Then, too, there were instances of negligence and mischief and sheer
accident--of everything, in fact, which can hasten the ruin of a house
devoured by so many mouths. Upstairs in Madame's quarters destruction
raged more fiercely still. Dresses, which cost ten thousand francs and
had been twice worn, were sold by Zoe; jewels vanished as though they
had crumbled deep down in their drawers; stupid purchases were made;
every novelty of the day was brought and left to lie forgotten in some
corner the morning after or swept up by ragpickers in the street. She
could not see any very expensive object without wanting to possess it,
and so she constantly surrounded herself with the wrecks of bouquets and
costly knickknacks and was the happier the more her passing fancy cost.
Nothing remained intact in her hands; she broke everything, and this
object withered, and that grew dirty in the clasp of her lithe white
fingers. A perfect heap of nameless debris, of twisted shreds and
muddy rags, followed her and marked her passage. Then amid this utter
squandering of pocket money cropped up a question about the big bills
and their settlement. Twenty thousand francs were due to the modiste,
thirty thousand to the linen draper, twelve thousand to the bootmaker.
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