Saturday, 14 April 1883

Bojidar sits for me, Alice does sketches, and little Mlle Canrobert paints beside me. Then a simple dinner with the Comte de la Ferrière and Mme Presseq. This femme de lettres is more than fifty-five years old — her ungloved hands look thirty-five. She is not amusing. She says that Blanc often spoke to her of us. So it is only Blanc?! Ah — very well. She will not have dared name the other one. Why? It seems that is just how it is. In the end I asked about the painter Ponsan — what has he done? The natural answer would have been: he painted Paul de Cassagnac's portrait last year. And she did not say it.