I thanked her affectionately afterwards, and she left the theater escorted by the students, who followed her carriage for a long way, shouting over and over again: “Long live Adelina Patti!” Thanks to that evening’s performance I was able to pay the insurance company. I was ruined all the same, or very nearly so. I stayed a few days with my mother, but we were so cramped for room there that I took a furnished flat in the Rue de l’Arcade. It was a wretched house and the flat was dark. I was wondering how I should get out of my difficulties, when one morning M. C——, my father’s notary, was announced. This was the man I disliked so much, but I gave orders that he should be shown in. I was surprised that I had not seen him for so long a time. He told me that he had just returned from Hombourg, that he had seen in the newspaper an account of my misfortune, and had now come to put himself at my service. In spite of my distrust, I was touched by this, and I related to him the whole drama of my fire. I did not know how it had started, but I vaguely suspected my maid Josephine of having placed my lighted candle on the little table to the left of the head of my bed. I had frequently warned her not to do this, but it was on this little piece of furniture that she always placed my water bottle and glass, and a dessert dish with a couple of raw apples, for I like eating apples when I wake in the night. On opening the door there was always a terrible draught, as the windows were left open until I went to bed. On closing the door after her the lace bed curtains had probably caught fire. I could not explain the catastrophe in any other way. I had several times seen the young servant do this stupid thing, and I supposed that on the night in question she had been in a hurry to go to bed on account of her bad headache. As a rule, when I was going to undress myself, she prepared everything and then came in and told me, but this time she had not done so. As a rule, too, I just went into the room myself to see that everything was right, and several times I had been obliged to move the candle. That day, however, was destined to bring me misfortune of some kind, though it was not a very great one. “But,” said the notary, “you were not insured, then?” “No, I was to sign my policy the day after the event.” “Ah,” exclaimed the man of law; “and to think that I have been told you set the flat on fire yourself, for the sake of picking up a large sum for damages!” I shrugged my shoulders, for I had seen insinuations to this effect in a newspaper. I was very young at this time, but I already had a certain disdain for tittle-tattle.