New customers had come into the shop and from time to time the merchant, delighted with such living testimony to the excellence of his stock, called from one end of the shop to the other: ‘There you are, you see, Monsieur Jean Varin! What about that then?’ Everyone looked over and she felt a thrill of pleasure at being seen chatting on such intimate terms with one of the great and the good.

Dizzy with success, she felt like a general about to make one supremely daring attack. ‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘would you do me a great, a very great favour? Will you let me give you this figure as a keepsake from a woman of ten minutes’ acquaintance who has the most ardent admiration for you?’

He refused. She insisted. Laughing happily, he resisted yet again, but she was determined.

‘In that case, I shall take it to your home straight away. Where do you live?’

He refused to give his address but having acquired it from the merchant as she paid, she rushed off to find a fiacre.6 The writer ran to catch her up, unwilling to expose himself by accepting this gift from a total stranger, and, with it, who knew what sort of obligation. Reaching her just as she was jumping into the cab, he flung himself in and nearly fell on top of her as it jolted into motion. He sat down beside her, more than a little embarrassed.

She was quite intractable. His protests and pleas fell on deaf ears. As they arrived at the door, she set out her conditions.

‘I shall agree not to leave it with you if, throughout the whole of today, you will carry out all my wishes.’

The whole thing sounded so extraordinarily amusing that he accepted.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘What would you normally be doing at this time of day?’

After a little hesitation, he said: ‘I’d be going for a walk.’

In a firm tone she ordered, ‘To the Bois!’7

And off they went. After this, he had to tell her the names of all the women people were talking about, especially the flighty ones, and give her every intimate detail he could about where they lived, how they spent their days, and all their wicked little ways.

It was now getting towards evening time.

‘What do you usually do at this sort of time?’ she asked.

Laughing, he replied, ‘I go for a glass of absinthe.’8

They went into a large boulevard café where he was a regular and met all his colleagues. He introduced them to her. She was wild with joy. And in her head, there echoed ceaselessly the words ‘At last! At last!’

Time passed. ‘Is this when you normally dine?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Madame,’ he replied.

‘Then, Monsieur, let’s go and dine,’ she said.

Emerging from the Café Bignon,9 she asked, ‘What do you normally do in the evening?’

He looked at her steadily.