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allure. She soon began to collect them.
    The rooms that at first held one or two Asian porcelains, soon had ten or twelve on the shelves. She found a small shop near the Rue de Seine where the owner pulled out the long, slender vases from wooden crates lined in tea paper and straw.
    Just walking into the shop brought her into a small frenzy. The air smelled of jasmine, and the interior walls were dark teak. The owner, a small, wizened man who was quiet as a crane, would cup each piece in his hands, then lift them gently for Marthe to admire, showing her how they shifted and changed in the light.
    She began to collect the Kangxi blue and white porcelains that soothed her and reminded her of water and sky. She loved their inky landscapes of bamboo and pagodas. She admired the soft feathering of the artist’s brush. The glazes in celestial colors like celadon and moonlight blue.
    She was attracted to the contrast, the way the porcelains appeared one way in the light and another in the shadow, for it mirrored the half-world she occupied, captured in her very hands.
    She purchased with increasing frequency so that Ichiro-san, the owner of the store, soon sensed Marthe’s tastes and preferences. One afternoon, after he had shown her a precious vessel in the shape of a calabash gourd, its sensual hourglass shape meant to hold the liquor of immortality, he asked Marthe if she’d be interested in seeing something he reserved for only his best customers.
    â€œWould I?” A smile flashed across her face. “What have you been keeping from me?”
    â€œA collection of secret prints meant to inspire,” he whispered. “To delight.”
    Her eyes grew wide as he fed her the smallest bits of information.
    â€œCome this way, Madame de Florian,” Ichiro said, gesturing forher to follow him behind the curtain that separated the storefront to his personal quarters. As she passed through the curtain, she found herself in a small room with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Already, she could recognize most of the shapes and periods of the pottery. The Edo-period Imari, the yellow-glazed Tang horses, and the decorative Kangxi enamels that she so loved. But he did not reach for anything on the shelves. Instead he pulled out a portfolio and began to unwrap ties of silken cord.
    What he revealed enthralled her.
    â€œThese are our images of the floating world,” he told her. “The art of
shunga
.” His eyes floated downward. “Literally, the pictures of spring.”
    There on rice paper were images of men and women in half-open kimonos, engaged in the many different acts of love.
    Marthe could not look away. She saw couples with their sashes undone, their bodies entwined, their rapture caught by the woodblock artist’s delicate hand.
    â€œThese prints are a window into the secret world of lovers.”
    Marthe grew warm as Ichiro put forth a series of prints. Each one displayed elaborate positions for lovemaking, intimate scenes of arousal and gestures of pleasure that unfolded like a dance. The prints were so different from the daguerreotypes in Europe of showgirls in corsets, with their breasts exposed and their legs slightly apart. Those images were produced only for the delight of men, but these prints appealed to her secret feminine side as well.
    â€œAre these for purchase?” Marthe asked as her finger touched the corner of the paper. It felt like a secret, breathing scroll.
    â€œBut of course,” Ichiro replied.
    â€œI’d like these four,” she said, selecting the ones that she found particularly alluring.
    â€œWhatever you wish, Madame de Florian.”
    She had been so enraptured by the prints that she had forgotten to even inquire about the price.
    â€œAnd how much?” she asked.
    Ichiro scribbled a number on a piece of paper and turned it toward Marthe’s direction.
    â€œBut that’s exorbitant,” she cried.
    â€œThe price for such secrets is