“Give it, Monsieur, give it.”

“Well, never love seriously, for there not in me whole world a man worthy your love.”

“Yes, I know that.  I know that men are not equal to women.  You are not equal to your wife, I can tell you.”

“You are right, M——.”

He is right.  I shall never love wholly.  I shall worship, I shall rave, I shall commit follies and even, if opportunity offers, have a romance.  But I shall not love, for candidly in my inmost heart, I am convinced of the villainy of men.  Not only that, I do not find any one worthy of my love, either morally or physically.  It is useless to say and think all I want.  A——­ will never be anything but a good-looking member of the fashionable society of Nice—­a gay liver, almost a fop.  Oh, no; every man has some defect that prevents loving him entirely.  One is stupid, another awkward, another ugly, another—­in short, I seek physical and moral perfection.

Now that it is two o’clock in the morning, that I am shut up in my room, wrapped in my long white dressing-gown, my feet bare and my hair down, like a virgin martyr, I can give myself up to a throng of bitter reflections.  I shall go, carrying in my heart all the sorrowful and wicked things that can be contained there.

December 28th, 1875.

I don’t want public pity, but I should like to have one creature to understand me, compassionate me, weep with me sincerely, knowing why she was weeping, seeing with me into the farthest corner of my heart.  What is there more dastardly, more ugly, viler than mankind?

Wednesday, December 29th, 1875.

We went to see Mme. du M——.  She gave me seven letters of introduction for Rome.  May God grant that they will be of the service this excellent woman desires, she loves me so much!  No doubt everybody has trouble.  One is ill, another is in love, another wants money, another is bored.  You will say, perhaps, “Poor little idler, she thinks she is the only person who is unhappy, while she is happier than most people.”  But my sorrow is the most hateful of all.

We lose a beloved one.  We mourn for a year, two years, and remain sorrowful all our lives.  The greatest grief loses its force with time, but an incessant, eternal torment!...

I have just read Mme. du M——­’s letters.  No one could be kinder, no one could be more charming.  And, just think, the greater part of the time those who would like to do things cannot.  It is six years since she left Rome and I doubt whether her acquaintances remember her; and then, her influence was never great.

    “Have you suffered, wept, and languished,
       Thinking hope was all in vain,
     Soul in mourning, torn heart anguished? 
       Then you understand my pain.”