by a singular fate was now our companion in misfortune, would
return with some success from the expedition to Paris which he
also had made that morning. At last he, too, returned bathed in
perspiration and exhausted, driven home by the craving for a
meal, which he had been unable to procure in the town, as he
could not find any of the acquaintances he went to see. He begged
most piteously for a piece of bread. This climax to the situation
at last inspired my wife with heroic resolution; for she felt it
her duty to exert herself to appease at least the hunger of her
menfolk. For the first time during her stay on French soil, she
persuaded the baker, the butcher, and wine-merchant, by plausible
arguments, to supply her with the necessaries of life without
immediate cash payment, and Minna's eyes beamed when, an hour
later, she was able to put before us an excellent meal, during
which, as it happened, we were surprised by the Avenarius family,
who were evidently relieved at finding us so well provided for.

This extreme distress was relieved for a time, at the beginning
of July, by the sale of my Vaisseau Fantome, which meant my final
renunciation of my success in Paris. As long as the five hundred
francs lasted, I had an interval of respite for carrying on my
work. The first object on which I spent my money was on the hire
of a piano, a thing of which I had been entirely deprived for
months. My chief intention in so doing was to revive my faith in
myself as a musician, as, ever since the autumn of the previous
year, I had exercised my talents as a journalist and adapter of
operas only. The libretto of the Fliegender Hollander, which I
had hurriedly written during the recent period of distress,
aroused considerable interest in Lehrs; he actually declared I
would never write anything better, and that the Fliegender