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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18445-8.txt b/18445-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3bb307 --- /dev/null +++ b/18445-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12907 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, by Henry +Murger + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Bohemians of the Latin Quarter + + +Author: Henry Murger + + + +Release Date: May 27, 2006 [eBook #18445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER*** + + +E-text prepared by Chuck Greif from digital text provided by the Worchel +Institute for the Study of Beat and Bohemian Literature +(http://home.swbell.net/worchel/index.html) + + + +Note: This book by Henry Murger, originally published in 1851, was + the source of two operas titled "La Bohème"--one by Giacomo + Puccini (1896) and the other by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1897). + Project Gutenberg also has the original French version of + the book (Scènes de la vie de bohème); see + http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18446. + + + + + +BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER + +by + +HENRY MURGER + + + + + + + +1888 + +Vizetelly & Co. London + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +Preface +Chapter I, How The Bohemian Club Was Formed +Chapter II, A Good Angel +Chapter III, Lenten Loves +Chapter IV, Ali Rodolphe; Or, The Turk Perforce +Chapter V, The Carlovingian Coin +Chapter VI, Mademoiselle Musette +Chapter VII, The Billows of Pactolus +Chapter VIII, The Cost Of a Five Franc Piece +Chapter IX, The White Violets +Chapter X, The Cape of Storms +Chapter XI, A Bohemian Cafe +Chapter XII, A Bohemian "At Home" +Chapter XIII, The House Warming +Chapter XIV, Mademoiselle Mimi +Chapter XV, Donec Gratus +Chapter XVI, The Passage of the Red Sea +Chapter XVII, The Toilette of the Graces +Chapter XVIII, Francine's Muff +Chapter XIX, Musette's Fancies +Chapter XX, Mimi in Fine Feather +Chapter XXI, Romeo and Juliet +Chapter XXII, Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi +Chapter XXIII, Youth Is Fleeting + + + + +PREFACE + + +The Bohemians of whom it is a question in this book have no connection +with the Bohemians whom melodramatists have rendered synonymous with +robbers and assassins. Neither are they recruited from among the +dancing-bear leaders, sword swallowers, gilt watch-guard vendors, street +lottery keepers and a thousand other vague and mysterious professionals +whose main business is to have no business at all, and who are always +ready to turn their hands to anything except good. + +The class of Bohemians referred to in this book are not a race of today, +they have existed in all climes and ages, and can claim an illustrious +descent. In ancient Greece, to go no farther back in this genealogy, +there existed a celebrated Bohemian, who lived from hand to mouth round +the fertile country of Ionia, eating the bread of charity, and halting +in the evening to tune beside some hospitable hearth the harmonious lyre +that had sung the loves of Helen and the fall of Troy. Descending the +steps of time modern Bohemia finds ancestors at every artistic and +literary epoch. In the Middle Ages it perpetuates the Homeric tradition +with its minstrels and ballad makers, the children of the gay science, +all the melodious vagabonds of Touraine, all the errant songsters who, +with the beggar's wallet and the trouvere's harp slung at their backs, +traversed, singing as they went, the plains of the beautiful land where +the eglantine of Clemence Isaure flourished. + +At the transitional period between the days of chivalry and the dawn of +the Renaissance, Bohemia continued to stroll along all the highways of +the kingdom, and already to some extent about the streets of Paris. +There is Master Pierre Gringoire, friend of the vagrants and foe to +fasting. Lean and famished as a man whose very existence is one long +Lent, he lounges about the town, his nose in the air like a pointer's, +sniffing the odor from kitchen and cook shop. His eyes glittering +with covetous gluttony cause the hams hung outside the pork +butcher's to shrink by merely looking at them, whilst he jingles in +imagination--alas! and not in his pockets--the ten crowns promised him +by the echevins in payment of the pious and devout fare he has composed +for the theater in the hall of the Palais de Justice. Beside the doleful +and melancholy figure of the lover of Esmeralda, the chronicles of +Bohemia can evoke a companion of less ascetic humor and more cheerful +face--Master François Villon, par excellence, is this latter, and one +whose poetry, full of imagination, is no doubt on account of those +presentiments which the ancients attributed to their fates, continually +marked by a singular foreboding of the gallows, on which the said Villon +one day nearly swung in a hempen collar for having looked too closely at +the color of the king's crowns. This same Villon, who more than once +outran the watch started in his pursuit, this noisy guest at the dens of +the Rue Pierre Lescot, this spunger at the court of the Duke of Egypt, +this Salvator Rosa of poesy, has strung together elegies the +heartbreaking sentiment and truthful accents of which move the most +pitiless and make them forget the ruffian, the vagabond and the +debauchee, before this muse drowned in her own tears. + +Besides, amongst all those whose but little known work has only been +familiar to men for whom French literature does not begin the day when +"Malherbe came," François Villon has had the honor of being the most +pillaged, even by the big-wigs of modern Parnassus. They threw +themselves upon the poor man's field and coined glory from his humble +treasure. There are ballads scribbled under a penthouse at the street +corner on a cold day by the Bohemian rhapsodist, stanzas improvised in +the hovel in which the "belle qui fut haultmire" loosened her gilt +girdle to all comers, which now-a-days metamorphosed into dainty +gallantries scented with musk and amber, figure in the armorial bearing +enriched album of some aristocratic Chloris. + +But behold the grand century of the Renaissance opens, Michaelangelo +ascends the scaffolds of the Sistine Chapel and watches with anxious air +young Raphael mounting the steps of the Vatican with the cartoon of the +Loggie under his arm. Benvenuto Cellini is meditating his Perseus, +Ghiberti is carving the Baptistery doors at the same time that Donatello +is rearing his marbles on the bridges of the Arno; and whilst the city +of the Medici is staking masterpieces against that of Leo X and +Julius II, Titian and Paul Veronese are rendering the home of Doges +illustrious. Saint Mark's competes with Saint Peter's. + +This fever of genius that had broken out suddenly in the Italian +peninsula with epidemic violence spreads its glorious contagion +throughout Europe. Art, the rival of God, strides on, the equal of +kings. Charles V stoops to pick up Titian's brush, and Francis I dances +attendance at the printing office where Etienne Dolet is perhaps +correcting the proofs of "Pantagruel." + +Amidst this resurrection of intelligence, Bohemia continued as in the +past to seek, according to Balzac's expression, a bone and a kennel. +Clement Marot, the familiar of the ante-chamber of the Louvre, became, +even before she was a monarch's mistress, the favorite of that fair +Diana, whose smile lit up three reigns. From the boudoir of Diane de +Poitiers, the faithless muse of the poet passed to that of Marguerite de +Valois, a dangerous favor that Marot paid for by imprisonment. Almost +at the same epoch another Bohemian, whose childhood on the shores of +Sorrento had been caressed by the kisses of an epic muse, Tasso, entered +the court of the Duke of Ferrara as Marot had that of Francis I. But +less fortunate than the lover of Diane and Marguerite, the author of +"Jerusalem Delivered" paid with his reason and the loss of his genius +the audacity of his love for a daughter of the house of Este. + +The religious contests and political storms that marked the arrival of +Medicis in France did not check the soaring flight of art. At the moment +when a ball struck on the scaffold of the Fontaine des Innocents Jean +Goujon who had found the Pagan chisel of Phidias, Ronsard discovered the +lyre of Pindar and founded, aided by his pleiad, the great French lyric +school. To this school succeeded the reaction of Malherbe and his +fellows, who sought to drive from the French tongue all the exotic +graces that their predecessors had tried to nationalize on Parnassus. It +was a Bohemian, Mathurin Regnier, who was one of the last defenders of +the bulwarks of poetry, assailed by the phalanx of rhetoricians and +grammarians who declared Rabelais barbarous and Montaigne obscure. It +was this same cynic, Mathurin Regnier, who, adding fresh knots to the +satiric whip of Horace, exclaimed, in indignation at the manners of his +day, "Honor is an old saint past praying to." + +The roll call of Bohemia during the seventeenth century contains a +portion of the names belonging to the literature of the reigns of Louis +XIII and Louis XIV, it reckons members amongst the wits of the Hôtel +Rambouillet, where it takes its share in the production of the +"Guirlande de Julie," it has its entries into the Palais Cardinal, where +it collaborates, in the tragedy of "Marianne," with the poet-minister +who was the Robespierre of the monarchy. It bestrews the couch of Marion +Delorme with madrigals, and woos Ninon de l'Enclos beneath the trees of +the Place Royal; it breakfasts in the morning at the tavern of the +Goinfres or the Epee Royale, and sups in the evening at the table of the +Duc de Joyeuse; it fights duels under a street lamp for the sonnet of +Urania against the sonnet of Job. Bohemia makes love, war, and even +diplomacy, and in its old days, weary of adventures, it turns the Old +and New Testament into poetry, figures on the list of benefices, and +well nourished with fat prebendaryships, seats itself on an episcopal +throne, or a chair of the Academy, founded by one of its children. + +It was in the transition period between the sixteenth and eighteenth +centuries that appeared those two lofty geniuses, whom each of the +nations amongst which they lived opposed to one another in their +struggles of literary rivalry. Moliere and Shakespeare, those +illustrious Bohemians, whose fate was too nearly akin. + +The most celebrated names of the literature of the eighteenth century +are also to be found in the archives of Bohemia, which, amongst the +glorious ones of this epoch, can cite Jean Jacques Rousseau and +d'Alembert, the foundling of the porch of Notre Dame, and amongst the +obscure, Malfilâtre and Gilbert, two overrated reputations, for the +inspiration of the one was but a faint reflection of the weak lyricism +of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, and the inspiration of the other but the +blending of proud impotence with a hatred which had not even the excuse +of initiative and sincerity, since it was only the paid instrument of +party rancour. + +We close with this epoch this brief summary of Bohemia in different +ages, a prolegomena besprinkled with illustrious names that we have +purposely placed at the beginning of this work, to put the reader on his +guard against any misapplication he might fall into on encountering the +title of Bohemians; long bestowed upon classes from which those whose +manners and language we have striven to depict hold it an honor to +differ. + +Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without +any other means of livelihood than his art itself, will be forced to +walk in the paths of Bohemia. The greater number of our contemporaries +who display the noblest blazonry of art have been Bohemians, and amidst +their calm and prosperous glory they often recall, perhaps with regret, +the time when, climbing the verdant slope of youth, they had no other +fortune in the sunshine of their twenty years than courage, which is the +virtue of the young, and hope, which is the wealth of the poor. + +For the uneasy reader, for the timorous citizen, for all those for whom +an "i" can never be too plainly dotted in definition, we repeat as an +axiom: "Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the +Academy, the Hôtel Dieu, or the Morgue." + +We will add that Bohemia only exists and is only possible in Paris. + +We will begin with unknown Bohemians, the largest class. It is made up +of the great family of poor artists, fatally condemned to the law of +incognito, because they cannot or do not know how to obtain a scrap of +publicity, to attest their existence in art, and by showing what they +are already prove what they may some day become. They are the race of +obstinate dreamers for whom art has remained a faith and not a +profession; enthusiastic folk of strong convictions, whom the sight of a +masterpiece is enough to throw into a fever, and whose loyal heart beats +high in presence of all that is beautiful, without asking the name of +the master and the school. This Bohemian is recruited from amongst those +young fellows of whom it is said that they give great hopes, and from +amongst those who realize the hopes given, but who, from carelessness, +timidity, or ignorance of practical life, imagine that everything is +done that can be when the work is completed, and wait for public +admiration and fortune to break in on them by escalade and burglary. +They live, so to say, on the outskirts of life, in isolation and +inertia. Petrified in art, they accept to the very letter the symbolism +of the academical dithyrambic, which places an aureola about the heads +of poets, and, persuaded that they are gleaming in their obscurity, wait +for others to come and seek them out. We used to know a small school +composed of men of this type, so strange, that one finds it hard to +believe in their existence; they styled themselves the disciples of art +for art's sake. According to these simpletons, art for art's sake +consisted of deifying one another, in abstaining from helping chance, +who did not even know their address, and in waiting for pedestals to +come of their own accord and place themselves under them. + +It is, as one sees, the ridiculousness of stoicism. Well, then we again +affirm, there exist in the heart of unknown Bohemia, similar beings +whose poverty excites a sympathetic pity which common sense obliges you +to go back on, for if you quietly remark to them that we live in the +nineteenth century, that the five-franc piece is the empress of +humanity, and that boots do not drop already blacked from heaven, they +turn their backs on you and call you a tradesman. + +For the rest, they are logical in their mad heroism, they utter neither +cries nor complainings, and passively undergo the obscure and rigorous +fate they make for themselves. They die for the most part, decimated by +that disease to which science does not dare give its real name, want. If +they would, however, many could escape from this fatal _denouement_ +which suddenly terminates their life at an age when ordinary life is +only beginning. It would suffice for that for them to make a few +concessions to the stern laws of necessity; for them to know how to +duplicate their being, to have within themselves two natures, the poet +ever dreaming on the lofty summits where the choir of inspired voices +are warbling, and the man, worker-out of his life, able to knead his +daily bread, but this duality which almost always exists among strongly +tempered natures, of whom it is one of the distinctive characteristics, +is not met with amongst the greater number of these young fellows, whom +pride, a bastard pride, has rendered invulnerable to all the advice of +reason. Thus they die young, leaving sometimes behind them a work which +the world admires later on and which it would no doubt have applauded +sooner if it had not remained invisible. + +In artistic struggles it is almost the same as in war, the whole of the +glory acquired falls to the leaders; the army shares as its reward the +few lines in a dispatch. As to the soldiers struck down in battle, they +are buried where they fall, and one epitaph serves for twenty thousand +dead. + +So, too, the crowd, which always has its eyes fixed on the rising sun, +never lowers its glance towards that underground world where the obscure +workers are struggling; their existence finishes unknown and without +sometimes even having had the consolation of smiling at an accomplished +task, they depart from this life, enwrapped in a shroud of indifference. + +There exists in ignored Bohemia another fraction; it is composed of +young fellows who have been deceived, or have deceived themselves. They +mistake a fancy for a vocation, and impelled by a homicidal fatality, +they die, some the victims of a perpetual fit of pride, others +worshippers of a chimera. + +The paths of art, so choked and so dangerous, are, despite encumberment +and obstacles, day by day more crowded, and consequently Bohemians were +never more numerous. + +If one sought out all the causes that have led to this influx, one might +perhaps come across the following. + +Many young fellows have taken the declamations made on the subject of +unfortunate poets and artists quite seriously. The names of Gilbert, +Malfilâtre, Chatterton, and Moreau have been too often, too imprudently, +and, above all, too uselessly uttered. The tomb of these unfortunates +has been converted into a pulpit, from whence has been preached the +martyrdom of art and poetry, + + "Farewell mankind, ye stony-hearted host, + Flint-bosomed earth and sun with frozen ray, + From out amidst you, solitary ghost + I glide unseen away." + +This despairing song of Victor Escousse, stifled by the pride which had +been implanted in him by a factitious triumph, was for a time the +"Marseillaise" of the volunteers of art who were bent on inscribing +their names on the martyrology of mediocrity. + +For these funereal apotheoses, these encomiastic requiems, having all +the attraction of the abyss for weak minds and ambitious vanities, many +of these yielding to this attraction have thought that fatality was the +half of genius; many have dreamt of the hospital bed on which Gilbert +died, hoping that they would become poets, as he did a quarter of an +hour before dying, and believing that it was an obligatory stage in +order to arrive at glory. + +Too much blame cannot be attached to these immortal falsehoods, these +deadly paradoxes, which turn aside from the path in which they might +have succeeded so many people who come to a wretched ending in a career +in which they incommode those to whom a true vocation only gives the +right of entering on it. + +It is these dangerous preachings, this useless posthumous exaltations, +that have created the ridiculous race of the unappreciated, the whining +poets whose muse has always red eyes and ill-combed locks, and all the +mediocrities of impotence who, doomed to non-publication, call the muse +a harsh stepmother, and art an executioner. + +All truly powerful minds have their word to say, and, indeed, utter it +sooner or later. Genius or talent are not unforeseen accidents in +humanity; they have a cause of existence, and for that reason cannot +always remain in obscurity, for, if the crowd does not come to seek +them, they know how to reach it. Genius is the sun, everyone sees it. +Talent is the diamond that may for a long time remain hidden in +obscurity, but which is always perceived by some one. It is, therefore, +wrong to be moved to pity over the lamentations and stock phrases of +that class of intruders and inutilities entered upon an artistic career +in which idleness, debauchery, and parasitism form the foundations of +manners. + +Axiom, "Unknown Bohemianism is not a path, it is a blind alley." + +Indeed, this life is something that does not lead to anything. It is a +stultified wretchedness, amidst which intelligence dies out like a lamp +in a place without air, in which the heart grows petrified in a fierce +misanthropy, and in which the best natures become the worst. If one has +the misfortune to remain too long and to advance too far in this blind +alley one can no longer get out, or one emerges by dangerous breaches +and only to fall into an adjacent Bohemia, the manners of which belong +to another jurisdiction than that of literary physiology. + +We will also cite a singular variety of Bohemians who might be called +amateurs. They are not the least curious. They find in Bohemian life an +existence full of seductions, not to dine every day, to sleep in the +open air on wet nights, and to dress in nankeen in the month of December +seems to them the paradise of human felicity, and to enter it some +abandon the family home, and others the study which leads to an assured +result. They suddenly turn their backs upon an honorable future to seek +the adventure of a hazardous career. But as the most robust cannot stand +a mode of living that would render Hercules consumptive, they soon give +up the game, and, hastening back to the paternal roast joint, marry +their little cousins, set up as a notary in a town of thirty thousand +inhabitants, and by their fireside of an evening have the satisfaction +of relating their artistic misery with the magniloquence of a traveller +narrating a tiger hunt. Others persist and put their self-esteem in it, +but when once they have exhausted those resources of credit which a +young fellow with well-to-do relatives can always find, they are more +wretched than the real Bohemians, who, never having had any other +resources, have at least those of intelligence. We knew one of these +amateur Bohemians who, after having remained three years in Bohemia and +quarrelled with his family, died one morning, and was taken to the +common grave in a pauper's hearse. He had ten thousand francs a year. + +It is needless to say that these Bohemians have nothing whatever in +common with art, and that they are the most obscure amongst the least +known of ignored Bohemia. + +We now come to the real Bohemia, to that which forms, in part, the +subject of this book. Those who compose it are really amongst those +called by art, and have the chance of being also amongst its elect. This +Bohemia, like the others, bristles with perils, two abysses flank it on +either side--poverty and doubt. But between these two gulfs there is at +least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their +eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand. + +It is official Bohemia so-called because those who form part of it have +publicly proved their existence, have signalised their presence in the +world elsewhere than on a census list, have, to employ one of their own +expressions, "their name in the bill," who are known in the literary and +artistic market, and whose products, bearing their stamp, are current +there, at moderate rates it is true. + +To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and +the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route. +Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers, +whose sins are backed by virtue. Their mind is kept ever on the alert by +their ambition, which sounds a charge in front and urges them to the +assault of the future; incessantly at war with necessity, their +invention always marching with lighted match blows up the obstacle +almost before it incommodes them. Their daily existence is a work of +genius, a daily problem which they always succeed in solving by the aid +of audacious mathematics. They would have forced Harpagon to lend them +money, and have found truffles on the raft of the "Medusa." At need, +too, they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an +anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see +them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest +and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding +sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last +crown is dead and buried, they begin to dine again at that table spread +by chance, at which their place is always laid, and, preceded by a pack +of tricks, go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with +art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five-franc +piece. + +The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere, according as they have +patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to be met one day leaning +against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing room, and the next +seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place. They cannot take ten +steps on the Boulevard without meeting a friend, and thirty, no matter +where, without encountering a creditor. + +Bohemians speak amongst themselves a special language borrowed from the +conversation of the studios, the jargon of behind the scenes, and the +discussions of the editor's room. All the eclecticisms of style are met +with in this unheard of idiom, in which apocalyptic phrases jostle cock +and bull stories, in which the rusticity of a popular saying is wedded +to extravagant periods from the same mold in which Cyrano de Bergerac +cast his tirades; in which the paradox, that spoilt child of modern +literature, treats reason as the pantaloon is treated in a pantomime; in +which irony has the intensity of the strongest acids and the skill of +those marksmen who can hit the bull's-eye blindfold; a slang +intelligent, though unintelligible to those who have not its key, and +the audacity of which surpasses that of the freest tongues. This +Bohemian vocabulary is the hell of rhetoric and the paradise of +neologism. + +Such is in brief that Bohemian life, badly known to the puritans of +society, decried by the puritans of art, insulted by all the timorous +and jealous mediocrities who cannot find enough of outcries, lies, and +calumnies to drown the voices and the names of those who arrive through +the vestibule to renown by harnessing audacity to their talent. + +A life of patience, of courage, in which one cannot fight unless clad in +a strong armour of indifference impervious to the attacks of fools and +the envious, in which one must not, if one would not stumble on the +road, quit for a single moment that pride in oneself which serves as a +leaning staff; a charming and a terrible life, which has conquerors and +its martyrs, and on which one should not enter save in resigning oneself +in advance to submit to the pitiless law _væ victis_. + +H. M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW THE BOHEMIAN CLUB WAS FORMED + + +One morning--it was the eighth of April--Alexander Schaunard, who +cultivated the two liberal arts of painting and music, was rudely +awakened by the peal of a neighbouring cock, which served him for an +alarm. + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Schaunard, "my feathered clock goes too fast: it +cannot possibly be today yet!" So saying, he leaped precipitately out of +a piece of furniture of his own ingenious contrivance, which, sustaining +the part of bed by night, (sustaining it badly enough too,) did duty by +day for all the rest of the furniture which was absent by reason of the +severe cold for which the past winter had been noted. + +To protect himself against the biting north-wind, Schaunard slipped on +in haste a pink satin petticoat with spangled stars, which served him +for dressing-gown. This gay garment had been left at the artist's +lodging, one masked-ball night, by a _folie_, who was fool enough to let +herself be entrapped by the deceitful promises of Schaunard when, +disguised as a marquis, he rattled in his pocket a seducingly sonorous +dozen of crowns--theatrical money punched out of a lead plate and +borrowed of a property-man. Having thus made his home toilette, the +artist proceeded to open his blind and window. A solar ray, like an +arrow of light, flashed suddenly into the room, and compelled him to +open his eyes that were still veiled by the mists of sleep. At the same +moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck five. + +"It is the Morn herself!" muttered Schaunard; "astonishing, but"--and he +consulted an almanac nailed to the wall--"not the less a mistake. The +results of science affirm that at this season of the year the sun ought +not to rise till half-past five: it is only five o'clock, and there he +is! A culpable excess of zeal! The luminary is wrong; I shall have to +make a complaint to the longitude-office. However, I must begin to be a +little anxious. Today is the day after yesterday, certainly; and since +yesterday was the seventh, unless old Saturn goes backward, it must be +the eighth of April today. And if I may believe this paper," continued +Schaunard, going to read an official notice-to-quit posted on the wall, +"today, therefore, at twelve precisely, I ought to have evacuated the +premises, and paid into the hands of my landlord, Monsieur Bernard, the +sum of seventy-five francs for three quarters' rent due, which he +demands of me in very bad handwriting. I had hoped--as I always do--that +Providence would take the responsibility of discharging this debt, but +it seems it hasn't had time. Well, I have six hours before me yet. By +making good use of them, perhaps--to work! to work!" + +He was preparing to put on an overcoat, originally of a long-haired, +woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if +bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of +his own composition, which at the public balls had often caused him to +be honoured with the particular attention of the police. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is surprising how the morning air gives one +ideas! It strikes me that I am on the scent of my air; Let's see." And, +half-dressed as he was, Schaunard seated himself at his piano. After +having waked the sleeping instrument by a terrific hurly-burly of notes, +he began, talking to himself all the while, to hunt over the keys for +the tune he had long been seeking. + +"Do, sol, mi, do la, si, do re. Bah! it's as false as Judas, that re!" +and he struck violently on the doubtful note. "We must represent +adroitly the grief of a young person picking to pieces a white daisy +over a blue lake. There's an idea that's not in its infancy! However, +since it is fashion, and you couldn't find a music publisher who would +dare to publish a ballad without a blue lake in it, we must go with the +fashion. Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, re! That's not so bad; it gives a +fair idea of a daisy, especially to people well up in botany. La, si, +do, re. Confound that re! Now to make the blue lake intelligible. We +should have something moist, azure, moonlight--for the moon comes in too; +here it is; don't let's forget the swan. Fa, mi, la, sol," continued +Schaunard, rattling over the keys. "Lastly, an adieu of the young girl, +who determines to throw herself into the blue lake, to rejoin her +beloved who is buried under the snow. The catastrophe is not very +perspicuous, but decidedly interesting. We must have something tender, +melancholy. It's coming, it's coming! Here are a dozen bars crying like +Magdalens, enough to split one's heart--Brr, brr!" and Schaunard shivered +in his spangled petticoat, "if it could only split one's wood! There's a +beam in my alcove which bothers me a good deal when I have company at +dinner. I should like to make a fire with it--la, la, re, mi--for I feel +my inspiration coming to me through the medium of a cold in the head. So +much the worse, but it can't be helped. Let us continue to drown our +young girl;" and while his fingers assailed the trembling keys, +Schaunard, with sparkling eyes and straining ears, gave chase to the +melody which, like an impalpable sylph, hovered amid the sonorous mist +which the vibrations of the instrument seemed to let loose in the room. + +"Now let us see," he continued, "how my music will fit into my poet's +words;" and he hummed, in voice the reverse of agreeable, this fragment +of verse of the patent comic-opera sort: + + "The fair and youthful maiden, + As she flung her mantle by, + Threw a glance with sorrow laden + Up to the starry sky + And in the azure waters + Of the silver-waved lake." + +"How is that?" he exclaimed, in transports of just indignation; "the +azure waters of a silver lake! I didn't see that. This poet is an idiot. +I'll bet he never saw a lake, or silver either. A stupid ballad too, in +every way; the length of the lines cramps the music. For the future I +shall compose my verses myself; and without waiting, since I feel in the +humour, I shall manufacture some couplets to adapt my melody to." + +So saying, and taking his head between his hands, he assumed the grave +attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few +minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings +of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, +monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the +composer's inspiration. Only Schaunard's were no nonsense-verses, but +very good sense, expressing with sufficient clearness the inquietude +awakened in his mind by the rude arrival of that date, the eighth of +April. + +Thus they ran: + + "Eight and eight make sixteen just, + Put down six and carry one: + My poor soul would be at rest + Could I only find some one, + Some honest poor relation, + Who'd eight hundred francs advance, + To pay each obligation, + Whenever I've a chance." + + Chorus + + "And ere the clock on the last and fatal morning + Should sound mid-day, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + My rent I'd pay!" + +"The duece!" exclaimed Schaunard, reading over his composition, "one and +some one--those rhymes are poor enough, but I have no time to make them +richer. Now let us try how the notes will unite with the syllables." And +in his peculiarly frightful nasal tone he recommenced the execution of +his ballad. Satisfied with the result he had just obtained, Schaunard +congratulated himself with an exultant grimace, which mounted over his +nose like a circumflex accent whenever he had occasion to be pleased +with himself. But this triumphant happiness was destined to have no long +duration. Eleven o'clock resounded from the neighbouring steeple. Every +stroke diffused itself through the room in mocking sounds which seemed +to say to the unlucky Schaunard, "Are you ready?" + +The artist bounded on his chair. "The time flies like a bird!" he +exclaimed. "I have but three-quarters of an hour left to find my +seventy-five francs and my new lodging. I shall never get them; that +would be too much like magic. Let me see: I give myself five minutes to +find out how to obtain them;" and burying his head between his knees, he +descended into the depths of reflection. + +The five minutes elapsed, and Schaunard raised his head without having +found anything which resembled seventy-five francs. + +"Decidedly, I have but one way of getting out of this, which is simply +to go away. It is fine weather and my friend Monsieur Chance may be +walking in the sun. He must give me hospitality till I have found the +means of squaring off with Monsieur Bernard." + +Having stuffed into the cellar-like pockets of his overcoat all the +articles they would hold, Schaunard tied up some linen in a +handkerchief, and took an affectionate farewell of his home. While +crossing the court, he was suddenly stopped by the porter, who seemed to +be on the watch for him. + +"Hallo! Monsieur Schaunard," cried he, blocking up the artist's way, +"don't you remember that this is the eighth of April?" + + "Eight and eight make sixteen just, + Put down six and carry one," + +hummed Schaunard. "I don't remember anything else." + +"You are a little behindhand then with your moving," said the porter; +"it is half-past eleven, and the new tenant to whom your room has been +let may come any minute. You must make haste." + +"Let me pass, then," replied Schaunard; "I am going after a cart." + +"No doubt, but before moving there is a little formality to be gone +through. I have orders not to let you take away a hair unless you pay +the three quarters due. Are you ready?" + +"Why, of course," said Schaunard, making a step forward. + +"Well come into my lodge then, and I will give you your receipt." + +"I shall take it when I come back." + +"But why not at once?" persisted the porter. + +"I am going to a money changer's. I have no change." + +"Ah, you are going to get change!" replied the other, not at all at his +ease. "Then I will take care of that little parcel under your arm, which +might be in your way." + +"Monsieur Porter," exclaimed the artist, with a dignified air, "you +mistrust me, perhaps! Do you think I am carrying away my furniture in a +handkerchief?" + +"Excuse me," answered the porter, dropping his tone a little, "but such +are my orders. Monsieur Bernard has expressly charged me not to let you +take away a hair before you have paid." + +"But look, will you?" said Schaunard, opening his bundle, "these are not +hairs, they are shirts, and I am taking them to my washerwoman, who +lives next door to the money changer's twenty steps off." + +"That alters the case," said the porter, after he had examined the +contents of the bundle. "Would it be impolite, Monsieur Schaunard, to +inquire your new address?" + +"Rue de Rivoli!" replied the artist, and having once got outside the +gate, he made off as fast as possible. + +"Rue de Rivoli!" muttered the porter, scratching his nose, "it's very +odd they should have let him lodgings in the Rue de Rivoli, and never +come here to ask about him. Very odd, that. At any rate, he can't carry +off his furniture without paying. If only the new tenant don't come +moving in just as Monsieur Schaunard is moving out! That would make a +nice mess! Well, sure enough," he exclaimed, suddenly putting his head +out of his little window, "here he comes, the new tenant!" + +In fact, a young man in a white hat, followed by a porter who did not +seem over-burdened by the weight of his load, had just entered the +court. "Is my room ready?" he demanded of the house-porter, who had +stepped out to meet him. + +"Not yet, sir, but it will be in a moment. The person who occupies it +has gone after a cart for his things. Meanwhile, sir, you may put your +furniture in the court." + +"I am afraid it's going to rain," replied the young man, chewing a +bouquet of violets which he held in his mouth, "My furniture might be +spoiled. My friend," continued he, turning to the man who was behind +him, with something on a trunk which the porter could not exactly make +out, "put that down and go back to my old lodging to fetch the remaining +valuables." + +The man ranged along the wall several frames six or seven feet high, +folded together, and apparently being capable of being extended. + +"Look here," said the new-comer to his follower, half opening one of the +screens and showing him a rent in the canvas, "what an accident! You +have cracked my grand Venetian glass. Take more care on your second +trip, especially with my library." + +"What does he mean by his Venetian glass?" muttered the porter, walking +up and down with an uneasy air before the frames ranged against the +wall. "I don't see any glass. Some joke, no doubt. I only see a screen. +We shall see, at any rate, what he will bring next trip." + +"Is your tenant not going to make room for me soon?" inquired the young +man, "it is half-past twelve, and I want to move in." + +"He won't be much longer," answered the porter, "but there is no harm +done yet, since your furniture has not come," added he, with a stress on +the concluding words. + +As the young man was about to reply, a dragoon entered the court. + +"Is this Monsieur Bernard's?" he asked, drawing a letter from a huge +leather portfolio which swung at his side. + +"He lives here," replied the porter. + +"Here is a letter for him," said the dragoon; "give me a receipt," and +he handed to the porter a bulletin of despatches which the latter +entered his lodge to sign. + +"Excuse me for leaving you alone," said he to the young man who was +stalking impatiently about the court, "but this is a letter from the +Minister to my landlord, and I am going to take it up to him." + +Monsieur Bernard was just beginning to shave when the porter knocked at +his door. + +"What do you want, Durand?" + +"Sir," replied the other, lifting his cap, "a soldier has just brought +this for you. It comes from the Ministry." And he handed to Monsieur +Bernard the letter, the envelope of which bore the stamp of the War +Department. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Monsieur Bernard, in such agitation that he all but +cut himself. "From the Minister of War! I am sure it is my nomination as +Knight of the Legion of Honour, which I have long solicited. At last +they have done justice to my good conduct. Here, Durand," said he, +fumbling in his waistcoat-pocket, "here are five francs to drink to my +health. Stay! I haven't my purse about me. Wait, and I will give you the +money in a moment." + +The porter was so overcome by this stunning fit of generosity, which was +not at all in accordance with his landlord's ordinary habits, that he +absolutely put on his cap again. + +But Monsieur Bernard, who at any other time would have severely +reprimanded this infraction of the laws of social hierarchy, appeared +not to notice it. He put on his spectacles, broke the seal of the +envelope with the respectful anxiety of a vizier receiving a sultan's +firman, and began to read the dispatch. At the first line a frightful +grimace ploughed his fat, monk-like cheeks with crimson furrows, and his +little eyes flashed sparks that seemed ready to set fire to his bushy +wig. In fact, all his features were so turned upside-down that you would +have said his countenance had just suffered a shock of face-quake. + +For these were the contents of the letter bearing the ministerial stamp, +brought by a dragoon--orderly, and for which Durand had given the +government a receipt: + + "Friend landlord: Politeness-who, according to ancient mythology, + is the grandmother of good manners--compels me to inform you that I + am under the cruel necessity of not conforming to the prevalent + custom of paying rent--prevalent especially when the rent is due. Up + to this morning I had cherished the hope of being able to celebrate + this fair day by the payments of my three quarters. Vain chimera, + bitter illusion! While I was slumbering on the pillow of + confidence, ill-luck--what the Greeks call _ananke_--was scattering + my hopes. The returns on which I counted--times are so bad!-have + failed, and of the considerable sums which I was to receive I have + only realised three francs, which were lent me, and I will not + insult you by the offer of them. Better days will come for our dear + country and for me. Doubt it not, sir! When they come, I shall fly + to inform you of their arrival, and to withdraw from your lodgings + the precious objects which I leave there, putting them under your + protection and that of the law, which hinders you from selling them + before the expiration of a year, in case you should be disposed to + try to do so with the object of obtaining the sum for which you + stand credited in the ledger of my honesty. I commend to your + special care my piano, and also the large frame containing sixty + locks of hair whose different colours run through the whole gamut + of capillary shades; the scissors of love have stolen them from the + forehead of the Graces." + + "Therefore, dear sir, and landlord, you may dispose of the roof + under which I have dwelt. I grant you full authority, and have + hereto set my hand and seal." + + "ALEXANDER SCHAUNARD" + +On finishing this letter, (which the artist had written at the desk of a +friend who was a clerk in the War Office,) Monsieur Bernard indignantly +crushed it in his hand, and as his glance fell on old Durand, who was +waiting for the promised gratification, he roughly demanded what he was +doing. + +"Waiting, sir." + +"For what?" + +"For the present, on account of the good news," stammered the porter. + +"Get out, you scoundrel! Do you presume to speak to me with your cap +on?" + +"But, sir--" + +"Don't you answer me! Get out! No, stay there! We shall go up to the +room of that scamp of an artist who has run off without paying." + +"What! Monsieur Schaunard?" ejaculated the porter. + +"Yes," cried the landlord with increasing fury, "and if he has carried +away the smallest article, I send you off, straight off!" + +"But it can't be," murmured the poor porter, "Monsieur Schaunard has not +run away. He has gone to get change to pay you, and order a cart for his +furniture." + +"A cart for his furniture!" exclaimed the other, "run! I'm sure he has +it here. He laid a trap to get you away from your lodge, fool that you +are!" + +"Fool that I am! Heaven help me!" cried the porter, all in a tremble +before the thundering wrath of his superior, who hurried him down the +stairs. When they arrived in the court the porter was hailed by the +young man in the white hat. + +"Come now! Am I not soon going to be in possession of my lodging? Is +this the eighth of April? Did I hire a room here and pay you a deposit +to bind the bargain? Yes or no?" + +"Excuse me, sir," interposed the landlord, "I am at your service. +Durand, I will talk to the gentleman myself. Run up there, that scamp +Schaunard has come back to pack up. If you find him, shut him in, and +then come down again and run for the police." + +Old Durand vanished up the staircase. + +"Excuse me, sir," continued the landlord, with a bow to the young man +now left alone with him, "to whom have I the honour of speaking?" + +"Your new tenant. I have hired a room in the sixth story of this house, +and am beginning to be tired of waiting for my lodging to become +vacant." + +"I am very sorry indeed," replied Monsieur Bernard, "there has been a +little difficulty with one of my tenants, the one whom you are to +replace." + +"Sir," cried old Durand from a window at the very top of the house, +"Monsieur Schaunard is not here, but his room--stupid!--I mean he has +carried nothing away, not a hair, sir!" + +"Very well, come down," replied the landlord. "Have a little patience, I +beg of you," he continued to the young man. "My porter will bring down +to the cellar the furniture in the room of my defaulting tenant, and you +may take possession in half an hour. Beside, your furniture has not come +yet." + +"But it has," answered the young man quietly. + +Monsieur Bernard looked around, and saw only the large screens which had +already mystified his porter. + +"How is this?" he muttered. "I don't see anything." + +"Behold!" replied the youth, unfolding the leaves of the frame, and +displaying to the view of the astonished landlord a magnificent interior +of a palace, with jasper columns, bas-reliefs, and paintings of old +masters. + +"But your furniture?" demanded Monsieur Bernard. + +"Here it is," replied the young man, pointing to the splendid furniture +_painted_ in the palace, which he had bought at a sale of second-hand +theatrical decorations. + +"I hope you have some more serious furniture than this," said the +landlord. "You know I must have security for my rent." + +"The deuce! Is a palace not sufficient security for the rent of a +garret?" + +"No sir, I want real chairs and tables in solid mahogany." + +"Alas! Neither gold nor mahogany makes us happy, as for the ancient poet +well says. And I can't bear mahogany; it's too common a wood. Everybody +has it." + +"But surely sir, you must have some sort of furniture." + +"No, it takes up too much room. You are stuck full of chairs, and have +no place to sit down." + +"But at any rate, you have a bed. What do you sleep on?" + +"On a good conscience, sir." + +"Excuse me, one more question," said the landlord, "What is your +profession?" + +At this very moment the young man's porter, returning on his second +trip, entered the court. Among the articles with which his truck was +loaded, an easel occupied a conspicuous position. + +"Sir! Sir!!" shrieked old Durance, pointing out the easel to his +landlord, "it's a painter!" + +"I was sure he was an artist!" exclaimed the landlord in his turn, the +hair of his wig standing up in affright, "a painter!! And you never +inquired after this person," he continued to his porter, "you didn't +know what he did!" + +"He gave me five francs _arrest_," answered the poor fellow, "how could +I suspect--" + +"When you have finished," put in the stranger-- + +"Sir," replied Monsieur Bernard, mounting his spectacles with great +decision, "since you have no furniture, you can't come in. The law +authorizes me to refuse a tenant who brings no security." + +"And my word, then?" + +"Your word is not furniture, you must go somewhere else. Durance will +give you back your earnest money." + +"Oh dear!" exclaimed the porter, in consternation, "I've put it in the +Savings' Bank." + +"But consider sir," objected the young man. "I can't find another +lodging in a moment! At least grant me hospitality for a day." + +"Go to a hotel!" replied Monsieur Bernard. "By the way," added he, +struck with a sudden idea, "if you like, I can let you a furnished room, +the one you were to occupy, which has the furniture of my defaulting +tenant in it. Only you know that when rooms are let this way, you pay in +advance." + +"Well," said the artist, finding he could do no better, "I should like +to know what you are going to ask me for your hole." + +"It is a very comfortable lodging, and the rent will be twenty-five +francs a month, considering the circumstances, paid in advance." + +"You have said that already, the expression does not deserve being +repeated," said the young man, feeling in his pocket. "Have you change +for five hundred francs?" + +"I beg your pardon," quoth the astonished landlord. + +"Five hundred, half a thousand; did you never see one before?" +continued the artist, shaking the bank-note in the faces of the landlord +and porter, who fairly lost their balance at the sight. + +"You shall have it in a moment, sir," said the now respectful owner of +the house, "there will only be twenty francs to take out, for Durand +will return your deposit." + +"He may keep it," replied the artist, "on condition of coming every +morning to tell me the day of the week and month, the quarter of the +moon, the weather it is going to be, and the form of government we are +under." + +Old Durand described an angle of ninety degrees forward. + +"Yes, my good fellow, you shall serve me for almanac. Meanwhile, help my +porter to bring the things in." + +"I shall send you your receipt immediately," said the landlord, and that +very night the painter Marcel was installed in the lodging of the +fugitive Schaunard. During this time the aforesaid Schaunard was beating +his roll-call, as he styled it, through the city. + +Schaunard had carried the art of borrowing to the perfection of a +science. Foreseeing the possible necessity of having to _spoil the +foreigners_, he had learned how to ask for five francs in every language +of the world. He had thoroughly studied all the stratagems which specie +employs to escape those who are hunting for it, and knew, better than a +pilot knows the hours of the tide, at what periods it was high or low +water; that is to say, on what days his friends and acquaintances were +accustomed to be in funds. Accordingly, there were houses where his +appearance of a morning made people say, not "Here is Monsieur +Schaunard," but "This is the first or the fifteenth." To facilitate, and +at the same time equalize this species of tax which he was going to +levy, when compelled by necessity, from those who were able to pay it to +him, Schaunard had drawn up by districts and streets an alphabetical +table containing the names of all his acquaintances. Opposite each name +was inscribed the maximum of the sum which the party's finances +authorized the artist to borrow of him, the time when he was flush, and +his dinner hour, as well as his usual bill of fare. Beside this table, +he kept a book, in perfect order, on which he entered the sums lent him, +down to the smallest fraction; for he would never burden himself beyond +a certain amount which was within the fortune of a country relative, +whose heir-apparent he was. As soon as he owed one person twenty francs, +he closed the account and paid him off, even if obliged to borrow for +the purpose of those to whom he owed less. In this way he always kept up +a certain credit which he called his floating debt, and as people knew +that he was accustomed to repay as soon as his means permitted him, +those who could accommodate him were very ready to do so. + +But on the present occasion, from eleven in the morning, when he had +started to try and collect the seventy-five francs requisite, up to six +in the afternoon, he had only raised three francs, contributed by three +letters (M., V., and R.) of his famous list. All the rest of the +alphabet, having, like himself, their quarter to pay, had adjourned his +claim indefinitely. + +The clock of his stomach sounded the dinner-hour. He was then at the +Maine barrier, where letter U lived. Schaunard mounted to letter U's +room, where he had a knife and fork, when there were such articles on +the premises. + +"Where are you going, sir?" asked the porter, stopping him before he had +completed his ascent. + +"To Monsieur U," replied the artist. + +"He's out." + +"And madame?" + +"Out too. They told me to say to a friend who was coming to see them +this evening, that they were gone out to dine. In fact, if you are the +gentleman they expected, this is the address they left." It was a scrap +of paper on which his friend U. had written. "We are gone to dine with +Schaunard, No.__, Rue de__. Come for us there." + +"Well," said he, going away, "accident does make queer farces +sometimes." Then remembering that there was a little tavern near by, +where he had more than once procured a meal at a not unreasonable rate, +he directed his steps to this establishment, situated in the adjoining +road, and known among the lowest class of artistdom as "Mother Cadet's." +It is a drinking-house which is also an eating-house, and its ordinary +customers are carters of the Orleans railway, singing-ladies of Mont +Parnasse, and juvenile "leads" from the Bobino theatre. During the warm +season the students of the numerous painters' studios which border on +the Luxembourg, the unappreciated and unedited men of the letters, the +writers of leaders in mysterious newspapers, throng to dine at "Mother +Cadet's," which is famous for its rabbit stew, its veritable sour-crout, +and a miled white wine which smacks of flint. + +Schaunard sat down in the grove; for so at "Mother Cadet's" they called +the scattered foliage of two or three rickety trees whose sickly boughs +had been trained into a sort of arbor. + +"Hang the expense!" said Schaunard to himself, "I have to have a good +blow-out, a regular Belthazzar's feast in private life," and without +more ado, he ordered a bowl of soup, half a plate of sour-crout, and two +half stews, having observed that you get more for two halves than one +whole one. + +This extensive order attracted the attention of a young person in white +with a head-dress of orange flowers and ballshoes; a veil of _sham +imitation_ lace streamed down her shoulders, which she had no special +reason to be proud of. She was a _prima donna_ of the Mont Parnasse +theatre, the greenroom of which opens into Mother Cadet's kitchen; she +had come to take a meal between two acts of _Lucia_, and was at that +moment finishing with a small cup of coffee her dinner, composed +exclusively of an artichoke seasoned with oil and vinegar. + +"Two stews! Duece take it!" said she, in an aside to the girl who acted +as waiter at the establishment. "That young man feeds himself well. How +much do I owe, Adele?" + +"Artichoke four, coffee four, bread one, that makes nine sous." + +"There they are," said the singer and off she went humming: + + "This affection Heaven has given." + +"Why she is giving us the la!" exclaimed a mysterious personage half +hidden behind a rampart of old books, who was seated at the same table +with Schaunard. + +"Giving it!" replied the other, "keeping it, I should say. Just +imagine!" he added, pointing to the vinegar on the plate from which +Lucia had been eating her artichoke, "pickling that falsetto of hers!" + +"It is a strong acid, to be sure," added the personage who had first +spoken. "They make some at Orleans which has deservedly a great +reputation." + +Schaunard carefully examined this individual, who was thus fishing for a +conversation with him. The fixed stare of his large blue eyes, which +always seemed looking for something, gave his features the character of +happy tranquility which is common among theological students. His face +had a uniform tint of old ivory, except his cheeks, which had a coat, as +it were of brickdust. His mouth seemed to have been sketched by a +student in the rudiments of drawing, whose elbow had been jogged while +he was tracing it. His lips, which pouted almost like a negro's, +disclosed teeth not unlike a stag-hound's and his double-chin reposed +itself upon a white cravat, one of whose points threatened the stars, +while the other was ready to pierce the ground. A torrent of light hair +escaped from under the enormous brim of his well-worn felt-hat. He wore +a hazel-coloured overcoat with a large cape, worn thread-bare and rough +as a grater; from its yawning pockets peeped bundles of manuscripts and +pamphlets. The enjoyment of his sour-crout, which he devoured with +numerous and audible marks of approbation, rendered him heedless of the +scrutiny to which he was subjected, but did not prevent him from +continuing to read an old book open before him, in which he made +marginal notes from time to time with a pencil that he carried behind +his ear. + +"Hullo!" cried Schaunard suddenly, making his glass ring with his knife, +"my stew!" + +"Sir," said the girl, running up plate in hand, "there is none left, +here is the last, and this gentleman has ordered it." Therewith she +deposited the dish before the man with the books. + +"The deuce!" cried Schaunard. There was such an air of melancholy +disappointment in his ejaculation, that the possessor of the books was +moved to the soul by it. He broke down the pile of old works which +formed a barrier between him and Schaunard, and putting the dish in the +centre of the table, said, in his sweetest tones: + +"Might I be so bold as to beg you, sir, to share this with me?" + +"Sir," replied the artist, "I could not think of depriving you of it." + +"Then will you deprive me of the pleasure of being agreeable to you?" + +"If you insist, sir," and Schaunard held out his plate. + +"Permit me not to give you the head," said the stranger. + +"Really sir, I cannot allow you," Schaunard began, but on taking back +his plate he perceived that the other had given him the very piece which +he implied he would keep for himself. + +"What is he playing off his politeness on me for?" he muttered to +himself. + +"If the head is the most noble part of man," said the stranger, "it is +the least agreeable part of the rabbit. There are many persons who +cannot bear it. I happen to like it very much, however." + +"If so," said Schaunard, "I regret exceedingly that you robbed yourself +for me." + +"How? Excuse me," quoth he of the books, "I kept the head, as I had the +honor of observing to you." + +"Allow me," rejoined Schaunard, thrusting his plate under his nose, +"what part do you call that?" + +"Good heavens!" cried the stranger, "what do I see? Another head? It is +a bicephalous rabbit!" + +"Buy what?" said Schaunard. + +"Cephalous--comes from the Greek. In fact, Baffon (who used to wear +ruffles) cites some cases of this monstrosity. On the whole, I am not +sorry to have eaten a phenomenon." + +Thanks to this incident, the conversation was definitely established. +Schaunard, not willing to be behindhand in courtesy, called for an extra +quart of wine. The hero of the books called for a third. Schaunard +treated to salad, the other to dessert. At eight o'clock there were six +empty bottles on the table. As they talked, their natural frankness, +assisted by their libations, had urged them to interchange biographies, +and they knew each other as well as if they had always lived together. +He of the books, after hearing the confidential disclosures of +Schaunard, had informed him that his name was Gustave Colline; he was a +philosopher by profession, and got his living by giving lessons in +rhetoric, mathematics and several other _ics_. + +What little money he picked up by his profession was spent in buying +books. His hazel-coloured coat was known to all the stall keepers on the +quay from the Pont de la Concorde to the Pont Saint Michel. What he did +with these books, so numerous that no man's lifetime would have been +long enough to read them, nobody knew, least of all, himself. But this +hobby of his amounted to monomania: when he came home at night without +bringing a musty quarto with him, he would repeat the saying of Titus, +"I have lost a day." His enticing manners, his language, which was a +mosaic of every possible style, and the fearful puns which embellished +his conversation, completely won Schaunard, who demanded on the spot +permission of Colline to add his name to those on the famous list +already mentioned. + +They left Mother Cadet's at nine o'clock at night, both fairly primed, +and with the gait of men who have been engaged in close conversation +with sundry bottles. + +Colline offered to stand coffee, and Schaunard accepted on condition +that he should be allowed to pay for the accompanying nips of liquor. +They turned into a cafe in the Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, and +bearing on its sign the name of Momus, god of play and pleasure. + +At the moment they entered a lively argument broke out between two of +the frequenters of the place. One of them was a young fellow whose face +was hidden by a dense thicket of beard of several distinct shades. By +way of a balance to this wealth of hair on his chin, a precocious +baldness had despoiled his forehead, which was as bare as a billiard +ball. He vainly strove to conceal the nakedness of the land by brushing +forward a tuft of hairs so scanty that they could almost be counted. He +wore a black coat worn at the elbows, and revealing whenever he raised +his arms too high a ventilator under the armpits. His trousers might +have once been black, but his boots, which had never been new, seemed to +have already gone round the world two or three times on the feet of the +Wandering Jew. + +Schaunard noticed that his new friend Colline and the young fellow with +the big beard nodded to one another. + +"You know the gentleman?" said he to the philosopher. + +"Not exactly," replied the latter, "but I meet him sometimes at the +National Library. I believe that he is a literary man." + +"He wears the garb of one, at any rate," said Schaunard. + +The individual with whom this young fellow was arguing was a man of +forty, foredoomed, by a big head wedged between his shoulders without +any break in the shape of a neck, to the thunderstroke of apoplexy. +Idiocy was written in capital letters on his low forehead, surmounted by +a little black skull-cap. His name was Monsieur Mouton, and he was a +clerk at the town hall of the 4th Arrondissement, where he acted as +registrar of deaths. + +"Monsieur Rodolphe," exclaimed he, in the squeaky tones of a eunuch, +shaking the young fellow by a button of his coat which he had laid hold +of. "Do you want to know my opinion? Well, all your newspapers are of no +use whatsoever. Come now, let us put a supposititious case. I am the +father of a family, am I not? Good. I go to the cafe for a game at +dominoes? Follow my argument now." + +"Go on," said Rodolphe. + +"Well," continued Daddy Mouton, punctuating each of his sentences by a +blow with his fist which made the jugs and glasses on the table rattle +again. "Well, I come across the papers. What do I see? One which says +black when the other says white, and so on and so on. What is all that +to me? I am the father of a family who goes to the cafe--" + +"For a game at dominoes," said Rodolphe. + +"Every evening," continued Monsieur Mouton. "Well, to put a case--you +understand?" + +"Exactly," observed Rodolphe. + +"I read an article which is not according to my views. That puts me in a +rage, and I fret my heart out, because you see, Monsieur Rodolphe, +newspapers are all lies. Yes, lies," he screeched in his shrillest +falsetto, "and the journalists are robbers." + +"But, Monsieur Mouton--" + +"Yes, brigands," continued the clerk. "They are the cause of all our +misfortunes; they brought about the Revolution and its paper money, +witness Murat." + +"Excuse me," said Rodolphe, "you mean Marat." + +"No, no," resumed Monsieur Mouton, "Murat, for I saw his funeral when I +was quite a child--" + +"But I assure you--" + +"They even brought you a piece at the Circus about him, so there." + +"Exactly," said Rodolphe, "that was Murat." + +"Well what else have I been saying for an hour past?" exclaimed the +obstinate Mouton. "Murat, who used to work in a cellar, eh? Well, to put +a case. Were not the Bourbons right to guillotine him, since he had +played the traitor?" + +"Guillotine who? Play the traitor to whom?" cried Rodolphe, +button-holing Monsieur Mouton in turn. + +"Why Marat." + +"No, no, Monsieur Mouton. Murat, let us understand one another, hang it +all!" + +"Precisely, Marat, a scoundrel. He betrayed the Emperor in 1815. That is +why I say all the papers are alike," continued Monsieur Mouton, +returning to the original theme of what he called an explanation. "Do +you know what I should like, Monsieur Rodolphe? Well, to put a case. I +should like a good paper. Ah! not too large and not stuffed with +phrases." + +"You are exacting," interrupted Rodolphe, "a newspaper without phrases." + +"Yes, certainly. Follow my idea?" + +"I am trying to." + +"A paper which should simply give the state of the King's health and of +the crops. For after all, what is the use of all your papers that no one +can understand? To put a case. I am at the town hall, am I not? I keep +my books; very good. Well, it is just as if someone came to me and said, +'Monsieur Mouton, you enter the deaths--well, do this, do that.' What do +you mean by this and that? Well, it is the same thing with newspapers," +he wound up with. + +"Evidently," said a neighbor who had understood. + +And Monsieur Mouton having received the congratulations of some of the +other frequenters of the cafe who shared his opinion, resumed his game +at dominoes. + +"I have taught him his place," said he, indicating Rodolphe, who had +returned to the same table at which Schaunard and Colline were seated. + +"What a blockhead!" said Rodolphe to the two young fellows. + +"He has a fine head, with his eyelids like the hood of a cabriolet, and +his eyes like glass marbles," said Schaunard, pulling out a wonderfully +coloured pipe. + +"By Jupiter, sir," said Rodolphe, "that is a very pretty pipe of yours." + +"Oh! I have a much finer one I wear in society," replied Schaunard, +carelessly, "pass me some tobacco, Colline." + +"Hullo!" said the philosopher, "I have none left." + +"Allow me to offer you some," observed Rodolphe, pulling a packet of +tobacco out of his pocket and placing it on the table. + +To this civility Colline thought it his duty to respond by an offer of +glasses round. + +Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned on literature. Rodolphe, +questioned as to the profession already revealed by his garb, confessed +his relation with the Muses, and stood a second round of drinks. As the +waiter was going off with the bottle Schaunard requested him to be good +enough to forget it. He had heard the silvery tinkle of a couple of +five-franc pieces in one of Colline's pockets. Rodolphe had soon reached +the same level of expansiveness as the two friends, and poured out his +confidences in turn. + +They would no doubt have passed the night at the cafe if they had not +been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken +them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a +violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, +one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the other at Montmartre. + +Schaunard, who had wholly forgotten that he was without a residence, +offered them hospitality. + +"Come to my place," said he, "I live close by, we will pass the night in +discussing literature and art." + +"You shall play and Rodolphe will recite some of his verses to us," said +Colline. + +"Right you are," said Schaunard, "life is short, and we must enjoy +ourselves whilst we can." + +Arriving at the house, which Schaunard had some difficulty in +recognizing, he sat down for a moment on a corner-post waiting for +Rodolphe and Colline, who had gone into a wine-shop that was still open +to obtain the primary element of a supper. When they came back, +Schaunard rapped several times at the door, for he vaguely recollected +that the porter had a habit of keeping him waiting. The door at length +opened, and old Durand, half aroused from his first sleep, and no longer +recalling that Schaunard had ceased to be his tenant, did not disturb +himself when the latter called out his name to him. + +When they had all three gained the top of the stairs, the ascent of +which had been as lengthy as it was difficult, Schaunard, who was the +foremost, uttered a cry of astonishment at finding the key in the +keyhole of his door. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe. + +"I cannot make it out," muttered the other. "I find the key in the door, +though I took it away with me this morning. Ah! we shall see. I put it +in my pocket. Why, confound it, here it is still!" he exclaimed, +displaying a key. "This is witchcraft." + +"Phantasmagoria," said Colline. + +"Fancy," added Rodolphe. + +"But," resumed Schaunard, whose voice betrayed a commencement of alarm, +"do you hear that?" + +"What?" + +"What?" + +"My piano, which is playing of its own accord _do la mi re do, la si sol +re._ Scoundrel of a re, it is still false." + +"But it cannot be in your room," said Rodolphe, and he added in a +whisper to Colline, against whom he was leaning heavily, "he is tight." + +"So I think. In the first place, it is not a piano at all, it is a +flute." + +"But you are screwed too, my dear fellow," observed the poet to the +philosopher, who had sat down on the landing, "it is a violin." + +"A vio--, pooh! I say, Schaunard," hiccupped Colline, pulling his friend +by the legs, "here is a joke, this gentleman makes out that it is a +vio--" + +"Hang it all," exclaimed Schaunard in the height of terror, "it is +magic." + +"Phantasma-goria," howled Colline, letting fall one of the bottles he +held by his hand. + +"Fancy," yelled Rodolphe in turn. + +In the midst of this uproar the room door suddenly opened, and an +individual holding a triple-branched candlestick in which pink candles +were burning, appeared on the threshold. + +"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked he, bowing courteously to the three +friends. + +"Good heavens, what am I about? I have made a mistake, this is not my +room," said Schaunard. + +"Sir," added Colline and Rodolphe, simultaneously, addressing the person +who had opened the door, "be good enough to excuse our friend, he is as +drunk as three fiddlers." + +Suddenly a gleam of lucidity flashed through Schaunard's intoxication, +he read on his door these words written in chalk: + + "I have called three times for my New Year's gift--PHEMIE." + +"But it is all right, it is all right, I am indeed at home," he +exclaimed, "here is the visiting card Phemie left me on New Year's Day; +it is really my door." + +"Good heavens, sir," said Rodolphe, "I am truly bewildered." + +"Believe me, sir," added Colline, "that for my part, I am an active +partner in my friend's confusion." + +The young fellow who had opened the door could not help laughing. + +"If you come into my room for a moment," he replied, "no doubt your +friend, as soon as he has looked around, will see his mistake." + +"Willingly." + +And the poet and philosopher each taking Schaunard by an arm, led him +into the room, or rather the palace of Marcel, whom no doubt our readers +have recognized. + +Schaunard cast his eyes vaguely around him, murmuring, "It is +astonishing how my dwelling is embellished!" + +"Well, are you satisfied now?" asked Colline. + +But Schaunard having noticed the piano had gone to it, and was playing +scales. + +"Here, you fellows, listen to this," said he, striking the notes, "this +is something like, the animal has recognized his master,_ si la sol, fa +mi re._ Ah! wretched re, you are always the same. I told you it was my +instrument." + +"He insists on it," said Colline to Rodolphe. + +"He insists on it," repeated Rodolphe to Marcel. + +"And that," added Schaunard, pointing to the star-adorned petticoat that +was lying on a chair, "it is not an adornment of mine, perhaps? Ah!" + +And he looked Marcel straight in the face. + +"And this," continued he, unfastening from the wall the notice to quit +already spoken of. + +And he began to read, "Therefore Monsieur Schaunard is hereby required +to give up possession of the said premises, and to leave them in +tenantable repair, before noon on the eighth day of April. As witness +the present formal notice to quit, the cost of which is five francs." +"Ha! ha! so I am not the Monsieur Schaunard to whom formal notice to +quit is given at a cost of five francs? And these, again," he continued, +recognizing his slippers on Marcel's feet, "are not those my papouches, +the gift of a beloved hand? It is your turn, sir," said he to Marcel, +"to explain your presence amongst my household goods." + +"Gentlemen," replied Marcel, addressing himself more especially to +Colline and Rodolphe, "this gentleman," and he pointed to Schaunard, "is +at home, I admit." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Schaunard, "that's lucky." + +"But," continued Marcel, "I am at home too." + +"But, sir," broke in Rodolphe, "if our friend recognizes--" + +"Yes," said Colline, "if our friend--" + +"And if on your side you recall that--," added Rodolphe, "how is it +that--" + +"Yes," replied his echo Colline, "how is it that--" + +"Have the kindness to sit down, gentlemen," replied Marcel, "and I will +explain the mystery to you." + +"If we were to liquify the explanation?" risked Colline. + +"Over a mouthful of something," added Rodolphe. + +The four young fellows sat down to table and attacked a piece of cold +veal which the wine-shop keeper had let them have. + +Marcel then explained what had taken place in the morning between +himself and the landlord when he had come to move in. + +"Then," observed Rodolphe, "this gentleman is quite right, and we are in +his place?" + +"You are at home," said Marcel politely. + +But it was a tremendous task to make Schaunard understand what had taken +place. A comical incident served to further complicate the situation. +Schaunard, when looking for something in a sideboard, found the change +of the five hundred franc note that Marcel had handed to Monsieur +Bernard that morning. + +"Ah! I was quite sure," he exclaimed, "that Fortune would not desert me. +I remember now that I went out this morning to run after her. On account +of its being quarter-day she must have looked in during my absence. We +crossed one another on the way, that it is. How right I was to leave the +key in my drawer!" + +"Delightful madness!" murmured Rodolphe, looking at Schaunard, who was +building up the money in equal piles. + +"A dream, a falsehood, such is life," added the philosopher. + +Marcel laughed. + +An hour later they had all four fallen asleep. + +The next day they woke up at noon, and at first seemed very much +surprised to find themselves together. Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe +did not appear to recognize one another, and addressed one another as +"sir." Marcel had to remind them that they had come together the evening +before. + +At that moment old Durand entered the room. + +"Sir," said he to Marcel, "it is the month of April, eighteen hundred +and forty, there is mud in the streets, and His Majesty Louis-Philippe +is still King of France and Navarre. What!" exclaimed the porter on +seeing his former tenant, "Monsieur Schaunard, how did you come here?" + +"By the telegraph," replied Schaunard. + +"Ah!" replied the porter, "you are still a joker--" + +"Durand," said Marcel, "I do not like subordinates mingling in +conversation with me, go to the nearest restaurant and have a breakfast +for four sent up. Here is the bill of fare," he added, handing him a +slip of paper on which he had written it. "Go." + +"Gentlemen," continued Marcel, addressing the three young fellows, "you +invited me to supper last night, allow me to offer you a breakfast this +morning, not in my room, but in ours," he added, holding out his hand to +Schaunard. + +"Oh! no," said Schaunard sentimentally, "let us never leave one +another." + +"That's right, we are very comfortable here," added Colline. + +"To leave you for a moment," continued Rodolphe. "Tomorrow the 'Scarf of +Iris,' a fashion paper of which I am editor, appears, and I must go and +correct my proofs; I will be back in an hour." + +"The deuce!" said Colline, "that reminds me that I have a lesson to give +to an Indian prince who has come to Paris to learn Arabic." + +"Go tomorrow," said Marcel. + +"Oh, no!" said the philosopher, "the prince is to pay me today. And then +I must acknowledge to you that this auspicious day would be spoilt for +me if I did not take a stroll amongst the bookstalls." + +"But will you come back?" said Schaunard. + +"With the swiftness of an arrow launched by a steady hand," replied the +philosopher, who loved eccentric imagery. + +And he went out with Rodolphe. + +"In point of fact," said Schaunard when left alone with Marcel, "instead +of lolling on the sybarite's pillow, suppose I was to go out to seek +some gold to appease the cupidity of Monsieur Bernard?" + +"Then," said Marcel uneasily, "you still mean to move?" + +"Hang it," replied Schaunard, "I must, since I have received a formal +notice to quit, at a cost of five francs." + +"But," said Marcel, "if you move, shall you take your furniture with +you?" + +"I have that idea. I will not leave a hair, as Monsieur Bernard says." + +"The deuce! That will be very awkward for me," said Marcel, "since I +have hired your room furnished." + +"There now, that's so," replied Schaunard. "Ah! bah," he added in a +melancholy tone, "there is nothing to prove that I shall find my +thousand francs today, tomorrow, or even later on." + +"Stop a bit," exclaimed Marcel, "I have an idea." + +"Unfold it." + +"This is the state of things. Legally, this lodging is mine, since I +have paid a month in advance." + +"The lodging, yes, but as to the furniture, if I pay, I can legally take +it away, and if it were possible I would even take it away illegally." + +"So that," continued Marcel, "you have furniture and no lodging, and I +have lodging and no furniture." + +"That is the position," observed Schaunard. + +"This lodging suits me," said Marcel. + +"And for my part is has never suited me better," said Schaunard. + +"Well then, we can settle this business," resumed Marcel, "stay with me, +I will apply house-room, and you shall supply the furniture." + +"And the rent?" said Schaunard. + +"Since I have some money just now I will pay it, it will be your turn +next time. Think about it." + +"I never think about anything, above all accepting a suggestion which +suits me. Carried unanimously, in point of fact, Painting and Music are +sisters." + +"Sisters-in-law," observed Marcel. + +At that moment Colline and Rodolphe, who had met one another, came in. + +Marcel and Schaunard informed them of their partnership. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, tapping his waistcoat pocket, "I am ready to +stand dinner all round." + +"That is just what I was going to have the honour of proposing," said +Colline, taking out a gold coin which he stuck in his eye like a glass. +"My prince gave me this to buy an Arabic grammar, which I have just paid +six sous ready cash for." + +"I," said Rodolphe, "have got the cashier of the 'Scarf of Iris' to +advance me thirty francs under the pretext that I wanted it to get +vaccinated." + +"It is general pay-day then?" said Schaunard, "there is only myself +unable to stand anything. It is humiliating." + +"Meanwhile," said Rodolphe, "I maintain my offer of a dinner." + +"So do I," said Colline. + +"Very well," said Rodolphe, "we will toss up which shall settle the +bill." + +"No," said Schaunard, "I have something far better than that to offer +you as a way of getting over the difficulty." + +"Let us have it." + +"Rodolphe shall pay for dinner, and Colline shall stand supper." + +"That is what I call Solomonic jurisprudence," exclaimed the +philosopher. + +"It is worse than Camacho's wedding," added Marcel. + +The dinner took place at a Provencal restaurant in the Rue Dauphine, +celebrated for its literary waiters and its "Ayoli." As it was necessary +to leave room for the supper, they ate and drank in moderation. The +acquaintance, begun the evening before between Colline and Schaunard and +later on with Marcel, became more intimate; each of the young fellows +hoisted the flag of his artistic opinions, and all four recognized that +they had like courage and similar hopes. Talking and arguing they +perceived that their sympathies were akin, that they had all the same +knack in that chaff which amuses without hurting, and that the virtues +of youth had not left a vacant spot in their heart, easily stirred by +the sight of the narration of anything noble. All four starting from the +same mark to reach the same goal, they thought that there was something +more than chance in their meeting, and that it might after all be +Providence who thus joined their hands and whispered in their ears the +evangelic motto, which should be the sole charter of humanity, "Love one +another." + +At the end of the repast, which closed in somewhat grave mood, Rodolphe +rose to propose a toast to the future, and Colline replied in a short +speech that was not taken from any book, had no pretension to style, +and was merely couched in the good old dialect of simplicity, making +that which is so badly delivered so well understood. + +"What a donkey this philosopher is!" murmured Schaunard, whose face was +buried in his glass, "here is he obliging me to put water in my wine." + +After dinner they went to take coffee at the Cafe Momus, where they had +already spent the preceding evening. It was from that day that the +establishment in question became uninhabitable by its other frequenters. + +After coffee and nips of liqueurs the Bohemian clan, definitely founded, +returned to Marcel's lodging, which took the name of Schaunard's +Elysium. Whilst Colline went to order the supper he had promised, the +others bought squibs, crackers and other pyrotechnic materials, and +before sitting down to table they let off from the windows a magnificent +display of fireworks which turned the whole house topsy-turvey, and +during which the four friends shouted at the top of their voices-- + + "Let us celebrate this happy day." + +The next morning they again found themselves all four together but +without seeming astonished this time. Before each going about his +business they went together and breakfasted frugally at the Cafe Momus, +where they made an appointment for the evening and where for a long time +they were seen to return daily. + +Such are the chief personages who will reappear in the episodes of which +this volume is made up, a volume which is not a romance and has no other +pretension than that set forth on its title-page, for the "Bohemians of +the Latin Quarter" is only a series of social studies, the heroes of +which belong to a class badly judged till now, whose greatest crime is +lack of order, and who can even plead in excuse that this very lack of +order is a necessity of the life they lead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A GOOD ANGEL + + +Schaunard and Marcel, who had been grinding away valiantly a whole +morning, suddenly struck work. + +"Thunder and lightning! I'm hungry!" cried Schaunard. And he added +carelessly, "Do we breakfast today?" + +Marcel appeared much astonished at this very inopportune question. + +"How long has it been the fashion to breakfast two days running?" he +asked. "And yesterday was Thursday." He finished his reply by tracing +with his mahl-stick the ecclesiastic ordinance: + + "On Friday eat no meat, + Nor aught resembling it." + +Schaunard, finding no answer, returned to his picture, which represented +a plain inhabited by a red tree and a blue tree shaking branches; an +evident allusion to the sweets of friendship, which had a very +philosophical effect. + +At this moment the porter knocked; he had brought a letter for Marcel. + +"Three sous," said he. + +"You are sure?" replied the artist. "Very well, you can owe it to us." + +He shut the door in the man's face, and opened the letter. At the first +line, he began to vault around the room like a rope-dancer and thundered +out, at the top of his voice, this romantic ditty, which indicated with +him the highest pitch of ecstasy: + + "There were four juveniles in our street; + They fell so sick they could not eat; + They carried them to the hospital!-- + Tal! Tal! Tal! Tal!" + +"Oh yes!" said Schaunard, taking him up: + + "They put all four into one big bed, + Two at the feet and two at the head." + +"Think I don't know it?" Marcel continued: + + "There came a sister of Charity-- + Ty! Ty! tee! tee!" + +"If you don't stop," said Schaunard, who suspected signs of mental +alienation, "I'll play the allegro of my symphony on 'The Influence of +Blue in the Arts.'" So saying, he approached the piano. + +This menace had the effect of a drop of cold water in a boiling fluid. +Marcel grew calm as if by magic. "Look there!" said he, passing the +letter to his friend. It was an invitation to dine with a deputy, an +enlightened patron of the arts in general and Marcel in particular, +since the latter had taken the portrait of his country-house. + +"For today," sighed Schaunard. "Unluckily the ticket is not good for +two. But stay! Now I think of it, your deputy is of the government +party; you cannot, you must not accept. Your principles will not permit +you to partake of the bread which has been watered by the tears of the +people." + +"Bah!" replied Marcel, "my deputy is a moderate radical; he voted +against the government the other day. Besides, he is going to get me an +order, and he has promised to introduce me in society. Moreover, this +may be Friday as much as it likes; I am famished as Ugolino, and I mean +to dine today. There now!" + +"There are other difficulties," continued Schaunard, who could not help +being a little jealous of the good fortune that had fallen to his +friend's lot. "You can't dine out in a red flannel shirt and slippers." + +"I shall borrow clothes of Rodolphe or Colline." + +"Infatuated youth! Do you forget that this is the twentieth, and at this +time of the month their wardrobe is up to the very top of the spout?" + +"Between now and five o'clock this evening I shall find a dress-coat." + +"I took three weeks to get one when I went to my cousin's wedding and +that was in January." + +"Well, then, I shall go as I am," said Marcel, with a theatrical stride. +"It shall certainly never be said that a miserable question of etiquette +hindered me from making my first step in society." + +"Without boots," suggested his friend. + +Marcel rushed out in a state of agitation impossible to describe. At the +end of two hours he returned, loaded with a false collar. + +"Hardly worth while to run so far for that," said Schaunard. "There was +paper enough to make a dozen." + +"But," cried Marcel, tearing his hair, "we must have some +things--confound it!" And he commenced a thorough investigation of every +corner of the two rooms. After an hour's search, he realized a costume +thus composed: + +A pair of plaid trousers, a gray hat, a red cravat, a blue waistcoat, +two boots, one black glove, and one glove that had been white. + +"That will make two black gloves on a pinch," said Schaunard. "You are +going to look like the solar spectrum in that dress. To be sure, a +colourist such as you are--" + +Marcel was trying the boots. Alas! They are both for the same foot! The +artist, in despair, perceived an old boot in a corner which had served +as the receptacle of their empty bladders. He seized upon it. + +"From Garrick to Syllable," said his jesting comrade, "one square-toed +and the other round." + +"I am going to varnish them and it won't show." + +"A good idea! Now you only want the dress-coat." + +"Oh!" cried Marcel, biting his fists: + + "To have one would I give ten years of life, + And this right hand, I tell thee." + +They heard another knock at the door. Marcel opened it. + +"Monsieur Schaunard?" inquired a stranger, halting on the threshold. + +"At your service," replied the painter, inviting him in. + +The stranger had one of those honest faces which typify the provincial. + +"Sir," said he. "My cousin has often spoke to me of your talent for +portrait painting, and being on the point of making a voyage to the +colonies, whither I am deputed by the sugar refiners of the city of +Nantes, I wish to leave my family something to remember me by. That is +why I am come to see you." + +"Holy Providence!" ejaculated Schaunard. "Marcel, a seat for Monsieur--" + +"Blancheron," said the new-comer, "Blancheron of Nantes, delegate of the +sugar interest, Ex-Mayor, Captain of the National Guard, and author of a +pamphlet on the sugar question." + +"I am highly honoured at having been chosen by you," said the artist, +with a low reverence to the delegate of the refiners. "How do you wish +to have your portrait taken?" + +"In miniature," replied Blancheron, "like that," and he pointed to a +portrait in oil, for the delegate was one of that class with whom +everything smaller than the side of a house is miniature. Schaunard had +the measure of his man immediately, especially when the other added that +he wished to be painted with the best colours. + +"I never use any other," said the artist. "How large do you wish it to +be?" + +"About so big," answered the other, pointing to a kit-cat. "How much +will it be?" + +"Sixty francs with the hands, fifty without." + +"The deuce it will! My cousin talked of thirty francs." + +"It depends on the season. Colours are much dearer at some times of the +year than at others." + +"Bless me! It's just like sugar!" + +"Precisely." + +"Fifty francs then be it." + +"You are wrong there; for ten francs more you will have your hands, and +I will put in them your pamphlet on the sugar question, which will have +a very good effect." + +"By Jove, you are right!" + +"Thunder and lightning!" said Schaunard to himself, "if he goes on so, I +shall burst, and hurt him with one of the pieces." + +"Did you see?" whispered Marcel. + +"What?" + +"He has a black coat." + +"I take. Let me manage." + +"Well," quoth the delegate, "when do we begin? There is no time to +lose, for I sail soon." + +"I have to take a little trip myself the day after tomorrow; so, if you +please, we will begin at once. One good sitting will help us along some +way." + +"But it will soon be night, and you can't paint by candle light." + +"My room is arranged so that we can work at all hours in it. If you will +take off your coat, and put yourself in position, we will commence." + +"Take off my coat! What for?" + +"You told me that you intend this portrait for your family." + +"Certainly." + +"Well, then, you ought to be represented in your at-home dress--in your +dressing gown. It is the custom to be so." + +"But I haven't any dressing gown here." + +"But I have. The case is provided for," quoth Schaunard, presenting to +his sitter a very ragged garment, so ornamented with paint-marks that +the honest provincial hesitated about setting into it. + +"A very odd dress," said he. + +"And very valuable. A Turkish vizier gave it to Horace Vernet, and he +gave it to me when he had done with it. I am a pupil of his." + +"Are you a pupil of Vernet's?" + +"I am proud to be," said the artist. "Wretch that I am!" he muttered to +himself, "I deny my gods and masters!" + +"You have reason to be proud, my young friend," replied the delegate +donning the dressing-gown with the illustrious origin. + +"Hang up Monsieur Blancheron's coat in the wardrobe," said Schaunard to +his friend, with a significant wink. + +"Ain't he too good?" whispered Marcel as he pounced on his prey, and +nodded towards Blancheron. "If you could only keep a piece of him." + +"I'll try; but do you dress yourself, and cut. Come back by ten; I will +keep him till then. Above all, bring me something in your pocket." + +"I'll bring you a pineapple," said Marcel as he evaporated. + +He dressed himself hastily; the dress-coat fit him like a glove. Then he +went out by the second door of the studio. + +Schaunard set himself to work. When it was fairly night, Monsieur +Blancheron heard the clock strike six, and remembered that he had not +dined. He informed Schaunard of the fact. + +"I am in the same position," said the other, "but to oblige you, I will +go without today, though I had an invitation in the Faubourg St. +Germain. But we can't break off now, it might spoil the resemblance." +And he painted away harder than ever. "By the way," said he, suddenly, +"we can dine without breaking off. There is a capital restaurant +downstairs, which will send us up anything we like." And Schaunard +awaited the effect of his trial of plurals. + +"I accept your idea," said Blancheron, "an in return, I hope you will do +me the honor of keeping me company at table." + +Schaunard bowed. "Really," said he to himself, "this is a fine fellow--a +very god-send. Will you order the dinner?" he asked his Amphitryon. + +"You will oblige me by taking that trouble," replied the other, +politely. + +"So much the worse for you, my boy," said the painter as he pitched down +the stairs, four steps at a time. Marching up to the counter, he wrote +out a bill of fare that made the Vatel of the establishment turn pale. + +"Claret! Who's to pay for it?" + +"Probably not I," said Schaunard, "but an uncle of mine that you will +find up there, a very good judge. So, do your best, and let us have +dinner in half an hour, served on your porcelain." + +At eight o'clock, Monsieur Blancheron felt the necessity of pouring into +a friend's ear his idea on the sugar question, and accordingly recited +his pamphlet to Schaunard, who accompanied him on the piano. + +At ten, they danced the galop together. + +At eleven, they swore never to separate, and to make wills in each +other's favor. + +At twelve, Marcel returned, and found them locked in a mutual embrace, +and dissolved in tears. The floor was half an inch deep in fluid--either +from that cause or the liquor that had been spilt. He stumbled against +the table, and remarked the splendid relics of the sumptuous feast. He +tried the bottles, they were utterly empty. He attempted to rouse +Schaunard, but the later menaced him with speedy death, if he tore him +from his friend Blancheron, of whom he was making a pillow. + +"Ungrateful wretch!" said Marcel, taking out of his pocket a handful of +nuts, "when I had brought him some dinner!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LENTEN LOVES + + +One evening in Lent Rodolphe returned home early with the idea of +working. But scarcely had he sat down at his table and dipped his pen in +the ink than he was disturbed by a singular noise. Putting his ear to +the treacherous partition that separated him from the next room, he +listened, and plainly distinguished a dialogue broken by the sound of +kisses and other amourous interruptions. + +"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, glancing at his clock, "it is still +early, and my neighbor is a Juliet who usually keeps her Romeo till long +after the lark has sung. I cannot work tonight." + +And taking his hat he went out. Handing in his key at the porter's +lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant. +The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she +could open the latch. + +"In point of fact," though Rodolphe, "there are times when porters grow +human again." + +Passing through the door he found in its recess a sapper and a cook +exchanging the luck-penny of love. + +"Hang it," said Rodolphe, alluding to the warrior and his robust +companion, "here are heretics who scarcely think that we are in Lent." + +And he set out for the abode of one of his friends who lived in the +neighborhood. + +"If Marcel is at home," he said to himself, "we will pass the evening in +abusing Colline. One must do something." + +As he rapped vigorously, the door was partly opened, and a young man, +simply clad in a shirt and an eye-glass, presented himself. + +"I cannot receive you," said he to Rodolphe. + +"Why not?" asked the latter. + +"There," said Marcel, pointing to a feminine head that had just peeped +out from behind a curtain, "there is my answer." + +"It is not a pretty one," said Rodolphe, who had just had the door +closed in his face. "Ah!" said he to himself when he got into the +street, "what shall I do? Suppose I call on Colline, we could pass the +time in abusing Marcel." + +Passing along the Rue de l'Ouest, usually dark and unfrequented, +Rodolphe made out a shade walking up and down in melancholy fashion, and +muttering in rhyme. + +"Ho, ho!" said Rodolphe, "who is this animated sonnet loitering here? +What, Colline!" + +"What Rodolphe! Where are you going?" + +"To your place." + +"You won't find me there." + +"What are you doing here?" + +"Waiting." + +"What are you waiting for?" + +"Ah!" said Colline in a tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for +when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and songs in the +air?" + +"Speak in prose." + +"I am waiting for a girl." + +"Good night," said Rodolphe, who went on his way continuing his +monologue. "What," said he, "is it St. Cupid's Day and cannot I take a +step without running up against people in love? It is scandalously +immoral. What are the police about?" + +As the gardens of the Luxembourg were still open, Rodolphe passed into +them to shorten his road. Amidst the deserted paths he often saw +flitting before him, as though disturbed by his footsteps, couples +mysteriously interlaced, and seeking, as a poet has remarked, the +two-fold luxury of silence and shade. + +"This," said Rodolphe, "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet +overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat +and gazed sentimentally at the moon. + +In a short time he was wholly under the spell of a feverish +hallucination. It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who +peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the +goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the +great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to +him to have grown singularly short. + +From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way +towards a nymph of the vicinity. + +"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is +Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the +park keeper does not surprise them." + +Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the +flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream +Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped +him on the shoulder. + +"It is closing time, sir," said he. + +"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five +minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be +found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances." + +And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was +for him the _Marseillaise_ of love. + +Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated +before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on +account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline +when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that +was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures +to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend. + +"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in +love." + +"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad +toothache in the heart." + +"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander. + +"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing +but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the +Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that +stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat +and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle +dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers." + +"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are +chaffing me." + +"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say, +no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see, +Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help +me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the +first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love +her." + +"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his +magnificent nasal bass. + +"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite +forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love +stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and +sometimes even the _denouement_; I never know how to begin." + +"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand +you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her." + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue +eyes." + +"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no--but gloves--you know that we +can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic +regions." + +"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the +fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and +he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a +corner. + +"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am +going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary +to put in an appearance I will call you." + +For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time +broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards +Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your +advocate has won the cause." + +"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt +far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with." + +"You have no need to recommend me to do that." + +"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside +her." + +"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by +her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet." + +"That is because he is a musician." + +Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house +in the Rue St. Denis. + +"It is here that I live," said the girl. + +"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?" + +"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening." + +"For sure?" + +"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to +Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health. + +Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated. + +"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like +that, I must write some verses." + +The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of +paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line-- + + "Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth." + +That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and +although he had slept very little, he got up at once. