Part 13

Sunday, December 19th, 1875.

To-morrow there is to be a concert at the Cercle de la Méditerranée for the benefit of the free École des beaux-arts. I went to the club to get tickets. Entering through the big door I was ushered through well-heated, well-lighted corridors to the room of the secretary, who gave me the little book containing the by-laws and the names of the members. Men are lucky!

The club made a charming impression upon me. There is a fraternity of spirit a homelike air, which reminds one of the convent. I am no longer surprised that these men avoid their badly lighted, poorly heated homes, with household cares neglected, ill-disciplined servants, a wife in a wrapper and a bad humour, to go to a place where everything is nice, comfortable, elegant (in a land where the orange tree blossoms, where the breeze is softer and the bird swifter of wing).

O women, don't pity yourselves, but attend to your homes.

Long instructions might be given. I am content to say: "Make your house resemble a club as much as possible and treat your husbands as these ladies, L----and C----, treat them, and you will be happy and your husbands too."

Now I am calm and I think. O misery of miseries! O despair! What I have written expresses the best portion of what I feel. O God, have pity on me. Good people, do not jeer at me. Perhaps I give cause for amusement, but I am to be pitied. With my temperament, my ideas, I shall never explain what I feel. I shall never give an idea of my unhappiness, it is because while dying of shame, of scorn, of rage, I have the courage to jest. I really do have good health and a good disposition. Provided that what I have just said doesn't bring me misfortune!

I have a great many other things to say, but I am tired. I am going to write in big letters, "I am unhappy," and in letters still larger, "O God, aid me, have pity on me!"

These big letters represent an hour and a half of rage, tears, irritated self love, and two hours of prayer!

I have exhausted all words, I have exhausted my energy, I no longer have patience or strength, yet I still have one resource.

My voice. To preserve it I must take care of my health. Another week like this one, and good-bye to singing!

No, I will be sensible, I will pray to God. I will go to Rome. I am desperate, I will implore the Pope to pray for me. In my madness, I hope for that.

To-morrow I will talk with Mamma about my idea; aid me, my God.

Thursday, December 23d, 1875.

I am sorrowful and discouraged. My departure is an exile to me. I want to stay in Nice, and it is impossible. We always insist upon the impossible. The simplest thing, by resisting, gains in value.

Friday, December 24th, 1875.

B---- has been to our house. By a few words in the conversation he awoke in me so much love for Nice, so much regret at leaving, that I became unhappy and went to my room to sing--with such earnestness, such warmth, that I am still weeping from it--that eternal air, and these delightful words:

"Alas! Would it were possible I might return, Unto that vanished land whence I was torn, There, there alone to live my heart doth yearn, To live, to love, to die."

How I pity those who are not like me! They do not understand how much truth there is in this familiar fragment that is sung in every drawing-room. Yes, there alone to live my heart doth yearn. Yes, at Nice, in my beloved villa. People may go through the world. They will find sublime landscapes, impressive mountains, frightful gulfs, wild beauties of nature, picturesque towns, great cities; but, on returning to Nice one would say that elsewhere it was beautiful, magnificent! but here it is pleasant, attractive, congenial; here one wants to stay; here one is alone and surrounded, hidden and in sight, as one desires. Nowhere else does one breathe as freely, as joyously. Nowhere else is there this extraordinary blending of the real and the artificial, the simple and the exquisite! Finally, what shall I say? Nice is my city. I am going, but I shall return.

Go, but still regret it, Regret has its charms,

as one of the pleasant simpletons called poets has said.

To-morrow will be Christmas, and I am planning a joke with C----. We are going to buy a pair of huge slippers, a jockey, reins for driving (suitable for a child), and two little sheep. We will put these things into the slippers, make a package, and under the cord slip a letter written in this form:

"Santa Claus has found little E----very good, and hopes he will continue to be. The toys are for little E----, the slippers for little 'papa.'" And on the envelope one may guess what. But we shall not send it, Dina is going to disguise herself as a boy, and, with her blue spectacles and pale complexion, she appears like a professor of mathematics. C---- and I will also make ourselves unrecognisable and, at eight o'clock, go to the club, and tell the coachman to give the package to the janitor from M. E----. We laughed as we used to do. What amuses me is to see a serious woman play pranks with me.

This morning we had a call from a Sister T----. She left two visiting cards. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd. I took one, added P.P.C. and, with an address written on it, sent it to Tour.

Saturday, December 25th, 1875.

Ah! son felica! Ah! son rapita!

Find me a language which expresses thought with so much enthusiasm. So I use it to define my condition. It is heavenly weather, everybody is out of doors, in spite of my vigil yesterday, I look pretty.

I go to walk enchanted, happy, I sing "Mignon" softly and everything seems beautiful to me. Everybody looks at me so pleasantly, those whom I know salute me. I should like to hug them all. Oh, how comfortable we are in Nice, I should not want to go away.

I have a longing for amusement, I should like to invite everybody to the house, to give a dinner, a ball, a supper, a reception, to have some sort of diabolical carnival--I should like to have everybody, everybody. I am not ill-natured at heart, I am only a little crazy.