Monday, 27 August 1883

Mme Gavini, passing through, comes to see us.

I gave my Fisherman with a Line to the Ischia lottery; the lots are exhibited at Petit’s on the rue de Sèze — the fashionable, modern, Wolffist¹ gallery, etc. My fisherman looks well — and the water is good; I would never have believed it. Ah! The frame! Ah! The setting! What fools we are… What is the use of making art when the crowd understands nothing of it? — But do you love the crowd, then? — Yes… That is to say, I would like a fame understood by all, in order to have yet more admiration…

The heat is horrible; I am on edge and amuse myself telling fortunes at billiards and in books. Such a page, such a line — or such a line to the left, or to the right.