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to +wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?" + +And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as +though intending to say to him "Work." + +"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of +ink." + +He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet +any friends. + +"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for +me in advance." + +After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got +into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray. + +Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature, +and only returned to Paris at nightfall. + +After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature, +Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being +able to dress in white. + +From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of +expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the +old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already +began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a +genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the +willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time +chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without +bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about +her neck. + +"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him. + +But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had +made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who +would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he +could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves. + +At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke +sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock +entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two +timid taps were given at the door. + +Rodolphe went and opened it. It was Louise. + +"You see I have kept my word," said she. + +Rodolphe drew the curtain and lit a fresh candle. + +During this operation the girl had removed her bonnet and shawl, which +she went and placed on the bed. The dazzling whiteness of the sheets +caused her to smile, and almost to blush. + +Louise was rather pleasing than pretty; her fresh colored face presented +an attractive blending of simplicity and archness. It was something like +an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions +were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple, +attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess +from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise +appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of +attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the +artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly shod feet were of +satisfactory smallness, even for a romantic lover smitten by Andalusian +or Chinese miniatures. As to her hands, their softness attested +idleness. In fact, for six months past she had no longer any reason to +fear needle pricks. In short, Louise was one of those fickle birds of +passage who from fancy, and often from necessity, make for a day, or +rather a night, their nest in the garrets of the students' quarter, and +remain there willingly for a few days, if one knows how to retain them +by a whim or by some ribbons. + +After having chatted for an hour with Louise, Rodolphe showed her, as an +example, the group of Cupid and Psyche. + +"Isn't it Paul and Virginia?" + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe, who did not want to vex her at the outset by +contradicting her. + +"They are very well done," said Louise. + +"Alas!" thought Rodolphe, gazing at her, "the poor child is not up to +much as regards literature. I am sure that her only orthography is that +of the heart. I must buy her a dictionary." + +However, as Louise complained of her boots incommoding her, he +obligingly helped her to unlace them. + +All at once the light went out. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who has blown the candle out?" + +A joyful burst of laughter replied to him. + +A few days later Rodolphe met one of his friends in the street. + +"What are you up to?" said the latter. "One no longer sees anything of +you." + +"I am studying the poetry of intimacy," replied Rodolphe. + +The poor fellow spoke the truth. He sought from Louise more than the +poor girl could give him. An oaten pipe, she had not the strains of a +lyre. She spoke to, so to say, the jargon of love, and Rodolphe +insisted upon speaking the classic language. Thus they scarcely +understood each other. + +A week later, at the same ball at which she had found Rodolphe, Louise +met a fair young fellow, who danced with her several times, and at the +close of the entertainment took her home with him. + +He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very +fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket. + +Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter +couched as follows:-- + + "Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time. + Good bye. + + Louise." + +As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his +light suddenly went out. + +"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the +evening that Louise came--it was bound to finish with our union. If I +had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half +annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer, +which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves. + +One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light +his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting +and the orthography of Louise. + +"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only +there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that +she loved me better than you?" + +"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and +shoulders have no need of grammar." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ALI RODOLPHE; OR, THE TURK PERFORCE + + +Ostracized by an inhospitable proprietor, Rodolphe had for some time +been leading a life compared with which the existence of a cloud is +rather stationary. He practiced assiduously the arts of going to bed +without supper, and supping without going to bed. He often dined with +Duke Humphrey, and generally slept at the sign of a clear sky. Still, +amid all these crosses and troubles, two things never forsook him; his +good humor and the manuscript of "The Avenger," a drama which had gone +the rounds of all the theaters in Paris. + +One day Rodolphe, who had been jugged for some slight choreographic +extravagances, stumbled upon an uncle of his, one Monetti, a stove maker +and smokey chimney doctor, and sargeant of the National Guard, whom he +had not seen for an age. Touched by his nephew's misfortunes, Uncle +Monetti promised to ameliorate his position. We shall see how, if the +reader is not afraid of mounting six stories. + +Take note of the banister, then, and follow. Up we go! Whew! One hundred +and twenty-five steps! Here we are at last. One more step, and we are in +the room; one more yet, and we should be out of it again. It's little, +but high up, with the advantages of good air and a fine prospect. + +The furniture is composed of two French stoves, several German ditto, +some ovens on the economic plan, (especially if you never make fire in +them,) a dozen stove pipes, some red clay, some sheet iron, and a whole +host of heating apparatus. We may mention, to complete the inventory, a +hammock suspended from two nails inserted in the wall, a three-legged +garden chair, a candlestick adorned with its _bobeche_, and some other +similar objects of elegant art. As to the second room--that is to say, +the balcony--two dwarf cypresses, in pots, make a park of it for fine +weather. + +At the moment of our entry, the occupant of the premises, a young man, +dressed like a Turk of the Comic Opera, is finishing a repast, in which +he shamelessly violates the law of the Prophet. Witness a bone that was +once a ham, and a bottle that has been full of wine. His meal over, the +young Turk stretches himself on the floor in true Eastern style, and +begins carelessly to smoke a _narghile_. While abandoning himself to +this Asiatic luxury, he passes his hand from time to time over the back +of a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who would doubtless respond to its +caresses where he not also in terra cotta, to match the rest of the +furniture. + +Suddenly a noise was heard in the entry, and the door opened, admitting +a person who, without saying a word, marched straight to one of the +stoves, which served the purpose of a secretary, opened the stove-door, +and drew out a bundle of papers. + +"Hallo!" cried the new-comer, after examining the manuscript +attentively, "the chapter on ventilators not finished yet!" + +"Allow me to observe, uncle," replied the Turk, "the chapter on +ventilators is one of the most interesting in your book, and requires to +be studied with care. I am studying it." + +"But you miserable fellow, you are always saying that same thing. And +the chapter on stoves--where are you in that?" + +"The stoves are going on well, but, by the way, uncle, if you could give +me a little wood, it wouldn't hurt me. It is a little Siberia here. I am +so cold, that I make a thermometer go down below zero by just looking at +it." + +"What! you've used up one faggot already?" + +"Allow me to remark again, uncle, there are different kinds of faggots, +and yours was the very smallest kind." + +"I'll send you an economic log--that keeps the heat." + +"Exactly, and doesn't give any." + +"Well," said the uncle as he went off, "you shall have a little faggot, +and I must have my chapter on stoves for tomorrow." + +"When I have fire, that will inspire me," answered the Turk as he heard +himself locked in. + +Were we making a tragedy, this would be the time to bring in a +confidant. Noureddin or Osman he should be called, and he should advance +towards our hero with an air at the same time discreet and patronizing, +to console him for his reverses, by means of these three verses: + + 'What saddening grief, my Lord, assails you now? + Why sits this pallor on your noble brow? + Does Allah lend your plans no helping hand? + Or cruel Ali, with severe command, + Remove to other shores the beauteous dame, + Who charmed your eyes and set your heart on flame!' + +But we are not making a tragedy, so we must do without our confidant, +though he would be very convenient. + +Our hero is not what he appears to be. The turban does not make the +Turk. This young man is our friend Rodolphe, entertained by his uncle, +for whom he is drawing up a manual of "The Perfect Chimney Constructor." +In fact, Monsieur Monetti, an enthusiast for his art, had consecrated +his days to this science of chimneys. One day he formed the idea of +drawing up, for the benefit of posterity, a theoretic code of the +principles of that art, in the practice of which he so excelled, and he +had chosen his nephew, as we have seen, to frame the substance of his +ideas in an intelligible form. Rodolphe was found in board, lodging, and +other contingencies, and at the completion of the manual was to receive +a recompense of three hundred francs. + +In the beginning, to encourage his nephew, Monetti had generously made +him an advance of fifty francs. But Rodolphe, who had not seen so much +silver together for nearly a year, half crazy, in company with his +money, stayed out three days, and on the fourth came home alone! +Thereupon the uncle, who was in haste to have his "Manual" finished +inasmuch as he hoped to get a patent for it, dreading some new diversion +on his nephew's part, determined to make him work by preventing him from +going out. To this end he carried off his garments, and left him instead +the disguise under which we have seen him. Nevertheless, the famous +"Manual" continued to make very slow progress, for Rodolphe had no +genius whatever for this kind of literature. The uncle avenged himself +for this lazy indifference on the great subject of chimneys by making +his nephew undergo a host of annoyances. Sometimes he cut short his +commons, and frequently stopped the supply of tobacco. + +One Sunday, after having sweated blood and ink upon the great chapter of +ventilators, Rodolphe broke the pen, which was burning his fingers, and +went out to walk--in his "park." As if on purpose to plague him, and +excite his envy the more, he could not cast a single look about him +without perceiving the figure of a smoker on every window. + +On the gilt balcony of a new house opposite, an exquisite in his +dressing gown was biting off the end of an aristocratic "Pantellas" +cigar. A story above, an artist was sending before him an odorous cloud +of Turkish tobacco from his amber-mouthed pipe. At the window of a +_brasserie_, a fat German was crowning a foaming tankard, and emitting, +with the regularity of a machine, the dense puffs that escaped from his +meershaum. On the other side, a group of workmen were singing as they +passed on their way to the barriers, their "throat-scorchers" between +their teeth. Finally, all the other pedestrians visible in the street +were smoking. + +"Woe is me!" sighed Rodolphe, "except myself and my uncle's chimneys, +all creation is smoking at this hour!" And he rested his forehead on the +bar of the balcony, and thought how dreary life was. + +Suddenly, a burst of long and musical laughter parted under his feet. +Rodolphe bent forward a little, to discover the source of this volley of +gaiety, and perceived that he had been perceived by the tenant of the +story beneath him, Mademoiselle Sidonia, of the Luxembourg Theater. The +young lady advanced to the front of her balcony, rolling between her +fingers, with the dexterity of a Spaniard, a paper-full of light-colored +tobacco, which she took from a bag of embroidered velvet. + +"What a sweet cigar girl it is!" murmured Rodolphe, in an ecstacy of +contemplation. + +"Who is this Ali Baba?" thought Mademoiselle Sidonia on her part. And +she meditated on a pretext for engaging in conversation with Rodolphe, +who was himself trying to do the very same. + +"Bless me!" cried the lady, as if talking to herself, "what a bore! I've +no matches!" + +"Allow me to offer you some, mademoiselle," said Rodolphe, letting fall +on the balcony two or three lucifers rolled up in paper. + +"A thousand thanks," replied Sidonia, lighting her cigarette. + +"Pray, mademoiselle," continued Rodolphe, "in exchange for the trifling +service which my good angel has permitted me to render you, may I ask +you to do me a favor?" + +"Asking already," thought the actress, as she regarded Rodolphe with +more attention. "They say these Turks are fickle, but very agreeable. +Speak sir," she continued, raising her head towards the young man, "what +do you wish?" + +"The charity of a little tobacco, mademoiselle, only one pipe. I have +not smoked for two whole days." + +"Most willingly, but how? Will you take the trouble to come downstairs?" + +"Alas! I can't! I am shut up here, but am still free to employ a very +simple means." He fastened his pipe to a string, and let it glide down to +her balcony, where Sidonia filled it profusely herself. Rodolphe then +proceeded, with much ease and deliberation, to remount his pipe, which +arrived without accident. "Ah, mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, "how much +better this pipe would have seemed, if I could have lighted it at your +eyes!" + +It was at least the hundredth edition of this amiable pleasantry, but +Sidonia found it superb for all that, and thought herself bound to +reply, "You flatter me." + +"I assure you, mademoiselle, in right-down earnest, I think you +handsomer than all the Three Graces together." + +"Decidedly, Ali Baba is very polite," thought Sidonia. "Are you really a +Turk?" she asked Rodolphe. + +"Not by profession," he replied, "but by necessity. I am a dramatic +author." + +"I am an artist," she replied, then added, "My dear sir and neighbor, +will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?" + +"Alas!" answered Rodolphe, "though your invitation is like opening +heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell +you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and +chimney doctor, whose secretary I am now." + +"You shall dine with me for all that," replied Sidonia. "Listen, I shall +re-enter my room, and tap on the ceiling. Look where I strike and you +will find the traces of a trap which used to be there, and has since +been fastened up. Find the means of removing the piece of wood which +closes the hole, and then, although we are each in our own room, we +shall be as good as together." + +Rodolphe went to work at once. In five minutes a communication was +established between the two rooms. + +"It is a very little hole," said he, "but there will always be room +enough to pass you my heart." + +"Now," said Sidonia, "we will go to dinner. Set your table, and I will +pass you the dishes." + +Rodolphe let down his turban by a string, and brought it back laden with +eatables, then the poet and the actress proceeded to dine--on their +respective floors. Rodolphe devoured the pie with his teeth, and Sidonia +with his eyes. + +"Thanks to you, mademoiselle," he said, when their repast was finished, +"my stomach is satisfied. Can you not also satisfy the void of my heart, +which has been so long empty?" + +"Poor fellow!" said Sidonia, and climbing on a piece of furniture, she +lifted up her hand to Rodolphe's lips, who gloved it with kisses. + +"What a pity," he exclaimed, "you can't do as St. Denis, who had the +privilege of carrying his head in his hands!" + +To the dinner succeeded a sentimental literary conversation. Rodolphe +spoke of "The Avenger," and Sidonia asked him to read it. Leaning over +the hole, he began declaiming his drama to the actress, who, to hear +better, had put her arm chair on the top of a chest of drawers. She +pronounced "The Avenger" a masterpiece, and having some influence at the +theater, promised Rodolphe to get his piece received. + +But at the most interesting moment a step was heard in the entry, about +as light as that of the Commander's ghost in "Don Juan." It was Uncle +Monetti. Rodolphe had only just time to shut the trap. + +"Here," said Monetti to his nephew, "this letter has been running after +you for a month." + +"Uncle! Uncle!" cried Rodolphe, "I am rich at last! This letter informs +me that I have gained a prize of three hundred francs, given by an +academy of floral games. Quick! my coat and my things! Let me go to +gather my laurels. They await me at the Capitol!" + +"And my chapter on ventilators?" said Monetti, coldly. + +"I like that! Give me my things, I tell you; I can't go out so!" + +"You shall go out when my 'Manual' is finished," quoth the uncle, +shutting up his nephew under lock and key. + +Rodolphe, when left alone, did not hesitate on the course to take. He +transformed his quilt into a knotted rope, which he fastened firmly to +his own balcony, and in spite of the risk, descended by this extempore +ladder upon Mademoiselle Sidonia's. + +"Who is there?" she cried, on hearing Rodolphe knock at her window. + +"Hush!" he replied, "open!" + +"What do you want? Who are you?" + +"Can you ask? I am the author of 'The Avenger,' come to look for my +heart, which I dropped through the trap into your room." + +"Rash youth!" said the actress, "you might have killed yourself!" + +"Listen, Sidonia," continued Rodolphe, showing her the letter he just +received. "You see, wealth and glory smile on me, let love do the same!" + + * * * * * + +The following morning, by means of a masculine disguise, which Sidonia +procured for him, Rodolphe was enabled to escape from his uncle's +lodging. He ran to the secretary of the academy of floral games, to +receive a crown of gold sweetbrier, worth three hundred francs, which +lived + + "--as live roses the fairest-- + The space of a day." + +A month after, Monsieur Monetti was invited by his nephew to assist at +the first representation of "The Avenger." Thanks to the talent of +Mademoiselle Sidonia, the piece had a run of seventeen nights, and +brought in forty francs to its author. + +Some time later--it was in the warm season--Rodolphe lodged in the +Avenue St. Cloud, third tree as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, on +the fifth branch. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CARLOVINGIAN COIN + + +Towards the end of December the messengers of Bidault's agency were +entrusted with the distribution of about a hundred copies of a letter of +invitation, of which we certify that the following to be a true and +genuine copy:-- + + ----- + + _M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on + Saturday next, Christmas Eve. Fun!_ + + _P.S. Life is short!_ + + _PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENT_ + + _PART I_ + + _7 o'clock--Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation._ + + _8.--Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," + comedy refused at the Odeon Theater._ + + _8:30.--M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play + his imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the + piano._ + + _9.--First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of + tragedy."_ + + _9:30.--Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, + hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision + between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened._ + + _10.--M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early + loves, accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard._ + + _10:30.--Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the + penalty of tragedy."_ + + _11.--Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince._ + + _PART II_ + + _Midnight.--M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his + eyes bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of + Voltaire and Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also + improvise a parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of + Austerlitz._ + + _12:30.--M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an + imitation of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad._ + + _1.--Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of + tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one + day find themselves out of employment._ + + _2.--Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last + until morning._ + + _6.--Sunrise and final chorus._ + + _During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action._ + + _N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily + ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally + requested not to help themselves to the candle ends._ + +Two days later, copies of this invitation were circulating among the +lower depths of art and literature, and created a profound sensation. + +There were, however, amongst the invited guests, some who cast doubt +upon the splendor of the promises made by the two friends. + +"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone +to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could +only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a +little filtered water in eclectic pottery." + +"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me +the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical." + +"Will there be any ladies?" + +"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard +is to bring some ladies of position." + +This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction +in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel +and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take +place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their +promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of +not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark +from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet +enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter +beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved +to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had +entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above. + +"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our +ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that +are indispensable to do the thing properly." + +"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel. + +And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends +went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the +way, the way of impossibility. + +However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as +of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a +helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time +came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively +modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon +themselves. + +And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously +reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item +"liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs. + +The problem was simplified, but not yet solved. + +"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must now have recourse to strong +measures, we cannot cry off this time." + +"No, that is impossible," replied Marcel. + +"How long is it since I have heard the story of the Battle of +Studzianka?" + +"About two months." + +"Two months, good, that is a decent interval; my uncle will have no +ground for grumbling. I will go tomorrow and hear his account of that +engagement, that will be five francs for certain." + +"I," said Marcel, "will go and sell a deserted manor house to old +Medicis. That will make another five francs. If I have time enough to +put in three towers and a mill, it will perhaps run to ten francs, and +our budget will be complete." + +And the two friends fell asleep dreaming that the Princess Belgiojoso +begged them to change their reception day, in order not to rob her of +her customary guests. + +Awake at dawn, Marcel took a canvas and rapidly set to work to build up +a deserted manor house, an article which he was in the habit of +supplying to a broker of the Place de Carrousel. On his side, Rodolphe +went to pay a visit to his Uncle Monetti, who shone in the story of the +Retreat from Moscow, and to whom Rodolphe accorded five or six times in +course of the year, when matters were really serious, the satisfaction +of narrating his campaigns, in return for a small loan which the veteran +stove maker did not refuse too obstinately when due enthusiasm was +displayed in listening to his narrations. + +About two o'clock, Marcel with hanging head and a canvas under his arm, +met on the Place de Carrousel Rodolphe, who was returning from his +uncle's, and whose bearing also presaged ill news. + +"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?" + +"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?" + +"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He +wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers." + +"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," +murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think +if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing." + +And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness. + +At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four. + +"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly. + +"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain +sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?" + +"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?" + +"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? +They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the +days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an +emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often +occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?" + +"This is mere comedy," replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was +mingled with indulgence. + +Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the +studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph. + +"We are saved!" he exclaimed. "I was sure that there was money here. +Behold!" and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and +half eaten away by rust and verdigris. + +It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily +intact, showed the date of Charlemagne's reign. + +"That, that's worth thirty sous," said Rodolphe, with a contemptuous +glance at his friend's find. + +"Thirty sous well employed will go a great way," replied Marcel. "With +twelve hundred men Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians lay down their +arms. Skill can replace numbers. I will go and swap the Carlovingian +crown at Daddy Medicis'. Is there not anything else saleable here? +Suppose I take the plaster cast of the tibia of Jaconowski, the Russian +drum major." + +"Take the tibia. But it is a nuisance, there will not be a single +ornament left here." + +During Marcel's absence, Rodolphe, his mind made up that that party +should be given in any case, went in search of his friend Colline, the +hyperphysical philosopher, who lived hard by. + +"I have come," said he, "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must +positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; lend me +yours." + +"But," said Colline hesitating, "as a guest I shall want my black +swallow-tail too." + +"I will allow you to come in a frock coat." + +"That won't do. You know very well I have never had a frock coat." + +"Well, then, it can be settled in another way. If needs be, you need not +come to my party, and can lend me your swallow-tail." + +"That would be unpleasant. I am on the program, and must not be +lacking." + +"There are plenty of other things that will be lacking," said Rodolphe. +"Lend me your black swallow-tail, and if you will come, come as you +like; in your shirt sleeves, you will pass for a faithful servant." + +"Oh no!" said Colline, blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the +same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized +on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. +There are some odds and ends in the pockets." + +Colline's swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place it was +of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my +black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a +dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when +speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black +swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special +cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very +short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was +accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally +carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during +the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men +could go and refer to the skirts of Colline's swallow-tail--a library +always open. + +That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline's swallow-tail only contained +a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in +three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope's +"Essay on Man." When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed +Rodolphe to clothe himself in it. + +"Hallo!" said the latter, "the left pocket still feels very heavy; you +have left something in it." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Colline, "that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign +languages pocket." + +And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a +stock breeder's manual in Chinese, his favorite reading. + +When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with +three five franc pieces. At first Rodolphe refused his friend's +proferred hand--he thought some crime had been committed. + +"Let us make haste, let us make haste," said Marcel, "we have the +fifteen francs required. This is how it happened. I met an antiquary at +Medicis'. When he saw the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the only +one wanting in his cabinet. He had sent everywhere to get this vacancy +filled up, and had lost all hope. Thus, when he had thoroughly examined +my Carlovingian crown piece, he did not hesitate for a moment to offer +me five francs for it. Medicis nudged me with his elbow; a look from +him completed the business. He meant, 'share the profits of the sale, +and I will bid against him.' We ran it up to thirty francs. I gave the +Jew fifteen, and here are the rest. Now our guests may come; we are in a +position to dazzle them. Hallo! You have got a swallow-tail!" + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "Colline's swallow-tail." And as he was feeling +for his handkerchief, Rodolphe pulled out a small volume in a Tartar +dialect, overlooked in the foreign literature pocket. + +The two friends at once proceeded to make their preparations. The studio +was set in order, a fire kindled in the stove, the stretcher of a +picture, garnished with composite candles, suspended from the ceiling +as a chandelier, and a writing table placed in the middle of the studio +to serve as a rostrum for the orators. The solitary armchair, which was +to be reserved for the influential critic, was placed in front of it, +and upon a table were arranged all the books, romances, poems, +pamphlets, &c., the authors of which were to honor the company with +their presence. + +In order to avoid any collision between members of the different schools +of literature, the studio had been, moreover, divided into four +compartments, at the entrance to each of which could be read, on four +hurriedly manufactured placards, the inscriptions--"Poets," "Prose +Writers," "Classic School," and "Romantic School." + +The ladies were to occupy a space reserved in the middle of the studio. + +"Humph! Chairs are lacking," said Rodolphe. + +"Oh!" remarked Marcel, "there are several on the landing, fastened along +the wall. Suppose we were to gather them." + +"Certainly, let us gather them by all means," said Rodolphe, starting +off to seize on the chairs, which belonged to some neighbor. + +Six o'clock struck: the two friends went off to a hasty dinner, and +returned to light up the saloons. They were themselves dazzled by the +result. At seven o'clock Schaunard arrived, accompanied by three ladies, +who had forgotten their diamonds and their bonnets. One of them wore a +red shawl with black spots. Schaunard pointed out this lady particularly +to Rodolphe. + +"She is a woman accustomed to the best society," said he, "an +Englishwoman whom the fall of the Stuarts has driven into exile, she +lives in a modest way by giving lessons in English. Her father was Lord +Chancellor under Cromwell, she told me, so we must be polite with her. +Don't be too familiar." + +Numerous footsteps were heard on the stairs. It was the guests arriving. +They seemed astonished to see a fire burning in the stove. + +Rodolphe's swallow-tail went to greet the ladies, and kissed their hands +with a grace worthy of the Regency. When there was a score of persons +present, Schaunard asked whether it was not time for a round of drinks. + +"Presently," said Marcel. "We are waiting for the arrival of the +influential critic to set fire to the punch." + +At eight o'clock the whole of the guests had arrived, and the execution +of the program commenced. Each item was alternated with a round of drink +of some kind, no one ever knew what. + +Towards ten o'clock the white waistcoat of the influential critic made +its appearance. He only stayed an hour, and was very sober in the +consumption of refreshments. + +At midnight, as there was no more wood, and it was very cold, the guests +who were seated drew lots as to who should cast his chair into the fire. + +By one o'clock every one was standing. + +Amiable gaiety did not cease to reign amongst the guests. There were no +accidents to be regretted, with the exception of a rent in the foreign +languages pocket of Colline's swallow-tail and a smack in the face given +by Schaunard to the daughter of Cromwell's Lord Chancellor. + +This memorable evening was for a week the staple subject of gossip in +the district, and Phemie Teinturiere, who had been the queen of the +fete, was accustomed to remark, when talking it over with her friends,-- + +"It was awfully fine. There were composite candles, my dear." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MADEMOISELLE MUSETTE + + +Mademoiselle Musette was a pretty girl of twenty who shortly after her +arrival in Paris had become what many pretty girls become when they +have a neat figure, plenty of coquesttishness, a dash of ambition and +hardly any education. After having for a long time shone as the star of +the supper parties of the Latin Quarter, at which she used to sing in a +voice, still very fresh if not very true, a number of country ditties, +which earned her the nickname under which she has since been +immortalized by one of our neatest rhymsters, Mademoiselle Musette +suddenly left the Rue de la Harpe to go and dwell upon the Cytherean +heights of the Breda district. + +She speedily became one of the foremost of the aristocracy of pleasure +and slowly made her way towards that celebrity which consists in being +mentioned in the columns devoted to Parisian gossip, or lithographed at +the printsellers. + +However Mademoiselle Musette was an exception to the women amongst whom +she lived. Of a nature instinctively elegant and poetical, like all +women who are really such, she loved luxury and the many enjoyments +which it procures; her coquetry warmly coveted all that was handsome and +distinguished; a daughter of the people, she would not have been in any +way out of her element amidst the most regal sumptuosity. But +Mademoiselle Musette, who was young and pretty, had never consented to +be the mistress of any man who was not like herself young and handsome. +She had been known bravely to refuse the magnificient offers of an old +man so rich that he was styled the Peru of the Chaussee d'Antin, and who +had offered a golden ladder to the gratification of her fancies. +Intelligent and witty, she had also a repugnance for fools and +simpletons, whatever might be their age, their title and their name. + +Musette, therefore, was an honest and pretty girl, who in love adopted +half of Champfort's famous amphoris, "Love is the interchange of two +caprices." Thus her connection had never been preceded by one of those +shameful bargains which dishonor modern gallantry. As she herself said, +Musette played fair and insisted that she should receive full change for +her sincerity. + +But if her fancies were lively and spontaneous, they were never durable +enough to reach the height of a passion. And the excessive mobility of +her caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the +boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a +corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual +alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth +stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem +of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for +one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, +sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred de +Musset to fitly narrate your careless and vagabond course amidst the +flowery paths of youth; and he would certainly have celebrated you, if +like me, he had heard you sing in your pretty false notes, this couplet +from one of your favorite ditties: + + "It was a day in Spring + When love I strove to sing + Unto a nut brown maid. + O'er face as fair as dawn + Cast a bewitching shade," + +The story we are about to tell is one of the most charming in the life +of this charming adventuress who wore so many green gowns. + +At a time when she was the mistress of a young Counsellor of State, who +had gallantly placed in her hands the key of his ancestral coffers, +Mademoiselle Musette was in the habit of receiving once a week in her +pretty drawing room in the Rue de la Bruyere. These evenings resembled +most Parisian evenings, with the difference that people amused +themselves. When there was not enough room they sat on one another's +knees, and it often happened that the same glass served for two. +Rodolphe, who was a friend of Musette and never anything more than a +friend, without either of them knowing why--Rodolphe asked leave to +bring his friend, the painter Marcel. + +"A young fellow of talent," he added, "for whom the future is +embroidering his Academician's coat." + +"Bring him," said Musette. + +The evening they were to go together to Musette's Rodolphe called on +Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet. + +"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?" + +"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly. + +"Shock custom, it stuns it." + +"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a +pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another +here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as +'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines." + +"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?" + +"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides +it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory +black." + +"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it +was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the +fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but +Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight. + +In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect +bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society. + +M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his +election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on +reaching Mademoiselle Musette's. + +This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for +some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, +had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings +having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had +been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken +away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle +Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and +did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing +room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, +dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little +entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination. + +This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed +such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters +came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to +withdraw. + +Musette bowed her guests out, singing: + + "They will laugh long and loud, tralala, + At my Thursday night's crowd + They will laugh long and loud, tralala." + +Marcel and Rodolphe alone remained with Musette, who ascended to her +room where there was nothing left but the bed. + +"Ah, but my adventure is no longer such a lively one after all," said +Musette. "I shall have to take up my quarters out of doors." + +"Oh madame!" said Marcel, "if I had the gifts of Plutus I should like to +offer you a temple finer than that of Solomon, but--" + +"You are not Plutus. All the same I thank you for your good intentions. +Ah!" she added, glancing around the room, "I was getting bored here, and +then the furniture was old. I had had it nearly six months. But that is +not all, after the dance one should sup." + +"Let us sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all +in the morning, when he was terrible. + +As Rodolphe had gained some money at the lansquenet played during the +evening, he carried off Musette and Marcel to a restaurant which was +just opening. + +After breakfast, the three, who had no inclination for sleep, spoke of +finishing the day in the country, and as they found themselves close to +the railway station they got into the first train that started, which +landed them at Saint Germain. + +During the whole of the night of the party and all of the rest of the +day Marcel, who was gunpowder which a single glance sufficed to kindle, +had been violently smitten by Mademoiselle Musette and paid her +"highly-colored court," as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as +to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the +last with the result of the sale of his famous picture, "The Passage of +the Red Sea." Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it +became necessary to part from Musette, who whilst allowing him to kiss +her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every +time that he tried to violently burgle her heart. + +On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the +artist to see her to her door. + +"Will you allow me to call on you?" asked Marcel, "I will paint your +portrait." + +"My dear fellow," replied she, "I cannot give you my address, since +tomorrow I may no longer have one, but I will call and see you, and I +will mend your coat, which has a hole so big that one could shoot the +moon through it." + +"I will await your coming like that of the messiah," said Marcel. + +"Not quite so long," said Musette, laughing. + +"What a charming girl," said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked +away. "She is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat." + +He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the +shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette. + +"My dear Monsieur Marcel," said she, "are you a true knight?" + +"I am. 'Rubens and my lady,' that is my motto." + +"Well then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir," returned +Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered +grammar in fine style, "the landlord has taken away the key of my room +and it is eleven o'clock at night. Do you understand?" + +"I understand," said Marcel, offering Musette his arm. He took her to +his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs. + +Musette was hardly able to keep awake, but she still had strength +enough to say to Marcel, taking him by the hand, "You remember what you +have promised?" + +"Oh Musette! charming creature!" said the artist in a somewhat moved +tone, "you are here beneath a hospitable roof, sleep in peace. Good +night, I am off." + +"Why so?" said Musette, her eyes half closed. "I am not afraid, I can +assure you. In the first place, there are two rooms. I will sleep on +your sofa." + +"My sofa is too hard to sleep on, it is stuffed with carded pebbles. I +will give you hospitality here, and ask it for myself from a friend who +lives on the same landing. It will be more prudent," said he. "I usually +keep my word, but I am twenty-two and you are eighteen, Musette,--and I +am off. Good night." + +The next morning at eight o'clock Marcel entered her room with a pot of +flowers that he had gone and bought in the market. He found Musette, who +had thrown herself fully dressed on the bed, and was still sleeping. At +the noise made by him she woke, and held out her hand. + +"What a good fellow," said she. + +"Good fellow," repeated Marcel, "is not that a term of ridicule?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Musette, "why should you say that to me? It is not nice. +Instead of saying spiteful things offer me that pretty pot of flowers." + +"It is, indeed, for you that I have brought them up," said Marcel. "Take +it, and in return for my hospitality sing me one of your songs, the echo +of my garret may perhaps retain something of your voice, and I shall +still hear you after you have departed." + +"Oh! so you want to show me the door?" said Musette. "Listen, Marcel, I +do not beat about the bush to say what my thoughts are. You like me and +I like you. It is not love, but it is perhaps its seed. Well, I am not +going away, I am going to stop here, and I shall stay here as long as +the flowers you have just given me remain unfaded." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Marcel, "they will fade in a couple of days. If I had +known I would have bought immortelles." + + * * * * * + +For a fortnight Musette and Marcel lived together, and led, although +often without money, the most charming life in the world. Musette felt +for the artist an affection which had nothing in common with her +preceding passions, and Marcel began to fear that he was seriously in +love with his mistress. Ignorant that she herself was very much afraid +of being equally smitten, he glanced every morning at the condition of +the flowers, the death of which was to bring about the severance of +their connection, and found it very difficult to account for their +continued freshness. But he soon had a key to the mystery. One night, +waking up, he no longer found Musette beside him. He rose, hastened into +the next room, and perceived his mistress, who profited nightly by his +slumbers to water the flowers and hinder them from perishing. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BILLOWS OF PACTOLUS + + +It was the nineteenth of March, 184--. Should Rodolphe reach the age of +Methuselah, he will never forget the date; for it was on that day, at +three in the afternoon, that our friend issued from a banker's where he +had just received five hundred francs in current and sounding specie. + +The first use Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into +his pocket was not to pay his debts, inasmuch as he had sworn to himself +to practice economy and go to no extra expense. He had a fixed idea on +this subject, and declared that before thinking of superfluities, one +ought to provide for necessaries. Therefore it was that he paid none of +his creditors, and bought a Turkish pipe which he had long coveted. + +Armed with this purchase, he directed his steps towards the lodging of +his friend Marcel, who had for some time given him shelter. As he +entered Marcel's studio, Rodolphe's pockets rang like a village-steeple +on a grand holiday. On hearing this unusual sound, Marcel supposed it +was one of his neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on +'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door +beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to +the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one +to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn robber, forty times +over." + +So, never suspecting that it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a +Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which +had been on his easel nearly three years. + +Rodolphe, who had not yet spoken, meditating an experiment which he was +about to make on his friend, said to himself, "We shall laugh in a +minute. Won't it be fun?" and he let fall a five-franc piece on the +floor. + +Marcel raised his eyes and looked at Rodolphe, who was as grave as an +article in the "Revue des deux Mondes." Then he picked up the piece of +money with a well-satisfied air, and made a courteous salute to it; for, +vagabond artist as he was, he understood the usages of society, and was +very civil to strangers. Knowing, moreover, that Rodolphe had gone out +to look for money, Marcel, seeing that his friend had succeeded in his +operations, contented himself with admiring the result, without +inquiring by what means it had been obtained. Accordingly, he went to +work again without speaking, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the +waves of the Red Sea. As he was terminating this homicide, Rodolphe let +fall another piece, laughing in his sleeve at the face the painter was +going to make. + +At the sonorous sound of the metal, Marcel bounded up as if he had +received an electric shock, and cried, "What! Number two!" + +A third piece rolled on the floor, then another, then one more; finally +a whole quadrille of five-franc pieces were dancing in the room. + +Marcel began to show evident signs of mental alienation; and Rodolphe +laughed like the pit of a Parisian theatre at the first representation +of a very tragical tragedy. Suddenly, and without any warning, he +plunged both hands into his pockets, and the money rushed out in a +supernatural steeple-chase. It was an inundation of Pactolus; it was +Jupiter entering Danae's chamber. + +Marcel remained silent, motionless, with a fixed stare; his astonishment +was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which +the untimely curiosity of Lott's wife brought upon her: by the time that +Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter +was petrified all down one side of his body. + +Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the +thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the +crying of a child at the breast. + +Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in +a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought +blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, +though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in +a tragedy, he ejaculated: + +"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added, +"Explain to me this mystery." + +"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more." + +"Come, now!" + +"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking +up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and +looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking +to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!" + +"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought +Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the +table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red +Sea.'" + +All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with +great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist: + +"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not +the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but +honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in +laboriously acquiring a serious position--such as a virtuous man should +occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties--." + +"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel. + +"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good +sense, no doubt." + +"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries. +They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in +which I am from this moment clad." + +"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion." + +"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of +life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond +existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go +to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we +will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The +strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we +have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must +be economical." + +"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable +for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first +elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the +works of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, who +will perhaps teach us how to practice the art. Hallo! You have a Turkish +pipe there!" + +"Yes, I bought it for twenty-five francs." + +"How is that! You talk of economy, and give twenty-five francs for a +pipe!" + +"And this is an economy. I used to break a two-sous pipe every day, and +at the end of the year that came to a great deal more." + +"True, I should never have thought of that." + +They heard a neighboring clock strike six. + +"Let us have dinner at once," said Rodolphe. "I mean to begin from +tonight. Talking of dinner, it occurs to me that we lose much valuable +time every day in cooking ours; now time is money, so we must economize +it. From this day we will dine out." + +"Yes," said Marcel, "there is a capital restaurant twenty steps off. +It's rather dear, but not far to go, so we shall gain in time what we +lose in money." + +"We will go there today," said Rodolphe, "but tomorrow or next day we +will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the +restaurant, we will hire a cook." + +"No, no," put in Marcel, "we will hire a servant to be cook and +everything. Just see the immense advantages which will result from it. +First of all, our rooms will be always in order; he will clean our +boots, go on errands, wash my brushes; I will even try and give him a +taste of the fine arts, and make him grind colors. In this way, we shall +save at least six hours a day." + +Five minutes after, the two friends were installed in one of the little +rooms of the restaurant, and continuing their schemes of economy. + +"We must get an intelligent lad," said Rodolphe, "if he has a sprinkling +of spelling, I will teach him to write articles, and make an editor of +him." + +"That will be his resource for his old age," said Marcel, adding up the +bill. "Well, this is dear, rather! Fifteen francs! We used both to dine +for a franc and a half." + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe, "but then we dined so badly that we were +obliged to sup at night. So, on the whole, it is an economy." + +"You always have the best of the argument," muttered the convinced +artist. "Shall we work tonight?" + +"No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will +give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?" + +"I shall go to Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures +to give me. By the way, give me five francs." + +"For what?" + +"To cross the Pont des Arts." + +"Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! +That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a +violation of our rule." + +"I am wrong, to be sure," said Marcel. "I will take a cab and go by the +Pont Neuf." + +So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but +somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they +didn't go home till morning. + +Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. +Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, +and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they +met in the street. Still their system of economy was in full blast, +though it was not without much difficulty that their "organization of +labor" had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow +thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an +average donkey. + +But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his +business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he +blushed with indignation, and sent it by porter. However, he had some +merits; for instance, he could hash hare well and his first profession +having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time--or his +masters', rather--in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also +succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But where he was unrivalled +was in smoking Marcel's cigars and lighting them with Rodolphe's +manuscripts. + +One day Marcel wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for +Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste +replied by a flat refusal, and demanded his wages. + +"Very well," said Marcel, "I will settle with you tonight." + +When Rodolphe returned, his friends declared that they must send away +Baptiste. "He is of no use to us at all." + +"No, indeed--only an ornament, and not much of that." + +"Awfully stupid." + +"And equally lazy." + +"We must turn him off." + +"Let us!" + +"Still, he has some good points. He hashes hare very well." + +"And the lamp-black! He is a very Raphael for that." + +"Yes, but that's all he is good for. We lose time arguing with him." + +"He keeps us from working." + +"He is the cause of my 'Passage' not being finished in time for the +Exhibition. He wouldn't sit for Pharaoh." + +"Thanks to him, I couldn't finish my article in time. He wouldn't go to +the public library and hunt up the notes I wanted." + +"He is ruining us." + +"Decidedly we can't keep him." + +"Send him away then! But we must pay him." + +"That we'll do. Give me the money, and I will settle accounts with +him." + +"Money! But it is not I who keeps the purse, but you." + +"Not at all! It is you who are charged with the financial department." + +"But I assure you," said Marcel, "I have no money." + +"Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can't have spent five +hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid +economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute +necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must +look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is." + +"Yes, but we shan't find where the money is. However, let us see the +account-book, at any rate." + +And this is the way they kept their accounts which had been begun under +the auspices of Saint Economy: + +_"March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, +15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr."_ + +"What are those sundries?" asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading. + +"You know very well," replied the other, "that night when we didn't go +home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that." + +"Well, afterwards?" + +_"March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an +opera glass, 2 fr. 50 c._--that goes to your account. What did you want +a glass for? You see perfectly well." + +"You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the 'Scarf of +Iris.' It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The +expense is quite legitimate. Well?--" + +"A bamboo cane--" + +"Ah, that goes to your account," said Rodolphe. "You didn't want a +cane." + +"That was all we spent the 20th," was Marcel's only answer. "The 21st we +breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out." + +"We ought not to have spent much that day." + +"Not much, in fact--hardly thirty francs." + +"But what for?" + +"I don't know; it's marked sundries." + +"Vague and treacherous heading!" + +"'21st. (The day that Baptiste came.) _5 francs to him on account of his +wages. 50 centimes to the organ man.'"_ + +"23rd. Nothing set down. 24th, ditto. Two good days!" + +_"'25th. Baptiste, on account, 3 fr._ It seems to me we give him money +very often," said Marcel, by way of reflection. + +"There will be less owing to him," said Rodolphe. "Go on!" + +_"'26th. Sundries, useful in an artistic point of view, 36 fr.'"_ + +"What did we buy that was useful? I don't recollect. What can it have +been?" + +"You don't remember! The day we went to the top of Notre Dame for a +bird's-eye view of Paris." + +"But it costs only eight sous to go up the tower." + +"Yes, but then we went to dine at Saint Germain after we came down." + +"Clear as mud!" + +"27th. Nothing to set down." + +"Good! There's economy for you." + +_"'28th. Baptiste, on account, 6 fr.'"_ + +"Now this time I am sure we owe Baptiste nothing more. Perhaps he is +even in our debt. We must see." + +"29th. Nothing set down, except the beginning of an article on 'Social +Morals.'" + +"30th. Ah! We had company at dinner--heavy expenses the 30th, 55 fr. +31st.--that's today--we have spent nothing yet. You see," continued +Marcel, "the account has been kept very carefully, and the total does +not reach five hundred francs." + +"Then there ought to be money in the drawer." + +"We can see," said Marcel, opening it. + +"Anything there?" + +"Yes, a spider." + + "A spider in the morning + Of sorrow is a warning," hummed Rodolphe. + +"Where the deuce has all the money gone?" exclaimed Marcel, totally +upset at the sight of the empty drawer. + +"Very simple," replied Rodolphe. "Baptiste has had it all." + +"Stop a minute!" cried Marcel, rummaging in the drawer, where he +perceived a paper. "The bill for last quarter's rent!" + +"How did it come there?" + +"And paid, too," added Marcel. "You paid the landlord, then!" + +"Me! Come now!" said Rodolphe. + +"But what means--" + +"But I assure you--" + +"Oh, what can be this mystery?" sang the two in chorus to the final air +of "The White Lady." + +Baptiste, who loved music, came running in at once. Marcel showed him +the paper. + +"Ah, yes," said Baptiste carelessly, "I forgot to tell you. The landlord +came this morning while you were out. I paid him, to save him the +trouble of coming back." + +"Where did you find the money?" + +"I took it out of the open drawer. I thought, sir, you had left it open +on purpose, and forgot to tell me to pay him, so I did just as if you +had told me." + +"Baptiste!" said Marcel, in a white heat, "you have gone beyond your +orders. From this day you cease to form part of our household. Take off +your livery!" + +Baptiste took off the glazed leather cap which composed his livery, and +handed it to Marcel. + +"Very well," said the latter, "now you may go." + +"And my wages?" + +"Wages? You scamp! You have had fourteen francs in a little more than a +week. What do you do with so much money? Do you keep a dancer?" + +"A rope dancer?" suggested Rodolphe. + +"Then I am to be left," said the unhappy domestic, "without a covering +for my head!" + +"Take your livery," said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he +restored the cap to Baptiste. + +"Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes," said Rodolphe, +seeing poor Baptiste go out. "Where shall we dine today?" + +"We shall know tomorrow," replied Marcel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE + + +One Saturday evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into +housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her +appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he +frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure. +Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The +Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods +puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these +provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, +sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the +fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, +Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly +to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch. +She even, without circumlocution, made an appointment with him for the +next day. + +"By Jove," said Rodolphe to himself, as he saw Mademoiselle Laure home, +"this is certainly a very amiable young person. She seems to me to have +a good grammar and a tolerably extensive wardrobe. I am quite disposed +to make her happy." + +On reaching the door of her house, Mademoiselle Laure relinquished +Rodolphe's arm, thanking him for the trouble he had taken in +accompanying her to such a remote locality. + +"Oh! madame," replied Rodolphe, bowing to the ground, "I should like you +to have lived at Moscow or the islands of the Sound, in order to have +had the pleasure of being your escort the longer." + +"That would be rather far," said Laure, affectedly. + +"We could have gone by way of the Boulevards, madame," said Rodolphe. +"Allow me to kiss you hand in the shape of your cheek," he added, +kissing his companion on the lips before Laure could make any +resistance. + +"Oh sir!" she exclaimed, "you go too fast." + +"It is to reach my destination sooner," said Rodolphe. "In love, the +first stages should be ridden at a gallop." + +"What a funny fellow," though the milliner, as she entered her dwelling. + +"A pretty girl," said Rodolphe, as he walked away. + +Returning home, he went to bed at once, and had the most delightful +dreams. He saw himself at balls, theaters, and public promenades with +Mademoiselle Laure on his arm, clad in dresses more magnificent than +those of the girl with the ass's skin of the fairy tale. + +The next morning at eleven o'clock, according to habit, Rodolphe got up. +His first thought was for Mademoiselle Laure. + +"She is a very well mannered woman," he murmured, "I feel sure that she +was brought up at Saint Denis. I shall at length realize the happiness +of having a mistress who is not pitted with the small-pox. Decidedly I +will make sacrifices for her. I will go and draw my screw at 'The Scarf +of Iris.' I will buy some gloves, and I will take Laure to dinner at a +restaurant where table napkins are in use. My coat is not up to much," +said he as he dressed himself, "but, bah! black is good wear." + +And he went out to go to the office of "The Scarf of Iris." + +Crossing the street he came across an omnibus, on the side of which was +pasted a bill, with the words, "Display of Fountains at Versailles, +today, Sunday." + +A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe's feet would not have produced a +deeper impression upon him than the sight of this bill. + +"Today, Sunday! I had forgotten it," he exclaimed. "I shall not be able +to get any money. Today, Sunday!!! All the spare coin in Paris is on its +way to Versailles." + +However, impelled by one of those fabulous hopes to which a man always +clings, Rodolphe hurried to the office of the paper, reckoning that some +happy chance might have taken the cashier there. + +Monsieur Boniface had, indeed, looked in for a moment, but had left at +once. + +"For Versailles," said the office messenger to Rodolphe. + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "it is all over!... But let me see," he thought, +"my appointment is for this evening. It is noon, so I have five hours to +find five francs in--twenty sous an hour, like the horses in the Bois du +Boulogne. Forward." + +As he found himself in a neighborhood where the journalist, whom he +styled the influential critic, resided, Rodolphe thought of having a try +at him. + +"I am sure to find him in," said he, as he ascended the stairs, "it is +the day he writes his criticism--there is no fear of his being out. I +will borrow five francs of him." + +"Hallo! it's you, is it?" said the journalist, on seeing Rodolphe. "You +come at the right moment. I have a slight service to ask of you." + +"How lucky it falls out," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris." + +"Were you at the Odeon Theater last night?" + +"I am always at the Odeon." + +"You have seen the new piece, then?" + +"Who else would have seen it? I am the Odeon audience." + +"That is true," said the critic, "you are one of the caryatides of the +theater. It is even rumored that it is you who finds the money for its +subvention. Well, that is what I want of you, a summary of the plot of +the new piece." + +"That is easy, I have the memory of a creditor." + +"Whom is this piece by?" asked the critic of Rodolphe, whilst the latter +was writing. + +"A gentleman." + +"It cannot be up to much." + +"Well, it is not as strong as a Turk." + +"Then it cannot be very robust. The Turks, you see, have usurped a +reputation for strength. Besides, there are no longer any Turks except +at masked balls and in the Champs-Elysees where they sell dates. One of +my friends knows the East and he assures me that all the natives of it +were born in the Rue Coquenard." + +"That is smart," said Rodolphe. + +"You think so?" observed the critic, "I will put it in my article." + +"Here is my analysis of the piece, it is to the point," resumed +Rodolphe. + +"Yes, but it is short." + +"By putting in dashes and developing your critical opinion it will fill +some space." + +"I have scarcely time, my dear fellow, and then my critical opinion will +not fill enough space either." + +"You can stick in an adjective at every third word." + +"Cannot you tail on to your analysis a little, or rather a long +criticism of the piece, eh?" asked the critic. + +"Humph," said Rodolphe. "I have certainly some opinions upon tragedy, +but I have printed them three times in 'The Beaver' and 'The Scarf of +Iris.'" + +"No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?" + +"Forty lines." + +"The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines." + +"Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy +for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the +critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at +the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, +there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart." + +"What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there +anything new in the world except virtue?" + +"Here you are," said Rodolphe, as he finished. + +"Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is +this chasm to be filled?" exclaimed the critic. "Since you are here +supply me with some paradoxes." + +"I have not any about me," said Rodolphe, "though I can lend you some. +Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my +friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet." + +"Very good," said the critic. + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. "I shall +certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as +partridges." And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about +pianos, goldfish and Rhine wine, which was called toilet wine just as +we speak of toilet vinegar. + +"It is very good," said the critic. "Now do me the favor to add that the +place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere else is the +galleys." + +"Why?" + +"To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished," said the +influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the +printers. + +"And now," thought Rodolphe, "let us strike home." And he gravely +proposed his request. + +"Ah! my dear fellow," said the critic, "I have not a sou in the place. +Lolette ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last +copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters +spout forth the floods." + +"To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!" exclaimed Rodolphe. + +"But why do you want money?" + +"That is my story," replied Rodolphe, "I have at five this evening an +appointment with a lady, a very well bred lady who never goes out save +in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and +it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of +this life. For dinner, dances, &c., &c., I must have five francs, and if +I do not find them French literature is dishonoured in my person." + +"Why don't you borrow the sum of the lady herself?" exclaimed the +critic. + +"The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me +out of this fix." + +"By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not +enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell." + +"Impossible today, Mother Mansut's, Lebigre's, and all the shops on the +quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? +Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such +things never sell." + +"Unless the author is criminally convicted," said the critic. "Wait a +bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about +it skillfully you may, perhaps, make money of them." + +"I would rather have something else, a pair of trowsers, for instance." + +"Come," said the critic, "take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster +cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor, it is the widow's +mite." + +"I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away +these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it +as the thirteenth labor of Hercules." + +After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an +eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in +getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, +the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot. + +"Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I +must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle." + +Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti's, who read upon his +nephew's face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and +forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as: + +"Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are +terribly high, commerce decaying, &c., &c.," all the hypocritical litany +of shopkeepers. + +"Would you believe it," said the uncle, "that I have been forced to +borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?" + +"You should have sent to me," said Rodolphe. "I would have lent it you, +I received two hundred francs three days ago." + +"Thanks, my lad," said the uncle, "but you have need of your fortune. +Ah! whilst you are here, you might, you who write such a good hand, copy +out some bills for me that I want to send out." + +"My five francs are going to cost me dear," said Rodolphe to himself, +setting about the task, which he condensed. + +"My dear uncle," said he to Monetti, "I know how fond you are of music +and I have brought you some concert tickets." + +"You are very kind, my boy. Will you stay to dinner?" + +"Thanks, uncle, but I am expected at dinner in the Faubourg Saint +Germain, indeed, I am rather put out about it for I have not time to run +home and get the money to buy gloves." + +"You have no gloves, shall I lend you mine?" said his uncle. + +"Thanks, we do not take the same size, only you would greatly oblige me +by the loan of--" + +"Twenty nine sous to buy a pair? Certainly, my boy, here you are. When +one goes into society one should be well dressed. Better be envied than +pitied, as your aunt used to say. Come, I see you are getting on in the +world, so much the better. I would have given you more," he went on, +"but it is all I have in the till. I should have to go upstairs and I +cannot leave the shop, customers drop in every moment." + +"You were saying that business was not flourishing?" + +Uncle Monetti pretended not to hear, and said to his nephew who was +pocketing the twenty nine sous: + +"Do not be in a hurry about repayment." + +"What a screw," said Rodolphe, bolting. "Ah!" he continued, "there are +still thirty-one sous lacking. Where am I to find them? I know, let's be +off to the crossroads of Providence." + +This was the name bestowed by Rodolphe on the most central point in +Paris, that is to say, the Palais Royal, a spot where it is almost +impossible to remain ten minutes without meeting ten people of one's +acquaintance, creditors above all. Rodolphe therefore went and stationed +himself at the entrance to the Palais Royal. This time Providence was +long in coming. At last Rodolphe caught sight of it. Providence had a +white hat, a green coat, and a gold headed cane--a well dressed +Providence. + +It was a rich and obliging fellow, although a phalansterian. + +"I am delighted to see you," said he to Rodolphe, "come and walk a +little way with me; we can have a talk." + +"So I am to have the infliction of the phalanstere," murmured Rodolphe, +suffering himself to be led away from the wearer of the white hat, who, +indeed, phalanstered him to the utmost. + +As they drew near the Pont des Arts Rodolphe said to his companion-- + +"I must leave you, not having sufficient to pay the toll." + +"Nonsense," said the other, catching hold of Rodolphe and throwing two +sous to the toll keeper. + +"This is the right moment," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris," +as they crossed the bridge. Arrived at the further end in front of the +clock of the Institute, Rodolphe stopped short, pointed to the dial +with a despairing gesture, and exclaimed:-- + +"Confound it all, a quarter to five! I am done for." + +"What is the matter?" cried his astonished friend. + +"The matter is," said Rodolphe, "that, thanks to your dragging me here +in spite of myself, I have missed an appointment." + +"An important one?" + +"I should think so; money that I was to call for at five o'clock +at--Batignolles. I shall never be able to get there. Hang it; what am I +to do?" + +"Why," said the phalansterian, "nothing is simpler; come home with me +and I will lend you some." + +"Impossible, you live at Montrouge, and I have business at six o'clock +at the Chaussee d'Antin. Confound it." + +"I have a trifle about me," said Providence, timidly, "but it is very +little." + +"If I had enough to take a cab I might get to Batignolles in time." + +"Here is the contents of my purse, my dear fellow, thirty one sous." + +"Give it to me at once, that I may bolt," said Rodolphe, who had just +heard five o'clock strike, and who hastened off to keep his appointment. + +"It has been hard to get," said he, counting out his money. "A hundred +sous exactly. At last I am supplied, and Laure will see that she has to +do with a man who knows how to do things properly. I won't take a +centime home this evening. We must rehabilitate literature, and prove +that its votaries only need money to be wealthy." + +Rodolphe found Mademoiselle Laure at the trysting place. + +"Good," said he, "for punctuality she is a feminine chronometer." + +He spent the evening with her, and bravely melted down his five francs +in the crucible of prodigality. Mademoiselle Laure was charmed with his +manners, and was good enough only to notice that Rodolphe had not +escorted her home at the moment when he was ushering her into his own +room. + +"I am committing a fault," said she. "Do not make me repent of it by the +ingratitude which is characteristic of your sex." + +"Madame," said Rodolphe, "I am known for my constancy. It is such that +all my friends are astonished at my fidelity, and have nicknamed me the +General Bertrand of Love." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WHITE VIOLETS + + +About this time Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, +who couldn't bear him; and the thermometer was twelve degrees below +freezing point. + +Mademoiselle Angela was the daughter of Monsieur Monetti, the chimney +doctor, of whom we have already had occasion to speak. She was eighteen +years old, and had just come from Burgundy, where she lived five years +with a relative who was to leave her all her property. This relative was +an old lady who had never been young apparently--certainly never +handsome, but had always been very ill-natured, although--or perhaps +because--very superstitious. Angela, who at her departure was a charming +child, and promised to be a charming girl, came back at the end of the +five years a pretty enough young lady, but cold, dry, and uninteresting. +Her secluded provincial life, and the narrow and bigoted education she +had received, had filled her mind with vulgar prejudices, shrunk her +imagination, and converted her heart into a sort of organ, limited to +fulfilling its function of physical balance wheel. You might say that +she had holy water in her veins instead of blood. She received her +cousin with an icy reserve; and he lost his time whenever he attempted +to touch the chord of her recollections--recollections of the time when +they had sketched out that flirtation in the Paul-and-Virginia style +which is traditional between cousins of different sexes. Still Rodolphe +was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and +learning one day that the young lady was going shortly to the wedding +ball of one of her friends, he made bold to promise Angela a bouquet of +violets for the ball. And after asking permission of her father, Angela +accepted her cousin's gallant offer--always on condition that the +violets should be white. + +Overjoyed at his cousin's amiability, Rodolphe danced and sang his way +back to Mount St. Bernard, as he called his lodging--why will be seen +presently. As he passed by a florist's in crossing the Palais Royal, he +saw some white violets in the showcase, and was curious enough to ask +their price. A presentable bouquet could not be had for less than ten +francs; there were some that cost more. + +"The deuce!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "ten francs! and only eight days to +find this fortune! It will be a hard pull, but never mind, my cousin +shall have her flowers." + +This happened in the time of Rodolphe's literary genesis, as the +transcendentalists would say. His only income at that period was an +allowance of fifteen francs a month, made him by a friend, who, after +living a long while in Paris as a poet, had, by the help of influential +acquaintances, gained the mastership of a provincial school. Rodolphe, +who was the child of prodigality, always spent his allowance in four +days; and, not choosing to abandon his holy but not very profitable +profession of elegiac poet, lived for the rest of the month on the rare +droppings from the basket of Providence. This long Lent had no terrors +for him; he passed through it gaily, thanks to his stoical temperament +and to the imaginary treasures which he expended every day while +waiting for the first of the month, that Easter which terminated his +fast. He lived at this time at the very top of one of the loftiest +houses in Paris. His room was shaped like a belvidere, and was a +delicious habitation in summer, but from October to April a perfect +little Kamschatka. The four cardinal winds which penetrated by the four +windows,--there was one on each of the four sides--made fearful music in +it throughout the cold seasons. Then in irony as it were, there was a +huge fireplace, the immense chimney of which seemed a gate of honor +reserved for Boreas and his retinue. On the first attack of cold, +Rodolphe had recourse to an original system of warming; he cut up +successively what little furniture he had, and at the end of a week his +stock was considerably abridged; in fact, he had only a bed and two +chairs left; it should be remarked that these items were insured against +fire by their nature, being of iron. This manner of heating himself he +called _moving up the chimney_. + +It was January, and the thermometer, which indicated twelve degrees +below freezing point on the Spectacle Quay, would have stood two or +three lower if moved to the belvidere, which Rodolphe called +indifferently Mount St. Bernard, Spitzenberg, and Siberia. + +The night when he promised his cousin the white violets, he was seized +with a great rage on returning home; the four cardinal winds, in playing +puss-in-the-corner round his chamber, had broken a pane of glass--the +third time in a fortnight. After exploding in a volley of frantic +imprecations upon Eolus and all his family, and plugging up the breach +with a friend's portrait, Rodolphe lay down, dressed as he was, between +his two mattresses, and dreamed of white violets all night. + +At the end of five days, Rodolphe had found nothing to help him toward +realizing his dreams. He must have the bouquet the day after tomorrow. +Meanwhile, the thermometer fell still lower, and the luckless poet was +ready to despair as he thought the violets might have risen higher. +Finally his good angel had pity on him, and came to his relief as +follows. + +One morning, Rodolphe went to take his chance of getting a breakfast +from his friend Marcel the painter, and found him conversing with a +woman in mourning. It was a widow who had just lost her husband, and who +wanted to know how much it would cost to paint on the tomb which she had +erected, a man's hand, with this inscription beneath: + + "I WAIT FOR HER TO WHOM MY FAITH WAS PLIGHTED." + +To get the work at a cheaper rate, she observed to the artist that when +she was called to rejoin her husband, he would have another hand to +paint--her hand with a bracelet on the wrist and the supplementary line +beneath: + + "AT LENGTH, BEHOLD US THUS ONCE MORE UNITED." + +"I shall put this clause in my will," she said, "and require that the +task be intrusted to you." + +"In that case, madame," replied the artist, "I will do it at the price +you offer--but only in the hope of seeing your hand. Don't go and forget +me in your will." + +"I should like to have this as soon as possible," said the disconsolate +one, "nevertheless, take your time to do it well and don't forget the +scar on the thumb. I want a living hand." + +"Don't be afraid, madame, it shall be a speaking one," said Marcel, as +he bowed the widow out. But hardly had she crossed the threshold when +she returned, saying, "I have one more thing to ask you, sir: I should +like to have inscribed on my husband's tomb something in verse which +would tell of his good conduct and his last words. Is that good style?" + +"Very good style--they call that an epitaph--the very best style." + +"You don't know anyone who would do that for me cheap? There is my +neighbor Monsieur Guerin, the public writer, but he asks the clothes off +my back." + +Here Rodolphe looked at Marcel, who understood him at once. + +"Madame," said the artist, pointing to Rodolphe, "a happy fortune has +conducted hither the very person who can be of service to you in this +mournful juncture. This gentleman is a renowned poet; you couldn't find +a better one." + +"I want something very melancholy," said the widow, "and the spelling +all right." + +"Madame," replied Marcel, "my friend spells like a book. He had all the +prizes at school." + +"Indeed!" said the widow, "my grand-nephew had just had a prize too; he +is only seven years old." + +"A very forward child, madame." + +"But are you sure that the gentleman can make very melancholy verses?" + +"No one better, madame, for he has undergone much sorrow in his life. +The papers always find fault with his verses for being too melancholy." + +"What!" cried the widow, "do they talk about him in the papers? He must +know quite as much, then, as Monsieur Guerin, the public writer." + +"And a great deal more. Apply to him, madame, and you will not repent of +it." + +After having explained to Rodolphe the sort of inscription in verse +which she wished to place on her husband's tomb, the widow agreed to +give Rodolphe ten francs if it suited her--only she must have it very +soon. The poet promised she should have it the very next day. + +"Oh good genius of Artemisia!" cried Rodolphe as the widow disappeared. +"I promise you that you shall be suited--full allowance of melancholy +lyrics, better got up than a duchess, orthography and all. Good old +lady! May Heaven reward you with a life of a hundred and seven +years--equal to that of a good brandy!" + +"I object," said Marcel. + +"That's true," said Rodolphe, "I forgot that you have her hand to paint, +and that so long a life would make you lose money." And lifting his +hands he gravely ejaculated, "Heaven, do not grant my prayer! Ah!" he +continued, "I was in jolly good luck to come here." + +"By the way," asked Marcel, "what did you want?" + +"I recollect--and now especially that I have to pass the night in making +these verses, I cannot do without what I came to ask you for, namely, +first, some dinner; secondly, tobacco and a candle; thirdly, your +polar-bear costume." + +"To go to the masked ball?" + +"No, indeed, but as you see me here, I am as much frozen up as the grand +army in retreat from Russia. Certainly my green frock-coat and +Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would +do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I +do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary." + +"Take the fur!" said Marcel, "it's a good idea; warm as a dish of +charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it." + +Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin. + +"Now," said he, "the thermometer is going to be really mad." + +"Are you going out so?" said Marcel to his friend, after they had +finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish. + +"I just am," replied Rodolphe. "Do you think I care for public opinion? +Besides, today is the beginning of carnival." + +He went half over Paris with all the gravity of the beast whose skin he +occupied. Only on passing before a thermometer in an optician's window +he couldn't help taking a sight at it. + +Having returned home not without causing great terror to his porter, +Rodolphe lit his candle, carefully surrounding it with an extempore +shade of paper to guard it against the malice of the winds, and set to +work at once. But he was not long in perceiving that if his body was +almost entirely protected from the cold, his hands were not; a terrible +numbness seized his fingers which let the pen fall. + +"The bravest man cannot struggle against the elements," said the poet, +falling back helpless in his chair. "Caeser passed the Rubicon, but he +could not have passed the Beresina." + +All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin +breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its +snowy fur. He had an idea! + +Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable mass of papers, among +which were a dozen huge manuscripts of his famous drama, "The Avenger." +This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and +remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen +pounds. He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others +towards the fireplace. + +"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he +exclaimed. "What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would +happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more +fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of +the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five +minutes the first act of "The Avenger" was over, and Rodolphe had +written three verses of his epitaph. + +It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds +when they felt fire in the chimney. + +"It's an illusion," quoth Boreas, as he amused himself by brushing back +the hair of Rodolphe's bear skin. + +"Let's blow down the pipe," suggested another wind, "and make the +chimney smoke." But just as they were about to plague the poor poet, the +south wind perceived Monsieur Arago at a window of the Observatory +threatening them with his finger; so they all made off, for fear of +being put under arrest. Meanwhile the second act of "The Avenger" was +going off with immense success, and Rodolphe had written ten lines. But +he only achieved two during the third act. + +"I always thought that third act too short," said Rodolphe, "luckily the +next one will take longer; there are twenty three scenes in it, +including the great one of the throne." As the last flourish of the +throne scene went up the chimney in fiery flakes, Rodolphe had only +three couplets more to write. "Now for the last act. This is all +monologue. It may last five minutes." The catastrophe flashed and +smouldered, and Rodolphe in a magnificent transport of poetry had +enshrined in lyric stanzas the last words of the illustrious deceased. +"There is enough left for a second representation," said he, pushing the +remainder of the manuscript under his bed. + +At eight o'clock next evening, Mademoiselle Angela entered the ballroom; +in her hand was a splendid nosegay of white violets, and among them two +budding roses, white also. During the whole night men and women were +complimenting the young girl on her bouquet. Angela could not but feel a +little grateful to her cousin who had procured this little triumph for +her vanity; and perhaps she would have thought more of him but for the +gallant persecutions of one of the bride's relatives who had danced +several times with her. He was a fair-haired youth, with a magnificent +moustache curled up at the ends, to hook innocent hearts. The bouquet +had been pulled to pieces by everybody; only two white roses were left. +The young man asked Angela for them; she refused--only to forget them +after the ball on a bench, whence the young fair-haired youth hastened +to take them. + +At that moment it was fourteen degrees below freezing point in +Rodolphe's belvidere. He was leaning against his window looking out at +the lights in the ballroom, where his cousin Angela, who didn't care for +him, was dancing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CAPE OF STORMS + + +In the opening month of each of the four seasons there are some +terrible epochs, usually about the 1st and the 15th. Rodolphe, who could +not witness the approach of one or the other of these two dates without +alarm, nicknamed them the Cape of Storms. On these mornings it is not +Aurora who opens the portals of the East, but creditors, landlords, +bailiffs and their kidney. The day begins with a shower of bills and +accounts and winds up with a hailstorm of protests. _Dies irae_. + +Now one morning, it was the 15th of April, Rodolphe was peacefully +slumbering--and dreaming that one of his uncles had just bequeathed him +a whole province in Peru, the feminine inhabitants included. + +Whilst he was wallowing in this imaginary Pacolus, the sound of a key +turning in the lock interrupted the heir presumptive just at the most +dazzling point of his golden dream. + +Rodolphe sat up in bed, his eyes and mind yet heavy with slumber, and +looked about him. + +He vaguely perceived standing in the middle of his room a man who had +just entered. + +This early visitor bore a bag slung at his back and a large pocketbook +in his hand. He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat +and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of +stairs. His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as +sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter on the march. + +Rodolphe was alarmed for a moment, and at the sight of the cocked hat +and the coat thought that he had a police officer before him. + +But the sight of the tolerably well filled bag made him perceive his +mistake. + +"Ah! I have it," thought he, "it is something on account of my +inheritance, this man comes from the West Indies. But in that case why +is he not black?" + +And making a sign to the man, he said, pointing to the bag, "I know all +about it. Put it down there. Thanks." + +The man was a messenger of the Bank of France. He replied to Rodolphe's +request by holding before his eyes a small strip of paper covered with +writing and figures in various colored inks. + +"You want a receipt," said Rodolphe. "That is right. Pass me the pen +and ink. There, on the table." + +"No, I have come to take money," replied the messenger. "An acceptance +for a hundred and fifty francs. It is the 15th of April." + +"Ah!" observed Rodolphe, examining the acceptance. "Pay to the order +of---- Birmann. It is my tailor. Alas," he added, in melancholy tones +casting his eyes alternately upon a frock coat thrown on the bed and +upon the acceptance, "causes depart but effects return. What, it is the +15th of April? It is extraordinary, I have not yet had any strawberries +this year." + +The messenger, weary of delay, left the room, saying to Rodolphe, "You +have till four o'clock to pay." + +"There is no time like the present," replied Rodolphe. "The humbug," he +added regretfully, following the cocked hat with his eyes, "he has taken +away his bag." + +Rodolphe drew the curtains of his bed and tried to retrace the path to +his inheritance, but he made a mistake on the road and proudly entered +into a dream in which the manager of the Theatre Francais came hat in +hand to ask him for a drama for his theater, and in which he, aware of +the customary practice, asked for an advance. But at the very moment +when the manager appeared to be willing to comply the sleeper was again +half awakened by the entry of a fresh personage, another creature of the +15th. + +It was Monsieur Benoit, landlord of the lodging house in which Rodolphe +was residing. Monsieur Benoit was at once the landlord, the bootmaker +and the money lender of his lodgers. On this morning he exhaled a +frightful odor of bad brandy and overdue rent. He carried an empty bag +in his hand. + +"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, "this is not the manager of the Theater +Francais, he would have a white cravat and the bag would be full." + +"Good morning, Monsieur Rodolphe," said Monsieur Benoit, approaching the +bed. + +"Monsieur Benoit! Good morning. What has given me the pleasure of this +visit?" + +"I have come to remind you that it is the 15th of April." + +"Already! How time flies, it is extraordinary, I must see about buying a +pair of summer trousers. The 15th of April. Good heavens! I should never +have thought of it but for you, Monsieur Benoit. What gratitude I owe +you for this!" + +"You also owe me a hundred and sixty-two francs," replied Monsieur +Benoit, "and it is time this little account was settled." + +"I am not in any absolute hurry--do not put yourself out, Monsieur +Benoit. I will give you time." + +"But," said the landlord, "you have already put me off several times." + +"In that case let us come to a settlement, Monsieur Benoit, let us come +to a settlement, it is all the same to me today as tomorrow. Besides we +are all mortal. Let us come to a settlement." + +An amiable smile smoothed the landlord wrinkles and even his empty bag +swelled with hope. + +"What do I owe you?" asked Rodolphe. + +"In the first place, we have three months' rent at twenty-five francs, +that makes seventy-five francs." + +"Errors excepted," said Rodolphe. "And then?" + +"Then three pairs of boots at twenty francs." + +"One moment, one moment, Monsieur Benoit, do not let us mix matters, +this is no longer to do with the landlord but the bootmaker. I want a +separate account. Accounts are a serious thing, we must not get +muddled." + +"Very good," said Monsieur Benoit, softened by the hope of at length +writing "Paid" at the foot of his accounts. "Here is a special bill for +the boots. Three pairs of boots at twenty francs, sixty francs." + +Rodolphe cast a look of pity on a pair of worn out boots. + +"Alas!" he thought, "they could not be worse if they had been worn by +the Wandering Jew. Yet it was in running after Marie that they got so +worn out. Go on, Monsieur Benoit." + +"We were saying sixty francs," replied the latter. "Then money lent, +twenty seven francs." + +"Stop a bit, Monsieur Benoit. We agreed that each dog would have his +kennel. It is as a friend that you lent me money. Therefore, if you +please, let us quit the regions of bootmaking and enter those of +confidence and friendship which require a separate account. How much +does your friendship for me amount to?" + +"Twenty seven francs." + +"Twenty seven francs. You have purchased a friend cheaply, Monsieur +Benoit. In short, we were saying, seventy five, sixty, and twenty +seven. That makes altogether---?" + +"A hundred and sixty two francs," said Monsieur Benoit, presenting the +three bills. + +"A hundred and sixty two francs," observed Rodolphe, "it is +extraordinary. What a fine thing arithmetic is. Well, Monsieur Benoit, +now that the account is settled we can both rest easy, we know exactly +how we stand. Next month I will ask you for a receipt, and as during +this time the confidence and friendship you must entertain towards me +can only increase, you can, in case it should become necessary, grant me +a further delay. However, if the landlord and the bootmaker are +inclined to be hasty, I would ask the friend to get them to listen to +reason. It is extraordinary, Monsieur Benoit, but every time I think of +your triple character as a landlord, a bootmaker, and a friend, I am +tempted to believe in the Trinity." + +Whilst listening to Rodolphe the landlord had turned at one and the same +time red, green, white, and yellow, and at each fresh jest from his +lodger that rainbow of anger grew deeper and deeper upon his face. + +"Sir," said he, "I do not like to be made game of. I have waited long +enough. I give you notice of quit, and unless you let me have some +money this evening, I know what I shall have to do." + +"Money! money! Am I asking you for money?" said Rodolphe. "Besides, if I +had any, I should not give it to you. On a Friday, it would be unlucky." + +Monsieur Benoit's wrath grew tempestuous, and if the furniture had not +belonged to him he would no doubt have smashed some of it. + +"You are forgetting your bag," cried Rodolphe after him. "What a +business," murmured the young fellow, as he found himself alone. "I +would rather tame lions. But," he continued, jumping out of bed and +dressing hurriedly, "I cannot stay here. The invasion will continue. I +must flee; I must even breakfast. Suppose I go and see Schaunard. I will +ask him for some breakfast, and borrow a trifle. A hundred francs will +be enough. Yes, I'm off to Schaunard's." + +Going downstairs, Rodolphe met Monsieur Benoit, who had received further +shocks from his other lodgers, as was attested by his empty bag. + +"If any one asks for me, tell them I have gone into the country--to the +Alps," said Rodolphe. "Or stay, tell them that I no longer live here." + +"I shall tell the truth," murmured Monsieur Benoit, in a very +significant tone. + +Schaunard was living at Montmartre. It was necessary to go right through +Paris. This peregrination was one most dangerous to Rodolphe. + +"Today," said he, "the streets are paved with creditors." + +However, he did not go along by the outer Boulevards, as he had felt +inclined to. A fanciful hope, on the contrary, urged him to follow the +perilous itinerary of central Paris. Rodolphe thought that on a day when +millions were going about the thoroughfares in the money-cases of bank +messengers, it might happen that a thousand franc note, abandoned on the +roadside, might lie awaiting its Good Samaritan. Thus he walked slowly +along with his eyes on the ground. But he only found two pins. + +After a two hours' walk he got to Schaunard's. + +"Ah, it's you," said the latter. + +"Yes, I have come to ask you for some breakfast." + +"Ah, my dear fellow, you come at the wrong time. My mistress has just +arrived, and I have not seen her for a fortnight. If you had only called +ten minutes earlier." + +"Well, have you got a hundred francs to lend me?" + +"What! you too!" exclaimed Schaunard, in the height of astonishment. +"You have come to ask me for money! You, in the ranks of my enemies!" + +"I will pay you back on Monday." + +"Or at the Greek Calends. My dear fellow, you surely forget what day it +is. I can do nothing for you. But there is no reason to despair; the +day is not yet over. You may still meet with Providence, who never gets +up before noon." + +"Ah!" replied Rodolphe, "Providence has too much to do looking after +little birds. I will go and see Marcel." + +Marcel was then residing in the Rue de Breda. Rodolphe found him in a +very downcast mood, contemplating his great picture that was to +represent the passage of the Red Sea. