Night has fallen, and after dining alone I am writing this beside the open window. From the other side of the road I can hear the little orchestra of the casino playing tunes like a stupid bird singing its lonely song in the desert.
Now and then I hear a dog bark. The great stillness does one good. Good night.
16 July.—Nothing. I took a bath and after that a shower-bath. I drank three glasses of water and I have tramped the paths in the park, allowing fifteen minutes between each glass and half an hour after the last. I have begun my twenty-five days.
17 July.—I noticed two pretty women who take their baths and their meals when all the others have finished.
18 July.—Nothing.
19 July.—Again saw the two pretty women. They have style and an indescribable air that fills me with pleasure.
20 July.—Long walk in a charming, wooded valley as far as the Hermitage of Sans-Souci. The country is delightful although melancholy; it is so peaceful, so sweet, so green. On the mountain roads you meet narrow wagons laden with hay, slowly drawn by two cows or curbed with great difficulty by their heads, which are yoked together, when going down the slopes. A man wearing a big black hat leads them with a thin stick by tapping either their flanks or their heads; and often with a simple, energetic, grave gesture he brings them to a halt when the over-heavy load pushes them down the very steep slopes.
The air is refreshing in these valleys and when it is very hot the dust has a faint, vague odour of vanilla and cow-byres, for so many cows are pastured on these routes that you are reminded of their presence all the time; and this odour is a perfume, whereas it would be a stench if it came from any other animal.
21 July.—Excursion to the valley of Enval, a narrow gorge enclosed between superb rocks at the foot of the mountain, with a stream running in and out of the piles of stones.
As I was reaching the bottom of the ravine I heard women’s voices, and caught sight of the two mysterious ladies of the hotel, seated on a boulder, talking.
It seemed a good opportunity, so I introduced myself without hesitation. My advances were received quite naturally and we returned together to the hotel. We talked about Paris; apparently they know many people I know too. Who can they be?
I shall see them again tomorrow. There is nothing more amusing than such meetings.
22 July.—Spent nearly the whole day with the two unknown. They are, indeed, very pretty, the one dark, the other fair. They say they are widows. H’m?—I suggested taking them to Royat tomorrow and they have accepted the invitation.
Châtel-Guyon is not so melancholy as I thought when I arrived.
23 July.—Spent the day at Royat. Royat is a collection of hotels at the bottom of a valley near to Clermont-Ferrand. Lots of people. A big park full of life. A superb view of the Puy-de-Dôme seen at the end of a series of valleys.
My companions attract a great deal of attention, which is flattering to me. The man who escorts a pretty woman thinks he is crowned with a halo, all the more so, then, when he is accompanied by two pretty women. Nothing is so pleasant as to dine in a well-frequented restaurant with a woman friend that everybody stares at, besides which nothing is more likely to raise a man in the estimation of his neighbours.
To drive in the Bois behind a broken-down horse or to walk in the Boulevard accompanied by a plain woman are the two most humiliating things in life to anyone sensitive about public opinion. Of all luxuries, woman is the rarest and the most distinguished, the one that costs the most and that is the most envied; therefore the one that we prefer to exhibit to the eyes of a jealous world.
To appear in public with a pretty woman on your arm arouses all the jealousy of which man is capable; it means: see, I am rich because I possess this rare and costly object; I have taste because I discovered this pearl; I may even be loved by her—that is to say, if she is not deceiving me, which, after all, would only prove that others consider her charming, too.
But what a disgrace to be seen with an ugly woman!
How much humiliation it implies!
On principle she is supposed to be your wife, for you can’t admit that you have an ugly mistress? A real wife may be ill-favoured but her ugliness is the cause of all kinds of disagreeable incidents. To begin with, you are taken for a notary or a magistrate, the two professions that hold the monopoly of grotesque, well-dowered wives. Well, is that not painful for a man? Besides, it seems like shouting aloud that you have the appalling courage, and even are under legal obligation, to caress that ridiculous face and that misshapen body, and that doubtless you will be so lost to shame as to make this undesirable being a mother—which is the very height of absurdity.
24 July.—I never leave the two unknown widows, whom I am beginning to know quite well. This country is delightful and our hotel is excellent. A good season. The treatment is doing me an immense amount of good.
25 July.—Drove in a landau to the Lake of Tazenat. An unexpected, exquisite treat, decided upon at lunch. Hurried departure on leaving the table. After a long drive through the mountains we suddenly caught sight of a lovely little lake—very round and very blue, as clear as glass—tucked away at the bottom of an extinct crater. One side of this immense basin is arid, the other is wooded. There is a little house surrounded by trees, where a man lives
