I
wonder sometimes what would have happened if Ninette had not come to the
rescue, just at that particular juncture. Would some other salvation have
appeared, or would--well, well, if one once begins wondering what would
have happened if certain accidents in one's life had not befallen one when
they did, where will one come to a stop? Anyhow, when I had escaped from
my taskmasters, a wretched, puny child of ten, undersized and shivering,
clasping a cheap fiddle in my arms, lost in the huge labyrinth of Paris,
without a _sou_ in my rags to save me from starvation, I _did_ meet
Ninette, and that, after all, is the main point.
It was at the close of my first day of independence, a wretched November
evening, very much like this one. I had wandered about all day, but my
efforts had not been rewarded by a single coin. My fiddle was old and
warped, and injured by the rain; its whining was even more repugnant to my
own sensitive ear, than to that of the casual passer-by. I was in despair.
How I hated all the few well-dressed, well-to-do people who were but on the
Boulevards, on that inclement night. I wandered up and down hoping against
hope, until I was too tired to stand, and then I crawled under the shelter
of a covered passage, and flung myself down on the ground, to die, as I
hoped, crying bitterly.
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