1 January 1876 – 2 January 1876

Here is the new year. Greeting and mercy. Well, the first day of 1876 was not so bad as I expected. They say the whole year is spent very much like the first day, and it is true. I spent the first of last January in the cars, and I have really travelled a great deal. To-morrow, yes, to-morrow I shall be glad to go. I am perfectly happy, for I have made a plan—a plan that will fail like the others, but which amuses me in the meanwhile. If it were not two o'clock in the morning, I would write a whole story of the sale of a soul. The brutes—I have not wept, I have not felt sad once. A very pleasant day to commence the year. I shall go and think only of returning. No doubt I shall change my mind in Rome. All the same, this is where I should like to live. I had already closed my book, but I and a lot of things to say. I have looked at the great caricature, there are five of us. I have thought of everything; of Mme. B——, of the English, of the people of Nice, of S——, of "Mignon." In a word, a quantity of things. I had a great deal to say, and lo! I stop. It is tiresome to go, but it is horrible to stay. P—— has dramatic emotions so genuine that she delights and thrills me. Come, what was I going to write? That I am calm and agitated, sorrowful and joyous, jealous and indifferent. It seems to me that fastidious society is possible to have and, at the same time, it is impossible. I cannot lie down. I am sorrowful, excited. Oh, calm yourself, for Heaven's sake. It hasn't anything to do with M. A——, but simply that I am going. The uncertainty, the vagueness, leaving the known for the unknown.

"I shall go Sunday at three o'clock," I said or rather shrieked, and Sunday at one o'clock everything was topsy-turvy. The trunks were still empty, and the floor was covered with gowns and finery. For my part, I put on a grey dress and waited quietly. C—— and Dina worked, and so well that everything was ready for the hour of departure. At half past two, C—— and I got into a little cab and went to hear the band, and I listened once more to the municipal music of Nice. "Come," I said to Collignon, "if this piece is gay, our journey will be, too. I am superstitious." And the piece was very lively. So much the better! I saw G——, who bid me good-bye once more. I haven't seen the Marvel, but that doesn't matter. We got into the landau again, and went to the station. Our friends came there, one after another. I skipped about, I laughed, I chattered like a bird. How kind they are, and how hard it is to leave them. "You feign this gaiety," said B——to me, "but in your heart you are weeping, I am sure of it." "Ah! you think so? No! "Bravo! Bravo!" The quatrain was made one evening when we were capping verses with G——. "Give me some cigarettes," I said softly to my aunt. "Very well, later." I thought she had forgotten, but at Monaco she wrapped a number in paper and gave them to me. She, who cries out when I ask her for them at home. At Monaco we parted, and those horrid cigarettes made me cry. I was sorry for the poor old grandfather, my aunt, everybody. I am vexed to have to go with Mamma. I was with her at Spa and, besides, I am used to my aunt. Oh! torture! Imagine the tediousness of a journey in Italy. Mamma and Dina do not know Italian. I refused to use my tongue; I can scarcely use my limbs. By dint of complaining because I was not with my aunt, and saying: "Who asked you to come with us? I ought to go with my aunt. Why do you come with me?" I obtained a passive obedience and an alacrity impossible to imagine. Night found us in a car. I complained, wept softly, and said the most provoking things to my mother, like the brute I am. At last, toward three o'clock, Monday, January 3d, ruins, columns, aqueducts began to appear on the dreary plain called the Roman Campagna, and we entered the station of Rome. I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I was utterly limp after these twenty-four hours without sleep. We were taken to the Hôtel de Londres, Piazza di Spagna, and we occupied an apartment on the ground floor, with a yellow drawing-room that was very fresh and neat, I was tired and depressed, in the condition in which I needed some one to sustain me. And Mamma was crying. Oh, dear! We must set to work very, very quickly to look about us. There is nothing I hate like changing. New streets, strange faces, and no Mediterranean. Only the miserable Tiber. I am utterly wretched when I am in a new city. I shut myself up in my room to collect my scattered wits a little.