We go to church, where I endure, as usual, a fit of rage and despair that must be suppressed throughout the luncheon attended by Saint-Amand and Mme...
— You have been caught out: you thought you would find no one.
There will be very flowing draperies; he showed me the sketch. And it must be intimate, poetic... unexplained. He understands very well that...
The entertainment consists of having cleared the entire mansion of its furniture and arranged two or three salons on the first floor in Japanese...
This result makes me laugh and does not vex me in the least. When it reaches that degree, it becomes amusing. After all, competitions have always...
And then?... And then nothing.
I do not know what will become of this picture — Villevieille, Claire, the Orthodox priest, conversations, a model who does not pose!
We go out only for the return from the races. I wanted to look very well, and I do. I neglect myself too often; for more than a year now I have...
I tell Claire about it in brief when she comes to ask for some information; they leave tomorrow morning. I asked her whether Alice had said nothing...
It is the last day of the Exhibition of Portraits of the Century at the École des Beaux-Arts. We go. A dress of chestnut-coloured foulard silk, a...
She is a tall, handsome girl with an irregular and not pretty face, but who makes a strong impression with a little rouge. She goes everywhere.
I had never seen this church ceremony before — all those little girls in white, prostrate, that pure white, those uniform and childlike attitudes......
And it means nothing to me.
There are truly abominably unjust awards. Bastien's painting causes me more and more grief. Whom am I to admire, good God?
The telegram came this morning at ten o'clock. That is to say, just now. Those madwomen downstairs were saying that Maman must come back this minute,...
Bojidar comes to address the envelopes for the death announcements, and we are lacking in solemnity; people's names call for comments... If it had...
Cards arrive in great numbers. Mme Gavini has sent a telegram from Agen; Odette came, and M. Eschmann, a Russian, and old Géry, who arrives with a...
This morning, hoping to meet no one so early, I venture to the Salle Petit: an exhibition of a hundred masterpieces in aid of something or other....
So then, I withdraw the title of masterpiece from Bastien's paintings. Why? Because his *Love in the Village* sets my teeth on edge, or because I...
Consider only the result, which is that today you have emerged from the crowd, that you are *someone*, and that this will help to secure you a medal....
Ah ha! Before coming downstairs I leave him a few minutes with my aunt, who prepares my entrance by talking about my youth and all manner of things...
Tomorrow is the awards ceremony; they sent me the list of those honoured — and my name in it, painting section... It looks well... But I hesitate to...
In deep mourning, naturally: I have a skirt entirely of crêpe with a scarf of black grenadine forming at the back a large bow with very long ends; a...
My father squandered nearly everything; he leaves 140,000 roubles in debts which, once paid, will leave us in all fifty or sixty thousand roubles....
And both dazzle me. Schommer's is Edith discovering the body in a field strewn with corpses — three figures standing out boldly against an evening...
Without believing I am consumptive — for my hair is increasing in very considerable proportions and is truly beautiful now, though only reaching to...
Here is Alice's reply. I re-reply to her this instant, in few words; I am astonished that she did not notice the manner in which I invited her to...
We had to wait two hours at the town hall, because the bride who forgets everything had forgotten some formality or other.
Is not the finest portrayal of all the portrayal of human feelings? That sums up everything. It is the flower of the mind, the heart, the soul — the...
In the evening at dinner: the Engelhardts, the priest, Tchoumakoff, Bojidar — who stayed all day.
The Engelhardts, Agathe, Bojidar — and what heat! On Friday I shall go to the Canroberts'; the Maréchale came this afternoon to persuade me. How kind...
I went to the Consulate to have inheritance papers legalised.
It poisons everything. I had looked ahead to those three days with dread; they are over... But there is a formal, sacred promise to come back for a...
My God, be good to me!
If only, after ten or twelve hours of work, one were satisfied!! But no, I feel dreadful remorse; I am ashamed of the result and should like to start...
All that is superb to recount after genius has blossomed, but as things are! I do not think Benvenuto Cellini burning his furniture did as much as I...
To collect myself. Write letters to Russia. Paul and his wife are behaving like swine toward Maman, and I write Paul five pages of abuse — perfectly...
Have you read Stendhal's *On Love*? I am reading it now.
Myself, for example, for whom complete love would be possible only in marriage, or any other young girl, or even a married woman with principles. We...
And with sculpture. The painting is going a little better.
It is evident that if the father is coarse the son may be so too, and if the father is a superior being the son may inherit those qualities. Yes, but...
As it is possible that this moment will have great influence on my life, I shall give the details.
I need to be very strong.
There lies a field open to my frenzy for the grand and the beautiful. Babylonian things, cantos of Dante put into sculpture.
The architect comes at about six; he brings the drawing of the town house where he has suggested I do some small piece of decorative sculpture. I...
He is completely stupid in artistic matters, considers himself a great connoisseur, speaks loudly, makes observations on drawing, colour, and...
I understand very well, but... He saw only that poor composition and told me to continue like that — that is all. Disconcerting. The reclining...
These two young men will become great friends, and I am delighted to count them among my faithful. They have discovered that I am horribly...
I work without being able to compare what I do, which is a drawback; I remember that at Julian's, in the early days... Nothing taught me as much as...
It seems to me that my eyes are failing. For more than ten years I have had some indefinable thing in the right eye — as though the eye were pulled...
Bastien-Lepage is maddening when one studies nature at close quarters; when one wants to render it absolutely, it is impossible not to think...
In short, it is a matter of indifference to me.
Sculpture, it is true — but that does not count yet. The urchins are not finished!!!