Sappho was given to-night.  I wore a sort of Neapolitan shirt of blue crepe de Chine and old lace, with a white front.  It can’t be described—­it was as original and charming as possible, with a white skirt and an alms-bag of white satin.  We arrived at the end of the first act, and were near P——­ and R——­, and I heard the voice of the Marvel.  Nothing can be said against her face, it is blooming; whether real or artificial is of little consequence.  She has hair—­oh, I don’t know.  At Spa, she was fairer than I; here, she is darker

    "d’un serpent, jaune et sifflant.”

Now the American has gone home, and is doubtless in a sleep which will preserve her twenty-seven-year-old complexion, while I am awake.  Just now I fell on my knees sobbing, beseeching God, with my arms outstretched, my eyes fixed on space before me, exactly as if God was there in my room.  I believe I am uttering insolent things to God.

The S——­’s came, and after dinner we began to tell fortunes and laughed almost as much as we did before, that is, the others did, but I could not.  Then we poured melted wax into cold water (it is the shadow that is looked at).  I had in succession a lion couchant with one of his front paws extended, holding a rose; isn’t it odd?  Then a great heap of something surmounted by a garland held by Cupids.

As for M——­, her wax figure cast a horrible shadow.  A woman lying as if dead with her hands crossed on her breast.  O——­ and Dina had insignificant shadows.  And, at fifteen minutes before midnight, four mirrors were brought, two for Dina and two for me, and we took up the great fortune telling.

I looked with all my eyes, without stirring, almost without breathing.  In the proper costume of night-gown and unbound hair.  But everything was very vague; it quivered, danced, formed, and reformed every instant.

Saturday, January 1st, 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.