Wednesday, 19 December 1883

I am sketching Claire's picture — a flower-seller's cart, with the flower-seller. And I do Bojidar's evening coat and glove; he is finished. All that remains is the old man's head to complete the Laughers. When one is truly working and devoured by ambition one is good for nothing else — everything disappears; one can barely tell whom one is looking at. The preoccupation is so great and so continuous, so intense... One would barely be capable of attending to some Mackay or other... Then artists are never in love? I do not say that — an artist who has arrived can afford this luxury, and while he is affording himself it his work will be stopped, or all but.