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, as he entered. "You seem quite in +the dumps." + +"Alas!" replied the painter, in allegorical language, "for the last +fortnight it has been Holy Week." + +"Red herrings and black radishes. Good, I remember." + +Indeed, Rodolphe's memory was still salt with the remembrance of a time +when he had been reduced to the exclusive consumption of the fish in +question. + +"The deuce," said he, "that is serious. I came to borrow a hundred +francs of you." + +"A hundred francs," said Marcel. "You are always in the clouds. The idea +of coming and asking me for that mythological amount at a period when +one is always under the equator of necessity. You must have been taking +hashish." + +"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "I have not been taking anything at all." + +And he left his friend on the banks of the Red Sea. + +From noon to four o'clock Rodolphe successively steered for every house +of his acquaintance. He went through the forty eight districts of Paris, +and covered about eight leagues, but without any success. The influence +of the 15th of April made itself feel with equal severity everywhere. +However, dinner time was drawing near. But it scarcely appeared that +dinner was likely to follow its example, and it seemed to Rodolphe that +he was on the raft of the wrecked Medusa. + +As he was crossing the Pont Neuf an idea all at once occurred to him. + +"Oh! oh!" said he to himself, retracing his steps, "the 15th of April. +But I have an invitation to dinner for today." + +And fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a printed ticket, running as +follows: + ++------------------------------------------------------+ +| | +| Barriere de la Villette, | +| Au Grand Vainqueur. | +| Dining Room to seat 300 people. | +| | +| ____________ | +| | +| Anniversary Dinner | +| In Honor of the Birth Of | +| | +| THE HUMANITARIAN MESSIAH | +| | +| April 15, 184- | +| | +| _______ | +| | +| Admit One | +| N.B.--Only half a bottle of wine per head | ++------------------------------------------------------+ + +"I do not share the opinions of the disciples of this Messiah," said +Rodolphe to himself, "but I will willingly share their repast." And with +the swiftness of a bird he covered the distance separating him from the +Barriere de la Villette. + +When he reached the halls of the Grand Vainqueur, the crowd was +enormous. The dining room, seating three hundred, was thronged with +five hundred people. A vast horizon of veal and carrots spread itself +before the eyes of Rodolphe. + +At length they began to serve the soup. + +As the guests were carrying their spoons to their lips, five or six +people in plain clothes, and several police officers in uniform, pushed +into the room, with a commissary of police at their head. + +"Gentlemen," said the commissary, "by order of the authorities, this +dinner cannot take place. I call upon you to withdraw." + +"Oh!" said Rodolphe, retiring with everyone else. "Oh! what a fatality +has spoiled my dinner." + +He sadly resumed the road to his dwelling, and reached it at about +eleven at night. + +Monsieur Benoit was awaiting him. + +"Ah! it is you," said the landlord. "Have you thought of what I told you +this morning? Have you brought me any money?" + +"I am to receive some tonight. I will give you some of it tomorrow +morning," replied Rodolphe, looking for his key and his candlestick in +their accustomed place. He did not find them. + +"Monsieur Rodolphe," said the landlord, "I am very sorry, but I have let +your room, and I have no other vacant now--you must go somewhere else." + +Rodolphe had a lofty soul, and a night in the open air did not alarm +him. Besides, in the event of bad weather, he could sleep in a box at +the Odeon Theater, as he had already done before. Only he claimed "his +property" from Monsieur Benoit, the said property consisting of a +bundle of papers. + +"That is so," said the landlord. "I have no right to detain those +things. They are in the bureau. Come up with me; if the person who has +taken your room has not gone to bed, we can go in." + +The room had been let during the day to a girl named Mimi, with whom +Rodolphe had formerly begun a love duet. They recognized one another at +once. Rodolphe began to whisper to Mimi and tenderly squeezed her hand. + +"See how it rains," said he, calling attention to the noise of the storm +that had just broken overhead. + +"Sir," said she, pointing to Rodolphe, "this is the gentleman I was +expecting this evening." + +"Oh!" said Monsieur Benoit, grinning on the wrong end of his face. + +Whilst Mademoiselle Mimi was hurriedly getting ready an improvised +supper, midnight struck. + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, "the 15th of April is over. I have at +length weathered my Cape of Storms. My dear Mimi," said the young man, +taking the pretty girl in his arms and kissing her on the back of the +neck, "it would have been impossible for you to have allowed me to be +turned out of doors. You have the bump of hospitality." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A BOHEMIAN CAFE + + +You shall hear how it came to pass that Carolus Barbemuche, platonist +and literary man generally, became a member of the Bohemian Club, in the +twenty-fourth year of his age. + +At that time, Gustave Colline, the great philosopher, Marcel, the great +painter, Schaunard, the great musician, and Rodolphe, the great poet (as +they called one another), regularly frequented the Momus Cafe, where +they were surnamed "the Four Musqueteers," because they were always seen +together. In fact, they came together, went away together, played +together, and sometimes didn't pay their shot together, with a unison +worthy of the best orchestra. + +They chose to meet in a room where forty people might have been +accommodated, but they were usually there alone, inasmuch as they had +rendered the place uninhabitable by its ordinary frequenters. The chance +customer who risked himself in this den, became, from the moment of his +entrance, the victim of the terrible four; and, in most cases, made his +escape without finishing his newspaper and cup of coffee, seasoned as +they were by unheard-of maxims on art, sentiment, and political economy. +The conversation of the four comrades was of such a nature that the +waiter who served them had become an idiot in the prime of his life. + +At length things reached such a point that the landlord lost all +patience and came up one night to make a formal statement of his griefs: + +"Firstly. Monsieur Rodolphe comes early in the morning to breakfast, and +carries off to his room all the papers of the establishment, going so +far as to complain if he finds that they have been opened. Consequently, +the other customers, cut off from the usual channels of public opinion +and intelligence, remain until dinner in utter ignorance of political +affairs. The Bosquet party hardly knows the names of the last cabinet." + +"Monsieur Rodolphe has even obliged the cafe to subscribe to 'The +Beaver,' of which he is chief editor. The master of the establishment at +first refused; but as Monsieur Rodolphe and his party kept calling the +waiter every half hour, and crying, 'The Beaver! bring us 'The Beaver' +some other customers, whose curiosity was excited by these obstinate +demands, also asked for 'The Beaver.' So 'The Beaver' was subscribed +to--a hatter's journal, which appeared every month, ornamented with a +vignette and an article on 'The Philosophy of Hats and other things in +general,' by Gustave Colline." + +"Secondly. The aforesaid Monsieur Colline, and his friend Monsieur +Rodolphe, repose themselves from their intellectual labors by playing +backgammon from ten in the morning till midnight and as the +establishment possess but one backgammon board, they monopolize that, to +the detriment of the other amateurs of the game; and when asked for the +board, they only answer, 'Some one is reading it, call tomorrow.' Thus +the Bosquet party find themselves reduced to playing piquet, or talking +about their old love affairs." + +"Thirdly. Monsieur Marcel, forgetting that a cafe is a public place, +brings thither his easel, box of colors, and, in short, all the +instruments of his art. He even disregards the usages of society as far +as to send for models of different sexes; which might shock the morals +of the Bosquet party." + +"Fourthly. Following the example of his friend, Monsieur Schaunard talks +of bringing his piano to the cafe and he has not scrupled to get up a +chorus on a motive from his symphony, 'The Influence of Blue in Art.' +Monsieur Schaunard has gone farther: he has inserted in the lantern +which serves the establishment for sign, a transparency with this +inscription: + + 'COURSE OF MUSIC, VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL, + FOR BOTH SEXES, + GRATIS. + APPLY AT THE COUNTER.' + +In consequence of this, the counter aforesaid is besieged every night by +a number of badly dressed individuals, wanting to know where you go in." + +"Moreover, Monsieur Schaunard gives meetings to a lady calling herself +Mademoiselle Phemie, who always forgets to bring her bonnet. Wherefore, +Monsieur Bosquet, Jr., has declared that he will never more put foot in +an establishment where the laws of nature are thus outraged." + +"Fifthly. Not content with being very poor customers, these gentlemen +have tried to be still more economical. Under pretence of having caught +the mocha of the establishment in improper intercourse with chicory, +they have brought a lamp with spirits-of-wine, and make their own +coffee, sweetening it with their own sugar; all of which is an insult to +the establishment." + +"Sixthly. Corrupted by the discourse of these gentlemen, the waiter +Bergami (so called from his whiskers), forgetting his humble origin and +defying all control, has dared to address to the mistress of the house +a piece of poetry suggestive of the most improper sentiments; by the +irregularity of its style, this letter is recognized as a direct +emanation from the pernicious influence of Monsieur Rodolphe and his +literature." + +"Consequently, in spite of the regret which he feels, the proprietor of +the establishment finds himself obliged to request the Colline party to +choose some other place for their revolutionary meetings." + +Gustave Colline, who was the Cicero of the set, took the floor and +demonstrated to the landlord that his complaints were frivolous and +unfounded; that they did him great honor in making his establishment a +home of intellect; that their departure and that of their friends would +be the ruin of his house, which their presence elevated to the rank of a +literary and artistic club. + +"But," objected the other, "you and those who come to see you call for +so little." + +"This temperance to which you object," replied Colline, "is an argument +in favor of our morals. Moreover, it depends on yourself whether we +spend more or not. You have only to open an account with us." + +The landlord pretended not to hear this, and demanded some explanation +of the incendiary letter addressed by Bergami to his wife. Rodolphe, +accused of acting as secretary to the waiter, strenuously asserted his +innocence-- + +"For," said he, "the lady's virtue was a sure barrier--" + +The landlord would not repress a smile of pride. Finally, Colline +entangled him completely in the folds of his insidious oratory, and +everything was arranged, on the conditions that the party should cease +making their own coffee, that the establishment should receive "The +Beaver" gratis, that Phemie should come in a bonnet, that the backgammon +board should be given up to the Bosquets every Sunday from twelve to +two, and above all, that no one should ask for tick. + +On this basis everything went well for some time. + +It was Christmas Eve. The four friends came to the cafe accompanied by +their friends of the other sex. There was Marcel's Musette, Rodolphe's +new flame, Mimi, a lovely creature, with a voice like a pair of cymbals, +and Schaunard's idol, Phemie Teinturiere. That night, Phemie, according +to agreement, had her bonnet on. As to Madame Colline that should have +been, no one ever saw her; she was always at home, occupied in +punctuating her husband's manuscripts. After the coffee, which was on +this great occasion escorted by a regiment of small glasses of brandy, +they called for punch. The waiter was so little accustomed to the order, +that they had to repeat it twice. Phemie, who had never been to such a +place before, seemed in a state of ecstacy at drinking out of glasses +with feet. Marcel was quarreling with Musette about a new bonnet which +he had not given her. Mimi and Rodolphe, who were in their honeymoon, +carried on a silent conversation, alternated with suspicious noises. As +to Colline, he went about from one to the other, distributing among them +all the polite and ornamental phrases which he had picked up in the +"Muses' Almanac." + +While this joyous company was thus abandoning itself to sport and +laughter, a stranger at the bottom of the room, who occupied a table by +himself, was observing with extraordinary attention the animated scene +before him. For a fortnight or thereabout, he had come thus every night, +being the only customer who could stand the terrible row which the club +made. The boldest pleasantries had failed to move him; he would remain +all the evening, smoking his pipe with mathematical regularity, his eyes +fixed as if watching a treasure, and his ears open to all what was said +around him. As to his other qualities, he seemed quiet and well off, for +he possessed a watch with a gold chain; and one day, Marcel, meeting +him at the bar, caught him in the act of changing a louis to pay his +score. From that moment, the four friends designated him by the name of +"The Capitalist." + +Suddenly Schaunard, who had very good eyes, remarked that the glasses +were empty. + +"Yes," exclaimed Rodolphe, "and this is Christmas Eve! We are good +Christians, and ought to have something extra." + +"Yes, indeed," added Marcel, "let's call for something supernatural." + +"Colline," continued Rodolphe, "ring a little for the waiter." + +Colline rang like one possessed. + +"What shall we have?" asked Marcel. + +Colline made a low bow and pointed to the women. + +"It is the business of these ladies to regulate the nature and order of +our refreshment." + +"I," said Musette, smacking her lips, "should not be afraid of +Champagne." + +"Are you crazy?" exclaimed Marcel. "Champagne! That isn't wine to begin +with." + +"So much the worse; I like it, it makes a noise." + +"I," said Mimi, with a coaxing look at Rodolphe, "would like some +Beaune, in a little basket." + +"Have you lost your senses?" said Rodolphe. + +"No, but I want to lose them," replied Mimi. The poet was thunderstruck. + +"I," said Phemie, dancing herself on the elastic sofa, "would rather +have parfait amour; it's good for the stomach." + +Schaunard articulated, in a nasal tone, some words which made Phemie +tremble on her spring foundation. + +"Bah!" said Marcel, recovering himself the first. "Let us spend a +hundred francs for this once!" + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "they complain of our not being good customers. +Let's astonish them!" + +"Ay," said Colline, "let us give ourselves up to the delights of a +splendid banquet! Do we not owe passive obedience to these ladies? Love +lies on devotion; wine is the essence of pleasure, pleasure the duty of +youth; women are flowers and must be moistened. Moisten away! Waiter, +waiter!" and Colline hung upon the bell rope with feverish excitement. + +Swift as the wind, the waiter came. When he heard talk of Champagne, +Burgundy, and various liqueurs, his physiognomy ran through a whole +gamut of astonishment. But there was more to come. + +"I have a hole in my inside," said Mimi. "I should like some ham." + +"And I some sardines, and bread and butter," struck in Musette. + +"And I, radishes," quoth Phemie, "and a little meat with them." + +"We should have no objection," answered they. + +"Waiter!" quoth Colline, gravely, "bring us all that is requisite for a +good supper." + +The waiter turned all the colors of the rainbow. He descended slowly to +the bar, and informed his master of the extraordinary orders he had +received. + +The landlord took it for a joke; but on a new summons from the bell, he +ascended himself and addressed Colline, for whom he had a certain +respect. Colline explained to him that they wished to see Christmas in +at his house, and that he would oblige them by serving what they had +asked for. Momus made no answer, but backed out, twisting his napkin. +For a quarter of an hour he held a consultation with his wife, who, +thanks to her liberal education at the St. Denis Convent, fortunately +had a weakness for arts and letters, and advised him to serve the +supper. + +"To be sure," said the landlord, "they may have money for once, by +chance." + +So he told the waiter to take up whatever they asked for, and then +plunged into a game of piquet with an old customer. Fatal imprudence! + +From ten to twelve the waiter did nothing but run up and downstairs. +Every moment he was asked for something more. Musette would eat English +fashion, and change her fork at every mouthful. Mimi drank all sorts of +wine, in all sorts of glasses. Schaunard had a quenchless Sahara in his +throat. Colline played a crossfire with his eyes, and while munching his +napkin, as his habit was, kept pinching the leg of the table, which he +took for Phemie's knee. Marcel and Rodolphe maintained the stirrups of +self-possession, expecting the catastrophe, not without anxiety. + +The stranger regarded the scene with grave curiosity; from time to time +he opened his mouth as if for a smile; then you might have heard a +noise like that of a window which creaks in shutting. It was the +stranger laughing to himself. + +At a quarter before twelve the bill was sent up. It amounted to the +enormous sum of twenty five francs and three-quarters. + +"Come," said Marcel, "we will draw lots for who shall go and diplomatize +with our host. It is getting serious." They took a set of dominoes; the +highest was to go. + +Unluckily, the lot fell upon Schaunard, who was an excellent virtuoso, +but a very bad ambassador. He arrived, too, at the bar just as the +landlord had lost his third game. Momus was in a fearful bad humor, and, +at Schaunard's first words, broke out into a violent rage. Schaunard was +a good musician, but he had an indifferent temper, and he replied by a +double discharge of slang. The dispute grew more and more bitter, till +the landlord went upstairs, swearing that he would be paid, and that no +one should stir until he was. Colline endeavored to interpose his +pacifying oratory; but, on perceiving a napkin which Colline had made +lint of, the host's anger redoubled; and to indemnify himself, he +actually dared to lay profane hands on the philosopher's hazel overcoat +and the ladies' shawls. + +A volley of abuse was interchanged by the Bohemians and the irate +landlord. + +The women talked to one another of their dresses and their conquests. + +At this point the stranger abandoned his impassible attitude; gradually +he rose, made a step forward, then another, and walked as an ordinary +man might do; he approached the landlord, took him aside, and spoke to +him in a low tone. Rodolphe and Marcel followed him with their eyes. At +length, the host went out, saying to the stranger: + +"Certainly, I consent, Monsieur Barbemuche, certainly; arrange it with +them yourself." + +Monsieur Barbemuche returned to his table to take his hat; put it on, +turned around to the right, and in three steps came close to Rodolphe +and Marcel. He took off his hat, bowed to the men, waved a salute to the +women, pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and began in a feeble +voice: + +"Gentlemen, excuse the liberty I am about to take. For a long time, I +have been burning with desire to make your acquaintance, but have never, +till now, found a favorable opportunity. Will you allow me to seize the +present one?" + +"Certainly, certainly," said Colline. Rodolphe and Marcel bowed, and +said nothing. The excessive delicacy of Schaunard came nigh spoiling +everything. + +"Excuse me, sir," said he briskly, "but you have not the honor of +knowing us, and the usages of society forbid--would you be so good as to +give me a pipeful of tobacco? In other respects I am of my friends' +opinion." + +"Gentlemen," continued Barbemuche. "I am a disciple of the fine arts, +like yourselves. So far as I have been able to judge from what I have +heard of your conversation, our tastes are the same. I have a most eager +desire to be a friend of yours, and to be able to find you here every +night. The landlord is a brute: but I said a word to him, and you are +quite free to go. I trust you will not refuse me the opportunity of +finding you here again, by accepting this slight service." + +A blush of indignation mounted to Schaunard's face. "He is speculating +on our condition," said he. "We cannot accept. He has paid our bill. I +will play him at billiards for the twenty five francs and give him +points." + +Barbemuche accepted his proposition, and had the good sense to lose. +This gained him the esteem of the party. They broke up with the +understanding that they were to meet next day. + +"Now," said Schaunard, "our dignity is saved. We owe him nothing." + +"We can almost ask him for another supper," said Colline. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A BOHEMIAN "AT HOME" + + +The night when he paid out of his own purse for the supper consumed at +the cafe, Barbemuche managed to make Colline accompany him. Since his +first presence at the meetings of the four friends whom he had relieved +from their embarrassing position, Carolus had especially remarked +Gustave, and already felt an attractive sympathy for this Socrates +whose Plato he was destined to become. It was for this reason he had +chosen him to be his introducer. On the way, Barbemuche proposed that +they should enter a cafe which was still open, and take something to +drink. Not only did Colline refuse, but he doubled his speed in passing +the cafe, and carefully pulled down his hyperphysic hat over his face. + +"But why won't you come in?" politely asked the other. + +"I have my reasons," replied Colline. "There is a barmaid in that +establishment who is very much addicted to the exact sciences, and I +could not help having a long discussion with her, to avoid which I +never pass through this street at noon, or any other time of day. To +tell you the truth," added he innocently, "I once lived with Marcel in +this neighborhood." + +"Still I should be very glad to offer you a glass of punch, and have a +few minutes' talk with you. Is there no other place in the vicinity +where you could step in without being hindered by any mathematical +difficulties?" asked Barbemuche, who thought it a good opportunity for +saying something very clever. + +Colline mused an instant. "There is a little place here," he said, +pointing to a wine shop, "where I stand on a better footing." + +Barbemuche made a face, and seemed to hesitate. "Is it a respectable +place?" he demanded. + +His cold and reserved attitude, his limited conversation, his discreet +smile, and especially his watch chain with charms on it, all led Colline +to suppose that Barbemuche was a clerk in some embassy, and that he +feared to compromise himself by going into some wine shop. + +"There is no danger of anyone seeing us," said he. "All the diplomatic +body is in bed by this time." + +Barbemuche made up his mind to go in, though at the bottom of his heart +he would have given a good deal for a false nose. For greater security, +he insisted on having a private room, and took care to fasten a napkin +before the glass door of it. These precautions taken, he appeared more +at ease, and called for a bowl of punch. Excited a little by the +generous beverage, Barbemuche became more communicative, and, after +giving some autobiographical details, made bold to express the hope he +had conceived of being personally admitted a member of the Bohemian +Club, for the accomplishment of which ambitious design he solicited the +aid of Colline. + +Colline replied that, for his part, he was entirely at the service of +Barbemuche, but, nevertheless, he could make no positive promise. "I +assure you of my vote," said he. "But I cannot take it upon me to +dispose of those of my comrades." + +"But," asked Barbemuche, "for what reasons could they refuse to admit me +among them?" + +Colline put down the glass which he was just lifting to his mouth, and, +in a very serious tone, addressed the rash Carolus, saying, "You +cultivate the fine arts?" + +"I labor humble in those noble fields of intelligence," replied the +other, who felt bound to hang out the colors of his style. + +Colline found the phrase well turned, and bowed in acknowledgment. + +"You understand music?" he continued. + +"I have played on the bass-viol." + +"A very philosophical instrument. Then, if you understand music, you +also understand that one cannot, without violation of the laws of +harmony, introduce a fifth performer into a quartet; it would cease to +be a quartet." + +"Exactly, and become a quintet." + +"A quintet, very well, now attend to me. You understand astronomy?" + +"A little, I'm a bachelor of arts." + +"There is a little song about that," said Colline. "'Dear bachelor, says +Lisette'--I have forgotten the tune. Well then, you know that there are +four cardinal points. Now suppose there were to turn up a fifth cardinal +point, all the harmony of nature would be upset. What they call a +cataclysm--you understand?" + +"I am waiting for the conclusion," said Carolus, whose intelligence +began to be a little shaky. + +"The conclusion--yes, that is the end of the argument, as death is the +end of life, and marriage of love. Well, my dear sir, I and my friends +are accustomed to live together, and we fear to impair, by the +introduction of another person, the harmony which reigns in our habits, +opinions, tastes, and dispositions. To speak frankly, we are going to +be, some day, the four cardinal points of contemporary art; accustomed +to this idea, it would annoy us to see a fifth point." + +"Nevertheless," suggested Carolus, "where you are four it is easy to be +five." + +"Yes, but then we cease to be four." + +"The objection is a trivial one." + +"There is nothing trivial in this world; little brooks make great +rivers; little syllables make big verses; the very mountains are made of +grains of sand--so says 'The Wisdom of Nations,' of which there is a +copy on the quay--tell me, my dear sir, which is the furrow that you +usually follow in the noble fields of intelligence?" + +"The great philosophers and the classic authors are my models. I live +upon their study. 'Telemachus' first inspired the consuming passion I +feel." + +"'Telemachus'--there are lots of him on the quay," said Colline. "You +can find him there at any time. I have bought him for five sous--a +second-hand copy--I would consent to part with it to oblige you. In +other respects, it is a great work; very well got up, considering the +age." + +"Yes, sir," said Carolus. "I aspire to high philosophy and sound +literature. According to my idea, art is a priesthood--." + +"Yes, yes," said Colline. "There's a song about that too," and he began +to hum.... + + "Art's a priesthood, art's a priesthood," + +to the air of the drinking song in "Robert the Devil." + +"I say, then, that art being a solemn mission, writers ought, above all +things--" + +"Excuse me," said Colline, who heard one of the small hours striking, +"but it's getting to be tomorrow morning very fast." + +"It is late, in fact," said Carolus. "Let us go." + +"Do you live far off?" + +"Rue Royale St. Honore, No. 10." + +Colline had once had occasion to visit this house, and remembered that +it was a splendid private mansion. + +"I will mention you to my friends," said he to Carolus on parting, "and +you may be sure that I shall use all my influence to make them favorably +disposed to you. Ah, let me give you one piece of advice." + +"Go on," said the other. + +"Be very amiable and polite to Mademoiselles Mimi, Musette and Phemie; +these ladies exercise an authority over my friends, and by managing to +bring their mistresses' influence to bear upon them you will contrive +far more easily to obtain what you require from Marcel, Schaunard and +Rodolphe." + +"I'll try," said Carolus. + +Next day, Colline tumbled in upon the Bohemian association. It was the +hour of breakfast, and for a wonder, breakfast had come with the hour. +The three couples were at table, feasting on artichokes and pepper +sauce. + +"The deuce!" exclaimed the philosopher. "This can't last, or the world +would come to an end. I arrive," he continued, "as the ambassador of the +generous mortal whom we met last night." + +"Can he be sending already to ask for his money again?" said Marcel. + +"It has nothing to do with that," replied Colline. "This young man +wishes to be one of us; to have stock in our society, and share the +profits, of course." + +The three men raised their heads and looked at one another. + +"That's all," concluded Colline. "Now the question is open." + +"What is the social position of your principal?" asked Rodolphe. + +"He is no principal of mine," answered the other. "Last night he begged +me to accompany him, and overflowed me with attentions and good liquor +for a while. But I have retained my independence." + +"Good," said Schaunard. + +"Sketch us some leading features of his character," said Marcel. + +"Grandeur of soul, austerity of manners, afraid to go into wine shops, +bachelor of arts, candid as a transparency, plays on the bass-viol, is +disposed to change a five franc piece occasionally." + +"Good again!" said Schaunard. + +"What are his hopes?" + +"As I told you already, his ambition knows no bounds; he aspires to be +'hail-fellow-well-met' with us." + +"That is to say," answered Marcel, "he wishes to speculate upon us, and +to be seen riding in our carriages." + +"What is his profession?" asked Rodolphe. + +"Yes," said Marcel, "what does he play on?" + +"Literature and mixed philosophy. He calls art a priesthood." + +"A priesthood!" cried Rodolphe, in terror. + +"So he says." + +"And what is his road in literature?" + +"He goes after 'Telemachus'." + +"Very good," said Schaunard, eating the seed of his artichoke. + +"Very good! You dummy!" broke our Marcel. "I advise you not to say that +in the street." + +Schaunard relieved his annoyance at this reproof by kicking Phemie under +the table for taking some of his sauce. + +"Once more," said Rodolphe. "What is his condition in the world? What +does he live on, and where does he live? And what is his name?" + +"His station is honorable. He is professor of everything in a rich +family. His name is Carolus Barbemuche. He spends his income in +luxurious living and dwells in the Rue Royale." + +"Furnished lodging?" + +"No, there is real furniture." + +"I claim the floor," said Marcel. "To me it is evident that Colline has +been corrupted. He has already sold his vote for so many drinks. Don't +interrupt me! (Colline was rising to protest.) You shall have your +turn. Colline, mercenary soul that he is, has presented to you this +stranger under an aspect too favorable to be true. I told you before; I +see through this person's designs. He wants to speculate on us. He says +to himself, 'Here are some chaps making their way. I must get into their +pockets. I shall arrive with them at the goal of fame.'" + +"Bravo!" quoth Schaunard, "have you any more sauce there?" + +"No," replied Rodolphe, "the edition is out of print." + +"Looking at the question from another point of view," continued Marcel, +"this insidious mortal whom Colline patronizes, perhaps aspires to our +intimacy only from the most culpable motives. Gentlemen, we are not +alone here!" continued the orator, with an eloquent look at the women. +"And Colline's client, smuggling himself into our circle under the cloak +of literature, may perchance be but a vile seducer. Reflect! For one, I +vote against his reception." + +"I demand the floor," said Rodolphe, "only for a correction. In his +remarkable extemporary speech, Marcel has said that this Carolus, with +the view of dishonoring us, wished to introduce himself under the cloak +of literature." + +"A Parliamentary figure." + +"A very bad figure; literature has no cloak!" + +"Having made a report, as chairman of committee," resumed Colline, +rising, "I maintain the conclusions therein embodied. The jealousy which +consumes him disturbs the reason of our friend Marcel; the great artist +is beside himself." + +"Order!" cried Marcel. + +"So much so, that, able designer as he is, he has just introduced into +his speech a figure the incorrectness of which has been ably pointed out +by the talented orator who preceded me." + +"Colline is an ass!" shouted Marcel, with a bang of his fist on the +table that caused a lively sensation among the plates. "Colline knows +nothing in an affair of sentiment; he is incompetent to judge of such +matters; he has an old book in place of a heart." + +Prolonged laughter from Schaunard. During the row, Colline kept gravely +adjusting the folds of his white cravat as if to make way for the +torrents of eloquence contained beneath them. When silence was +reestablished, he thus continued: + +"Gentlemen, I intend with one word to banish from your minds the +chimerical apprehensions which the suspicions of Marcel may have +engendered in them respecting Carolus." + +"Oh, yes!" said Marcel ironically. + +"It will be as easy as that," continued Colline, blowing the match with +which he had lighted his pipe. + +"Go on! Go on!" cried Schaunard, Rodolphe, and the women together. + +"Gentlemen! Although I have been personally and violently attacked in +this meeting, although I have been accused of selling for base liquors +the influence which I possess; secure in a good conscience I shall not +deign to reply to those assaults on my probity, my loyalty, my morality. +[Sensation.] But there is one thing which I will have respected. [Here +the orator, endeavoring to lay his hand on his heart, gave himself a rap +in the stomach.] My well tried and well known prudence has been called +in question. I have been accused of wishing to introduce among you a +person whose intentions were hostile to your happiness--in matters of +sentiment. This supposition is an insult to the virtue of these +ladies--nay more, an insult to their good taste. Carolus Barbemuche is +decidedly ugly." [Visible denial on the face of Phemie; noise under the +table; it is Schaunard kicking her by way of correcting her compromising +frankness.] + +"But," proceeded Colline, "what will reduce to powder the contemptible +argument with which my opponent has armed himself against Carolus by +taking advantage of your terrors, is the fact that the said Carolus is a +Platonist." [Sensation among the men; uproar among the women.] + +This declaration of Colline's produced a reaction in favor of Carolus. +The philosopher wished to improve the effect of his eloquent and adroit +defense. + +"Now then," he continued, "I do not see what well founded prejudices can +exist against this young man, who, after all, has rendered us a service. +As to myself, who am accused of acting thoughtlessly in wishing to +introduce him among us, I consider this opinion an insult to my dignity. +I have acted in the affair with the wisdom of the serpent; if a formal +vote does not maintain me this character for prudence, I offer my +resignation." + +"Do you make it a cabinet question?" asked Marcel. + +"I do." + +The three consulted, and agreed by common consent to restore to the +philosopher that high reputation for prudence which he claimed. Colline +then gave the floor to Marcel, who, somewhat relieved of his prejudices, +declared that he might perhaps favor the adoption of the report. But +before the decisive and final vote which should open to Carolus the +intimacy of the club, he put to the meeting this amendment: + + "WHEREAS, the introduction of a new member into our society is a + grave matter, and a stranger might bring with him some elements of + discord through ignorance of the habits, tempers, and opinions of + his comrades, + + RESOLVED, that each member shall pass a say with the said Carolus, + and investigate his manner of life, tastes, literary capacity, and + wardrobe. The members shall afterward communicate their several + impressions, and ballot on his admission accordingly. Moreover, + before complete admission, the said Carolus shall undergo a + noviciate of one month, during which time he shall not have the + right to call us by our first names or take our arm in the street. + On the day of reception, a splendid banquet shall be given at the + expense of the new member, at a cost of not less than twelve + francs." + +This amendment was adopted by three votes against one. The same night +Colline went to the cafe early on purpose to be the first to see +Carolus. He had not long to wait for him. Barbemuche soon appeared, +carrying in his hand three huge bouquets of roses. + +"Hullo!" cried the astonished Colline. "What do you mean to do with that +garden?" + +"I remember what you told me yesterday. Your friends will doubtless +come with their ladies, and it is on their account that I bring these +flowers--very handsome ones." + +"That they are; they must have cost fifteen sous, at least." + +"In the month of December! If you said fifteen francs you would have +come nearer." + +"Heavens!" cried Colline, "three crowns for these simple gifts of flora! +You must be related to the Cordilleras. Well my dear sir, that is +fifteen francs which we must throw out of the window." + +It was Barbemuche's turn to be astonished. Colline related the jealous +suspicions with which Marcel had inspired his friends, and informed +Carolus of the violent discussion which had taken place between them +that morning on the subject of his admission. + +"I protested," said Colline, "that your intentions were the purest, but +there was strong opposition nevertheless. Beware of renewing these +suspicions by much politeness to the ladies; and to begin, let us put +these bouquets out of the way." He took the roses and hid them in a +cupboard. "But this is not all," he resumed. "Before connecting +themselves intimately with you, these gentlemen desire to make a +private examination, each for himself, of your character, tastes, etc." + +Then, lest Barbemuche might do something to shock his friends, Colline +rapidly sketched a moral portrait of each of them. "Contrive to agree +with them separately," added the philosopher, "and they will end by all +liking you." + +Carolus agreed to everything. The three friends soon arrived with their +friends of the other sex. Rodolphe was polite to Carolus, Schaunard +familiar with him, while Marcel remained cold. Carolus forced himself to +be gay and amiable with the men and indifferent to the women. When they +broke up for the night, he asked Rodolphe to dine with him the next day, +and to come as early as noon. The poet accepted, saying to himself, +"Good! I am to begin the inquiry, then." + +Next morning at the hour appointed, he called on Carolus, who did indeed +live in a very handsome private house, where he occupied a sufficiently +comfortable room. But Rodolphe was surprised to find at that time of day +the shutters closed, the curtains drawn, and two lighted candles on the +table. He asked Barbemuche the reason. + +"Study," replied the other, "is the child of mystery and silence." + +They sat down and talked. At the end of an hour, Carolus, with infinite +oratorial address, brought in a phrase which, despite its humble form, +was neither more nor less than a summons made to Rodolphe to hear a +little work, the fruit of Barbemuche's vigils. + +The poet saw himself caught. Curious, however, to learn the color of the +other's style, he bowed politely, assured him that he was enchanted, +that Carolus did not wait for him to finish the sentence. He ran to bolt +the door, and then took up a small memorandum book, the thinness of +which brought a smile of satisfaction to the poet's face. + +"Is that the manuscript of your work?" he asked. + +"No," replied Carolus. "It is the catalog of my manuscripts and I am +looking for the one which you will allow me to read you. Here it is: +'Don Lopez or Fatality No. 14.' It's on the third shelf," and he +proceeded to open a small closet in which Rodolphe perceived, with +terror, a great quantity of manuscripts. Carolus took out one of these, +shut the closet, and seated himself in front of the poet. + +Rodolphe cast a glance at one of the four piles of elephant paper of +which the work was composed. "Come," said he to himself, "it's not in +verse, but it's called 'Don Lopez.'" + +Carolus began to read: + +"On a cold winter night, two cavaliers, enveloped in large cloaks, and +mounted on sluggish mules, were making their way side by side over one +of the roads which traverse the frightful solitudes of the Sierra +Morena." + +"May the Lord have mercy on me!" ejaculated Rodolphe mentally. + +Carolus continued to read his first chapter, written in the style above +throughout. Rodolphe listened vaguely, and tried to devise some means of +escape. + +"There is the window, but it's fastened; and beside, we are in the +fourth story. Ah, now I understand all these precautions." + +"What do you think of my first chapter?" asked Carolus. "Do not spare +any criticism, I beg of you." + +Rodolphe thought he remembered having heard some scraps of philosophical +declamation upon suicide, put forth by the hero of the romance, Don +Lopez, to wit; so he replied at hazard: + +"The grand figure of Don Lopez is conscientiously studied; it reminds me +of 'Savoyard Vicar's Confession of Faith;' the description of Don +Alvar's mule pleases me exceedingly; it is like a sketch of Gericault's. +There are good lines in the landscape; as to the thoughts, they are +seeds of Rousseau planted in the soil of Lesage. Only allow me to make +one observation: you use too many stops, and you work the word +henceforward too hard. It is a good word, and gives color, but should +not be abused." + +Carolus took up a second pile of paper, and repeated the title "Don +Lopez or, Fatality." + +"I knew a Don Lopez once," said Rodolphe. "He used to sell cigarettes +and Bayonne chocolate. Perhaps he was a relative of your man. Go on." + +At the conclusion of the second chapter, the poet interrupted his host: + +"Don't you feel your throat a little dry?" he inquired. + +"Not at all," replied Carolus. "We are coming to the history of +Inesilla." + +"I am very curious to hear it, nevertheless, if you are tired--" + +"Chapter third!" enunciated Carolus in a voice that gave no signs of +fatigue. + +Rodolphe took a careful survey of Barbemuche and perceived that he had a +short neck and a ruddy complexion. "I have one hope left," thought the +poet on making this discovery. "He may have an attack of apoplexy." + +"Will you be so good as to tell me what you think of the love scene?" + +Carolus looked at Rodolphe to observe in his face what effect the +dialogue produced upon him. The poet was bending forward on his chair, +with his neck stretched out in the attitude of one who is listening for +some distant sound. + +"What's the matter with you?" + +"Hist!" said Rodolphe, "don't you hear? I thought somebody cried fire! +Suppose we go and see." + +Carolus listened an instant but heard nothing. + +"It must have been a ringing in my ears," said the other. "Go on, Don +Alvar interests me exceedingly; he is a noble youth." + +Carolus continued with all the music that he could put into his voice: + +"Oh Inesilla! Whatever thou art, angel or demon; and whatever be thy +country, my life is thine, and thee will follow, be it to heaven or +hell!" + +Someone knocked at the door. + +"It's my porter," said Barbemuche, half opening the door. + +It was indeed the porter with a letter. "What an unlucky chance!" cried +Carolus, after he had perused it. "We must put off our reading until some +other time. I have to go out immediately. If you please, we will execute +this little commission together, as it is nothing private, and then we +can come back to dinner." + +"There," thought Rodolphe, "is a letter that has fallen from heaven. I +recognize the seal of Providence." + +When he rejoined the comrades that night, the poet was interrogated by +Marcel and Schaunard. + +"Did he treat you well?" they asked. + +"Yes, but I paid dear for it." + +"How? Did Carolus make you pay?" demanded Schaunard with rising choler. + +"He read a novel at me, inside of which the people are named Don Lopez +and Don Alvar; and the tenors call their mistresses 'angel,' or +'demon.'" + +"How shocking!" cried the Bohemians, in chorus. + +"But otherwise," said Colline, "literature apart, what is your opinion +of him?" + +"A very nice young man. You can judge for yourselves; Carolus means to +treat us all in turn; he invites Schaunard to breakfast with him +tomorrow. Only look out for the closet with the manuscripts in it." + +Schaunard was punctual and went to work with the minuteness of an +auctioneer taking an inventory, or a sheriff levying an execution. +Accordingly he came back full of notes; he had studied Carolus chiefly +in respect of movables and worldly goods. + +"This Barbemuche," he said, on being asked his opinion, "is a lump of +good qualities. He knows the names of all the wines that were ever +invented, and made me eat more nice things than my aunt ever did on her +birthday. He is on very good terms with the tailors in the Rue +Vivienne, and the bootmakers of the Passage des Panoramas; and I have +observed that he is nearly our size, so that, in case of need, we can +lend him our clothes. His habits are less austere than Colline chose to +represent them; he went wherever I pleased to take him, and gave me +breakfast in two acts, the second of which went off in a tavern by the +fish market where I am known for some Carnival orgies. Well, Carolus +went in there as any ordinary mortal might, and that's all. Marcel goes +tomorrow." + +Carolus knew that Marcel was the one who had made the most objections to +his reception. Accordingly, he treated him with particular attention, +and especially won his heart by holding out the hope of procuring him +some sitters in the family of his pupil. When it came to Marcel's turn +to make his report, there were no traces of his original hostility to +Carolus. + +On the fourth day, Colline informed Barbemuche that he was admitted, but +under conditions. "You have a number of vulgar habits," he said, "which +must be reformed." + +"I shall do my best to imitate you," said Carolus. + +During the whole time of his noviciate the Platonic philosopher kept +company with the Bohemians continually, and was thus enabled to study +their habits more thoroughly, not without being very much astonished at +times. One morning, Colline came to see him with a joyful face. + +"My dear fellow," he said, "it's all over; you are now definitely one of +us. It only remains to fix the day and the place of the grand +entertainment; I have come to talk with you about it." + +"That can be arranged with perfect ease," said Carolus. "The parents of +my pupil are out of town; the young viscount, whose mentor I am, will +lend us the apartments for an evening, only we must invite him to the +party." + +"That will be very nice," replied Colline. "We will open to him the +vistas of literature; but do you think he will consent?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"Then it only remains to fix the day." + +"We will settle that tonight at the cafe." + +Carolus then went to find his pupil and announced to him that he had +just been elected into a distinguished society of literary men and +artists, and that he was going to give a dinner, followed by a little +party, to celebrate his admission. He therefore proposed to him to make +him one of the guests. "And since you cannot be out late," added +Carolus, "and the entertainment may last some time, it will be for our +convenience to have it here. Your servant François knows how to hold his +tongue; your parents will know nothing of it; and you will have made +acquaintance with some of the cleverest people in Paris, artists and +authors." + +"In print?" asked the youth. + +"Certainly, one of them edits 'The Scarf of Iris,' which your mother +takes in. They are very distinguished persons, almost celebrities, +intimate friends of mine, and their wives are charming." + +"Will there be some women?" asked Viscount Paul. + +"Delightful ones," returned Carolus. + +"Oh, dear master, I thank you. The entertainment shall certainly take +place here. All the lustres shall be lit up, and I will have the +wrappers taken off the furniture." + +That night at the cafe, Barbemuche announced that the party would come +off next Saturday. The Bohemians told their mistresses to think about +their toilettes. + +"Do not forget," said they, "that we are going into the real drawing +rooms. Therefore, make ready; a rich but simple costume." + +And from that day all the neighborhood was informed that Mademoiselles +Phemie, Mimi, and Musette were going into society. + +On the morning of the festivity, Colline, Schaunard, Marcel, and +Rodolphe called, in a body, on Barbemuche, who looked astonished to see +them so early. + +"Has anything happened which will oblige us to put it off?" he asked +with some anxiety. + +"Yes--that is, no," said Colline. "This is how we are placed. Among +ourselves we never stand on ceremony, but when we are to meet strangers, +we wish to preserve a certain decorum." + +"Well?" said the other. + +"Well," continued Colline, "since we are to meet tonight, the young +gentleman to whom we are indebted for the rooms, out of respect to him +and to ourselves, we come simply to ask you if you cannot lend us some +becoming toggery. It is almost impossible, you see, for us to enter this +gorgeous roof in frock-coats and colored trousers." + +"But," said Carolus, "I have not black clothes for all of you." + +"We will make do with what you have," said Colline. + +"Suit yourselves then," said Carolus, opening a well-furnished wardrobe. + +"What an arsenal of elegancies!" said Marcel. + +"Three hats!" exclaimed Schaunard, in ecstasy. "Can a man want three +hats when he had but one head?" + +"And the boots!" said Rodolphe, "only look!" + +"What a number of boots!" howled Colline. + +In a twinkling of an eye each had selected a complete equipment. + +"Till this evening," said they, taking leave of Barbemuche. "The ladies +intend to be most dazzling." + +"But," said Barbemuche, casting a glance at the emptied wardrobe. "You +have left me nothing. What am I to wear?" + +"Ah, it's different with you," said Rodolphe. "You are the master of the +house; you need not stand upon etiquette." + +"But I have only my dressing gown and slippers, flannel waistcoat and +trousers with stocking feet. You have taken everything." + +"Never mind; we excuse you beforehand," replied the four. + +A very good dinner was served at six. The company arrived, Marcel +limping and out of humor. The young viscount rushed up to the ladies and +led them to the best seats. Mimi was dressed with fanciful elegance; +Musette got up with seductive taste; Phemie looked like a stained glass +window, and hardly dared sit down. + +The dinner lasted two hours and a half, and was delightfully lively. The +young viscount, who sat next to Mimi, kept treading on her foot. Phemie +took twice of every dish. Schaunard was in clover. Rodolphe improvised +sonnets and broke glasses in marking the rhyme. Colline talked to +Marcel, who remained sulky. + +"What is the matter with you?" asked the philosopher. + +"My feet are in torture; this Carolus has boots like a woman's." + +"He must be given to understand that, for the future, some of his shoes +are to be made a little larger. Be easy, I will see to it. But now to +the drawing room, where the coffee and liquers await us." + +The revelry recommenced with increased noise. Schaunard seated himself +at the piano and executed, with immense spirit, his new symphony, "The +Death of the Damsel." To this succeeded the characteristic piece of "The +Creditor's March," which was twice encored, and two chords of the piano +were broken. + +Marcel was still morose, and replied to the complaints and +expostulations of Carolus: + +"My dear sir, we shall never be intimate friends, and for this reason: +Physical differences are almost always the certain sign of a moral +difference; on this point philosophy and medicine agree." + +"Well?" said Carolus. + +"Well," continued Marcel, showing his feet, "your boots, infinitely too +small for me, indicate a radical difference of temper and character; in +other respects, your little party has been charming." + +At one in the morning the guests took leave, and zig-zagged homeward. +Barbemuche felt very ill, and made incoherent harangues to his pupil, +who, for his part, was dreaming of Mademoiselle Mimi's blue eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE HOUSE WARMING + + +This took place some time after the union of the poet Rodolphe and +Mademoiselle Mimi. For a week the whole of the Bohemian brotherhood +were grievously perturbed by the disappearance of Rodolphe, who had +suddenly become invisible. They had sought for him in all his customary +haunts, and had everywhere been met by the same reply-- + +"We have not seen him for a week." + +Gustave Colline above all was very uneasy, and for the following reason. +A few days previously he had handed to Rodolphe a highly philosophical +article, which the latter was to insert in the columns of "The Beaver," +the organ of the hat trade, of which he was editor. Had this +philosophical article burst upon the gaze of astonished Europe? Such +was the query put to himself by the astonished Colline, and this anxiety +will be understood when it is explained that the philosopher had never +yet had the honor of appearing in print, and that he was consumed by the +desire of seeing what effect would be produced by his prose in pica. To +procure himself this gratification he had already expended six francs in +visiting all the reading rooms of Paris without being able to find "The +Beaver" in any one of them. Not being able to stand it any longer, +Colline swore to himself that he would not take a moment's rest until he +had laid hands on the undiscoverable editor of this paper. + +Aided by chances which it would take too long to tell in detail, the +philosopher was able to keep his word. Within two days he learned +Rodolphe's abiding place and called on him there at six in the morning. + +Rodolphe was then residing in a lodging house in a deserted street +situated in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and was perched on the fifth +floor because there was not a sixth. When Colline came to his door there +was no key in the lock outside. He knocked for ten minutes without +obtaining any answer from within; the din he made at this early hour +attracted the attention of even the porter, who came to ask him to be +quiet. + +"You see very well that the gentleman is asleep," said he. + +"That is why I want to wake him up," replied Colline, knocking again. + +"He does not want to answer then," replied the porter, placing before +Rodolphe's door a pair of patent leather boots and a pair of lady's +boots that he had just cleaned. + +"Wait a bit though," observed Colline, examining the masculine and +feminine foot gear. "New patent leathers! I must have made a mistake; it +cannot be here." + +"Yes, by the way," said the porter, "whom do you want?" + +"A woman's boots!" continued Colline, speaking to himself, and thinking +of his friends austere manners, "Yes, certainly I must have made a +mistake. This is not Rodolphe's room." + +"I beg your pardon, sir, it is." + +"You must be making a mistake, my good man." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Decidedly you must be making a mistake," said Colline, pointing to the +patent leather boots. "What are those?" + +"Those are Monsieur Rodolphe's boots. What is there to be wondered at in +that?" + +"And these?" asked Colline, pointing to the lady's boots. "Are they +Monsieur Rodolphe's too?" + +"Those are his wife's," said the porter. + +"His wife's!" exclaimed Colline in a tone of stupefaction. "Ah! The +voluptuary, that is why he will not open the door." + +"Well," said the porter, "he is free to do as he likes about that, sir. +If you will leave me your name I will let him know you called." + +"No," said Colline. "Now that I know where to find him I will call +again." + +And he at once went off to tell the important news to his friends. + +Rodolphe's patent leathers were generally considered to be a fable due +to Colline's wealth of imagination, and it was unanimously declared that +his mistress was a paradox. + +This paradox was, however, a truism, for that very evening Marcel +received a letter collectively addressed to the whole of the set. It was +as follows:-- + +"Monsieur and Madame Rodolphe, literati, beg you to favor them with your +company at dinner tomorrow evening at five o'clock sharp." + +"N.B.--There will be plates." + +"Gentlemen," said Marcel, when communicating the letter to his comrades, +"the news is confirmed, Rodolphe has really a mistress; further he +invites us to dinner, and the postscript promises crockery. I will not +conceal from you that this last paragraph seems to me a lyrical +exaggeration, but we shall see." + +The following day at the hour named, Marcel, Gustave Colline, and +Alexander Schaunard, keen set as on the last day of Lent, went to +Rodolphe's, whom they found playing with a sandy haired cat, whilst a +young woman was laying the table. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, shaking his friends' hands and indicating +the young lady, "allow me to introduce you to the mistress of the +household." + +"You are the household, are you not?" said Colline, who had a mania for +this kind of joke. + +"Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "I present my best friends; now go and get the +soup ready." + +"Oh madame," said Alexander Schaunard, hastening towards Mimi, "you are +as fresh as a wild flower." + +After having satisfied himself that there were really plates on the +table, Schaunard asked what they were going to have to eat. He even +carried his curiosity so far as to lift up the covers of the stewpans in +which the dinner was cooking. The presence of a lobster produced a +lively impression upon him. + +As to Colline, he had drawn Rodolphe aside to ask about his +philosophical article. + +"My dear fellow, it is at the printer's. 'The Beaver' appears next +Thursday." + +We give up the task of depicting the philosopher's delight. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe to his friends. "I ask your pardon for +leaving you so long without any news of me, but I was spending my +honeymoon." And he narrated the story of his union with the charming +creature who had brought him as a dowry her eighteen years and a half, +two porcelain cups, and a sandy haired cat named Mimi, like herself. + +"Come, gentlemen," said Rodolphe, "we are going to celebrate my house +warming. I forewarn you, though, that we are about to have merely a +family repast; truffles will be replaced by frank cordiality." + +Indeed, that amiable goddess did not cease to reign amongst the guests, +who found, however, that the so-called frugal repast did not lack a +certain amplitude. Rodolphe, indeed, had spread himself out. Colline +called attention to the fact that the plates were changed, and declared +aloud that Mademoiselle Mimi was worthy of the azure scarf with which +the empresses of the cooking stove were adorned, a phrase which was +Greek to the young girl, and which Rodolphe translated by telling her +"that she would make a capital Cordon Bleu." + +The appearance on the scene of the lobster caused universal admiration. +Under the pretext that he had studied natural history, Schaunard +suggested that he should carve it. He even profited by this circumstance +to break a knife and to take the largest helping for himself, which +excited general indignation. But Schaunard had no self respect, above +all in the matter of lobsters, and as there was still a portion left, he +had the audacity to put it on one side, saying that he would do for a +model for a still life piece he had on hand. + +Indulgent friendship feigned to believe this fiction, but fruit of +immoderate gluttony. + +As to Colline he reserved his sympathies for the dessert, and was even +obstinate enough to cruelly refuse the share of a tipsy cake against a +ticket of admission to the orangery of Versailles offered to him by +Schaunard. + +At this point conversation began to get lively. To three bottles with +red seals succeeded three bottles with green seals, in the midst of +which shortly appeared one which by its neck topped with a silver +helmet, was recognized as belonging to the Royal Champagne Regiment--a +fantastic Champagne vintaged by Saint Ouen, and sold in Paris at two +francs the bottle as bankrupt's stock, so the vendor asserted. + +But it is not the district that makes the wine, and our Bohemians +accepted as the authentic growth of Ai the liquor that was served out to +them in the appropriate glasses, and despite the scant degree of +vivacity shown by the cork in popping from its prison, went into +ecstacies over the excellence of the vintage on seeing the quality of +the froth. Schaunard summoned up all his remaining self-possession to +make a mistake as regards glasses, and help himself to that of Colline, +who kept gravely dipping his biscuit in the mustard pot as he explained +to Mademoiselle Mimi the philosophical article that was to appear in +"The Beaver." All at once he grew pale, and asked leave to go to the +window and look at the sunset, although it was ten o'clock at night, and +the sun had set long ago. + +"It is a pity the Champagne is not iced," said Schaunard, again trying +to substitute his empty glass for the full one of his neighbor, an +attempt this time without success. + +"Madame," observed Colline, who had ceased to take the fresh air, to +Mimi, "Champagne is iced with ice. Ice is formed by the condensation of +water, in Latin aqua. Water freezes at two degrees, and there are four +seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, which was the cause of the +retreat from Moscow." + +All at once Colline suddenly slapped Rodolphe on the shoulder, and in a +thick voice that seemed to mash all the syllables together, said to +him-- + +"Tomorrow is Thursday, is it not?" + +"No," replied Rodolphe. "Tomorrow is Sunday." + +"Thursday." + +"No, I tell you. Tomorrow is Sunday." + +"Sunday!" said Colline, wagging his head, "not a bit of it, it is +Thursday." + +And he fell asleep, making a mold for a cast of his face in the cream +cheese that was before him in his plate. + +"What is he harping about Thursday?" observed Marcel. + +"Ah, I have it!" said Rodolphe, who began to understand the persistency +of the philosopher, tormented by a fixed idea, "it is on account of his +article in 'The Beaver.' Listen, he is dreaming of it aloud." + +"Good," said Schaunard. "He shall not have any coffee, eh, madame?" + +"By the way," said Rodolphe, "pour out the coffee, Mimi." + +The latter was about to rise, when Colline, who had recovered a little +self possession, caught her around the waist and whispered +confidentially in her ear: + +"Madame, the coffee plant is a native of Arabia, where it was discovered +by a goat. Its use expanded to Europe. Voltaire used to drink seventy +cups a day. I like mine without sugar, but very hot." + +"Good heavens! What a learned man!" thought Mimi as she brought the +coffee and pipes. + +However time was getting on, midnight had long since struck, and +Rodolphe sought to make his guests understand that it was time for them +to withdraw. Marcel, who retained all his senses, got up to go. + +But Schaunard perceived that there was still some brandy in a bottle, +and declared that it could not be midnight so long as there was any +left. As to Colline, he was sitting astride his chair and murmuring in a +low voice: + +"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday." + +"Hang it all," said Rodolphe, greatly embarrassed, "I cannot give them +quarters here tonight; formerly it was all very well, but now it is +another thing," he added, looking at Mimi, whose softly kindling eyes +seemed to appeal for solitude for their two selves. "What is to be +done? Give me a bit of advice, Marcel. Invent a trick to get rid of +them." + +"No, I won't invent," replied Marcel, "but I will imitate. I remember a +play in which a sharp servant manages to get rid of three rascals as +drunk as Silenus who are at his master's." + +"I recollect it," said Rodolphe, "it is in 'Kean.' Indeed, the situation +is the same." + +"Well," said Marcel, "we will see if the stage holds the glass up to +human nature. Stop a bit, we will begin with Schaunard. Here, I say, +Schaunard." + +"Eh? What is it?" replied the latter, who seemed to be floating in the +elysium of mild intoxication. + +"There is nothing more to drink here, and we are all thirsty." + +"Yes," said Schaunard, "bottles are so small." + +"Well," continued Marcel, "Rodolphe has decided that we shall pass the +night here, but we must go and get something before the shops are +shut." + +"My grocer lives at the corner of the street," said Rodolphe. "Do you +mind going there, Schaunard? You can fetch two bottles of rum, to be put +down to me." + +"Oh! yes, certainly," said Schaunard, making a mistake in his greatcoat +and taking that of Colline, who was tracing figures on the table cloth +with his knife. + +"One," said Marcel, when Schaunard had gone. "Now let us tackle Colline, +that will be a harder job. Ah! an idea. Hi, hi, Colline," he continued, +shaking the philosopher. + +"What? what? what is it?" + +"Schaunard has just gone, and has taken your hazel overcoat by mistake." + +Colline glanced round again, and perceived indeed in the place of his +garment, Schaunard's little plaid overcoat. A sudden idea flashed across +his mind and filled him with uneasiness. Colline, according to his +custom, had been book-hunting during the day, and had bought for fifteen +sous a Finnish grammar and a little novel of Nisard's entitled "The +Milkwoman's Funeral." These two acquisitions were accompanied by seven +or eight volumes of philosophy that he had always about him as an +arsenal whence to draw reasons in case of an argument. The idea of this +library being in the hands of Schaunard threw him into a cold +perspiration. + +"The wretch!" exclaimed Colline, "what did he take my greatcoat for?" + +"It was by mistake." + +"But my books. He may put them to some improper purpose." + +"Do not be afraid, he will not read them," said Rodolphe. + +"No, but I know him; he is capable of lighting his pipe with them." + +"If you are uneasy you can catch him up," said Rodolphe. "He has only +just this moment gone out, you will overtake him at the street door." + +"Certainly I will overtake him," replied Colline, putting on his hat, +the brim of which was so broad that tea for six people might have been +served upon it. + +"Two," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "now you are free. I am off, and I will +tell the porter not to open the outer door if anyone knocks." + +"Goodnight and thanks," said Rodolphe. + +As he was showing his friend out Rodolphe heard on the staircase a +prolonged mew, to which his carroty cat replied by another, whilst +trying at the same time to slip out adroitly by the half-opened door. + +"Poor Romeo!" said Rodolphe, "there is his Juliet calling him. Come, off +with you," he added opening the door to the enamored beast, who made a +single leap down the stairs into its lover's arms. + +Left alone with his mistress, who standing before the glass was curling +her hair in a charmingly provocative attitude, Rodolphe approached Mimi +and passed his arms around her. Then, like a musician, who before +commencing a piece, strikes a series of notes to assure himself of the +capacity of the instrument, Rodolphe drew Mimi onto his knee, and +printed on her shoulder a long and sonorous kiss, which imparted a +sudden vibration to the frame of the youthful beauty. + +The instrument was in tune. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MADEMOISELLE MIMI + + +Oh! my friend Rodolphe, what has happened to change you thus? Am I to +believe the rumors that are current, and that this misfortune has broken +down to such a degree your robust philosophy? How can I, the historian +in ordinary of your Bohemian epic, so full of joyous bursts of +laughter, narrate in a sufficiently melancholy tone the painful +adventure which casts a veil over your constant gaiety, and suddenly +checks the ringing flow of your paradoxes? + +Oh! Rodolphe, my friend, I admit that the evil is serious, but there, +really it is not worthwhile throwing oneself into the water about it. So +I invite you to bury the past as soon as possible. Shun above all the +solitude peopled with phantoms who would help to render your regrets +eternal. Shun the silence where the echoes of recollection would still +be full of your past joys and sorrows. Cast boldly to all the winds of +forgetfulness the name you have so fondly cherished, and with it all +that still remains to you of her who bore it. Curls pressed by lips mad +with desire, a Venice flask in which there still lurks a remainder of +perfume, which at this moment it would be more dangerous for you to +breathe than all the poisons in the world. To the fire with the flowers, +the flowers of gauze, silk and velvet, the white geraniums, the anemones +empurpled by the blood of Adonis, the blue forget-me-nots and all those +charming bouquets that she put together in the far off days of your +brief happiness. Then I loved her too, your Mimi, and saw no danger in +your loving her. But follow my advice--to the fire with the ribbons, the +pretty pink, blue, and yellow ribbons which she wore round her neck to +attract the eye; to the fire with the lace, the caps, the veils and all +the coquettish trifles with which she bedecked herself to go +love-making with Monsieur Cesar, Monsieur Jerome, Monsieur Charles, or +any other gallant in the calendar, whilst you were awaiting her at your +window, shivering from the wintry blast. To the fire, Rodolphe, and +without pity, with all that belonged to her and could still speak to you +of her; to the fire with the love letters. Ah! here is one of them, and +your tears have bedewed it like a fountain. Oh! my unhappy friend! + + "As you have not come in, I am going out to call on my aunt. I have + taken what money there was for a cab." + + "Lucille." + +That evening, oh! Rodolphe, you had, do you not recollect, to go without +your dinner, and you called on me and let off a volley of jests which +fully attested your tranquillity of mind. For you believed Lucille was +at her aunt's, and if I had not told you that she was with Monsieur +Cesar or with an actor of the Montparnasse Theater, you would have cut +my throat! To the fire, too, with this other note, which has all the +laconic affection of the first. + +"I am gone out to order some boots, you must find the money for me to +go and fetch them tomorrow." + +Ah! my friend, those boots have danced many quadrilles in which you did +not figure as a partner. To the flames with all these remembrances and +to the winds with their ashes. + +But in the first place, oh Rodolphe! for the love of humanity and the +reputation of "The Scarf of Iris" and "The Beaver," resume the reins of +good taste that you have egotistically dropped during your sufferings, +or else horrible things may happen for which you will be responsible. We +may go back to leg-of-mutton sleeves and frilled trousers, and some fine +day see hats come into fashion which would afflict the universe and +call down the wrath of heaven. + +And now the moment is come to relate the loves of our friend Rodolphe +and Mimi. It was just as he was turned four and twenty that Rodolphe was +suddenly smitten with the passion that had such an influence upon his +life. At the time he met Mimi he was leading that broken and fantastic +existence that we have tried to describe in the preceding chapters of +this book. He was certainly one of the gayest endurers of poverty in the +world of Bohemia. When in course of the day he had made a poor dinner +and a smart remark, he walked more proudly in his black coat (pleading +for help through every gaping seam) along the pavement that often +promised to be his only resting place for the night, than an emperor in +his purple robe. In the group amongst whom Rodolphe lived, they +affected, after a fashion common enough amongst some young fellows, to +treat love as a thing of luxury, a pretext for jesting. Gustave Colline, +who had for a long time past been in intimate relations with a waistcoat +maker, whom he was rendering deformed in mind and body by obliging her +to sit day and night copying the manuscripts of his philosophical works, +asserted that love was a kind of purgative, good to take at the +beginning of each season in order to get rid of humors. Amidst all these +false sceptics Rodolphe was the only one who dared to talk of love with +some reverence, and when they had the misfortune to let him harp on +this string, he would go on for an hour plaintively wurbling elegies on +the happiness of being loved, the deep blue of the peaceful lake, the +song of the breeze, the harmony of the stars, &c., &c. This mania had +caused him to be nicknamed the harmonica by Schaunard. Marcel had also +made on this subject a very neat remark when, alluding to the +Teutonically sentimental tirades of Rodolphe and to his premature +calvity, he called him the bald forget-me-not. The real truth was this. +Rodolphe then seriously believed he had done with all things of youth +and love; he insolently chanted a _De profundis_ over his heart, which +he thought dead when it was only silent, yet still ready to awake, still +accessible to joy, and more susceptible than ever to all the sweet pangs +that he no longer hoped for, and that were now driving him to despair. +You would have it, Rodolphe, and we shall not pity you, for the disease +from which you are suffering is one of those we long for most, above all +when we know that we are cured of it forever. + +Rodolphe then met Mimi, whom he had formerly known when she was the +mistress of one of his friends; and he made her his own. There was at +first a great outcry amongst Rodolphe's friends when they learned of +this union, but as Mademoiselle Mimi was very taking, not at all +prudish, and could stand tobacco smoke and literary conversations +without a headache, they became accustomed to her and treated her as a +comrade. Mimi was a charming girl, and especially adapted for both the +plastic and poetical sympathies of Rodolphe. She was twenty two years of +age, small, delicate, and arch. Her face seemed the first sketch of an +aristocratic countenance, but her features, extremely fine in outline, +and as it were, softly lit up by the light of her clear blue eyes, wore, +at certain moments of weariness or ill-humor, an expression of almost +savage brutality, in which a physiologist would perhaps have recognized +the indication of profound egotism or great insensibility. But hers was +usually a charming head, with a fresh and youthful smile and glances +either tender or full of imperious coquetry. The blood of youth flowed +warm and rapid in her veins, and imparted rosy tints to her transparent +skin of camellia-like whiteness. This unhealthy beauty captivated +Rodolphe, and he often during the night spent hours in covering with +kisses the pale forehead of his slumbering mistress, whose humid and +weary eyes shone half-closed beneath the curtain of her magnificent +brown hair. But what contributed above all to make Rodolphe madly in +love with Mademoiselle Mimi were her hands, which in spite of household +cares, she managed to keep as white as those of the Goddess of Idleness. +However, these hands so frail, so tiny, so soft to the lips; these +child-like hands in which Rodolphe had placed his once more awakened +heart; these white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi were soon to rend that +heart with their rosy nails. + +At the end of a month Rodolphe began to perceive that he was wedded to +a thunderstorm, and that his mistress had one great fault. She was a +"gadabout," as they say, and spent a great part of her time amongst the +kept women of the neighborhood, whose acquaintance she had made. The +result that Rodolphe had feared, when he perceived the relations +contracted by his mistress, soon took place. The variable opulence of +some of her new friends caused a forest of ambitious ideas to spring up +in the mind of Mademoiselle Mimi, who up until then had only had modest +tastes, and was content with the necessaries of life that Rodolphe did +his best to procure for her. Mimi began to dream of silks, velvets, and +lace. And, despite Rodolphe's prohibition, she continued to frequent +these women, who were all of one mind in persuading her to break off +with the Bohemian who could not even give her a hundred and fifty francs +to buy a stuff dress. + +"Pretty as you are," said her advisers, "you can easily secure a better +position. You have only to look for it." + +And Mademoiselle Mimi began to look. A witness of her frequent absences, +clumsily accounted for, Rodolphe entered upon the painful track of +suspicion. But as soon as he felt himself on the trail of some proof of +infidelity, he eagerly drew a bandage over his eyes in order to see +nothing. However, a strange, jealous, fantastic, quarrelsome love which +the girl did not understand, because she then only felt for Rodolphe +that lukewarm attachment resulting from habit. Besides, half of her +heart had already been expended over her first love, and the other half +was still full of the remembrance of her first lover. + +Eight months passed by in this fashion, good and evil days alternating. +During this period Rodolphe was a score of times on the point of +separating from Mademoiselle Mimi, who had for him all the clumsy +cruelties of the woman who does not love. Properly speaking, this life +had become a hell for both. But Rodolphe had grown accustomed to these +daily struggles, and dreaded nothing so much as a cessation of this +state of things; for he felt that with it would cease forever the fever +and agitations of youth that he had not felt for so long. And then, if +everything must be told, there were hours in which Mademoiselle Mimi +knew how to make Rodolphe forget all the suspicions that were tearing at +his heart. There were moments when she caused him to bend like a child +at her knee beneath the charm of her blue eyes--the poet to whom she had +given back his lost poetry--the young man to whom she had restored his +youth, and who, thanks to her, was once more beneath love's equator. Two +or three times a month, amidst these stormy quarrels, Rodolphe and Mimi +halted with one accord at the verdant oasis of a night of love, and for +whole hours would give himself up to addressing her in that charming yet +absurd language that passion improvises in its hour of delirium. Mimi +listened calmly at first, rather astonished than moved, but, in the end, +the enthusiastic eloquence of Rodolphe, by turns tender, lively, and +melancholy, won on her by degrees. She felt the ice of indifference that +numbed her heart melt at the contact of the love; she would throw +herself on Rodolphe's breast, and tell him by kisses all that she was +unable to tell him in words. And dawn surprised them thus enlaced +together--eyes fixed on eyes, hands clasped in hands--whilst their moist +and burning lips were still murmuring that immortal word "that for five +thousand years has lingered nightly on lovers' lips." + +But the next day the most futile pretext brought about a quarrel, and +love alarmed fled again for some time. + +In the end, however, Rodolphe perceived that if he did not take care the +white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi would lead him to an abyss in which he +would leave his future and his youth. For a moment stern reason spoke in +him more strongly than love, and he convinced himself by strong +arguments, backed up by proofs, that his mistress did not love him. He +went so far as to say to himself, that the hours of love she granted him +were nothing but a mere sensual caprice such as married women feel for +their husbands when they long for a cashmere shawl or a new dress, or +when their lover is away, in accordance with the proverb that half a +loaf is better than no bread. In short, Rodolphe could forgive his +mistress everything except not being loved. He therefore took a supreme +resolution, and announced to Mademoiselle Mimi that she would have to +look out for another lover. Mimi began to laugh and to utter bravados. +In the end, seeing that Rodolphe was firm in his resolve, and greeted +her with extreme calmness when she returned home after a day and a night +spent out of the house, she began to grow a little uneasy in face of +this firmness, to which she was not accustomed. She was then charming +for two or three days. But her lover did not go back on what he had +said, and contented himself with asking whether she had found anyone. + +"I have not even looked," she replied. + +However, she had looked, and even before Rodolphe had advised her to do +so. In a fortnight she had made two essays. One of her friends had +helped her, and had at first procured her the acquaintance of a very +tender youth, who had unfolded before Mimi's eyes a horizon of Indian +cashmeres and suites of furniture in rosewood. But in the opinion of +Mimi herself this young schoolboy, who might be very good at algebra, +was not very advanced in the art of love, and as she did not like +undertaking education, she left her amorous novice on the lurch, with +his cashmeres still browsing on the plains of Tibet, and his rosewood +furniture still growing in the forests of the New World. + +The schoolboy was soon replaced by a Breton gentleman, with whom Mimi +was soon rapidly smitten, and she had no need to pray long before +becoming his nominal countess. + +Despite his mistress's protestations, Rodolphe had wind of some +intrigue. He wanted to know exactly how matters stood, and one morning, +after a night during which Mademoiselle Mimi had not returned, hastened +to the place where he suspected her to be. There he was able to strike +home at his heart with one of those proofs to which one must give +credence in spite of oneself. He saw Mademoiselle Mimi, with two eyes +encircled with an aureola of satisfied voluptuousness, leaving the +residence in which she had acquired her title of nobility, on the arm of +her new lord and master, who, to tell the truth, appeared far less proud +of her new conquest than Paris after the rape of Helen. + +On seeing her lover appear, Mademoiselle Mimi seemed somewhat surprised. +She came up to him, and for five minutes they talked very quietly +together. They then parted, each on their separate way. Their separation +was agreed upon. + +Rodolphe returned home, and spent the day in packing up all the things +belonging to his mistress. + +During the day that followed his divorce, he received the visit of +several friends, and announced to them what had happened. Every one +congratulated him on this event as on a piece of great good fortune. + +"We will aid you, oh poet!" said one of those who had been the most +frequent spectator of the annoyances Mademoiselle Mimi had made Rodolphe +undergo, "we will help you to free your heart from the clutches of this +evil creature. In a little while you will be cured, and quite ready to +rove with another Mimi along the green lanes of Aulnay and +Fontenay-aux-Roses." + +Rodolphe swore that he had forever done with regrets and despair. He +even let himself be led away to the Bal Mabille, when his dilapidated +get-up did scant honor to "The Scarf of Iris," his editorship of which +procured him free admission to this garden of elegance and pleasure. +There Rodolphe met some fresh friends, with whom he began to drink. He +related to them his woes an unheard of luxury of imaginative style, and +for an hour was perfectly dazzling with liveliness and go. "Alas!" said +the painter Marcel, as he listened to the flood of irony pouring from +his friend's lips, "Rodolphe is too lively, far too lively." + +"He is charming," replied a young woman to whom Rodolphe had just +offered a bouquet, "and although he is very badly got up I would +willingly compromise myself by dancing with him if he would invite me." + +Two seconds later Rodolphe, who had overheard her, was at her feet, +enveloping his invitation in a speech, scented with all the musk and +benjamin of a gallantry at eighty degrees Richelieu. The lady was +confounded by the language sparkling with dazzling adjectives and +phrases modelled on those in vogue during the Regency, and the +invitation was accepted. + +Rodolphe was as ignorant of the elements of dancing as of the rule of +three. But he was impelled by an extraordinary audacity. He did not +hesitate, but improvised a dance unknown to all bygone choreography. It +was a step the originality of which obtained an incredible success, and +that has been celebrated under the title of "regrets and sighs." It was +all very well for the three thousand jets of gas to blink at him, +Rodolphe went on at it all the same, and continued to pour out a flood +of novel madrigals to his partner. + +"Well," said Marcel, "this is incredible. Rodolphe reminds me of a +drunken man rolling amongst broken glass." + +"At any rate he has got hold of a deuced fine woman," said another, +seeing Rodolphe about to leave with his partner. + +"Won't you say good night?" cried Marcel after him. + +Rodolphe came back to the artist and held out his hand, it was cold and +damp as a wet stone. + +Rodolphe's companion was a strapping Normandy wench, whose native +rusticity had promptly acquired an aristocratic tinge amidst the +elegancies of Parisian luxury and an idle life. She was styled Madame +Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate +rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a +month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but +hard knocks. Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think +of giving her anything, and took him off home with her. + +"Lucille," said she to her waiting maid, "I am not at home to anyone." +And passing into her bedroom, she came out ten minutes later, in a +special costume. She found Rodolphe dumb and motionless, for since he +had come in he had been plunged, despite himself, into a gloom full of +silent sobs. + +"Why you no longer look at me or speak to me!" said the astonished +Seraphine. + +"Come," said Rodolphe to himself, lifting his head. "Let us look at her, +but only for the sake of art." + +"And then what a sight met his eyes," as Raoul says in "The Huguenots." + +Seraphine was admirable beautiful. Her splendid figure, cleverly set off +by the cut of her solitary garment, showed itself provocatively through +the half-transparent material. All the imperious fever of desire woke +afresh in Rodolphe's veins. A warm mist mounted to his brain. He looked +at Seraphine otherwise than from a purely aesthetic point of view and +took the pretty girl's hands in his own. They were divine hands, and +might have been wrought by the purest chisels of Grecian statuary. +Rodolphe felt these admirable hands tremble in his own, and feeling less +and less of an art critic, he drew towards him Seraphine, whose face was +already tinged with that flush which is the aurora of voluptuousness. + +"This creature is a true instrument of pleasure, a real Stradivarius of +love, and one on which I would willingly play a tune," thought Rodolphe, +as he heard the fair creature's heart beating a hurried charge in a very +distinct fashion. + +At that moment there was a violent ring at the door of the rooms. + +"Lucile, Lucile," cried Seraphine to the waiting maid, "do not let +anyone in, say I am not home yet." + +At the name of Lucile uttered twice, Rodolphe rose. + +"I do not wish to incommode you in any way, madame," said he. "Besides, +I must take my leave, it is late and I live a long way off. Good +evening." + +"What! You are going?" exclaimed Seraphine, augmenting the fire of her +glances. "Why, why should you go? I am free, you can stay." + +"Impossible," replied Rodolphe, "I am expecting one of my relatives who +is coming from Terra del Fuego this evening, and he would disinherit me +if he did not find me waiting to receive him. Good evening, madame." + +And he quitted the room hurriedly. The servant went to light him out. +Rodolphe accidentally cast his eye on her. She was a delicate looking +girl, with slow movements; her extremely pale face offered a charming +contrast to her dark and naturally curling hair, whilst her blue eyes +resembled two sickly stars. + +"Oh phantom!" exclaimed Rodolphe, shrinking from one who bore the name +and the face of his mistress. "Away, what would you with me?" And he +rushed down the stairs. + +"Why, madame," said the lady's maid, returning to her mistress's room. +"The young fellow is mad." + +"Say rather that he is a fool," claimed the exasperated Seraphine. "Oh!" +she continued, "this will teach me to show kindness. If only that brute +of a Leon had the sense to drop in now!" + +Leon was the gentleman whose love carried a whip. + +Rodolphe ran home without waiting to take breath. Going upstairs he +found his carroty-haired cat giving vent to piteous mewings. For two +nights already it has thus been vainly summoning its faithless love, an +agora Manon Lescaut, who had started on a campaign of gallantry on the +house-tops adjacent. + +"Poor beast," said Rodolphe, "you have been deceived. Your Mimi has +jilted you like mine has jilted me. Bah! Let us console ourselves. You +see, my poor fellow, the hearts of women and she-cats are abysses that +neither men nor toms will ever fathom." + +When he entered his room, although it was fearfully hot, Rodolphe seemed +to feel a cloak of ice about his shoulders. It was the chill of +solitude, that terrible nocturnal solitude that nothing disturbs. He lit +his candle and then perceived the ravaged room. The gaping drawers in +the furniture showed empty, and from floor to ceiling sadness filled the +little room that seemed to Rodolphe vaster than a desert. Stepping +forward he struck his foot against the parcels containing the things +belonging to Mademoiselle Mimi, and he felt an impulse of joy to find +that she had not yet come to fetch them as she had told him in the +morning she would do. Rodolphe felt that, despite all his struggles, the +moment of reaction was at hand, and readily divined that a cruel night +was to expiate all the bitter mirth that he had dispensed in the course +of the evening. However, he hoped that his body, worn out with fatigue, +would sink to sleep before the reawakening of the sorrows so long pent +back in his heart. + +As he approached the couch, and on drawing back the curtains saw the bed +that had not been disturbed for two days, the pillows placed side by +side, beneath one of which still peeped out the trimming of a woman's +night cap, Rodolphe felt his heart gripped in the pitiless vice of that +desolate grief that cannot burst forth. He fell at the foot of the bed, +buried his face in his hands, and, after having cast a glance round the +desolate room, exclaimed: + +"Oh! Little Mimi, joy of my home, is it really true that you are gone, +that I have driven you away, and that I shall never see you again, my +God. Oh! Pretty brown curly head that has slept so long on this spot, +will you never come back to sleep here again? Oh! Little white hands +with the blue veins, little white hands to whom I had affianced my lips, +have you too received my last kiss?" + +And Rodolphe, in delirious intoxication, plunged his head amongst the +pillows, still impregnated with the perfume of his love's hair. From the +depth of the alcove he seemed to see emerge the ghosts of the sweet +nights he had passed with his young mistress. He heard clear and +sonorous, amidst the nocturnal silence, the open-hearted laugh of +Mademoiselle Mimi, and he thought of the charming and contagious gaiety +with which she had been able so many times to make him forget all the +troubles and all the hardships of their hazardous existence. + +Throughout the night he kept passing in review the eight months that he +had just spent with this girl, who had never loved him perhaps, but +whose tender lies had restored to Rodolphe's heart its youth and +virility. + +Dawn surprised him at the moment when, conquered by fatigue, he had just +closed his eyes, red from the tears shed during the night. A doleful and +terrible vigil, yet such a one as even the most sneering and sceptical +amongst us may find in the depths of their past. + +When his friends called on him in the morning they were alarmed at the +sight of Rodolphe, whose face bore the traces of all the anguish that +had awaited him during his vigil in the Gethsemane of love. + +"Good!" said Marcel, "I was sure of it; it is his mirth of yesterday +that has turned in his heart. Things must not go on like this." + +And in concert with two or three comrades he began a series of privately +indiscreet revelations respecting Mademoiselle Mimi, every word of which +pierced like a thorn in Rodolphe's heart. His friends "proved" to him +that all the time his mistress had tricked him like a simpleton at home +and abroad, and that this fair creature, pale as the angel of phthisis, +was a casket filled with evil sentiments and ferocious instincts. + +One and another they thus took it in turns at the task they had set +themselves, which was to bring Rodolphe to that point at which soured +love turns to contempt; but this object was only half attained. The +poet's despair turned to wrath. He threw himself in a rage upon the +packages which he had done up the day before, and after having put on +one side all the objects that his mistress had in her possession when +she came to him, kept all those he had given her during their union, +that is to say, by far the greater number, and, above all, the articles +connected with the toilette to which Mademoiselle Mimi was attached by +all the fibers of a coquetry that had of late become insatiable. + +Mademoiselle Mimi called in course of the next day to take away her +things. Rodolphe was at home and alone. It needed all his powers of self +esteem to keep him from throwing himself upon his mistress's neck. He +gave her a reception full of silent insult, and Mademoiselle Mimi +replied by those cold and keen scoffs that drive the weakest and most +timid to show their teeth. In face of the contempt with which his +mistress flagellated him with insolent hardihood, Rodolphe's anger broke +out fearfully and brutally. For a moment Mimi, white with terror, asked +herself whether she would escape from his hands alive. At the cries she +uttered some neighbors rushed in and dragged her out of Rodolphe's room. + +Two days later a female friend of Mimi came to ask Rodolphe whether he +would give up the things he had kept. + +"No," he replied. + +And he got his mistress's messenger to talk about her. She informed him +that Mimi was in a very unfortunate condition, and that she would soon +find herself without a lodging. + +"And the lover of whom she is so fond?" + +"Oh!" replied Amelie, the friend in question, "the young fellow has no +intention of taking her for his mistress. He has been keeping another +for a long time past, and he does not seem to trouble much about Mimi, +who is living at my expense, which causes me a great deal of +embarrassment." + +"Let her do as she can," said Rodolphe. "She would have it,--it is no +affair of mine." + +And he began to sing madrigals to Mademoiselle Amelie, and persuaded her +that she was the prettiest woman in the world. + +Amelie informed Mimi of her interview with Rodolphe. + +"What did he say? What is he doing? Did he speak to you about me?" asked +Mimi. + +"Not at all; you are already forgotten, my dear. Rodolphe has a fresh +mistress, and he has bought her a superb outfit, for he has received a +great deal of money, and is himself dressed like a prince. He is a very +amiable fellow, and said a lot of nice things to me." + +"I know what all that means," thought Mimi. + +Every day Mademoiselle Amelie called to see Rodolphe on some pretext or +other, and however much the latter tried he could not help speaking of +Mimi to her. + +"She is very lively," replied her friend, "and does not seem to trouble +herself about her position. Besides she declares that she will come back +to you whenever she chooses, without making any advances and merely for +the sake of vexing your friends." + +"Very good," said Rodolphe, "let her come and we shall see." + +And he began to pay court to Amelie, who went off to tell everything to +Mimi, and to assure her that Rodolphe was very much in love with +herself. + +"He kissed me again on the hand and the neck; see it is quite red," said +she. "He wants to take me to a dance tomorrow." + +"My dear friend," said Mimi, rather vexed, "I see what you are driving +at, to make me believe that Rodolphe is in love with you and thinks no +more about me. But you are wasting your time both for him and me." + +The fact was that Rodolphe only showed himself amiable towards Amelie +to get her to call on him the oftener, and to have the opportunity of +speaking to her about his mistress. But with a Machiavelism that had +perhaps its object, and whilst perceiving very well that Rodolphe still +loved Mimi, and that the latter was not indisposed to rejoin him, Amelie +strove, by ingeniously inventive reports, to fend off everything that +might serve to draw the pair together again. + +The day on which she was to go to the ball Amelie called in the morning +to ask Rodolphe whether the engagement still held good. + +"Yes," he replied, "I do not want to miss the opportunity of being the +cavalier of the most beautiful woman of the day." + +Amelie assumed the coquettish air that she had put on the occasion of +her solitary appearance at a suburban theater as fourth chambermaid, and +promised to be ready that evening. + +"By the way," said Rodolphe, "tell Mademoiselle Mimi that if she will be +guilty of an infidelity to her lover in my favor, and come and pass a +night with me, I will give her up all her things." + +Amelie executed Rodolphe's commission, and gave to his words quite +another meaning than that which she had guessed they bore. + +"Your Rodolphe is a rather base fellow," said she to Mimi. "His proposal +is infamous. He wishes by this step to make you descend to the rank of +the vilest creatures, and if you go to him not only will he not give you +your things, but he will show you up as a jest to all his comrades. It +is a plot arranged amongst them." + +"I will not go," said Mimi, and as she saw Amelie engaged in preparing +her toilette, she asked her whether she was going to the ball. + +"Yes," replied the other. + +"With Rodolphe?" + +"Yes, he is to wait for me this evening twenty yards or so from here." + +"I wish you joy," said Mimi, and seeing the hour of the appointment +approach, she hurried off to Mademoiselle Amelie's lover, and informed +him that the latter was engaged in a little scheme to deceive him with +her own old lover. + +The gentleman, jealous as a tiger and brutal to boot, called at once on +Mademoiselle Amelie, and announced that he would like her to spend the +evening in his company. + +At eight o'clock Mimi flew to the spot at which Rodolphe was to meet +Amelie. She saw her lover pacing up and down after the fashion of a man +waiting for some one, and twice passed close to him without daring to +address him. Rodolphe was very well dressed that evening, and the +violent crises through which he had passed during the week had imparted +great character on his face. Mimi was singularly moved. At length she +made up her mind to speak to him. Rodolphe received her without anger, +and asked how she was, after which he inquired as to the motive that had +brought her to him, in mild voice, in which there was an effort to +check a note of sadness. + +"It is bad news that I come to bring you. Mademoiselle Amelie cannot +come to the ball with you. Her lover is keeping her." + +"I shall go to the ball alone, then." + +Here Mademoiselle Mimi feigned to stumble, and leaned against Rodolphe's +shoulder. He took her arm and proposed to escort her home. + +"No," said Mimi. "I am living with Amelie, and as her lover is there I +cannot go in until he has left." + +"Listen to me, then," said the poet. "I made a proposal to you today +through Mademoiselle Amelie. Did she transmit it to you?" + +"Yes," said Mimi, "but in terms which, even after what has happened, I +could not credit. No, Rodolphe, I could not believe that, despite all +that you might have to reproach me with, you thought me so worthless as +to accept such a bargain." + +"You did not understand me, or the message has been badly conveyed to +you. My offer holds good," said Rodolphe. "It is nine o'clock. You still +have three hours for reflection. The door will be unlocked until +midnight. Good night. Farewell, or--till we meet again." + +"Farewell, then," said Mimi, in trembling tones. + +And they separated. Rodolphe went home and threw himself, without +undressing, upon his bed. At half past eleven, Mademoiselle Mimi entered +his room. + +"I have come to ask your hospitality," said she. "Amelie's lover has +stayed with her, and I cannot get in." + +They talked together until three in the morning--an explanatory +conversation which grew gradually more familiar. + +At four o'clock their candle went out. Rodolphe wanted to light another. + +"No," said Mimi, "it is not worth the trouble. It is quite time to go to +bed." + +Five minutes later her pretty brown curly head had once more resumed its +place on the pillow, and in a voice full of affection she invited +Rodolphe's lips to feast on her little white hand with their blue veins, +the pearly pallor of which vied with the whiteness of the sheets. +Rodolphe did not light the candle. + +In the morning Rodolphe got up first, and pointing out several packages +to Mimi, said to her, very gently, "There is what belongs to you. You +can take it away. I keep my word." + +"Oh!" said Mimi. "I am very tired, you see, and I cannot carry all these +heavy parcels away at once. I would rather call again." + +And when she was dressed she only took a collar and a pair of cuffs. + +"I will take away the rest by degrees," she added, smiling. + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "take away all or take away none, and let there +be an end of it." + +"Let it, on the contrary, begin again, and, above all, let it last," +said Mimi, kissing Rodolphe. + +After breakfasting together they started off for a day in the country. +Crossing the Luxembourg gardens Rodolphe met a great poet who had always +received him with charming kindness. Out of respect for the +conventionalities Rodolphe was about to pretend not to see him but the +poet did not give him time, and passing by him greeted him with a +friendly gesture and his companion with a smile. + +"Who is that gentleman?" asked Mimi. + +Rodolphe answered her by mentioning a name which made her blush with +pleasure and pride. + +"Oh!" said Rodolphe. "Our meeting with the poet who has sung of love so +well is a good omen, and will bring luck to our reconciliation." + +"I do love you," said Mimi, squeezing his hand, although they were in +the midst of the crowd. + +"Alas!" thought Rodolphe. "Which is better; to allow oneself always to +be deceived through believing, or never to believe for fear of always +being deceived?" