“Very well,” I answered, blushing; “I will get them myself.”
On returning home I told my mother my troubles, and, as she was always very generous, she promptly bought me a veil of white barège that fell in beautiful, large, soft folds, and a wreath of hedge roses which at night looked very soft and white. She also ordered me buskins from the shoemaker employed by the Comédie.
The next thing to think about was the make-up box. For this my mother had recourse to the mother of Dica Petit, my fellow student at the Conservatoire. I went with Madame Dica Petit to M. Massin, a manufacturer of these make-up boxes. He was the father of Léontine Massin, another Conservatoire pupil.
We went up to the sixth floor of a house in the Rue Réaumur, and on a plain-looking door read the words Massin, manufacturer of make-up boxes. I knocked, and a little hunchback girl opened the door. I recognised Léontine’s sister, as she had come several times to the Conservatoire.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “what a surprise for us! Titine,” she then called out, “here is Mademoiselle Sarah!”
Léontine Massin came running out of the next room. She was a pretty girl, very gentle and calm in demeanour. She threw her arms round me, exclaiming, “How glad I am to see you! And so you are going to make your début at the Comédie. I saw it in the papers.”
I blushed up to my ears at the idea of being mentioned in the papers.
“I am engaged at the Variétés,” she said, and then she talked away at such a rate that I was bewildered. Madame Petit did not enter into all this, and tried in vain to separate us. She had replied by a nod and an indifferent “Thanks” to Léontine’s inquiries about her daughter’s health. Finally, when the young girl had finished saying all she had to say, Madame Petit remarked:
“You must order your box. We have come here for that, you know.”
“Oh you will find my father in his workshop at the end of the passage, and if you are not very long I shall still be here. I am going to rehearsal at the Variétés later on.”