Wednesday, 15 March 1882

What is horrible is that this fright that gripped the whole household shook me to the point that I had to go for a walk instead of painting. For you do not know: since Monday a week ago I have been working on a picture — an adorable six-year-old child I caught carrying provisions, whom I am painting just as she is, who poses well, and it was going perfectly; each day a piece was painted; nothing has ever gone so well; I would not even speak of it out of superstition. And there I was, with a concentration that artists will understand, beginning the head, having taken care the day before to be well rested — and snap.

I had to go into town to recover. Scoundrel of a man — he went to old Prince Karageorgevitch to beg twenty francs and tell him that we wanted to bury him alive and that we are ruining him. What a sinister infamy. But it is my picture that has suffered for it...