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.