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.