Madame Gris has just left my room after giving me a lecture about my life. She walked in here and pulled back my curtains and proclaimed that it was a lovely day and the tulips were in bloom and people were promenading in the Place des Vosges.

“And you lie here in this pit of darkness,” she scolded, tying the curtains back, despite my protests that the sunlight hurt my eyes. “You refuse to eat. You won’t even get out of bed! I have had enough of your moping, Rose. You must accept what has happened. There is still so much to enjoy in life!”

I lost my temper at her. “Shall I get up then and take a walk in the park?” I snarled. And I threw the bedclothes back, exposing my pale, skinny legs. It is shocking how lifeless my muscles have become, wasted away from disuse in the months since the fall.

“You think I don’t want to promenade?” I shouted. “Or ride Celine? Or paint? These things were all I lived for! What am I living for now, Madame? Tell me! Then I will get out of bed and go and see your stupid tulips!”

Then I threw a shoe at her, and she went back out of my door and left me alone.

I don’t know what the shoe was even doing there. I seldom wear shoes now. What use are they when my feet never touch the ground? I have my wheelchair parked beside the bed and I can slide myself on to it, and use my hands to push myself by the wheels, but this apartment is not built for wheelchairs and I get stuck all the time in doorways and then I have to shriek for Madame Gris to come and get me free again. She is fed up with me and my miserableness. But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything any more since the fall. I’m not getting out of bed for some ridiculous flowers.

November 30, 1852

Dorian took me down to the stables today in my wheelchair. He had convinced me we were just going for a short walk, but then he turned and wheeled me towards the yard and I couldn’t stop him. I was shouting at him the whole way that I didn’t want to go there and what made him think he had the right to kidnap me.

“You need to see her,” he kept insisting. “She misses you.”

When we reached the stables and I caught sight of Celine with her head over the door of her stall I began to cry. It was so horrible to be reunited with her there like that, knowing that I couldn’t be with her as I used to be before.