By dint of much perseverance, she paved the way for a journey to Paris, found a pretext, got some relations to invite her, and as her husband could not go with her, she went alone, and as soon as she arrived, she invented a reason for remaining for two days, or rather for two nights, if necessary, as she told him that she had met some friends who lived a little way out of town.

And then she set out on a voyage of discovery.  She went up and down the boulevards, without seeing anything except roving and numbered vice.  She looked into the large cafes, and read the Agony Column of the Figaro, which every morning seemed to her like a tocsin, a summons to love.  But nothing put her on the track of those orgies of actors and actresses; nothing revealed to her those temples of debauchery which she imagined opened at some magic word, like the cave in the Arabian Nights, or those catacombs in Rome, where the mysteries of a persecuted religion were secretly celebrated.

Her relations, who were quite middle-class people, could not introduce her to any of those well-known men with whose names her head was full, and in despair she was thinking of returning, when chance came to her aid.  One day, as she was going along the Rue de la Chaussee d’Antin, she stopped to look into a shop full of those colored Japanese knick-knacks, which strike the eye on account of their color.  She was looking at the little ivory buffoons, the tall vases of flaming enamel, and the curious bronzes, when she heard the shop-keeper dilating, with many bows, on the value of an enormous, pot-bellied, comical figure, which was quite unique, he said, to a little, bald-headed, gray-bearded man.

Every moment, the shop-keeper repeated his customer’s name, which was a celebrated one, in a voice like a trumpet.  The other customers, young women and well-dressed gentlemen, gave a swift and furtive, but respectful glance at the celebrated writer, who was looking admiringly at the china figure.  They were both equally ugly, as ugly as two brothers who had sprung from the same mother.

“I will let you have it for a thousand francs, Monsieur Varin, and that is exactly what it cost me.  I should ask anybody else fifteen hundred, but I think a great deal of literary and artistic customers, and have special prices for them.  They all come to me, Monsieur Varin.  Yesterday, Monsieur Busnach bought a large, antique goblet of me, and the other day I sold two candelabra like this (is it not handsome?) to Monsieur Alexander Dumas.  If Monsieur Zola were to see that Japanese figure, he would buy it immediately, Monsieur Varin.”