. 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!

It is impossible that God should have given me this _gloria
cupidatis_, like S----, for nothing, without an object; my time will
come. I am happy when I think as I do to-day. Oh, my voice!

We went to the opera house to get a box for this evening. They gave
the "Barber," my favourite little opera. I aspire to something
unheard of, fabulous; I want to be famous, I will sing. It is queer,
the whole Italian company saluted me. We were in No. 2. I wore my
Empire gown, in which I like myself best. Hair dressed like an
Olympian goddess, falling lower than the belt, and curled naturally
at the ends. The General, always charming, was with us.

"Come," I said, "do you know what I am going to do?"

"What are you going to do, Mademoiselle?"

"I am going to make a mirror."

"How?"

"Look."

I took the attitude of old A----, who sat opposite. He put h