I began it in Italy, merely by chance, then I became so enthralled that I had to buy three additional trunks to store it during our journeys. Now since our return to Vienna it has claimed all my attention. Forgive me, I am going on and on and not explaining anything . . . I am absolutely mad about millefiori and sulfide paperweights! Glass globes like solidified water, containing violets, daisies, prairies, butterflies, faces: I hunt, I track, I bargain, I purchase them, and I think I’d even be prepared to steal them. My furniture is crumbling beneath my Bigaglia, Baccarat, Saint-Louis, and Clichy paperweights. They are displayed on the shelves of my boudoir, which is where I have collected them. Naïve, joyful, virginal, and innocent, they sit and sparkle like bubbles with their bright colors, and their bases make one think of barley sugar. They are seductive little imps, entrancing even the light, which they attract and hold in their heart, like spiderwebs capturing a rainbow.
