He ate omelettes on farmhouse tables, poked his arm into damp beds, received the tepid spurt of blood-lettings in his face, listened to death-rattles, examined basins, turned over a good deal of dirty linen; but every evening he found a blazing fire, his dinner ready, easy-chairs, and a well-dressed woman, charming with an odour of freshness, though no one could say whence the perfume came, or if it were not her skin that made odorous her chemise.
She charmed him by numerous attentions; now it was some new way of arranging paper sconces for the candles, a flounce that she altered on her gown, or an extraordinary name for some very simple dish that the servant had spoilt, but that Charles swallowed with pleasure to the last mouthful.

At Rouen she saw some ladies who wore a bunch of charms on the watch-chains; she bought some charms.

She wanted for her mantelpiece two large blue glass vases, and some time after an ivory necessaire with a silver-gilt thimble.

The less Charles understood these refinements the more they seduced him.

They added something to the pleasure of the senses and to the comfort of his fireside.