without appearing to... In any case it is not a soirée — there is only Bastien, his brother, Gervex and Mencker: four celebrities, and I am very intimidated, thinking of Balzac and his Parisian figures whom he describes in a way that makes you feel you have known them. The evening is spent making sketches of one another in the fortunate Cartwright's album. They say she is a kept woman; her apartment is luxurious and full of works of art. Bastien is very pleasant... Besides, all four are perfectly proper, and when one thinks that men with the appearance of society people have such enormous talent into the bargain, one takes pity on the little dancing-men of soirées. Only I am so horribly embarrassed at not hearing well!...