You already know that my soul, however lacerated it may have been, didn’t stay in a corner like a pale, solitary flower. I did not give it that color, or lack of it. I lived as best I could, with no shortage of female friends to console me for the first. They were passing caprices, to be sure. It was they who left me, like people who come to a retrospective exhibition, and either tire of seeing it, or the light in the room fades. Only one of these visits had a carriage at the door and a liveried coachman. The others came modestly, calcante pede,* and if it was raining, it was I who went to get a cab, and help them in, with profuse farewells, and even more profuse recommendations:
“Have you got the catalogue?”
“Yes; till tomorrow.”
“Till tomorrow.”
They didn’t come back. I would stand at the door, waiting, go to the corner, look, consult my watch, and not see anybody or anything. Then, if another visitor came, I would give her my arm, we would go in, I would show her the landscapes, the historical or genre paintings, a watercolor, a pastel, a gouache, and she too would grow weary, and go away with the catalogue in her hand …