At last she said to herself:
“I must go in, however, so I may as well do it sooner as later.”
She could not help noticing, however, how her heart beat as she entered. She went into an enormous room with grated doors all round it, and above them little openings at which a man's head appeared, and as a gentleman carrying a number of papers passed her, she stopped him and said timidly: “I beg your pardon, monsieur, but can you tell me where I must apply for payment for anything that has been accidentally burned?”
He replied in a sonorous voice:
“The first door on the left; that is the department you want.”
This frightened her still more, and she felt inclined to run away, to put in no claim, to sacrifice her eighteen francs. But the idea of that sum revived her courage, and she went upstairs, out of breath, stopping at almost every other step.
She knocked at a door which she saw on the first landing, and a clear voice said, in answer:
“Come in!”
She obeyed mechanically, and found herself in a large room where three solemn gentlemen, all with a decoration in their buttonholes, were standing talking.
One of them asked her: “What do you want, madame?”