He had begun by installing Aquilina in a modest fourth-floor dwelling, the furniture being of the simplest kind.  But when he saw the girl’s beauty and great qualities, when he had known inexpressible and unlooked-for happiness with her, he began to dote upon her, and longed to adorn his idol.  Then Aquilina’s toilet was so comically out of keeping with her poor abode, that for both their sakes it was clearly incumbent on him to move.  The change swallowed up almost all Castanier’s savings, for he furnished his domestic paradise with all the prodigality that is lavished on a kept mistress.  A pretty woman must have everything pretty about her; the unity of charm in the woman and her surroundings singles her out from among her sex.  This sentiment of homogeneity indeed, though it has frequently escaped the attention of observers, is instinctive in human nature; and the same prompting leads elderly spinsters to surround themselves with dreary relies of the past.  But the lovely Piedmontese must have the newest and latest fashions, and all that was daintiest and prettiest in stuffs for hangings, in silks or jewelry, in fine china and other brittle and fragile wares.  She asked for nothing; but when she was called upon to make a choice, when Castanier asked her, “Which do you like?” she would answer, “Why, this is the nicest!” Love never counts the cost, and Castanier therefore always took the “nicest.”

When once the standard had been set up, there was nothing for it but everything in the household must be in conformity, from the linen, plate, and crystal through a thousand and one items of expenditure down to the pots and pans in the kitchen.  Castanier had meant to “do things simply,” as the saying goes, but he gradually found himself more and more in debt.  One expense entailed another.  The clock called for candle sconces.  Fires must be lighted in the ornamental grates, but the curtains and hangings were too fresh and delicate to be soiled by smuts, so they must be replaced by patent and elaborate fireplaces, warranted to give out no smoke, recent inventions of the people who are clever at drawing up a prospectus.  Then Aquilina found it so nice to run about barefooted on the carpet in her room that Castanier must have soft carpets laid everywhere for the pleasure of playing with Naqui.  A bathroom, too, was built for her, everything to the end that she might be more comfortable.

Shopkeepers, workmen, and manufacturers in Paris have a mysterious knack of enlarging a hole in a man’s purse.  They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost.  The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser with furniture till his head spins.  Everything is so pretty, so charming; and everyone is satisfied.

A few months later the obliging furniture dealers are metamorphosed, and reappear in the shape of alarming totals on invoices that fill the soul with their horrid clamor; they are in urgent want of the money; they are, as you may say, on the brink of bankruptcy, their tears flow, it is heartrending to hear them!  And then—­the gulf yawns and gives up serried columns of figures marching four deep; when as a matter of fact they should have issued innocently three by three.