“Oh!” declared Madame Trepof, “it is ugly, but it is rare! These boxes are not exported at all; you can buy them only where they are made. Dimitri has six others just like this in his pocket. We got them so as to exchange with other collectors. You understand? At none o’clock this morning we were at the factory. You see we did not waste our time.” “So I certainly perceive, Madame,” I replied, bitterly; “but I have lost mine.” I then saw that she was a naturally good-hearted woman. All her merriment vanished. “Poor Monsieur Bonnard! poor Monsieur Bonnard!” she murmured. And, taking my hand in hers, she added: “Tell me about your troubles.” I told her about them. My story was long; but she was evidently touched by it, for she asked me quite a number of circumstantial questions, which I took for proof of her friendly interest. She wanted to know the exact title of the manuscript, its shape, its appearance, and its age; she asked me for the address of Signor Rafael Polizzi. And I gave it to her; thus doing (O destiny!) precisely what the abominable Polizzi had told me to do. It is sometimes difficult to check oneself. I recommenced my plaints and my imprecations. But this time Madame Trepof only burst out laughing. “Why do you laugh?” I asked her. “Because I am a wicked woman,” she answered. And she fled away, leaving me all disheartened on my stone. Paris, December 8, 1859. My unpacked trunks still encumbered the hall. I was seated at a tabled covered with all those good things which the land of France produces for the delectation of gourmets. I was eating a pate le Chartres, which is alone sufficient to make one love one’s country. Therese, standing before me with her hands joined over her white apron, was looking at me with benignity, with anxiety, and with pity. Hamilcar was rubbing himself against my legs, wild with delight. These words of an old poet came back to my memory: “Happy is he who, like Ulysses, hath made a goodly journey.” ...“Well,” I thought to myself, “I travelled to no purpose; I have come back with empty hands; but, like Ulysses, I made a goodly journey.” And having taken my last sip of coffee, I asked Therese for my hat and cane, which she gave me not without dire suspicions; she feared I might be going upon another journey. But I reassured her by telling her to have dinner ready at six o’clock.