❦
Wednesday, 8 August 1883
If only from curiosity. For after all, I know only what passed within me — and I should very much like to see the other side. What did he think?
Quand cela ne serait que par curiosite. Car enfin je ne sais que ce qui s'est passe chez moi et je voudrais bien voir l'envers. Qu'a-t-il pense ?
Did he even find me pretty?
So he told his intimate confidante... What? That I was in love with him? How could he have known it when I did not know it myself?
Il a donc dit a sa gouvernante intime... Quoi ? Que j'etais amoureuse de lui ? Comment l'aurait-il su quand je ne le savais pas moi-meme ?
What would he have boasted of? So it is true that all of this counts for something in my life.
In short... We saw each other for eighteen months, and barely once a month. Did I occupy his thoughts? Or is it from those letters and those exhortations at the time of the marriage that everything dates? Yes — everything must date from that. Without that he would never have known anything.
So he amused himself by showing those anonymous but barely disguised letters — for he knew at once... And I wrote them with almost no conviction.
I truly never know whether I am deeply moved... Except by pictures — and even there, there are moments... Until now...
It seems to me I could well live without him — but I would not want to live with another, unless I had the hope of finding him again some day...