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Donec Gratus + + +We have told how the painter Marcel made the acquaintance of +Mademoiselle Musette. United one morning by the ministry of caprice, the +registrar of the district, they had fancied, as often happens, that +their union did not extend to their hearts. But one evening when, after +a violent quarrel, they resolved to leave one another on the spot, they +perceived that their hands, which they had joined in a farewell clasp, +would no longer quit one another. Almost in spite of themselves fancy +had become love. Both, half laughingly, acknowledged it. + +"This is very serious. What has happened to us?" said Marcel. "What the +deuce have we been up to?" + +"Oh!" replied Musette. "We must have been clumsy over it. We did not +take enough precautions." + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, who had become Marcel's neighbor, +entering the room. + +"The matter is," replied Marcel, "that this lady and myself have just +made a pretty discovery. We are in love with one another. We must have +been attacked by the complaint whilst asleep." + +"Oh oh! I don't think that it was whilst you were asleep," observed +Rodolphe. "But what proves that you are in love with one another? +Possibly you exaggerate the danger." + +"We cannot bear one another," said Marcel. + +"And we cannot leave one another," added Musette. + +"There, my children, your business is plain. Each has tried to play +cunning, and both have lost. It is the story of Mimi and myself. We +shall soon have run through two almanacs quarrelling day and night. It +is by that system that marriages are rendered eternal. Wed a 'yes' to a +'no,' and you obtain the union of Philemon and Baucis. Your domestic +interior will soon match mine, and if Schaunard and Phemie come and live +in the house, as they have threatened, our trio of establishments will +render it a very pleasant place of residence." + +At that moment Gustave Colline came in. He was informed of the accident +that had befallen Musette and Marcel. + +"Well, philosopher," said the latter, "what do you think of this?" + +Colline rubbed the hat that served him for a roof, and murmured, "I felt +sure of it beforehand. Love is a game of chance. He who plays at bowls +may expect rubbers. It is not good for man to live alone." + +That evening, on returning home, Rodolphe said to Mimi-- + +"There is something new. Musette dotes on Marcel, and will not leave +him." + +"Poor girl!" replied Mimi. "She who has such a good appetite, too." + +"And on his side, Marcel is hard and fast in love with Musette." + +"Poor fellow!" said Mimi. "He who is so jealous." + +"That is true," observed Rodolphe. "He and I are pupils of Othello." + +Shortly afterwards the households of Rodolphe and Marcel were reinforced +by the household of Schaunard, the musician, moving into the house with +Phemie Teinturiere. + +From that day all the other inhabitants slept upon a volcano, and at +quarter day sent in a unanimous notice of their intention to move to the +landlord. + +Indeed, hardly a day passed without a storm breaking out in one of these +households. Now it was Mimi and Rodolphe who, no longer having strength +to speak, continued their conversation with the aid of such missiles as +came under their hands. But more frequently it was Schaunard addressing +a few observations to the melancholy Phemie with the end of a walking +stick. As to Marcel and Musette, their arguments were carried on in +private sittings; they took at least the precaution to close their +doors and windows. + +If by chance peace reigned in the three households, the other lodgers +were not the less victims of this temporary concord. The indiscretion of +partition walls allowed all the secrets of Bohemian family life to +transpire, and initiated them, in spite of themselves, into all its +mysteries. Thus more than one neighbor preferred the _casus belli_ to +the ratification of treaties of peace. + +It was, in truth, a singular life that was led for six months. The most +loyal fraternity was practiced without any fuss in this circle, in +which everything was for all, and good or evil fortune shared. + +There were in the month certain days of splendor, when no one would have +gone out without gloves--days of enjoyment, when dinner lasted all day +long. There were others when one would have almost gone to Court without +boots; Lenten days, when, after going without breakfast in common, they +failed to dine together, or managed by economic combination to furnish +forth one of those repasts at which plates and knives were "resting," as +Mademoiselle Mimi put it, in theatrical parlance. + +But the wonderful thing is that this partnership, in which there were +three young and pretty women, no shadow of discord was found amongst +the men. They often yielded to the most futile fancies of their +mistresses, but not one of them would have hesitated for a moment +between the mistress and the friend. + +Love is born above all from spontaneity--it is an improvisation. +Friendship, on the contrary, is, so to say, built up. It is a sentiment +that progresses with circumspection. It is the egoism of the mind, +whilst love is the egoism of the heart. + +The Bohemians had known one another for six years. This long period of +time spent in a daily intimacy had, without altering the well-defined +individuality of each, brought about between them a concord of ideas--a +unity which they would not have found elsewhere. They had manners that +were their own, a tongue amongst themselves to which strangers would not +have been able to find the key. Those who did not know them very well +called their freedom of manner cynicism. It was however, only frankness. +With minds impatient of imposed control, they all hated what was false, +and despised what was low. Accused of exaggerated vanity, they replied +by proudly unfurling the program of their ambition, and, conscious of +their worth, held no false estimate of themselves. + +During the number of years that they had followed the same life +together, though often placed in rivalry by the necessities of their +profession, they had never let go one another's hands, and had passed +without heeding them over personal questions of self-esteem whenever an +attempt had been made to raise these between them in order to disunite +them. Besides, they each esteemed one another at their right worth, and +pride, which is the counter poison of envy, preserved them from all +petty professional jealousy. + +However, after six months of life in common, an epidemic of divorce +suddenly seized on the various households. + +Schaunard opened the ball. One day he perceived that Phemie Teinturiere +had one knee better shaped than the other, and as his was an austere +purism as regards plastics, he sent Phemie about her business, giving +her as a souvenir the cane with which he had addressed such frequent +remarks to her. Then he went back to live with a relative who offered +him free quarters. + +A fortnight later Mimi left Rodolphe to step into the carriage of the +young Vicomte Paul, the ex-pupil of Carolus Barbemuche, who had promised +her dresses to her heart's desire. + +After Mimi it was Musette who went off, and returned with a grand +flourish of trumpets amongst the aristocracy of the world of gallantry +which she had left to follow Marcel. + +This separation took place without quarrel, shock or premeditation. Born +of a fancy that had become love, this union was broken off by another +fancy. + +One evening during the carnival, at the masked ball at the Opera, +whither she had gone with Marcel, Mimi, Musette had for her _vis-a-vis_ +in a quadrille a young man who had formerly courted her. They recognized +one another, and, whilst dancing exchanged a few words. +Unintentionally, perhaps, whilst informing the young man of her present +condition in life, she may have dropped a word of regret as to her past +one. At any rate, at the end of the quadrille Musette made a mistake, +and instead of giving her hand to Marcel, who was her partner, give it +to her _vis-a-vis_, who led her off, and disappeared with her in the +crowd. + +Marcel looked for her, feeling somewhat uneasy. In an hour's time he +found her on the young man's arm; she was coming out of the Cafe de +l'Opera, humming a tune. On catching sight of Marcel, who had stationed +himself in a corner with folded arms, she made him a sign of farewell, +saying--"I shall be back." + +"That is to say, 'Do not expect me,'" translated Marcel. + +He was jealous but logical, and knew Musette, hence he did not wait for +her, but went home with a full heart and an empty stomach. He looked +into the cupboard to see whether there were not a few scraps to eat, and +perceived a bit of stale bread as hard as granite and a skeleton-like +red herring. + +"I cannot fight against truffles," he thought. "At any rate, Musette +will have some supper." + +And after passing his handkerchief over his eyes under pretext of wiping +his nose, he went to bed. + +Two days later Musette woke up in a boudoir with rose-covered hangings. +A blue brougham was at her door, and all the fairies of fashion had been +summoned to lay their wonders at her feet. Musette was charming, and her +youth seemed yet further rejuvenated in this elegant setting. Then she +began her old life again, was present at every festivity, and +re-conquered her celebrity. She was spoken of everywhere--in the lobbies +of the Bourse, and even at the parliamentary refreshment bars. As to her +new lover, Monsieur Alexis, he was a charming young fellow. He often +complained to Musette of her being somewhat frivolous and inattentive +when he spoke to her of his love. Then Musette would look at him +laughingly, and say-- + +"What would you have, my dear fellow? I stayed six months with a man who +fed me on salad and soup without butter, who dressed me in a cotton +gown, and usually took me to the Odeon because he was not well off. As +love costs nothing, and as I was wildly in love with this monster, we +expended a great deal of it together. I have scarcely anything but its +crumbs left. Pick them up, I do no hinder you. Besides, I have not +deceived you about it; if ribbons were not so dear I should still be +with my painter. As to my heart, since I have worn an eighty franc +corset I do not hear it, and I am very much afraid that I have left it +in one of Marcel's drawers." + +The disappearance of the three Bohemian households was the occasion of a +festival in the house they had inhabited. As a token of rejoicing the +landlord gave a grand dinner, and the lodgers lit up their windows. + +Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol +whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened +that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a +whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the +songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep, +idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they +hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they +usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find +themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December +log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation +between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that +they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with +them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still. + +One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few +paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed +the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver +himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of +his fare. + +"By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it +my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it--it is +a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the +fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full +view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?" + +"Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in +Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own. + +The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment. + +But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to +himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love. + +It was Mademoiselle Musette. + +"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures. +What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun." + +"I think it endurable," replied Marcel. + +"Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette. + +"I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little +theater where he was on the free list. + +"For the sake of art?" + +"No, for the sake of Laura." + +"Who is Laura?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of +interrogation. + +Marcel kept up the tone. + +"She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here." + +And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill. + +"You are very witty this evening," said Musette. + +"And you very curious," observed Marcel. + +"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for +two lovers quarrelling." + +"It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel. + +Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it +will not perhaps be the last, eh?" + +Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet. + +"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are +witness that it is not I who opened fire. Quick, my armor." + +From that moment the firing began. + +It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring +about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again +so lively. + +As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept +looking at Musette. They did not speak, but their eyes, those +plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met. After a quarter of an hour's +diplomacy this congress of glances had tacitly settled the matter. There +was nothing to be done save to ratify it. + +The interrupted conversation was renewed. + +"Candidly now," said Musette to Marcel, "where were you going just now?" + +"I told you, to see Laura." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"Her mouth is a nest of smiles." + +"Oh! I know all that sort of thing." + +"But you yourself," said Marcel, "whence came you on the wings of this +four-wheeler?" + +"I came back from the railway station where I had been to see off +Alexis, who is going on a visit to his family." + +"What sort of man is Alexis?" + +In turn Musette sketched a charming portrait of her present lover. +Whilst walking along Marcel and Musette continued thus on the open +Boulevard the comedy of reawakening love. With the same simplicity, in +turn tender and jesting, they went verse by verse through that immortal +ode in which Horace and Lydia extol with such grace the charms of their +new loves, and end by adding a postscript to their old ones. As they +reached the corner of the street a rather strong picket of soldiers +suddenly issued from it. + +Musette struck an attitude of alarm, and clutching hold of Marcel's arm +said, "Ah! Good heavens! Look there, soldiers; there is going to be +another revolution. Let us bolt off, I am awfully afraid. See me +indoors." + +"But where shall we go?" asked Marcel. + +"To my place," said Musette. "You shall see how nice it is. I invite you +to supper. We will talk politics." + +"No," replied Marcel, who thought of Monsieur Alexis. "I will not go to +your place, despite your offer of a supper. I do not like to drink my +wine out of another's glass." + +Musette was silent in face of this refusal. Then through the mist of her +recollections she saw the poor home of the artist, for Marcel had not +become a millionaire. She had an idea, and profiting by meeting another +picket she manifested fresh alarm. + +"They are going to fight," she exclaimed. "I shall never dare go home. +Marcel, my dear fellow, take me to one of my lady friends, who must be +living in your neighborhood." + +As they were crossing the Pont Neuf Musette broke into a laugh. + +"What is it?" asked Marcel. + +"Nothing," replied Musette, "only I remember that my friend has moved. +She is living at Batignolles." + +On seeing Marcel and Musette arrive arm in arm Rodolphe was not +astonished. + +"It is always so," said he, "with these badly buried loves." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +The Passage of the Red Sea + + +For five or six years Marcel had worked at the famous painting which (he +said) represented the Passage of the Red Sea; and for five or six years, +this masterpiece of color had been obstinately refused by the jury. In +fact, by dint of going and returning so many times from the artist's +study to the Exhibition, and from the Exhibition to the study, the +picture knew the road to the Louvre well enough to have gone thither of +itself, if it had been put on wheels. Marcel, who had repainted the +canvas ten times over, from top to bottom, attributed to personal +hostility on the part of the jury the ostracism which annually repulsed +him from the large saloon; nevertheless he was not totally discouraged +by the obstinate rejection which greeted him at every Exhibition. He was +comfortably established in the persuasion that his picture was, on a +somewhat smaller scale, the pendant required by "The Marriage of Cana," +that gigantic masterpiece whose astonishing brilliancy the dust of three +centuries has not been able to tarnish. Accordingly, every year at the +epoch of the Exhibition, Marcel sent his great work to the jury of +examiners; only, to deceive them, he would change some details of his +picture, and the title of it, without disturbing the general +composition. + +Thus, it came before the jury once, under the name of "The Passage of +the Rubicon," but Pharaoh, badly disguised under the mantle of Caeser, +was recognized and rejected with all the honors due him. Next year, +Marcel threw a coat of white over the foreground, to imitate snow, +planted a fir tree in one corner, and dressing an Egyptian like a +grenadier of the Imperial Guard, christened his picture, "The Passage +of the Beresina." + +But the jury had wiped its glasses that day, and were not to be duped by +this new stratagem. It recognized the pertinacious picture by a +thundering big pie-bald horse that was prancing on top of a wave of the +Red Sea. The skin of this horse served Marcel for all his experiments in +coloring; he used to call it, familiarly, his "synoptic table of fine +tones," because it reproduced the most varied combinations of color, +with the different plays of light and shade. Once again, however, the +jury could not find black balls enough to refuse "The Passage of +Beresina." + +"Very well," said Marcel, "I thought so! Next year, I shall send it +under the title of 'The Passage of the Panoramas.'" + + "They're going to be jolly caught--caught!" + +sang Schaunard to a new air of his own composition; a terrible air, like +a gamut of thunder-claps, the accompaniment whereof was a terror to all +pianos within hearing. + +"How can they refuse it, without all the vermilion of my Red Sea +mounting to their cheeks, and covering them with the blush of shame?" +ejaculated the artist, as he gazed on his picture. "When I think that +there is five hundred francs' worth of color there, and at least a +million of genius, without counting my lovely youth, now as bald as my +old hat! But they shan't get the better of me! Till my dying day, I will +send them my picture. It shall be engraved on their memories." + +"The surest way of ever having it engraved," said Colline, in a +plaintive tone, and then added to himself, "very neat, that; I shall +repeat it in society!" + +Marcel continued his imprecations, which Schaunard continued to put to +music. + +"Ah they won't admit me! The government pays them, lodges them, and +gives them decorations, on purpose to refuse me once a year; every first +of March! I see their idea! I see it clearly! They want to make me burn +my brushes. They hope that when my Red Sea is refused, I will throw +myself out of the window of despair. But they little know the heart of +man, if they think to take me thus. I will not wait for the opening of +the Exhibition. From today, my work shall be a picture of Damocles, +eternally suspended over their existence. I will send it once a week to +each of them, at his home in the bosom of his family; in the very heart +of his private life. It shall trouble their domestic joys; they shall +find their roasts burnt, their wines sour, and their wives bitter! They +will grow mad rapidly, and go to the Institute in strait-waistcoats. Ha! +Ha! The thought consoles me." + +Some days later, when Marcel had already forgotten his terrible plans of +vengeance against his persecutors, he received a visit from Father +Medicis. So the club called a Jew, named Salomon, who at that time was +well known to all the vagabond of art and literature, and had continual +transactions with them. Father Medicis traded in all sorts of trumpery. +He sold complete sets of furniture from twelve francs up to five +thousand; he bought everything, and knew how to dispose of it again, at +a profit. Proudhon's bank of exchange was nothing in comparison with the +system practiced by Medicis, who possessed the genius of traffic to a +degree at which the ablest of his religion had never before arrived. His +shop was a fairy region where you found anything you wished for. Every +product of nature, every creation of art; whatever issued from the +bowels of the earth or the head of man, was an object of commerce for +him. His business included everything; literally everything that exists; +he even trafficked in the ideal. He bought ideas to sell or speculate in +them. Known to all literary men and all artists, intimate with the +palette and familiar with the desk, he was the very Asmodeus of the +arts. He would sell you cigars for a column of your newspaper, slippers +for a sonnet, fresh fish for paradoxes; he would talk, for so much an +hour, with the people who furnished fashionable gossip to the journals. +He would procure you places for the debates in the Chambers, and +invitations to parties. He lodged wandering artistlings by the day, +week, or month, taking for pay, copies of the pictures in the Louvre. +The green room had no mysteries for him. He would get your pieces into +the theater, or yourself into the boudoir of an actress. He had a copy +of the "Almanac of Twenty Five Thousand Addresses" in his head, and knew +the names, residences, and secrets of all celebrities, even those who +were not celebrated. + +A few pages copied from his waste book, will give a better idea of the +universality of his operations than the most copious explanation could. + + "March 20, 184--." + +"Sold to M. L----, antiquary, the compass which Archimedes used at the +siege of Syracuse. 75 fr. + +Bought of M. V----, journalist, the entire works, uncut, of M. X----, +Member of the Academy. 10 fr. + +Sold to the same, a criticism of the complete works of M. X----, of the +Academy. 30 fr. + +Bought of M. R----, literary man, a critical article on the complete +works of M. Y----, of the Academy. 10 fr., plus half a cwt. of charcoal +and 4 lbs. of coffee. + +Sold to M. Y----, of the Academy, a laudatory review (twelve columns) of +his complete works. 250 fr. + +Sold to M. G----, a porcelain vase which had belonged to Madame Dubarry. +18 fr. + +Bought of little D----, her hair. 15 fr. + +Bought of M. B----, a lot of articles on Society, and the last three +mistakes in spelling made by the Prefect of the Seine. 6 fr, plus a pair +of Naples shoes. + +Sold to Mdlle. O----, a flaxen head of hair. 120 fr. + +Bought of M. M----, historical painter, a series of humorous designs. 25 +fr. + +Informed M. Ferdinand the time when Mme. la Baronne de T---- goes to +mass, and let him for the day the little room in the Faubourg +Montmartre: together 30 fr. + +Bought of M. J----, artist, a portrait of M. Isidore as Apollo. 6 fr. + +Sold to Mdlle R---- a pair of lobsters and six pair of gloves. 36 fr. +Received 3 fr. + +For the same, procured a credit of six months with Mme. Z----, +dressmaker. (Price not settled.) + +Procured for Mme. Z----, dressmaker, the custom of Mdlle. R----. +Received for this three yards of velvet, and three yards of lace. + +Bought of M. R----, literary man, a claim of 120 fr. against +the----newspaper. 5 fr., plus 2 lbs. of tobacco. + +Sold M. Ferdinand two love letters. 12 fr. + +Sold M. Isidore his portrait as Apollo. 30 fr. + +Bought of M. M----, a cwt. and a half of his work, entitled 'Submarine +Revolutions.' 15 fr. + +Lent Mme la Comtesse de G---- a service of Dresden china. 20 fr. + +Bought of M. G----, journalist, fifty-two lines in his article of town +talk. 100 fr., plus a set of chimney ornaments. + +Sold to Messrs. O---- and Co., fifty-two lines in the town talk of +the----. 300 fr., plus two sets of chimney ornaments. + +Let to Mdlle. S. G---- a bed and a brougham for the day (nothing). See +Mdlle. S. G----'s account in private ledger, folios 26 and 27. + +Bought of M. Gustave C--- a treatise on the flax and linen trade. 50 +fr., and a rare edition of Josephus. + +Sold Mdlle. S. G---- a complete set of new furniture. 5000 fr. + +For the same, paid an apothecary's bill. 75 fr. + +For the same, paid a milkman's bill. 3 fr. 85 c." + +Those quotations show what an extensive range the operations of the Jew +Medici covered. It may be added, that although some articles of his +commerce were decidedly illicit, he had never got himself into any +trouble. + +The Jew comprehended, on his entrance, that he had come at a favorable +time. In fact, the four friends were at that moment in council, under +the auspices of a ferocious appetite, discussing the grave question of +meat and drink. It was a Sunday at the end of the month--sinister day. + +The arrival of Medicis was therefore hailed by a joyous chorus, for they +knew that he was too saving of his time to spend it in visits of polite +ceremony; his presence announced business. + +"Good evening, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "How are you all?" + +"Colline!" said Rodolphe, who was studying the horizontal line at full +length on his bed. "Do the hospitable. Give our guest a chair; a guest +is sacred. I salute Abraham in you," added he. + +Colline took an arm chair about as soft as iron, and shoved it towards +the Jew, saying: + +"Suppose, for once, you were Cinna, (you _are_ a great sinner, you +know), and take this seat." + +"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted the others, looking at the floor to see if it +would not open and swallow up the philosopher. Meanwhile the Jew let +himself fall into the arm chair, and was just going to cry out at its +hardness, when he remembered that it was one which he himself had sold +to Colline for a deputy's speech. As the Jew sat down, his pockets +re-echoed with a silvery sound; melodious symphony, which threw the four +friends into a reverie of delight. + +"The accompaniment seems pretty," said Rodolphe aside to Marcel. "Now +for the air!" + +"Monsieur Marcel," said Medicis, "I have merely come to make your +fortune; that is to say, I offer you a superb opportunity of making your +entry into the artistic world. Art, you know, is a barren route, of +which glory is the oasis." + +"Father Medicis," cried Marcel, on the tenter-hooks of impatience, "in +the name of your revered patron, St. Fifty-percent, be brief!" + +"Here it is," continued Medicis, "a rich amateur, who is collecting a +gallery destined to make the tour of Europe, has charged me to procure +him a series of remarkable works. I come to offer you admission into +this museum--in a word, to buy your 'Passage of the Red Sea.'" + +"Money down?" asked Marcel. + +"Specie," replied the Jew, making the orchestra pockets strike up. + +"Do you accept this serious offer?" asked Colline. + +"Of course I do!" shouted Rodolphe, "don't you see, you wretch, that he +is talking of 'tin'? Is there nothing sacred for you, atheist that you +are?" + +Colline mounted on a table and assumed the attitude of Harpocrates, the +God of Silence. + +"Push on, Medicis!" said Marcel, exhibiting his picture. "I wish to +leave you the honor of fixing the price of this work, which is above all +price." + +The Jew placed on the table a hundred and fifty francs in new coin. + +"Well, what more?" said Marcel, "that's only the prologue." + +"Monsieur Marcel," replied the Jew, "you know that my first offer is my +last. I shall add nothing. Reflect, a hundred and fifty francs; that is +a sum, it is!" + +"A very small sum," said the artist. "There is that much worth of cobalt +in my Pharaoh's robe. Make it a round sum, at any rate! Square it off; +say two hundred!" + +"I won't add a sou!" said Medicis. "But I stand dinner for the company, +wine to any extent." + +"Going, going, going!" shouted Colline, with three blows of his fist on +the table, "no one speaks?--gone!" + +"Well it's a bargain!" said Marcel. + +"I will send for the picture tomorrow," said the Jew, "and now, +gentlemen, to dinner!" + +The four friends descended the staircase, singing the chorus of "The +Huguenots"--"_A table! A table!_" + +Medicis treated the Bohemians in a really magnificent way, and gave them +their choice of a number of dishes, which until then were completely +unknown to them. Henceforward hot lobster ceased to be a myth with +Schaunard, who contracted a passion for it that bordered on delirium. +The four friends departed from the gorgeous banquet as drunk as a +vintage-day. Marcel's intoxication was near having the most deplorable +consequences. In passing by his tailor's, at two in the morning, he +absolutely wanted to wake up his creditor, and pay him the hundred and +fifty francs on account. A ray of reason which flashed across the mind +of Colline, stopped the artist on the border of this precipice. + +A week after, Marcel discovered in what gallery his picture had been +placed. While passing through the Faubourg St. Honore, he stopped in the +midst of a group which seemed to regard with curiosity a sign that was +being put up over a shop door. The sign was neither more nor less than +Marcel's picture, which Medicis had sold to a grocer. Only "the Passage +of the Red Sea" had undergone one more alteration, and been given one +more new name. It had received the addition of a steamboat and was +called "the Harbor of Marseilles." The curious bystanders were bestowing +on it a flattering ovation. Marcel returned home in ecstacy at his +triumph, muttering to himself, _Vox populi, voz Dei_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Toilette of the Graces + + +Mademoiselle Mimi, who was accustomed to sleep far into the day, woke up +one morning at ten o'clock, and was greatly surprised not to find +Rodolphe beside her, nor even in the room. The preceding night, before +falling to sleep, she had, however, seen him at his desk, preparing to +spend the night over a piece of literary work which had been ordered of +him, and in the completion of which Mimi was especially interested. In +fact, the poet had given his companion hopes that out of the fruit of +his labors he would purchase a certain summer gown, that she had noticed +one day at the "Deux Magots," a famous drapery establishment, to the +window of which Mimi's coquetry used very frequently to pay its +devotions. Hence, ever since the work in question had been begun, Mimi +had been greatly interested in its progress. She would often come up to +Rodolphe whilst he was writing, and leaning her head on his shoulder +would say to him in serious tones-- + +"Well, is my dress getting on?" + +"There is already enough for a sleeve, so be easy," replied Rodolphe. + +One night having heard Rodolphe snap his fingers, which usually meant +that he was satisfied with his work, Mimi suddenly sat up in bed and +passing her head through the curtains said, "Is my dress finished?" + +"There," replied Rodolphe, showing her four large sheets of paper, +covered with closely written lines. "I have just finished the body." + +"How nice," said Mimi. "Then there is only the skirt now left to do. How +many pages like that are wanted for the skirt?" + +"That depends; but as you are not tall, with ten pages of fifty lines +each, and eight words to the line, we can get a decent skirt." + +"I am not very tall, it is true," said Mimi seriously, "but it must not +look as if we had skimped the stuff. Dresses are worn full, and I should +like nice large folds so that it may rustle as I walk." + +"Very good," replied Rodolphe, seriously. "I will squeeze another word +in each line and we shall manage the rustling." Mimi fell asleep again +quite satisfied. + +As she had been guilty of the imprudence of speaking of the nice dress +that Rodolphe was engaged in making for her to Mademoiselles Musette and +Phemie, these two young persons had not failed to inform Messieurs +Marcel and Schaunard of their friend's generosity towards his mistress, +and these confidences had been followed by unequivocal challenges to +follow the example set by the poet. + +"That is to say," added Mademoiselle Musette, pulling Marcel's +moustache, "that if things go on like this a week longer I shall be +obliged to borrow a pair of your trousers to go out in." + +"I am owed eleven francs by a good house," replied Marcel. "If I get it +in I will devote it to buying you a fashionable fig leaf." + +"And I," said Phemie to Schaunard, "my gown is in ribbons." + +Schaunard took three sous from his pocket and gave them to his mistress, +saying, "Here is enough to buy a needle and thread with. Mend your gown, +that will instruct and amuse you at the same time, _utile dulci_." + +Nevertheless, in a council kept very secret, Marcel and Schaunard agreed +with Rodolphe that each of them should endeavor to satisfy the +justifiable coquetry of their mistresses. + +"These poor girls," said Rodolphe, "a trifle suffices to adorn them, +but then they must have this trifle. Latterly fine arts and literature +have been flourishing; we are earning almost as much as street porters." + +"It is true that I ought not to complain," broke in Marcel. "The fine +arts are in a most healthy condition, one might believe oneself under +the sway of Leo the Tenth." + +"In point of fact," said Rodolphe. "Musette tells me that for the last +week you have started off every morning and do not get home till about +eight in the evening. Have you really got something to do?" + +"My dear fellow, a superb job that Medicis got me. I am painting at the +Ave Maria barracks. Eight grenadiers have ordered their portraits at six +francs a head taken all round, likenesses guaranteed for a year, like a +watch. I hope to get the whole regiment. I had the idea, on my own part, +of decking out Musette when Medicis pays me, for it is with him I do +business and not my models." + +"As to me," observed Schaunard carelessly, "although it may not look +like it, I have two hundred francs lying idle." + +"The deuce, let us stir them up," said Rodolphe. + +"In two or three days I count on drawing them," replied Schaunard. "I do +not conceal from you that on doing so I intend to give a free rein to +some of my passions. There is, above all, at the second hand clothes +shop close by a nankeen jacket and a hunting horn, that have for a long +time caught my eye. I shall certainly present myself with them." + +"But," added Marcel and Rodolphe together, "where do you hope to draw +this amount of capital from?" + +"Hearken gentlemen," said Schaunard, putting on a serious air, and +sitting down between his two friends, "we must not hide from one +another that before becoming members of the Institute and ratepayers, we +have still a great deal of rye bread to eat, and that daily bread is +hard to get. On the other hand, we are not alone; as heaven has created +us sensitive to love, each of us has chosen to share his lot." + +"Which is little," interrupted Marcel. + +"But," continued Schaunard, "whilst living with the strictest economy, +it is difficult when one has nothing to put anything on one side, above +all if one's appetite is always larger than one's plate." + +"What are you driving at?" asked Rodolphe. + +"This," resumed Schaunard, "that in our present situation we should all +be wrong to play the haughty when a chance offers itself, even outside +our art, of putting a figure in front of the cypher that constitutes our +capital." + +"Well!" said Marcel, "which of us can you reproach with playing the +haughty. Great painter as I shall be some day, have I not consented to +devote my brush to the pictorial reproduction of French soldiers, who +pay me out of their scanty pocket money? It seems to me that I am not +afraid to descend the ladder of my future greatness." + +"And I," said Rodolphe, "do not you know that for the past fortnight I +have been writing a medico-chirurgical epic for a celebrated dentist, +who has hired my inspiration at fifteen sous the dozen lines, about half +the price of oysters? However, I do not blush; rather than let my muse +remain idle, I would willingly put a railway guide into verse. When one +has a lyre it is meant to be made use of. And then Mimi has a burning +thirst for boots." + +"Then," said Schaunard, "you will not be offended with me when you know +the source of that Pactolus, the overflowing of which I am awaiting." + +The following is the history of Schaunard's two hundred francs:-- + +About a fortnight before he had gone into the shop of a music publisher +who had promised to procure him amongst his customers' pupils for +pianoforte lessons or pianofortes to tune. + +"By Jove!" said the publisher, on seeing him enter the shop, "you are +just in time. A gentleman has been here who wants a pianist; he is an +Englishman, and will probably pay well. Are you really a good one?" + +Schaunard reflected that a modest air might injure him in the +publisher's estimation. Indeed, a modest musician, and especially a +modest pianist, is a rare creation. Accordingly, he replied boldly: + +"I am a first rate one; if I only had a lung gone, long hair and a black +coat, I should be famous as the sun in the heavens; and instead of +asking me eight hundred francs to engrave my composition 'The Death of +the Damsel,' you would come on your knees to offer me three thousand for +it on a silver plate." + +The person whose address Schaunard took was an Englishman, named Birne. +The musician was first received by a servant in blue, who handed him +over to a servant in green, who passed him on to a servant in black, who +introduced him into a drawing room, where he found himself face to face +with a Briton coiled up in an attitude which made him resemble Hamlet +mediating on human nothingness. Schaunard was about to explain the +reason of his presence, when a sudden volley of shrill cries cut short +his speech. These horrid and ear piercing sounds proceeded from a parrot +hung out on the balcony of the story below. + +"Oh! That beast, that beast!" exclaimed the Englishman, with a bound on +his arm chair, "it will kill me." + +Thereupon the bird began to repeat its vocabulary, much more extensive +than that of ordinary Pollies; and Schaunard stood stupefied when he +heard the animal, prompted by a female voice, reciting the speech of +Theramenes with all the professional intonations. + +This parrot was the favorite of an actress who was then a great favorite +herself, and very much the rage--in her own boudoir. She was one of +those women who, no one knows why, was quoted at fancy prices on the +'Change of dissipation, and whose names are inscribed on the bills of +fare of young noblemen's suppers, where they form the living dessert. It +gives a Christian standing now-a-days to be seen with one of these +Pagans, who often have nothing of antiquity about them except their +age. When they are handsome, there is no such great harm after all; the +worst one risks is to sleep on straw in return for making them sleep on +rosewood. But when their beauty is bought by the ounce at the +perfumer's, and will not stand three drops of water on a rag; then their +wit consists in a couplet of a farce, and their talent lies in the hand +of the _claqueur_, it is hard indeed to understand how respectable men +with good names, ordinary sense, and decent coats, can let themselves be +carried away by a common place passion for these most mercenary +creatures. + +The actress in question was one of these belles of the day. She called +herself Delores, and professed to be a Spaniard, although she was born +in that Parisian Andalusia known as the Rue Coquenard. From there to the +Rue de Provence is about ten minute's walk, but it had cost her seven +years to make the transit. Her prosperity had begun with the decline of +her personal charms. She had a horse the day when her first false tooth +was inserted, and a pair the day of her second. Now she was living at a +great rate, lodging in a palace, driving four horses on holidays, and +giving balls to which all Paris came--the "all Paris" of these +ladies--that is to say, that collection of lazy seekers after jokes and +scandal; the "all Paris" that plays lansquenet; the sluggards of head +and hand, who kill their own time and other people's; the writers who +turn literary men to get some use out of the feather which nature placed +on their backs; the bullies of the revel, the clipped and sweated +gentlemen, the chevaliers of doubtful orders, all the vagabonds of +kid-glove-dom, that come from God knows where, and go back tither again +some day; all the marked and remarked notorieties; all those daughters +of Eve who retail what they once sold wholesale; all that race of +beings, corrupt from their cradle to their coffin, whom one sees on +first nights at the theater, with Golconda on foreheads and Thibet on +their shoulders, and for whom, notwithstanding, bloom the first violets +of spring and the first passions of youth--all this world which the +chronicles of gossip call "all Paris," was received by Delores who owned +the parrot aforesaid. + +This bird, celebrated for its oratorical talents among all the +neighbors, had gradually become the terror of the nearest. Hung out on +the balcony, it made a pulpit of its perch and spouted interminable +harangues from morning to night. It had learned certain parliamentary +topics from some political friends of the mistress, and was very strong +on the sugar question. It knew all the actress's repertory by heart, and +declaimed it well enough to have been her substitute, in case of +indisposition. Moreover, as she was rather polyglot in her flirtations, +and received visitors from all parts of the world, the parrot spoke all +languages, and would sometimes let out a _lingua Franca_ of oaths +enough to shock the sailors to whom "Vert-Vert" owed his profitable +education. The company of this bird, which might be instructive and +amusing for ten minutes, became a positive torture when prolonged. The +neighbors had often complained; the actress insolently disregarded their +complaints. Two or three other tenants of the house, respectable fathers +of families, indignant at the scandalous state of morals into which they +were initiated by the indiscretions of the parrot, had given warning to +the landlord. But the actress had got on his weak side; whoever might +go, she stayed. + +The Englishman whose sitting room Schaunard now entered, had suffered +with patience for three months. One day he concealed his fury, which +was ready to explode, under a full dress suit and sent in his card to +Mademoiselle Dolores. + +When she beheld him enter, arrayed almost as he would have been to +present himself before Queen Victoria, she at first thought it must be +Hoffmann, in his part of Lord Spleen; and wishing to be civil to a +fellow artist, she offered him some breakfast. + +The Englishman understood French. He had learned it in twenty five +lessons from a Spanish refugee. Accordingly he replied: + +"I accept your invitation on condition of our eating this disagreeable +bird," and he pointed to the cage of the parrot, who, having smelled an +Englishman, saluted him by whistling "God Save the King." + +Dolores thought her neighbor was quizzing her, and was beginning to get +angry, when Mr. Birne added: + +"As I am very rich, I will buy the animal. Put your price on it." + +Dolores answered that she valued the bird, and liked it, and would not +wish to see it pass into the hands of another. + +"Oh, it's not in my hands I want to put it," replied the Englishman, +"But under my feet--so--," and he pointed to the heels of his boots. + +Dolores shuddered with indignation and would probably have broken out, +when she perceived on the Englishman's finger a ring, the diamond of +which represented an income of twenty five hundred francs. The discovery +was like a shower bath to her rage. She reflected that it might be +imprudent to quarrel with a man who carried fifty thousand francs on his +little finger. + +"Well, sir," she said, "as poor Coco annoys you, I will put him in a +back room, where you cannot hear him." + +The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction. + +"However," added he, pointing once more to his boots, "I should have +preferred--." + +"Don't be afraid. Where I mean to put him it will be impossible for him +to trouble milord." + +"Oh! I am not a lord; only an esquire." + +With that, Mr. Birne was retiring, after a very low bow, when Delores, +who never neglected her interests, took up a small pocket from a work +table and said: + +"Tonight sir, is my benefit at the theater. I am to play in three +pieces. Will you allow me to offer you some box tickets? The price has +been but very slightly raised." And she put a dozen boxes into the +Briton's hand. + +"After showing myself so prompt to oblige him," thought she, "he cannot +refuse, if he is a gentleman, and if he sees me play in my pink costume, +who knows? He is very ugly, to be sure, and very sad looking, but he +might furnish me the means of going to England without being sea sick." + +The Englishman having taken the tickets, had their purport explained to +him a second time. He then asked the price. + +"The boxes are sixty francs each, and there are ten there, but no +hurry," said added, seeing the Englishman take out his pocketbook. "I +hope that as we are neighbors, this is not the last time I shall have +the honor of a visit from you." + +"I do not like to run up bills," replied Mr. Birne and drawing from the +pocketbook a thousand franc note, he laid it on the table and slid the +tickets into his pockets. + +"I will give you change," said Dolores, opening a little drawer. + +"Never mind," said the Englishman, "the rest will do for a drink," and +he went off leaving Dolores thunder struck at his last words. + +"For a drink!" she exclaimed. "What a clown! I will send him back his +money." + +But her neighbor's rudeness had only irritated the epidermis of her +vanity; reflection calmed her. She thought that a thousand francs made a +very nice "pile," after all, and that she had already put up with +impertinences at a cheaper rate. + +"Bah!" she said to herself. "It won't do to be so proud. No one was by, +and this is my washerwoman's mouth. And this Englishman speaks so badly, +perhaps he only means to pay me a compliment." + +So she pocketed her bank note joyfully. + +But that night after the theater she returned home furious. Mr. Birne +had made no use of the tickets, and the ten boxes had remained vacant. + +Thus on appearing on the stage, the unfortunate _beneficiaire_ read on +the countenances of her lady friends, the delight they felt at seeing +the house so badly filled. She even heard an actress of her acquaintance +say to another, as she pointed to the empty boxes, "Poor Dolores, she +has only planted one stage box." + +"True, the boxes are scarcely occupied," was the rejoinder. + +"The stalls, too, are empty." + +"Well, when they see her name on the bill, it acts on the house like an +air pump." + +"Hence, what an idea to put up the price of the seats!" + +"A fine benefit. I will bet that the takings would not fill a money box +or the foot of a stocking." + +"Ah! There she is in her famous red velvet costume." + +"She looks like a lobster." + +"How much did you make out of your last benefit?" said another actress +to her companion. + +"The house was full, my dear, and it was a first night; chairs in the +gangway were worth a louis. But I only got six francs; my milliner had +all the rest. If I was not afraid of chilblains, I would go to Saint +Petersburg." + +"What, you are not yet thirty, and are already thinking of doing your +Russia?" + +"What would you have?" said the other, and she added, "and you, is your +benefit soon coming on?" + +"In a fortnight, I have already three thousand francs worth of tickets +taken, without counting my young fellows from Saint Cyr." + +"Hallo, the stalls are going out." + +"It is because Dolores is singing." + +In fact, Dolores, as red in the face as her costume, was warbling her +verses with a vinegary voice. Just as she was getting though it with +difficulty, two bouquets fell at her feet, thrown by two actresses, her +dear friends, who advanced to the front of their box, exclaiming--: + +"Bravo, Dolores!" + +The fury of the latter may be readily imagined. Thus, on returning home, +although it was the middle of the night, she opened the window and woke +up Coco, who woke up the honest Mr. Birne, who had dropped off to sleep +on the faith of her promise. + +From that day war was declared between the actress and the Englishman; a +war to the knife, without truce or repose, the parties engaged in which +recoiled before no expense or trouble. The parrot took finishing lessons +in English and abused his neighbor all day in it, and in his shrillest +falsetto. It was something awful. Dolores suffered from it herself, but +she hoped that one day or other Mr. Birne would give warning. It was on +that she had set her heart. The Englishman, on his part, began by +establishing a school of drummers in his drawing room, but the police +interfered. He then set up a pistol gallery; his servants riddled fifty +cards a day. Again the commissary of police interposed, showing him an +article in the municipal code, which forbids the usage of firearms +indoors. Mr. Birne stopped firing, but a week after, Dolores found it +was raining in her room. The landlord went to visit Mr. Birne, and found +him taking saltwater baths in his drawing room. This room, which was +very large, had been lined all round with sheets of metal, and had had +all the doors fastened up. Into this extempore pond some hundred pails +of water were poured, and a few tons of salt were added to them. It was +a small edition of the sea. Nothing was lacking, not even fishes. Mr. +Birne bathed there everyday, descending into it by an opening made in +the upper panel of the center door. Before long an ancient and fish-like +smell pervaded the neighborhood, and Dolores had half an inch of water +in her bedroom. + +The landlord grew furious and threatened Mr. Birne with an action for +damages done to his property. + +"Have I not a right," asked the Englishman, "to bathe in my rooms?" + +"Not in that way, sir." + +"Very well, if I have no right to, I won't," said the Briton, full of +respect for the laws of the country in which he lived. "It's a pity; I +enjoyed it very much." + +That very night he had his ocean drained off. It was full time: there +was already an oyster bed forming on the floor. + +However, Mr. Birne had not given up the contest. He was only seeking +some legal means of continuing his singular warfare, which was "nuts" to +all the Paris loungers, for the adventure had been blazed about in the +lobbies of the theaters and other public places. Dolores felt equally +bound to come triumphant out of the contest. Not a few bets were made +upon it. + +It was then that Mr. Birne thought of the piano as an instrument of +warfare. It was not so bad an idea, the most disagreeable of instruments +being well capable of contending against the most disagreeable of birds. +As soon as this lucky thought occurred to him, he hastened to put it +into execution, hired a piano, and inquired for a pianist. The pianist, +it will be remembered, was our friend Schaunard. The Englishman +recounted to him his sufferings from the parrot, and what he had already +done to come to terms with the actress. + +"But milord," said Schaunard, "there is a sure way to rid yourself of +this creature--parsley. The chemists are unanimous in declaring that +this culinary plant is prussic acid to such birds. Chop up a little +parsley, and shake it out of the window on Coco's cage, and the creature +will die as certainly as if Pope Alexander VI had invited it to dinner." + +"I thought of that myself," said the Englishman, "but the beast is taken +good care of. The piano is surer." + +Schaunard looked at the other without catching his meaning at once. + +"See here," resumed the Englishman, "the actress and her animal always +sleep till twelve. Follow my reasoning--" + +"Go on. I am at the heels of it." + +"I intend to disturb their sleep. The law of the country authorizes me +to make music from morning to night. Do you understand?" + +"But that will not be so disagreeable to her, if she hears me play the +piano all day--for nothing, too. I am a first-rate hand, if I only had a +lung gone--." + +"Exactly, but I don't want you to make good music. You must only strike +on your instrument thus," trying a scale, "and always the same thing +without pity, only one scale. I understand medicine a little; that +drives people mad. They will both go mad; that is what I look for. Come, +Mr. Musician, to work at once. You shall be well paid." + +"And so," said Schaunard, who had recounted the above details to his +friends, "this is what I have been doing for the last fortnight. One +scale continually from seven in the morning till dark. It is not exactly +serious art. But then the Englishman pays me two hundred francs a month +for my noise; it would be cutting one's throat to refuse such a +windfall. I accepted, and in two or three days I take my first month's +money." + +It was after those mutual confidences that the three friends agreed +amongst themselves to profit by the general accession of wealth to give +their mistresses the spring outfit that the coquetry of each of them had +been wishing for so long. It was further agreed that whoever pocketed +his money first should wait for the others, so that the purchases should +be made at the same time, and that Mademoiselle Mimi, Musette, and +Phemie should enjoy the pleasure of casting their old skins, as +Schaunard put it, together. + +Well, two or three days after this council Rodolphe came in first; his +dental poem had been paid for; it weighed in eighty francs. The next +day Marcel drew from Medicis the price of eighteen corporal's +likenesses, at six francs each. + +Marcel and Rodolphe had all the difficulty in the world to hide their +good fortune. + +"It seems to me that I sweat gold," said the poet. + +"It is the same with me," said Marcel. "If Schaunard delays much longer, +it would be impossible for me to continue to play the part of the +anonymous Croesus." + +But the very next morning saw Schaunard arrive, splendidly attired in a +bright yellow nankeen jacket. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phemie, dazzled on seeing her lover so +elegantly got up, "where did you find that jacket?" + +"I found it amongst my papers," replied the musician, making a sign to +his two friends to follow him. "I have drawn the coin," said he, when +they were alone. "Behold it," and he displayed a handful of gold. + +"Well," exclaimed Marcel, "forward, let us sack the shops. How happy +Musette will be." + +"How pleased Mimi will be," added Rodolphe. "Come, are you coming +Schaunard?" + +"Allow me to reflect," replied the musician. "In decking out these +ladies with the thousand caprices of fashion, we shall perhaps be guilty +of a mistake. Think on it. Are you not afraid that when they resemble +the engravings in 'The Scarf of Iris,' these splendors will exercise a +deplorable influence upon their characters, and does it suit young +fellows like us to behave towards women as if we were aged and wrinkled +dotards? It is not that I hesitate about sacrificing fifteen or eighteen +francs to dress Phemie; but I tremble. When she has a new bonnet she +will not even recognize me, perhaps. She looks so well with only a +flower in her hair. What do you think about it, philosopher?" broke off +Schaunard, addressing Colline, who had come in within the last few +minutes. + +"Ingratitude is the offspring of kindness," observed the philosopher. + +"On the other hand," continued Schaunard, "when your mistresses are well +dressed, what sort of figure will you cut beside them in your +dilapidated costumes? You will look like their waiting maids. I do not +speak for myself," he broke off, drawing himself up in his nankeen +jacket, "for thank heaven, I could go anywhere now." + +However, despite the spirit of opposition shown by Schaunard, it was +once more agreed that the next day all the shops of the neighborhood +should be ransacked to the advantage of the ladies. + +And, indeed, the next day, at the very moment that we have seen, at the +beginning of this chapter, Mademoiselle Mimi wakes up very much +astonished at Rodolphe's absence, the poet and his two friends were +ascending the stairs, accompanied by a shopman from the Deux Magots and +a milliner with specimens. Schaunard, who had bought the famous hunting +horn, marched before them playing the overture to "The Caravan." + +Musette and Phemie, summoned by Mimi, who was living on the lower floor, +descended the stairs with the swiftness of avalanches on hearing the +news that the bonnets and dresses had been brought for them. Seeing this +poor wealth spread out before them, the three women went almost mad with +joy. Mimi was seized with a fit of hysterical laughter, and skipped +about like a kid, waving a barege scarf. Musette threw her arms around +Marcel's neck, with a little green boot in each hand, which she smote +together like cymbals. Phemie looked at Schaunard and sobbed. She could +only say, "Oh Alexander, Alexander!" + +"There is no danger of her refusing the presents of Artaxerxes," +murmured Colline the philosopher. + +After the first outbursts of joy were over, when the choices had been +made and the bills settled, Rodolphe announced to the three girls that +they would have to make arrangements to try on their new things the next +morning. + +"We will go into the country," said he. + +"A fine thing to make a fuss of," exclaimed Musette. "It is not the +first time that I have bought, cut out, sewn together, and worn a dress +the same day. Besides, we have the night before us, too. We shall be +ready, shall we not, ladies?" + +"Oh yes! We shall be ready," exclaimed Mimi and Phemie together. + +They at once set to work, and for sixteen hours did not lay aside +scissors or needle. + +The next day was the first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the +resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and +joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young +lover who is going to plant a maypole before the window of his +betrothed. She painted the sky blue, the trees green, and all things in +bright colors. She aroused the torpid sun, who was sleeping in his bed +of mists, his head resting on the snow leaden clouds that served him as +a pillow, and cried to him, "Hi! Hi! My friend, time is up, and I am +here; quick to work. Put on your fine dress of fresh rays without +further delay, and show yourself at once on your balcony to announce my +arrival." + +Upon which the sun had indeed set out, and was marching along as proud +and haughty as some great lord of the court. The swallows, returned from +their Eastern pilgrimage, filled the air with their flight, the may +whitened the bushes, the violets scented the woods, in which the birds +were leaving their nests each with a roll of music under its wings. It +was spring indeed, the true spring of poets and lovers, and not the +spring of the almanac maker--an ugly spring with a red nose and frozen +fingers, which still keeps poor folk shivering at the chimney corner +when the last ashes of the last log have long since burnt out. The balmy +breeze swept through the transparent atmosphere and scattered throughout +the city the first scent of the surrounding country. The rays of the +sun, bright and warm, tapped at the windows. To the invalid they cried, +"open, we are health," and at the garret of the young girl bending +towards her mirror, innocent first love of the most innocent, they said, +"open darling, that we may light up your beauty. We are the messengers +of fine weather. You can now put on your cotton frock and your straw +hat, and lace your smart boots; the groves in which folk foot it are +decked with bright new flowers, and the violins are tuning for the +Sunday dance. Good morning, my dear!" + +When the angelus rang out from the neighboring church, the three hard +working coquettes, who had had scarcely time to sleep a few hours, were +already before their looking glasses, giving their final glance at +their new attire. + +They were all three charming, dressed alike, and wearing on their faces +the same glow of satisfaction imparted by the realization of a long +cherished wish. + +Musette was, above all, dazzlingly beautiful. + +"I have never felt so happy," said she to Marcel. "It seems to me that +God has put into this hour all the happiness of my life, and I am afraid +that there will be no more left me. Ah bah! When there is no more left, +there will still be some more. We have the receipt for making it," she +added, gaily kissing him. + +As to Phemie, one thing vexed her. + +"I am very fond of green grass and the little birds," said she, "but in +the country one never meets anyone, and there will be no one to see my +pretty bonnet and my nice dress. Suppose we went into the country on the +Boulevards?" + +At eight in the morning the whole street was in commotion, due to the +blasts from Schaunard's horn giving the signal to start. All the +neighbors were at their windows to see the Bohemians go by. Colline, who +was of the party, brought up the rear, carrying the ladies' parasols. An +hour later the whole of the joyous band were scattered about the fields +at Fontenay-aux-Roses. + +When they returned home, very late at night, Colline, who during the day +had discharged the duties of treasurer, stated that they had omitted to +spend six francs, and placed this balance on the table. + +"What shall we do with it?" asked Marcel. + +"Suppose we invest it in Government stock," said Schaunard. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Francine's Muff + + +Among the true Bohemians of the real Bohemia I used to know one, named +Jacques D. He was a sculptor, and gave promise of great talent. But +poverty did not give him time to fulfill this promise. He died of +debility in March, 184-, at the Saint Louis Hospital, on bed No. 14 in +the Sainte Victoria ward. + +I made the acquaintance of Jacques at the hospital, when I was detained +there myself by a long illness. Jacques had, as I have said, the makings +of a great talent, and yet he was quite unassuming about it. During the +two months I spent in his company, and during which he felt himself +cradled in the arms of Death, I never once heard him complain or give +himself up to those lamentations which render the unappreciated artist +so ridiculous. He died without attitudinizing. His death brings to my +mind, too, one of the most horrible scenes I ever saw in that +caravanserai of human sufferings. His father, informed of the event, +came to reclaim the body, and for a long time haggled over giving the +thirty-six francs demanded by the hospital authorities. He also haggled +over the funeral service, and so persistently that they ended by +knocking off six francs. At the moment of putting the corpse into the +coffin, the male nurse took off the hospital sheet, and asked one of the +deceased's friends who was there for money for a shroud. The poor devil, +who had not a sou, went to Jacques' father, who got into a fearful rage, +and asked when they would finish bothering him. + +The sister of charity, who was present at this horrible discussion, cast +a glance at the corpse, and uttered these simple and feeling words: + +"Oh! sir, you cannot have him buried like that, poor fellow, it is so +cold. Give him at least a shirt, that he may not arrive quite naked +before his God." + +The father gave five francs to the friend to get a shirt, but +recommended him to go to a wardrobe shop in the Rue Grace-aux-Belles, +where they sold second-hand linen. + +"It will be cheaper there," said he. + +This cruelty on the part of Jacques' father was explained to me later +on. He was furious because his son had chosen an artistic career, and +his anger remained unappeased even in the presence of a coffin. + +But I am not very far from Mademoiselle Francine and her muff. I will +return to them. Mademoiselle Francine was the first and only mistress of +Jacques, who did not die very old, for he was scarcely three and twenty +when his father would have had him laid naked in the earth. The story of +his love was told me by Jacques himself when he was No. 14 and I was No. +16 in the Sainte Victoire ward--an ugly spot to die in. + +Ah reader! Before I begin this story, which would be a touching one if I +could tell it as it was told to me by my friend Jacques, let me take a +pull or two at the old clay pipe he gave me on the day that the doctor +forbade its use by him. Yet at night, when the male nurse was asleep, my +friend Jacques would borrow his pipe with a little tobacco from me. It +is so wearisome at night in those vast wards, when one suffers and +cannot sleep. + +"Only two or three whiffs," he would say, and I would let him have it; +and Sister Sainte-Genevieve did not seem to notice the smoke when she +made her round. Ah, good sister! How kind you were, and how beautiful +you looked, too, when you came to sprinkle us with holy water. We could +see you approaching, walking slowly along the gloomy aisles, draped in +your white veil, which fell in such graceful folds, and which our friend +Jacques admired so much. Ah kind sister! You were the Beatrice of that +Inferno. So sweet were your consolations that we were always complaining +in order to be consoled by you. If my friend Jacques had not died one +snowy day he would have carved you a nice little Virgin Mary to put in +your cell, good Sister Sainte-Genevieve. + + Well, and the muff? I do not see anything of the muff. + +_Another Reader_: And Mademoiselle Francine, where about is she, then? + +_First Reader_: This story is not very lively. + +_Second Reader_: We shall see further on. + +I really beg your pardon, gentlemen, it is my friend Jacques' pipe that +has led me away into these digressions. But, besides, I am not pledged +to make you laugh. Times are not always gay in Bohemia. + +Jacques and Francine had met in a house in the Rue de la +Tour-d'Auvergne, into which they had both moved at the same time at the +April quarter. + +The artist and the young girl were a week without entering on those +neighborly relations which are almost always forced on one when dwelling +on the same floor. However, without having exchanged a word, they were +already acquainted with one another. Francine knew that her neighbor was +a poor devil of an artist, and Jacques had learned that his was a little +seamstress who had quitted her family to escape the ill-usage of a +stepmother. She accomplished miracles of economy to make both ends meet, +and, as she had never known pleasure, had no longing for it. This is +how the pair came under the common law of partition walls. One evening +in April, Jacques came home worn out with fatigue, fasting since +morning, and profoundly sad with one of those vague sadnesses which have +no precise cause, and which seize on you anywhere and at all times; a +kind of apoplexy of the heart to which poor wretches living alone are +especially subject. Jacques, who felt stifling in his narrow room, +opened the window to breathe a little. The evening was a fine one, and +the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of +Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the +winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a +raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens +brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these +birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any +longer, he closed his window, drew the curtain, and, as he had not the +wherewithal to buy oil for his lamp, lit a resin taper that he had +brought back from a trip to the Grande-Chartreuse. Sadder than ever he +filled his pipe. + +"Luckily, I still have enough tobacco to hide the pistol," murmured he, +and he began to smoke. + +My friend Jacques must have been very sad that evening to think about +hiding the pistol. It was his supreme resource on great crises, and was +usually pretty successful. The plan was as follows. Jacques smoked +tobacco on which he used to sprinkle a few drops of laudanum, and he +would smoke until the cloud of smoke from his pipe became thick enough +to veil from him all the objects in his little room, and, above all, a +pistol hanging on the wall. It was a matter of half a score pipes. By +the time the pistol was wholly invisible it almost always happened that +the smoke and the laudanum combined would send Jacques off to sleep, and +it also often happened that his sadness left him at the commencement of +his dreams. + +But on this particular evening he had used up all his tobacco; the +pistol was completely hidden, and yet Jacques was still bitterly sad. +That evening, on the contrary Mademoiselle Francine was extremely +light-hearted when she came home, and like Jacques' sadness, her +light-heartedness was without cause. It was one of those joys that come +from heaven, and that God scatters amongst good hearts. So Mademoiselle +Francine was in a good temper, and sang to herself as she came upstairs. +But as she was going to open her door a puff of wind, coming through the +open staircase window, suddenly blew out her candle. + +"Oh, what a nuisance!" exclaimed the girl, "six flights of stairs to go +down and up again." + +But, noticing the light coming from under Jacques' door, the instinct of +idleness grafted on a feeling of curiosity, advised her to go and ask +the artist for a light. "It is a service daily rendered among +neighbors," thought she, "and there is nothing compromising about it." + +She tapped twice, therefore, at the door, and Jacques opened it, +somewhat surprised at this late visit. But scarcely had she taken a step +into the room than the smoke that filled it suddenly choked her, and, +before she was able to speak a word, she sank fainting into a chair, +dropping her candle and her room door key onto the ground. It was +midnight, and everyone in the house was asleep. Jacques thought it +better not to call for help. He was afraid, in the first place, of +compromising his neighbor. He contented himself, therefore, with opening +the window to let in a little fresh air, and, after having sprinkled a +few drops of water on the girl's face, saw her open her eyes and by +degrees come to herself. When, at the end of five minutes' time, she had +wholly recovered consciousness, Francine explained the motive that had +brought her into the artist's room, and made many excuses for what had +happened. + +"Now, then, I am recovered," said she. "I can go into my own room." + +He had already opened the door, when she perceived that she was not +only forgetting to light her candle, but that she had not the key of her +room. + +"Silly thing that I am," said she, putting her candle to the flame of +the resin taper, "I came in here to get a light, and I was going away +without one." + +But at the same moment the draft caused by the door and window, both of +which had remained open, suddenly blew out the taper, and the two young +folk were left in darkness. + +"One would think that it was done on purpose," said Francine. "Forgive +me sir, for all the trouble I am giving you, and be good enough to +strike a light so that I may find my key." + +"Certainly mademoiselle," answered Jacques, feeling for the matches. + +He had soon found them. But a singular idea flashed across his mind, and +he put the matches in his pocket saying, "Dear me, mademoiselle, here is +another trouble. I have not a single match here. I used the last when I +came in." + +"Oh!" said Francine, "after all I can very well find my way without a +light, my room is not big enough for me to lose myself in it. But I must +have my key. Will you be good enough, sir, to help me to look for it? It +must have fallen to the ground." + +"Let us look for it, mademoiselle," said Jacques. + +And both of them began to seek the lost article in the dark, but as +though guided by a common instinct, it happened during this search, that +their hands, groping in the same spot, met ten times a minute. And, as +they were both equally awkward, they did not find the key. + +"The moon, which is hidden just now by the clouds, shines right into the +room," said Jacques. "Let us wait a bit; by-and-by it will light up the +room and may help us." + +And, pending the appearance of the moon, they began to talk. A +conversation in the dark, in a little room, on a spring night; a +conversation which, at the outset trifling and unimportant, gradually +enters on the chapter of personal confidences. You know what that leads +to. Language by degrees grows confused, full of reticences; voices are +lowered; words alternate with sighs. Hands meeting complete the thought +which from the heart ascends to the lips, and--. Seek the conclusion in +your recollection, young couples. Do you remember, young man. Do you +remember, young lady, you who now walk hand-in-hand, and who, up to two +days back, had never seen one another? + +At length the moon broke through the clouds, and her bright light +flooded the room. Mademoiselle Francine awoke from her reverie uttering +a faint cry. + +"What is the matter?" asked Jacques, putting his arm around her waist. + +"Nothing," murmured Francine. "I thought I heard someone knock." + +And, without Jacques noticing it, she pushed the key that she had just +noticed under some of the furniture. + +She did not want to find it now. + + * * * * * + +_First Reader_: I certainly will not let my daughter read this story. + +_Second Reader_: Up till now I have not caught a glimpse of a single +hair of Mademoiselle Francine's muff; and, as to the young woman +herself, I do not know any better what she is like, whether she is fair +or dark. + +Patience, readers, patience. I have promised you a muff, and I will give +you one later on, as my friend Jacques did to his poor love Francine, +who had become his mistress, as I have explained in the line left blank +above. + +She was fair was Francine, fair and lovely, which is not usual. She had +remained ignorant of love until she was twenty, but a vague presentiment +of her approaching end counselled her not to delay if she would become +acquainted with it. + +She met Jacques and loved him. Their connection lasted six months. They +had taken one another in the spring; they were parted in the autumn. +Francine was consumptive. She knew it and her lover Jacques knew it too; +a fortnight after he had taken up with her he had learned it from one of +his friends, who was a doctor. + +"She will go with the autumn leaves," said the latter. + +Francine heard this confidence, and perceived the grief it caused her +lover. + +"What matters the autumn leaves?" said she, putting the whole of her +love into a smile. "What matters the autumn; it is summer, and the +leaves are green; let us profit by that, love. When you see me ready to +depart from this life, you shall take me in your arms and kiss me, and +forbid me to go. I am obedient you know, and I will stay." + +And for five months this charming creature passed through the miseries +of Bohemian life, a smile and a song on her lips. As to Jacques, he let +himself be deluded. His friend often said to him, "Francine is worse, +she must be attended to." Then Jacques went all over Paris to obtain +the wherewithal for the doctor's prescription, but Francine would not +hear of it, and threw the medicine out of the window. At night, when she +was seized with a fit of coughing, she would leave the room and go out +on the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her. + +One day, when they had both gone into the country, Jacques saw a tree +the foliage of which was turning to yellow. He gazed sadly at Francine, +who was walking slowly and somewhat dreamily. + +Francine saw Jacques turn pale and guessed the reason of his pallor. + +"You are foolish," said she, kissing him, "we are only in July, it is +three months to October, loving one another day and night as we do, we +shall double the time we have to spend together. And then, besides, if I +feel worse when the leaves turn yellow, we will go and live in a pine +forest, the leaves are always green there." + + * * * * * + +In October Francine was obliged to keep her bed. Jacques' friend +attended her. The little room in which they lived was situated at the +top of the house and looked into a court, in which there was a tree, +which day by day grew barer of foliage. Jacques had put a curtain to the +window to hide this tree from the invalid, but Francine insisted on its +being drawn back. + +"Oh my darling!" said she to Jacques. "I will give you a hundred times +more kisses than there are leaves." And she added, "Besides I am much +better now. I shall soon be able to go out, but as it will be cold and I +do not want to have red hands, you must buy me a muff." + +During the whole of her illness this muff was her only dream. + +The day before All Saints', seeing Jacques more grief stricken than +ever, she wished to give him courage, and to prove to him that she was +better she got up. + +The doctor arrived at that moment and forced her to go to bed again. + +"Jacques," whispered he in the artist's ear, "you must summon up your +courage. All is over; Francine is dying." + +Jacques burst into tears. + +"You may give her whatever she asks for now," continued the doctor, +"there is no hope." + +Francine heard with her eyes what the doctor had said to her lover. + +"Do not listen to him," she exclaimed, holding out her arm to Jacques, +"do not listen to him; he is not speaking the truth. We will go out +tomorrow--it is All Saints' Day. It will be cold--go buy me a muff, I beg +of you. I am afraid of chilblains this winter." + +Jacques was going out with his friend, but Francine detained the doctor. + +"Go and get my muff," said she to Jacques. "Get a nice one, so that it +may last a good while." + +When she was alone she said to the doctor. + +"Oh sir! I am going to die, and I know it. But before I pass away give +me something to give me strength for a night, I beg of you. Make me well +for one more night, and let me die afterwards, since God does not wish +me to live longer." + +As the doctor was doing his best to console her, the wind carried into +the room and cast upon the sick girl's bed a yellow leaf, torn from the +tree in the little courtyard. + +Francine opened the curtain, and saw the tree entirely bare. + +"It is the last," said she, putting the leaf under her pillow. + +"You will not die until tomorrow," said the doctor. "You have a night +before you." + +"Ah, what happiness!" exclaimed the poor girl. "A winter's night--it +will be a long one." + +Jacques came back. He brought a muff with him. + +"It is very pretty," said Francine. "I will wear it when I go out." + +So passed the night with Jacques. + +The next day--All Saints'--about the middle of the day, the death agony +seized on her, and her whole body began to quiver. + +"My hands are cold," she murmured. "Give me my muff." + +And she buried her poor hands in the fur. + +"It is the end," said the doctor to Jacques. "Kiss her for the last +time." + +Jacques pressed his lips to those of his love. At the last moment they +wanted to take away her muff, but she clutched it with her hands. + +"No, no," she said, "leave it me; it is winter, it is cold. Oh my poor +Jacques! My poor Jacques! What will become of you? Oh heavens!" + +And the next day Jacques was alone. + +_First Reader_: I told you that this was not a very lively story. + +What would you have, reader? We cannot always laugh. + +It was the morning of All Saints. Francine was dead. + +Two men were watching at the bedside. One of them standing up was the +doctor. The other, kneeling beside the bed, was pressing his lips to the +dead girl's hands, and seemed to rivet them there in a despairing kiss. +It was Jacques, her lover. For more than six hours he had been plunged +in a state of heart broken insensibility. An organ playing under the +windows had just roused him from it. + +This organ was playing a tune that Francine was in the habit of singing +of a morning. + +One of those mad hopes that are only born out of deep despair flashed +across Jacques' mind. He went back a month in the past--to the period +when Francine was only sick unto death; he forgot the present, and +imagined for a moment that the dead girl was but sleeping, and that she +would wake up directly, her mouth full of her morning song. + +But the sounds of the organ had not yet died away before Jacques had +already come back to the reality. Francine's mouth was eternally closed +to all songs, and the smile that her last thought had brought to her +lips was fading away from them beneath death's fingers. + +"Take courage, Jacques," said the doctor, who was the sculptor's friend. + +Jacques rose, and said, looking fixedly at him, "it is over, is it +not--there is no longer any hope?" + +Without replying to this wild inquiry, Jacques' friend went and drew the +curtains of the bed, and then, returning to the sculptor, held out his +hand. + +"Francine is dead," said he. "We were bound to expect it, though heaven +knows that we have done what we could to save her. She was a good girl, +Jacques, who loved you very dearly--dearer and better than you loved her +yourself, for hers was love alone, while yours held an alloy. Francine +is dead, but all is not over yet. We must now think about the steps +necessary for her burial. We must set about that together, and we will +ask one of the neighbors to keep watch here while we are away." + +Jacques allowed himself to be led away by his friend. They passed the +day between the registrar of deaths, the undertaker, and the cemetery. +As Jacques had no money, the doctor pawned his watch, a ring, and some +clothes, to cover the cost of the funeral, that was fixed for the next +day. + +They both got in late at night. The neighbor who had been watching tried +to make Jacques eat a little. + +"Yes," said he. "I will. I am very cold and I shall need a little +strength for my work tonight." + +The neighbor and the doctor did not understand him. + +Jacques sat down at the table and ate a few mouthfuls so hurriedly that +he was almost choked. Then he asked for drink. But on lifting his glass +to his lips he let it fall. The glass, which broke on the floor, had +awakened in the artist's mind a recollection which itself revived his +momentary dulled pain. The day on which Francine had called on him for +the first time she had felt ill, and he had given her to drink out of +this glass. Later, when they were living together, they had regarded it +as a love token. + +During his rare moments of wealth the artist would buy for his love one +or two bottles of the strengthening wine prescribed for her, and it was +from this glass that Francine used to sip the liquid whence her love +drew a charming gaiety. + +Jacques remained for more than half an hour staring without uttering a +word at the scattered fragments of this frail and cherished token. It +seemed to him that his heart was also broken, and that he could feel +the fragments tearing his breast. When he had recovered himself, he +picked up the pieces of glass and placed them in a drawer. Then he asked +the neighbor to fetch him two candles, and to send up a bucket of water +by the porter. + +"Do not go away," said he to the doctor, who had no intention of doing +so. "I shall want you presently." + +The water and the candles were brought and the two friends left alone. + +"What do you want to do?" asked the doctor, watching Jacques, who after +filling a wooden bowl with water was sprinkling powdered plaster of +Paris into it. + +"What do I mean to do?" asked the artist, "cannot you guess? I am going +to model Francine's head, and as my courage would fail me if I were left +alone, you must stay with me." + +Jacques then went and drew the curtains of the bed and turned down the +sheet that had been pulled up over the dead girl's face. His hand began +to tremble and a stifled sob broke from his lips. + +"Bring the candles," he cried to his friend, "and come and hold the +bowl for me." + +One of the candles was placed at the head of the bed so as to shed its +light on Francine's face, the other candle was placed at the foot. With +a brush dipped in olive oil the artist coated the eye-brows, the +eye-lashes and the hair, which he arranged as Francine usually wore it. + +"By doing this she will not suffer when we remove the mold," murmured +Jacques to himself. + +These precautions taken and after arranging the dead girl's head in a +favorable position, Jacques began to lay on the plaster in successive +coats until the mold had attained the necessary thickness. In a quarter +of an hour the operation was over and had been thoroughly successful. + +By some strange peculiarity a change had taken place in Francine's face. +The blood, which had not had time to become wholly congealed, warmed no +doubt by the warmth of the plaster, had flowed to the upper part of the +corpse and a rosy tinge gradually showed itself on the dead whiteness of +the cheeks and forehead. The eyelids, which had lifted when the mold was +removed, revealed the tranquil blue eyes in which a vague intelligence +seemed to lurk; from out the lips, parted by the beginning of a smile, +there seemed to issue that last word, forgotten during the last +farewell, that is only heard by the heart. + +Who can affirm that intelligence absolutely ends where insensibility +begins? Who can say that the passions fade away and die exactly at the +last beat of the heart which they have agitated? Cannot the soul +sometimes remain a voluntary captive within the corpse already dressed +for the coffin, and note for a moment from the recesses of its fleshly +prison house, regrets and tears? Those who depart have so many reasons +to mistrust those who remain behind. + +At the moment when Jacques sought to preserve her features by the aid +of art who knows but that a thought of after life had perhaps returned +to awaken Francine in her first slumber of the sleep that knows no end. +Perhaps she had remembered the he whom she had just left was an artist +at the same time as a lover, that he was both because he could not be +one without the other, that for him love was the soul of heart and that +if he had loved her so, it was because she had been for him a mistress +and a woman, a sentiment in form. And then, perhaps, Francine, wishing +to leave Jacques the human form that had become for him an incarnate +ideal, had been able though dead and cold already to once more clothe +her face with all the radiance of love and with all the graces of youth, +to resuscitate the art treasure. + +And perhaps too, the poor girl had thought rightly, for there exist +among true artists singular Pygmalions who, contrary to the original +one, would like to turn their living Galateas to marble. + +In presence of the serenity of this face on which the death pangs had no +longer left any trace, no one would have believed in the prolonged +sufferings that had served as a preface to death. Francine seemed to be +continuing a dream of love, and seeing her thus one would have said that +she had died of beauty. + +The doctor, worn out with fatigue, was asleep in a corner. + +As to Jacques, he was again plunged in doubt. His mind beset with +hallucinations, persisted in believing that she whom he had loved so +well was on the point of awakening, and as faint nervous contractions, +due to the recent action of the plaster, broke at intervals the +immobility of the corpse, this semblance of life served to maintain +Jacques in his blissful illusion, which lasted until morning, when a +police official called to verify the death and authorize internment. + +Besides, if it needed all the folly of despair to doubt of her death on +beholding this beautiful creature, it also needed all the infallibility +of science to believe it. + +While the neighbor was putting Francine into her shroud, Jacques was led +away into the next room, where he found some of his friends who had come +to follow the funeral. The Bohemians desisted as regards Jacques, whom, +however, they loved in brotherly fashion, from all those consolations +which only serve to irritate grief. Without uttering one of those +remarks so hard to frame and so painful to listen to, they silently +shook their friend by the hand in turn. + +"Her death is a great misfortune for Jacques," said one of them. + +"Yes," replied the painter Lazare, a strange spirit who had been able at +the very outset to conquer all the rebellious impulses of youth by the +inflexibility of one set purpose, and in whom the artist had ended by +stifling the man, "yes, but it is a misfortune that he incurred +voluntarily. Since he knew Francine, Jacques has greatly altered." + +"She made him happy," said another. + +"Happy," replied Lazare, "what do you call happy? How can you call a +passion, which brings a man to the condition in which Jacques is at this +moment, happiness? Show him a masterpiece and he would not even turn +his eyes to look at it; on a Titian or a Raphael. My mistress is +immortal and will never deceive me. She dwells in the Louvre, and her +name is Joconde." + +While Lazare was about to continue his theories on art and sentiment, it +was announced that it was time to start for the church. + +After a few prayers the funeral procession moved on to the cemetery. As +it was All Souls' Day an immense crowd filled it. Many people turned to +look at Jacques walking bareheaded in rear of the hearse. + +"Poor fellow," said one, "it is his mother, no doubt." + +"It is his father," said another. + +"It is his sister," was elsewhere remarked. + +A poet, who had come there to study the varying expressions of regret at +this festival of recollections celebrated once a year amidst November +fogs, alone guessed on seeing him pass that he was following the funeral +of his mistress. + +When they came to the grave the Bohemians ranged themselves about it +bareheaded, Jacques stood close to the edge, his friend the doctor +holding him by the arm. + +The grave diggers were in a hurry and wanted to get things over quickly. + +"There is to be no speechifying," said one of them. "Well, so much the +better. Heave, mate, that's it." + +The coffin taken out of the hearse was lowered into the grave. One man +withdrew the ropes and then with one of his mates took a shovel and +began to cast in the earth. The grave was soon filled up. A little +wooden cross was planted over it. + +In the midst of his sobs the doctor heard Jacques utter this cry of +egoism-- + +"Oh my youth! It is you they are burying." + +Jacques belonged to a club styled the Water Drinkers, which seemed to +have been founded in imitation of the famous one of the Rue des +Quatre-Vents, which is treated of in that fine story _"Un Grand Homme de +Province."_ Only there was a great difference between the heroes of the +latter circle and the Water Drinkers who, like all imitators, had +exaggerated the system they sought to put into practice. This difference +will be understood by the fact that in Balzac's book the members of the +club end by attaining the object they proposed to themselves, while +after several years' existence the club of the Water Drinkers was +naturally dissolved by the death of all its members, without the name of +anyone of them remaining attached to a work attesting their existence. + +During his union with Francine, Jacques' intercourse with the Water +Drinkers had become more broken. The necessities of life had obliged the +artist to violate certain conditions solemnly signed and sworn by the +Water Drinkers the day the club was founded. + +Perpetually perched on the stilts of an absurd pride, these young +fellows had laid down as a sovereign principle in their association, +that they must never abandon the lofty heights of art; that is to say, +that despite their mortal poverty, not one of them would make any +concession to necessity. Thus the poet Melchior would never have +consented to abandon what he called his lyre, to write a commercial +prospectus or an electoral address. That was all very well for the poet +Rodolphe, a good-for-nothing who was ready to turn his hand to anything, +and who never let a five franc piece flit past him without trying to +capture it, no matter how. The painter Lazare, a proud wearer of rags, +would never have soiled his brushes by painting the portrait of a tailor +holding a parrot on his forefinger, as our friend the painter Marcel had +once done in exchange for the famous dress coat nicknamed Methuselah, +which the hands of each of his sweethearts had starred over with darns. +All the while he had been living in communion of thought with the Water +Drinkers, the sculptor Jacques had submitted to the tyranny of the club +rules; but when he made the acquaintance of Francine, he would not make +the poor girl, already ill, share of the regimen he had accepted during +his solitude. Jacques' was above all an upright and loyal nature. He +went to the president of the club, the exclusive Lazare, and informed +him that for the future he would accept any work that would bring him +in anything. + +"My dear fellow, your declaration of love is your artistic renunciation. +We will remain your friends if you like, but we shall no longer be your +partners. Work as you please, for me you are no longer a sculptor, but a +plasterer. It is true that you may drink wine, but we who continue to +drink our water, and eat our dry bread, will remain artists." + +Whatever Lazare might say about it, Jacques remained an artist. But to +keep Francine with him he undertook, when he had a chance, any paying +work. It is thus that he worked for a long time in the workshop of the +ornament maker Romagnesi. Clever in execution and ingenious in +invention, Jacques, without relinquishing high art, might have achieved +a high reputation in those figure groups that have become one of the +chief elements in this commerce. But Jacques was lazy, like all true +artists, and a lover after the fashion of poets. Youth in him had +awakened tardily but ardent, and, with a presentiment of his approaching +end, he had sought to exhaust it in Francine's arms. Thus it happened +that good chances of work knocked at his door without Jacques answering, +because he would have had to disturb himself, and he found it more +comfortable to dream by the light of his beloved's eyes. + +When Francine was dead the sculptor went to see his old friends the +Water Drinkers again. But Lazare's spirit predominated in this club, in +which each of the members lived petrified in the egoism of art. Jacques +did not find what he came there in search of. They scarcely understood +his despair, which they strove to appease by argument, and seeing this +small degree of sympathy, Jacques preferred to isolate his grief rather +than see it laid bare by discussion. He broke off, therefore, completely +with the Water Drinkers and went away to live alone. + +Five or six days after Francine's funeral, Jacques went to a monumental +mason of the Montparnasse cemetery and offered to conclude the following +bargain with him. The mason was to furnish Francine's grave with a +border, which Jacques reserved the right of designing, and in addition +to supply the sculptor with a block of white marble. In return for this +Jacques would place himself for three months at his disposition, either +as a journeyman stone-cutter or sculptor. The monumental mason then had +several important orders on hand. He visited Jacques' studio, and in +presence of several works begun there, had proof that the chance which +gave him the sculptor's services was a lucky one for him. A week later, +Francine's grave had a border, in the midst of which the wooden cross +had been replaced by a stone one with her name graven on it. + +Jacques had luckily to do with an honest fellow who understood that a +couple of hundredweight of cast iron, and three square feet of Pyrenean +marble were no payment for three months' work by Jacques, whose talent +had brought him in several thousand francs. He offered to give the +artist a share in the business, but Jacques would not consent. The lack +of variety in the subjects for treatment was repugnant to his inventive +disposition, besides he had what he wanted, a large block of marble, +from the recesses of which he wished to evolve a masterpiece destined +for Francine's grave. + +At the beginning of spring Jacques' position improved. His friend the +doctor put him in relation with a great foreign nobleman who had come to +settle in Paris, and who was having a magnificent mansion built in one +of the most fashionable districts. Several celebrated artists had been +called in to contribute to the luxury of this little palace. A chimney +piece was commissioned from Jacques. I can still see his design, it was +charming; the whole poetry of winter was expressed in the marble that +was to serve as a frame to the flames. Jacques' studio was too small, he +asked for and obtained a room in the mansion, as yet uninhabited, to +execute his task in. A fairly large sum was even advanced him on the +price agreed on for his work. Jacques began by repaying his friend the +doctor the money the latter had lent him at Francine's death, then he +hurried to the cemetery to cover the earth, beneath which his mistress +slept, with flowers. + +But spring had been there before him, and on the girl's grave a thousand +flowers were springing at hazard amongst the grass. The artist had not +the courage to pull them up, for he thought that these flowers might +perhaps hold something of his dead love. As the gardener asked him what +was to be done with the roses and pansies he had brought with him, +Jacques bade him plant them on a neighboring grave, newly dug, the poor +grave of some poor creature, without any border and having no other +memorial over it than a piece of wood stuck in the ground and surmounted +by a crown of flowers in blackened paper, the scant offering of some +pauper's grief. Jacques left the cemetery in quite a different frame of +mind to what he had entered it. He looked with happy curiosity at the +bright spring sunshine, the same that had so often gilded Francine's +locks when she ran about the fields culling wildflowers with her white +hands. Quite a swarm of pleasant thoughts hummed in his heart. Passing +by a little tavern on the outer Boulevard he remembered that one day, +being caught by a storm, he had taken shelter there with Francine, and +that they had dined there. Jacques went in and had dinner served at the +same table. His dessert was served on a plate with a pictorial pattern; +he recognized it and remembered that Francine had spent half an hour in +guessing the rebus painted on it, and recollected, too, a song sung by +her when inspired by the violet hued wine which does not cost much and +has more gaiety in it than grapes. But this flood of sweet remembrances +recalled his love without reawakening his grief. Accessible to +superstition, like all poetical and dreamy intellects, Jacques fancied +that it was Francine, who, hearing his step beside her, had wafted him +these pleasant remembrances from her grave, and he would not damp them +with a tear. He quitted the tavern with firm step, erect head, bright +eye, beating heart, and almost a smile on his lips, murmuring as he went +along the refrain of Francine's song-- + + "Love hovers round my dwelling + My door must open be." + +This refrain in Jacques' mouth was also a recollection, but then it was +already a song, and perhaps without suspecting it he took that evening +the first step along the road which leads from sorrow to melancholy, and +thence onward to forgetfulness. Alas! Whatever one may wish and whatever +one may do the eternal and just law of change wills it so. + +Even as the flowers, sprung perhaps from Francine, had sprouted on her +tomb the sap of youth stirred in the heart of Jacques, in which the +remembrance of the old love awoke new aspirations for new ones. Besides +Jacques belonged to the race of artists and poets who make passion an +instrument of art and poetry, and whose mind only shows activity in +proportion as it is set in motion by the motive powers of the heart. +With Jacques invention was really the daughter of sentiment, and he put +something of himself into the smallest things he did. He perceived that +souvenirs no longer sufficed him, and that, like the millstone which +wears itself away when corn runs short, his heart was wearing away for +want of emotion. Work had no longer any charm for him, his power of +invention, of yore feverish and spontaneous, now only awoke after much +patient effort. Jacques was discontented, and almost envied the life of +his old friends, the Water Drinkers. + +He sought to divert himself, held out his hand to pleasure, and made +fresh acquaintances. He associated with the poet Rodolphe, whom he had +met at a cafe, and each felt a warm sympathy towards the other. Jacques +explained his worries, and Rodolphe was not long in understanding their +cause. + +"My friend," said he, "I know what it is," and tapping him on the chest +just over the heart he added, "Quick, you must rekindle the fire there, +start a little love affair at once, and ideas will recur to you." + +"Ah!" said Jacques. "I loved Francine too dearly." + +"It will not hinder you from still always loving her. You will embrace +her on another's lips." + +"Oh!" said Jacques. "If I could only meet a girl who resembled her." + +And he left Rodolphe deep in thought. