"But you do nothing but travel. Mademoiselle, you are a regular whirler."
"What a ridiculous man!"
We were walking, I, my aunt, and the General, who made me laugh by calling my attention to the different ways in which people looked at me, the men at my face, the women at my gown.
From this time I will no longer trouble myself about any one. I will become Galatea, let people love me, if they like!
I wonder why I am unhappy. No! I have no brains. Do people ask such things when they have? We are happy or we are unhappy, nothing does any good; neither prayer, nor tears, nor faith. I am a living proof, I lack everything.
When shall I go to Rome? I want to study, I am losing my time for nothing. If one does nothing, one ought to go into society; I am losing my time and I am bored.
O, misery of miseries! I will go all the same to pray to God, who knows?
While there is life, there is hope.
Saturday, December 4th, 1875.
I have told Mamma that I was going to study singing, and I shall do it, if it is God's pleasure to preserve my voice; it is the only way of gaining the fame for which I thirst, for which I would give ten years of my life without hesitation. I need renown, glory, and I will have them. Deo juvante. It has never happened that people wanted it, and did not have it! I have the most comprehensive ideas in the world. A fig for all that! Do I want it? A hundred times, no, a thousand times no! I was born to be a remarkable woman, it matters little in what way or how. All my tendencies are toward the great things of this world. I shall be famous, I shall be great, or I shall die!