Monday, 28 July 1884

I am at Jouy. Here I am. Before my departure Bojidar had time to come and report that Emile came to see him this morning, returned with him to Jules’s, and on the way Emile stopped to look in on a dining room he is designing — in a private mansion entirely ornamented with the initials K.M. and where there is a parrot; seeing which Emile said: “Here is the parrot that was at our house” (the cook had told Rosalie that, Mme Mackay having sent a parrot, they were going to send it back to her) — why? — and then he said, pointing above the mantelpiece: “A panel by my brother is to go there.”
Then??????
Yes — what does that mean??
It crushes me — so they have only broken off on account of his illness, and only for the time being.
And then? He perhaps does not want her to come while he is so ill — yet that is impossible! Then?
What is the architect doing in her mansion? Who gave her that mansion? So Bastien does not believe it was a lover?
She makes him believe it is an inheritance? And if they are friends, why, why, why does she not come? I know there may be reasons... But it seems to me that a woman one has loved, one loves, should be there — and that it would make him happy.
His mother? But Mme Mackay poses as a woman of the world, and dash it all, no mother should stand in the way!
Then? Then? Then?
His only thought is to get well so as to see her again. And I? This morning he showed the pillow to Bojidar and others: “See how I am spoiled.”
I wrote a note to Emile to avenge myself for his stupid remark the day before yesterday.
[Four lines crossed out] But no, it is an illness of the stomach — I even know what it is called and everything; so why does she not come? Surely he cannot fail to be happy to be nursed by her? So???
Ah! misery.
To escape the noise of the Bastille Day celebrations he went to the country to the house of an old friend of his son — a lady I shall call Mme Bouchardon — and that is what made him ill.
I am jealous of all his friends. But that he has not broken with Mackay — that is intolerable. Well then?
I had arranged it like this in my mind: she had left him, he fell ill, and there it was.