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later Jacques had recovered all his energy, rekindled by the +tender glances of a young girl whose name was Marie, and whose somewhat +sickly beauty recalled that of poor Francine. Nothing, indeed, could be +prettier than this pretty Marie, who was within six weeks of being +eighteen years of age, as she never failed to mention. Her love affair +with Jacques had its birth by moonlight in the garden of an open air +ball, to the strains of a shrill violin, a grunting double bass, and a +clarinet that trilled like a blackbird. Jacques met her one evening when +gravely walking around the space reserved for the dancers. Seeing him +pass stiffly in his eternal black coat buttoned to the throat, the +pretty and noisy frequenters of the place, who knew him by sight, used +to say amongst themselves, "What is that undertaker doing here? Is there +anyone who wants to be buried?" + +And Jacques walked on always alone, his heart bleeding within him from +the thorns of a remembrance which the orchestra rendered keener by +playing a lively quadrille which sounded to his ears as mournful as a +_De Profundis_. It was in the midst of this reverie that he noticed +Marie, who was watching him from a corner, and laughing like a wild +thing at his gloomy bearing. Jacques raised his eyes and saw this burst +of laughter in a pink bonnet within three paces of him. He went up to +her and made a few remarks, to which she replied. He offered her his arm +for a stroll around the garden which she accepted. He told her that he +thought her as beautiful as an angel, and she made him repeat it twice +over. He stole some green apples hanging from the trees of the garden +for her, and she devoured them eagerly to the accompaniment of that +ringing laugh which seemed the burden of her constant mirth. Jacques +thought of the Bible, and thought that we should never despair as +regards any woman, and still less as regards those who love apples. He +took another turn round the garden with the pink bonnet, and it is thus +that arriving at the ball alone he did not return from it so. + +However, Jacques had not forgotten Francine; bearing in mind Rodolphe's +words he kissed her daily on Marie's lips, and wrought in secret at the +figure he wished to place on the dead girl's grave. + +One day when he received some money Jacques bought a dress for Marie--a +black dress. The girl was pleased, only she thought that black was not +very lively for summer wear. But Jacques told her that he was very fond +of black, and that she would please him by wearing this dress every day. +Marie obeyed. + +One Saturday Jacques said to her: + +"Come early tomorrow, we will go into the country." + +"How nice!" said Marie. "I am preparing a surprise for you. You shall +see. It will be sunshiny tomorrow." + +Marie spent the night at home finishing a new dress that she had bought +out of her savings--a pretty pink dress. And on Sunday she arrived clad +in her smart purchase at Jacques' studio. + +The artist received her coldly, almost brutally. + +"I thought I should please you by making this bright toilette," said +Marie, who could not understand his coolness. + +"We cannot go into the country today," replied he. "You had better be +off. I have some work today." + +Marie went home with a full heart. On the way she met a young man who +was acquainted with Jacques' story, and who had also paid court to +herself. + +"Ah! Mademoiselle Marie, so you are no longer in mourning?" said he. + +"Mourning?" asked Marie. "For whom?" + +"What, did you not know? It is pretty generally known, though, the +black dress that Jacques gave you--." + +"Well, what of it?" asked Marie. + +"It was mourning. Jacques made you wear mourning for Francine." + +From that day Jacques saw no more of Marie. + +This rupture was unlucky for him. Evil days returned; he had no more +work, and fell into such a fearful state of wretchedness that, no longer +knowing what would become of him, he begged his friend the doctor to +obtain him admission to a hospital. The doctor saw at first glance that +this admission would not be difficult to obtain. Jacques, who did not +suspect his condition, was on the way to rejoin Francine. + +As he could still move about, Jacques begged the superintendent of the +hospital to let him have a little unused room, and he had a stand, some +tools, and some modelling clay brought there. During the first fortnight +he worked at the figure he intended for Francine's grave. It was an +angel with outspread wings. This figure, which was Francine's portrait, +was never quite finished, for Jacques could soon no longer mount the +stairs, and in short time could not leave his bed. + +One day the order book fell into his hands, and seeing the things +prescribed for himself, he understood that he was lost. He wrote to his +family, and sent for Sister Sainte-Genevieve, who looked after him with +charitable care. + +"Sister," said Jacques, "there is upstairs in the room that was lent me, +a little plaster cast. This statuette, which represents an angel, was +intended for a tomb, but I had not time to execute it in marble. Yes, I +had a fine block--white marble with pink veins. Well, sister, I give you +my little statuette for your chapel." + +Jacques died a few days later. As the funeral took place on the very day +of the opening of the annual exhibition of pictures, the Water Drinkers +were not present. "Art before all," said Lazare. + +Jacques' family was not a rich one, and he did not have a grave of his +own. + +He is buried somewhere. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Musette's Fancies + + +It may be, perhaps, remembered how the painter Marcel sold the Jew +Medici his famous picture of "The Passage of the Red Sea," which was +destined to serve as the sign of a provision dealer's. On the morrow of +this sale, which had been followed by a luxurious dinner stood by the +Jew to the Bohemians as a clincher to the bargain, Marcel, Schaunard, +Colline, and Rodolphe woke up very late. Still bewildered by the fumes +of their intoxication of the day before, at first they no longer +remembered what had taken place, and as noon rung out from a neighboring +steeple, they all looked at one another with a melancholy smile. + +"There goes the bell that piously summons humanity to refresh itself," +said Marcel. + +"In point of fact," replied Rodolphe, "it is the solemn hour when honest +folk enter their dining-room." + +"We must try and become honest folk," murmured Colline, whose patron +saint was Saint Appetite. + +"Ah, milk jug of my nursery!--ah! Four square meals of my childhood, +what has become of you?" said Schaunard. "What has become of you?" he +repeated, to a soft and melancholy tune. + +"To think that at this hour there are in Paris more than a hundred +thousand chops on the gridiron," said Marcel. + +"And as many steaks," added Rodolphe. + +By an ironical contrast, while the four friends were putting to one +another the terrible daily problem of how to get their breakfast, the +waiters of a restaurant on the lower floor of the house kept shouting +out the customers' orders. + +"Will those scoundrels never be quiet?" said Marcel. "Every word is like +the stroke of a pick, hollowing out my stomach." + +"The wind is in the north," said Colline, gravely, pointing to a +weathercock on a neighboring roof. "We shall not breakfast today, the +elements are opposed to it." + +"How so?" inquired Marcel. + +"It is an atmospheric phenomenon I have noted," said the philosopher. "A +wind from the north almost always means abstinence, as one from the +south usually means pleasure and good cheer. It is what philosophy calls +a warning from above." + +Gustave Colline's fasting jokes were savage ones. + +At that moment Schaunard, who had plunged one of his hands into the +abyss that served him as a pocket, withdrew it with a yell of pain. + +"Help, there is something in my coat!" he cried, trying to free his +hand, nipped fast in the claws of a live lobster. + +To the cry he had uttered, another one replied. It came from Marcel, +who, mechanically putting his hand into his pocket, had there discovered +a silver mine that he had forgotten--that is to say, the hundred and +fifty francs which Medici had given him the day before in payment for +"The Passage of the Red Sea." + +Memory returned at the same moment to the Bohemians. + +"Bow down, gentlemen," said Marcel, spreading out on the table a pile of +five-franc pieces, amongst which glittered some new louis. + +"One would think they were alive," said Colline. + +"Sweet sounds!" said Schaunard, chinking the gold pieces together. + +"How pretty these medals are!" said Rodolphe. "One would take them for +fragments of sunshine. If I were a king I would have no other small +change, and would have them stamped with my mistress's portrait." + +"To think that there is a country where there are mere pebbles," said +Schaunard. "The Americans used to give four of them for two sous. I had +an ancestor who went to America. He was interred by the savages in their +stomachs. It was a misfortune for the family." + +"Ah, but where does this animal come from?" inquired Marcel, looking at +the lobster which had began to crawl about the room. + +"I remember," said Schaunard, "that yesterday I took a turn in Medicis' +kitchen, I suppose the reptile accidentally fell into my pocket; these +creatures are very short-sighted. Since I have got it," added he, "I +should like to keep it. I will tame it and paint it red, it will look +livelier. I am sad since Phemie's departure; it will be a companion to +me." + +"Gentlemen," exclaimed Colline, "notice, I beg of you, that the +weathercock has gone round to the south, we shall breakfast." + +"I should think so," said Marcel, taking up a gold piece, "here is +something we will cook with plenty of sauce." + +They proceeded to a long and serious discussion on the bill of fare. +Each dish was the subject of an argument and a vote. Omelette soufflé, +proposed by Schaunard, was anxiously rejected, as were white wines, +against which Marcel delivered an oration that brought out his +oenophilistic knowledge. + +"The first duty of wine is to be red," exclaimed he, "don't talk to me +about your white wines." + +"But," said Schaunard, "Champagne--" + +"Bah! A fashionable cider! An epileptic licorice-water. I would give all +the cellars of Epernay and Ai for a single Burgundian cask. Besides, we +have neither grisettes to seduce, nor a vaudeville to write. I vote +against Champagne." + +The program once agreed upon, Schaunard and Colline went to the +neighboring restaurant to order the repast. + +"Suppose we have some fire," said Marcel. + +"As a matter of fact," said Rodolphe, "we should not be doing wrong, the +thermometer has been inviting us to it for some time past. Let us have +some fire and astonish the fireplace." + +He ran out on the landing and called to Colline to have some wood sent +in. A few minutes later Schaunard and Colline came up again, followed by +a charcoal dealer bearing a heavy bundle of firewood. + +As Marcel was looking in a drawer for some spare paper to light the +fire, he came by chance across a letter, the handwriting of which made +him start, and which he began to read unseen by his friends. + +It was a letter in pencil, written by Musette when she was living with +Marcel and dated day for day a year ago. It only contained these +words:-- + + "My dear love, + + Do not be uneasy about me, I shall be in shortly. I have gone out + to warm myself a bit by walking, it is freezing indoors and the + wood seller has cut off credit. I broke up the last two rungs of + the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. + Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at + home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex + you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take + a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten + francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be back + for dinner. + + Musette" + +"Poor girl," said Marcel, putting the letter in his pocket. And he +remained for a short time pensive, his head resting on his hands. + +At this period the Bohemians had been for some time in a state of +widowhood, with the exception of Colline, whose sweetheart, however, had +still remained invisible and anonymous. + +Phemie herself, Schaunard's amiable companion, had met with a simple +soul who had offered her his heart, a suite of mahogany furniture, and +a ring with his hair--red hair--in it. However, a fortnight after these +gifts, Phemie's lover wanted to take back his heart and his furniture, +because he noticed on looking at his mistress's hands that she wore a +ring set with hair, but black hair this time, and dared to suspect her +of infidelity. + +Yet Phemie had not ceased to be virtuous, only as her friends had +chaffed her several times about her ring with red hair, she had had it +dyed black. The gentleman was so pleased that he bought Phemie a silk +dress; it was the first she had ever had. The day she put it on for the +first time the poor girl exclaimed: + +"Now I can die happy." + +As to Musette, she had once more become almost an official personage, +and Marcel had not met her for three or four months. As to Mimi, +Rodolphe had not heard her even mentioned, save by himself when alone. + +"Hallo!" suddenly exclaimed Rodolphe, seeing Marcel squatting dreamily +beside the hearth. "Won't the fire light?" + +"There you are," said the painter, setting light to the wood, which +began to crackle and flame. + +While his friends were sharpening their appetites by getting ready the +feast, Marcel had again isolated himself in a corner and was putting the +letter he had just found by chance away with some souvenirs that Musette +had left him. All at once he remembered the address of a woman who was +the intimate friend of his old love. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, loud enough to be overheard. "I know where to find +her." + +"Find what?" asked Rodolphe. "What are you up to?" he added, seeing the +artist getting ready to write. + +"Nothing, only an urgent letter I had forgotten," replied Marcel, and he +wrote:-- + + "My dear girl, + + I have wealth in my desk, an apoplectic stroke of fortune. We have + a big feed simmering, generous wines, and have lit fires like + respectable citizens. You should only just see it, as you used to + say. Come and pass an hour with us. You will find Rodolphe, Colline + and Schaunard. You shall sing to us at dessert, for dessert will + not be wanting. While we are there we shall probably remain at + table for a week. So do not be afraid of being too late. It is so + long since I heard you laugh. Rodolphe will compose madrigals to + you, and we will drink all manner of things to our dead and gone + loves, with liberty to resuscitate them. Between people like + ourselves--the last kiss is never the last. Ah! If it had not been + so cold last year you might not have left me. You jilted me for a + faggot and because you were afraid of having red hands; you were + right. I am no more vexed with you over it this time than over the + others, but come and warm yourself while there is a fire. With as + many kisses as you like, + + Marcel." + +This letter finished, Marcel wrote another to Madame Sidonie, Musette's +friend, begging her to forward the one enclosed in it. Then he went +downstairs to the porter to get him to take the letters. As he was +paying him beforehand, the porter noticed a gold coin in the painter's +hand, and before starting on his errand went up to inform the landlord, +with whom Marcel was behind with his rent. + +"Sir," said he, quite out of breath, "the artist on the sixth floor has +money. You know the tall fellow who laughs in my face when I take him +his bill?" + +"Yes," said the landlord, "the one who had the imprudence to borrow +money of me to pay me something on account with. He is under notice to +quit." + +"Yes sir. But he is rolling in gold today. I caught sight of it just +now. He is giving a party. It is a good time--" + +"You are right," said the landlord. "I will go up and see for myself +by-and-by." + +Madame Sidonie, who was at home when Marcel's letter was brought, sent +on her maid at once with the one intended for Musette. + +The latter was then residing in a charming suite of rooms in the +Chaussee d'Antin. At the moment Marcel's letter was handed to her, she +had company, and, indeed, was going to give a grand dinner party that +evening. + +"Here is a miracle," she exclaimed, laughing like a mad thing. + +"What is it?" asked a handsome young fellow, as stiff as a statuette. + +"It is an invitation to dinner," replied the girl. "How well it falls +out." + +"How badly," said the young man. + +"Why so?" asked Musette. + +"What, do you think of going?" + +"I should think so. Arrange things as you please." + +"But, my dear, it is not becoming. You can go another time." + +"Ah, that is very good, another time. It is an old acquaintance, Marcel, +who invites me to dinner, and that is sufficiently extraordinary for me +to go and have a look at it. Another time! But real dinners in that +house are as rare as eclipses." + +"What, you would break your pledge to us to go and see this +individual," said the young man, "and you tell me so--" + +"Whom do you want me to tell it to, then? To the Grand Turk? It does not +concern him." + +"This is strange frankness." + +"You know very well that I do nothing like other people." + +"But what would you think of me if I let you go, knowing where you are +going to? Think a bit, Musette, it is very unbecoming both to you and +myself; you must ask this young fellow to excuse you--" + +"My dear Monsieur Maurice," said Mademoiselle Musette, in very firm +tones, "you knew me before you took up with me, you knew that I was full +of whims and fancies, and that no living soul can boast of ever having +made me give one up." + +"Ask of me whatever you like," said Maurice, "but this! There are +fancies and fancies." + +"Maurice, I shall go and see Marcel. I am going," she added, putting on +her bonnet. "You may leave me if you like, but it is stronger than I +am; he is the best fellow in the world, and the only one I have ever +loved. If his head had been gold he would have melted it down to give me +rings. Poor fellow," said she, showing the letter, "see, as soon as he +has a little fire, he invites me to come and warm myself. Ah, if he had +not been so idle, and if there had not been so much velvet and silk in +the shops! I was very happy with him, he had the gift of making me feel; +and it is he who gave me the name of Musette on account of my songs. At +any rate, going to see him you may be sure that I shall return to you... +unless you shut your door in my face." + +"You could not more frankly acknowledge that you do not love me," said +the young man. + +"Come, my dear Maurice, you are too sensible a man for us to begin a +serious argument on that point," rejoined Musette. "You keep me like a +fine horse in your stable--and I like you because I love luxury, noise, +glitter, and festivity, and that sort of thing; do not let us go in for +sentiment, it would be useless and ridiculous." + +"At least let me come with you." + +"But you would not enjoy yourself at all," said Musette, "and would +hinder us from enjoying ourselves. Remember that he will necessarily +kiss me." + +"Musette," said Maurice. "Have you often found such accommodating people +as myself?" + +"Viscount," replied Musette, "one day when I was driving in the Champs +Elysees with Lord _____, I met Marcel and his friend Rodolphe, both on +foot, both ill dressed, muddy as water-dogs, and smoking pipes. I had +not seen Marcel for three months, and it seemed to me as if my heart was +going to jump out of the carriage window. I stopped the carriage, and +for half an hour I chatted with Marcel before the whole of Paris, +filing past in its carriages. Marcel offered me a sou bunch of violets +that I fastened in my waistband. When he took leave of me, Lord _____ +wanted to call him back to invite him to dinner with us. I kissed him +for that. That is my way, my dear Monsieur Maurice, if it does not suit +you you should say so at once, and I will take my slippers and my +nightcap." + +"It is sometimes a good thing to be poor then," said Vicomte Maurice, +with a look of envious sadness. + +"No, not at all," said Musette. "If Marcel had been rich I should never +have left him." + +"Go, then," said the young fellow, shaking her by the hand. "You have +put your new dress on," he added, "it becomes you splendidly." + +"That is so," said Musette. "It is a kind of presentiment I had this +morning. Marcel will have the first fruits of it. Goodbye, I am off to +taste a little of the bread of gaiety." + +Musette was that day wearing a charming toilette. Never had the poem of +her youth and beauty been set off by a more seductive binding. Besides, +Musette had the instinctive genius of taste. On coming into the world, +the first thing she had looked about for had been a looking glass to +settle herself in her swaddling clothes by, and before being christened +she had already been guilty of the sin of coquetry. At the time when her +position was of the humblest, when she was reduced to cotton print +frocks, little white caps and kid shoes, she wore in charming style this +poor and simple uniform of the grisettes, those pretty girls, half bees, +half grasshoppers, who sang at their work all week, only asked God for a +little sunshine on Sunday, loved with all their heart, and sometimes +threw themselves out of a window. + +A breed that is now lost, thanks to the present generation of young +fellows, a corrupted and at the same time corrupting race, but, above +everything, vain, foolish and brutal. For the sake of uttering spiteful +paradoxes, they chaffed these poor girls about their hands, disfigured +by the sacred scars of toil, and as a consequence these soon no longer +earned even enough to buy almond paste. By degrees they succeeded in +inoculating them with their own foolishness and vanity, and then the +grisette disappeared. It was then that the lorette sprung up. A hybrid +breed of impertinent creatures of mediocre beauty, half flesh, half +paint, whose boudoir is a shop in which they sell bits of their heart +like slices of roast beef. The majority of these girls who dishonor +pleasure, and are the shame of modern gallantry, are not always equal in +intelligence to the very birds whose feathers they wear in their +bonnets. If by chance they happen to feel, not love nor even a caprice, +but a common place desire, it is for some counter jumping mountebank, +whom the crowd surrounds and applauds at public balls, and whom the +papers, courtiers of all that is ridiculous, render celebrated by their +puffs. Although she was obliged to live in this circle Musette had +neither its manners nor its ways, she had not the servile cupidity of +those creatures who can only read Cocker and only write in figures. She +was an intelligent and witty girl, and some drops of the blood of Mansu +in her veins and, rebellious to all yokes, she had never been able to +help yielding to a fancy, whatever might be the consequences. + +Marcel was really the only man she had ever loved. He was at any rate +the only one for whose sake she had really suffered, and it had needed +all the stubbornness of the instincts that attracted her to all that +glittered and jingled to make her leave him. She was twenty, and for her +luxury was almost a matter of existence. She might do without it for a +time, but she could not give it up completely. Knowing her inconstancy, +she had never consented to padlock her heart with an oath of fidelity. +She had been ardently loved by many young fellows for whom she had +herself felt a strong fancy, and she had always acted towards them with +far-sighted probity; the engagements into which she entered were simple, +frank and rustic as the love-making of Moliere's peasants. "You want me +and I should like you too, shake hands on it and let us enjoy +ourselves." A dozen times if she had liked Musette could have secured a +good position, which is termed a future, but she did not believe in the +future and professed the scepticism of Figaro respecting it. + +"Tomorrow," she sometimes remarked, "is an absurdity of the almanac, it +is a daily pretext that men have invented in order to put off their +business today. Tomorrow may be an earthquake. Today, at any rate, we +are on solid ground." + +One day a gentleman with whom she had stayed nearly six months, and who +had become wildly in love with her, seriously proposed marriage. +Musette burst out laughing in his face at this offer. + +"I imprison my liberty in the bonds of matrimony? Never," said she. + +"But I pass my time in trembling with fear of losing you." + +"It would be worse if I were your wife. Do not let us speak about that +any more. Besides, I am not free," she added, thinking no doubt of +Marcel. + +Thus she passed her youth, her mind caught by every straw blown by the +breeze of fancy, causing the happiness of a great many and almost happy +herself. Vicomte Maurice, under whose protection she then was, had a +great deal of difficulty in accustoming himself to her untamable +disposition, intoxicated with freedom, and it was with jealous +impatience that he awaited the return of Musette after having seen her +start off to Marcel's. + +"Will she stay there?" he kept asking himself all the evening. + +"Poor Maurice," said Musette to herself on her side. "He thinks it +rather hard. Bah! Young men must go through their training." + +Then her mind turning suddenly to other things, she began to think of +Marcel to whom she was going, and while running over the recollections +reawakened by the name of her erst adorer, asked herself by what miracle +the table had been spread at his dwelling. She re-read, as she went +along, the letter that the artist had written to her, and could not help +feeling somewhat saddened by it. But this only lasted a moment. Musette +thought aright, that it was less than ever an occasion for grieving, and +at that moment a strong wind spring up she exclaimed: + +"It is funny, even if I did not want to go to Marcel's, this wind would +blow me there." + +And she went on hurriedly, happy as a bird returning to its first nest. + +All at once snow began to fall heavy. Musette looked for a cab. She +could not see one. As she happened to be in the very street in which +dwelt her friend Madame Sidonie, the same who had sent on Marcel's +letter to her, Musette decided to run in for a few minutes until the +weather cleared up sufficiently to enable her to continue her journey. + +When Musette entered Madame Sidonie's rooms she found a gathering there. +They were going on with a game of lansquenet that had lasted three +days. + +"Do not disturb yourselves," said Musette. "I have only just popped in +for a moment." + +"You got Marcel's letter all right?" whispered Madame Sidonie to her. + +"Yes, thanks," replied Musette. "I am going to his place, he has asked +me to dinner. Will you come with me? You would enjoy yourself." + +"No, I can't," said Madame Sidonie, pointing to the card table. "Think +of my rent." + +"There are six louis," said the banker. + +"I'll go two of them," exclaimed Madame Sidonie. + +"I am not proud, I'll start at two," replied the banker, who had already +dealt several times. "King and ace. I am done for," he continued, +dealing the cards. "I am done for, all the kings are out." + +"No politics," said a journalist. + +"And the ace is the foe of my family," continued the banker, who then +turned up another king. "Long live the king! My dear Sidonie, hand me +over two louis." + +"Put them down," said Sidonie, vexed at her loss. + +"That makes four hundred francs you owe me, little one," said the +banker. "You would run it up to a thousand. I pass the deal." + +Sidonie and Musette were chatting together in a low tone. The game went +on. + +At about the same time the Bohemians were sitting down to table. During +the whole of the repast Marcel seemed uneasy. Everytime a step sounded +on the stairs he started. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe of him. "One would think you were +expecting someone. Are we not all here?" + +But at a look from the artist the poet understood his friend's +preoccupation. + +"True," he thought, "we are not all here." + +Marcel's look meant Musette, Rodolphe's answering glance, Mimi. + +"We lack ladies," said Schaunard, all at once. + +"Confound it," yelled Colline, "will you hold your tongue with your +libertine reflections. It was agreed that we should not speak of love, +it turns the sauces." + +And the friends continued to drink fuller bumpers, whilst without the +snow still fell, and on the hearth the logs flamed brightly, scattering +sparks like fireworks. + +Just as Rodolphe was thundering out a song which he had found at the +bottom of his glass, there came several knocks at the door. Marcel, +torpid from incipient drunkenness, leaped up from his chair, and ran to +open it. Musette was not there. + +A gentleman appeared on the threshold; he was not only bad looking, but +his dressing gown was wretchedly made. In his hand he held a slip of +paper. + +"I am glad to see you so comfortable," he said, looking at the table on +which were the remains of a magnificent leg of mutton. + +"The landlord!" cried Rodolphe. "Let us receive him with the honors due +to his position!" and he commenced beating on his plate with his knife +and fork. + +Colline handed him a chair, and Marcel cried: + +"Come, Schaunard! Pass us a clean glass. You are just in time," he +continued to the landlord, "we were going to drink to your health. My +friend there, Monsieur Colline, was saying some touching things about +you. As you are present, he will begin over again, out of compliment to +you. Do begin again, Colline." + +"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the landlord, "I don't wish to trouble you, +but---" and he unfolded the paper which he had in his hand. + +"What's the document?" asked Marcel. + +The landlord, who had cast an inquisitive glance around the room, +perceived some gold on the chimney piece. + +"It is your receipt," he said hastily, "which I had the honor of +sending you once already." + +"My faithful memory recalls the circumstance," replied the artist. "It +was on Friday, the eighth of the month, at a quarter past twelve." + +"It is signed, you see, in due form," said the landlord, "and if it is +agreeable to you--" + +"I was intending to call upon you," interrupted Marcel. "I have a great +deal to talk to you about." + +"At your service." + +"Oblige me by taking something," continued the painter, forcing a glass +of wine on the landlord. "Now, sir," he continued, "you sent me lately a +little paper, with a picture of a lady and a pair of scales on it. It +was signed Godard." + +"The lawyer's name." + +"He writes a very bad hand; I had to get my friend here, who understands +all sorts of hieroglyphics and foreign languages,"--and he pointed to +Colline--"to translate it for me." + +"It was a notice to quit; a precautionary measure, according to the rule +in such cases." + +"Exactly. Now I wanted to have a talk with you about this very notice, +for which I should like to substitute a lease. This house suits me. The +staircase is clean, the street gay, and some of my friends live near; in +short, a thousand reasons attach me to these premises." + +"But," and the landlord unfolded his receipt again, "there is that last +quarter's rent to pay." + +"We shall pay it, sir. Such is our fixed intention." + +Nevertheless, the landlord kept his eye glued to the money on the +mantelpiece and such was the steady pertinacity of his gaze that the +coins seemed to move towards him of themselves. + +"I am happy to have come at a time when, without inconveniencing +yourself, you can settle this little affair," he said, again producing +his receipt to Marcel, who, not being able to parry the assault, again +avoided it. + +"You have some property in the provinces, I think," he said. + +"Very little, very little. A small house and farm in Burgundy; very +trifling returns; the tenants pay so badly, and therefore," he added, +pushing forward his receipt again, "this small sum comes just in time. +Sixty francs, you know." + +"Yes," said Marcel, going to the mantelpiece and taking up three pieces +of gold. "Sixty, sixty it is," and he placed the money on the table just +out of the landlord's reach. + +"At last," thought the latter. His countenance lighted up, and he too +laid down his receipt on the table. + +Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe looked anxiously on. + +"Well, sir," quoth Marcel, "since you are a Burgundian, you will not be +sorry to see a countryman of yours." He opened a bottle of old Macon, +and poured out a bumper. + +"Ah, perfect!" said the landlord. "Really, I never tasted better." + +"An uncle of mine who lives there, sends me a hamper or two +occasionally." + +The landlord rose, and was stretching out his hand towards the money, +when Marcel stopped him again. + +"You will not refuse another glass?" said he, pouring one out. + +The landlord did not refuse. He drank the second glass, and was once +more attempting to possess himself of the money, when Marcel called out: + +"Stop! I have an idea. I am rather rich just now, for me. My uncle in +Burgundy has sent me something over my usual allowance. Now I may spend +this money too fast. Youth has so many temptations, you know. Therefore, +if it is all the same to you, I will pay a quarter in advance." He took +sixty francs in silver and added them to the three louis which were on +the table. + +"Then I will give you a receipt for the present quarter," said the +landlord. "I have some blank ones in my pocketbook. I will fill it up +and date it ahead. After all," thought he, devouring the hundred and +twenty francs with his eyes, "this tenant is not so bad." + +Meanwhile, the other three Bohemians, not understanding Marcel's +diplomacy, remained utterly stupefied. + +"But this chimney smokes, which is very disagreeable." + +"Why didn't you tell me before? I will send the workmen in tomorrow," +answered the landlord, not wishing to be behindhand in this contest of +good offices. He filled up the second receipt, pushed the two over to +Marcel, and stretched out his hand once more towards the heap of money. +"You don't know how timely this sum comes in," he continued, "I have to +pay some bills for repairs, and was really quite short of cash." + +"Very sorry to have made you wait." + +"Oh, it's no matter now! Permit me."--and out went his hand again. + +"Permit me," said Marcel. "We haven't finished with this yet. You know +the old saying, 'when the wine is drawn--'" and he filled the landlord's +glass a third time. + +"One must drink it," remarked the other, and he did so. + +"Exactly," said the artist, with a wink at his friends, who now +understood what he was after. + +The landlord's eyes began to twinkle strangely. He wriggled on his +chair, began to talk loosely, in all senses of the word, and promised +Marcel fabulous repairs and embellishments. + +"Bring up the big guns," said the artist aside to the poet. Rodolphe +passed along a bottle of rum. + +After the first glass the landlord sang a ditty, which absolutely made +Schaunard blush. + +After the second, he lamented his conjugal infelicity. His wife's name +being Helen, he compared himself to Menelaus. + +After the third, he had an attack of philosophy, and threw up such +aphorisms as these: + +"Life is a river." + +"Happiness depends not on wealth." + +"Man is a transitory creature." + +"Love is a pleasant feeling." + +Finally, he made Schaunard his confidant, and related to him how he had +"Put into mahogany" a damsel named Euphemia. Of this young person and +her loving simplicity he drew so detailed a portrait, that Schaunard +began to be assailed by a fearful suspicion, which suspicion was reduced +to a certainty when the landlord showed him a letter. + +"Cruel woman!" cried the musician, as he beheld the signature. "It is +like a dagger in my heart." + +"What is the matter!" exclaimed the Bohemians, astonished at this +language. + +"See," said Schaunard, "this letter is from Phemie. See the blot that +serves her for a signature." + +And he handed round the letter of his ex-mistress, which began with the +words, "My dear old pet." + +"I am her dear old pet," said the landlord, vainly trying to rise from +his chair. + +"Good," said Marcel, who was watching him. "He has cast anchor." + +"Phemie, cruel Phemie," murmured Schaunard. "You have wounded me +deeply." + +"I have furnished a little apartment for her at 12, Rue Coquenard," said +the landlord. "Pretty, very pretty. It cost me lots of money. But such +love is beyond price and I have twenty thousand francs a year. She asks +me for money in her letter. Poor little dear, she shall have this," and +he stretched out his hand for the money--"hallo! Where is it?" he added +in astonishment feeling on the table. The money had disappeared. + +"It is impossible for a moral man to become an accomplice in such +wickedness," said Marcel. "My conscience forbids me to pay money to this +old profligate. I shall not pay my rent, but my conscience will at any +rate be clear. What morals, and in a bald headed man too." + +By this time the landlord was completely gone, and talked at random to +the bottles. He had been there nearly two hours, when his wife, alarmed +at his prolonged absence, sent the maid after him. On seeing her master +in such a state, she set up a shriek, and asked, "what are they doing +to him?" + +"Nothing," answered Marcel. "He came a few minutes ago to ask for the +rent. As we had no money we begged for time." + +"But he's been and got drunk," said the servant. + +"Very likely," replied Rodolphe. "Most of that was done before he came +here. He told us that he had been arranging his cellar." + +"And he had so completely lost his head," added Colline, "that he +wanted to leave the receipt without the money." + +"Give these to his wife," said Marcel, handing over the receipts. "We +are honest folk, and do not wish to take advantage of his condition." + +"Good heavens! What will madame say?" exclaimed the maid, leading, or +rather dragging off her master, who had a very imperfect idea of the use +of his legs. + +"So much for him!" ejaculated Marcel. + +"He has smelt money," said Rodolphe. "He will come again tomorrow." + +"When he does, I will threaten to tell his wife about Phemie and he will +give us time enough." + +When the landlord had been got outside, the four friends went on smoking +and drinking. Marcel alone retained a glimmer of lucidity in his +intoxication. From time to time, at the slightest sound on the +staircase, he ran and opened the door. But those who were coming up +always halted at one of the lower landings, and then the artist would +slowly return to his place by the fireside. Midnight struck, and Musette +had not come. + +"After all," thought Marcel, "perhaps she was not in when my letter +arrived. She will find it when she gets home tonight, and she will come +tomorrow. We shall still have a fire. It is impossible for her not to +come. Tomorrow." + +And he fell asleep by the fire. + +At the very moment that Marcel fell asleep dreaming of her, Mademoiselle +Musette was leaving the residence of her friend Madame Sidonie, where +she had been staying up till then. Musette was not alone, a young man +accompanied her. A carriage was waiting at the door. They got into it +and went off at full speed. + +The game at lansquenet was still going on in Madame Sidonie's room. + +"Where is Musette?" said someone all at once. + +"Where is young Seraphin?" said another. + +Madame Sidonie began to laugh. + +"They had just gone off together," said she. "It is a funny story. What +a strange being Musette is. Just fancy...." And she informed the company +how Musette, after almost quarreling with Vicomte Maurice and starting +off to find Marcel, had stepped in there by chance and met with young +Seraphin. + +"I suspected something was up," she continued. "I had an eye on them all +the evening. He is very sharp, that youngster. In short, they have gone +off on the quiet, and it would take a sharp one to catch them up. All +the same, it is very funny when one thinks how fond Musette is of her +Marcel." + +"If she is so fond of him, what is the use of Seraphin, almost a lad, +and who had never had a mistress?" said a young fellow. + +"She wants to teach him to read, perhaps," said the journalist, who was +very stupid when he had been losing. + +"All the same," said Sidonie, "what does she want with Seraphin when she +is in love with Marcel? That is what gets over me." + + * * * * * + +For five days the Bohemians went on leading the happiest life in the +world without stirring out. They remained at table from morning till +night. An admired disorder reigned in the room which was filled with a +Pantagruelic atmosphere. On a regular bed of oyster shells reposed an +army of empty bottles of every size and shape. The table was laden with +fragments of every description, and a forest of wood blazed in the +fireplace. + +On the sixth day Colline, who was director of ceremonies, drew up, as +was his wont every morning, the bill of fare for breakfast, lunch, +dinner, and supper, and submitted it to the approval of his friends, who +each initialed it in token of approbation. + +But when Colline opened the drawer that served as a cashbox, in order to +take the money necessary for the day's consumption, he started back and +became as pale as Banquo's ghost. + +"What is the matter?" inquired the others, carelessly. + +"The matter is that there are only thirty sous left," replied the +philosopher. + +"The deuce. That will cause some modification in our bill of fare. +Well, thirty sous carefully laid out--. All the same it will be +difficult to run to truffles," said the others. + +A few minutes later the table was spread. There were three dishes most +symmetrically arranged--a dish of herrings, a dish of potatoes, and a +dish of cheese. + +On the hearth smoldered two little brands as big as one's fist. + +Snow was still falling without. + +The four Bohemians sat down to table and gravely unfolded their napkins. + +"It is strange," said Marcel, "this herring has a flavor of pheasant." + +"That is due to the way in which I cooked it," replied Colline. "The +herring has never been properly appreciated." + +At that moment a joyous song rose on the staircase, and a knock came at +the door. Marcel, who had not been able to help shuddering, ran to open +it. + +Musette threw her arms round his neck and held him in an embrace for +five minutes. Marcel felt her tremble in his arms. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +"I am cold," said Musette, mechanically drawing near the fireplace. + +"Ah!" said Marcel. "And we had such a rattling good fire." + +"Yes," said Musette, glancing at the remains of the five days' +festivity, "I have come too late." + +"Why?" said Marcel. + +"Why?" said Musette, blushing slightly. + +She sat down on Marcel's knee. She was still shivering, and her hands +were blue. + +"You were not free, then," whispered Marcel. + +"I, not free!" exclaimed the girl. "Ah Marcel! If I were seated amongst +the stars in Paradise and you made me a sign to come down to you I +should do so. I, not free!" + +She began to shiver again. + +"There are five chairs here," said Rodolphe, "which is an odd number, +without reckoning that the fifth is of a ridiculous shape." + +And breaking the chair against the wall, he threw the fragments into the +fireplace. The fire suddenly burst forth again in a bright and merry +flame, then making a sign to Colline and Schaunard, the poet took them +off with him. + +"Where are you going?" asked Marcel. + +"To buy some tobacco," they replied. + +"At Havana," added Schaunard, with a sign of intelligence to Marcel, who +thanked him with a look. + +"Why did you not come sooner?" he asked Musette when they were alone +together. + +"It is true, I am rather behindhand." + +"Five days to cross the Pont Neuf. You must have gone round by the +Pyrenees?" + +Musette bowed her head and was silent. + +"Ah, naughty girl," said the artist, sadly tapping his hand lightly on +his mistress' breast, "what have you got inside here?" + +"You know very well," she retorted quickly. + +"But what have you been doing since I wrote to you?" + +"Do not question me," said Musette, kissing him several times. "Do not +ask me anything, but let me warm myself beside you. You see I put on my +best dress to come. Poor Maurice, he could not understand it when I set +off to come here, but it was stronger than myself, so I started. The +fire is nice," she added, holding out her little hand to the flames, "I +will stay with you till tomorrow if you like." + +"It will be very cold here," said Marcel, "and we have nothing for +dinner. You have come too late," he repeated. + +"Ah, bah!" said Musette. "It will be all the more like old times." + + * * * * * + +Rodolphe, Colline, and Schaunard, took twenty-four hours to get their +tobacco. When they returned to the house Marcel was alone. + +After an absence of six days Vicomte Maurice saw Musette return. + +He did not in any way reproach her, and only asked her why she seemed +sad. + +"I quarreled with Marcel," said she. "We parted badly." + +"And yet, who knows," said Maurice. "But you will again return to him." + +"What would you?" asked Musette. "I need to breathe the air of that life +from time to time. My life is like a song, each of my loves is a verse, +but Marcel is the refrain." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Mimi In Fine Feather + + +"No, no, no, you are no longer Lisette! No, no, no, you are no longer +Mimi. You are today, my lady the viscomtess, the day after tomorrow you +may, perhaps, be your grace the duchess; the doorway of your dreams has +at length been thrown wide open before you, and you have passed through +it victorious and triumphant. I felt certain you would end up by doing +so, some night or other. It was bound to be; besides, your white hands +were made for idleness, and for a long time past have called for the +ring of some aristocratic alliance. At length you have a coat of arms. +But, we still prefer the one which youth gave to your beauty, when your +blue eyes and your pale face seemed to quarter azure on a lily field. +Noble or serf, you are ever charming, and I readily recognized you when +you passed by in the street the other evening, with rapid and well-shod +foot, aiding the wind with your gloved hand in lifting the skirts of +your new dress, partly in order not to let it be soiled, but a great +deal more in order to show your embroidered petticoats and open-worked +stockings. You had on a wonderful bonnet, and even seemed plunged in +deep perplexity on the subject of the veil of costly lace which floated +over this bonnet. A very serious trouble indeed, for it was a question +of deciding which was best and most advantageous to your coquetry, to +wear this veil up or down. By wearing it down, you risked not being +recognized by those of your friends whom you might meet, and who +certainly would have passed by you ten times without suspecting that +this costly envelope hid Mademoiselle Mimi. On the other hand, by +wearing this veil up, it was it that risked escaping notice, and in that +case, what was the good of having it? You had cleverly solved the +difficulty by alternately raising and lowering at every tenth step; this +wonderful tissue, woven no doubt, in that country of spiders, called +Flanders, and which of itself cost more than the whole of your former +wardrobe." + +"Ah, Mimi! Forgive me--I should say, ah, vicomtess! I was quite right, +you see, when I said to you: 'Patience, do not despair, the future is +big with cashmere shawls, glittering jewels, supper parties, and the +like.' You would not believe me, incredulous one. Well, my predictions +are, however, realized, and I am worth as much, I hope, as your 'Ladies' +Oracle,' a little octavo sorcerer you bought for five sous at a +bookstall on the Pont Neuf, and which you wearied with external +questions. Again, I ask, was I not right in my prophecies; and would you +believe me now, if I tell you that you will not stop at this? If I told +you that listening, I can hear faintly in the depths of your future, +the tramp and neighing of the horses harnessed to blue brougham, driven +by a powdered coachmen, who lets down the steps, saying, 'Where to +madam?' Would you believe me if I told you, too, that later on--ah, as +late as possible, I trust--attaining the object of a long cherished +ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and +will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come +there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at +this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, +believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and +velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, will be melted down in the +crucibles of your fancies, many flowers will fade about your head, many +beneath your feet, and you will change your coat of arms many times. On +your head will glitter in turn the coronets of baroness, countess, and +marchioness, you will take for your motto, 'Inconstancy,' and you will, +according to caprice or to necessity, satisfy each in turn, or even all +at once, all the numerous adorers who will range themselves in the +ante-chamber of your heart as people do at the door of a theater at +which a popular piece is being played. Go on then, go straight onward, +your mind lightened of recollections which have been replaced by +ambition; go, the road is broad, and we hope it will long be smooth to +your feet, but we hope, above all, that all these sumptuosities, these +fine toilettes, may not too soon become the shroud in which your +liveliness will be buried." + +Thus spoke the painter Marcel to Mademoiselle Mimi, whom he had met +three or four days after her second divorce from the poet Rodolphe. +Although he was obliged to veil the raillery with which he besprinkled +her horoscope, Mademoiselle Mimi was not the dupe of Marcel's fine +words, and understood perfectly well that with little respect for her +new title, he was chaffing her to bits. + +"You are cruel towards me, Marcel," said Mademoiselle Mimi, "it is +wrong. I was always very friendly with you when I was Rodolphe's +mistress, and if I have left him, it was, after all, his fault. It was +he who packed me off in a hurry, and, besides, how did he behave to me +during the last few days I spent with him. I was very unhappy, I can +tell you. You do not know what a man Rodolphe was; a mixture of anger +and jealousy, who killed me by bits. He loved me, I know, but his love +was as dangerous as a loaded gun. What a life I led for six months. Ah, +Marcel! I do not want to make myself out better than I am, but I +suffered a great deal with Rodolphe; you know it too, very well. It is +not poverty that made me leave him, no I assure you I had grown +accustomed to it, and I repeat it was he who sent me away. He trampled +on my self-esteem; he told me that he no longer loved me; that I must +get another lover. He even went so far as to indicate a young man who +was courting me, and by his taunts, he served to bring me and this +young man together. I went with him as much out of spite as from +necessity, for I did not love him. You know very well yourself that I do +not care for such very young fellows. They are as wearisome and +sentimental as harmonicas. Well, what is done is done. I do not regret +it, and I would do the same over again. Now that he no longer has me +with him, and knows me to be happy with another, Rodolphe is furious and +very unhappy. I know someone who met him the other day; his eyes were +quite red. That does not astonish me. I felt quite sure it would come to +this, and that he would run after me, but you can tell him that he will +only lose his time, and that this time it is quite in earnest and for +good. Is it long since you saw him, Marcel and is it true that he is +much altered?" inquired Mimi in quite another tone. + +"He is greatly altered indeed," replied Marcel. + +"He is grieving, that is certain, but what am I to do? So much the worse +for him, he would have it so. It had to come to an end somehow. Try to +console him." + +"Oh!" answered Marcel quickly. "The worst of the job is over. Do not +disturb yourself about it, Mimi." + +"You are not telling the truth, my dear fellow," said Mimi, with an +ironical little pout. "Rodolphe will not be so quickly consoled as all +that. If you knew what a state he was in the night before I left. It was +a Friday, I would not stay that night at my new lover's because I am +superstitious, and Friday is an unlucky day." + +"You are wrong, Mimi, in love affairs Friday is a lucky day; the +ancients called it Dies Veneris." + +"I do not know Latin," said Mademoiselle Mimi, continuing her narration. +"I was coming back then from Paul's and found Rodolphe waiting for me in +the street. It was late, past midnight, and I was hungry for I had had +no dinner. I asked Rodolphe to go and get something for supper. He came +back half an hour later, he had run about a great deal to get nothing +worth speaking of, some bread, wine, sardines, cheese, and an apple +tart. I had gone to bed during his absence, and he laid the table beside +the bed. I pretended not to notice him, but I could see him plainly, he +was pale as death. He shuddered and walked about the room like a man who +does not know what he wants to do. He noticed several packages of +clothes on the floor in one corner. The sight of them seemed to annoy +him, and he placed the screen in front of them in order not to see them. +When all was ready we began to sup, he tried to make me drink, but I was +no longer hungry or thirsty, and my heart was quite full. He was cold, +for we had nothing to make a fire of, and one could hear the wind +whistling in the chimney. It was very sad. Rodolphe looked at me, his +eyes were fixed; he put his hand in mine and I felt it tremble, it was +burning and icy all at once. 'This is the funeral supper of our loves,' +he said to me in a low tone. I did not answer, but I had not the courage +to withdraw my hand from his. 'I am sleepy,' said I at last, 'it is +late, let us go to sleep.' Rodolphe looked at me. I had tied one of his +handkerchiefs about my head on account of the cold. He took it off +without saying a word. 'Why do you want to take that off?' said I. 'I am +cold.' 'Oh, Mimi!' said he. 'I beg of you, it will not matter to you, to +put on your little striped cap for tonight.' It was a nightcap of +striped cotton, white and brown. Rodolphe was very fond of seeing me in +this cap, it reminded him of several nights of happiness, for that was +how we counted our happy days. When I thought it was the last time that +I should sleep beside him I dared not refuse to satisfy this fancy of +his. I got up and hunted out my striped cap that was at the bottom of +one of my packages." + +"Out of forgetfulness I forgot to replace the screen. Rodolphe noticed +it and hid the packages just as he had already done before. 'Good +night,' said he. 'Good night,' I answered. I thought that he was going +to kiss me and I should not have hindered him, but he only took my hand, +which he carried to his lips. You know, Marcel, how fond he was of +kissing my hands. I heard his teeth chatter and I felt his body as cold +as marble. He still held my hand and he laid his head on my shoulder, +which was soon quite wet. Rodolphe was in a fearful state. He bit the +sheets to avoid crying out, but I could plainly hear his stifled sobs +and I still felt his tears flowing on my shoulder, which was first +scalded and then chilled. At that moment I needed all my courage and I +did need it, I can tell you. I had only to say a word, I had only to +turn my head, and my lips would have met those of Rodolphe, and we +should have made it up once more. Ah! For a moment I really thought that +he was going to die in my arms, or that, at least, he would go mad, as +he almost did once before, you remember? I felt I was going to yield, I +was going to recant first, I was going to clasp him in my arms, for +really one must have been utterly heartless to remain insensible to such +grief. But I recollected the words he had said to me the day before, +'You have no spirit if you stay with me, for I no longer love you,' Ah! +As I recalled those bitter words I would have seen Rodolphe ready to +die, and if it had only needed a kiss from me to save him, I would have +turned away my lips and let him perish." + +"At last, overcome by fatigue, I sank into a half-sleep. I could still +hear Rodolphe sobbing, and I can swear to you, Marcel, that this sobbing +went on all night long, and that when day broke and I saw in the bed, in +which I had slept for the last time, the lover whom I was going to +leave for another's arms, I was terribly frightened to see the havoc +wrought by this grief on Rodolphe's face. He got up, like myself, +without saying a word, and almost fell flat at the first steps he took, +he was so weak and downcast. However, he dressed himself very quickly, +and only asked me how matters stood and when I was going to leave. I +told him that I did not know. He went off without bidding goodbye or +shaking hands. That is how we separated. What a blow it must have been +to his heart no longer to find me there on coming home, eh?" + +"I was there when Rodolphe came in," said Marcel to Mimi, who was out of +breath from speaking so long. "As he was taking his key from the +landlady, she said, 'The little one has left.' 'Ah!' replied Rodolphe. +'I am not astonished, I expected it.' And he went up to his room, +whither I followed him, fearing some crisis, but nothing occurred. 'As +it is too late to go and hire another room this evening we will do so +tomorrow morning,' said he, 'we will go together. Now let us see after +some dinner.' I thought that he wanted to get drunk, but I was wrong. We +dined very quietly at a restaurant where you have sometimes been with +him. I had ordered some Beaune to stupefy Rodolphe a bit. 'This was +Mimi's favorite wine,' said he, 'we have often drunk it together at this +very table. I remember one day she said to me, holding out her glass, +which she had already emptied several times, 'Fill up again, it is good +for one's bones.' A poor pun, eh? Worthy, at the most, of the mistress +of a farce writer. Ah! She could drink pretty fairly.'" + +"Seeing that he was inclined to stray along the path of recollection I +spoke to him about something else, and then it was no longer a question +of you. He spent the whole evening with me and seemed as calm as the +Mediterranean. But what astonished me most was, that this calmness was +not at all affected. It was genuine indifference. At midnight we went +home. 'You seem surprised at my coolness in the position in which I find +myself,' said he to me, 'well, let me point out a comparison to you, my +dear fellow, it if is commonplace it has, at least, the merit of being +accurate. My heart is like a cistern the tap of which has been turned +on all night, in the morning not a drop of water is left. My heart is +really the same, last night I wept away all the tears that were left me. +It is strange, but I thought myself richer in grief, and yet by a single +night of suffering I am ruined, cleaned out. On my word of honor it is +as I say. Now, in the very bed in which I all but died last night beside +a woman who was no more moved than a stone, I shall sleep like a deck +laborer after a hard day's work, while she rests her head on the pillow +of another.' 'Hambug,' I thought to myself. 'I shall no sooner have left +him than he will be dashing his head against the wall.' However, I left +Rodolphe alone and went to my own room, but I did not go to bed. At +three in the morning I thought I heard a noise in Rodolphe's room and I +went down in a hurry, thinking to find him in a desperate fever." + +"Well?" said Mimi. + +"Well my dear, Rodolphe was sleeping, the bed clothes were quite in +order and everything proved that he had soon fallen asleep, and that his +slumbers had been calm." + +"It is possible," said Mimi, "he was so worn out by the night before, +but the next day?" + +"The next day Rodolphe came and roused me up early and we went and took +rooms in another house, into which we moved the same evening." + +"And," asked Mimi, "what did he do on leaving the room we had occupied, +what did he say on abandoning the room in which he had loved me so?" + +"He packed up his things quietly," replied Marcel, "and as he found in a +drawer a pair of thread gloves you had forgotten, as well as two or +three of your letters--" + +"I know," said Mimi in a tone which seemed to imply, "I forgot them on +purpose so that he might have some souvenir of me left! What did he do +with them?" she added. + +"If I remember rightly," said Marcel, "he threw the letters into the +fireplace and the gloves out of the window, but without any theatrical +effort, and quite naturally, as one does when one wants to get rid of +something useless." + +"My dear Monsieur Marcel, I assure you that from the bottom of my heart +I hope that this indifference may last. But, once more in all sincerity, +I do not believe in such a speedy cure and, in spite of all you tell me, +I am convinced that my poet's heart is broken." + +"That may be," replied Marcel, taking leave of Mimi, "but unless I may +be very much mistaken, the pieces are still good for something." + +During this colloquy in a public thoroughfare, Vicomte Paul was awaiting +his new mistress, who was behindhand in her appointment, and decidedly +disagreeable towards him. He seated himself at her feet and warbled his +favorite strain, namely, that she was charming, fair as a lily, gentle +as a lamb, but that he loved her above all on account of the beauties of +her soul. + +"Ah!" thought Mimi, loosening the waves of her dark hair over her snowy +shoulders, "my lover Rodolphe, was not so exclusive." + +As Marcel had stated, Rodolphe seemed to be radically cured of his love +for Mademoiselle Mimi, and three or four days after his separation, the +poet reappeared completely metamorphosed. He was attired with an +elegance that must have rendered him unrecognizable by his very looking +glass. Nothing, indeed, about him seemed to justify the fear that he +intended to commit suicide, as Mademoiselle Mimi had started the rumor, +with all kinds of hypocritical condolences. Rodolphe was, in fact, quite +calm. He listened with unmoved countenance to all the stories told him +about the new and sumptuous existence led by his mistress--who took +pleasure in keeping him informed on these points--by a young girl who +had remained her confidant, and who had occasion to see Rodolphe almost +every evening. + +"Mimi is very happy with Vicomte Paul," the poet was told. "She seems +thoroughly smitten with him, only one thing causes her any uneasiness, +she is afraid least you should disturb her tranquillity by coming after +her, which by the way, would be dangerous for you, for the vicomte +worships his mistress and is a good fencer." + +"Oh," said Rodolphe. "She can sleep in peace, I have no wish to go and +cast vinegar over the sweetness of her honeymoon. As to her young +lover, he can leave his dagger at home like Gastibelza. I have no wish +to attempt the life of a young gentleman who has still the happiness of +being nursed by illusions." + +As they did not fail to carry back to Mimi the way in which her ex-lover +received all these details, she on her part did not forget to reply, +shrugging her shoulders: + +"That is all very well, you will see what will come of it in a day or +two." + +However, Rodolphe was himself, and more than any one else, astonished at +this sudden indifference which, without passing through the usual +transitions of sadness and melancholy, had followed the stormy feelings +by which he had been stirred only a few days before. Forgetfulness, so +slow to come--above all for the virtues of love--that forgetfulness +which they summon so loudly and repulse with equal loudness when they +feel it approaching, that pitiless consoler that had all at once, and +without his being able to defend himself from it, invaded Rodolphe's +heart, and the name of the woman he so dearly loved could now be heard +without awakening any echo in it. Strange fact; Rodolphe, whose memory +was strong enough to recall to mind things that had occurred in the +farthest days of his past and beings who had figured in or influenced +his most remote existence--Rodolphe could not, whatever efforts he might +make, recall with clearness after four days' separation, the features of +that mistress who had nearly broken his life between her slender +fingers. He could no longer recall the softness of the eyes by the light +of which he had so often fallen asleep. He could no longer remember the +notes of that voice whose anger and whose caressing utterances had +alternately maddened him. A poet, who was a friend of his, and who had +not seen him since his absence, met him one evening. Rodolphe seemed +busy and preoccupied, he was walking rapidly along the street, twirling +his cane. + +"Hallo," said the poet, holding out his hand, "so here you are," and he +looked curiously at Rodolphe. Seeing that the latter looked somewhat +downcast he thought it right to adopt a consoling tone. + +"Come, courage, my dear fellow. I know that it is hard, but then it must +always have come to this. Better now than later on; in three months you +will be quite cured." + +"What are you driving at?" said Rodolphe. "I am not ill, my dear +fellow." + +"Come," said the other, "do not play the braggart. I know the whole +story and if I did not, I could read it in your face." + +"Take care, you are making a mistake," said Rodolphe, "I am very much +annoyed this evening, it is true, but you have not exactly hit on the +cause of my annoyance." + +"Good, but why defend yourself? It is quite natural. A connection that +has lasted a couple of years cannot be broken off so readily." + +"Everyone tells me the same thing," said Rodolphe, getting impatient. +"Well, upon my honor, you make a mistake, you and the others. I am very +vexed, and I look like it, that is possible, but this is the reason why; +I was expecting my tailor with a new dress coat today, and he had not +come. That is what I am annoyed about." + +"Bad, bad," said the other laughing. + +"Not at all bad, but good on the contrary, very good, excellent in fact. +Follow my argument and you shall see." + +"Come," said the poet, "I will listen to you. Just prove to me how any +one can in reason look so wretched because a tailor has failed to keep +his word. Come, come, I am waiting." + +"Well," said Rodolphe, "you know very well that the greatest effects +spring from the most trifling causes. I ought this evening to pay a very +important visit, and I cannot do so for want of a dress coat. Now do you +see it?" + +"Not at all. There is up to this no sufficient reason shown for a state +of desolation. You are in despair because---. You are very silly to try +to deceive. That is my opinion." + +"My friend," said Rodolphe, "you are very opinionated. It is always +enough to vex us when we miss happiness, and at any rate pleasure, +because it is almost always so much lost for ever, and we are wrong in +saying, 'I will make up for it another time.' I will resume; I had an +appointment this evening with a lady. I was to meet her at a friend's +house, whence I should, perhaps taken her home to mine, if it were +nearer than her own, and even if it were not. At this house there was a +party. At parties one must wear a dress coat. I have no dress coat. My +tailor was to bring me one; he does not do so. I do not go to the party. +I do not meet the lady who is, perhaps, met by someone else. I do not +see her home either to my place or hers, and she is, perhaps, seen home +by another. So as I told you, I have lost an opportunity of happiness +and pleasure; hence I am vexed; hence I look so, and quite naturally." + +"Very good," said his friend, "with one foot just out of one hell, you +want to put the other foot in another; but, my dear fellow, when I met +you, you seemed to be waiting for some one." + +"So I was." + +"But," continued the other, "we are in the neighborhood in which your +ex-mistress is living. What is there to prove that you were not waiting +for her?" + +"Although separated from her, special reasons oblige me to live in this +neighborhood. But, although neighbors, we are as distant as if she were +at one pole and I at the other. Besides, at this particular moment, my +ex-mistress is seated at her fireside taking lessons in French grammar +from Vicomte Paul, who wishes to bring her back to the paths of virtue +by the road of orthography. Good heavens, how he will spoil her! +However, that regards himself, now that he is editor-in-chief of her +happiness. You see, therefore, that your reflections are absurd, and +that, instead of following up the half-effaced traces of my old love, I +am on the track of my new one, who is already to some extent my +neighbor, and will become yet more so: for I am willing to take all the +necessary steps, and if she will take the rest, we shall not be long in +coming to an understanding." + +"Really," said the poet, "are you in love again already?" + +"This is what it is," replied Rodolphe, "my heart resembles those +lodgings that are advertised to let as soon as a tenant leaves them. As +soon as one love leaves my heart, I put up a bill for another. The +locality besides is habitable and in perfect repair." + +"And who is this new idol? Where and when did you make her +acquaintance?" + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "let us go through things in order. When Mimi +went away I thought that I should never be in love again in my life, and +imagined that my heart was dead of fatigue, exhaustion, whatever you +like. It had been beating so long and so fast, too fast, that the thing +was probable. In short I believed it dead, quite dead, and thought of +burying it like Marlborough. In honor of the occasion I gave a little +funeral dinner, to which I invited some of my friends. The guests were +to assume a melancholy air, and the bottles had crape around their +necks." + +"You did not invite me." + +"Excuse me, but I did not know your address in that part of cloudland +which you inhabit. One of the guests had brought a young lady, a young +woman also abandoned a short time before by her lover. She was told my +story. It was one of my friends who plays very nicely upon the +violoncello of sentiment who did this. He spoke to the young widow of +the qualities of my heart, the poor defunct whom we were about to inter, +and invited her to drink to its eternal repose. 'Come now,' said she, +raising her glass, 'I drink, on the contrary, to its very good health,' +and she gave me a look, enough, as they say, to awake the dead. It was +indeed the occasion to say so, for she had scarcely finished her toast +than I heard my heart singing the _O Filii_ of the Resurrection. What +would you have done in my place?" + +"A pretty question--what is her name?" + +"I do not know yet, I shall only ask her at the moment we sign our +lease. I know very well that in the opinion of some people I have +overstepped the legal delays, but you see I plead in my own court, and I +have granted a dispensation. What I do know is that she brings me as a +dowry cheerfulness, which is the health of the soul, and health which +is the cheerfulness of the body." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"Very pretty, especially as regards her complexion; one would say that +she made up every morning with Watteau's palate, 'She is fair, and her +conquering glances kindle love in every heart.' As witness mine." + +"A blonde? You astonish me." + +"Yes. I have had enough of ivory and ebony; I am going in for a +blonde," and Rodolphe began to skip about as he sang: + + "Praises sing unto my sweet, + She is fair, + Yellow as the ripening wheat + Is her hair." + +"Poor Mimi," said his friend, "so soon forgotten." + +This name cast into Rodolphe's mirthsomeness, suddenly gave another turn +to the conversation. Rodolphe took his friend by the arm, and related to +him at length the causes of his rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, the +terrors that had awaited him when she had left; how he was in despair +because he thought that she had carried off with her all that remained +to him of youth and passion, and how two days later he had recognized +his mistake on feeling the gunpowder in his heart, though swamped with +so many sobs and tears, dry, kindle, and explode at the first look of +love cast at him by the first woman he met. He narrated the sudden and +imperious invasion of forgetfulness, without his even having summoned it +in aid of his grief, and how this grief was dead and buried in the said +forgetfulness. + +"Is it not a miracle?" said he to the poet, who, knowing by heart and +from experience all the painful chapters of shattered loves, replied: + +"No, no, my friend, there is no more of a miracle for you than for the +rest of us. What has happened to you has happened to myself. The women +we love, when they become our mistresses, cease to be for us what they +really are. We do not see them only with a lover's eyes, but with a +poet's. As a painter throws on the shoulders of a lay figure the +imperial purple or the star-spangled robe of a Holy Virgin, so we have +always whole stores of glittering mantles and robes of pure white linen +which we cast over the shoulders of dull, sulky, or spiteful creatures, +and when they have thus assumed the garb in which our ideal loves float +before us in our waking dreams, we let ourselves be taken in by this +disguise, we incarnate our dream in the first corner, and address her +in our language, which she does not understand. However, let this +creature at whose feet we live prostrate, tear away herself the dense +envelope beneath which we have hidden her, and reveal to us her evil +nature and her base instincts; let her place our hands on the spot where +her heart should be, but where nothing beats any longer, and has perhaps +never beaten; let her open her veil, and show us her faded eyes, pale +lips, and haggard features; we replace that veil and exclaim, 'It is not +true! It is not true! I love you, and you, too, love me! This white +bosom holds a heart that has all its youthfulness; I love you, and you +love me! You are beautiful, you are young. At the bottom of all your +vices there is love. I love you, and you love me!' Then in the end, +always quite in the end, when, after having all very well put triple +bandages over our eyes, we see ourselves the dupes of our mistakes, we +drive away the wretch who was our idol of yesterday; we take back from +her the golden veils of poesy, which, on the morrow, we again cast on +the shoulders of some other unknown, who becomes at once an +aureola-surrounded idol. That is what we all are--monstrous egoists--who +love love for love's sake--you understand me? We sip the divine liquor +from the first cup that comes to hand. 'What matter the bottle, so long +as we draw intoxication from it?'" + +"What you say is as true as that two and two make four," said Rodolphe +to the poet. + +"Yes," replied the latter, "it is true, and as sad as three quarters of +the things that are true. Good night." + +Two days later Mademoiselle Mimi learned that Rodolphe had a new +mistress. She only asked one thing--whether he kissed her hands as often +as he used to kiss her own? + +"Quite as often," replied Marcel. "In addition, he is kissing the hairs +of her head one after the other, and they are to remain with one another +until he has finished." + +"Ah!" replied Mimi, passing her hand through her own tresses. "It was +lucky he did not think of doing the same with me, or we should have +remained together all our lives. Do you think it is really true that he +no longer loves me at all?" + +"Humph--and you, do you still love him?" + +"I! I never loved him in my life." + +"Yes, Mimi, yes. You loved him at those moments when a woman's heart +changes place. You loved him; do nothing to deny it; it is your +justification." + +"Bah!" said Mimi, "he loves another now." + +"True," said Marcel, "but no matter. Later on the remembrance of you +will be to him like the flowers that we place fresh and full of perfume +between the leaves of a book, and which long afterwards we find dead, +discolored, and faded, but still always preserving a vague perfume of +their first freshness." + + * * * * * + +One evening, when she was humming in a low tone to herself, Vicomte Paul +said to Mimi, "What are you singing, dear?" + +"The funeral chant of our loves, that my lover Rodolphe has lately +composed." + +And she began to sing:-- + + "I have not a sou now, my dear, and the rule + In such a case surely is soon to forget, + So tearless, for she who would weep is a fool, + You'll blot out all mem'ry of me, eh, my pet? + + Well, still all the same we have spent as you know + Some days that were happy--and each with its night, + They did not last long, but, alas, here below, + The shortest are ever those we deem most bright." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Romeo and Juliet + + +Attired like a fashion plate out of his paper, the "Scarf of Iris," with +new gloves, polished boots, freshly shaven face, curled hair, waxed +moustache, stick in hand, glass in eye, smiling, youthful, altogether +nice looking, in such guise our friend, the poet Rodolphe, might have +been seen one November evening on the boulevard waiting for a cab to +take him home. + +Rodolphe waiting for a cab? What cataclysm had then taken place in his +existence? + +At the very hour that the transformed poet was twirling his moustache, +chewing the end of an enormous regalia, and charming the fair sex, one +of his friends was also passing down the boulevard. It was the +philosopher, Gustave Colline. Rodolphe saw him coming, and at once +recognized him; as indeed, who would not who had once seen him? Colline +as usual was laden with a dozen volumes. Clad in that immortal hazel +overcoat, the durability of which makes one believe that it must have +been built by the Romans, and with his head covered by his famous broad +brimmed hat, a dome of beaver, beneath which buzzed a swarm of +hyperphysical dreams, and which was nicknamed Mambrino's Helmet of +Modern Philosophy, Gustave Colline was walking slowly along, chewing the +cud of the preface of a book that had already been in the press for the +last three months--in his imagination. As he advanced towards the spot +where Rodolphe was standing, Colline thought for a moment that he +recognized him, but the supreme elegance displayed by the poet threw the +philosopher into a state of doubt and uncertainty. + +"Rodolphe with gloves and a walking stick. Chimera! Utopia! Mental +aberration! Rodolphe curled and oiled; he who has not so much as Father +Time. What could I be thinking of? Besides, at this present moment my +unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing +melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, +has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that +young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage +of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and +soon get another Kettle-holder." + +Colline was so delighted with his wretched joke, that he would willingly +have applauded it, had not the stern voice of philosophy woke up within +him, and put an energetic stop to this perversion of wit. + +However, as he halted close to Rodolphe, Colline was forced to yield to +evidence. It was certainly Rodolphe, curled, gloved, and with a cane. It +was impossible, but it was true. + +"Eh! Eh! By Jove!" said Colline. "I am not mistaken. It is you, I am +certain." + +"So am I," replied Rodolphe. + +Colline began to look at his friend, imparting to his countenance the +expression pictorially made use of by M. Lebrun, the king's painter in +ordinary, to express surprise. But all at once he noted two strange +articles with which Rodolphe was laden--firstly, a rope ladder, and +secondly, a cage, in which some kind of a bird was fluttering. At this +sight, Gustave Colline's physiognomy expressed a sentiment which +Monsieur Lebrun, the king's painter in ordinary, forgot to depict in his +picture of "The Passions." + +"Come," said Rodolphe to his friend, "I see very plainly the curiosity +of your mind peeping out through the window of your eyes; and I am going +to satisfy it, only, let us quit the public thoroughfare. It is cold +enough here to freeze your questions and my answers." + +And they both went into a cafe. + +Colline's eyes remained riveted on the rope ladder as well as the cage, +in which the bird, thawed by the atmosphere of the cafe, began to sing +in a language unknown to Colline, who was, however, a polyglottist. + +"Well then," said the philosopher pointing to the rope ladder, "what is +that?" + +"A connecting link between my love and me," replied Rodolphe, in lute +like accents. + +"And that?" asked Colline, pointing to the bird. + +"That," said the poet, whose voice grew soft as the summer breeze, "is a +clock." + +"Tell me without parables--in vile prose, but truly." + +"Very well. Have you read Shakespeare?" + +"Have I read him? 'To be or not to be?' He was a great philosopher. Yes, +I have read him." + +"Do your remember _Romeo and Juliet_?" + +"Do I remember?" said Colline, and he began to recite: + + "Wilt thou begone? It is not yet day, + It was the nightingale, and not the lark." + +"I should rather think I remember. But what then?" + +"What!" said Rodolphe, pointing to the ladder and the bird. "You do not +understand! This is the story: I am in love, my dear fellow, in love +with a girl named Juliet." + +"Well, what then?" said Colline impatiently. + +"This. My new idol being named Juliet, I have hit on a plan. It is to go +through Shakespeare's play with her. In the first place, my name is no +longer Rodolphe, but Romeo Montague, and you will oblige me by not +calling me otherwise. Besides, in order that everyone may know it, I +have had some new visiting cards engraved. But that is not all. I shall +profit by the fact that we are not in Carnival time to wear a velvet +doublet and a sword." + +"To kill Tybalt with?" said Colline. + +"Exactly," continued Rodolphe. "Finally, this ladder that you see is to +enable me to visit my mistress, who, as it happens, has a balcony." + +"But the bird, the bird?" said the obstinate Colline. + +"Why, this bird, which is a pigeon, is to play the part of the +nightingale, and indicate every morning the precise moment when, as I am +about to leave her loved arms, my mistress will throw them about my neck +and repeat to me in her sweet tones the balcony scene, 'It is not yet +near day,' that is to say, 'It is not yet eleven, the streets are muddy, +do not go yet, we are comfortable here.' In order to perfect the +imitation, I will try to get a nurse, and place her under the orders of +my beloved and I hope that the almanac will be kind enough to grant me a +little moonlight now and then, when I scale my Juliet's balcony. What do +you say to my project, philosopher?" + +"It is very fine," said Colline, "but could you also explain to me the +mysteries of this splendid outer covering that rendered you +unrecognizable? You have become rich, then?" + +Rodolphe did not reply, but made a sign to one of the waiters, and +carelessly threw down a louis, saying: + +"Take for what we have had." + +Then he tapped his waistcoat pocket, which gave forth a jingling sound. + +"Have you got a bell in your pocket, for it to jingle as loud as that?" + +"Only a few louis." + +"Louis! In gold?" said Colline, in a voice choked with wonderment. "Let +me see what they are like." + +After which the two friends parted, Colline to go and relate the opulent +ways and new loves of Rodolphe, and the latter to return home. + +This took place during the week that had followed the second rupture +between Rodolphe and Mademoiselle Mimi. The poet, when he had broken off +with his mistress, felt a need of change of air and surroundings, and +accompanied by his friend Marcel, he left the gloomy lodging house, the +landlord of which saw both him and Marcel depart without overmuch +regret. Both, as we have said, sought quarters elsewhere, and hired two +rooms in the same house and on the same floor. The room chosen by +Rodolphe was incomparably more comfortable than any he had inhabited up +till then. There were articles of furniture almost imposing, above all a +sofa covered with red stuff, that was intended to imitate velvet, and +did not. + +There were also on the mantelpiece two china vases, painted with +flowers, between an elaborate clock, with fearful ornamentation. +Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard, and when the landlord came to wind +up the clock, begged him to do nothing of the kind. + +"I am willing to leave the clock on the mantel shelf," said he, "but +only as an object of art. It points to midnight--a good hour; let it +stick to it. The day it marks five minutes past I will move. A clock," +continued Rodolphe, who had never been able to submit to the imperious +tyranny of the dial, "is a domestic foe who implacably reckons up to +your existence hour by hour and minute by minute, and says to you every +moment, 'Here is a fraction of your life gone.' I could not sleep in +peace in a room in which there was one of these instruments of torture, +in the vicinity of which carelessness and reverie are impossible. A +clock, the hands of which stretch to your bed and prick yours whilst you +are still plunged in the soft delights of your first awakening. A clock, +whose voice cries to you, 'Ting, ting, ting; it is the hour for +business. Leave your charming dream, escape from the caresses of your +visions, and sometimes of realities. Put on your hat and boots. It is +cold, it rains, but go about your business. It is time--ting, ting.' It +is quite enough already to have an almanac. Let my clock remain +paralyzed, or---." + +Whilst delivering this monologue he was examining his new dwelling, and +felt himself moved by the secret uneasiness which one almost always +feels when going into a fresh lodging. + +"I have noticed," he reflected, "that the places we inhabit exercise a +mysterious influence upon our thoughts, and consequently upon our +actions. This room is cold and silent as a tomb. If ever mirth reigns +here it will be brought in from without, and even then it will not be +for long, for laughter will die away without echoes under this low +ceiling, cold and white as a snowy sky. Alas! What will my life be like +within these four walls?" + +However, a few days later this room, erst so sad, was full of light, and +rang with joyous sounds, it was the house warming, and numerous bottles +explained the lively humor of the guests. Rodolphe allowed himself to be +won upon by the contagious good humor of his guests. Isolated in a +corner with a young woman who had come there by chance, and whom he had +taken possession of, the poet was sonnetteering with her with tongue and +hands. Towards the close of the festivities he had obtained a rendezvous +for the next day. + +"Well!" said he to himself when he was alone, "the evening hasn't been +such a bad one. My stay here hasn't begun amiss." + +The next day Mademoiselle Juliet called at the appointed hour. The +evening was spent only in explanations. Juliet had learned the recent +rupture of Rodolphe with the blue eyed girl whom he had so dearly loved; +she knew that after having already left her once before Rodolphe had +taken her back, and she was afraid of being the victim of a similar +reawakening of love. + +"You see," said she, with a pretty little pout, "I don't at all care +about playing a ridiculous part. I warn you that I am very forward, and +once _mistress_ here," and she underlined by a look the meaning she gave +to the word, "I remain, and do not give up my place." + +Rodolphe summoned all his eloquence to the rescue to convince her that +her fears were without foundation, and the girl, having on her side a +willingness to be convinced, they ended by coming to an understanding. +Only they were no longer at an understanding when midnight struck, for +Rodolphe wanted Juliet to stay, and she insisted on going. + +"No," she said to him as he persisted in trying to persuade her. "Why be +in such a hurry? We shall always arrive in time at what we want to, +provided you do not halt on the way. I will return tomorrow." + +And she returned thus every evening for a week, to go away in the same +way when midnight struck. + +This delay did not annoy Rodolphe very much. In matters of love, and +even of mere fancy, he was one of that school of travelers who prolong +their journey and render it picturesque. The little sentimental preface +had for its result to lead on Rodolphe at the outset further than he +meant to go. And it was no doubt to lead him to that point at which +fancy, ripened by the resistance opposed to it, begins to resemble love, +that Mademoiselle Juliet had made use of this stratagem. + +At each fresh visit that she paid to Rodolphe, Juliet remarked a more +pronounced tone of sincerity in what he said. He felt when she was a +little behindhand in keeping her appointment an impatience that +delighted her, and he even wrote her letters the language of which was +enough to give her hopes that she would speedily become his legitimate +mistress. + +When Marcel, who was his confidant, once caught sight of one of +Rodolphe's epistles, he said to him: + +"Is it an exercise of style, or do you really think what you have said +here?" + +"Yes, I really think it," replied Rodolphe, "and I am even a bit +astonished at it: but it is so. I was a week back in a very sad state of +mind. The solitude and silence that had so abruptly succeeded the storms +and tempests of my old household alarmed me terribly, but Juliet arrived +almost at the moment. I heard the sounds of twenty year old laughter +ring in my ears. I had before me a rosy face, eyes beaming with smiles, +a mouth overflowing with kisses, and I have quietly allowed myself to +glide down the hill of fancy that might perhaps lead me on to love. I +love to love." + +However, Rodolphe was not long in perceiving that it only depended upon +himself to bring this little romance to a crisis, and it was than that +he had the notion of copying from Shakespeare the scene of the love of +_Romeo and Juliet_. His future mistress had deemed the notion amusing, and +agreed to share in the jest. + +It was the very evening that the rendezvous was appointed for that +Rodolphe met the philosopher Colline, just as he had bought the rope +ladder that was to aid him to scale Juliet's balcony. The birdseller to +whom he had applied not having a nightingale, Rodolphe replaced it by a +pigeon, which he was assured sang every morning at daybreak. + +Returned home, the poet reflected that to ascend a rope ladder was not +an easy matter, and that it would be a good thing to rehearse the +balcony scene, if he would not in addition to the chances of a fall, run +the risk of appearing awkward and ridiculous in the eyes of her who was +awaiting him. Having fastened his ladder to two nails firmly driven into +the ceiling, Rodolphe employed the two hours remaining to him in +practicing gymnastics, and after an infinite number of attempts, +succeeded in managing after a fashion to get up half a score of rungs. + +"Come, that is all right," he said to himself, "I am now sure of my +affair and besides, if I stuck half way, 'love would lend me his +wings.'" + +And laden with his ladder and his pigeon cage, he set out for the abode +of Juliet, who lived near. Her room looked into a little garden, and had +indeed a balcony. But the room was on the ground floor, and the balcony +could be stepped over as easily as possible. + +Hence Rodolphe was completely crushed when he perceived this local +arrangement, which put to naught his poetical project of an escalade. + +"All the same," said he to Juliet, "we can go through the episode of the +balcony. Here is a bird that will arouse us tomorrow with his melodious +notes, and warn us of the exact moment when we are to part from one +another in despair." + +And Rodolphe hung up the cage beside the fireplace. + +The next day at five in the morning the pigeon was exact to time, and +filled the room with a prolonged cooing that would have awakened the two +lovers--if they had gone to sleep. + +"Well," said Juliet, "this is the moment to go into the balcony and bid +one another despairing farewells--what do you think of it?" + +"The pigeon is too fast," said Rodolphe. "It is November, and the sun +does not rise till noon." + +"All the same," said Juliet, "I am going to get up." + +"Why?" + +"I feel quite empty, and I will not hide from you the fact that I could +very well eat a mouthfull." + +"The agreement that prevails in our sympathies is astonishing. I am +awfully hungry too," said Rodolphe, also rising and hurriedly slipping +on his clothes. + +Juliet had already lit a fire, and was looking in her sideboard to see +whether she could find anything. Rodolphe helped her in this search. + +"Hullo," said he, "onions." + +"And some bacon," said Juliet. + +"Some butter." + +"Bread." + +Alas! That was all. + +During the search the pigeon, a careless optimist, was singing on its +perch. + +Romeo looked at Juliet, Juliet looked at Romeo, and both looked at the +pigeon. + +They did not say anything, but the fate of the pigeon-clock was settled. +Even if he had appealed it would have been useless, hunger is such a +cruel counsellor. + +Rodolphe had lit some charcoal, and was turning bacon in the spluttering +butter with a solemn air. + +Juliet was peeling onions in a melancholy attitude. + +The pigeon was still singing, it was the song of the swan. + +To these lamentations was joined the spluttering of the butter in the +stew pan. + +Five minutes later the butter was still spluttering, but the pigeon sang +no longer. + +Romeo and Juliet grilled their clock. + +"He had a nice voice," said Juliet sitting down to table. + +"He is very tender," said Rodolphe, carving his alarum, nicely browned. + +The two lovers looked at one another, and each surprised a tear in the +other's eye. + +Hypocrites, it was the onions that made them weep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi + + +Shortly after his final rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, who had left +him, as may be remembered, to ride in the carriage of Vicomte Paul, the +poet Rodolphe had sought to divert his thoughts by taking a new +mistress. + +She was the same blonde for whom we have seen him masquerading as Romeo. +But this union, which was on the one part only a matter of spite, and on +the other one of fancy, could not last long. The girl was after all +only a light of love, warbling to perfection the gamut of trickery, +witty enough to note the wit of others and to make use of it on +occasion, and with only enough heart to feel heartburn when she had +eaten too much. Add to this unbridled self-esteem and a ferocious +coquetry, which would have impelled her to prefer a broken leg for her +lover rather than a flounce the less to her dress, or a faded ribbon to +her bonnet. A commonplace creature of doubtful beauty, endowed by nature +with every evil instinct, and yet seductive from certain points of view +and at certain times. She was not long in perceiving that Rodolphe had +only taken her to help him forget the absent, whom she made him on the +contrary regret, for his old love had never been so noisy and so lively +in his heart. + +One day Juliet, Rodolphe's new mistress, was talking about her lover, +the poet, with a medical student who was courting her. The student +replied,-- + +"My dear child, that fellow only makes use of you as they use nitrate to +cauterize wounds. He wants to cauterize his heart and nerve. You are +very wrong to bother yourself about being faithful to him." + +"Ah, ah!" cried the girl, breaking into a laugh. "Do you really think +that I put myself out about him?" + +And that very evening she gave the student a proof to the contrary. + +Thanks to the indiscretion of one of those officious friends who are +unable to retain unpublished news capable of vexing you, Rodolphe soon +got wind of the matter, and made it a pretext for breaking off with his +temporary mistress. + +He then shut himself up in positive solitude, in which all the +flitter-mice of _ennui_ soon came and nested, and he called work to his +aid but in vain. Every evening, after wasting as much perspiration over +the job as he did in ink, he produced a score of lines in which some old +idea, as worn out as the Wandering Jew, and vilely clad in rags cribbed +from the literary dust heap, danced clumsily on the tight rope of +paradox. On reading through these lines Rodolphe was as bewildered as a +man who sees nettles spring up in a bed in which he thought he had +planted roses. He would then tear up the paper, on which he had just +scattered this chaplet of absurdities, and trample it under foot in a +rage. + +"Come," said he, striking himself on the chest just above the heart, +"the cord is broken, there is nothing but to resign ourselves to it." + +And as for some time past a like failure followed all his attempts at +work, he was seized with one of those fits of depression which shake the +most stubborn pride and cloud the most lucid intellects. Nothing is +indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take +place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is +more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn +supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse. + +The most violent human anguish, the deepest wounds to the quick of the +heart, do not cause suffering approaching that which one feels in these +hours of doubt and impatience, so frequent for those who give +themselves up to the dangerous calling of imagination. + +To these violent crises succeeded painful fits of depression. Rodolphe +would then remain for whole hours as though petrified in a state of +stupefied immobility. His elbows upon the table, his eyes fixed upon the +luminous patch made by the rays of the lamp falling upon the sheet of +paper,--the battlefield on which his mind was vanquished daily, and on +which his pen had become foundered in its