these people I now addressed most respectful and eloquent
appeals, wrote out an official note to the director, Herr von
Luttichau, as well as a formal petition to the King of Saxony,
and had everything ready to send off.

Meantime, I had not omitted to indicate the exact tempi in my
opera by means of a metronome. As I did not possess such a thing,
I had to borrow one, and one morning I went out to restore the
instrument to its owner, carrying it under my thin overcoat. The
day when this occurred was one of the strangest in my life, as it
showed in a really horrible way the whole misery of my position
at that time. In addition to the fact that I did not know where
to look for the few francs wherewith Minna was to provide for our
scanty household requirements, some of the bills which, in
accordance with the custom in Paris in those days, I had signed
for the purpose of fitting up our apartments, had fallen due.
Hoping to get help from one source or another, I first tried to
get those bills prolonged by the holders. As such documents pass
through many hands, I had to call on all the holders across the
length and breadth of the city. That day I was to propitiate a
cheese-monger who occupied a fifth-floor apartment in the Cite. I
also intended to ask for help from Heinrich, the brother of my
brother-in-law, Brockhaus, as he was then in Paris; and I was
going to call at Schlesinger's to raise the money to pay for the
despatch of my score that day by the usual mail service.

As I had also to deliver the metronome, I left Minna early in the
morning after a sad good-bye. She knew from experience that as I
was on a money-raising expedition, she would not see me back till
late at night. The streets were enveloped in a dense fog, and the