Not until four o’clock did they succeed in dragging me out of the house and, at five o’clock.  Mamma is going to the embassy.  That is the hour Baronne D——­receives.

We had a telegram from Barnola.  He congratulates us, and reminded me of the promise I made to drink a glass of water at the Fountain of Trevi at two o’clock on the Russian New Year’s Day.  He vowed friendship, I did the same.

I received a letter from my aunt, in which she told me that A——­ was paying attention to an English girl whom she has nicknamed Olive.  My aunt has so lively an imagination.  At the end of three days of our acquaintance with the Marvel, she told me that the poor fool was in love with me.  And she pitied him with eager kindness while predicting for him the fate of the Polish count.  Now she has seen him at Monaco with the girl, and she is already marrying them.  Oh! it is really atrocious—­always conjectures!  Ah! if I could know the truth.  Have patience, that is easy to write.  But to show it!  Patience is the virtue of sluggish—­but gentle, foolish souls.

I don’t think I love the Marvel, I don’t find him in my heart; but at any rate, the surface is very much occupied with him.  If he loved me, I shouldn’t care very much, that is the truth.

Friday, January 14th, 1876.

We met on the Pincio Count B——­, who started at seeing me, then bowed to my mother.

At five o’clock we went to see Monseigneur F——­, a thin, black, agile old priest in a wig, a Jesuit, a hypocrite.  He received us very courteously in his remarkable drawing-rooms, filled with things in the best taste.  Gobelins, pictures, and all this in the dwelling of a detestable Jesuit.  Well, well!

We all went to walk in the Villa Borghese, which is more beautiful than the Doria.  There was a crowd of people, and the pretty Princess M——­ was walking like any ordinary mortal, followed by her carriage, with the coachman and two footmen in red livery.  This quantity of carriages with coats of arms saddened me.  We know nobody, God help me!  Perhaps I am ridiculous with my complaints, and my eternal prayers!  I am so miserable!  This evening Mamma asked the date of last year’s carnival; I took out my journal and, without noticing it, spent two hours turning over the leaves.

I said to myself:  I am living to be happy!  Everything must bow before me!  And see how it is—­the idea that I could fail in anything never occurred to me.

A delay, yes, but a complete failure, nonsense!—­And I see with terror and humiliation that I was deceived, that nothing happens as I wish.  It is not because I love some one; I do not love anybody seriously; I love a coronet and money.  It is terrible to think that everything is escaping.  Each instant I long to pray to God, and each instant I stop myself.  I shall pray again, let what will happen!

My God, Holy Virgin, do not scorn me, take me under your protection.