attempts to pursue the +unattainable idea--he saw slowly defile before him, like the figures of +dissolving views with which the children are amused, fantastic pictures +which unfolded before him the panorama of his past. It was at first the +laborious days in which each hour marked the accomplishment of some +task, the studious nights spent in _tete-a-tete_ with the muse who came +to adorn with her fairy visions his solitary and patient poverty. And he +remembered then with envy the pride of skill that intoxicated him of +yore when he had completed the task imposed on him by his will. + +"Oh, nothing is equal to you!" he exclaimed. "Voluptuous fatigues of +labor which render the mattresses of idleness so sweet. Not the +satisfaction of self-esteem nor the feverish slumbers stifled beneath +the heavy drapery of mysterious alcoves equals that calm and honest joy, +that legitimate self satisfaction which work bestows on the laborer as +a first salary." + +And with eyes still fixed on these visions which continued to retrace +for him the scenes of bygone days, he once more ascended the six flights +of stairs of all the garrets in which his adventurous existence had been +spent, in which the Muse, his only love in those days, a faithful and +persevering sweetheart had always followed him, living happily with +poverty and never breaking off her song of hope. But, lo, in the midst +of this regular and tranquil life there suddenly appears a woman's face, +and seeing her enter the dwelling where she had been until then sole +queen and mistress, the poet's Muse rose sadly and gave place to the +new-comer in whom she had divined a rival. Rodolphe hesitated a moment +between the Muse to whom his look seemed to say, "Stay," whilst a +gesture addressed to the stranger said, "Come." + +And how could he repulse her, this charming creature who came to him +armed with all the seductions of a beauty at its dawn? Tiny mouth and +rosy lips, speaking in bold and simple language, full of coaxing +promises. How refuse his hand to this little white one, delicately +veined with blue, that was held out to him full of caresses? How say, +"Get you gone," to these eighteen years, the presence of which already +filled the home with a perfume of youth and gaiety? And then with her +sweet voice, tenderly thrilling, she sang the cavatina of temptation so +well. With her bright and sparkling eyes she said so clearly, "I am +love," with her lips, where kisses nestled, "I am pleasure," with her +whole being, in short, "I am happiness," that Rodolphe let himself be +caught by them. And, besides, was not this young girl after all real and +living poetry, had he not owed her his freshest inspirations, had she +not often initiated him into enthusiasms which bore him so far afield in +the ether of reverie that he lost sight of all things of earth? If he +had suffered deeply on account of her, was not this suffering the +expiation of the immense joys she had bestowed upon him? Was it not the +ordinary vengeance of human fate which forbids absolute happiness as an +impiety? If the law of Christianity forgives those who have much loved, +it is because they have also much suffered, and terrestrial love never +became a divine passion save on condition of being purified by tears. As +one grows intoxicated by breathing the odor of faded roses, Rodolphe +again became so by reviving in recollection that past life in which +every day brought about a fresh elegy, a terrible drama, or a grotesque +comedy. He went through all the phases of his strange love from their +honeymoon to the domestic storms that had brought about their last +rupture, he recalled all the tricks of his ex-mistress, repeated all her +witty sayings. He saw her going to and fro about their little household, +humming her favorite song, and facing with the same careless gaiety good +or evil days. + +And in the end he arrived at the conclusion that common sense was always +wrong in love affairs. What, indeed, had he gained by their rupture? At +the time when he was living with Mimi she deceived him, it was true, but +if he was aware of this it was his fault after all that he was so, and +because he gave himself infinite pains to become aware of it, because he +passed his time on the alert for proofs, and himself sharpened the +daggers which he plunged into his heart. Besides, was not Mimi clever +enough to prove to him at need that he was mistaken? And then for whose +sake was she false to him? It was generally a shawl or a bonnet--for the +sake of things and not men. That calm, that tranquillity which he had +hoped for on separating from his mistress, had he found them again +after her departure? Alas, no! There was only herself the less in the +house. Of old his grief could find vent, he could break into abuse, or +representations--he could show all he suffered and excite the pity of +her who caused his sufferings. But now his grief was solitary, his +jealousy had become madness, for formerly he could at any rate, when he +suspected anything, hinder Mimi from going out, keep her beside him in +his possession, and now he might meet her in the street on the arm of +her new lover, and must turn aside to let her pass, happy no doubt, and +bent upon pleasure. + +This wretched life lasted three or four months. By degrees he recovered +his calmness. Marcel, who had undertaken a long journey to drive Musette +out of his mind, returned to Paris, and again came to live with +Rodolphe. They consoled one another. + +One Sunday, crossing the Luxembourg Gardens, Rodolphe met Mimi +resplendently dressed. She was going to a public ball. She nodded to +him, to which he responded by a bow. This meeting gave him a great +shock, but his emotion was less painful than usual. He walked about for +a little while in the gardens, and then returned home. When Marcel came +in that evening he found him at work. + +"What!" said Marcel, leaning over his shoulder. "You are +working--verses?" + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe cheerfully, "I believe that the machine will +still work. During the last four hours I have once more found the go of +bygone time, I have seen Mimi." + +"Ah!" said Marcel uneasily. "On what terms are you?" + +"Do not be afraid," said Rodolphe, "we only bowed to one another. It +went no further than that." + +"Really and truly?" asked Marcel. + +"Really and truly. It is all over between us, I feel it; but if I can +get to work again I forgive her." + +"If it is so completely finished," said Marcel, who had read through +Rodolphe's verses, "why do you write verses about her?" + +"Alas!" replied the poet, "I take my poetry where I can find it." + +For a week he worked at this little poem. When he had finished it he +read it to Marcel, who expressed himself satisfied with it, and who +encouraged Rodolphe to utilize in other ways the poetical vein that had +come back to him. + +"For," remarked he, "it was not worth while leaving Mimi if you are +always to live under her shadow. After all, though," he continued, +smiling, "instead of lecturing others, I should do well to lecture +myself, for my heart is still full of Musette. Well, after all, perhaps +we shall not always be young fellows in love with such imps." + +"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "there is no need to say in one's youth, 'Be off +with you.'" + +"That is true," observed Marcel, "but there are days on which I feel I +should like to be a respectable old fellow, a member of the Institute, +decorated with several orders, and, having done with the Musettes of +this circle of society; the devil fly away with me if I would return to +it. And you," he continued, laughing, "would you like to be sixty?" + +"Today," replied Rodolphe, "I would rather have sixty francs." + +A few days later, Mademoiselle Mimi having gone into a cafe with young +Vicomte Paul, opened a magazine, in which the verses Rodolphe had +written on her were printed. + +"Good," said she, laughing at first, "here is my friend Rodolphe saying +nasty things of me in the papers." + +But when she finished the verses she remained intent and thoughtful. +Vicomte Paul guessing that she was thinking of Rodolphe, sought to +divert her attention. + +"I will buy you a pair of earrings," said he. + +"Ah!" said Mimi, "you have money, you have." + +"And a Leghorn straw hat," continued the viscount. + +"No," said Mimi. "If you want to please me, buy me this." + +And she showed him the magazine in which she had just been reading +Rodolphe's poetry. + +"Oh! As to that, no," said the viscount, vexed. + +"Very well," said Mimi coldly. "I will buy it myself with money I will +earn. In point of fact, I would rather that it was not with yours." + +And for two days Mimi went back to her old flower maker's workrooms, +where she earned enough to buy this number. She learned Rodolphe's +poetry by heart, and, to annoy Vicomte Paul, repeated it all day long to +her friends. The verses were as follows: + + WHEN I was seeking where to pledge my truth + Chance brought me face to face with you one day; + once I offered you my heart, my youth, + "Do with them what you will," I dared to say. + + But "what you would," was cruel, dear; alas! + The youth I trusted with you is no more: + The heart is shattered like a fallen glass, + And the wind sings a funeral mass + On the deserted chamber floor, + Where he who loved you ne'er may pass. + + Between us now, my dear, 'tis all UP, + I am a spectre and a phantom you, + Our love is dead and buried; if you agree, + We'll sing around its tombstone dirges due. + + But let us take an air in a low key, + Lest we should strain our voices, more or less; + Some solemn minor, free from flourishes; + I'll take the bass, sing you the melody. + + Mi, re, mi, do, re, la,--ah! not that song! + Hearing the song that once you used to sing + My heart would palpitate--though dead so long-- + And, at the _De Profundis_, upward spring. + + Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do,--this other brings + Back to the mind a valse of long ago, + The fife's shrill laughter mocked the sounding strings + That wept their notes of crystal to the bow. + + Sol, do, do, si, si, la,--ah! stay your hand! + This is the air we sang last year in chorus, + With Germans shouting for their fatherland + In Meudon woods, while summer's moon stood o'er us. + + Well, well, we will not sing nor speculate, + But--since we know they never more may be-- + On our lost loves, without a grudge or hate, + Drop, while we smile, a final memory. + + What times we had up there; do you remember? + When on your window panes the rain would stream, + And, seated by the fire, in dark December, + I felt your eyes inspire me many a dream. + + The live coal crackled, kindling with the heat, + The kettle sang, melodious and sedate, + A music for the visionary feet + Of salamanders leaping in the grate: + + Languid and lazy, with an unread book, + You scarcely tried to keep your lids apart, + While to my youthful love new growth I took, + Kissing your hands and yielding you my heart. + + In merely entering one night believe, + One felt a scent of love and gaiety, + Which filled our little room from morn to eve, + For fortune loved our hospitality. + + And winter went: then, through the open sash, + Spring flew, to say the year's long night was done; + We heard the call, and ran with impulse rash + In the green country side to meet the sun. + + It was the Friday of the Holy Week, + The weather, for a wonder, mild and fair; + From hill to valley, and from plain to peak, + We wandered long, delighting in the air. + + At length, exhausted by the pilgrimage, + We found a sort of natural divan, + Whence we could view the landscape, or engage + Our eyes in rapture on the heaven's wide span. + + Hand clasped in hand, shoulder on shoulder laid, + With sense of something ventured, something missed, + Our two lips parted, each; no word was said, + And silently we kissed. + + Around us blue-bell and shy violet + Their simple incense seemed to wave on high; + Surely we saw, with glances heavenward set, + God smiling from his azure balcony. + + "Love on!" he seemed to say, "I make more sweet + The road of life you are to wander by, + Spreading the velvet moss beneath your feet; + Kiss, if you will; I shall not play the spy." + + Love on, love on! In murmurs of the breeze, + In limpid stream, and in the woodland screen + That burgeons fresh in the renovated green, + In stars, in flowers, and music of the trees, + + Love on, love on! But if my golden sun, + My spring, that comes once more to gladden earth, + If these should move your breasts to grateful mirth, + I ask no thanksgiving, your kiss is one. + + A month passed by; and, when the roses bloomed + In beds that we had planted in the spring, + When least of all I thought my love was doomed, + You cast it from you like a noisome thing. + + Not that your scorn was all reserved for me, + It flies about the world by fits and starts; + Your changeful fancy fits impartially + From knave of diamonds to knave of hearts. + + And now you are happy, with a brilliant suite + Of bowing slaves and insincere gallants; + Go where you will, you see them at your feet; + A bed of perfumed posies round you flaunts: + + The Ball's your garden: an admiring globe + Of lovers rolls about the lit saloon, + And, at the rustling of your silken robe, + The pack, in chorus, bay you like the moon. + + Shod in the softness of a supple boot + Which Cinderella would have found too small, + One scarcely sees your little pointed foot + Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball. + + Shod in the softness of a supple boot + Which Cinderella would have found too small, + One scarcely sees your little pointed foot + Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball. + + In the soft baths that indolence has brought + Your once brown hands have got the ivory white, + The pallor of the lily which has caught + The silver moonbeam of a summer night: + + On your white arm half clouded, and half clear, + Pearls shine in bracelets made of chiselled gold; + On your trim waist a shawl of true Cashmere + Aesthetically falls in waving fold: + + Honiton point and costly Mechlin lace, + With gothic guipure of a creamy white-- + The matchless cobwebs of long vanished days-- + Combine to make your presence rich and bright. + + But I preferred a simpler guise than that, + Your frock of muslin or plain calico, + Simple adornments, with a veilless hat, + Boots, black or grey, a collar white and low. + + The splendor your admirers now adore + Will never bring me back my ancient heats; + And you are dead and buried, all the more + For the silk shroud where heart no longer beats. + + So when I worked at this funereal dirge, + Where grief for a lost lifetime stands confessed, + I wore a clerk's costume of sable serge, + Though not gold eye glasses or pleated vest. + + My penholder was wrapped in mournful crape, + The paper with black lines was bordered round + On which I labored to provide escape + For love's last memory hidden in the ground. + + And now, when all the heart that I can save + Is used to furnish forth its epitaph. + Gay as a sexton digging his own grave + I burst into a wild and frantic laugh; + + A laugh engendered by a mocking vein; + The pen I grasped was trembling as I wrote; + And even while I laughed, a scalding rain + Of tears turned all the writing to a blot. + +It was the 24th of December, and that evening the Latin Quarter bore a +special aspect. Since four o'clock in the afternoon the pawnbroking +establishments and the shops of the second hand clothes dealers and +booksellers had been encumbered by a noisy crowd, who, later in the +evening, took the ham and beef shops, cook shops, and grocers by +assault. The shopmen, even if they had had a hundred arms, like +Briareus, would not have sufficed to serve the customers who struggled +with one another for provisions. At the baker's they formed a string as +in times of dearth. The wine shop keepers got rid of the produce of +three vintages, and a clever statistician would have found it difficult +to reckon up the number of knuckles of ham and of sausages which were +sold at the famous shop of Borel, in the Rue Dauphine. In this one +evening Daddy Cretaine, nicknamed Petit-Pain, exhausted eighteen +editions of his cakes. All night long sounds of rejoicing broke out from +the lodging houses, the windows of which were brilliantly lit up, and an +atmosphere of revelry filled the district. + +The old festival of Christmas Eve was being celebrated. + +That evening, towards ten o'clock, Marcel and Rodolphe were proceeding +homeward somewhat sadly. Passing up the Rue Dauphine they noticed a +great crowd in the shop of a provision dealer, and halted a moment +before the window. Tantalized by the sight of the toothsome gastronomic +products, the two Bohemians resembled, during this contemplation, that +person in a Spanish romance who caused hams to shrink only by looking at +them. + +"That is called a truffled turkey," said Marcel, pointing to a splendid +bird, showing through its rosy and transparent skin the Perigordian +tubercles with which it was stuffed. "I have seen impious folk eat it +without first going down on their knees before it," added the painter, +casting upon the turkey looks capable of roasting it. + +"And what do you think of that modest leg of salt marsh mutton?" asked +Rodolphe. "What fine coloring! One might think it was just unhooked from +that butcher's shop in one of Jordaen's pictures. Such a leg of mutton +is the favorite dish of the gods, and of my godmother Madame +Chandelier." + +"Look at those fish!" resumed Marcel, pointing to some trout. "They are +the most expert swimmers of the aquatic race. Those little creatures, +without any appearance of pretension, could, however, make a fortune by +the exhibition of their skill; fancy, they can swim up a perpendicular +waterfall as easily as we should accept an invitation to supper. I have +almost had a chance of tasting them." + +"And down there--those large golden fruit, the foliage of which +resembles a trophy of savage sabre blades! They are called pineapples, +and are the pippins of the tropics." + +"That is a matter of indifference to me," said Marcel. "So far as fruits +are concerned, I prefer that piece of beef, that ham, or that simple +gammon of bacon, cuirassed with jelly as transparent as amber." + +"You are right," replied Rodolphe. "Ham is the friend of man, when he +has one. However, I would not repulse that pheasant." + +"I should think not; it is the dish of crowned heads." + +And as, continuing on their way, they met joyful processions proceeding +homewards, to do honor to Momus, Bacchus, Comus, and all the other +divinities with names ending in "us," they asked themselves who was the +Gamacho whose wedding was being celebrated with such a profusion of +victuals. + +Marcel was the first who recollected the date and its festival. + +"It is Christmas Eve," said he. + +"Do you remember last year's?" inquired Rodolphe. + +"Yes," replied Marcel. "At Momus's. It was Barbemuche who stood treat. I +should never have thought that a delicate girl like Phemie could have +held so much sausage." + +"What a pity that Momus has cut off our credit," said Rodolphe. + +"Alas," said Marcel, "calendars succeed but do not resemble one +another." + +"Would not you like to keep Christmas Eve?" asked Rodolphe. + +"With whom and with what?" inquired the painter. + +"With me." + +"And the coin?" + +"Wait a moment," said Rodolphe, "I will go into the cafe, where I know +some people who play high. I will borrow a few sesterces from some +favorite of fortune, and I will get something to wash down a sardine or +a pig's trotter." + +"Go," said Marcel. "I am as hungry as a dog. I will wait for you here," +Rodolphe went into the cafe where he knew several people. A gentleman +who had just won three hundred francs at cards made a regular treat of +lending the poet a forty sous piece, which he handed over with that ill +humor caused by the fever of play. At another time and elsewhere than +at a card-table, he would very likely have been good for forty francs. + +"Well?" inquired Marcel, on seeing Rodolphe return. + +"Here are the takings," said the poet, showing the money. + +"A bite and a sup," said Marcel. + +With this small sum they were however able to obtain bread, wine, cold +meat, tobacco, fire and light. + +They returned home to the lodging-house in which each had a separate +room. Marcel's, which also served him as a studio, being the larger, was +chosen as the banquetting hall, and the two friends set about the +preparations for their feast there. + +But to the little table at which they were seated, beside a fireplace in +which the damp logs burned away without flame or heat, came a melancholy +guest, the phantom of the vanished past. + +They remained for an hour at least, silent, and thoughtful, but no doubt +preoccupied by the same idea and striving to hide it. It was Marcel who +first broke silence. + +"Come," said he to Rodolphe, "this is not what we promised ourselves." + +"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe. + +"Oh!" replied Marcel. "Do not try to pretend with me now. You are +thinking of that which should be forgotten and I too, by Jove, I do not +deny it." + +"Well?" + +"Well, it must be for the last time. To the devil with recollections +that make wine taste sour and render us miserable when everybody else +are amusing themselves," exclaimed Marcel, alluding to the joyful shouts +coming from the rooms adjoining theirs. "Come, let us think of something +else, and let this be the last time." + +"That is what we always say and yet--," said Rodolphe, falling anew into +the reverie. + +"And yet we are continually going back to it," resumed Marcel. "That is +because instead of frankly seeking to forget, we make the most trivial +things a pretext to recall remembrances, which is due above all to the +fact that we persist in living amidst the same surroundings in which the +beings who have so long been our torment lived. We are less the slaves +of passion than of habit. It is this captivity that must be escaped +from, or we shall wear ourselves out in a ridiculous and shameful +slavery. Well, the past is past, we must break the ties that still bind +us to it. The hour has come to go forward without looking backward; we +have had our share of youth, carelessness, and paradox. All these are +very fine--a very pretty novel could be written on them; but this comedy +of amourous follies, this loss of time, of days wasted with the +prodigality of people who believe they have an eternity to spend--all +this must have an end. It is no longer possible for us to continue to +live much longer on the outskirts of society--on the outskirts of life +almost--under the penalty of justifying the contempt felt for us, and of +despising ourselves. For, after all, is it a life we lead? And are not +the independence, the freedom of mannerism of which we boast so loudly, +very mediocre advantages? True liberty consists of being able to +dispense with the aid of others, and to exist by oneself, and have we +got to that? No, the first scoundrel, whose name we would not bear for +five minutes, avenges himself for our jests, and becomes our lord and +master the day on which we borrow from him five francs, which he lends +us after having made us dispense the worth of a hundred and fifty in +ruses or in humiliations. For my part, I have had enough of it. Poetry +does not alone exist in disorderly living, touch-and-go happiness, loves +that last as long as a bedroom candle, more or less eccentric revolts +against those prejudices which will eternally rule the world, for it is +easier to upset a dynasty than a custom, however ridiculous it may be. +It is not enough to wear a summer coat in December to have talent; one +can be a real poet or artist whilst going about well shod and eating +three meals a day. Whatever one may say, and whatever one may do, if one +wants to attain anything one must always take the commonplace way. This +speech may astonish you, friend Rodolphe; you may say that I am breaking +my idols, you will call me corrupted; and yet what I tell you is the +expression of my sincere wishes. Despite myself, a slow and salutary +metamorphosis has taken place within me; reason has entered my +mind--burglariously, if you like, and perhaps against my will, but it +has got in at last--and has proved to me that I was on a wrong track, +and that it would be at once ridiculous and dangerous to persevere in +it. Indeed, what will happen if we continue this monotonous and idle +vagabondage? We shall get to thirty, unknown, isolated, disgusted with +all things and with ourselves, full of envy towards all those whom we +see reach their goal, whatever it may be, and obliged, in order to live, +to have recourse to shameful parasitism. Do not imagine that this is a +fancy picture I have conjured up especially to frighten you. The future +does not systematically appear to be all black, but neither does it all +rose colored; I see it clearly as it is. Up till now the life we have +led has been forced upon us--we had the excuse of necessity. Now we are +no longer to be excused, and if we do not re-enter the world, it will be +voluntarily, for the obstacles against which we have had to struggle no +longer exist." + +"I say," said Rodolphe, "what are you driving at? Why and wherefore this +lecture?" + +"You thoroughly understand me," replied Marcel, in the same serious +tones. "Just now I saw you, like myself, assailed by recollections that +made you regret the past. You were thinking of Mimi and I was thinking +of Musette. Like me, you would have liked to have had your mistress +beside you. Well, I tell you that we ought neither of us to think of +these creatures; that we were not created and sent into the world solely +to sacrifice our existence to these commonplace Manon Lescaut's, and +that the Chevalier Desgrieux, who is so fine, so true, and so poetical, +is only saved from being ridiculous by his youth and the illusions he +cherishes. At twenty he can follow his mistress to America without +ceasing to be interesting, but at twenty-five he would have shown Manon +the door, and would have been right. It is all very well to talk; we are +old, my dear fellow; we have lived too fast, our hearts are cracked, and +no longer ring truly; one cannot be in love with a Musette or a Mimi +for three years with impunity. For me it is all over, and I wish to be +thoroughly divorced from her remembrance. I am now going to commit to +the flames some trifles that she has left me during her various stays, +and which oblige me to think of her when I come across them." + +And Marcel, who had risen, went and took from a drawer a little +cardboard box in which were the souvenirs of Musette--a faded bouquet, a +sash, a bit of ribbon, and some letters. + +"Come," said he to the poet, "follow my example, Rodolphe." + +"Very well, then," said the latter, making an effort, "you are right. I +too will make an end of it with that girl with the white hands." + +And, rising suddenly, he went and fetched a small packet containing +souvenirs of Mimi of much the same kind as those of which Marcel was +silently making an inventory. + +"This comes in handy," murmured the painter. "This trumpery will help us +to rekindle the fire which is going out." + +"Indeed," said Rodolphe, "it is cold enough here to hatch polar bears." + +"Come," said Marcel, "let us burn in a duet. There goes Musette's prose; +it blazes like punch. She was very fond of punch. Come Rodolphe, +attention!" + +And for some minutes they alternately emptied into the fire, which +blazed clear and noisily, the reliquaries of their past love. + +"Poor Musette!" murmured Marcel to himself, looking at the last object +remaining in his hands. + +It was a little faded bouquet of wildflowers. + +"Poor Musette, she was very pretty though, and she loved me dearly, is +it not so, little bouquet? Her heart told you so the day she wore you at +her waist. Poor little bouquet, you seem to be pleading for mercy; well, +yes; but on one condition; it is that you will never speak to me of her +any more, never, never!" + +And profiting by a moment when he thought himself unnoticed by Rodolphe, +he slipped the bouquet into his breast pocket. + +"So much the worse, it is stronger than I am. I am cheating," thought +the painter. + +And as he cast a furtive glance towards Rodolphe, he saw the poet, who +had come to the end of his auto-da-fe, putting quietly into his own +pocket, after having tenderly kissed it, a little night cap that had +belonged to Mimi. + +"Come," muttered Marcel, "he is as great a coward as I am." + +At the very moment that Rodolphe was about to return to his room to go +to bed, there were two little taps at Marcel's door. + +"Who the deuce can it be at this time of night?" said the painter, going +to open it. + +A cry of astonishment burst from him when he had done so. + +It was Mimi. + +As the room was very dark Rodolphe did not at first recognize his +mistress, and only distinguishing a woman, he thought that it was some +passing conquest of his friend's, and out of discretion prepared to +withdraw. + +"I am disturbing you," said Mimi, who had remained on the threshold. + +At her voice Rodolphe dropped on his chair as though thunderstruck. + +"Good evening," said Mimi, coming up to him and shaking him by the hand +which he allowed her to take mechanically. + +"What the deuce brings you here and at this time of night?" asked +Marcel. + +"I was very cold," said Mimi shivering. "I saw a light in your room as +I was passing along the street, and although it was very late I came +up." + +She was still shivering, her voice had a cristalline sonority that +pierced Rodolphe's heart like a funeral knell, and filled it with a +mournful alarm. He looked at her more attentively. It was no longer +Mimi, but her ghost. + +Marcel made her sit down beside the fire. + +Mimi smiled at the sight of the flame dancing merrily on the hearth. + +"It is very nice," said she, holding out her poor hands blue with cold. +"By the way, Monsieur Marcel, you do not know why I have called on you?" + +"No, indeed." + +"Well," said Mimi, "I simply came to ask you whether you could get them +to let me a room here. I have just been turned out of my lodgings +because I owe a month's rent and I do not know where to go to." + +"The deuce!" said Marcel, shaking his head, "we are not in very good +odor with our landlord and our recommendation would be a most +unfortunate one, my poor girl." + +"What is to be done then?" said Mimi. "The fact is I have nowhere to +go." + +"Ah!" said Marcel. "You are no longer a viscountess, then?" + +"Good heavens, no! Not at all." + +"But since when?" + +"Two months ago, already." + +"Have you been playing tricks on the viscount, then?" + +"No," said she, glancing at Rodolphe, who had taken his place in the +darkest corner of the room, "the viscount kicked up a row with me on +account of some verses that were written about me. We quarrelled, and I +sent him about his business. He is a nice skin flint, I can tell you." + +"But," said Marcel, "he had rigged you out very finely, judging by what +I saw the day I met you." + +"Well," said Mimi, "would you believe it, that he took everything away +from me when I left him, and I have since heard that he raffled all my +clothes at a wretched table d'hote where he used to take me to dine. He +is wealthy enough, though, and yet with all his fortune he is as miserly +as a clay fireball and as stupid as an owl. He would not allow me to +drink wine without water, and made me fast on Fridays. Would you believe +it, he wanted me to wear black stockings, because they did not want +washing as often as white ones. You have no idea of it, he worried me +nicely I can tell you. I can well say that I did my share of purgatory +with him." + +"And does he know your present situation?" asked Marcel. + +"I have not seen him since and I do not want to," replied Mimi. "It +makes me sick when I think of him. I would rather die of hunger than ask +him for a sou." + +"But," said Marcel, "since you left him you have not been living alone." + +"Yes, I assure you, Monsieur Marcel," exclaimed Mimi quickly. "I have +been working to earn my living, only as artificial flower making was not +a very flourishing business I took up another. I sit to painters. If you +have any jobs to give me," she added gaily. + +And having noticed a movement on the part of Rodolphe, whom she did not +take her eyes off whilst talking to his friend, Mimi went on: + +"Ah, but I only sit for head and hands. I have plenty to do, and I am +owed money by two or three, I shall have some in a couple of days, it is +only for that interval that I want to find a lodging. When I get the +money I shall go back to my own. Ah!" said she, looking at the table, +which was still laden with the preparation for the modest feast which +the two friends had scarcely touched, "you were going to have supper?" + +"No," said Marcel, "we are not hungry." + +"You are very lucky," said Mimi simply. + +At this remark Rodolphe felt a horrible pang in his heart, he made a +sign to Marcel, which the latter understood. + +"By the way," said the artist, "since you are here Mimi, you must take +pot luck with us. We were going to keep Christmas Eve, and then--why--we +began to think of other things." + +"Then I have come at the right moment," said Mimi, casting an almost +famished glance at the food on the table. "I have had no dinner," she +whispered to the artist, so as not to be heard by Rodolphe, who was +gnawing his handkerchief to keep him from bursting into sobs. + +"Draw up, Rodolphe," said Marcel to his friend, "we will all three have +supper together." + +"No," said the poet remaining in his corner. + +"Are you angry, Rodolphe, that I have come here?" asked Mimi gently. +"Where could I go to?" + +"No, Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "only I am grieved to see you like this." + +"It is my own fault, Rodolphe, I do not complain, what is done is done, +so think no more about it than I do. Cannot you still be my friend, +because you have been something else? You can, can you not? Well then, +do not frown on me, and come and sit down at the table with us." + +She rose to take him by the hand, but was so weak, that she could not +take a step, and sank back into her chair. + +"The heat has dazed me," she said, "I cannot stand." + +"Come," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "come and join us." + +The poet drew up to the table, and began to eat with them. Mimi was very +lively. + +"My dear girl, it is impossible for us to get you a room in the house." + +"I must go away then," said she, trying to rise. + +"No, no," said Marcel. "I have another way of arranging things, you can +stay in my room, and I will go and sleep with Rodolphe." + +"It will put you out very much, I am afraid," said Mimi, "but it will +not be for long, only a couple of days." + +"It will not put us out at all in that case," replied Marcel, "so it is +understood, you are at home here, and we are going to Rodolphe's room. +Good night, Mimi, sleep well." + +"Thanks," said she, holding out her hand to Marcel and Rodolphe, who +moved away together. + +"Do you want to lock yourself in?" asked Marcel as he got to the door. + +"Why?" said Mimi, looking at Rodolphe, "I am not afraid." + +When the two friends were alone in Rodolphe's room, which was on the +same floor, Marcel abruptly said to his friend, "Well, what are you +going to do now?" + +"I do not know," stammered Rodolphe. + +"Come, do not shilly-shally, go and join Mimi! If you do, I prophecy +that tomorrow you will be living together again." + +"If it were Musette who had returned, what would you do?" inquired +Rodolphe of his friend. + +"If it were Musette that was in the next room," replied Marcel, "well, +frankly, I believe that I should not have been in this one for a quarter +of an hour past." + +"Well," said Rodolphe, "I will be more courageous than you, I shall +stay here." + +"We shall see that," said Marcel, who had already got into bed. "Are you +coming to bed?" + +"Certainly," replied Rodolphe. + +But in the middle of the night, Marcel waking up, perceived that +Rodolphe had left him. + +In the morning, he went and tapped discreetly at the door of the room in +which Mimi was. + +"Come in," said she, and on seeing him, she made a sign to him to speak +low in order not to wake Rodolphe who was asleep. He was seated in an +arm chair, which he had drawn up to the side of the bed, his head +resting on a pillow beside that of Mimi. + +"It is like that that you passed the night?" said Marcel in great +astonishment. + +"Yes," replied the girl. + +Rodolphe woke up all at once, and after kissing Mimi, held out his hand +to Marcel, who seemed greatly puzzled. + +"I am going to find some money for breakfast," said he to the painter. +"You will keep Mimi company." + +"Well," asked Marcel of the girl when they were alone together, "what +took place last night?" + +"Very sad things," said Mimi. "Rodolphe still loves me." + +"I know that very well." + +"Yes, you wanted to separate him from me. I am not angry about it, +Marcel, you were quite right, I have done no good to the poor fellow." + +"And you," asked Marcel, "do you still love him?" + +"Do I love him?" said she, clasping her hands. "It is that that tortures +me. I am greatly changed, my friend, and it needed but little time for +that." + +"Well, now he loves you, you love him and you cannot do without one +another, come together again and try and remain." + +"It is impossible," said Mimi. + +"Why?" inquired Marcel. "Certainly it would be more sensible for you to +separate, but as for your not meeting again, you would have to be a +thousand leagues from one another." + +"In a little while I shall be further off than that." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Do not speak of it to Rodolphe, it would cause him too much pain, but I +am going away forever." + +"But whither?" + +"Look here, Marcel," said Mimi sobbing, "look." + +And lifting up the sheet of the bed a little she showed the artist her +shoulders, neck and arms. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Marcel mournfully, "poor girl." + +"Is it not true, my friend, that I do not deceive myself and that I am +soon going to die." + +"But how did you get into such a state in so short a time?" + +"Ah!" replied Mimi, "with the life I have been leading for the past two +months it is not astonishing; nights spent in tears, days passed in +posing in studios without any fire, poor living, grief, and then you do +not know all, I tried to poison myself with Eau de Javelle. I was saved +but not for long as you see. Besides I have never been very strong, in +short it is my fault, if I had remained quietly with Rodolphe I should +not be like this. Poor fellow, here I am again upon his hands, but it +will not be for long, the last dress he will give me will be all white, +Marcel, and I shall be buried in it. Ah! If you knew how I suffer +because I am going to die. Rodolphe knows that I am ill, he remained for +over an hour without speaking last night when he saw my arms and +shoulders so thin. He no longer recognized his Mimi. Alas! My very +looking glass does not know me. Ah! All the same I was pretty and he did +love me. Oh, God!" she exclaimed, burying her face in Marcel's hands. "I +am going to leave you and Rodolphe too, oh God!" and sobs choked her +voice. + +"Come, Mimi," said Marcel, "never despair, you will get well, you only +want care and rest." + +"Ah, no!" said Mimi. "It is all over, I feel it. I have no longer any +strength, and when I came here last night it took me over an hour to get +up the stairs. If I found a woman here I should have gone down by way of +the window. However, he was free since we were no longer together, but +you see, Marcel, I was sure he loved me still. It was on account of +that," she said, bursting into tears, "it is on account of that that I +do not want to die at once, but it is all over with me. He must be very +good, poor fellow, to take me back after all the pain I have given him. +Ah! God is not just, since he does not leave me only the time to make +Rodolphe forget the grief I caused him. He does not know the state in +which I am. I would not have him lie beside me, for I feel as if the +earthworms were already devouring my body. We passed the night in +weeping and talking of old times. Ah! How sad it is, my friend, to see +behind one the happiness one has formerly passed by without noticing it. +I feel as if I had fire in my chest, and when I move my limbs it seems +as if they were going to snap. Hand me my dress, I want to cut the cards +to see whether Rodolphe will bring in any money. I should like to have a +good breakfast with you, like we used to; that would not hurt me. God +cannot make me worse than I am. See," she added, showing Marcel the pack +of cards she had cut, "Spades--it is the color of death. Clubs," she +added more gaily, "yes we shall have some money." + +Marcel did not know what to say in presence of the lucid delirium of +this poor creature, who already felt, as she said, the worms of the +grave. + +In an hour's time Rodolphe was back. He was accompanied by Schaunard and +Gustave Colline. The musician wore a summer jacket. He had sold his +winter suit to lend money to Rodolphe on learning that Mimi was ill. +Colline on his side had gone and sold some books. If he could have got +anyone to buy one of his arms or legs he would have agreed to the +bargain rather than part with his cherished volumes. But Schaunard had +pointed out to him that nothing could be done with his arms or his +legs. + +Mimi strove to recover her gaiety to greet her old friends. + +"I am no longer naughty," said she to them, "and Rodolphe has forgiven +me. If he will keep me with him I will wear wooden shoes and a mob-cap, +it is all the same to me. Silk is certainly not good for my health," she +added with a frightful smile. + +At Marcel's suggestion, Rodolphe had sent for one of his friends who had +just passed as a doctor. It was the same who had formerly attended +Francine. When he came they left him alone with Mimi. + +Rodolphe, informed by Marcel, was already aware of the danger run by his +mistress. When the doctor had spoken to Mimi, he said to Rodolphe: "You +cannot keep her here. Save for a miracle she is doomed. You must send +her to the hospital. I will give you a letter for La Pitie. I know one +of the house surgeons there; she will be well looked after. If she +lasts till the spring we may perhaps pull her through, but if she stays +here she will be dead in a week." + +"I shall never dare propose it to her," said Rodolphe. + +"I spoke to her about it," replied the doctor, "and she agreed. Tomorrow +I will send you the order of admission to La Pitie." + +"My dear," said Mimi to Rodolphe, "the doctor is right; you cannot nurse +me here. At the hospital they may perhaps cure me, you must send me +there. Ah! You see I do so long to live now, that I would be willing to +end my days with one hand in a raging fire and the other in yours. +Besides, you will come and see me. You must not grieve, I shall be well +taken care of: the doctor told me so. You get chicken at the hospital +and they have fires there. Whilst I am taking care of myself there, you +will work to earn money, and when I am cured I will come back and live +with you. I have plenty of hope now. I shall come back as pretty as I +used to be. I was very ill in the days before I knew you, and I was +cured. Yet I was not happy in those days, I might just as well have +died. Now that I have found you again and that we can be happy, they +will cure me again, for I shall fight hard against my illness. I will +drink all the nasty things they give me, and if death seizes on me it +will be by force. Give me the looking glass: it seems to me that I have +little color in my cheeks. Yes," said she, looking at herself in the +glass, "my color is coming back, and my hands, see, they are still +pretty; kiss me once more, it will not be the last time, my poor +darling," she added, clasping Rodolphe round the neck, and burying his +face in her loosened tresses. + +Before leaving for the hospital, she wanted her friends the Bohemians to +stay and pass the evening with her. + +"Make me laugh," said she, "cheerfulness is health to me. It is that wet +blanket of a viscount made me ill. Fancy, he wanted to make me learn +orthography; what the deuce should I have done with it? And his friends, +what a set! A regular poultry yard, of which the viscount was the +peacock. He marked his linen himself. If he ever marries I am sure that +it will be he who will suckle the children." + +Nothing could be more heart breaking than the almost posthumous gaiety +of poor Mimi. All the Bohemians made painful efforts to hide their tears +and continue the conversation in the jesting tone started by the +unfortunate girl, for whom fate was so swiftly spinning the linen of her +last garment. + +The next morning Rodolphe received the order of admission to the +hospital. Mimi could not walk, she had to be carried down to the cab. +During the journey she suffered horribly from the jolts of the vehicle. +Admist all her sufferings the last thing that dies in woman, coquetry, +still survived; two or three times she had the cab stopped before the +drapers' shops to look at the display in the windows. + +On entering the ward indicated in the letter of admission Mimi felt a +terrible pang at her heart, something within her told her that it was +between these bare and leprous walls that her life was to end. She +exerted the whole of the will left her to hide the mournful impression +that had chilled her. + +When she was put to bed she gave Rodolphe a final kiss and bid him +goodbye, bidding him come and see her the next Sunday which was a +visitors' day. + +"It does not smell very nice here," said she to him, "bring me some +flowers, some violets, there are still some about." + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "goodbye till Sunday." + +And he drew together the curtains of her bed. On hearing the departing +steps of her lover, Mimi was suddenly seized with an almost delirious +attack of fever. She suddenly opened the curtains, and leaning half out +of bed, cried in a voice broken with tears: + +"Rodolphe, take me home, I want to go away." + +The sister of charity hastened to her and tried to calm her. + +"Oh!" said Mimi, "I am going to die here." + +On Sunday morning, the day he was to go and see Mimi, Rodolphe +remembered that he had promised her some violets. With poetic and loving +superstition he went on foot in horrible weather to look for the flowers +his sweetheart had asked him for, in the woods of Aulnay and Fontenay, +where he had so often been with her. The country, so lively and joyful +in the sunshine of the bright days of June and July, he found chill and +dreary. For two hours he beat the snow covered thickets, lifting the +bushes with a stick, and ended by finding a few tiny blossoms, and as it +happened, in a part of the wood bordering the Le Plessis pool, which had +been their favorite spot when they came into the country. + +Passing through the village of Chatillon to get back to Paris, Rodolphe +met in the square before the church a baptismal procession, in which he +recognized one of his friends who was the godfather, with a singer from +the opera. + +"What the deuce are you doing here?" asked the friend, very much +surprised to see Rodolphe in those parts. + +The poet told him what had happened. + +The young fellow, who had known Mimi, was greatly saddened at this +story, and feeling in his pocket took out a bag of christening +sweetmeats and handed it to Rodolphe. + +"Poor Mimi, give her this from me and tell her I will come and see +her." + +"Come quickly, then, if you would come in time," said Rodolphe, as he +left him. + +When Rodolphe got to the hospital, Mimi, who could not move, threw her +arms about him in a look. + +"Ah, there are my flowers!" said she, with the smile of satisfied +desire. + +Rodolphe related his pilgrimage into that part of the country that had +been the paradise of their loves. + +"Dear flowers," said the poor girl, kissing the violets. The sweetmeats +greatly pleased her too. "I am not quite forgotten, then. The young +fellows are good. Ah! I love all your friends," said she to Rodolphe. + +This interview was almost merry. Schaunard and Colline had rejoined +Rodolphe. The nurses had almost to turn them out, for they had +overstayed visiting time. + +"Goodbye," said Mimi. "Thursday without fail, and come early." + +The following day on coming home at night, Rodolphe received a letter +from a medical student, a dresser at the hospital, to whose care he had +recommended the invalid. The letter only contained these words:-- + +"My dear friend, I have very bad news for you. No. 8 is dead. This +morning on going through the ward I found her bed vacant." + +Rodolphe dropped on to a chair and did not shed a tear. When Marcel came +in later he found his friend in the same stupefied attitude. With a +gesture the poet showed him the latter. + +"Poor girl!" said Marcel. + +"It is strange," said Rodolphe, putting his hand to his heart; "I feel +nothing here. Was my love killed on learning that Mimi was to die?" + +"Who knows?" murmured the painter. + +Mimi's death caused great mourning amongst the Bohemians. + +A week later Rodolphe met in the street the dresser who had informed him +of his mistress's death. + +"Ah, my dear Rodolphe!" said he, hastening up to the poet. "Forgive me +the pain I caused you by my heedlessness." + +"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe in astonishment. + +"What," replied the dresser, "you do not know? You have not seen her +again?" + +"Seen whom?" exclaimed Rodolphe. + +"Her, Mimi." + +"What?" said the poet, turning deadly pale. + +"I made a mistake. When I wrote you that terrible news I was the victim +of an error. This is how it was. I had been away from the hospital for a +couple of days. When I returned, on going the rounds with the surgeons, +I found Mimi's bed empty. I asked the sister of charity what had become +of the patient, and she told me that she had died during the night. This +is what had happened. During my absence Mimi had been moved to another +ward. In No. 8 bed, which she left, they put another woman who died the +same day. That will explain the mistake into which I fell. The day after +that on which I wrote to you, I found Mimi in the next ward. Your +absence had put her in a terrible state; she gave me a letter for you +and I took it on to your place at once." + +"Good God!" said Rodolphe. "Since I thought Mimi dead I have not dared +to go home. I have been sleeping here and there at friends' places. Mimi +alive! Good heavens! What must she think of my absence? Poor girl, poor +girl! How is she? When did you see her last?" + +"The day before yesterday. She was neither better nor worse, but very +uneasy; she fancies you must be ill." + +"Let us go to La Pitie at once," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her." + +"Stop here for a moment," said the dresser, when they reached the +entrance to the hospital, "I will go and ask the house surgeon for +permission for you to enter." + +Rodolphe waited in the hall for a quarter of an hour. When the dresser +returned he took him by the hand and said these words: + +"My friend, suppose that the letter I wrote to you a week ago was true?" + +"What!" exclaimed Rodolphe, leaning against a pillar, "Mimi--" + +"This morning at four o'clock." + +"Take me to the amphitheatre," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her." + +"She is no longer there," said the dresser. And pointing out to the poet +a large van which was in the courtyard drawn up before a building above +which was inscribed, "Amphiteatre," he added, "she is there." + +It was indeed the vehicle in which the corpses that are unclaimed are +taken to their pauper's grave. + +"Goodbye," said Rodolphe to the dresser. + +"Would you like me to come with you a bit?" suggested the latter. + +"No," said Rodolphe, turning away, "I need to be alone." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +YOUTH IS FLEETING + + +A year after Mimi's death Rodolphe and Marcel, who had not quitted one +another, celebrated by a festival their entrance into the official +world. Marcel, who had at length secured admission to the annual +exhibition of pictures, had had two paintings hung, one of which had +been bought by a rich Englishman, formerly Musette's protector. With the +product of this sale, and also of a Government order, Marcel had partly +paid off his past debts. He had furnished decent rooms, and had a real +studio. Almost at the same time Schaunard and Rodolphe came before the +public who bestow fame and fortune--the one with an album of airs that +were sung at all the concerts, and which gave him the commencement of a +reputation; the other with a book that occupied the critics for a month. +As to Barbemuche he had long since given up Bohemianism. Gustave Colline +had inherited money and made a good marriage. He gave evening parties +with music and light refreshments. + +One evening Rodolphe, seated in his own armchair with his feet on his +own rug, saw Marcel come in quite flurried. + +"You do not know what has just happened to me," said he. + +"No," replied the poet. "I know that I have been to your place, that you +were at home, and that you would not answer the door." + +"Yes, I heard you. But guess who was with me." + +"How do I know?" + +"Musette, who burst upon me last evening like a bombshell, got up as a +_debardeur_." + +"Musette! You have once more found Musette!" said Rodolphe, in a tone of +regret. + +"Do not be alarmed. Hostilities were not resumed. Musette came to pass +with me her last night of Bohemianism." + +"What?" + +"She is going to be married." + +"Bah!" said Rodolphe. "Who is the victim?" + +"A postmaster who was her last lover's guardian; a queer sort of fellow, +it would seem. Musette said to him, 'My dear sir, before definitely +giving you my hand and going to the registrar's I want to drink my last +glass of Champagne, dance my last quadrille, and embrace for the last +time my lover, Marcel, who is now a gentleman, like everybody else is +seems.' And for a week the dear creature has been looking for me. Hence +it was that she burst upon me last evening, just at the moment I was +thinking of her. Ah, my friend! Altogether we had a sad night of it. It +was not at all the same thing it used to be, not at all. We were like +some wretched copy of a masterpiece? I have even written on the subject +of this last separation a little ballad which I will whine out to you if +you will allow me," and Marcel began to chant the following verses:-- + + I saw a swallow yesterday, + He brought Spring's promise to the air; + "Remember her," he seemed to say, + "Who loved you when she'd time to spare;" + And all the day I sate before + The almanac of yonder year, + When I did nothing but adore, + And you were pleased to hold me dear. + + But do not think my love is dead, + Or to forget you I begin. + + If you sought entry to my shed + My heart would leap to let you in: + Since at your name it trembles still-- + Muse of oblivious fantasy!-- + Return and share, if share you will, + Joy's consecrated bread with me. + + The decorations of the nest + Which saw our mutual ardor burn, + Already seem to wear their best + At the mere hope of return. + Come, see if you can recognize + Things your departure reft of glee, + The bed, the glass of extra size, + In which you often drank for me. + + You shall resume the plain white gown + You used to look so nice in, then; + On Sunday we can still run down + To wander in the woods again. + Beneath the bower, at evening, + Again we'll drink the liquid bright + In which your song would dip its wing + Before in air it took to flight. + + Musette, who has at last confessed + The carnival of life was gone, + Came back, one morning, to the nest + Whence, like a wild bird, she had flown: + But, while I kissed the fugitive, + My heart no more emotion knew, + For, she had ceased, for me, to live, + And "You," she said, "no more are you." + + "Heart of my heart!" I answered, "Go! + We cannot call the dead love back; + Best let it lie, interred, below + The tombstone of the almanac + Perhaps a spirit that remembers + The happy time it notes for me + May find some day among its embers + Of a lost Paradise the key." + +"Well," said Marcel, when he had finished, "you may feel reassured now, +my love for Musette is dead and buried here," he added ironically, +indicating the manuscript of the poem. + +"Poor lad," said Rodolphe, "your wit is fighting a duel with your +heart, take care it does not kill it." + +"That is already lifeless," replied the painter, "we are done for, old +fellow, we are dead and buried. Youth is fleeting! Where are you going +to dine this evening?" + +"If you like," said Rodolphe, "we will go and dine for twelve sous at +our old restaurant in the Rue du Four, where they have plates of huge +crockery, and where we used to feel so hungry when we had done dinner." + +"No," replied Marcel, "I am quite willing to look back at that past, but +it must be through the medium of a bottle of good wine and sitting in a +comfortable armchair. What would you, I am corrupted. I only care for +what is good!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER*** + + +******* This file should be named 18445-8.txt or 18445-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/4/18445 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Bohemians of the Latin Quarter</p> +<p>Author: Henry Murger</p> +<p>Release Date: May 27, 2006 [eBook #18445]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Chuck Greif<br /> + from digital text provided by<br /> + the Worchel Institute for the Study of Beat and Bohemian Literature<br /> + (<a href="http://home.swbell.net/worchel/index.html">http://home.swbell.net/worchel/index.html</a>)</h3> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + This book by Henry Murger was the source of the plot used by + Puccini in his opera "La Bohème." Project Gutenberg also has + the original French version (Scènes de la vie de bohème); see + <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18446"> + http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18446</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER</h1> + +<h1>Henry Murger</h1> + +<h3>1888</h3> + +<h3>Vizetelly & Co. London</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<table summary="table"> +<tr><td> +<p><a name="TABLE" id="TABLE"></a><b>TABLE OF CONTENTS</b></p> +<a href="#PREFACE"><b>Preface</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>Chapter I, How The Bohemian Club Was Formed</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>Chapter II, A Good Angel</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>Chapter III, Lenten Loves</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>Chapter IV, Ali Rodolphe; Or, The Turk Perforce</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>Chapter V, The Carlovingian Coin</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>Chapter VI, Mademoiselle Musette</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>Chapter VII, The Billows of Pactolus</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>Chapter VIII, The Cost Of a Five Franc Piece</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>Chapter IX, The White Violets</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>Chapter X, The Cape of Storms</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>Chapter XI, A Bohemian Cafe</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>Chapter XII, A Bohemian "At Home"</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>Chapter XIII, The House Warming</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>Chapter XIV, Mademoiselle Mimi</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>Chapter XV, Donec Gratus</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>Chapter XVI, The Passage of the Red Sea</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>Chapter XVII, The Toilette of the Graces</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>Chapter XVIII, Francine's Muff</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>Chapter XIX, Musette's Fancies</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>Chapter XX, Mimi in Fine Feather</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>Chapter XXI, Romeo and Juliet</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>Chapter XXII, Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>Chapter XXIII, Youth Is Fleeting</b></a><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a><a href="#TABLE">PREFACE</a></h2> + + +<p>The Bohemians of whom it is a question in this book have no connection +with the Bohemians whom melodramatists have rendered synonymous with +robbers and assassins. Neither are they recruited from among the +dancing-bear leaders, sword swallowers, gilt watch-guard vendors, street +lottery keepers and a thousand other vague and mysterious professionals +whose main business is to have no business at all, and who are always +ready to turn their hands to anything except good.</p> + +<p>The class of Bohemians referred to in this book are not a race of today, +they have existed in all climes and ages, and can claim an illustrious +descent. In ancient Greece, to go no farther back in this genealogy, +there existed a celebrated Bohemian, who lived from hand to mouth round +the fertile country of Ionia, eating the bread of charity, and halting +in the evening to tune beside some hospitable hearth the harmonious lyre +that had sung the loves of Helen and the fall of Troy. Descending the +steps of time modern Bohemia finds ancestors at every artistic and +literary epoch. In the Middle Ages it perpetuates the Homeric tradition +with its minstrels and ballad makers, the children of the gay science, +all the melodious vagabonds of Touraine, all the errant songsters who, +with the beggar's wallet and the trouvere's harp slung at their backs, +traversed, singing as they went, the plains of the beautiful land where +the eglantine of Clemence Isaure flourished.</p> + +<p>At the transitional period between the days of chivalry and the dawn of +the Renaissance, Bohemia continued to stroll along all the highways of +the kingdom, and already to some extent about the streets of Paris. +There is Master Pierre Gringoire, friend of the vagrants and foe to +fasting. Lean and famished as a man whose very existence is one long +Lent, he lounges about the town, his nose in the air like a pointer's, +sniffing the odor from kitchen and cook shop. His eyes glittering +with covetous gluttony cause the hams hung outside the pork +butcher's to shrink by merely looking at them, whilst he jingles in +imagination—alas! and not in his pockets—the ten crowns promised him +by the echevins in payment of the pious and devout fare he has composed +for the theater in the hall of the Palais de Justice. Beside the doleful +and melancholy figure of the lover of Esmeralda, the chronicles of +Bohemia can evoke a companion of less ascetic humor and more cheerful +face—Master François Villon, par excellence, is this latter, and one +whose poetry, full of imagination, is no doubt on account of those +presentiments which the ancients attributed to their fates, continually +marked by a singular foreboding of the gallows, on which the said Villon +one day nearly swung in a hempen collar for having looked too closely at +the color of the king's crowns. This same Villon, who more than once +outran the watch started in his pursuit, this noisy guest at the dens of +the Rue Pierre Lescot, this spunger at the court of the Duke of Egypt, +this Salvator Rosa of poesy, has strung together elegies the +heartbreaking sentiment and truthful accents of which move the most +pitiless and make them forget the ruffian, the vagabond and the +debauchee, before this muse drowned in her own tears.</p> + +<p>Besides, amongst all those whose but little known work has only been +familiar to men for whom French literature does not begin the day when +"Malherbe came," François Villon has had the honor of being the most +pillaged, even by the big-wigs of modern Parnassus. They threw +themselves upon the poor man's field and coined glory from his humble +treasure. There are ballads scribbled under a penthouse at the street +corner on a cold day by the Bohemian rhapsodist, stanzas improvised in +the hovel in which the "belle qui fut haultmire" loosened her gilt +girdle to all comers, which now-a-days metamorphosed into dainty +gallantries scented with musk and amber, figure in the armorial bearing +enriched album of some aristocratic Chloris.</p> + +<p>But behold the grand century of the Renaissance opens, Michaelangelo +ascends the scaffolds of the Sistine Chapel and watches with anxious air +young Raphael mounting the steps of the Vatican with the cartoon of the +Loggie under his arm. Benvenuto Cellini is meditating his Perseus, +Ghiberti is carving the Baptistery doors at the same time that Donatello +is rearing his marbles on the bridges of the Arno; and whilst the city +of the Medici is staking masterpieces against that of Leo X and +Julius II, Titian and Paul Veronese are rendering the home of Doges +illustrious. Saint Mark's competes with Saint Peter's.</p> + +<p>This fever of genius that had broken out suddenly in the Italian +peninsula with epidemic violence spreads its glorious contagion +throughout Europe. Art, the rival of God, strides on, the equal of +kings. Charles V stoops to pick up Titian's brush, and Francis I dances +attendance at the printing office where Etienne Dolet is perhaps +correcting the proofs of "Pantagruel."</p> + +<p>Amidst this resurrection of intelligence, Bohemia continued as in the +past to seek, according to Balzac's expression, a bone and a kennel. +Clement Marot, the familiar of the ante-chamber of the Louvre, became, +even before she was a monarch's mistress, the favorite of that fair +Diana, whose smile lit up three reigns. From the boudoir of Diane de +Poitiers, the faithless muse of the poet passed to that of Marguerite de +Valois, a dangerous favor that Marot paid for by imprisonment. Almost +at the same epoch another Bohemian, whose childhood on the shores of +Sorrento had been caressed by the kisses of an epic muse, Tasso, entered +the court of the Duke of Ferrara as Marot had that of Francis I. But +less fortunate than the lover of Diane and Marguerite, the author of +"Jerusalem Delivered" paid with his reason and the loss of his genius +the audacity of his love for a daughter of the house of Este.</p> + +<p>The religious contests and political storms that marked the arrival of +Medicis in France did not check the soaring flight of art. At the moment +when a ball struck on the scaffold of the Fontaine des Innocents Jean +Goujon who had found the Pagan chisel of Phidias, Ronsard discovered the +lyre of Pindar and founded, aided by his pleiad, the great French lyric +school. To this school succeeded the reaction of Malherbe and his +fellows, who sought to drive from the French tongue all the exotic +graces that their predecessors had tried to nationalize on Parnassus. It +was a Bohemian, Mathurin Regnier, who was one of the last defenders of +the bulwarks of poetry, assailed by the phalanx of rhetoricians and +grammarians who declared Rabelais barbarous and Montaigne obscure. It +was this same cynic, Mathurin Regnier, who, adding fresh knots to the +satiric whip of Horace, exclaimed, in indignation at the manners of his +day, "Honor is an old saint past praying to."</p> + +<p>The roll call of Bohemia during the seventeenth century contains a +portion of the names belonging to the literature of the reigns of Louis +XIII and Louis XIV, it reckons members amongst the wits of the Hôtel +Rambouillet, where it takes its share in the production of the +"Guirlande de Julie," it has its entries into the Palais Cardinal, where +it collaborates, in the tragedy of "Marianne," with the poet-minister +who was the Robespierre of the monarchy. It bestrews the couch of Marion +Delorme with madrigals, and woos Ninon de l'Enclos beneath the trees of +the Place Royal; it breakfasts in the morning at the tavern of the +Goinfres or the Epee Royale, and sups in the evening at the table of the +Duc de Joyeuse; it fights duels under a street lamp for the sonnet of +Urania against the sonnet of Job. Bohemia makes love, war, and even +diplomacy, and in its old days, weary of adventures, it turns the Old +and New Testament into poetry, figures on the list of benefices, and +well nourished with fat prebendaryships, seats itself on an episcopal +throne, or a chair of the Academy, founded by one of its children.</p> + +<p>It was in the transition period between the sixteenth and eighteenth +centuries that appeared those two lofty geniuses, whom each of the +nations amongst which they lived opposed to one another in their +struggles of literary rivalry. Moliere and Shakespeare, those +illustrious Bohemians, whose fate was too nearly akin.</p> + +<p>The most celebrated names of the literature of the eighteenth century +are also to be found in the archives of Bohemia, which, amongst the +glorious ones of this epoch, can cite Jean Jacques Rousseau and +d'Alembert, the foundling of the porch of Notre Dame, and amongst the +obscure, Malfilâtre and Gilbert, two overrated reputations, for the +inspiration of the one was but a faint reflection of the weak lyricism +of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, and the inspiration of the other but the +blending of proud impotence with a hatred which had not even the excuse +of initiative and sincerity, since it was only the paid instrument of +party rancour.</p> + +<p>We close with this epoch this brief summary of Bohemia in different +ages, a prolegomena besprinkled with illustrious names that we have +purposely placed at the beginning of this work, to put the reader on his +guard against any misapplication he might fall into on encountering the +title of Bohemians; long bestowed upon classes from which those whose +manners and language we have striven to depict hold it an honor to +differ.</p> + +<p>Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without +any other means of livelihood than his art itself, will be forced to +walk in the paths of Bohemia. The greater number of our contemporaries +who display the noblest blazonry of art have been Bohemians, and amidst +their calm and prosperous glory they often recall, perhaps with regret, +the time when, climbing the verdant slope of youth, they had no other +fortune in the sunshine of their twenty years than courage, which is the +virtue of the young, and hope, which is the wealth of the poor.</p> + +<p>For the uneasy reader, for the timorous citizen, for all those for whom +an "i" can never be too plainly dotted in definition, we repeat as an +axiom: "Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the +Academy, the Hôtel Dieu, or the Morgue."</p> + +<p>We will add that Bohemia only exists and is only possible in Paris.</p> + +<p>We will begin with unknown Bohemians, the largest class. It is made up +of the great family of poor artists, fatally condemned to the law of +incognito, because they cannot or do not know how to obtain a scrap of +publicity, to attest their existence in art, and by showing what they +are already prove what they may some day become. They are the race of +obstinate dreamers for whom art has remained a faith and not a +profession; enthusiastic folk of strong convictions, whom the sight of a +masterpiece is enough to throw into a fever, and whose loyal heart beats +high in presence of all that is beautiful, without asking the name of +the master and the school. This Bohemian is recruited from amongst those +young fellows of whom it is said that they give great hopes, and from +amongst those who realize the hopes given, but who, from carelessness, +timidity, or ignorance of practical life, imagine that everything is +done that can be when the work is completed, and wait for public +admiration and fortune to break in on them by escalade and burglary. +They live, so to say, on the outskirts of life, in isolation and +inertia. Petrified in art, they accept to the very letter the symbolism +of the academical dithyrambic, which places an aureola about the heads +of poets, and, persuaded that they are gleaming in their obscurity, wait +for others to come and seek them out. We used to know a small school +composed of men of this type, so strange, that one finds it hard to +believe in their existence; they styled themselves the disciples of art +for art's sake. According to these simpletons, art for art's sake +consisted of deifying one another, in abstaining from helping chance, +who did not even know their address, and in waiting for pedestals to +come of their own accord and place themselves under them.</p> + +<p>It is, as one sees, the ridiculousness of stoicism. Well, then we again +affirm, there exist in the heart of unknown Bohemia, similar beings +whose poverty excites a sympathetic pity which common sense obliges you +to go back on, for if you quietly remark to them that we live in the +nineteenth century, that the five-franc piece is the empress of +humanity, and that boots do not drop already blacked from heaven, they +turn their backs on you and call you a tradesman.</p> + +<p>For the rest, they are logical in their mad heroism, they utter neither +cries nor complainings, and passively undergo the obscure and rigorous +fate they make for themselves. They die for the most part, decimated by +that disease to which science does not dare give its real name, want. If +they would, however, many could escape from this fatal <i>denouement</i> +which suddenly terminates their life at an age when ordinary life is +only beginning. It would suffice for that for them to make a few +concessions to the stern laws of necessity; for them to know how to +duplicate their being, to have within themselves two natures, the poet +ever dreaming on the lofty summits where the choir of inspired voices +are warbling, and the man, worker-out of his life, able to knead his +daily bread, but this duality which almost always exists among strongly +tempered natures, of whom it is one of the distinctive characteristics, +is not met with amongst the greater number of these young fellows, whom +pride, a bastard pride, has rendered invulnerable to all the advice of +reason. Thus they die young, leaving sometimes behind them a work which +the world admires later on and which it would no doubt have applauded +sooner if it had not remained invisible.</p> + +<p>In artistic struggles it is almost the same as in war, the whole of the +glory acquired falls to the leaders; the army shares as its reward the +few lines in a dispatch. As to the soldiers struck down in battle, they +are buried where they fall, and one epitaph serves for twenty thousand +dead.</p> + +<p>So, too, the crowd, which always has its eyes fixed on the rising sun, +never lowers its glance towards that underground world where the obscure +workers are struggling; their existence finishes unknown and without +sometimes even having had the consolation of smiling at an accomplished +task, they depart from this life, enwrapped in a shroud of indifference.</p> + +<p>There exists in ignored Bohemia another fraction; it is composed of +young fellows who have been deceived, or have deceived themselves. They +mistake a fancy for a vocation, and impelled by a homicidal fatality, +they die, some the victims of a perpetual fit of pride, others +worshippers of a chimera.</p> + +<p>The paths of art, so choked and so dangerous, are, despite encumberment +and obstacles, day by day more crowded, and consequently Bohemians were +never more numerous.</p> + +<p>If one sought out all the causes that have led to this influx, one might +perhaps come across the following.</p> + +<p>Many young fellows have taken the declamations made on the subject of +unfortunate poets and artists quite seriously. The names of Gilbert, +Malfilâtre, Chatterton, and Moreau have been too often, too imprudently, +and, above all, too uselessly uttered. The tomb of these unfortunates +has been converted into a pulpit, from whence has been preached the +martyrdom of art and poetry,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Farewell mankind, ye stony-hearted host,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Flint-bosomed earth and sun with frozen ray,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From out amidst you, solitary ghost<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I glide unseen away."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This despairing song of Victor Escousse, stifled by the pride which had +been implanted in him by a factitious triumph, was for a time the +"Marseillaise" of the volunteers of art who were bent on inscribing +their names on the martyrology of mediocrity.</p> + +<p>For these funereal apotheoses, these encomiastic requiems, having all +the attraction of the abyss for weak minds and ambitious vanities, many +of these yielding to this attraction have thought that fatality was the +half of genius; many have dreamt of the hospital bed on which Gilbert +died, hoping that they would become poets, as he did a quarter of an +hour before dying, and believing that it was an obligatory stage in +order to arrive at glory.</p> + +<p>Too much blame cannot be attached to these immortal falsehoods, these +deadly paradoxes, which turn aside from the path in which they might +have succeeded so many people who come to a wretched ending in a career +in which they incommode those to whom a true vocation only gives the +right of entering on it.</p> + +<p>It is these dangerous preachings, this useless posthumous exaltations, +that have created the ridiculous race of the unappreciated, the whining +poets whose muse has always red eyes and ill-combed locks, and all the +mediocrities of impotence who, doomed to non-publication, call the muse +a harsh stepmother, and art an executioner.</p> + +<p>All truly powerful minds have their word to say, and, indeed, utter it +sooner or later. Genius or talent are not unforeseen accidents in +humanity; they have a cause of existence, and for that reason cannot +always remain in obscurity, for, if the crowd does not come to seek +them, they know how to reach it. Genius is the sun, everyone sees it. +Talent is the diamond that may for a long time remain hidden in +obscurity, but which is always perceived by some one. It is, therefore, +wrong to be moved to pity over the lamentations and stock phrases of +that class of intruders and inutilities entered upon an artistic career +in which idleness, debauchery, and parasitism form the foundations of +manners.</p> + +<p>Axiom, "Unknown Bohemianism is not a path, it is a blind alley."</p> + +<p>Indeed, this life is something that does not lead to anything. It is a +stultified wretchedness, amidst which intelligence dies out like a lamp +in a place without air, in which the heart grows petrified in a fierce +misanthropy, and in which the best natures become the worst. If one has +the misfortune to remain too long and to advance too far in this blind +alley one can no longer get out, or one emerges by dangerous breaches +and only to fall into an adjacent Bohemia, the manners of which belong +to another jurisdiction than that of literary physiology.</p> + +<p>We will also cite a singular variety of Bohemians who might be called +amateurs. They are not the least curious. They find in Bohemian life an +existence full of seductions, not to dine every day, to sleep in the +open air on wet nights, and to dress in nankeen in the month of December +seems to them the paradise of human felicity, and to enter it some +abandon the family home, and others the study which leads to an assured +result. They suddenly turn their backs upon an honorable future to seek +the adventure of a hazardous career. But as the most robust cannot stand +a mode of living that would render Hercules consumptive, they soon give +up the game, and, hastening back to the paternal roast joint, marry +their little cousins, set up as a notary in a town of thirty thousand +inhabitants, and by their fireside of an evening have the satisfaction +of relating their artistic misery with the magniloquence of a traveller +narrating a tiger hunt. Others persist and put their self-esteem in it, +but when once they have exhausted those resources of credit which a +young fellow with well-to-do relatives can always find, they are more +wretched than the real Bohemians, who, never having had any other +resources, have at least those of intelligence. We knew one of these +amateur Bohemians who, after having remained three years in Bohemia and +quarrelled with his family, died one morning, and was taken to the +common grave in a pauper's hearse. He had ten thousand francs a year.</p> + +<p>It is needless to say that these Bohemians have nothing whatever in +common with art, and that they are the most obscure amongst the least +known of ignored Bohemia.</p> + +<p>We now come to the real Bohemia, to that which forms, in part, the +subject of this book. Those who compose it are really amongst those +called by art, and have the chance of being also amongst its elect. This +Bohemia, like the others, bristles with perils, two abysses flank it on +either side—poverty and doubt. But between these two gulfs there is at +least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their +eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand.</p> + +<p>It is official Bohemia so-called because those who form part of it have +publicly proved their existence, have signalised their presence in the +world elsewhere than on a census list, have, to employ one of their own +expressions, "their name in the bill," who are known in the literary and +artistic market, and whose products, bearing their stamp, are current +there, at moderate rates it is true.</p> + +<p>To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and +the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route. +Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers, +whose sins are backed by virtue. Their mind is kept ever on the alert by +their ambition, which sounds a charge in front and urges them to the +assault of the future; incessantly at war with necessity, their +invention always marching with lighted match blows up the obstacle +almost before it incommodes them. Their daily existence is a work of +genius, a daily problem which they always succeed in solving by the aid +of audacious mathematics. They would have forced Harpagon to lend them +money, and have found truffles on the raft of the "Medusa." At need, +too, they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an +anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see +them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest +and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding +sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last +crown is dead and buried, they begin to dine again at that table spread +by chance, at which their place is always laid, and, preceded by a pack +of tricks, go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with +art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five-franc +piece.</p> + +<p>The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere, according as they have +patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to be met one day leaning +against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing room, and the next +seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place. They cannot take ten +steps on the Boulevard without meeting a friend, and thirty, no matter +where, without encountering a creditor.</p> + +<p>Bohemians speak amongst themselves a special language borrowed from the +conversation of the studios, the jargon of behind the scenes, and the +discussions of the editor's room. All the eclecticisms of style are met +with in this unheard of idiom, in which apocalyptic phrases jostle cock +and bull stories, in which the rusticity of a popular saying is wedded +to extravagant periods from the same mold in which Cyrano de Bergerac +cast his tirades; in which the paradox, that spoilt child of modern +literature, treats reason as the pantaloon is treated in a pantomime; in +which irony has the intensity of the strongest acids and the skill of +those marksmen who can hit the bull's-eye blindfold; a slang +intelligent, though unintelligible to those who have not its key, and +the audacity of which surpasses that of the freest tongues. This +Bohemian vocabulary is the hell of rhetoric and the paradise of +neologism.</p> + +<p>Such is in brief that Bohemian life, badly known to the puritans of +society, decried by the puritans of art, insulted by all the timorous +and jealous mediocrities who cannot find enough of outcries, lies, and +calumnies to drown the voices and the names of those who arrive through +the vestibule to renown by harnessing audacity to their talent.</p> + +<p>A life of patience, of courage, in which one cannot fight unless clad in +a strong armour of indifference impervious to the attacks of fools and +the envious, in which one must not, if one would not stumble on the +road, quit for a single moment that pride in oneself which serves as a +leaning staff; a charming and a terrible life, which has conquerors and +its martyrs, and on which one should not enter save in resigning oneself +in advance to submit to the pitiless law <i>væ victis</i>.</p> + +<p>H. M.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER I</a></h2> + +<h3>HOW THE BOHEMIAN CLUB WAS FORMED</h3> + + +<p>One morning—it was the eighth of April—Alexander Schaunard, who +cultivated the two liberal arts of painting and music, was rudely +awakened by the peal of a neighbouring cock, which served him for an +alarm.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" exclaimed Schaunard, "my feathered clock goes too fast: it +cannot possibly be today yet!" So saying, he leaped precipitately out of +a piece of furniture of his own ingenious contrivance, which, sustaining +the part of bed by night, (sustaining it badly enough too,) did duty by +day for all the rest of the furniture which was absent by reason of the +severe cold for which the past winter had been noted.</p> + +<p>To protect himself against the biting north-wind, Schaunard slipped on +in haste a pink satin petticoat with spangled stars, which served him +for dressing-gown. This gay garment had been left at the artist's +lodging, one masked-ball night, by a <i>folie</i>, who was fool enough to let +herself be entrapped by the deceitful promises of Schaunard when, +disguised as a marquis, he rattled in his pocket a seducingly sonorous +dozen of crowns—theatrical money punched out of a lead plate and +borrowed of a property-man. Having thus made his home toilette, the +artist proceeded to open his blind and window. A solar ray, like an +arrow of light, flashed suddenly into the room, and compelled him to +open his eyes that were still veiled by the mists of sleep. At the same +moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck five.</p> + +<p>"It is the Morn herself!" muttered Schaunard; "astonishing, but"—and he +consulted an almanac nailed to the wall—"not the less a mistake. The +results of science affirm that at this season of the year the sun ought +not to rise till half-past five: it is only five o'clock, and there he +is! A culpable excess of zeal! The luminary is wrong; I shall have to +make a complaint to the longitude-office. However, I must begin to be a +little anxious. Today is the day after yesterday, certainly; and since +yesterday was the seventh, unless old Saturn goes backward, it must be +the eighth of April today. And if I may believe this paper," continued +Schaunard, going to read an official notice-to-quit posted on the wall, +"today, therefore, at twelve precisely, I ought to have evacuated the +premises, and paid into the hands of my landlord, Monsieur Bernard, the +sum of seventy-five francs for three quarters' rent due, which he +demands of me in very bad handwriting. I had hoped—as I always do—that +Providence would take the responsibility of discharging this debt, but +it seems it hasn't had time. Well, I have six hours before me yet. By +making good use of them, perhaps—to work! to work!"</p> + +<p>He was preparing to put on an overcoat, originally of a long-haired, +woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if +bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of +his own composition, which at the public balls had often caused him to +be honoured with the particular attention of the police.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is surprising how the morning air gives one +ideas! It strikes me that I am on the scent of my air; Let's see." And, +half-dressed as he was, Schaunard seated himself at his piano. After +having waked the sleeping instrument by a terrific hurly-burly of notes, +he began, talking to himself all the while, to hunt over the keys for +the tune he had long been seeking.</p> + +<p>"Do, sol, mi, do la, si, do re. Bah! it's as false as Judas, that re!" +and he struck violently on the doubtful note. "We must represent +adroitly the grief of a young person picking to pieces a white daisy +over a blue lake. There's an idea that's not in its infancy! However, +since it is fashion, and you couldn't find a music publisher who would +dare to publish a ballad without a blue lake in it, we must go with the +fashion. Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, re! That's not so bad; it gives a +fair idea of a daisy, especially to people well up in botany. La, si, +do, re. Confound that re! Now to make the blue lake intelligible. We +should have something moist, azure, moonlight—for the moon comes in too; +here it is; don't let's forget the swan. Fa, mi, la, sol," continued +Schaunard, rattling over the keys. "Lastly, an adieu of the young girl, +who determines to throw herself into the blue lake, to rejoin her +beloved who is buried under the snow. The catastrophe is not very +perspicuous, but decidedly interesting. We must have something tender, +melancholy. It's coming, it's coming! Here are a dozen bars crying like +Magdalens, enough to split one's heart—Brr, brr!" and Schaunard shivered +in his spangled petticoat, "if it could only split one's wood! There's a +beam in my alcove which bothers me a good deal when I have company at +dinner. I should like to make a fire with it—la, la, re, mi—for I feel +my inspiration coming to me through the medium of a cold in the head. So +much the worse, but it can't be helped. Let us continue to drown our +young girl;" and while his fingers assailed the trembling keys, +Schaunard, with sparkling eyes and straining ears, gave chase to the +melody which, like an impalpable sylph, hovered amid the sonorous mist +which the vibrations of the instrument seemed to let loose in the room.</p> + +<p>"Now let us see," he continued, "how my music will fit into my poet's +words;" and he hummed, in voice the reverse of agreeable, this fragment +of verse of the patent comic-opera sort:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"The fair and youthful maiden,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As she flung her mantle by,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Threw a glance with sorrow laden<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Up to the starry sky<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And in the azure waters<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of the silver-waved lake."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"How is that?" he exclaimed, in transports of just indignation; "the +azure waters of a silver lake! I didn't see that. This poet is an idiot. +I'll bet he never saw a lake, or silver either. A stupid ballad too, in +every way; the length of the lines cramps the music. For the future I +shall compose my verses myself; and without waiting, since I feel in the +humour, I shall manufacture some couplets to adapt my melody to."</p> + +<p>So saying, and taking his head between his hands, he assumed the grave +attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few +minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings +of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, +monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the +composer's inspiration. Only Schaunard's were no nonsense-verses, but +very good sense, expressing with sufficient clearness the inquietude +awakened in his mind by the rude arrival of that date, the eighth of +April.</p> + +<p>Thus they ran:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Eight and eight make sixteen just,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Put down six and carry one:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My poor soul would be at rest<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Could I only find some one,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Some honest poor relation,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who'd eight hundred francs advance,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To pay each obligation,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whenever I've a chance."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Chorus<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"And ere the clock on the last and fatal morning<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Should sound mid-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My rent I'd pay!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"The duece!" exclaimed Schaunard, reading over his composition, "one and +some one—those rhymes are poor enough, but I have no time to make them +richer. Now let us try how the notes will unite with the syllables." And +in his peculiarly frightful nasal tone he recommenced the execution of +his ballad. Satisfied with the result he had just obtained, Schaunard +congratulated himself with an exultant grimace, which mounted over his +nose like a circumflex accent whenever he had occasion to be pleased +with himself. But this triumphant happiness was destined to have no long +duration. Eleven o'clock resounded from the neighbouring steeple. Every +stroke diffused itself through the room in mocking sounds which seemed +to say to the unlucky Schaunard, "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>The artist bounded on his chair. "The time flies like a bird!" he +exclaimed. "I have but three-quarters of an hour left to find my +seventy-five francs and my new lodging. I shall never get them; that +would be too much like magic. Let me see: I give myself five minutes to +find out how to obtain them;" and burying his head between his knees, he +descended into the depths of reflection.</p> + +<p>The five minutes elapsed, and Schaunard raised his head without having +found anything which resembled seventy-five francs.</p> + +<p>"Decidedly, I have but one way of getting out of this, which is simply +to go away. It is fine weather and my friend Monsieur Chance may be +walking in the sun. He must give me hospitality till I have found the +means of squaring off with Monsieur Bernard."</p> + +<p>Having stuffed into the cellar-like pockets of his overcoat all the +articles they would hold, Schaunard tied up some linen in a +handkerchief, and took an affectionate farewell of his home. While +crossing the court, he was suddenly stopped by the porter, who seemed to +be on the watch for him.</p> + +<p>"Hallo! Monsieur Schaunard," cried he, blocking up the artist's way, +"don't you remember that this is the eighth of April?"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Eight and eight make sixteen just,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Put down six and carry one,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>hummed Schaunard. "I don't remember anything else."</p> + +<p>"You are a little behindhand then with your moving," said the porter; +"it is half-past eleven, and the new tenant to whom your room has been +let may come any minute. You must make haste."</p> + +<p>"Let me pass, then," replied Schaunard; "I am going after a cart."</p> + +<p>"No doubt, but before moving there is a little formality to be gone +through. I have orders not to let you take away a hair unless you pay +the three quarters due. Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course," said Schaunard, making a step forward.</p> + +<p>"Well come into my lodge then, and I will give you your receipt."</p> + +<p>"I shall take it when I come back."</p> + +<p>"But why not at once?" persisted the porter.</p> + +<p>"I am going to a money changer's. I have no change."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you are going to get change!" replied the other, not at all at his +ease. "Then I will take care of that little parcel under your arm, which +might be in your way."</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Porter," exclaimed the artist, with a dignified air, "you +mistrust me, perhaps! Do you think I am carrying away my furniture in a +handkerchief?"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," answered the porter, dropping his tone a little, "but such +are my orders. Monsieur Bernard has expressly charged me not to let you +take away a hair before you have paid."</p> + +<p>"But look, will you?" said Schaunard, opening his bundle, "these are not +hairs, they are shirts, and I am taking them to my washerwoman, who +lives next door to the money changer's twenty steps off."</p> + +<p>"That alters the case," said the porter, after he had examined the +contents of the bundle. "Would it be impolite, Monsieur Schaunard, to +inquire your new address?"</p> + +<p>"Rue de Rivoli!" replied the artist, and having once got outside the +gate, he made off as fast as possible.</p> + +<p>"Rue de Rivoli!" muttered the porter, scratching his nose, "it's very +odd they should have let him lodgings in the Rue de Rivoli, and never +come here to ask about him. Very odd, that. At any rate, he can't carry +off his furniture without paying. If only the new tenant don't come +moving in just as Monsieur Schaunard is moving out! That would make a +nice mess! Well, sure enough," he exclaimed, suddenly putting his head +out of his little window, "here he comes, the new tenant!"</p> + +<p>In fact, a young man in a white hat, followed by a porter who did not +seem over-burdened by the weight of his load, had just entered the +court. "Is my room ready?" he demanded of the house-porter, who had +stepped out to meet him.</p> + +<p>"Not yet, sir, but it will be in a moment. The person who occupies it +has gone after a cart for his things. Meanwhile, sir, you may put your +furniture in the court."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it's going to rain," replied the young man, chewing a +bouquet of violets which he held in his mouth, "My furniture might be +spoiled. My friend," continued he, turning to the man who was behind +him, with something on a trunk which the porter could not exactly make +out, "put that down and go back to my old lodging to fetch the remaining +valuables."</p> + +<p>The man ranged along the wall several frames six or seven feet high, +folded together, and apparently being capable of being extended.</p> + +<p>"Look here," said the new-comer to his follower, half opening one of the +screens and showing him a rent in the canvas, "what an accident! You +have cracked my grand Venetian glass. Take more care on your second +trip, especially with my library."</p> + +<p>"What does he mean by his Venetian glass?" muttered the porter, walking +up and down with an uneasy air before the frames ranged against the +wall. "I don't see any glass. Some joke, no doubt. I only see a screen. +We shall see, at any rate, what he will bring next trip."</p> + +<p>"Is your tenant not going to make room for me soon?" inquired the young +man, "it is half-past twelve, and I want to move in."</p> + +<p>"He won't be much longer," answered the porter, "but there is no harm +done yet, since your furniture has not come," added he, with a stress on +the concluding words.</p> + +<p>As the young man was about to reply, a dragoon entered the court.</p> + +<p>"Is this Monsieur Bernard's?" he asked, drawing a letter from a huge +leather portfolio which swung at his side.</p> + +<p>"He lives here," replied the porter.</p> + +<p>"Here is a letter for him," said the dragoon; "give me a receipt," and +he handed to the porter a bulletin of despatches which the latter +entered his lodge to sign.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me for leaving you alone," said he to the young man who was +stalking impatiently about the court, "but this is a letter from the +Minister to my landlord, and I am going to take it up to him."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Bernard was just beginning to shave when the porter knocked at +his door.</p> + +<p>"What do you want, Durand?"</p> + +<p>"Sir," replied the other, lifting his cap, "a soldier has just brought +this for you. It comes from the Ministry." And he handed to Monsieur +Bernard the letter, the envelope of which bore the stamp of the War +Department.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" exclaimed Monsieur Bernard, in such agitation that he all but +cut himself. "From the Minister of War! I am sure it is my nomination as +Knight of the Legion of Honour, which I have long solicited. At last +they have done justice to my good conduct. Here, Durand," said he, +fumbling in his waistcoat-pocket, "here are five francs to drink to my +health. Stay! I haven't my purse about me. Wait, and I will give you the +money in a moment."</p> + +<p>The porter was so overcome by this stunning fit of generosity, which was +not at all in accordance with his landlord's ordinary habits, that he +absolutely put on his cap again.</p> + +<p>But Monsieur Bernard, who at any other time would have severely +reprimanded this infraction of the laws of social hierarchy, appeared +not to notice it. He put on his spectacles, broke the seal of the +envelope with the respectful anxiety of a vizier receiving a sultan's +firman, and began to read the dispatch. At the first line a frightful +grimace ploughed his fat, monk-like cheeks with crimson furrows, and his +little eyes flashed sparks that seemed ready to set fire to his bushy +wig. In fact, all his features were so turned upside-down that you would +have said his countenance had just suffered a shock of face-quake.