It is the truth, there is not a habitable apartment; where are we?
Can this horrible city be called a capital? We are not in Europe!
Not a house fit to rent. I am discouraged, tired, but I will not
stir before May.
O Rome! I think that we shall take a larger apartment in the hotel,
and stay there. One can breathe only in the Piazza di Spagna. It is
impossible that this is Rome! What a mixture of beautiful
antiquities and modern trash!
Thursday, January 6th, 1876.
B---- has been here again and brought the addresses of some
professors. Then we took a carriage, and Mamma went to the Russian
priest's, the archimandrite Alexander. Being an archimandrite, he is
married, for in our country priests and deacons can be married once.
Mamma says that he is charming. Our embassy makes no show, and has
not even any regular reception day.
This society makes me love Rome. I scarcely regret Nice, the
ungrateful, wicked city.
Sad and irresolute yesterday, I am gay and confident to-day. I have
written to my aunt to send me F----, the ugly little negro will be
very nice to have here.
I have had a good dinner, and spent the evening in reading the
history of Charles the Bold.
I thought, "in my ingenuous candour," that there was no society
except in Nice, but there is a great deal, and even very excellent.
After the drive we went down the Corso, thronged with carriages,
between rows of pedestrians of all classes. D----was among them. Now
that my eyes are opened to see the beauties and antiquities of Rome,
I am growing curious, eager to visit everything. I am no longer
drowsy. I am in a hurry to be everywhere. I want to live at full
speed again. Ah! if only I could!... Again a longing for Nice. The
poorest thing, by resisting, gains worth. Be thoroughly convinced of
this genuine truth. Do not believe that I am stupefied to the point
of not seeing beyond the city of S----; on the contrary, I am more
ambitious than ever. But meanwhile, to spit upon some one who has
spit on us, to give the person a kick, is a pleasure which every
well-born soul can permit itself.
Friday, January 7th, 1876.
Goodness! What prices people ask in Rome! For 1,800 francs one has
only the barest necessaries! At the Hôtel de Rome I saw an apartment
so large and so fine that it made my head ache. In France we have no
idea of this grandeur, this ancient majesty. After much searching we
have taken an apartment in the second story of the Hôtel de Londres,
with a balcony looking out upon the Piazza di Spagna, a handsome
drawing-room, several bedrooms, and a study. We went to B----'s
studio. He has very fair talent.
Tuesday, January 11th, 1876.
We did not go out, but the artist Kalorbinski came, and to-morrow
the lessons will begin. Monseigneur de Faloux, being unable to go
out himself, sent the Chevalier Rossy to bring us a number of
pleasant messages. I received him. I have learned a great deal about
affairs in the city.
I am very proud of receiving some one myself. It seems like a
sovereign's first decree. The Russian priest has come to call on us
too. I like the cowled monks in Rome. They are new to me, and that
pleases me.
At last I have a teacher of painting; that is something. This
evening I see everything in rose-colour, and I am already thinking
of a letter in which it will be said of A----: _Et eum dicat super
malitiosum, improbum, inhonestum, cupidum, luxuriosum, ebriosum!_
Exactly what Septimus Severus said of Albinus.
If only the winter would pass more quickly. With all my misfortunes,
I feel better in Nice, I can give myself up to despair as much as I
please. Only last Spring, there was nobody there. The best people
gathered around us. P---- was deserted, so were the others. While
this Spring there will again be nobody, but P---- will have Miss
R----. These ladies, under the leadership of T----, will form a sort
of court, like that of the young Princess G---- and Mme. T---- three
months since. Both died three months ago.
We shall see. Meanwhile let us study, and try to go into society.
Let us pray to God, and amuse ourselves by writing letters.
Wednesday, January 12th, 1876.
B---- and his cousin have called to see us. When these Russians go,
I put on my dressing gown again, and say a lot of things, and rank
myself among the goddesses, then descend to calling myself a little
bundle of dirty linen.
I like to indulge in extravagant speeches, and make Mamma laugh. I
received a letter from B----, this charming friend gives me the news
of Nice. P----has had a reception, and everybody went. It seems that
we were mentioned in the presence of quite a large number of persons
in the consul's house, and the consul and his wife said nothing but
good about us.
"I was glad," B---- wrote, "to see that they were your friends, too,
though you no longer went there so often."
After all, I am very happy, very calm, and I am going to bed.
Thursday, January 13th, 1876.
Mamma and Dina are at church. It is our New Year's Day, and I have
stayed at home to sew. That is my whim at present, and I must do
what I wish. B---- called to offer his good wishes.
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.
Sunday, January 16th, 1876.
I feel that I shall write badly, for I have just been reading my old
journal. Mamma begged me to read the period of G----. I read it,
passing over a number of things. What is perfectly simple when
written is no longer so when read aloud. My face burned, my fingers
grew cold, and I ended by saying that I could not go on.
"She will read it to us in two years," said Mamma.
After St. Peter's, Mamma went to Baron d'I----'s, the ambassador's
cousin. She made his acquaintance at the ambassadress's. These
people are very simple and agreeable. I liked the baron especially.
There was a crowd on the Pincio, the Corso and the Piazza Colonna
were thronged with carriages and people returning from the Pincio.
We dined at the table d'hôte because the son of the Grand Duke of
Baden was to dine there. A number of society people were present,
and the Grand Duke is a pleasant fellow enough--for a Grand Duke.
Wednesday, January 19th, 1876.
We went to the Pincio, there were a great many people. The Duc de
L----, son of the Grand Duchess M----, the emperor's sister, was
there with Mme. A----, the wife of a Russian prefect. The Duc de
L---- saw her and was captivated. Since then she is always with him.
It is said that they are secretly married and live abroad. That is
what people call having happiness. She had liveried servants and
magnificent horses--suitable, I should think, for the niece of the
Emperor of Russia.
January 19th, 1876.
At the church of St. John we met Baronne d'I----, the ambassadress's
cousin, who came up to Mamma and talked with her a long time,
apologising for not having yet called, on account of her husband's
illness. Mamma went to her house last Sunday, three days ago.
From there to the Pincio, then to the Corso, crowds everywhere, I
like this animation.
My aunt wrote that the Marvel, but she doesn't call him that,
everybody at Nice in our house calls him nothing but the "shaved
magpie," so my aunt wrote that the "shaved magpie" was at the opera,
and did nothing all the evening but weep, actually weep.
There is news from Russia, nothing good, I think of nothing but
praying to God, and am in fear.
I pity myself _now_, what would it be if we should lose our fortune!
Horrible!