Activity

During the past year, my principal amusement had been my meetings and my conversations with my friends; but now, apart from Zaza, they all bored me stiff. I went three or four times to the study-circle they attended under the supervision of the Abbé Trécourt, but the dreary inanity of the discussio…

Grandpapa died at the end of the autumn, after lingering on interminably; my mother shrouded herself in black crêpe and had all my clothes dyed black. This funereal get-up did not improve my appearance; it set me apart, and I felt it condemned me to an austere way of life that was beginning to weig…

[...\ In our family, only my cousin Madeleine defied this ban on cosmetics. When she reached the age of sixteen she began to tart herself up discreetly. Papa, Mama, and Aunt Marguerite would point scandalized fingers at her: ‘Madeleine! You’ve been putting powder on!’ ‘No, Aunt, I swear I haven’t!’…

On the other hand I would think of myself as it were from within, as someone who was in the process of being created, and my ambition was to progress to the infinite of perfection; I saw the chosen one from outside, like a complete person; in order that he might always be at my own lofty level, I w…

I had always been sorry for the grown-ups’ monotonous existence: when I realized that, within a short space of time, it would be my fate too, I was filled with panic. One afternoon I was helping Mama to wash up; she was washing the plates, and I was drying; through the window I could see the wall o…