Regret has its charms,
as one of the pleasant simpletons called poets has said.
To-morrow will be Christmas, and I am planning a joke with C——. We are going to buy a pair of huge slippers, a jockey, reins for driving (suitable for a child), and two little sheep. We will put these things into the slippers, make a package, and under the cord slip a letter written in this form:
"Santa Claus has found little E——very good, and hopes he will continue to be. The toys are for little E——, the slippers for little 'papa.'" And on the envelope one may guess what. But we shall not send it, Dina is going to disguise herself as a boy, and, with her blue spectacles and pale complexion, she appears like a professor of mathematics. C—— and I will also make ourselves unrecognisable and, at eight o'clock, go to the club, and tell the coachman to give the package to the janitor from M. E——. We laughed as we used to do. What amuses me is to see a serious woman play pranks with me.
This morning we had a call from a Sister T——. She left two visiting cards. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd. I took one, added P.P.C. and, with an address written on it, sent it to Tour.
Saturday, December 25th, 1875.
Ah! son felica! Ah! son rapita!
Find me a language which expresses thought with so much enthusiasm. So I use it to define my condition. It is heavenly weather, everybody is out of doors, in spite of my vigil yesterday, I look pretty.
I go to walk enchanted, happy, I sing "Mignon" softly and everything seems beautiful to me. Everybody looks at me so pleasantly, those whom I know salute me. I should like to hug them all. Oh, how comfortable we are in Nice, I should not want to go away.
I have a longing for amusement, I should like to invite everybody to the house, to give a dinner, a ball, a supper, a reception, to have some sort of diabolical carnival—I should like to have everybody, everybody. I am not ill-natured at heart, I am only a little crazy.