Sunday, 2 December 1883

Mme Berteaux came on Thursday, and this afternoon I go to the Assembly of Women Painters and Sculptors¹ — it concerns our forthcoming exhibition.

Then to the Gavinis’. In the evening, Tchoumakoff and the Karageorgevitches.

I am reading Stendhal’s De l’Amour² — there are things in it so true that it is alarming. The chapter on infatuation is perhaps what best defines my impressions. He speaks there of “souls too ardent, not ardent by excess, in love on credit, so to speak, who fling themselves at objects instead of waiting for them. Before the sensation which is the consequence of the nature of objects has reached them, they cover the objects from afar, and before seeing them, with that imaginary charm of which they find within themselves an inexhaustible source. Then, approaching them, they see these things, not as they are, but as they have made them, and enjoying themselves under the appearance of such an object, they believe they are enjoying the object itself. But one fine day one wearies of bearing all the expense oneself; one discovers that the adored object does not return the ball; the infatuation falls, and the setback to one’s self-love makes one unjust towards the too-much-appreciated object.”

What is one to say... In sum, my heart is absolutely empty, empty, empty. But I need reveries to amuse myself... And yet I have felt almost everything of which Stendhal speaks concerning true Love, which he calls passion-love³... All those thousand follies of the imagination, all the childishnesses of which he speaks. Thus I have found myself happy to encounter tedious people because they had that day been near the Object; and the other day I love Mackay because she is always with that painter, and I love Cartwright because she knows him — and yet him I do not love with love.

When they spoke of departure and marriage, and I was in a kind of dungeon — something baleful; everything is over (what?), there is nothing left! What emptiness! And then I suddenly remember that I have the pen with which he drew, and the drawings. And that has been a great relief.

Another moment and I was looking at Mackay with triumph. It is childish. It is exactly like being in love. And yet... I feel that it is still not quite that.

Besides, I believe that a being — woman or man — who works always and is preoccupied with ideas of glory does not love as those who have nothing else to do.

Doubtless — Balzac and Jules (not Caesar) have said as much; the sum of energy is one: if you spend it all on the right, there is none left for the left, or else the efforts are lesser being doubled instead of singular.

When you send five hundred thousand men to the Rhine they cannot simultaneously be before Paris.

It is therefore probable that my tender feelings... slide off me by reason of this theory.

“If you expend yourself in words, pleasantries, and enthusiasms for Jules and René,” says the judicious architect,⁴ “you will harm your art.”

O great architect, devotee of the noblest of arts and brother of Jules — you are right. And so I present Jules, Anatole, or Orestes as side-dishes, and they occupy me only in my leisure hours... That is how it ought to be for people with work to do.

They say Michelangelo never loved. I understand that perfectly — and if I had some truly encouraging success, I should be capable of loving only my arts. And in the evenings from eight to nine... someone sentimental who would love me well... It would harm nothing — and besides, I have no intention of driving out the English, much as I detest them.⁵