“Thanks to my obstinate denials the woman was not disturbed. But the truth was known; and her reputation, which was not good before, became altogether bad. I became an object of interest. The very same people who had seen me twenty times staggering painfully under a load of wet clothes, which was terrible, began to pity me prodigiously because I had had an arm broken, which was nothing.
“At last a number of our customers arranged to take me out of a house, in which, they said, I must end by perishing under bad treatment.
“And, after many fruitless efforts, they discovered, at last, at La Jonchere, an old Jewess lady, very rich, and a widow without children, who consented to take charge of me.
“I hesitated at first to accept these offers; but noticing that the laundress, since she had hurt me, had conceived a still greater aversion for me, I made up my mind to leave her.
“It was on the day when I was introduced to my new mistress that I first discovered I had no name. After examining me at length, turning me around and around, making me walk, and sit down, ‘Now,’ she inquired, ‘what is your name?’
“I stared at her in surprise; for indeed I was then like a savage, not having the slightest notions of the things of life.
“‘My name is the Parisian,’ I replied.
“She burst out laughing, as also another old lady, a friend of hers, who assisted at my presentation; and I remember that my little pride was quite offended at their hilarity. I thought they were laughing at me.
“‘That’s not a name,’ they said at last. ‘That’s a nickname.’
“‘I have no other.’