Lihopoy left very early in the morning; I was not even polite to him — I believe he left somewhat hurt, for I feel a kind of remorse.
Only Alexandre, his wife, Garnitsky and Michka remain; all of them leave this evening. There is also Uncle Nicolas.
Truly Paul and his wife do not live in peace. I am quite astonished by this discord — every evening Maman and I try to bring them into agreement,...
But he is wrong — I saw her well enough last year: she wept and moaned when away from the first baby. What would it be like now.
We left yesterday and here we are in this execrable Poltava.
I shall go mad! Only four months remain before the Salon... Have I been preparing for it? I would need six months just to recover!
I am in Paris! We left on Thursday evening. Nicolas and Michka accompanied us to the first station; Paul and his wife went with us as far as Kharkov.
I had a series of ill-omened dreams that were to presage something dreadful. It has come — I believe at least that this is it, though it is a...
So henceforth I shall be less than anyone — incomplete, disabled... I shall need the indulgence and sympathetic complicity of my own people, the...
But, my God — why suddenly this dreadful, hideous, atrocious thing? Why not a broken leg, or a tooth, or — I don't even know. Why *this?*
A visit from Saint-Amand, who is quite beside himself at seeing us again and is full of a thousand schemes for the new Hôtel Rambouillet of the rue...
I begin working at Julian's today.
Who is writing to me, I ask you? The architect! Whatever has come over the poor dear. And at the same time, Julian's reply to my letter from Russia —...
Yesterday was the second performance of *Le Roi s'amuse* — and at the same time the fiftieth anniversary. Naturally one could not find boxes.
I have just left the Théâtre-Français — the second performance of *Le Roi s'amuse*. It is not well performed; it is even astonishing that it should...
I am not doing the competition, but I work at the studio all the same — a fellow student poses for me willingly, as I shall give her the study.
The Princess, Bojidar and Tchernisky dined here yesterday. I am found to have grown fat. Saint-Agathe and Adeline come before dinner.
Tony and Julian spend the evening with us — but as I have neither studies to show nor projects to submit, it does not interest me.
I work with two or three women around me who are fond of me — but who talk among themselves and laugh when I cannot hear what they are saying to me....
Tony saw the portrait — not yet finished — and did not find it very good. "You see how difficult it is to start again when one has been for some time...
It is snowing. This whole month will be horribly grey — I should so like to be in the south. But it is impossible.
I have just read *Honorine* at a single sitting, and I wish I possessed that sublime eloquence of the pen, so that in reading me one might find...
Maman maintained a pointed silence before the portrait; then we criticised the hairstyle; he changed it, and today poor Tony has a dreadful migraine...
We chatted for a moment with Julian — but no more of those long conversations... There is no fuel; everything has been said; we wait for me to work...
A very intimate dinner — Tony, Julian, Dusautoy, Bojidar, Mlle Villevieille, and Émile Bastien back from the country. Oh! I am happy! The real...
Saint-Amand for lunch, and then Soutzo arrives. We have him hang plates on the walls of the dining room.
Saint-Marceaux came!!!
The architect Bastien, who boasted the other evening of teaching me perspective, comes to give a lesson; Bojidar attends. But I grasp these things...
In the morning we go to see the canvases the real Bastien has just brought back from the country. He is there, arranging the edges of the pictures...
Oh! there is much to say. At the studio for a week past there has been a young girl named Mlle Feurgard, an intimate friend of Breslau's, to whom I...
The true, the sole, the unique, the great Bastien comes today.
It is a dreary discouragement — the end of everything; my back aches, my legs ache, my hair falls flat and straight.
But as there is also an invitation from the Gavinis, who have the Rothschilds' front box at the Français, one must do both. I dress underneath and...
I slept until eleven and cannot eat anything. I still have nothing underway for the Salon and nothing presents itself — it is anguish...
The Engelhardts, Tchernitsky, la Bailleul, Bojidar and Alice for dinner. In the evening I make sketches near the piano with the Salon in mind. It...
So this evening we have for dinner the great, the true, the sole, the incomparable Bastien, and his brother.
Saint-Amand and Géry come to prevent me from working.
Well — it appears I am ill. The doctor who is treating me and does not know me has no interest in deceiving me: the right side is damaged, the lung...
Well — this evening as I am going to bed I have sketched the painting I should like to do: a man in profile in the shadow playing the piano, two...
Never mind all that! I am consumptive. He told me so today: "Take care of yourself — one must attempt to be cured; you will regret it." My doctor is...
Something is moving in there. Well — I am beginning to exaggerate. No, but it is true — something is moving, and it is impossible to... *[Part of...
It is too dark to paint; we go to church, then to the Gavinis' where we find Géry. Géry, to whom we gave a silver jug in memory of Mise-Brun, has...
Gambetta, ill — or wounded — for several days, has just died.
All this noise and the newspaper articles on Gambetta's death still fail to make one believe it is true. This great event is too close — one can only...
Reading the newspapers full of Gambetta grips my head like an iron band — the patriotic tirades, the resonant words: patriot, great citizen, a...
I saw Julian, who had in his pocket the article by Pelletan he had wanted to show me — the one that had moved me so much. He tells me I shall never...
Gavini has us admitted through the privileged doors. I could feel myself growing pale already in the courtyard — the men with preoccupied faces, the...
We go to watch the procession pass from the windows of M. Marinovitch, Serbia's minister and the princess's brother-in-law, at 240 rue de Rivoli. One...
Now reading the newspapers is an interesting exercise — *Le Voltaire* makes one weep; *Le Figaro* dries the tears with a perhaps impartial account...
Truly this man filled France and almost Europe. Everyone must feel that someone is missing; it seems there is nothing left to read in the newspapers,...
Nervo came with the young man who will lead the cotillon to settle the details.
We go to the Opéra — the Comtesse de Kessler has sent her box; *Hamlet*; as for male company, Papa and Saint-Amand. We return at half past eleven.
Michka has just arrived. The house is in upheaval for tomorrow — furniture moved, chandeliers hung, drapes put up, etc. etc. Enormous quantities of...