Finally the call of my name made me jump as a sardine does when pursued by a big fish. I tossed my head to shake my hair back, and _mon petit Dame_ stroked my badly dressed silk. Mlle. de Brabender reminded me about the _o_ and the _a_, the _r_, the _p_, and the _t_, and I then went alone into the hall. I had never been alone an hour in my life. As a little child I was always clinging to the skirts of my nurse; at the convent I was always with one of my friends or one of the sisters; at home either with Mlle. de Brabender or Madame Guérard, or if they were not there in the kitchen with Marguerite. And now there I was alone in that strange-looking room, with a platform at the end, a large table in the middle, and, seated round this table, men who either grumbled, growled, or jeered. There was only one woman present, and she had a loud voice. She was holding an eyeglass, and as I entered she dropped it and looked at me through her opera-glass. I felt every one’s gaze on my back as I climbed up the few steps on to the platform. Léautaud bent forward and whispered, “Make your bow and commence, and then stop when the chairman rings.” I looked at the chairman, and saw that it was M. Auber. I had forgotten that he was director of the Conservatoire, just as I had forgotten everything else. I at once made my bow and began: _Deux pigeons s’aimaient d’amour tendre, L’un d’eux s’ennuyant...._ A low, grumbling sound was heard, and then a “ventriloquist” muttered, “It isn’t an elocution class here. What an idea to come here reciting fables!” It was Beauvallet, the deafening tragedian of the Comédie Française. I stopped short, my heart beating wildly. “Go on, my child,” said a man with silvery hair. This was Provost. “Yes, it won’t be as long as a scene from a play,” exclaimed Augustine Brohan, the one woman present. I began again: _Deux pigeons s’aimaient d’amour tendre, L’un d’eux s’ennuyant au logis Fut assez...._ “Louder, my child, louder,” said a little man with curly white hair, in a kindly tone. This was Samson. I stopped again, confused and frightened, seized suddenly with such a foolish fit of nervousness that I could have shouted or howled. Samson saw this, and said to me, “Come, come; we are not ogres!” He had just been talking in a low voice with Auber. “Come now, begin again,” he said, “and speak up.” “Ah no,” put in Augustine Brohan, “if she is to begin again it will be longer than a scene!” This speech made all the table laugh, and that gave me time to recover myself. I thought all these people unkind to laugh like this at the expense of a poor little trembling creature who had been delivered over to them, bound hand and foot.