November 27, 1921
from My Blue Notebooks, Liane de Pougy
I was feeling better and rejoicing at it, and now it's all collapsed and my ailments have renewed the attack. I try to behave as though there were nothing wrong with me. I rush off to Polignac to unpack and arrange things. It will be finished by the end of December. Had a long letter from my dear Rochegrosse. He speaks of Christ with a fervour which makes me envious. He misunderstood me when I complained that for me Christ doesn't exist, I didn't mean - oh no, indeed, far from it - that Christ in Himself doesn't exist, but that I don't see Him: a screen shuts in front of my eyes. I know what must be behind it, but I am unable to open it, to see, to touch. And that is what makes me the poorest of the poor.
My Flossie came on Thursday accompanied by little Clau2el, more faded and colourless than ever. Salomon arrived before they did and told me: 'The Baroness Clauzel is wearing a superb bison coat.' I was imagining her clad in a shaggy car-rug and what it turned out to be was a ravishingly light and supple mink ! Dear old learned one ! [Salomon's mistake came from the similarity between the words bison and vison, which is French for mink.] The night moth seemed shrewish. I prefer my Flossie peaceful and satisfied, calm, gentle and serene. Flossie has managed to find us two rooms and two dressing- rooms at the Palais d'Orsay with demi-pension at seventy-four francs a day. It's all arranged.
I have been working at Polignac, unpacking household utensils and books. In an English novel which I was given when I was in London in 1901 I found some of Nathalie's letters, impassioned, tender and full of devotion. Her passion has been scattered to the four winds but her tenderness is still there, and so is her devotion. Among these letters, two and a half pages from Pauline. They will make a present for Salomon. No doubt he will bequeath them to posterity, fully annotated, according to his habit. I don't think I could possibly give a greater pleasure to Monseiur Reinach, in love with a ghost. Pauline's letter is rather spiteful. Our relationship was never a very fond one: Flossie preferred me and I never made much of Pauline. In that world it's either adoration or hate.
Source: Liane de Pougy, My Blue Notebooks. Trans. Diana Athill. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002.