England Is So Surrounded By The Boredom

I Am Gay On The Outside, Especially Among My Own Folk (i Count Poles My Own); But Inside Something Gnaws At Me; Some Presentiment, Anxiety, Dreams - Or Sleeplessness - Melancholy, Indifference - Desire For Life, And The Next Instant, Desire For Death; Some Kind Of Sweet Peace, Some Kind Of Numbness, Absent-mindedness.

I Have Met A Great Celebrity, Madame Dudevant, Known As George Sand... Her Appearance Is Not To My Liking. Indeed There Is Something About Her Which Positively Repels Me... What An Unattractive Person La Sand Is... Is She Really A Woman? I'm Inclined To Doubt It.

The Last Thing Is Simplicity. After Having Gone Through All The Difficulties, Having Played An Endless Number Of Notes, It Is Simplicity That Matters, With All Its Charm. It Is The Final Seal On Art. Anyone Who Strives For This To Begin With Will Be Disappointed. You Cannot Begin At The End.

A Strange Adventure Befell Me While I Was Playing My Sonata In B Flat Minor Before Some English Friends. I Had Played The Allegro And The Scherzo More Or Less Correctly. I Was About To Attack The March When Suddenly I Saw Arising From The Body Of My Piano Those Cursed Creatures Which Had Appeared To Me One Lugubrious Night At The Chartreuse. I Had To Leave For One Instant To Pull Myself Together After Which I Continued Without Saying Anything.

If The Newspapers Cut Me Up So Much That I Shall Not Venture Before The World Again, I Have Resolved To Become A House Painter; That Would Be As Easy As Anything Else, And I Should, At Any Rate, Still Be An Artist!