</p> + +<p>For these were the contents of the letter bearing the ministerial stamp, +brought by a dragoon—orderly, and for which Durand had given the +government a receipt:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Friend landlord: Politeness-who, according to ancient mythology, +is the grandmother of good manners—compels me to inform you that I +am under the cruel necessity of not conforming to the prevalent +custom of paying rent—prevalent especially when the rent is due. Up +to this morning I had cherished the hope of being able to celebrate +this fair day by the payments of my three quarters. Vain chimera, +bitter illusion! While I was slumbering on the pillow of +confidence, ill-luck—what the Greeks call <i>ananke</i>—was scattering +my hopes. The returns on which I counted—times are so bad!-have +failed, and of the considerable sums which I was to receive I have +only realised three francs, which were lent me, and I will not +insult you by the offer of them. Better days will come for our dear +country and for me. Doubt it not, sir! When they come, I shall fly +to inform you of their arrival, and to withdraw from your lodgings +the precious objects which I leave there, putting them under your +protection and that of the law, which hinders you from selling them +before the expiration of a year, in case you should be disposed to +try to do so with the object of obtaining the sum for which you +stand credited in the ledger of my honesty. I commend to your +special care my piano, and also the large frame containing sixty +locks of hair whose different colours run through the whole gamut +of capillary shades; the scissors of love have stolen them from the +forehead of the Graces."</p> + +<p>"Therefore, dear sir, and landlord, you may dispose of the roof +under which I have dwelt. I grant you full authority, and have +hereto set my hand and seal."</p> + +<p>"ALEXANDER SCHAUNARD"</p></div> + +<p>On finishing this letter, (which the artist had written at the desk of a +friend who was a clerk in the War Office,) Monsieur Bernard indignantly +crushed it in his hand, and as his glance fell on old Durand, who was +waiting for the promised gratification, he roughly demanded what he was +doing.</p> + +<p>"Waiting, sir."</p> + +<p>"For what?"</p> + +<p>"For the present, on account of the good news," stammered the porter.</p> + +<p>"Get out, you scoundrel! Do you presume to speak to me with your cap +on?"</p> + +<p>"But, sir—"</p> + +<p>"Don't you answer me! Get out! No, stay there! We shall go up to the +room of that scamp of an artist who has run off without paying."</p> + +<p>"What! Monsieur Schaunard?" ejaculated the porter.</p> + +<p>"Yes," cried the landlord with increasing fury, "and if he has carried +away the smallest article, I send you off, straight off!"</p> + +<p>"But it can't be," murmured the poor porter, "Monsieur Schaunard has not +run away. He has gone to get change to pay you, and order a cart for his +furniture."</p> + +<p>"A cart for his furniture!" exclaimed the other, "run! I'm sure he has +it here. He laid a trap to get you away from your lodge, fool that you +are!"</p> + +<p>"Fool that I am! Heaven help me!" cried the porter, all in a tremble +before the thundering wrath of his superior, who hurried him down the +stairs. When they arrived in the court the porter was hailed by the +young man in the white hat.</p> + +<p>"Come now! Am I not soon going to be in possession of my lodging? Is +this the eighth of April? Did I hire a room here and pay you a deposit +to bind the bargain? Yes or no?"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, sir," interposed the landlord, "I am at your service. +Durand, I will talk to the gentleman myself. Run up there, that scamp +Schaunard has come back to pack up. If you find him, shut him in, and +then come down again and run for the police."</p> + +<p>Old Durand vanished up the staircase.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, sir," continued the landlord, with a bow to the young man +now left alone with him, "to whom have I the honour of speaking?"</p> + +<p>"Your new tenant. I have hired a room in the sixth story of this house, +and am beginning to be tired of waiting for my lodging to become +vacant."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry indeed," replied Monsieur Bernard, "there has been a +little difficulty with one of my tenants, the one whom you are to +replace."</p> + +<p>"Sir," cried old Durand from a window at the very top of the house, +"Monsieur Schaunard is not here, but his room—stupid!—I mean he has +carried nothing away, not a hair, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Very well, come down," replied the landlord. "Have a little patience, I +beg of you," he continued to the young man. "My porter will bring down +to the cellar the furniture in the room of my defaulting tenant, and you +may take possession in half an hour. Beside, your furniture has not come +yet."</p> + +<p>"But it has," answered the young man quietly.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Bernard looked around, and saw only the large screens which had +already mystified his porter.</p> + +<p>"How is this?" he muttered. "I don't see anything."</p> + +<p>"Behold!" replied the youth, unfolding the leaves of the frame, and +displaying to the view of the astonished landlord a magnificent interior +of a palace, with jasper columns, bas-reliefs, and paintings of old +masters.</p> + +<p>"But your furniture?" demanded Monsieur Bernard.</p> + +<p>"Here it is," replied the young man, pointing to the splendid furniture +<i>painted</i> in the palace, which he had bought at a sale of second-hand +theatrical decorations.</p> + +<p>"I hope you have some more serious furniture than this," said the +landlord. "You know I must have security for my rent."</p> + +<p>"The deuce! Is a palace not sufficient security for the rent of a +garret?"</p> + +<p>"No sir, I want real chairs and tables in solid mahogany."</p> + +<p>"Alas! Neither gold nor mahogany makes us happy, as for the ancient poet +well says. And I can't bear mahogany; it's too common a wood. Everybody +has it."</p> + +<p>"But surely sir, you must have some sort of furniture."</p> + +<p>"No, it takes up too much room. You are stuck full of chairs, and have +no place to sit down."</p> + +<p>"But at any rate, you have a bed. What do you sleep on?"</p> + +<p>"On a good conscience, sir."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, one more question," said the landlord, "What is your +profession?"</p> + +<p>At this very moment the young man's porter, returning on his second +trip, entered the court. Among the articles with which his truck was +loaded, an easel occupied a conspicuous position.</p> + +<p>"Sir! Sir!!" shrieked old Durance, pointing out the easel to his +landlord, "it's a painter!"</p> + +<p>"I was sure he was an artist!" exclaimed the landlord in his turn, the +hair of his wig standing up in affright, "a painter!! And you never +inquired after this person," he continued to his porter, "you didn't +know what he did!"</p> + +<p>"He gave me five francs <i>arrest</i>," answered the poor fellow, "how could +I suspect—"</p> + +<p>"When you have finished," put in the stranger—</p> + +<p>"Sir," replied Monsieur Bernard, mounting his spectacles with great +decision, "since you have no furniture, you can't come in. The law +authorizes me to refuse a tenant who brings no security."</p> + +<p>"And my word, then?"</p> + +<p>"Your word is not furniture, you must go somewhere else. Durance will +give you back your earnest money."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" exclaimed the porter, in consternation, "I've put it in the +Savings' Bank."</p> + +<p>"But consider sir," objected the young man. "I can't find another +lodging in a moment! At least grant me hospitality for a day."</p> + +<p>"Go to a hotel!" replied Monsieur Bernard. "By the way," added he, +struck with a sudden idea, "if you like, I can let you a furnished room, +the one you were to occupy, which has the furniture of my defaulting +tenant in it. Only you know that when rooms are let this way, you pay in +advance."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the artist, finding he could do no better, "I should like +to know what you are going to ask me for your hole."</p> + +<p>"It is a very comfortable lodging, and the rent will be twenty-five +francs a month, considering the circumstances, paid in advance."</p> + +<p>"You have said that already, the expression does not deserve being +repeated," said the young man, feeling in his pocket. "Have you change +for five hundred francs?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," quoth the astonished landlord.</p> + +<p>"Five hundred, half a thousand; did you never see one before?" +continued the artist, shaking the bank-note in the faces of the landlord +and porter, who fairly lost their balance at the sight.</p> + +<p>"You shall have it in a moment, sir," said the now respectful owner of +the house, "there will only be twenty francs to take out, for Durand +will return your deposit."</p> + +<p>"He may keep it," replied the artist, "on condition of coming every +morning to tell me the day of the week and month, the quarter of the +moon, the weather it is going to be, and the form of government we are +under."</p> + +<p>Old Durand described an angle of ninety degrees forward.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my good fellow, you shall serve me for almanac. Meanwhile, help my +porter to bring the things in."</p> + +<p>"I shall send you your receipt immediately," said the landlord, and that +very night the painter Marcel was installed in the lodging of the +fugitive Schaunard. During this time the aforesaid Schaunard was beating +his roll-call, as he styled it, through the city.</p> + +<p>Schaunard had carried the art of borrowing to the perfection of a +science. Foreseeing the possible necessity of having to <i>spoil the +foreigners</i>, he had learned how to ask for five francs in every language +of the world. He had thoroughly studied all the stratagems which specie +employs to escape those who are hunting for it, and knew, better than a +pilot knows the hours of the tide, at what periods it was high or low +water; that is to say, on what days his friends and acquaintances were +accustomed to be in funds. Accordingly, there were houses where his +appearance of a morning made people say, not "Here is Monsieur +Schaunard," but "This is the first or the fifteenth." To facilitate, and +at the same time equalize this species of tax which he was going to +levy, when compelled by necessity, from those who were able to pay it to +him, Schaunard had drawn up by districts and streets an alphabetical +table containing the names of all his acquaintances. Opposite each name +was inscribed the maximum of the sum which the party's finances +authorized the artist to borrow of him, the time when he was flush, and +his dinner hour, as well as his usual bill of fare. Beside this table, +he kept a book, in perfect order, on which he entered the sums lent him, +down to the smallest fraction; for he would never burden himself beyond +a certain amount which was within the fortune of a country relative, +whose heir-apparent he was. As soon as he owed one person twenty francs, +he closed the account and paid him off, even if obliged to borrow for +the purpose of those to whom he owed less. In this way he always kept up +a certain credit which he called his floating debt, and as people knew +that he was accustomed to repay as soon as his means permitted him, +those who could accommodate him were very ready to do so.</p> + +<p>But on the present occasion, from eleven in the morning, when he had +started to try and collect the seventy-five francs requisite, up to six +in the afternoon, he had only raised three francs, contributed by three +letters (M., V., and R.) of his famous list. All the rest of the +alphabet, having, like himself, their quarter to pay, had adjourned his +claim indefinitely.</p> + +<p>The clock of his stomach sounded the dinner-hour. He was then at the +Maine barrier, where letter U lived. Schaunard mounted to letter U's +room, where he had a knife and fork, when there were such articles on +the premises.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going, sir?" asked the porter, stopping him before he had +completed his ascent.</p> + +<p>"To Monsieur U," replied the artist.</p> + +<p>"He's out."</p> + +<p>"And madame?"</p> + +<p>"Out too. They told me to say to a friend who was coming to see them +this evening, that they were gone out to dine. In fact, if you are the +gentleman they expected, this is the address they left." It was a scrap +of paper on which his friend U. had written. "We are gone to dine with +Schaunard, No.__, Rue de__. Come for us there."</p> + +<p>"Well," said he, going away, "accident does make queer farces +sometimes." Then remembering that there was a little tavern near by, +where he had more than once procured a meal at a not unreasonable rate, +he directed his steps to this establishment, situated in the adjoining +road, and known among the lowest class of artistdom as "Mother Cadet's." +It is a drinking-house which is also an eating-house, and its ordinary +customers are carters of the Orleans railway, singing-ladies of Mont +Parnasse, and juvenile "leads" from the Bobino theatre. During the warm +season the students of the numerous painters' studios which border on +the Luxembourg, the unappreciated and unedited men of the letters, the +writers of leaders in mysterious newspapers, throng to dine at "Mother +Cadet's," which is famous for its rabbit stew, its veritable sour-crout, +and a miled white wine which smacks of flint.</p> + +<p>Schaunard sat down in the grove; for so at "Mother Cadet's" they called +the scattered foliage of two or three rickety trees whose sickly boughs +had been trained into a sort of arbor.</p> + +<p>"Hang the expense!" said Schaunard to himself, "I have to have a good +blow-out, a regular Belthazzar's feast in private life," and without +more ado, he ordered a bowl of soup, half a plate of sour-crout, and two +half stews, having observed that you get more for two halves than one +whole one.</p> + +<p>This extensive order attracted the attention of a young person in white +with a head-dress of orange flowers and ballshoes; a veil of <i>sham +imitation</i> lace streamed down her shoulders, which she had no special +reason to be proud of. She was a <i>prima donna</i> of the Mont Parnasse +theatre, the greenroom of which opens into Mother Cadet's kitchen; she +had come to take a meal between two acts of <i>Lucia</i>, and was at that +moment finishing with a small cup of coffee her dinner, composed +exclusively of an artichoke seasoned with oil and vinegar.</p> + +<p>"Two stews! Duece take it!" said she, in an aside to the girl who acted +as waiter at the establishment. "That young man feeds himself well. How +much do I owe, Adele?"</p> + +<p>"Artichoke four, coffee four, bread one, that makes nine sous."</p> + +<p>"There they are," said the singer and off she went humming:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"This affection Heaven has given."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Why she is giving us the la!" exclaimed a mysterious personage half +hidden behind a rampart of old books, who was seated at the same table +with Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Giving it!" replied the other, "keeping it, I should say. Just +imagine!" he added, pointing to the vinegar on the plate from which +Lucia had been eating her artichoke, "pickling that falsetto of hers!"</p> + +<p>"It is a strong acid, to be sure," added the personage who had first +spoken. "They make some at Orleans which has deservedly a great +reputation."</p> + +<p>Schaunard carefully examined this individual, who was thus fishing for a +conversation with him. The fixed stare of his large blue eyes, which +always seemed looking for something, gave his features the character of +happy tranquility which is common among theological students. His face +had a uniform tint of old ivory, except his cheeks, which had a coat, as +it were of brickdust. His mouth seemed to have been sketched by a +student in the rudiments of drawing, whose elbow had been jogged while +he was tracing it. His lips, which pouted almost like a negro's, +disclosed teeth not unlike a stag-hound's and his double-chin reposed +itself upon a white cravat, one of whose points threatened the stars, +while the other was ready to pierce the ground. A torrent of light hair +escaped from under the enormous brim of his well-worn felt-hat. He wore +a hazel-coloured overcoat with a large cape, worn thread-bare and rough +as a grater; from its yawning pockets peeped bundles of manuscripts and +pamphlets. The enjoyment of his sour-crout, which he devoured with +numerous and audible marks of approbation, rendered him heedless of the +scrutiny to which he was subjected, but did not prevent him from +continuing to read an old book open before him, in which he made +marginal notes from time to time with a pencil that he carried behind +his ear.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" cried Schaunard suddenly, making his glass ring with his knife, +"my stew!"</p> + +<p>"Sir," said the girl, running up plate in hand, "there is none left, +here is the last, and this gentleman has ordered it." Therewith she +deposited the dish before the man with the books.</p> + +<p>"The deuce!" cried Schaunard. There was such an air of melancholy +disappointment in his ejaculation, that the possessor of the books was +moved to the soul by it. He broke down the pile of old works which +formed a barrier between him and Schaunard, and putting the dish in the +centre of the table, said, in his sweetest tones:</p> + +<p>"Might I be so bold as to beg you, sir, to share this with me?"</p> + +<p>"Sir," replied the artist, "I could not think of depriving you of it."</p> + +<p>"Then will you deprive me of the pleasure of being agreeable to you?"</p> + +<p>"If you insist, sir," and Schaunard held out his plate.</p> + +<p>"Permit me not to give you the head," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>"Really sir, I cannot allow you," Schaunard began, but on taking back +his plate he perceived that the other had given him the very piece which +he implied he would keep for himself.</p> + +<p>"What is he playing off his politeness on me for?" he muttered to +himself.</p> + +<p>"If the head is the most noble part of man," said the stranger, "it is +the least agreeable part of the rabbit. There are many persons who +cannot bear it. I happen to like it very much, however."</p> + +<p>"If so," said Schaunard, "I regret exceedingly that you robbed yourself +for me."</p> + +<p>"How? Excuse me," quoth he of the books, "I kept the head, as I had the +honor of observing to you."</p> + +<p>"Allow me," rejoined Schaunard, thrusting his plate under his nose, +"what part do you call that?"</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" cried the stranger, "what do I see? Another head? It is +a bicephalous rabbit!"</p> + +<p>"Buy what?" said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Cephalous—comes from the Greek. In fact, Baffon (who used to wear +ruffles) cites some cases of this monstrosity. On the whole, I am not +sorry to have eaten a phenomenon."</p> + +<p>Thanks to this incident, the conversation was definitely established. +Schaunard, not willing to be behindhand in courtesy, called for an extra +quart of wine. The hero of the books called for a third. Schaunard +treated to salad, the other to dessert. At eight o'clock there were six +empty bottles on the table. As they talked, their natural frankness, +assisted by their libations, had urged them to interchange biographies, +and they knew each other as well as if they had always lived together. +He of the books, after hearing the confidential disclosures of +Schaunard, had informed him that his name was Gustave Colline; he was a +philosopher by profession, and got his living by giving lessons in +rhetoric, mathematics and several other <i>ics</i>.</p> + +<p>What little money he picked up by his profession was spent in buying +books. His hazel-coloured coat was known to all the stall keepers on the +quay from the Pont de la Concorde to the Pont Saint Michel. What he did +with these books, so numerous that no man's lifetime would have been +long enough to read them, nobody knew, least of all, himself. But this +hobby of his amounted to monomania: when he came home at night without +bringing a musty quarto with him, he would repeat the saying of Titus, +"I have lost a day." His enticing manners, his language, which was a +mosaic of every possible style, and the fearful puns which embellished +his conversation, completely won Schaunard, who demanded on the spot +permission of Colline to add his name to those on the famous list +already mentioned.</p> + +<p>They left Mother Cadet's at nine o'clock at night, both fairly primed, +and with the gait of men who have been engaged in close conversation +with sundry bottles.</p> + +<p>Colline offered to stand coffee, and Schaunard accepted on condition +that he should be allowed to pay for the accompanying nips of liquor. +They turned into a cafe in the Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, and +bearing on its sign the name of Momus, god of play and pleasure.</p> + +<p>At the moment they entered a lively argument broke out between two of +the frequenters of the place. One of them was a young fellow whose face +was hidden by a dense thicket of beard of several distinct shades. By +way of a balance to this wealth of hair on his chin, a precocious +baldness had despoiled his forehead, which was as bare as a billiard +ball. He vainly strove to conceal the nakedness of the land by brushing +forward a tuft of hairs so scanty that they could almost be counted. He +wore a black coat worn at the elbows, and revealing whenever he raised +his arms too high a ventilator under the armpits. His trousers might +have once been black, but his boots, which had never been new, seemed to +have already gone round the world two or three times on the feet of the +Wandering Jew.</p> + +<p>Schaunard noticed that his new friend Colline and the young fellow with +the big beard nodded to one another.</p> + +<p>"You know the gentleman?" said he to the philosopher.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," replied the latter, "but I meet him sometimes at the +National Library. I believe that he is a literary man."</p> + +<p>"He wears the garb of one, at any rate," said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>The individual with whom this young fellow was arguing was a man of +forty, foredoomed, by a big head wedged between his shoulders without +any break in the shape of a neck, to the thunderstroke of apoplexy. +Idiocy was written in capital letters on his low forehead, surmounted by +a little black skull-cap. His name was Monsieur Mouton, and he was a +clerk at the town hall of the 4th Arrondissement, where he acted as +registrar of deaths.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Rodolphe," exclaimed he, in the squeaky tones of a eunuch, +shaking the young fellow by a button of his coat which he had laid hold +of. "Do you want to know my opinion? Well, all your newspapers are of no +use whatsoever. Come now, let us put a supposititious case. I am the +father of a family, am I not? Good. I go to the cafe for a game at +dominoes? Follow my argument now."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Daddy Mouton, punctuating each of his sentences by a +blow with his fist which made the jugs and glasses on the table rattle +again. "Well, I come across the papers. What do I see? One which says +black when the other says white, and so on and so on. What is all that +to me? I am the father of a family who goes to the cafe—"</p> + +<p>"For a game at dominoes," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Every evening," continued Monsieur Mouton. "Well, to put a case—you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," observed Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"I read an article which is not according to my views. That puts me in a +rage, and I fret my heart out, because you see, Monsieur Rodolphe, +newspapers are all lies. Yes, lies," he screeched in his shrillest +falsetto, "and the journalists are robbers."</p> + +<p>"But, Monsieur Mouton—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, brigands," continued the clerk. "They are the cause of all our +misfortunes; they brought about the Revolution and its paper money, +witness Murat."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Rodolphe, "you mean Marat."</p> + +<p>"No, no," resumed Monsieur Mouton, "Murat, for I saw his funeral when I +was quite a child—"</p> + +<p>"But I assure you—"</p> + +<p>"They even brought you a piece at the Circus about him, so there."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Rodolphe, "that was Murat."</p> + +<p>"Well what else have I been saying for an hour past?" exclaimed the +obstinate Mouton. "Murat, who used to work in a cellar, eh? Well, to put +a case. Were not the Bourbons right to guillotine him, since he had +played the traitor?"</p> + +<p>"Guillotine who? Play the traitor to whom?" cried Rodolphe, +button-holing Monsieur Mouton in turn.</p> + +<p>"Why Marat."</p> + +<p>"No, no, Monsieur Mouton. Murat, let us understand one another, hang it +all!"</p> + +<p>"Precisely, Marat, a scoundrel. He betrayed the Emperor in 1815. That is +why I say all the papers are alike," continued Monsieur Mouton, +returning to the original theme of what he called an explanation. "Do +you know what I should like, Monsieur Rodolphe? Well, to put a case. I +should like a good paper. Ah! not too large and not stuffed with +phrases."</p> + +<p>"You are exacting," interrupted Rodolphe, "a newspaper without phrases."</p> + +<p>"Yes, certainly. Follow my idea?"</p> + +<p>"I am trying to."</p> + +<p>"A paper which should simply give the state of the King's health and of +the crops. For after all, what is the use of all your papers that no one +can understand? To put a case. I am at the town hall, am I not? I keep +my books; very good. Well, it is just as if someone came to me and said, +'Monsieur Mouton, you enter the deaths—well, do this, do that.' What do +you mean by this and that? Well, it is the same thing with newspapers," +he wound up with.</p> + +<p>"Evidently," said a neighbor who had understood.</p> + +<p>And Monsieur Mouton having received the congratulations of some of the +other frequenters of the cafe who shared his opinion, resumed his game +at dominoes.</p> + +<p>"I have taught him his place," said he, indicating Rodolphe, who had +returned to the same table at which Schaunard and Colline were seated.</p> + +<p>"What a blockhead!" said Rodolphe to the two young fellows.</p> + +<p>"He has a fine head, with his eyelids like the hood of a cabriolet, and +his eyes like glass marbles," said Schaunard, pulling out a wonderfully +coloured pipe.</p> + +<p>"By Jupiter, sir," said Rodolphe, "that is a very pretty pipe of yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I have a much finer one I wear in society," replied Schaunard, +carelessly, "pass me some tobacco, Colline."</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" said the philosopher, "I have none left."</p> + +<p>"Allow me to offer you some," observed Rodolphe, pulling a packet of +tobacco out of his pocket and placing it on the table.</p> + +<p>To this civility Colline thought it his duty to respond by an offer of +glasses round.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned on literature. Rodolphe, +questioned as to the profession already revealed by his garb, confessed +his relation with the Muses, and stood a second round of drinks. As the +waiter was going off with the bottle Schaunard requested him to be good +enough to forget it. He had heard the silvery tinkle of a couple of +five-franc pieces in one of Colline's pockets. Rodolphe had soon reached +the same level of expansiveness as the two friends, and poured out his +confidences in turn.</p> + +<p>They would no doubt have passed the night at the cafe if they had not +been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken +them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a +violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, +one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the other at Montmartre.</p> + +<p>Schaunard, who had wholly forgotten that he was without a residence, +offered them hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Come to my place," said he, "I live close by, we will pass the night in +discussing literature and art."</p> + +<p>"You shall play and Rodolphe will recite some of his verses to us," said +Colline.</p> + +<p>"Right you are," said Schaunard, "life is short, and we must enjoy +ourselves whilst we can."</p> + +<p>Arriving at the house, which Schaunard had some difficulty in +recognizing, he sat down for a moment on a corner-post waiting for +Rodolphe and Colline, who had gone into a wine-shop that was still open +to obtain the primary element of a supper. When they came back, +Schaunard rapped several times at the door, for he vaguely recollected +that the porter had a habit of keeping him waiting. The door at length +opened, and old Durand, half aroused from his first sleep, and no longer +recalling that Schaunard had ceased to be his tenant, did not disturb +himself when the latter called out his name to him.</p> + +<p>When they had all three gained the top of the stairs, the ascent of +which had been as lengthy as it was difficult, Schaunard, who was the +foremost, uttered a cry of astonishment at finding the key in the +keyhole of his door.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"I cannot make it out," muttered the other. "I find the key in the door, +though I took it away with me this morning. Ah! we shall see. I put it +in my pocket. Why, confound it, here it is still!" he exclaimed, +displaying a key. "This is witchcraft."</p> + +<p>"Phantasmagoria," said Colline.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," added Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"But," resumed Schaunard, whose voice betrayed a commencement of alarm, +"do you hear that?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"My piano, which is playing of its own accord <i>do la mi re do, la si sol +re.</i> Scoundrel of a re, it is still false."</p> + +<p>"But it cannot be in your room," said Rodolphe, and he added in a +whisper to Colline, against whom he was leaning heavily, "he is tight."</p> + +<p>"So I think. In the first place, it is not a piano at all, it is a +flute."</p> + +<p>"But you are screwed too, my dear fellow," observed the poet to the +philosopher, who had sat down on the landing, "it is a violin."</p> + +<p>"A vio—, pooh! I say, Schaunard," hiccupped Colline, pulling his friend +by the legs, "here is a joke, this gentleman makes out that it is a +vio—"</p> + +<p>"Hang it all," exclaimed Schaunard in the height of terror, "it is +magic."</p> + +<p>"Phantasma-goria," howled Colline, letting fall one of the bottles he +held by his hand.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," yelled Rodolphe in turn.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this uproar the room door suddenly opened, and an +individual holding a triple-branched candlestick in which pink candles +were burning, appeared on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked he, bowing courteously to the three +friends.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, what am I about? I have made a mistake, this is not my +room," said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Sir," added Colline and Rodolphe, simultaneously, addressing the person +who had opened the door, "be good enough to excuse our friend, he is as +drunk as three fiddlers."</p> + +<p>Suddenly a gleam of lucidity flashed through Schaunard's intoxication, +he read on his door these words written in chalk:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have called three times for my New Year's gift—PHEMIE."</p></div> + +<p>"But it is all right, it is all right, I am indeed at home," he +exclaimed, "here is the visiting card Phemie left me on New Year's Day; +it is really my door."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, sir," said Rodolphe, "I am truly bewildered."</p> + +<p>"Believe me, sir," added Colline, "that for my part, I am an active +partner in my friend's confusion."</p> + +<p>The young fellow who had opened the door could not help laughing.</p> + +<p>"If you come into my room for a moment," he replied, "no doubt your +friend, as soon as he has looked around, will see his mistake."</p> + +<p>"Willingly."</p> + +<p>And the poet and philosopher each taking Schaunard by an arm, led him +into the room, or rather the palace of Marcel, whom no doubt our readers +have recognized.</p> + +<p>Schaunard cast his eyes vaguely around him, murmuring, "It is +astonishing how my dwelling is embellished!"</p> + +<p>"Well, are you satisfied now?" asked Colline.</p> + +<p>But Schaunard having noticed the piano had gone to it, and was playing +scales.</p> + +<p>"Here, you fellows, listen to this," said he, striking the notes, "this +is something like, the animal has recognized his master,<i> si la sol, fa +mi re.</i> Ah! wretched re, you are always the same. I told you it was my +instrument."</p> + +<p>"He insists on it," said Colline to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"He insists on it," repeated Rodolphe to Marcel.</p> + +<p>"And that," added Schaunard, pointing to the star-adorned petticoat that +was lying on a chair, "it is not an adornment of mine, perhaps? Ah!"</p> + +<p>And he looked Marcel straight in the face.</p> + +<p>"And this," continued he, unfastening from the wall the notice to quit +already spoken of.</p> + +<p>And he began to read, "Therefore Monsieur Schaunard is hereby required +to give up possession of the said premises, and to leave them in +tenantable repair, before noon on the eighth day of April. As witness +the present formal notice to quit, the cost of which is five francs." +"Ha! ha! so I am not the Monsieur Schaunard to whom formal notice to +quit is given at a cost of five francs? And these, again," he continued, +recognizing his slippers on Marcel's feet, "are not those my papouches, +the gift of a beloved hand? It is your turn, sir," said he to Marcel, +"to explain your presence amongst my household goods."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," replied Marcel, addressing himself more especially to +Colline and Rodolphe, "this gentleman," and he pointed to Schaunard, "is +at home, I admit."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Schaunard, "that's lucky."</p> + +<p>"But," continued Marcel, "I am at home too."</p> + +<p>"But, sir," broke in Rodolphe, "if our friend recognizes—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Colline, "if our friend—"</p> + +<p>"And if on your side you recall that—," added Rodolphe, "how is it +that—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied his echo Colline, "how is it that—"</p> + +<p>"Have the kindness to sit down, gentlemen," replied Marcel, "and I will +explain the mystery to you."</p> + +<p>"If we were to liquify the explanation?" risked Colline.</p> + +<p>"Over a mouthful of something," added Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>The four young fellows sat down to table and attacked a piece of cold +veal which the wine-shop keeper had let them have.</p> + +<p>Marcel then explained what had taken place in the morning between +himself and the landlord when he had come to move in.</p> + +<p>"Then," observed Rodolphe, "this gentleman is quite right, and we are in +his place?"</p> + +<p>"You are at home," said Marcel politely.</p> + +<p>But it was a tremendous task to make Schaunard understand what had taken +place. A comical incident served to further complicate the situation. +Schaunard, when looking for something in a sideboard, found the change +of the five hundred franc note that Marcel had handed to Monsieur +Bernard that morning.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I was quite sure," he exclaimed, "that Fortune would not desert me. +I remember now that I went out this morning to run after her. On account +of its being quarter-day she must have looked in during my absence. We +crossed one another on the way, that it is. How right I was to leave the +key in my drawer!"</p> + +<p>"Delightful madness!" murmured Rodolphe, looking at Schaunard, who was +building up the money in equal piles.</p> + +<p>"A dream, a falsehood, such is life," added the philosopher.</p> + +<p>Marcel laughed.</p> + +<p>An hour later they had all four fallen asleep.</p> + +<p>The next day they woke up at noon, and at first seemed very much +surprised to find themselves together. Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe +did not appear to recognize one another, and addressed one another as +"sir." Marcel had to remind them that they had come together the evening +before.</p> + +<p>At that moment old Durand entered the room.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said he to Marcel, "it is the month of April, eighteen hundred +and forty, there is mud in the streets, and His Majesty Louis-Philippe +is still King of France and Navarre. What!" exclaimed the porter on +seeing his former tenant, "Monsieur Schaunard, how did you come here?"</p> + +<p>"By the telegraph," replied Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replied the porter, "you are still a joker—"</p> + +<p>"Durand," said Marcel, "I do not like subordinates mingling in +conversation with me, go to the nearest restaurant and have a breakfast +for four sent up. Here is the bill of fare," he added, handing him a +slip of paper on which he had written it. "Go."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," continued Marcel, addressing the three young fellows, "you +invited me to supper last night, allow me to offer you a breakfast this +morning, not in my room, but in ours," he added, holding out his hand to +Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Oh! no," said Schaunard sentimentally, "let us never leave one +another."</p> + +<p>"That's right, we are very comfortable here," added Colline.</p> + +<p>"To leave you for a moment," continued Rodolphe. "Tomorrow the 'Scarf of +Iris,' a fashion paper of which I am editor, appears, and I must go and +correct my proofs; I will be back in an hour."</p> + +<p>"The deuce!" said Colline, "that reminds me that I have a lesson to give +to an Indian prince who has come to Paris to learn Arabic."</p> + +<p>"Go tomorrow," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" said the philosopher, "the prince is to pay me today. And then +I must acknowledge to you that this auspicious day would be spoilt for +me if I did not take a stroll amongst the bookstalls."</p> + +<p>"But will you come back?" said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"With the swiftness of an arrow launched by a steady hand," replied the +philosopher, who loved eccentric imagery.</p> + +<p>And he went out with Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"In point of fact," said Schaunard when left alone with Marcel, "instead +of lolling on the sybarite's pillow, suppose I was to go out to seek +some gold to appease the cupidity of Monsieur Bernard?"</p> + +<p>"Then," said Marcel uneasily, "you still mean to move?"</p> + +<p>"Hang it," replied Schaunard, "I must, since I have received a formal +notice to quit, at a cost of five francs."</p> + +<p>"But," said Marcel, "if you move, shall you take your furniture with +you?"</p> + +<p>"I have that idea. I will not leave a hair, as Monsieur Bernard says."</p> + +<p>"The deuce! That will be very awkward for me," said Marcel, "since I +have hired your room furnished."</p> + +<p>"There now, that's so," replied Schaunard. "Ah! bah," he added in a +melancholy tone, "there is nothing to prove that I shall find my +thousand francs today, tomorrow, or even later on."</p> + +<p>"Stop a bit," exclaimed Marcel, "I have an idea."</p> + +<p>"Unfold it."</p> + +<p>"This is the state of things. Legally, this lodging is mine, since I +have paid a month in advance."</p> + +<p>"The lodging, yes, but as to the furniture, if I pay, I can legally take +it away, and if it were possible I would even take it away illegally."</p> + +<p>"So that," continued Marcel, "you have furniture and no lodging, and I +have lodging and no furniture."</p> + +<p>"That is the position," observed Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"This lodging suits me," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"And for my part is has never suited me better," said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Well then, we can settle this business," resumed Marcel, "stay with me, +I will apply house-room, and you shall supply the furniture."</p> + +<p>"And the rent?" said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Since I have some money just now I will pay it, it will be your turn +next time. Think about it."</p> + +<p>"I never think about anything, above all accepting a suggestion which +suits me. Carried unanimously, in point of fact, Painting and Music are +sisters."</p> + +<p>"Sisters-in-law," observed Marcel.</p> + +<p>At that moment Colline and Rodolphe, who had met one another, came in.</p> + +<p>Marcel and Schaunard informed them of their partnership.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, tapping his waistcoat pocket, "I am ready to +stand dinner all round."</p> + +<p>"That is just what I was going to have the honour of proposing," said +Colline, taking out a gold coin which he stuck in his eye like a glass. +"My prince gave me this to buy an Arabic grammar, which I have just paid +six sous ready cash for."</p> + +<p>"I," said Rodolphe, "have got the cashier of the 'Scarf of Iris' to +advance me thirty francs under the pretext that I wanted it to get +vaccinated."</p> + +<p>"It is general pay-day then?" said Schaunard, "there is only myself +unable to stand anything. It is humiliating."</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile," said Rodolphe, "I maintain my offer of a dinner."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Colline.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Rodolphe, "we will toss up which shall settle the +bill."</p> + +<p>"No," said Schaunard, "I have something far better than that to offer +you as a way of getting over the difficulty."</p> + +<p>"Let us have it."</p> + +<p>"Rodolphe shall pay for dinner, and Colline shall stand supper."</p> + +<p>"That is what I call Solomonic jurisprudence," exclaimed the +philosopher.</p> + +<p>"It is worse than Camacho's wedding," added Marcel.</p> + +<p>The dinner took place at a Provencal restaurant in the Rue Dauphine, +celebrated for its literary waiters and its "Ayoli." As it was necessary +to leave room for the supper, they ate and drank in moderation. The +acquaintance, begun the evening before between Colline and Schaunard and +later on with Marcel, became more intimate; each of the young fellows +hoisted the flag of his artistic opinions, and all four recognized that +they had like courage and similar hopes. Talking and arguing they +perceived that their sympathies were akin, that they had all the same +knack in that chaff which amuses without hurting, and that the virtues +of youth had not left a vacant spot in their heart, easily stirred by +the sight of the narration of anything noble. All four starting from the +same mark to reach the same goal, they thought that there was something +more than chance in their meeting, and that it might after all be +Providence who thus joined their hands and whispered in their ears the +evangelic motto, which should be the sole charter of humanity, "Love one +another."</p> + +<p>At the end of the repast, which closed in somewhat grave mood, Rodolphe +rose to propose a toast to the future, and Colline replied in a short +speech that was not taken from any book, had no pretension to style, +and was merely couched in the good old dialect of simplicity, making +that which is so badly delivered so well understood.</p> + +<p>"What a donkey this philosopher is!" murmured Schaunard, whose face was +buried in his glass, "here is he obliging me to put water in my wine."</p> + +<p>After dinner they went to take coffee at the Cafe Momus, where they had +already spent the preceding evening. It was from that day that the +establishment in question became uninhabitable by its other frequenters.</p> + +<p>After coffee and nips of liqueurs the Bohemian clan, definitely founded, +returned to Marcel's lodging, which took the name of Schaunard's +Elysium. Whilst Colline went to order the supper he had promised, the +others bought squibs, crackers and other pyrotechnic materials, and +before sitting down to table they let off from the windows a magnificent +display of fireworks which turned the whole house topsy-turvey, and +during which the four friends shouted at the top of their voices—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Let us celebrate this happy day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The next morning they again found themselves all four together but +without seeming astonished this time. Before each going about his +business they went together and breakfasted frugally at the Cafe Momus, +where they made an appointment for the evening and where for a long time +they were seen to return daily.</p> + +<p>Such are the chief personages who will reappear in the episodes of which +this volume is made up, a volume which is not a romance and has no other +pretension than that set forth on its title-page, for the "Bohemians of +the Latin Quarter" is only a series of social studies, the heroes of +which belong to a class badly judged till now, whose greatest crime is +lack of order, and who can even plead in excuse that this very lack of +order is a necessity of the life they lead.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER II</a></h2> + +<h3>A GOOD ANGEL</h3> + + +<p>Schaunard and Marcel, who had been grinding away valiantly a whole +morning, suddenly struck work.</p> + +<p>"Thunder and lightning! I'm hungry!" cried Schaunard. And he added +carelessly, "Do we breakfast today?"</p> + +<p>Marcel appeared much astonished at this very inopportune question.</p> + +<p>"How long has it been the fashion to breakfast two days running?" he +asked. "And yesterday was Thursday." He finished his reply by tracing +with his mahl-stick the ecclesiastic ordinance:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"On Friday eat no meat,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor aught resembling it."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Schaunard, finding no answer, returned to his picture, which represented +a plain inhabited by a red tree and a blue tree shaking branches; an +evident allusion to the sweets of friendship, which had a very +philosophical effect.</p> + +<p>At this moment the porter knocked; he had brought a letter for Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Three sous," said he.</p> + +<p>"You are sure?" replied the artist. "Very well, you can owe it to us."</p> + +<p>He shut the door in the man's face, and opened the letter. At the first +line, he began to vault around the room like a rope-dancer and thundered +out, at the top of his voice, this romantic ditty, which indicated with +him the highest pitch of ecstasy:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"There were four juveniles in our street;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They fell so sick they could not eat;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They carried them to the hospital!—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Tal! Tal! Tal! Tal!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Oh yes!" said Schaunard, taking him up:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"They put all four into one big bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Two at the feet and two at the head."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Think I don't know it?" Marcel continued:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"There came a sister of Charity—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ty! Ty! tee! tee!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"If you don't stop," said Schaunard, who suspected signs of mental +alienation, "I'll play the allegro of my symphony on 'The Influence of +Blue in the Arts.'" So saying, he approached the piano.</p> + +<p>This menace had the effect of a drop of cold water in a boiling fluid. +Marcel grew calm as if by magic. "Look there!" said he, passing the +letter to his friend. It was an invitation to dine with a deputy, an +enlightened patron of the arts in general and Marcel in particular, +since the latter had taken the portrait of his country-house.</p> + +<p>"For today," sighed Schaunard. "Unluckily the ticket is not good for +two. But stay! Now I think of it, your deputy is of the government +party; you cannot, you must not accept. Your principles will not permit +you to partake of the bread which has been watered by the tears of the +people."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" replied Marcel, "my deputy is a moderate radical; he voted +against the government the other day. Besides, he is going to get me an +order, and he has promised to introduce me in society. Moreover, this +may be Friday as much as it likes; I am famished as Ugolino, and I mean +to dine today. There now!"</p> + +<p>"There are other difficulties," continued Schaunard, who could not help +being a little jealous of the good fortune that had fallen to his +friend's lot. "You can't dine out in a red flannel shirt and slippers."</p> + +<p>"I shall borrow clothes of Rodolphe or Colline."</p> + +<p>"Infatuated youth! Do you forget that this is the twentieth, and at this +time of the month their wardrobe is up to the very top of the spout?"</p> + +<p>"Between now and five o'clock this evening I shall find a dress-coat."</p> + +<p>"I took three weeks to get one when I went to my cousin's wedding and +that was in January."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I shall go as I am," said Marcel, with a theatrical stride. +"It shall certainly never be said that a miserable question of etiquette +hindered me from making my first step in society."</p> + +<p>"Without boots," suggested his friend.</p> + +<p>Marcel rushed out in a state of agitation impossible to describe. At the +end of two hours he returned, loaded with a false collar.</p> + +<p>"Hardly worth while to run so far for that," said Schaunard. "There was +paper enough to make a dozen."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Marcel, tearing his hair, "we must have some +things—confound it!" And he commenced a thorough investigation of every +corner of the two rooms. After an hour's search, he realized a costume +thus composed:</p> + +<p>A pair of plaid trousers, a gray hat, a red cravat, a blue waistcoat, +two boots, one black glove, and one glove that had been white.</p> + +<p>"That will make two black gloves on a pinch," said Schaunard. "You are +going to look like the solar spectrum in that dress. To be sure, a +colourist such as you are—"</p> + +<p>Marcel was trying the boots. Alas! They are both for the same foot! The +artist, in despair, perceived an old boot in a corner which had served +as the receptacle of their empty bladders. He seized upon it.</p> + +<p>"From Garrick to Syllable," said his jesting comrade, "one square-toed +and the other round."</p> + +<p>"I am going to varnish them and it won't show."</p> + +<p>"A good idea! Now you only want the dress-coat."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Marcel, biting his fists:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"To have one would I give ten years of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And this right hand, I tell thee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They heard another knock at the door. Marcel opened it.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Schaunard?" inquired a stranger, halting on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"At your service," replied the painter, inviting him in.</p> + +<p>The stranger had one of those honest faces which typify the provincial.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said he. "My cousin has often spoke to me of your talent for +portrait painting, and being on the point of making a voyage to the +colonies, whither I am deputed by the sugar refiners of the city of +Nantes, I wish to leave my family something to remember me by. That is +why I am come to see you."</p> + +<p>"Holy Providence!" ejaculated Schaunard. "Marcel, a seat for Monsieur—"</p> + +<p>"Blancheron," said the new-comer, "Blancheron of Nantes, delegate of the +sugar interest, Ex-Mayor, Captain of the National Guard, and author of a +pamphlet on the sugar question."</p> + +<p>"I am highly honoured at having been chosen by you," said the artist, +with a low reverence to the delegate of the refiners. "How do you wish +to have your portrait taken?"</p> + +<p>"In miniature," replied Blancheron, "like that," and he pointed to a +portrait in oil, for the delegate was one of that class with whom +everything smaller than the side of a house is miniature. Schaunard had +the measure of his man immediately, especially when the other added that +he wished to be painted with the best colours.</p> + +<p>"I never use any other," said the artist. "How large do you wish it to +be?"</p> + +<p>"About so big," answered the other, pointing to a kit-cat. "How much +will it be?"</p> + +<p>"Sixty francs with the hands, fifty without."</p> + +<p>"The deuce it will! My cousin talked of thirty francs."</p> + +<p>"It depends on the season. Colours are much dearer at some times of the +year than at others."</p> + +<p>"Bless me! It's just like sugar!"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"Fifty francs then be it."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong there; for ten francs more you will have your hands, and +I will put in them your pamphlet on the sugar question, which will have +a very good effect."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, you are right!"</p> + +<p>"Thunder and lightning!" said Schaunard to himself, "if he goes on so, I +shall burst, and hurt him with one of the pieces."</p> + +<p>"Did you see?" whispered Marcel.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"He has a black coat."</p> + +<p>"I take. Let me manage."</p> + +<p>"Well," quoth the delegate, "when do we begin? There is no time to +lose, for I sail soon."</p> + +<p>"I have to take a little trip myself the day after tomorrow; so, if you +please, we will begin at once. One good sitting will help us along some +way."</p> + +<p>"But it will soon be night, and you can't paint by candle light."</p> + +<p>"My room is arranged so that we can work at all hours in it. If you will +take off your coat, and put yourself in position, we will commence."</p> + +<p>"Take off my coat! What for?"</p> + +<p>"You told me that you intend this portrait for your family."</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you ought to be represented in your at-home dress—in your +dressing gown. It is the custom to be so."</p> + +<p>"But I haven't any dressing gown here."</p> + +<p>"But I have. The case is provided for," quoth Schaunard, presenting to +his sitter a very ragged garment, so ornamented with paint-marks that +the honest provincial hesitated about setting into it.</p> + +<p>"A very odd dress," said he.</p> + +<p>"And very valuable. A Turkish vizier gave it to Horace Vernet, and he +gave it to me when he had done with it. I am a pupil of his."</p> + +<p>"Are you a pupil of Vernet's?"</p> + +<p>"I am proud to be," said the artist. "Wretch that I am!" he muttered to +himself, "I deny my gods and masters!"</p> + +<p>"You have reason to be proud, my young friend," replied the delegate +donning the dressing-gown with the illustrious origin.</p> + +<p>"Hang up Monsieur Blancheron's coat in the wardrobe," said Schaunard to +his friend, with a significant wink.</p> + +<p>"Ain't he too good?" whispered Marcel as he pounced on his prey, and +nodded towards Blancheron. "If you could only keep a piece of him."</p> + +<p>"I'll try; but do you dress yourself, and cut. Come back by ten; I will +keep him till then. Above all, bring me something in your pocket."</p> + +<p>"I'll bring you a pineapple," said Marcel as he evaporated.</p> + +<p>He dressed himself hastily; the dress-coat fit him like a glove. Then he +went out by the second door of the studio.</p> + +<p>Schaunard set himself to work. When it was fairly night, Monsieur +Blancheron heard the clock strike six, and remembered that he had not +dined. He informed Schaunard of the fact.</p> + +<p>"I am in the same position," said the other, "but to oblige you, I will +go without today, though I had an invitation in the Faubourg St. +Germain. But we can't break off now, it might spoil the resemblance." +And he painted away harder than ever. "By the way," said he, suddenly, +"we can dine without breaking off. There is a capital restaurant +downstairs, which will send us up anything we like." And Schaunard +awaited the effect of his trial of plurals.</p> + +<p>"I accept your idea," said Blancheron, "an in return, I hope you will do +me the honor of keeping me company at table."</p> + +<p>Schaunard bowed. "Really," said he to himself, "this is a fine fellow—a +very god-send. Will you order the dinner?" he asked his Amphitryon.</p> + +<p>"You will oblige me by taking that trouble," replied the other, +politely.</p> + +<p>"So much the worse for you, my boy," said the painter as he pitched down +the stairs, four steps at a time. Marching up to the counter, he wrote +out a bill of fare that made the Vatel of the establishment turn pale.</p> + +<p>"Claret! Who's to pay for it?"</p> + +<p>"Probably not I," said Schaunard, "but an uncle of mine that you will +find up there, a very good judge. So, do your best, and let us have +dinner in half an hour, served on your porcelain."</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock, Monsieur Blancheron felt the necessity of pouring into +a friend's ear his idea on the sugar question, and accordingly recited +his pamphlet to Schaunard, who accompanied him on the piano.</p> + +<p>At ten, they danced the galop together.</p> + +<p>At eleven, they swore never to separate, and to make wills in each +other's favor.</p> + +<p>At twelve, Marcel returned, and found them locked in a mutual embrace, +and dissolved in tears. The floor was half an inch deep in fluid—either +from that cause or the liquor that had been spilt. He stumbled against +the table, and remarked the splendid relics of the sumptuous feast. He +tried the bottles, they were utterly empty. He attempted to rouse +Schaunard, but the later menaced him with speedy death, if he tore him +from his friend Blancheron, of whom he was making a pillow.</p> + +<p>"Ungrateful wretch!" said Marcel, taking out of his pocket a handful of +nuts, "when I had brought him some dinner!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER III</a></h2> + +<h3>LENTEN LOVES</h3> + + +<p>One evening in Lent Rodolphe returned home early with the idea of +working. But scarcely had he sat down at his table and dipped his pen in +the ink than he was disturbed by a singular noise. Putting his ear to +the treacherous partition that separated him from the next room, he +listened, and plainly distinguished a dialogue broken by the sound of +kisses and other amourous interruptions.</p> + +<p>"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, glancing at his clock, "it is still +early, and my neighbor is a Juliet who usually keeps her Romeo till long +after the lark has sung. I cannot work tonight."</p> + +<p>And taking his hat he went out. Handing in his key at the porter's +lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant. +The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she +could open the latch.</p> + +<p>"In point of fact," though Rodolphe, "there are times when porters grow +human again."</p> + +<p>Passing through the door he found in its recess a sapper and a cook +exchanging the luck-penny of love.</p> + +<p>"Hang it," said Rodolphe, alluding to the warrior and his robust +companion, "here are heretics who scarcely think that we are in Lent."</p> + +<p>And he set out for the abode of one of his friends who lived in the +neighborhood.</p> + +<p>"If Marcel is at home," he said to himself, "we will pass the evening in +abusing Colline. One must do something."</p> + +<p>As he rapped vigorously, the door was partly opened, and a young man, +simply clad in a shirt and an eye-glass, presented himself.</p> + +<p>"I cannot receive you," said he to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked the latter.</p> + +<p>"There," said Marcel, pointing to a feminine head that had just peeped +out from behind a curtain, "there is my answer."</p> + +<p>"It is not a pretty one," said Rodolphe, who had just had the door +closed in his face. "Ah!" said he to himself when he got into the +street, "what shall I do? Suppose I call on Colline, we could pass the +time in abusing Marcel."</p> + +<p>Passing along the Rue de l'Ouest, usually dark and unfrequented, +Rodolphe made out a shade walking up and down in melancholy fashion, and +muttering in rhyme.</p> + +<p>"Ho, ho!" said Rodolphe, "who is this animated sonnet loitering here? +What, Colline!"</p> + +<p>"What Rodolphe! Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"To your place."</p> + +<p>"You won't find me there."</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Waiting."</p> + +<p>"What are you waiting for?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Colline in a tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for +when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and songs in the +air?"</p> + +<p>"Speak in prose."</p> + +<p>"I am waiting for a girl."</p> + +<p>"Good night," said Rodolphe, who went on his way continuing his +monologue. "What," said he, "is it St. Cupid's Day and cannot I take a +step without running up against people in love? It is scandalously +immoral. What are the police about?"</p> + +<p>As the gardens of the Luxembourg were still open, Rodolphe passed into +them to shorten his road. Amidst the deserted paths he often saw +flitting before him, as though disturbed by his footsteps, couples +mysteriously interlaced, and seeking, as a poet has remarked, the +two-fold luxury of silence and shade.</p> + +<p>"This," said Rodolphe, "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet +overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat +and gazed sentimentally at the moon.</p> + +<p>In a short time he was wholly under the spell of a feverish +hallucination. It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who +peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the +goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the +great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to +him to have grown singularly short.</p> + +<p>From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way +towards a nymph of the vicinity.</p> + +<p>"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is +Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the +park keeper does not surprise them."</p> + +<p>Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the +flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream +Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped +him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"It is closing time, sir," said he.</p> + +<p>"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five +minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be +found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances."</p> + +<p>And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was +for him the <i>Marseillaise</i> of love.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated +before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on +account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline +when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that +was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures +to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend.</p> + +<p>"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in +love."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad +toothache in the heart."</p> + +<p>"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing +but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the +Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that +stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat +and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle +dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers."</p> + +<p>"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are +chaffing me."</p> + +<p>"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say, +no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see, +Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help +me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the +first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love +her."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his +magnificent nasal bass.</p> + +<p>"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite +forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love +stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and +sometimes even the <i>denouement</i>; I never know how to begin."</p> + +<p>"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand +you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue +eyes."</p> + +<p>"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no—but gloves—you know that we +can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic +regions."</p> + +<p>"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the +fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and +he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a +corner.</p> + +<p>"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am +going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary +to put in an appearance I will call you."</p> + +<p>For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time +broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards +Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your +advocate has won the cause."</p> + +<p>"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt +far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with."</p> + +<p>"You have no need to recommend me to do that."</p> + +<p>"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside +her."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by +her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet."</p> + +<p>"That is because he is a musician."</p> + +<p>Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house +in the Rue St. Denis.</p> + +<p>"It is here that I live," said the girl.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?"</p> + +<p>"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening."</p> + +<p>"For sure?"</p> + +<p>"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to +Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like +that, I must write some verses."</p> + +<p>The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of +paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and +although he had slept very little, he got up at once.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to +wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?"</p> + +<p>And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as +though intending to say to him "Work."</p> + +<p>"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of +ink."</p> + +<p>He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet +any friends.</p> + +<p>"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for +me in advance."</p> + +<p>After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got +into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature, +and only returned to Paris at nightfall.</p> + +<p>After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature, +Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being +able to dress in white.</p> + +<p>From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of +expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the +old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already +began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a +genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the +willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time +chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without +bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about +her neck.</p> + +<p>"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him.</p> + +<p>But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had +made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who +would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he +could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves.</p> + +<p>At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke +sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock +entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two +timid taps were given at the door.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe went and opened it. It was Louise.</p> + +<p>"You see I have kept my word," said she.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe drew the curtain and lit a fresh candle.</p> + +<p>During this operation the girl had removed her bonnet and shawl, which +she went and placed on the bed. The dazzling whiteness of the sheets +caused her to smile, and almost to blush.</p> + +<p>Louise was rather pleasing than pretty; her fresh colored face presented +an attractive blending of simplicity and archness. It was something like +an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions +were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple, +attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess +from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise +appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of +attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the +artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly shod feet were of +satisfactory smallness, even for a romantic lover smitten by Andalusian +or Chinese miniatures. As to her hands, their softness attested +idleness. In fact, for six months past she had no longer any reason to +fear needle pricks. In short, Louise was one of those fickle birds of +passage who from fancy, and often from necessity, make for a day, or +rather a night, their nest in the garrets of the students' quarter, and +remain there willingly for a few days, if one knows how to retain them +by a whim or by some ribbons.</p> + +<p>After having chatted for an hour with Louise, Rodolphe showed her, as an +example, the group of Cupid and Psyche.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it Paul and Virginia?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Rodolphe, who did not want to vex her at the outset by +contradicting her.</p> + +<p>"They are very well done," said Louise.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" thought Rodolphe, gazing at her, "the poor child is not up to +much as regards literature. I am sure that her only orthography is that +of the heart. I must buy her a dictionary."</p> + +<p>However, as Louise complained of her boots incommoding her, he +obligingly helped her to unlace them.</p> + +<p>All at once the light went out.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who has blown the candle out?"</p> + +<p>A joyful burst of laughter replied to him.</p> + +<p>A few days later Rodolphe met one of his friends in the street.</p> + +<p>"What are you up to?" said the latter. "One no longer sees anything of +you."</p> + +<p>"I am studying the poetry of intimacy," replied Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>The poor fellow spoke the truth. He sought from Louise more than the +poor girl could give him. An oaten pipe, she had not the strains of a +lyre. She spoke to, so to say, the jargon of love, and Rodolphe +insisted upon speaking the classic language. Thus they scarcely +understood each other.</p> + +<p>A week later, at the same ball at which she had found Rodolphe, Louise +met a fair young fellow, who danced with her several times, and at the +close of the entertainment took her home with him.</p> + +<p>He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very +fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket.</p> + +<p>Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter +couched as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time. +Good bye.</p> + +<p>Louise."</p></div> + +<p>As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his +light suddenly went out.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the +evening that Louise came—it was bound to finish with our union. If I +had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half +annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer, +which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves.</p> + +<p>One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light +his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting +and the orthography of Louise.</p> + +<p>"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only +there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that +she loved me better than you?"</p> + +<p>"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and +shoulders have no need of grammar."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER IV</a></h2> + +<h3>ALI RODOLPHE; OR, THE TURK PERFORCE</h3> + + +<p>Ostracized by an inhospitable proprietor, Rodolphe had for some time +been leading a life compared with which the existence of a cloud is +rather stationary. He practiced assiduously the arts of going to bed +without supper, and supping without going to bed. He often dined with +Duke Humphrey, and generally slept at the sign of a clear sky. Still, +amid all these crosses and troubles, two things never forsook him; his +good humor and the manuscript of "The Avenger," a drama which had gone +the rounds of all the theaters in Paris.</p> + +<p>One day Rodolphe, who had been jugged for some slight choreographic +extravagances, stumbled upon an uncle of his, one Monetti, a stove maker +and smokey chimney doctor, and sargeant of the National Guard, whom he +had not seen for an age. Touched by his nephew's misfortunes, Uncle +Monetti promised to ameliorate his position. We shall see how, if the +reader is not afraid of mounting six stories.</p> + +<p>Take note of the banister, then, and follow. Up we go! Whew! One hundred +and twenty-five steps! Here we are at last. One more step, and we are in +the room; one more yet, and we should be out of it again. It's little, +but high up, with the advantages of good air and a fine prospect.</p> + +<p>The furniture is composed of two French stoves, several German ditto, +some ovens on the economic plan, (especially if you never make fire in +them,) a dozen stove pipes, some red clay, some sheet iron, and a whole +host of heating apparatus. We may mention, to complete the inventory, a +hammock suspended from two nails inserted in the wall, a three-legged +garden chair, a candlestick adorned with its <i>bobeche</i>, and some other +similar objects of elegant art. As to the second room—that is to say, +the balcony—two dwarf cypresses, in pots, make a park of it for fine +weather.</p> + +<p>At the moment of our entry, the occupant of the premises, a young man, +dressed like a Turk of the Comic Opera, is finishing a repast, in which +he shamelessly violates the law of the Prophet. Witness a bone that was +once a ham, and a bottle that has been full of wine. His meal over, the +young Turk stretches himself on the floor in true Eastern style, and +begins carelessly to smoke a <i>narghile</i>. While abandoning himself to +this Asiatic luxury, he passes his hand from time to time over the back +of a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who would doubtless respond to its +caresses where he not also in terra cotta, to match the rest of the +furniture.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a noise was heard in the entry, and the door opened, admitting +a person who, without saying a word, marched straight to one of the +stoves, which served the purpose of a secretary, opened the stove-door, +and drew out a bundle of papers.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" cried the new-comer, after examining the manuscript +attentively, "the chapter on ventilators not finished yet!"</p> + +<p>"Allow me to observe, uncle," replied the Turk, "the chapter on +ventilators is one of the most interesting in your book, and requires to +be studied with care. I am studying it."</p> + +<p>"But you miserable fellow, you are always saying that same thing. And +the chapter on stoves—where are you in that?"</p> + +<p>"The stoves are going on well, but, by the way, uncle, if you could give +me a little wood, it wouldn't hurt me. It is a little Siberia here. I am +so cold, that I make a thermometer go down below zero by just looking at +it."</p> + +<p>"What! you've used up one faggot already?"</p> + +<p>"Allow me to remark again, uncle, there are different kinds of faggots, +and yours was the very smallest kind."</p> + +<p>"I'll send you an economic log—that keeps the heat."</p> + +<p>"Exactly, and doesn't give any."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the uncle as he went off, "you shall have a little faggot, +and I must have my chapter on stoves for tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"When I have fire, that will inspire me," answered the Turk as he heard +himself locked in.</p> + +<p>Were we making a tragedy, this would be the time to bring in a +confidant. Noureddin or Osman he should be called, and he should advance +towards our hero with an air at the same time discreet and patronizing, +to console him for his reverses, by means of these three verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">'What saddening grief, my Lord, assails you now?<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Why sits this pallor on your noble brow?<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Does Allah lend your plans no helping hand?<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or cruel Ali, with severe command,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Remove to other shores the beauteous dame,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who charmed your eyes and set your heart on flame!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But we are not making a tragedy, so we must do without our confidant, +though he would be very convenient.</p> + +<p>Our hero is not what he appears to be. The turban does not make the +Turk. This young man is our friend Rodolphe, entertained by his uncle, +for whom he is drawing up a manual of "The Perfect Chimney Constructor." +In fact, Monsieur Monetti, an enthusiast for his art, had consecrated +his days to this science of chimneys. One day he formed the idea of +drawing up, for the benefit of posterity, a theoretic code of the +principles of that art, in the practice of which he so excelled, and he +had chosen his nephew, as we have seen, to frame the substance of his +ideas in an intelligible form. Rodolphe was found in board, lodging, and +other contingencies, and at the completion of the manual was to receive +a recompense of three hundred francs.</p> + +<p>In the beginning, to encourage his nephew, Monetti had generously made +him an advance of fifty francs. But Rodolphe, who had not seen so much +silver together for nearly a year, half crazy, in company with his +money, stayed out three days, and on the fourth came home alone! +Thereupon the uncle, who was in haste to have his "Manual" finished +inasmuch as he hoped to get a patent for it, dreading some new diversion +on his nephew's part, determined to make him work by preventing him from +going out. To this end he carried off his garments, and left him instead +the disguise under which we have seen him. Nevertheless, the famous +"Manual" continued to make very slow progress, for Rodolphe had no +genius whatever for this kind of literature. The uncle avenged himself +for this lazy indifference on the great subject of chimneys by making +his nephew undergo a host of annoyances. Sometimes he cut short his +commons, and frequently stopped the supply of tobacco.</p> + +<p>One Sunday, after having sweated blood and ink upon the great chapter of +ventilators, Rodolphe broke the pen, which was burning his fingers, and +went out to walk—in his "park." As if on purpose to plague him, and +excite his envy the more, he could not cast a single look about him +without perceiving the figure of a smoker on every window.</p> + +<p>On the gilt balcony of a new house opposite, an exquisite in his +dressing gown was biting off the end of an aristocratic "Pantellas" +cigar. A story above, an artist was sending before him an odorous cloud +of Turkish tobacco from his amber-mouthed pipe. At the window of a +<i>brasserie</i>, a fat German was crowning a foaming tankard, and emitting, +with the regularity of a machine, the dense puffs that escaped from his +meershaum. On the other side, a group of workmen were singing as they +passed on their way to the barriers, their "throat-scorchers" between +their teeth. Finally, all the other pedestrians visible in the street +were smoking.</p> + +<p>"Woe is me!" sighed Rodolphe, "except myself and my uncle's chimneys, +all creation is smoking at this hour!" And he rested his forehead on the +bar of the balcony, and thought how dreary life was.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, a burst of long and musical laughter parted under his feet. +Rodolphe bent forward a little, to discover the source of this volley of +gaiety, and perceived that he had been perceived by the tenant of the +story beneath him, Mademoiselle Sidonia, of the Luxembourg Theater. The +young lady advanced to the front of her balcony, rolling between her +fingers, with the dexterity of a Spaniard, a paper-full of light-colored +tobacco, which she took from a bag of embroidered velvet.</p> + +<p>"What a sweet cigar girl it is!" murmured Rodolphe, in an ecstacy of +contemplation.</p> + +<p>"Who is this Ali Baba?" thought Mademoiselle Sidonia on her part. And +she meditated on a pretext for engaging in conversation with Rodolphe, +who was himself trying to do the very same.</p> + +<p>"Bless me!" cried the lady, as if talking to herself, "what a bore! I've +no matches!"</p> + +<p>"Allow me to offer you some, mademoiselle," said Rodolphe, letting fall +on the balcony two or three lucifers rolled up in paper.</p> + +<p>"A thousand thanks," replied Sidonia, lighting her cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Pray, mademoiselle," continued Rodolphe, "in exchange for the trifling +service which my good angel has permitted me to render you, may I ask +you to do me a favor?"</p> + +<p>"Asking already," thought the actress, as she regarded Rodolphe with +more attention. "They say these Turks are fickle, but very agreeable. +Speak sir," she continued, raising her head towards the young man, "what +do you wish?"</p> + +<p>"The charity of a little tobacco, mademoiselle, only one pipe. I have +not smoked for two whole days."</p> + +<p>"Most willingly, but how? Will you take the trouble to come downstairs?"</p> + +<p>"Alas! I can't! I am shut up here, but am still free to employ a very +simple means." He fastened his pipe to a string, and let it glide down to +her balcony, where Sidonia filled it profusely herself. Rodolphe then +proceeded, with much ease and deliberation, to remount his pipe, which +arrived without accident. "Ah, mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, "how much +better this pipe would have seemed, if I could have lighted it at your +eyes!"</p> + +<p>It was at least the hundredth edition of this amiable pleasantry, but +Sidonia found it superb for all that, and thought herself bound to +reply, "You flatter me."</p> + +<p>"I assure you, mademoiselle, in right-down earnest, I think you +handsomer than all the Three Graces together."</p> + +<p>"Decidedly, Ali Baba is very polite," thought Sidonia. "Are you really a +Turk?" she asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Not by profession," he replied, "but by necessity. I am a dramatic +author."</p> + +<p>"I am an artist," she replied, then added, "My dear sir and neighbor, +will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?"</p> + +<p>"Alas!" answered Rodolphe, "though your invitation is like opening +heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell +you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and +chimney doctor, whose secretary I am now."</p> + +<p>"You shall dine with me for all that," replied Sidonia. "Listen, I shall +re-enter my room, and tap on the ceiling. Look where I strike and you +will find the traces of a trap which used to be there, and has since +been fastened up. Find the means of removing the piece of wood which +closes the hole, and then, although we are each in our own room, we +shall be as good as together."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe went to work at once. In five minutes a communication was +established between the two rooms.</p> + +<p>"It is a very little hole," said he, "but there will always be room +enough to pass you my heart."</p> + +<p>"Now," said Sidonia, "we will go to dinner. Set your table, and I will +pass you the dishes."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe let down his turban by a string, and brought it back laden with +eatables, then the poet and the actress proceeded to dine—on their +respective floors. Rodolphe devoured the pie with his teeth, and Sidonia +with his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Thanks to you, mademoiselle," he said, when their repast was finished, +"my stomach is satisfied. Can you not also satisfy the void of my heart, +which has been so long empty?"</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow!" said Sidonia, and climbing on a piece of furniture, she +lifted up her hand to Rodolphe's lips, who gloved it with kisses.</p> + +<p>"What a pity," he exclaimed, "you can't do as St. Denis, who had the +privilege of carrying his head in his hands!"</p> + +<p>To the dinner succeeded a sentimental literary conversation. Rodolphe +spoke of "The Avenger," and Sidonia asked him to read it. Leaning over +the hole, he began declaiming his drama to the actress, who, to hear +better, had put her arm chair on the top of a chest of drawers. She +pronounced "The Avenger" a masterpiece, and having some influence at the +theater, promised Rodolphe to get his piece received.</p> + +<p>But at the most interesting moment a step was heard in the entry, about +as light as that of the Commander's ghost in "Don Juan." It was Uncle +Monetti. Rodolphe had only just time to shut the trap.</p> + +<p>"Here," said Monetti to his nephew, "this letter has been running after +you for a month."</p> + +<p>"Uncle! Uncle!" cried Rodolphe, "I am rich at last! This letter informs +me that I have gained a prize of three hundred francs, given by an +academy of floral games. Quick! my coat and my things! Let me go to +gather my laurels. They await me at the Capitol!"</p> + +<p>"And my chapter on ventilators?" said Monetti, coldly.</p> + +<p>"I like that! Give me my things, I tell you; I can't go out so!"</p> + +<p>"You shall go out when my 'Manual' is finished," quoth the uncle, +shutting up his nephew under lock and key.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe, when left alone, did not hesitate on the course to take. He +transformed his quilt into a knotted rope, which he fastened firmly to +his own balcony, and in spite of the risk, descended by this extempore +ladder upon Mademoiselle Sidonia's.</p> + +<p>"Who is there?" she cried, on hearing Rodolphe knock at her window.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" he replied, "open!"</p> + +<p>"What do you want? Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Can you ask? I am the author of 'The Avenger,' come to look for my +heart, which I dropped through the trap into your room."</p> + +<p>"Rash youth!" said the actress, "you might have killed yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Sidonia," continued Rodolphe, showing her the letter he just +received. "You see, wealth and glory smile on me, let love do the same!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The following morning, by means of a masculine disguise, which Sidonia +procured for him, Rodolphe was enabled to escape from his uncle's +lodging. He ran to the secretary of the academy of floral games, to +receive a crown of gold sweetbrier, worth three hundred francs, which +lived</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"—as live roses the fairest—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The space of a day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A month after, Monsieur Monetti was invited by his nephew to assist at +the first representation of "The Avenger." Thanks to the talent of +Mademoiselle Sidonia, the piece had a run of seventeen nights, and +brought in forty francs to its author.</p> + +<p>Some time later—it was in the warm season—Rodolphe lodged in the +Avenue St. Cloud, third tree as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, on +the fifth branch.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER V</a></h2> + +<h3>THE CARLOVINGIAN COIN</h3> + + +<p>Towards the end of December the messengers of Bidault's agency were +entrusted with the distribution of about a hundred copies of a letter of +invitation, of which we certify that the following to be a true and +genuine copy:—</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>——-</p> + +<p><i>M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on Saturday +next, Christmas Eve. Fun!</i></p> + +<p><i>P.S. Life is short!</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENT</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>PART I</i></p> + +<p><i>7 o'clock—Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation.</i></p> + +<p><i>8.—Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," +comedy refused at the Odeon Theater.</i></p> + +<p><i> 8:30.—M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play his +imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the piano.</i></p> + +<p><i>9.—First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of +tragedy."</i></p> + +<p><i>9:30.—Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, +hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision +between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened.</i></p> + +<p><i>10.—M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early loves, +accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard.</i></p> + +<p><i>10:30.—Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of +tragedy."</i></p> + +<p><i>11.—Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>PART II</i></p> + +<p><i>Midnight.—M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his eyes +bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of Voltaire and +Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also improvise a +parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of Austerlitz.</i></p> + +<p><i>12:30.—M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an imitation +of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad.</i></p> + +<p><i>1.—Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of +tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one day +find themselves out of employment.</i></p> + +<p><i>2.—Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last until +morning.</i></p> + +<p><i>6.—Sunrise and final chorus.</i></p> + +<p><i>During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action.</i></p> + +<p><i>N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily +ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally requested +not to help themselves to the candle ends.</i></p></div> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p>Two days later, copies of this invitation were circulating among the +lower depths of art and literature, and created a profound sensation.</p> + +<p>There were, however, amongst the invited guests, some who cast doubt +upon the splendor of the promises made by the two friends.</p> + +<p>"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone +to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could +only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a +little filtered water in eclectic pottery."</p> + +<p>"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me +the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical."</p> + +<p>"Will there be any ladies?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard +is to bring some ladies of position."</p> + +<p>This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction +in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel +and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take +place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their +promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of +not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark +from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet +enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter +beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved +to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had +entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our +ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that +are indispensable to do the thing properly."</p> + +<p>"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel.</p> + +<p>And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends +went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the +way, the way of impossibility.</p> + +<p>However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as +of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a +helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time +came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively +modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon +themselves.</p> + +<p>And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously +reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item +"liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs.</p> + +<p>The problem was simplified, but not yet solved.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must now have recourse to strong +measures, we cannot cry off this time."</p> + +<p>"No, that is impossible," replied Marcel.</p> + +<p>"How long is it since I have heard the story of the Battle of +Studzianka?"</p> + +<p>"About two months."</p> + +<p>"Two months, good, that is a decent interval; my uncle will have no +ground for grumbling. I will go tomorrow and hear his account of that +engagement, that will be five francs for certain."</p> + +<p>"I," said Marcel, "will go and sell a deserted manor house to old +Medicis. That will make another five francs. If I have time enough to +put in three towers and a mill, it will perhaps run to ten francs, and +our budget will be complete."</p> + +<p>And the two friends fell asleep dreaming that the Princess Belgiojoso +begged them to change their reception day, in order not to rob her of +her customary guests.</p> + +<p>Awake at dawn, Marcel took a canvas and rapidly set to work to build up +a deserted manor house, an article which he was in the habit of +supplying to a broker of the Place de Carrousel. On his side, Rodolphe +went to pay a visit to his Uncle Monetti, who shone in the story of the +Retreat from Moscow, and to whom Rodolphe accorded five or six times in +course of the year, when matters were really serious, the satisfaction +of narrating his campaigns, in return for a small loan which the veteran +stove maker did not refuse too obstinately when due enthusiasm was +displayed in listening to his narrations.</p> + +<p>About two o'clock, Marcel with hanging head and a canvas under his arm, +met on the Place de Carrousel Rodolphe, who was returning from his +uncle's, and whose bearing also presaged ill news.</p> + +<p>"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?"</p> + +<p>"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?"</p> + +<p>"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He +wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers."</p> + +<p>"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," +murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think +if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing."</p> + +<p>And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness.</p> + +<p>At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four.</p> + +<p>"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly.</p> + +<p>"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain +sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?"</p> + +<p>"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? +They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the +days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an +emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often +occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?"</p> + +<p>"This is mere comedy," replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was +mingled with indulgence.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the +studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph.</p> + +<p>"We are saved!" he exclaimed. "I was sure that there was money here. +Behold!" and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and +half eaten away by rust and verdigris.</p> + +<p>It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily +intact, showed the date of Charlemagne's reign.</p> + +<p>"That, that's worth thirty sous," said Rodolphe, with a contemptuous +glance at his friend's find.</p> + +<p>"Thirty sous well employed will go a great way," replied Marcel. "With +twelve hundred men Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians lay down their +arms. Skill can replace numbers. I will go and swap the Carlovingian +crown at Daddy Medicis'. Is there not anything else saleable here? +Suppose I take the plaster cast of the tibia of Jaconowski, the Russian +drum major."</p> + +<p>"Take the tibia. But it is a nuisance, there will not be a single +ornament left here."</p> + +<p>During Marcel's absence, Rodolphe, his mind made up that that party +should be given in any case, went in search of his friend Colline, the +hyperphysical philosopher, who lived hard by.</p> + +<p>"I have come," said he, "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must +positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; lend me +yours."</p> + +<p>"But," said Colline hesitating, "as a guest I shall want my black +swallow-tail too."</p> + +<p>"I will allow you to come in a frock coat."</p> + +<p>"That won't do. You know very well I have never had a frock coat."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it can be settled in another way. If needs be, you need not +come to my party, and can lend me your swallow-tail."</p> + +<p>"That would be unpleasant. I am on the program, and must not be +lacking."</p> + +<p>"There are plenty of other things that will be lacking," said Rodolphe. +"Lend me your black swallow-tail, and if you will come, come as you +like; in your shirt sleeves, you will pass for a faithful servant."</p> + +<p>"Oh no!" said Colline, blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the +same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized +on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. +There are some odds and ends in the pockets."</p> + +<p>Colline's swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place it was +of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my +black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a +dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when +speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black +swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special +cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very +short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was +accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally +carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during +the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men +could go and refer to the skirts of Colline's swallow-tail—a library +always open.</p> + +<p>That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline's swallow-tail only contained +a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in +three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope's +"Essay on Man." When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed +Rodolphe to clothe himself in it.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" said the latter, "the left pocket still feels very heavy; you +have left something in it."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Colline, "that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign +languages pocket."</p> + +<p>And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a +stock breeder's manual in Chinese, his favorite reading.</p> + +<p>When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with +three five franc pieces. At first Rodolphe refused his friend's +proferred hand—he thought some crime had been committed.</p> + +<p>"Let us make haste, let us make haste," said Marcel, "we have the +fifteen francs required. This is how it happened. I met an antiquary at +Medicis'. When he saw the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the only +one wanting in his cabinet. He had sent everywhere to get this vacancy +filled up, and had lost all hope. Thus, when he had thoroughly examined +my Carlovingian crown piece, he did not hesitate for a moment to offer +me five francs for it. Medicis nudged me with his elbow; a look from +him completed the business. He meant, 'share the profits of the sale, +and I will bid against him.' We ran it up to thirty francs. I gave the +Jew fifteen, and here are the rest. Now our guests may come; we are in a +position to dazzle them. Hallo! You have got a swallow-tail!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rodolphe, "Colline's swallow-tail." And as he was feeling +for his handkerchief, Rodolphe pulled out a small volume in a Tartar +dialect, overlooked in the foreign literature pocket.</p> + +<p>The two friends at once proceeded to make their preparations. The studio +was set in order, a fire kindled in the stove, the stretcher of a +picture, garnished with composite candles, suspended from the ceiling +as a chandelier, and a writing table placed in the middle of the studio +to serve as a rostrum for the orators. The solitary armchair, which was +to be reserved for the influential critic, was placed in front of it, +and upon a table were arranged all the books, romances, poems, +pamphlets, &c., the authors of which were to honor the company with +their presence.