I am sitting for my portrait at Tony's. That imbecile still hasn't had his tooth put back in... It doesn't stop us from being good friends... He...
Same. I [would like to] try to breathe some modernity into this Academician, just as I thought of purifying Mme Cartwright's salon... The thing is,...
Prunier sends me tickets to the prize-giving at the Conservatoire; we attend. It is very interesting.
A telegram informs me that the enchanted princes are not in the country, so Maman and Dina depart alone. Tony comes to dinner and we then go to see...
I dreamed that Cassagnac told me he has always loved me.
I have seen in a dream again the thirty-eight-year-old journalist — in fact, he will be thirty-nine on the coming 2nd of December, and I, on the 26th...
A sitting, then Tony comes to dinner, and afterwards Tchoumakoff, Agathe, Géry. We talk politics — this ministry gives rise to all manner of amusing...
Poor Tony has rubbed out the left hand at the end of the sitting — however academic one may be, however much one may have won the Medal of Honour and...
What a pity that a man so good, so gentle is not something of a... possibility. Since I sit for him every day I study him — he is an excellent and...
There it is. It is tiresome that one cannot see the effect without compromising oneself... It is not that I am foolish enough to believe myself...
It is three in the morning; I cannot sleep.
And I have dreamed of Cassagnac.
M. Géry sends me a bouquet of roses. Yesterday we went to the Decorative Arts Exhibition with the Gavinis, then to the Bois — it is not at all warm...
Yesterday, two steps from here, at the Salle Wagram, there was a great Bonapartist meeting; Cassagnac was cheered for a quarter of an hour. That is...
Last sitting. My artist is looking for a subject for a painting — something modern and fine... And then "he has a wish to leave in his oeuvre a nude...
We did not find Bastien at home; I leave him a note and catch a glimpse of what he has brought back from London. There is a little street urchin of...
The real Bastien has gone to Damvillers, where he will stay five months; the architect comes to make his elder brother's apologies. We talked of Mme...
We go out with the Gavinis.
I am in a mood to scratch everyone. I am doing nothing! And the time passes — for four days now I have not posed; I had begun an outdoor study but it...
I go to the Marché du Temple with Rosalie. My eyes are still wide from it. It is a marvellous quarter; I bought a few old oddments for the studio,...
Instead of working properly at any study, I go walking — yes, mademoiselle takes artists' walks and observes! I went twice to the children's home, in...
Everyone has gone — even the Gavinis; we see no one; my studio is being put in order, it is nearly finished, one can work there.
There are days when I truly believe I am something. Listen — it is impossible that this fever, these impulses, this love of what I do should not be...
Dumas is quite right: one does not hold one's subject — it is the subject that holds you. A man staking five francs may feel the same anguish as one...
First the upholsterer disturbs me in my painting, then another workman, then a shower of rain, then the little girl who will not pose at all, and...
I wept over the last pages of the book — the death of the great, the sublime Maryx.
I receive a letter from Maman, who writes that the young neighbours are arriving for two months with their friends and that great hunts are being...
And so I caught cold and fell ill, just as the thrice-venerable Mère Jacob predicted. And a rather amusing letter from Bojidar in response to mine —...
Bojidar arrived from the country yesterday and... Dinner at ours, the priest too. It rains every day; the moment I begin something outdoors I am...
I am not an artist; I wished to be one and, being intelligent, I have learned certain things... So how to explain what Tony said when I was beginning:
Tony came in our absence — but Soutzo dines with us and helps me arrange the plaster casts in the studio. He has the air of a good-natured fellow,...
Old Tchoumakoff is still here; it is nine o'clock, I have been painting by the water, and I am sleepy.
Mère Jacob predicted a fire, a silver gate, a marriage in the family and the birth of a child, then deaths. All of it has just come to pass — except...
I have brought my canvases to Julian and he is very pleased. The fisherman really must be finished — it may be a small success... Yes, finished —...
I posed at that Orleanist Tony's — all in black, sad, and complaining of not sleeping. With all his family mourning crepe... As for the portrait......
Soutzo seems afraid of me; he keeps, besides, a reserve and tact I had not known in him before.
Yesterday I brought the fisherman to Tony — it is not bad, but that is all; he finds it [Crossed out: original,] very well composed, the expression...
The days follow one after another and are all alike.
Tony, Julian and Émile Bastien dine with us. It is a charming evening — without flirtation and without gossip, peaceful as only an evening among...
I pose at Tony's — he is sad and has a desire to enter the Grande Chartreuse.
I am drawing my Magdalene while Tony comes to choose the objects from my desk for the portrait. His system, his art is exasperating — it is not art....
Nothing new; from time to time the visit of old Tchoumakoff, whose daughter has just married; then Géry comes by for news, spends an hour in the...
I bring my blessed old fisherman to Julian. It is not bad. But it is not it. "You have put your hand on something very interesting — but it must be...
They have arrived; they have been to see Maman, who finds them charming and telegraphs me as much. I shall leave Sunday at eight in the evening......
Well — my portrait is finished. This Tony is always complaining... He cannot sleep, he has a heap of troubles, he dined badly yesterday; for today;...
That idiot of an aunt is stubborn as a mule. She refuses to come to Russia because she has to finish that Soulima affair — she was mixed up in it at...
There is a special paper on which one makes drawings for *La Vie Moderne*, and it is only to be had there; in short Julian gives me a note for the...
Julian's note called for paper with my name on it, adding: *a pupil of the studio* — and *someone* underlined. But this journalist perhaps had...
Going to Russia in the hope of conquering people I shall perhaps see twice. One goes to the spa and one does not always encounter prey as...
Come then — it is a little trip; we leave this evening at eight and arrive Saturday at six in the morning. And why??? What is clearest is that I am...
In the end my aunt abandoned me at the frontier and it is with Paul that I travel. I make sketches at the stations, and on the way I read *Tra las...
We went to bed at seven in the morning, for one went directly from Poltava station to Gavronzi; Maman, Papa, Dina and Kapitan were at the station....
They have not come — it was to be expected; Michka did not go there for nothing and has already begun, no doubt, one of those admirable intrigues for...
And instead of him I dreamed of that Orleanist Tony — we were looking at the same album, our heads touching, which was not unpleasant, quite the...
We are in considerable agitation over Michka's obstinate absence, and one dare not go to fetch the Pomars, since they have promised their visit for...
At last we have them. They arrive for luncheon with Michka.
General consternation on Saturday morning. The Kotchoubeys send their apologies!
Alexandre and Kapitan dined here yesterday.
Today is the baptism of little Paul, who is to be christened Constantin — for Papa and I are to be the godparents. Several people were invited and...