Now, if he were paying me attention, he would think he was doing me honour, but then I should make him see that it is I who honour him by marrying him, because I am giving up all my glory.  Yet what happiness can be greater:  To have everything—­to be a child worshipped by its parents, petted, having all a child can have.  Then to be known, admired, sought by the whole world, and have glory and triumph every time one sings.  And at last to become a duchess, and to have the duke whom I have loved a long while, and be received and admired by everybody.  To be rich on my own account and through my husband; to be able to say that I am not a plebeian by birth, like all the celebrities—­that is the life, that is the happiness I desire.  If I can become his wife without being a cantatrice, I shall be equally well pleased, but I believe that is the only way I shall be able to attract him.

Oh, if that could be!  My God!  Thou hast made me find in what way I shall be able to obtain what I ask.  Oh!  Lord!  Aid me, I place all my hopes in Thee.  Thou alone canst do all things, canst render me happy.  Thou hast made me understand that it is through my voice I can obtain what I seek.  Then it is upon my voice that I must fix all my thoughts, I must cultivate, watch, and guard it.  I swear to Thee, O Lord, no longer to sing or scream as I used to do.

On leaving the H——­’s, I was wrapped in an ermine cloak.  I thought I looked very well.  If I became a duchess, a cloak like that would suit me.  I am growing too presumptuous.  Because I put on an ermine cloak, I imagine that I am a queen.

Monday, our day.  We have plenty of callers.  I went in only a minute to ask Mamma something, in my character of a little girl.  Before entering I looked at myself in the mirror hanging there:  I was good-looking, rosy, fair, pretty.

Suppose I should write everything I think and everything I intend to do when I grow up, everything I mean to forget, and everything that is extraordinary?  A dinner service of transparent glass.  On one side a certain costume and arrangement of the hair; on the other side a different costume and a different arrangement of the hair, so that on one side I shall be one person, and on the other side another.  To give a dinner by letters.  I have determined to end this book, for extravagant ideas rarely come to me in these days.

March 14th, 1873.

I saw Madame V——­ on the Promenade.  I was so glad, not on her own account—­yes, a little, but because all these people remind me of Baden.

There I could see the Duc, because he spent nearly all his time out of doors, but it did me no good, for I was a child.  If I could be at Baden now for a summer!  O, dear!  When I think that Grandpapa made his acquaintance in a shop.  If I could have foreseen, I should have continued that acquaintance.

I think only of him, I pray God to keep every trouble from him, protect, preserve him from every danger.