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Wednesday, 16 May 1883
# Mercredi 16 mai 1883
It is so hot that one only lives in the evening. I had fancied that Bastien would come — and naturally he did not; so I go up to my rooms, very happy in all this quiet upper floor, with the infinity of sky…
Il fait si chaud qu'on ne vit que le soir. Je me suis imaginée que Bastien allait venir et naturellement il n'est pas venu, alors je monte chez moi, très heureuse de tout cet étage tranquille, avec l'infini du ciel...
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.
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.