Spring pushes me not toward sentiment but toward childishness. Rosalie warns me everything will end badly — she is always warning me something will end badly, even the dog. I get up instead of sleeping and walk about the studio in my dressing gown with Coco at my heels, saying I despise him. The passing carriages outside are condolence visits, because I despise him. Then a train whistle. A church bell. I am here while the Champs-Élysées and the Bois are full of life. Is it right to throw one's youth to ambition? I shall reap my returns. I am very patient, patient as only the sure can be. With Bastien one must have more confidence, one must show understanding when it is there. We rarely see each other; neither of us quite knows what the other is saying. If only the Arlequin were mine — ah, but it is his, all his, conditionally local, nothing complete, nothing like Gambetta. The whistle always. I think of Paul et Virginie, of Dominique before the coming storm. I am reading Balzac to prevent my mind from working itself into a state — it is all I can do on these evenings. Still the bell. Still the whistle.