The play to be read was entitled _Un mari qui lance sa femme_, and it was by Raymond Deslandes. I listened to it without any great pleasure, and I thought it stupid. I waited anxiously to see what _rôle_ was to be given to me, and I discovered this only too soon. It was a certain Princess Dimchinka, a frivolous, foolish, laughing individual, who was always eating or dancing. I did not like the part at all. I was very inexperienced on the stage, and my timidity made me rather awkward. Besides, I had not worked for three years with such persistency and conviction in order to create the _rôle_ of an idiotic woman in an imbecile play. I was in despair, and the wildest ideas came into my head. I wanted to give up the stage and go into business. I spoke of this to our old family friend, Meydieu, who was so unbearable. He approved of my idea, and wanted me to take a shop—a confectioner’s—on the Boulevard des Italiens. This became a fixed idea with the worthy man. He loved sweets himself, and he knew lots of recipes for various sorts of sweets that were not generally known, and which he wanted to introduce. I remember one kind that he wanted to call “_bonbon nègre_.” It was a mixture of chocolate and essence of coffee rolled into grilled licorice root. It was like black _praliné_, and was extremely good. I was very persistent in this idea at first, and went with Meydieu to look at a shop, but when he showed me the little flat over it where I should have to live, it upset me so much that I gave up for ever the idea of business. I went every day to the rehearsal of the stupid piece, and was bad- tempered all the time. Finally the first performance took place, and my part was neither a success nor a failure. I simply was not noticed, and at night my mother remarked, “My poor child, you were ridiculous in your Russian princess _rôle_, and I was very much grieved!” I did not answer at all, but I should honestly have liked to kill myself. I slept very badly that night, and towards six in the morning I rushed up to Madame Guérard. I asked her to give me some laudanum, but she refused. When she saw that I really wanted it, the poor dear woman understood my design. “Well, then,” I said, “swear by your children that you will not tell any one what I am going to do, and then I will not kill myself.” A sudden idea had just come into my mind, and, without going further into it, I wanted to carry it out at once. She promised, and I then told her that I was going at once to Spain, as I had longed to see that country for a long time. “Go to Spain!” she exclaimed. “With whom and when?” “With the money I have saved,” I answered. “And this very morning. Every one is asleep at home. I shall go and pack my trunk, and start at once with you!” “No, no, I cannot go,” exclaimed Madame Guérard, nearly beside herself. “There is my husband to think of, and my children.” Her little girl was scarcely two years old at that time.