</p> + +<p>In order to avoid any collision between members of the different schools +of literature, the studio had been, moreover, divided into four +compartments, at the entrance to each of which could be read, on four +hurriedly manufactured placards, the inscriptions—"Poets," "Prose +Writers," "Classic School," and "Romantic School."</p> + +<p>The ladies were to occupy a space reserved in the middle of the studio.</p> + +<p>"Humph! Chairs are lacking," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" remarked Marcel, "there are several on the landing, fastened along +the wall. Suppose we were to gather them."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, let us gather them by all means," said Rodolphe, starting +off to seize on the chairs, which belonged to some neighbor.</p> + +<p>Six o'clock struck: the two friends went off to a hasty dinner, and +returned to light up the saloons. They were themselves dazzled by the +result. At seven o'clock Schaunard arrived, accompanied by three ladies, +who had forgotten their diamonds and their bonnets. One of them wore a +red shawl with black spots. Schaunard pointed out this lady particularly +to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"She is a woman accustomed to the best society," said he, "an +Englishwoman whom the fall of the Stuarts has driven into exile, she +lives in a modest way by giving lessons in English. Her father was Lord +Chancellor under Cromwell, she told me, so we must be polite with her. +Don't be too familiar."</p> + +<p>Numerous footsteps were heard on the stairs. It was the guests arriving. +They seemed astonished to see a fire burning in the stove.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe's swallow-tail went to greet the ladies, and kissed their hands +with a grace worthy of the Regency. When there was a score of persons +present, Schaunard asked whether it was not time for a round of drinks.</p> + +<p>"Presently," said Marcel. "We are waiting for the arrival of the +influential critic to set fire to the punch."</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock the whole of the guests had arrived, and the execution +of the program commenced. Each item was alternated with a round of drink +of some kind, no one ever knew what.</p> + +<p>Towards ten o'clock the white waistcoat of the influential critic made +its appearance. He only stayed an hour, and was very sober in the +consumption of refreshments.</p> + +<p>At midnight, as there was no more wood, and it was very cold, the guests +who were seated drew lots as to who should cast his chair into the fire.</p> + +<p>By one o'clock every one was standing.</p> + +<p>Amiable gaiety did not cease to reign amongst the guests. There were no +accidents to be regretted, with the exception of a rent in the foreign +languages pocket of Colline's swallow-tail and a smack in the face given +by Schaunard to the daughter of Cromwell's Lord Chancellor.</p> + +<p>This memorable evening was for a week the staple subject of gossip in +the district, and Phemie Teinturiere, who had been the queen of the +fete, was accustomed to remark, when talking it over with her friends,—</p> + +<p>"It was awfully fine. There were composite candles, my dear."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER VI</a></h2> + +<h3>MADEMOISELLE MUSETTE</h3> + + +<p>Mademoiselle Musette was a pretty girl of twenty who shortly after her +arrival in Paris had become what many pretty girls become when they +have a neat figure, plenty of coquesttishness, a dash of ambition and +hardly any education. After having for a long time shone as the star of +the supper parties of the Latin Quarter, at which she used to sing in a +voice, still very fresh if not very true, a number of country ditties, +which earned her the nickname under which she has since been +immortalized by one of our neatest rhymsters, Mademoiselle Musette +suddenly left the Rue de la Harpe to go and dwell upon the Cytherean +heights of the Breda district.</p> + +<p>She speedily became one of the foremost of the aristocracy of pleasure +and slowly made her way towards that celebrity which consists in being +mentioned in the columns devoted to Parisian gossip, or lithographed at +the printsellers.</p> + +<p>However Mademoiselle Musette was an exception to the women amongst whom +she lived. Of a nature instinctively elegant and poetical, like all +women who are really such, she loved luxury and the many enjoyments +which it procures; her coquetry warmly coveted all that was handsome and +distinguished; a daughter of the people, she would not have been in any +way out of her element amidst the most regal sumptuosity. But +Mademoiselle Musette, who was young and pretty, had never consented to +be the mistress of any man who was not like herself young and handsome. +She had been known bravely to refuse the magnificient offers of an old +man so rich that he was styled the Peru of the Chaussee d'Antin, and who +had offered a golden ladder to the gratification of her fancies. +Intelligent and witty, she had also a repugnance for fools and +simpletons, whatever might be their age, their title and their name.</p> + +<p>Musette, therefore, was an honest and pretty girl, who in love adopted +half of Champfort's famous amphoris, "Love is the interchange of two +caprices." Thus her connection had never been preceded by one of those +shameful bargains which dishonor modern gallantry. As she herself said, +Musette played fair and insisted that she should receive full change for +her sincerity.</p> + +<p>But if her fancies were lively and spontaneous, they were never durable +enough to reach the height of a passion. And the excessive mobility of +her caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the +boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a +corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual +alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth +stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem +of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for +one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, +sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred de +Musset to fitly narrate your careless and vagabond course amidst the +flowery paths of youth; and he would certainly have celebrated you, if +like me, he had heard you sing in your pretty false notes, this couplet +from one of your favorite ditties:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"It was a day in Spring<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When love I strove to sing<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Unto a nut brown maid.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O'er face as fair as dawn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Cast a bewitching shade,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The story we are about to tell is one of the most charming in the life +of this charming adventuress who wore so many green gowns.</p> + +<p>At a time when she was the mistress of a young Counsellor of State, who +had gallantly placed in her hands the key of his ancestral coffers, +Mademoiselle Musette was in the habit of receiving once a week in her +pretty drawing room in the Rue de la Bruyere. These evenings resembled +most Parisian evenings, with the difference that people amused +themselves. When there was not enough room they sat on one another's +knees, and it often happened that the same glass served for two. +Rodolphe, who was a friend of Musette and never anything more than a +friend, without either of them knowing why—Rodolphe asked leave to +bring his friend, the painter Marcel.</p> + +<p>"A young fellow of talent," he added, "for whom the future is +embroidering his Academician's coat."</p> + +<p>"Bring him," said Musette.</p> + +<p>The evening they were to go together to Musette's Rodolphe called on +Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet.</p> + +<p>"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?"</p> + +<p>"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly.</p> + +<p>"Shock custom, it stuns it."</p> + +<p>"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a +pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another +here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as +'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines."</p> + +<p>"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?"</p> + +<p>"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides +it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory +black."</p> + +<p>"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it +was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the +fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but +Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight.</p> + +<p>In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect +bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society.</p> + +<p>M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his +election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on +reaching Mademoiselle Musette's.</p> + +<p>This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for +some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, +had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings +having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had +been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken +away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle +Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and +did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing +room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, +dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little +entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination.</p> + +<p>This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed +such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters +came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to +withdraw.</p> + +<p>Musette bowed her guests out, singing:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"They will laugh long and loud, tralala,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">At my Thursday night's crowd<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They will laugh long and loud, tralala."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Marcel and Rodolphe alone remained with Musette, who ascended to her +room where there was nothing left but the bed.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but my adventure is no longer such a lively one after all," said +Musette. "I shall have to take up my quarters out of doors."</p> + +<p>"Oh madame!" said Marcel, "if I had the gifts of Plutus I should like to +offer you a temple finer than that of Solomon, but—"</p> + +<p>"You are not Plutus. All the same I thank you for your good intentions. +Ah!" she added, glancing around the room, "I was getting bored here, and +then the furniture was old. I had had it nearly six months. But that is +not all, after the dance one should sup."</p> + +<p>"Let us sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all +in the morning, when he was terrible.</p> + +<p>As Rodolphe had gained some money at the lansquenet played during the +evening, he carried off Musette and Marcel to a restaurant which was +just opening.</p> + +<p>After breakfast, the three, who had no inclination for sleep, spoke of +finishing the day in the country, and as they found themselves close to +the railway station they got into the first train that started, which +landed them at Saint Germain.</p> + +<p>During the whole of the night of the party and all of the rest of the +day Marcel, who was gunpowder which a single glance sufficed to kindle, +had been violently smitten by Mademoiselle Musette and paid her +"highly-colored court," as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as +to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the +last with the result of the sale of his famous picture, "The Passage of +the Red Sea." Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it +became necessary to part from Musette, who whilst allowing him to kiss +her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every +time that he tried to violently burgle her heart.</p> + +<p>On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the +artist to see her to her door.</p> + +<p>"Will you allow me to call on you?" asked Marcel, "I will paint your +portrait."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," replied she, "I cannot give you my address, since +tomorrow I may no longer have one, but I will call and see you, and I +will mend your coat, which has a hole so big that one could shoot the +moon through it."</p> + +<p>"I will await your coming like that of the messiah," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Not quite so long," said Musette, laughing.</p> + +<p>"What a charming girl," said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked +away. "She is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat."</p> + +<p>He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the +shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette.</p> + +<p>"My dear Monsieur Marcel," said she, "are you a true knight?"</p> + +<p>"I am. 'Rubens and my lady,' that is my motto."</p> + +<p>"Well then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir," returned +Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered +grammar in fine style, "the landlord has taken away the key of my room +and it is eleven o'clock at night. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Marcel, offering Musette his arm. He took her to +his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs.</p> + +<p>Musette was hardly able to keep awake, but she still had strength +enough to say to Marcel, taking him by the hand, "You remember what you +have promised?"</p> + +<p>"Oh Musette! charming creature!" said the artist in a somewhat moved +tone, "you are here beneath a hospitable roof, sleep in peace. Good +night, I am off."</p> + +<p>"Why so?" said Musette, her eyes half closed. "I am not afraid, I can +assure you. In the first place, there are two rooms. I will sleep on +your sofa."</p> + +<p>"My sofa is too hard to sleep on, it is stuffed with carded pebbles. I +will give you hospitality here, and ask it for myself from a friend who +lives on the same landing. It will be more prudent," said he. "I usually +keep my word, but I am twenty-two and you are eighteen, Musette,—and I +am off. Good night."</p> + +<p>The next morning at eight o'clock Marcel entered her room with a pot of +flowers that he had gone and bought in the market. He found Musette, who +had thrown herself fully dressed on the bed, and was still sleeping. At +the noise made by him she woke, and held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"What a good fellow," said she.</p> + +<p>"Good fellow," repeated Marcel, "is not that a term of ridicule?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Musette, "why should you say that to me? It is not nice. +Instead of saying spiteful things offer me that pretty pot of flowers."</p> + +<p>"It is, indeed, for you that I have brought them up," said Marcel. "Take +it, and in return for my hospitality sing me one of your songs, the echo +of my garret may perhaps retain something of your voice, and I shall +still hear you after you have departed."</p> + +<p>"Oh! so you want to show me the door?" said Musette. "Listen, Marcel, I +do not beat about the bush to say what my thoughts are. You like me and +I like you. It is not love, but it is perhaps its seed. Well, I am not +going away, I am going to stop here, and I shall stay here as long as +the flowers you have just given me remain unfaded."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Marcel, "they will fade in a couple of days. If I had +known I would have bought immortelles."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For a fortnight Musette and Marcel lived together, and led, although +often without money, the most charming life in the world. Musette felt +for the artist an affection which had nothing in common with her +preceding passions, and Marcel began to fear that he was seriously in +love with his mistress. Ignorant that she herself was very much afraid +of being equally smitten, he glanced every morning at the condition of +the flowers, the death of which was to bring about the severance of +their connection, and found it very difficult to account for their +continued freshness. But he soon had a key to the mystery. One night, +waking up, he no longer found Musette beside him. He rose, hastened into +the next room, and perceived his mistress, who profited nightly by his +slumbers to water the flowers and hinder them from perishing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER VII</a></h2> + +<h3>THE BILLOWS OF PACTOLUS</h3> + + +<p>It was the nineteenth of March, 184—. Should Rodolphe reach the age of +Methuselah, he will never forget the date; for it was on that day, at +three in the afternoon, that our friend issued from a banker's where he +had just received five hundred francs in current and sounding specie.</p> + +<p>The first use Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into +his pocket was not to pay his debts, inasmuch as he had sworn to himself +to practice economy and go to no extra expense. He had a fixed idea on +this subject, and declared that before thinking of superfluities, one +ought to provide for necessaries. Therefore it was that he paid none of +his creditors, and bought a Turkish pipe which he had long coveted.</p> + +<p>Armed with this purchase, he directed his steps towards the lodging of +his friend Marcel, who had for some time given him shelter. As he +entered Marcel's studio, Rodolphe's pockets rang like a village-steeple +on a grand holiday. On hearing this unusual sound, Marcel supposed it +was one of his neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on +'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door +beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to +the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one +to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn robber, forty times +over."</p> + +<p>So, never suspecting that it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a +Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which +had been on his easel nearly three years.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe, who had not yet spoken, meditating an experiment which he was +about to make on his friend, said to himself, "We shall laugh in a +minute. Won't it be fun?" and he let fall a five-franc piece on the +floor.</p> + +<p>Marcel raised his eyes and looked at Rodolphe, who was as grave as an +article in the "Revue des deux Mondes." Then he picked up the piece of +money with a well-satisfied air, and made a courteous salute to it; for, +vagabond artist as he was, he understood the usages of society, and was +very civil to strangers. Knowing, moreover, that Rodolphe had gone out +to look for money, Marcel, seeing that his friend had succeeded in his +operations, contented himself with admiring the result, without +inquiring by what means it had been obtained. Accordingly, he went to +work again without speaking, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the +waves of the Red Sea. As he was terminating this homicide, Rodolphe let +fall another piece, laughing in his sleeve at the face the painter was +going to make.</p> + +<p>At the sonorous sound of the metal, Marcel bounded up as if he had +received an electric shock, and cried, "What! Number two!"</p> + +<p>A third piece rolled on the floor, then another, then one more; finally +a whole quadrille of five-franc pieces were dancing in the room.</p> + +<p>Marcel began to show evident signs of mental alienation; and Rodolphe +laughed like the pit of a Parisian theatre at the first representation +of a very tragical tragedy. Suddenly, and without any warning, he +plunged both hands into his pockets, and the money rushed out in a +supernatural steeple-chase. It was an inundation of Pactolus; it was +Jupiter entering Danae's chamber.</p> + +<p>Marcel remained silent, motionless, with a fixed stare; his astonishment +was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which +the untimely curiosity of Lott's wife brought upon her: by the time that +Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter +was petrified all down one side of his body.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the +thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the +crying of a child at the breast.</p> + +<p>Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in +a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought +blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, +though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in +a tragedy, he ejaculated:</p> + +<p>"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added, +"Explain to me this mystery."</p> + +<p>"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more."</p> + +<p>"Come, now!"</p> + +<p>"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking +up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and +looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking +to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!"</p> + +<p>"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought +Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the +table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red +Sea.'"</p> + +<p>All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with +great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist:</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not +the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but +honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in +laboriously acquiring a serious position—such as a virtuous man should +occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties—."</p> + +<p>"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good +sense, no doubt."</p> + +<p>"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries. +They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in +which I am from this moment clad."</p> + +<p>"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion."</p> + +<p>"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of +life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond +existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go +to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we +will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The +strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we +have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must +be economical."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable +for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first +elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the +works of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, who +will perhaps teach us how to practice the art. Hallo! You have a Turkish +pipe there!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I bought it for twenty-five francs."</p> + +<p>"How is that! You talk of economy, and give twenty-five francs for a +pipe!"</p> + +<p>"And this is an economy. I used to break a two-sous pipe every day, and +at the end of the year that came to a great deal more."</p> + +<p>"True, I should never have thought of that."</p> + +<p>They heard a neighboring clock strike six.</p> + +<p>"Let us have dinner at once," said Rodolphe. "I mean to begin from +tonight. Talking of dinner, it occurs to me that we lose much valuable +time every day in cooking ours; now time is money, so we must economize +it. From this day we will dine out."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marcel, "there is a capital restaurant twenty steps off. +It's rather dear, but not far to go, so we shall gain in time what we +lose in money."</p> + +<p>"We will go there today," said Rodolphe, "but tomorrow or next day we +will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the +restaurant, we will hire a cook."</p> + +<p>"No, no," put in Marcel, "we will hire a servant to be cook and +everything. Just see the immense advantages which will result from it. +First of all, our rooms will be always in order; he will clean our +boots, go on errands, wash my brushes; I will even try and give him a +taste of the fine arts, and make him grind colors. In this way, we shall +save at least six hours a day."</p> + +<p>Five minutes after, the two friends were installed in one of the little +rooms of the restaurant, and continuing their schemes of economy.</p> + +<p>"We must get an intelligent lad," said Rodolphe, "if he has a sprinkling +of spelling, I will teach him to write articles, and make an editor of +him."</p> + +<p>"That will be his resource for his old age," said Marcel, adding up the +bill. "Well, this is dear, rather! Fifteen francs! We used both to dine +for a franc and a half."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Rodolphe, "but then we dined so badly that we were +obliged to sup at night. So, on the whole, it is an economy."</p> + +<p>"You always have the best of the argument," muttered the convinced +artist. "Shall we work tonight?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will +give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?"</p> + +<p>"I shall go to Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures +to give me. By the way, give me five francs."</p> + +<p>"For what?"</p> + +<p>"To cross the Pont des Arts."</p> + +<p>"Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! +That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a +violation of our rule."</p> + +<p>"I am wrong, to be sure," said Marcel. "I will take a cab and go by the +Pont Neuf."</p> + +<p>So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but +somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they +didn't go home till morning.</p> + +<p>Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. +Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, +and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they +met in the street. Still their system of economy was in full blast, +though it was not without much difficulty that their "organization of +labor" had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow +thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an +average donkey.</p> + +<p>But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his +business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he +blushed with indignation, and sent it by porter. However, he had some +merits; for instance, he could hash hare well and his first profession +having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time—or his +masters', rather—in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also +succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But where he was unrivalled +was in smoking Marcel's cigars and lighting them with Rodolphe's +manuscripts.</p> + +<p>One day Marcel wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for +Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste +replied by a flat refusal, and demanded his wages.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Marcel, "I will settle with you tonight."</p> + +<p>When Rodolphe returned, his friends declared that they must send away +Baptiste. "He is of no use to us at all."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed—only an ornament, and not much of that."</p> + +<p>"Awfully stupid."</p> + +<p>"And equally lazy."</p> + +<p>"We must turn him off."</p> + +<p>"Let us!"</p> + +<p>"Still, he has some good points. He hashes hare very well."</p> + +<p>"And the lamp-black! He is a very Raphael for that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that's all he is good for. We lose time arguing with him."</p> + +<p>"He keeps us from working."</p> + +<p>"He is the cause of my 'Passage' not being finished in time for the +Exhibition. He wouldn't sit for Pharaoh."</p> + +<p>"Thanks to him, I couldn't finish my article in time. He wouldn't go to +the public library and hunt up the notes I wanted."</p> + +<p>"He is ruining us."</p> + +<p>"Decidedly we can't keep him."</p> + +<p>"Send him away then! But we must pay him."</p> + +<p>"That we'll do. Give me the money, and I will settle accounts with +him."</p> + +<p>"Money! But it is not I who keeps the purse, but you."</p> + +<p>"Not at all! It is you who are charged with the financial department."</p> + +<p>"But I assure you," said Marcel, "I have no money."</p> + +<p>"Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can't have spent five +hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid +economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute +necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must +look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but we shan't find where the money is. However, let us see the +account-book, at any rate."</p> + +<p>And this is the way they kept their accounts which had been begun under +the auspices of Saint Economy:</p> + +<p><i>"March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, +15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr."</i></p> + +<p>"What are those sundries?" asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading.</p> + +<p>"You know very well," replied the other, "that night when we didn't go +home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that."</p> + +<p>"Well, afterwards?"</p> + +<p><i>"March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an +opera glass, 2 fr. 50 c.</i>—that goes to your account. What did you want +a glass for? You see perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the 'Scarf of +Iris.' It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The +expense is quite legitimate. Well?—"</p> + +<p>"A bamboo cane—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that goes to your account," said Rodolphe. "You didn't want a +cane."</p> + +<p>"That was all we spent the 20th," was Marcel's only answer. "The 21st we +breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out."</p> + +<p>"We ought not to have spent much that day."</p> + +<p>"Not much, in fact—hardly thirty francs."</p> + +<p>"But what for?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; it's marked sundries."</p> + +<p>"Vague and treacherous heading!"</p> + +<p>"'21st. (The day that Baptiste came.) <i>5 francs to him on account of his +wages. 50 centimes to the organ man.'"</i></p> + +<p>"23rd. Nothing set down. 24th, ditto. Two good days!"</p> + +<p><i>"'25th. Baptiste, on account, 3 fr.</i> It seems to me we give him money +very often," said Marcel, by way of reflection.</p> + +<p>"There will be less owing to him," said Rodolphe. "Go on!"</p> + +<p><i>"'26th. Sundries, useful in an artistic point of view, 36 fr.'"</i></p> + +<p>"What did we buy that was useful? I don't recollect. What can it have +been?"</p> + +<p>"You don't remember! The day we went to the top of Notre Dame for a +bird's-eye view of Paris."</p> + +<p>"But it costs only eight sous to go up the tower."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but then we went to dine at Saint Germain after we came down."</p> + +<p>"Clear as mud!"</p> + +<p>"27th. Nothing to set down."</p> + +<p>"Good! There's economy for you."</p> + +<p><i>"'28th. Baptiste, on account, 6 fr.'"</i></p> + +<p>"Now this time I am sure we owe Baptiste nothing more. Perhaps he is +even in our debt. We must see."</p> + +<p>"29th. Nothing set down, except the beginning of an article on 'Social +Morals.'"</p> + +<p>"30th. Ah! We had company at dinner—heavy expenses the 30th, 55 fr. +31st.—that's today—we have spent nothing yet. You see," continued +Marcel, "the account has been kept very carefully, and the total does +not reach five hundred francs."</p> + +<p>"Then there ought to be money in the drawer."</p> + +<p>"We can see," said Marcel, opening it.</p> + +<p>"Anything there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a spider."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"A spider in the morning<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of sorrow is a warning," hummed Rodolphe.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Where the deuce has all the money gone?" exclaimed Marcel, totally +upset at the sight of the empty drawer.</p> + +<p>"Very simple," replied Rodolphe. "Baptiste has had it all."</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute!" cried Marcel, rummaging in the drawer, where he +perceived a paper. "The bill for last quarter's rent!"</p> + +<p>"How did it come there?"</p> + +<p>"And paid, too," added Marcel. "You paid the landlord, then!"</p> + +<p>"Me! Come now!" said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"But what means—"</p> + +<p>"But I assure you—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, what can be this mystery?" sang the two in chorus to the final air +of "The White Lady."</p> + +<p>Baptiste, who loved music, came running in at once. Marcel showed him +the paper.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said Baptiste carelessly, "I forgot to tell you. The landlord +came this morning while you were out. I paid him, to save him the +trouble of coming back."</p> + +<p>"Where did you find the money?"</p> + +<p>"I took it out of the open drawer. I thought, sir, you had left it open +on purpose, and forgot to tell me to pay him, so I did just as if you +had told me."</p> + +<p>"Baptiste!" said Marcel, in a white heat, "you have gone beyond your +orders. From this day you cease to form part of our household. Take off +your livery!"</p> + +<p>Baptiste took off the glazed leather cap which composed his livery, and +handed it to Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the latter, "now you may go."</p> + +<p>"And my wages?"</p> + +<p>"Wages? You scamp! You have had fourteen francs in a little more than a +week. What do you do with so much money? Do you keep a dancer?"</p> + +<p>"A rope dancer?" suggested Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Then I am to be left," said the unhappy domestic, "without a covering +for my head!"</p> + +<p>"Take your livery," said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he +restored the cap to Baptiste.</p> + +<p>"Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes," said Rodolphe, +seeing poor Baptiste go out. "Where shall we dine today?"</p> + +<p>"We shall know tomorrow," replied Marcel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2> + +<h3>THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE</h3> + + +<p>One Saturday evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into +housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her +appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he +frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure. +Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The +Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods +puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these +provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, +sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the +fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, +Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly +to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch. +She even, without circumlocution, made an appointment with him for the +next day.</p> + +<p>"By Jove," said Rodolphe to himself, as he saw Mademoiselle Laure home, +"this is certainly a very amiable young person. She seems to me to have +a good grammar and a tolerably extensive wardrobe. I am quite disposed +to make her happy."</p> + +<p>On reaching the door of her house, Mademoiselle Laure relinquished +Rodolphe's arm, thanking him for the trouble he had taken in +accompanying her to such a remote locality.</p> + +<p>"Oh! madame," replied Rodolphe, bowing to the ground, "I should like you +to have lived at Moscow or the islands of the Sound, in order to have +had the pleasure of being your escort the longer."</p> + +<p>"That would be rather far," said Laure, affectedly.</p> + +<p>"We could have gone by way of the Boulevards, madame," said Rodolphe. +"Allow me to kiss you hand in the shape of your cheek," he added, +kissing his companion on the lips before Laure could make any +resistance.</p> + +<p>"Oh sir!" she exclaimed, "you go too fast."</p> + +<p>"It is to reach my destination sooner," said Rodolphe. "In love, the +first stages should be ridden at a gallop."</p> + +<p>"What a funny fellow," though the milliner, as she entered her dwelling.</p> + +<p>"A pretty girl," said Rodolphe, as he walked away.</p> + +<p>Returning home, he went to bed at once, and had the most delightful +dreams. He saw himself at balls, theaters, and public promenades with +Mademoiselle Laure on his arm, clad in dresses more magnificent than +those of the girl with the ass's skin of the fairy tale.</p> + +<p>The next morning at eleven o'clock, according to habit, Rodolphe got up. +His first thought was for Mademoiselle Laure.</p> + +<p>"She is a very well mannered woman," he murmured, "I feel sure that she +was brought up at Saint Denis. I shall at length realize the happiness +of having a mistress who is not pitted with the small-pox. Decidedly I +will make sacrifices for her. I will go and draw my screw at 'The Scarf +of Iris.' I will buy some gloves, and I will take Laure to dinner at a +restaurant where table napkins are in use. My coat is not up to much," +said he as he dressed himself, "but, bah! black is good wear."</p> + +<p>And he went out to go to the office of "The Scarf of Iris."</p> + +<p>Crossing the street he came across an omnibus, on the side of which was +pasted a bill, with the words, "Display of Fountains at Versailles, +today, Sunday."</p> + +<p>A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe's feet would not have produced a +deeper impression upon him than the sight of this bill.</p> + +<p>"Today, Sunday! I had forgotten it," he exclaimed. "I shall not be able +to get any money. Today, Sunday!!! All the spare coin in Paris is on its +way to Versailles."</p> + +<p>However, impelled by one of those fabulous hopes to which a man always +clings, Rodolphe hurried to the office of the paper, reckoning that some +happy chance might have taken the cashier there.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Boniface had, indeed, looked in for a moment, but had left at +once.</p> + +<p>"For Versailles," said the office messenger to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Rodolphe, "it is all over!... But let me see," he thought, +"my appointment is for this evening. It is noon, so I have five hours to +find five francs in—twenty sous an hour, like the horses in the Bois du +Boulogne. Forward."</p> + +<p>As he found himself in a neighborhood where the journalist, whom he +styled the influential critic, resided, Rodolphe thought of having a try +at him.</p> + +<p>"I am sure to find him in," said he, as he ascended the stairs, "it is +the day he writes his criticism—there is no fear of his being out. I +will borrow five francs of him."</p> + +<p>"Hallo! it's you, is it?" said the journalist, on seeing Rodolphe. "You +come at the right moment. I have a slight service to ask of you."</p> + +<p>"How lucky it falls out," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris."</p> + +<p>"Were you at the Odeon Theater last night?"</p> + +<p>"I am always at the Odeon."</p> + +<p>"You have seen the new piece, then?"</p> + +<p>"Who else would have seen it? I am the Odeon audience."</p> + +<p>"That is true," said the critic, "you are one of the caryatides of the +theater. It is even rumored that it is you who finds the money for its +subvention. Well, that is what I want of you, a summary of the plot of +the new piece."</p> + +<p>"That is easy, I have the memory of a creditor."</p> + +<p>"Whom is this piece by?" asked the critic of Rodolphe, whilst the latter +was writing.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman."</p> + +<p>"It cannot be up to much."</p> + +<p>"Well, it is not as strong as a Turk."</p> + +<p>"Then it cannot be very robust. The Turks, you see, have usurped a +reputation for strength. Besides, there are no longer any Turks except +at masked balls and in the Champs-Elysees where they sell dates. One of +my friends knows the East and he assures me that all the natives of it +were born in the Rue Coquenard."</p> + +<p>"That is smart," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"You think so?" observed the critic, "I will put it in my article."</p> + +<p>"Here is my analysis of the piece, it is to the point," resumed +Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it is short."</p> + +<p>"By putting in dashes and developing your critical opinion it will fill +some space."</p> + +<p>"I have scarcely time, my dear fellow, and then my critical opinion will +not fill enough space either."</p> + +<p>"You can stick in an adjective at every third word."</p> + +<p>"Cannot you tail on to your analysis a little, or rather a long +criticism of the piece, eh?" asked the critic.</p> + +<p>"Humph," said Rodolphe. "I have certainly some opinions upon tragedy, +but I have printed them three times in 'The Beaver' and 'The Scarf of +Iris.'"</p> + +<p>"No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?"</p> + +<p>"Forty lines."</p> + +<p>"The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines."</p> + +<p>"Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy +for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the +critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at +the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, +there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart."</p> + +<p>"What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there +anything new in the world except virtue?"</p> + +<p>"Here you are," said Rodolphe, as he finished.</p> + +<p>"Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is +this chasm to be filled?" exclaimed the critic. "Since you are here +supply me with some paradoxes."</p> + +<p>"I have not any about me," said Rodolphe, "though I can lend you some. +Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my +friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet."</p> + +<p>"Very good," said the critic.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. "I shall +certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as +partridges." And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about +pianos, goldfish and Rhine wine, which was called toilet wine just as +we speak of toilet vinegar.</p> + +<p>"It is very good," said the critic. "Now do me the favor to add that the +place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere else is the +galleys."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished," said the +influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the +printers.</p> + +<p>"And now," thought Rodolphe, "let us strike home." And he gravely +proposed his request.</p> + +<p>"Ah! my dear fellow," said the critic, "I have not a sou in the place. +Lolette ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last +copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters +spout forth the floods."</p> + +<p>"To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!" exclaimed Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"But why do you want money?"</p> + +<p>"That is my story," replied Rodolphe, "I have at five this evening an +appointment with a lady, a very well bred lady who never goes out save +in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and +it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of +this life. For dinner, dances, &c., &c., I must have five francs, and if +I do not find them French literature is dishonoured in my person."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you borrow the sum of the lady herself?" exclaimed the +critic.</p> + +<p>"The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me +out of this fix."</p> + +<p>"By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not +enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell."</p> + +<p>"Impossible today, Mother Mansut's, Lebigre's, and all the shops on the +quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? +Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such +things never sell."</p> + +<p>"Unless the author is criminally convicted," said the critic. "Wait a +bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about +it skillfully you may, perhaps, make money of them."</p> + +<p>"I would rather have something else, a pair of trowsers, for instance."</p> + +<p>"Come," said the critic, "take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster +cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor, it is the widow's +mite."</p> + +<p>"I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away +these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it +as the thirteenth labor of Hercules."</p> + +<p>After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an +eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in +getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, +the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot.</p> + +<p>"Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I +must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti's, who read upon his +nephew's face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and +forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as:</p> + +<p>"Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are +terribly high, commerce decaying, &c., &c.," all the hypocritical litany +of shopkeepers.</p> + +<p>"Would you believe it," said the uncle, "that I have been forced to +borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?"</p> + +<p>"You should have sent to me," said Rodolphe. "I would have lent it you, +I received two hundred francs three days ago."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, my lad," said the uncle, "but you have need of your fortune. +Ah! whilst you are here, you might, you who write such a good hand, copy +out some bills for me that I want to send out."</p> + +<p>"My five francs are going to cost me dear," said Rodolphe to himself, +setting about the task, which he condensed.</p> + +<p>"My dear uncle," said he to Monetti, "I know how fond you are of music +and I have brought you some concert tickets."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, my boy. Will you stay to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks, uncle, but I am expected at dinner in the Faubourg Saint +Germain, indeed, I am rather put out about it for I have not time to run +home and get the money to buy gloves."</p> + +<p>"You have no gloves, shall I lend you mine?" said his uncle.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, we do not take the same size, only you would greatly oblige me +by the loan of—"</p> + +<p>"Twenty nine sous to buy a pair? Certainly, my boy, here you are. When +one goes into society one should be well dressed. Better be envied than +pitied, as your aunt used to say. Come, I see you are getting on in the +world, so much the better. I would have given you more," he went on, +"but it is all I have in the till. I should have to go upstairs and I +cannot leave the shop, customers drop in every moment."</p> + +<p>"You were saying that business was not flourishing?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Monetti pretended not to hear, and said to his nephew who was +pocketing the twenty nine sous:</p> + +<p>"Do not be in a hurry about repayment."</p> + +<p>"What a screw," said Rodolphe, bolting. "Ah!" he continued, "there are +still thirty-one sous lacking. Where am I to find them? I know, let's be +off to the crossroads of Providence."</p> + +<p>This was the name bestowed by Rodolphe on the most central point in +Paris, that is to say, the Palais Royal, a spot where it is almost +impossible to remain ten minutes without meeting ten people of one's +acquaintance, creditors above all. Rodolphe therefore went and stationed +himself at the entrance to the Palais Royal. This time Providence was +long in coming. At last Rodolphe caught sight of it. Providence had a +white hat, a green coat, and a gold headed cane—a well dressed +Providence.</p> + +<p>It was a rich and obliging fellow, although a phalansterian.</p> + +<p>"I am delighted to see you," said he to Rodolphe, "come and walk a +little way with me; we can have a talk."</p> + +<p>"So I am to have the infliction of the phalanstere," murmured Rodolphe, +suffering himself to be led away from the wearer of the white hat, who, +indeed, phalanstered him to the utmost.</p> + +<p>As they drew near the Pont des Arts Rodolphe said to his companion—</p> + +<p>"I must leave you, not having sufficient to pay the toll."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said the other, catching hold of Rodolphe and throwing two +sous to the toll keeper.</p> + +<p>"This is the right moment," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris," +as they crossed the bridge. Arrived at the further end in front of the +clock of the Institute, Rodolphe stopped short, pointed to the dial +with a despairing gesture, and exclaimed:—</p> + +<p>"Confound it all, a quarter to five! I am done for."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" cried his astonished friend.</p> + +<p>"The matter is," said Rodolphe, "that, thanks to your dragging me here +in spite of myself, I have missed an appointment."</p> + +<p>"An important one?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so; money that I was to call for at five o'clock +at—Batignolles. I shall never be able to get there. Hang it; what am I +to do?"</p> + +<p>"Why," said the phalansterian, "nothing is simpler; come home with me +and I will lend you some."</p> + +<p>"Impossible, you live at Montrouge, and I have business at six o'clock +at the Chaussee d'Antin. Confound it."</p> + +<p>"I have a trifle about me," said Providence, timidly, "but it is very +little."</p> + +<p>"If I had enough to take a cab I might get to Batignolles in time."</p> + +<p>"Here is the contents of my purse, my dear fellow, thirty one sous."</p> + +<p>"Give it to me at once, that I may bolt," said Rodolphe, who had just +heard five o'clock strike, and who hastened off to keep his appointment.</p> + +<p>"It has been hard to get," said he, counting out his money. "A hundred +sous exactly. At last I am supplied, and Laure will see that she has to +do with a man who knows how to do things properly. I won't take a +centime home this evening. We must rehabilitate literature, and prove +that its votaries only need money to be wealthy."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe found Mademoiselle Laure at the trysting place.</p> + +<p>"Good," said he, "for punctuality she is a feminine chronometer."</p> + +<p>He spent the evening with her, and bravely melted down his five francs +in the crucible of prodigality. Mademoiselle Laure was charmed with his +manners, and was good enough only to notice that Rodolphe had not +escorted her home at the moment when he was ushering her into his own +room.</p> + +<p>"I am committing a fault," said she. "Do not make me repent of it by the +ingratitude which is characteristic of your sex."</p> + +<p>"Madame," said Rodolphe, "I am known for my constancy. It is such that +all my friends are astonished at my fidelity, and have nicknamed me the +General Bertrand of Love."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER IX</a></h2> + +<h3>THE WHITE VIOLETS</h3> + + +<p>About this time Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, +who couldn't bear him; and the thermometer was twelve degrees below +freezing point.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Angela was the daughter of Monsieur Monetti, the chimney +doctor, of whom we have already had occasion to speak. She was eighteen +years old, and had just come from Burgundy, where she lived five years +with a relative who was to leave her all her property. This relative was +an old lady who had never been young apparently—certainly never +handsome, but had always been very ill-natured, although—or perhaps +because—very superstitious. Angela, who at her departure was a charming +child, and promised to be a charming girl, came back at the end of the +five years a pretty enough young lady, but cold, dry, and uninteresting. +Her secluded provincial life, and the narrow and bigoted education she +had received, had filled her mind with vulgar prejudices, shrunk her +imagination, and converted her heart into a sort of organ, limited to +fulfilling its function of physical balance wheel. You might say that +she had holy water in her veins instead of blood. She received her +cousin with an icy reserve; and he lost his time whenever he attempted +to touch the chord of her recollections—recollections of the time when +they had sketched out that flirtation in the Paul-and-Virginia style +which is traditional between cousins of different sexes. Still Rodolphe +was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and +learning one day that the young lady was going shortly to the wedding +ball of one of her friends, he made bold to promise Angela a bouquet of +violets for the ball. And after asking permission of her father, Angela +accepted her cousin's gallant offer—always on condition that the +violets should be white.</p> + +<p>Overjoyed at his cousin's amiability, Rodolphe danced and sang his way +back to Mount St. Bernard, as he called his lodging—why will be seen +presently. As he passed by a florist's in crossing the Palais Royal, he +saw some white violets in the showcase, and was curious enough to ask +their price. A presentable bouquet could not be had for less than ten +francs; there were some that cost more.</p> + +<p>"The deuce!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "ten francs! and only eight days to +find this fortune! It will be a hard pull, but never mind, my cousin +shall have her flowers."</p> + +<p>This happened in the time of Rodolphe's literary genesis, as the +transcendentalists would say. His only income at that period was an +allowance of fifteen francs a month, made him by a friend, who, after +living a long while in Paris as a poet, had, by the help of influential +acquaintances, gained the mastership of a provincial school. Rodolphe, +who was the child of prodigality, always spent his allowance in four +days; and, not choosing to abandon his holy but not very profitable +profession of elegiac poet, lived for the rest of the month on the rare +droppings from the basket of Providence. This long Lent had no terrors +for him; he passed through it gaily, thanks to his stoical temperament +and to the imaginary treasures which he expended every day while +waiting for the first of the month, that Easter which terminated his +fast. He lived at this time at the very top of one of the loftiest +houses in Paris. His room was shaped like a belvidere, and was a +delicious habitation in summer, but from October to April a perfect +little Kamschatka. The four cardinal winds which penetrated by the four +windows,—there was one on each of the four sides—made fearful music in +it throughout the cold seasons. Then in irony as it were, there was a +huge fireplace, the immense chimney of which seemed a gate of honor +reserved for Boreas and his retinue. On the first attack of cold, +Rodolphe had recourse to an original system of warming; he cut up +successively what little furniture he had, and at the end of a week his +stock was considerably abridged; in fact, he had only a bed and two +chairs left; it should be remarked that these items were insured against +fire by their nature, being of iron. This manner of heating himself he +called <i>moving up the chimney</i>.</p> + +<p>It was January, and the thermometer, which indicated twelve degrees +below freezing point on the Spectacle Quay, would have stood two or +three lower if moved to the belvidere, which Rodolphe called +indifferently Mount St. Bernard, Spitzenberg, and Siberia.</p> + +<p>The night when he promised his cousin the white violets, he was seized +with a great rage on returning home; the four cardinal winds, in playing +puss-in-the-corner round his chamber, had broken a pane of glass—the +third time in a fortnight. After exploding in a volley of frantic +imprecations upon Eolus and all his family, and plugging up the breach +with a friend's portrait, Rodolphe lay down, dressed as he was, between +his two mattresses, and dreamed of white violets all night.</p> + +<p>At the end of five days, Rodolphe had found nothing to help him toward +realizing his dreams. He must have the bouquet the day after tomorrow. +Meanwhile, the thermometer fell still lower, and the luckless poet was +ready to despair as he thought the violets might have risen higher. +Finally his good angel had pity on him, and came to his relief as +follows.</p> + +<p>One morning, Rodolphe went to take his chance of getting a breakfast +from his friend Marcel the painter, and found him conversing with a +woman in mourning. It was a widow who had just lost her husband, and who +wanted to know how much it would cost to paint on the tomb which she had +erected, a man's hand, with this inscription beneath:</p> + +<p class="center">"I WAIT FOR HER TO WHOM MY FAITH WAS PLIGHTED."</p> + +<p>To get the work at a cheaper rate, she observed to the artist that when +she was called to rejoin her husband, he would have another hand to +paint—her hand with a bracelet on the wrist and the supplementary line +beneath:</p> + +<p class="center">"AT LENGTH, BEHOLD US THUS ONCE MORE UNITED."</p> + +<p>"I shall put this clause in my will," she said, "and require that the +task be intrusted to you."</p> + +<p>"In that case, madame," replied the artist, "I will do it at the price +you offer—but only in the hope of seeing your hand. Don't go and forget +me in your will."</p> + +<p>"I should like to have this as soon as possible," said the disconsolate +one, "nevertheless, take your time to do it well and don't forget the +scar on the thumb. I want a living hand."</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, madame, it shall be a speaking one," said Marcel, as +he bowed the widow out. But hardly had she crossed the threshold when +she returned, saying, "I have one more thing to ask you, sir: I should +like to have inscribed on my husband's tomb something in verse which +would tell of his good conduct and his last words. Is that good style?"</p> + +<p>"Very good style—they call that an epitaph—the very best style."</p> + +<p>"You don't know anyone who would do that for me cheap? There is my +neighbor Monsieur Guerin, the public writer, but he asks the clothes off +my back."</p> + +<p>Here Rodolphe looked at Marcel, who understood him at once.</p> + +<p>"Madame," said the artist, pointing to Rodolphe, "a happy fortune has +conducted hither the very person who can be of service to you in this +mournful juncture. This gentleman is a renowned poet; you couldn't find +a better one."</p> + +<p>"I want something very melancholy," said the widow, "and the spelling +all right."</p> + +<p>"Madame," replied Marcel, "my friend spells like a book. He had all the +prizes at school."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" said the widow, "my grand-nephew had just had a prize too; he +is only seven years old."</p> + +<p>"A very forward child, madame."</p> + +<p>"But are you sure that the gentleman can make very melancholy verses?"</p> + +<p>"No one better, madame, for he has undergone much sorrow in his life. +The papers always find fault with his verses for being too melancholy."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried the widow, "do they talk about him in the papers? He must +know quite as much, then, as Monsieur Guerin, the public writer."</p> + +<p>"And a great deal more. Apply to him, madame, and you will not repent of +it."</p> + +<p>After having explained to Rodolphe the sort of inscription in verse +which she wished to place on her husband's tomb, the widow agreed to +give Rodolphe ten francs if it suited her—only she must have it very +soon. The poet promised she should have it the very next day.</p> + +<p>"Oh good genius of Artemisia!" cried Rodolphe as the widow disappeared. +"I promise you that you shall be suited—full allowance of melancholy +lyrics, better got up than a duchess, orthography and all. Good old +lady! May Heaven reward you with a life of a hundred and seven +years—equal to that of a good brandy!"</p> + +<p>"I object," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Rodolphe, "I forgot that you have her hand to paint, +and that so long a life would make you lose money." And lifting his +hands he gravely ejaculated, "Heaven, do not grant my prayer! Ah!" he +continued, "I was in jolly good luck to come here."</p> + +<p>"By the way," asked Marcel, "what did you want?"</p> + +<p>"I recollect—and now especially that I have to pass the night in making +these verses, I cannot do without what I came to ask you for, namely, +first, some dinner; secondly, tobacco and a candle; thirdly, your +polar-bear costume."</p> + +<p>"To go to the masked ball?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, but as you see me here, I am as much frozen up as the grand +army in retreat from Russia. Certainly my green frock-coat and +Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would +do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I +do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary."</p> + +<p>"Take the fur!" said Marcel, "it's a good idea; warm as a dish of +charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin.</p> + +<p>"Now," said he, "the thermometer is going to be really mad."</p> + +<p>"Are you going out so?" said Marcel to his friend, after they had +finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish.</p> + +<p>"I just am," replied Rodolphe. "Do you think I care for public opinion? +Besides, today is the beginning of carnival."</p> + +<p>He went half over Paris with all the gravity of the beast whose skin he +occupied. Only on passing before a thermometer in an optician's window +he couldn't help taking a sight at it.</p> + +<p>Having returned home not without causing great terror to his porter, +Rodolphe lit his candle, carefully surrounding it with an extempore +shade of paper to guard it against the malice of the winds, and set to +work at once. But he was not long in perceiving that if his body was +almost entirely protected from the cold, his hands were not; a terrible +numbness seized his fingers which let the pen fall.</p> + +<p>"The bravest man cannot struggle against the elements," said the poet, +falling back helpless in his chair. "Caeser passed the Rubicon, but he +could not have passed the Beresina."</p> + +<p>All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin +breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its +snowy fur. He had an idea!</p> + +<p>Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable mass of papers, among +which were a dozen huge manuscripts of his famous drama, "The Avenger." +This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and +remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen +pounds. He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others +towards the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he +exclaimed. "What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would +happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more +fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of +the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five +minutes the first act of "The Avenger" was over, and Rodolphe had +written three verses of his epitaph.</p> + +<p>It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds +when they felt fire in the chimney.</p> + +<p>"It's an illusion," quoth Boreas, as he amused himself by brushing back +the hair of Rodolphe's bear skin.</p> + +<p>"Let's blow down the pipe," suggested another wind, "and make the +chimney smoke." But just as they were about to plague the poor poet, the +south wind perceived Monsieur Arago at a window of the Observatory +threatening them with his finger; so they all made off, for fear of +being put under arrest. Meanwhile the second act of "The Avenger" was +going off with immense success, and Rodolphe had written ten lines. But +he only achieved two during the third act.</p> + +<p>"I always thought that third act too short," said Rodolphe, "luckily the +next one will take longer; there are twenty three scenes in it, +including the great one of the throne." As the last flourish of the +throne scene went up the chimney in fiery flakes, Rodolphe had only +three couplets more to write. "Now for the last act. This is all +monologue. It may last five minutes." The catastrophe flashed and +smouldered, and Rodolphe in a magnificent transport of poetry had +enshrined in lyric stanzas the last words of the illustrious deceased. +"There is enough left for a second representation," said he, pushing the +remainder of the manuscript under his bed.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock next evening, Mademoiselle Angela entered the ballroom; +in her hand was a splendid nosegay of white violets, and among them two +budding roses, white also. During the whole night men and women were +complimenting the young girl on her bouquet. Angela could not but feel a +little grateful to her cousin who had procured this little triumph for +her vanity; and perhaps she would have thought more of him but for the +gallant persecutions of one of the bride's relatives who had danced +several times with her. He was a fair-haired youth, with a magnificent +moustache curled up at the ends, to hook innocent hearts. The bouquet +had been pulled to pieces by everybody; only two white roses were left. +The young man asked Angela for them; she refused—only to forget them +after the ball on a bench, whence the young fair-haired youth hastened +to take them.</p> + +<p>At that moment it was fourteen degrees below freezing point in +Rodolphe's belvidere. He was leaning against his window looking out at +the lights in the ballroom, where his cousin Angela, who didn't care for +him, was dancing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER X</a></h2> + +<h3>THE CAPE OF STORMS</h3> + + +<p>In the opening month of each of the four seasons there are some +terrible epochs, usually about the 1st and the 15th. Rodolphe, who could +not witness the approach of one or the other of these two dates without +alarm, nicknamed them the Cape of Storms. On these mornings it is not +Aurora who opens the portals of the East, but creditors, landlords, +bailiffs and their kidney. The day begins with a shower of bills and +accounts and winds up with a hailstorm of protests. <i>Dies irae</i>.</p> + +<p>Now one morning, it was the 15th of April, Rodolphe was peacefully +slumbering—and dreaming that one of his uncles had just bequeathed him +a whole province in Peru, the feminine inhabitants included.</p> + +<p>Whilst he was wallowing in this imaginary Pacolus, the sound of a key +turning in the lock interrupted the heir presumptive just at the most +dazzling point of his golden dream.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe sat up in bed, his eyes and mind yet heavy with slumber, and +looked about him.</p> + +<p>He vaguely perceived standing in the middle of his room a man who had +just entered.</p> + +<p>This early visitor bore a bag slung at his back and a large pocketbook +in his hand. He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat +and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of +stairs. His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as +sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter on the march.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe was alarmed for a moment, and at the sight of the cocked hat +and the coat thought that he had a police officer before him.</p> + +<p>But the sight of the tolerably well filled bag made him perceive his +mistake.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I have it," thought he, "it is something on account of my +inheritance, this man comes from the West Indies. But in that case why +is he not black?"</p> + +<p>And making a sign to the man, he said, pointing to the bag, "I know all +about it. Put it down there. Thanks."</p> + +<p>The man was a messenger of the Bank of France. He replied to Rodolphe's +request by holding before his eyes a small strip of paper covered with +writing and figures in various colored inks.</p> + +<p>"You want a receipt," said Rodolphe. "That is right. Pass me the pen +and ink. There, on the table."</p> + +<p>"No, I have come to take money," replied the messenger. "An acceptance +for a hundred and fifty francs. It is the 15th of April."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" observed Rodolphe, examining the acceptance. "Pay to the order +of—— Birmann. It is my tailor. Alas," he added, in melancholy tones +casting his eyes alternately upon a frock coat thrown on the bed and +upon the acceptance, "causes depart but effects return. What, it is the +15th of April? It is extraordinary, I have not yet had any strawberries +this year."</p> + +<p>The messenger, weary of delay, left the room, saying to Rodolphe, "You +have till four o'clock to pay."</p> + +<p>"There is no time like the present," replied Rodolphe. "The humbug," he +added regretfully, following the cocked hat with his eyes, "he has taken +away his bag."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe drew the curtains of his bed and tried to retrace the path to +his inheritance, but he made a mistake on the road and proudly entered +into a dream in which the manager of the Theatre Francais came hat in +hand to ask him for a drama for his theater, and in which he, aware of +the customary practice, asked for an advance. But at the very moment +when the manager appeared to be willing to comply the sleeper was again +half awakened by the entry of a fresh personage, another creature of the +15th.</p> + +<p>It was Monsieur Benoit, landlord of the lodging house in which Rodolphe +was residing. Monsieur Benoit was at once the landlord, the bootmaker +and the money lender of his lodgers. On this morning he exhaled a +frightful odor of bad brandy and overdue rent. He carried an empty bag +in his hand.</p> + +<p>"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, "this is not the manager of the Theater +Francais, he would have a white cravat and the bag would be full."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Monsieur Rodolphe," said Monsieur Benoit, approaching the +bed.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Benoit! Good morning. What has given me the pleasure of this +visit?"</p> + +<p>"I have come to remind you that it is the 15th of April."</p> + +<p>"Already! How time flies, it is extraordinary, I must see about buying a +pair of summer trousers. The 15th of April. Good heavens! I should never +have thought of it but for you, Monsieur Benoit. What gratitude I owe +you for this!"</p> + +<p>"You also owe me a hundred and sixty-two francs," replied Monsieur +Benoit, "and it is time this little account was settled."</p> + +<p>"I am not in any absolute hurry—do not put yourself out, Monsieur +Benoit. I will give you time."</p> + +<p>"But," said the landlord, "you have already put me off several times."</p> + +<p>"In that case let us come to a settlement, Monsieur Benoit, let us come +to a settlement, it is all the same to me today as tomorrow. Besides we +are all mortal. Let us come to a settlement."</p> + +<p>An amiable smile smoothed the landlord wrinkles and even his empty bag +swelled with hope.</p> + +<p>"What do I owe you?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, we have three months' rent at twenty-five francs, +that makes seventy-five francs."</p> + +<p>"Errors excepted," said Rodolphe. "And then?"</p> + +<p>"Then three pairs of boots at twenty francs."</p> + +<p>"One moment, one moment, Monsieur Benoit, do not let us mix matters, +this is no longer to do with the landlord but the bootmaker. I want a +separate account. Accounts are a serious thing, we must not get +muddled."</p> + +<p>"Very good," said Monsieur Benoit, softened by the hope of at length +writing "Paid" at the foot of his accounts. "Here is a special bill for +the boots. Three pairs of boots at twenty francs, sixty francs."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe cast a look of pity on a pair of worn out boots.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" he thought, "they could not be worse if they had been worn by +the Wandering Jew. Yet it was in running after Marie that they got so +worn out. Go on, Monsieur Benoit."</p> + +<p>"We were saying sixty francs," replied the latter. "Then money lent, +twenty seven francs."</p> + +<p>"Stop a bit, Monsieur Benoit. We agreed that each dog would have his +kennel. It is as a friend that you lent me money. Therefore, if you +please, let us quit the regions of bootmaking and enter those of +confidence and friendship which require a separate account. How much +does your friendship for me amount to?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty seven francs."</p> + +<p>"Twenty seven francs. You have purchased a friend cheaply, Monsieur +Benoit. In short, we were saying, seventy five, sixty, and twenty +seven. That makes altogether—-?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and sixty two francs," said Monsieur Benoit, presenting the +three bills.</p> + +<p>"A hundred and sixty two francs," observed Rodolphe, "it is +extraordinary. What a fine thing arithmetic is. Well, Monsieur Benoit, +now that the account is settled we can both rest easy, we know exactly +how we stand. Next month I will ask you for a receipt, and as during +this time the confidence and friendship you must entertain towards me +can only increase, you can, in case it should become necessary, grant me +a further delay. However, if the landlord and the bootmaker are +inclined to be hasty, I would ask the friend to get them to listen to +reason. It is extraordinary, Monsieur Benoit, but every time I think of +your triple character as a landlord, a bootmaker, and a friend, I am +tempted to believe in the Trinity."</p> + +<p>Whilst listening to Rodolphe the landlord had turned at one and the same +time red, green, white, and yellow, and at each fresh jest from his +lodger that rainbow of anger grew deeper and deeper upon his face.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said he, "I do not like to be made game of. I have waited long +enough. I give you notice of quit, and unless you let me have some +money this evening, I know what I shall have to do."</p> + +<p>"Money! money! Am I asking you for money?" said Rodolphe. "Besides, if I +had any, I should not give it to you. On a Friday, it would be unlucky."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Benoit's wrath grew tempestuous, and if the furniture had not +belonged to him he would no doubt have smashed some of it.</p> + +<p>"You are forgetting your bag," cried Rodolphe after him. "What a +business," murmured the young fellow, as he found himself alone. "I +would rather tame lions. But," he continued, jumping out of bed and +dressing hurriedly, "I cannot stay here. The invasion will continue. I +must flee; I must even breakfast. Suppose I go and see Schaunard. I will +ask him for some breakfast, and borrow a trifle. A hundred francs will +be enough. Yes, I'm off to Schaunard's."</p> + +<p>Going downstairs, Rodolphe met Monsieur Benoit, who had received further +shocks from his other lodgers, as was attested by his empty bag.</p> + +<p>"If any one asks for me, tell them I have gone into the country—to the +Alps," said Rodolphe. "Or stay, tell them that I no longer live here."</p> + +<p>"I shall tell the truth," murmured Monsieur Benoit, in a very +significant tone.</p> + +<p>Schaunard was living at Montmartre. It was necessary to go right through +Paris. This peregrination was one most dangerous to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Today," said he, "the streets are paved with creditors."</p> + +<p>However, he did not go along by the outer Boulevards, as he had felt +inclined to. A fanciful hope, on the contrary, urged him to follow the +perilous itinerary of central Paris. Rodolphe thought that on a day when +millions were going about the thoroughfares in the money-cases of bank +messengers, it might happen that a thousand franc note, abandoned on the +roadside, might lie awaiting its Good Samaritan. Thus he walked slowly +along with his eyes on the ground. But he only found two pins.</p> + +<p>After a two hours' walk he got to Schaunard's.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's you," said the latter.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have come to ask you for some breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear fellow, you come at the wrong time. My mistress has just +arrived, and I have not seen her for a fortnight. If you had only called +ten minutes earlier."</p> + +<p>"Well, have you got a hundred francs to lend me?"</p> + +<p>"What! you too!" exclaimed Schaunard, in the height of astonishment. +"You have come to ask me for money! You, in the ranks of my enemies!"</p> + +<p>"I will pay you back on Monday."</p> + +<p>"Or at the Greek Calends. My dear fellow, you surely forget what day it +is. I can do nothing for you. But there is no reason to despair; the +day is not yet over. You may still meet with Providence, who never gets +up before noon."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replied Rodolphe, "Providence has too much to do looking after +little birds. I will go and see Marcel."</p> + +<p>Marcel was then residing in the Rue de Breda. Rodolphe found him in a +very downcast mood, contemplating his great picture that was to +represent the passage of the Red Sea.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, as he entered. "You seem quite in +the dumps."</p> + +<p>"Alas!" replied the painter, in allegorical language, "for the last +fortnight it has been Holy Week."</p> + +<p>"Red herrings and black radishes. Good, I remember."</p> + +<p>Indeed, Rodolphe's memory was still salt with the remembrance of a time +when he had been reduced to the exclusive consumption of the fish in +question.</p> + +<p>"The deuce," said he, "that is serious. I came to borrow a hundred +francs of you."</p> + +<p>"A hundred francs," said Marcel. "You are always in the clouds. The idea +of coming and asking me for that mythological amount at a period when +one is always under the equator of necessity. You must have been taking +hashish."</p> + +<p>"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "I have not been taking anything at all."</p> + +<p>And he left his friend on the banks of the Red Sea.</p> + +<p>From noon to four o'clock Rodolphe successively steered for every house +of his acquaintance. He went through the forty eight districts of Paris, +and covered about eight leagues, but without any success. The influence +of the 15th of April made itself feel with equal severity everywhere. +However, dinner time was drawing near. But it scarcely appeared that +dinner was likely to follow its example, and it seemed to Rodolphe that +he was on the raft of the wrecked Medusa.</p> + +<p>As he was crossing the Pont Neuf an idea all at once occurred to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh! oh!" said he to himself, retracing his steps, "the 15th of April. +But I have an invitation to dinner for today."</p> + +<p>And fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a printed ticket, running as +follows:</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table summary="ticket" style="border: solid 1pt black;"> +<tr><td>Barriere de la Villette,</td></tr> +<tr><td>Au Grand Vainqueur.</td></tr> +<tr><td>Dining Room to seat 300 people.</td></tr> +<tr><td>____________</td></tr> +<tr><td>Anniversary Dinner</td></tr> +<tr><td>In Honor of the Birth Of</td></tr> +<tr><td>THE HUMANITARIAN MESSIAH</td></tr> +<tr><td>April 15, 184-</td></tr> +<tr><td>_______</td></tr> +<tr><td>Admit One</td></tr> +<tr><td>N.B.—Only half a bottle of wine per head</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>"I do not share the opinions of the disciples of this Messiah," said +Rodolphe to himself, "but I will willingly share their repast." And with +the swiftness of a bird he covered the distance separating him from the +Barriere de la Villette.</p> + +<p>When he reached the halls of the Grand Vainqueur, the crowd was +enormous. The dining room, seating three hundred, was thronged with +five hundred people. A vast horizon of veal and carrots spread itself +before the eyes of Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>At length they began to serve the soup.</p> + +<p>As the guests were carrying their spoons to their lips, five or six +people in plain clothes, and several police officers in uniform, pushed +into the room, with a commissary of police at their head.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the commissary, "by order of the authorities, this +dinner cannot take place. I call upon you to withdraw."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Rodolphe, retiring with everyone else. "Oh! what a fatality +has spoiled my dinner."</p> + +<p>He sadly resumed the road to his dwelling, and reached it at about +eleven at night.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Benoit was awaiting him.</p> + +<p>"Ah! it is you," said the landlord. "Have you thought of what I told you +this morning? Have you brought me any money?"</p> + +<p>"I am to receive some tonight. I will give you some of it tomorrow +morning," replied Rodolphe, looking for his key and his candlestick in +their accustomed place. He did not find them.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Rodolphe," said the landlord, "I am very sorry, but I have let +your room, and I have no other vacant now—you must go somewhere else."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe had a lofty soul, and a night in the open air did not alarm +him. Besides, in the event of bad weather, he could sleep in a box at +the Odeon Theater, as he had already done before. Only he claimed "his +property" from Monsieur Benoit, the said property consisting of a +bundle of papers.</p> + +<p>"That is so," said the landlord. "I have no right to detain those +things. They are in the bureau. Come up with me; if the person who has +taken your room has not gone to bed, we can go in."</p> + +<p>The room had been let during the day to a girl named Mimi, with whom +Rodolphe had formerly begun a love duet. They recognized one another at +once. Rodolphe began to whisper to Mimi and tenderly squeezed her hand.</p> + +<p>"See how it rains," said he, calling attention to the noise of the storm +that had just broken overhead.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said she, pointing to Rodolphe, "this is the gentleman I was +expecting this evening."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Monsieur Benoit, grinning on the wrong end of his face.</p> + +<p>Whilst Mademoiselle Mimi was hurriedly getting ready an improvised +supper, midnight struck.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, "the 15th of April is over. I have at +length weathered my Cape of Storms. My dear Mimi," said the young man, +taking the pretty girl in his arms and kissing her on the back of the +neck, "it would have been impossible for you to have allowed me to be +turned out of doors. You have the bump of hospitality."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XI</a></h2> + +<h3>A BOHEMIAN CAFE</h3> + + +<p>You shall hear how it came to pass that Carolus Barbemuche, platonist +and literary man generally, became a member of the Bohemian Club, in the +twenty-fourth year of his age.</p> + +<p>At that time, Gustave Colline, the great philosopher, Marcel, the great +painter, Schaunard, the great musician, and Rodolphe, the great poet (as +they called one another), regularly frequented the Momus Cafe, where +they were surnamed "the Four Musqueteers," because they were always seen +together. In fact, they came together, went away together, played +together, and sometimes didn't pay their shot together, with a unison +worthy of the best orchestra.</p> + +<p>They chose to meet in a room where forty people might have been +accommodated, but they were usually there alone, inasmuch as they had +rendered the place uninhabitable by its ordinary frequenters. The chance +customer who risked himself in this den, became, from the moment of his +entrance, the victim of the terrible four; and, in most cases, made his +escape without finishing his newspaper and cup of coffee, seasoned as +they were by unheard-of maxims on art, sentiment, and political economy. +The conversation of the four comrades was of such a nature that the +waiter who served them had become an idiot in the prime of his life.</p> + +<p>At length things reached such a point that the landlord lost all +patience and came up one night to make a formal statement of his griefs:</p> + +<p>"Firstly. Monsieur Rodolphe comes early in the morning to breakfast, and +carries off to his room all the papers of the establishment, going so +far as to complain if he finds that they have been opened. Consequently, +the other customers, cut off from the usual channels of public opinion +and intelligence, remain until dinner in utter ignorance of political +affairs. The Bosquet party hardly knows the names of the last cabinet."</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Rodolphe has even obliged the cafe to subscribe to 'The +Beaver,' of which he is chief editor. The master of the establishment at +first refused; but as Monsieur Rodolphe and his party kept calling the +waiter every half hour, and crying, 'The Beaver! bring us 'The Beaver' +some other customers, whose curiosity was excited by these obstinate +demands, also asked for 'The Beaver.' So 'The Beaver' was subscribed +to—a hatter's journal, which appeared every month, ornamented with a +vignette and an article on 'The Philosophy of Hats and other things in +general,' by Gustave Colline."</p> + +<p>"Secondly. The aforesaid Monsieur Colline, and his friend Monsieur +Rodolphe, repose themselves from their intellectual labors by playing +backgammon from ten in the morning till midnight and as the +establishment possess but one backgammon board, they monopolize that, to +the detriment of the other amateurs of the game; and when asked for the +board, they only answer, 'Some one is reading it, call tomorrow.' Thus +the Bosquet party find themselves reduced to playing piquet, or talking +about their old love affairs."</p> + +<p>"Thirdly. Monsieur Marcel, forgetting that a cafe is a public place, +brings thither his easel, box of colors, and, in short, all the +instruments of his art. He even disregards the usages of society as far +as to send for models of different sexes; which might shock the morals +of the Bosquet party."</p> + +<p>"Fourthly. Following the example of his friend, Monsieur Schaunard talks +of bringing his piano to the cafe and he has not scrupled to get up a +chorus on a motive from his symphony, 'The Influence of Blue in Art.' +Monsieur Schaunard has gone farther: he has inserted in the lantern +which serves the establishment for sign, a transparency with this +inscription:</p> + +<p class="center"> +'COURSE OF MUSIC, VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL,<br /> +FOR BOTH SEXES,<br /> +GRATIS.<br /> +APPLY AT THE COUNTER.'<br /> +</p> + +<p>In consequence of this, the counter aforesaid is besieged every night by +a number of badly dressed individuals, wanting to know where you go in."</p> + +<p>"Moreover, Monsieur Schaunard gives meetings to a lady calling herself +Mademoiselle Phemie, who always forgets to bring her bonnet. Wherefore, +Monsieur Bosquet, Jr., has declared that he will never more put foot in +an establishment where the laws of nature are thus outraged."</p> + +<p>"Fifthly. Not content with being very poor customers, these gentlemen +have tried to be still more economical. Under pretence of having caught +the mocha of the establishment in improper intercourse with chicory, +they have brought a lamp with spirits-of-wine, and make their own +coffee, sweetening it with their own sugar; all of which is an insult to +the establishment."</p> + +<p>"Sixthly. Corrupted by the discourse of these gentlemen, the waiter +Bergami (so called from his whiskers), forgetting his humble origin and +defying all control, has dared to address to the mistress of the house +a piece of poetry suggestive of the most improper sentiments; by the +irregularity of its style, this letter is recognized as a direct +emanation from the pernicious influence of Monsieur Rodolphe and his +literature."</p> + +<p>"Consequently, in spite of the regret which he feels, the proprietor of +the establishment finds himself obliged to request the Colline party to +choose some other place for their revolutionary meetings."</p> + +<p>Gustave Colline, who was the Cicero of the set, took the floor and +demonstrated to the landlord that his complaints were frivolous and +unfounded; that they did him great honor in making his establishment a +home of intellect; that their departure and that of their friends would +be the ruin of his house, which their presence elevated to the rank of a +literary and artistic club.</p> + +<p>"But," objected the other, "you and those who come to see you call for +so little."</p> + +<p>"This temperance to which you object," replied Colline, "is an argument +in favor of our morals. Moreover, it depends on yourself whether we +spend more or not. You have only to open an account with us."</p> + +<p>The landlord pretended not to hear this, and demanded some explanation +of the incendiary letter addressed by Bergami to his wife. Rodolphe, +accused of acting as secretary to the waiter, strenuously asserted his +innocence—</p> + +<p>"For," said he, "the lady's virtue was a sure barrier—"</p> + +<p>The landlord would not repress a smile of pride. Finally, Colline +entangled him completely in the folds of his insidious oratory, and +everything was arranged, on the conditions that the party should cease +making their own coffee, that the establishment should receive "The +Beaver" gratis, that Phemie should come in a bonnet, that the backgammon +board should be given up to the Bosquets every Sunday from twelve to +two, and above all, that no one should ask for tick.</p> + +<p>On this basis everything went well for some time.</p> + +<p>It was Christmas Eve. The four friends came to the cafe accompanied by +their friends of the other sex. There was Marcel's Musette, Rodolphe's +new flame, Mimi, a lovely creature, with a voice like a pair of cymbals, +and Schaunard's idol, Phemie Teinturiere. That night, Phemie, according +to agreement, had her bonnet on. As to Madame Colline that should have +been, no one ever saw her; she was always at home, occupied in +punctuating her husband's manuscripts. After the coffee, which was on +this great occasion escorted by a regiment of small glasses of brandy, +they called for punch. The waiter was so little accustomed to the order, +that they had to repeat it twice. Phemie, who had never been to such a +place before, seemed in a state of ecstacy at drinking out of glasses +with feet. Marcel was quarreling with Musette about a new bonnet which +he had not given her. Mimi and Rodolphe, who were in their honeymoon, +carried on a silent conversation, alternated with suspicious noises. As +to Colline, he went about from one to the other, distributing among them +all the polite and ornamental phrases which he had picked up in the +"Muses' Almanac."</p> + +<p>While this joyous company was thus abandoning itself to sport and +laughter, a stranger at the bottom of the room, who occupied a table by +himself, was observing with extraordinary attention the animated scene +before him. For a fortnight or thereabout, he had come thus every night, +being the only customer who could stand the terrible row which the club +made. The boldest pleasantries had failed to move him; he would remain +all the evening, smoking his pipe with mathematical regularity, his eyes +fixed as if watching a treasure, and his ears open to all what was said +around him. As to his other qualities, he seemed quiet and well off, for +he possessed a watch with a gold chain; and one day, Marcel, meeting +him at the bar, caught him in the act of changing a louis to pay his +score. From that moment, the four friends designated him by the name of +"The Capitalist."</p> + +<p>Suddenly Schaunard, who had very good eyes, remarked that the glasses +were empty.</p> + +<p>"Yes," exclaimed Rodolphe, "and this is Christmas Eve! We are good +Christians, and ought to have something extra."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," added Marcel, "let's call for something supernatural."</p> + +<p>"Colline," continued Rodolphe, "ring a little for the waiter."</p> + +<p>Colline rang like one possessed.</p> + +<p>"What shall we have?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>Colline made a low bow and pointed to the women.</p> + +<p>"It is the business of these ladies to regulate the nature and order of +our refreshment."</p> + +<p>"I," said Musette, smacking her lips, "should not be afraid of +Champagne."</p> + +<p>"Are you crazy?" exclaimed Marcel. "Champagne! That isn't wine to begin +with."</p> + +<p>"So much the worse; I like it, it makes a noise."</p> + +<p>"I," said Mimi, with a coaxing look at Rodolphe, "would like some +Beaune, in a little basket."</p> + +<p>"Have you lost your senses?" said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"No, but I want to lose them," replied Mimi. The poet was thunderstruck.</p> + +<p>"I," said Phemie, dancing herself on the elastic sofa, "would rather +have parfait amour; it's good for the stomach."</p> + +<p>Schaunard articulated, in a nasal tone, some words which made Phemie +tremble on her spring foundation.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said Marcel, recovering himself the first. "Let us spend a +hundred francs for this once!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rodolphe, "they complain of our not being good customers. +Let's astonish them!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Colline, "let us give ourselves up to the delights of a +splendid banquet! Do we not owe passive obedience to these ladies? Love +lies on devotion; wine is the essence of pleasure, pleasure the duty of +youth; women are flowers and must be moistened. Moisten away! Waiter, +waiter!" and Colline hung upon the bell rope with feverish excitement.</p> + +<p>Swift as the wind, the waiter came. When he heard talk of Champagne, +Burgundy, and various liqueurs, his physiognomy ran through a whole +gamut of astonishment. But there was more to come.</p> + +<p>"I have a hole in my inside," said Mimi. "I should like some ham."</p> + +<p>"And I some sardines, and bread and butter," struck in Musette.</p> + +<p>"And I, radishes," quoth Phemie, "and a little meat with them."</p> + +<p>"We should have no objection," answered they.</p> + +<p>"Waiter!" quoth Colline, gravely, "bring us all that is requisite for a +good supper."</p> + +<p>The waiter turned all the colors of the rainbow. He descended slowly to +the bar, and informed his master of the extraordinary orders he had +received.</p> + +<p>The landlord took it for a joke; but on a new summons from the bell, he +ascended himself and addressed Colline, for whom he had a certain +respect. Colline explained to him that they wished to see Christmas in +at his house, and that he would oblige them by serving what they had +asked for. Momus made no answer, but backed out, twisting his napkin. +For a quarter of an hour he held a consultation with his wife, who, +thanks to her liberal education at the St. Denis Convent, fortunately +had a weakness for arts and letters, and advised him to serve the +supper.</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said the landlord, "they may have money for once, by +chance."</p> + +<p>So he told the waiter to take up whatever they asked for, and then +plunged into a game of piquet with an old customer. Fatal imprudence!</p> + +<p>From ten to twelve the waiter did nothing but run up and downstairs. +Every moment he was asked for something more. Musette would eat English +fashion, and change her fork at every mouthful. Mimi drank all sorts of +wine, in all sorts of glasses. Schaunard had a quenchless Sahara in his +throat. Colline played a crossfire with his eyes, and while munching his +napkin, as his habit was, kept pinching the leg of the table, which he +took for Phemie's knee. Marcel and Rodolphe maintained the stirrups of +self-possession, expecting the catastrophe, not without anxiety.</p> + +<p>The stranger regarded the scene with grave curiosity; from time to time +he opened his mouth as if for a smile; then you might have heard a +noise like that of a window which creaks in shutting. It was the +stranger laughing to himself.</p> + +<p>At a quarter before twelve the bill was sent up. It amounted to the +enormous sum of twenty five francs and three-quarters.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Marcel, "we will draw lots for who shall go and diplomatize +with our host. It is getting serious." They took a set of dominoes; the +highest was to go.</p> + +<p>Unluckily, the lot fell upon Schaunard, who was an excellent virtuoso, +but a very bad ambassador. He arrived, too, at the bar just as the +landlord had lost his third game. Momus was in a fearful bad humor, and, +at Schaunard's first words, broke out into a violent rage. Schaunard was +a good musician, but he had an indifferent temper, and he replied by a +double discharge of slang. The dispute grew more and more bitter, till +the landlord went upstairs, swearing that he would be paid, and that no +one should stir until he was. Colline endeavored to interpose his +pacifying oratory; but, on perceiving a napkin which Colline had made +lint of, the host's anger redoubled; and to indemnify himself, he +actually dared to lay profane hands on the philosopher's hazel overcoat +and the ladies' shawls.</p> + +<p>A volley of abuse was interchanged by the Bohemians and the irate +landlord.</p> + +<p>The women talked to one another of their dresses and their conquests.</p> + +<p>At this point the stranger abandoned his impassible attitude; gradually +he rose, made a step forward, then another, and walked as an ordinary +man might do; he approached the landlord, took him aside, and spoke to +him in a low tone. Rodolphe and Marcel followed him with their eyes. At +length, the host went out, saying to the stranger:</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I consent, Monsieur Barbemuche, certainly; arrange it with +them yourself."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Barbemuche returned to his table to take his hat; put it on, +turned around to the right, and in three steps came close to Rodolphe +and Marcel. He took off his hat, bowed to the men, waved a salute to the +women, pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and began in a feeble +voice:</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, excuse the liberty I am about to take. For a long time, I +have been burning with desire to make your acquaintance, but have never, +till now, found a favorable opportunity. Will you allow me to seize the +present one?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly," said Colline. Rodolphe and Marcel bowed, and +said nothing. The excessive delicacy of Schaunard came nigh spoiling +everything.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, sir," said he briskly, "but you have not the honor of +knowing us, and the usages of society forbid—would you be so good as to +give me a pipeful of tobacco? In other respects I am of my friends' +opinion."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," continued Barbemuche. "I am a disciple of the fine arts, +like yourselves. So far as I have been able to judge from what I have +heard of your conversation, our tastes are the same. I have a most eager +desire to be a friend of yours, and to be able to find you here every +night. The landlord is a brute: but I said a word to him, and you are +quite free to go. I trust you will not refuse me the opportunity of +finding you here again, by accepting this slight service."</p> + +<p>A blush of indignation mounted to Schaunard's face. "He is speculating +on our condition," said he. "We cannot accept. He has paid our bill. I +will play him at billiards for the twenty five francs and give him +points."</p> + +<p>Barbemuche accepted his proposition, and had the good sense to lose. +This gained him the esteem of the party. They broke up with the +understanding that they were to meet next day.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Schaunard, "our dignity is saved. We owe him nothing."</p> + +<p>"We can almost ask him for another supper," said Colline.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XII</a></h2> + +<h3>A BOHEMIAN "AT HOME"</h3> + + +<p>The night when he paid out of his own purse for the supper consumed at +the cafe, Barbemuche managed to make Colline accompany him. Since his +first presence at the meetings of the four friends whom he had relieved +from their embarrassing position, Carolus had especially remarked +Gustave, and already felt an attractive sympathy for this Socrates +whose Plato he was destined to become. It was for this reason he had +chosen him to be his introducer. On the way, Barbemuche proposed that +they should enter a cafe which was still open, and take something to +drink. Not only did Colline refuse, but he doubled his speed in passing +the cafe, and carefully pulled down his hyperphysic hat over his face.</p> + +<p>"But why won't you come in?" politely asked the other.</p> + +<p>"I have my reasons," replied Colline. "There is a barmaid in that +establishment who is very much addicted to the exact sciences, and I +could not help having a long discussion with her, to avoid which I +never pass through this street at noon, or any other time of day. To +tell you the truth," added he innocently, "I once lived with Marcel in +this neighborhood."</p> + +<p>"Still I should be very glad to offer you a glass of punch, and have a +few minutes' talk with you. Is there no other place in the vicinity +where you could step in without being hindered by any mathematical +difficulties?" asked Barbemuche, who thought it a good opportunity for +saying something very clever.</p> + +<p>Colline mused an instant. "There is a little place here," he said, +pointing to a wine shop, "where I stand on a better footing."</p> + +<p>Barbemuche made a face, and seemed to hesitate. "Is it a respectable +place?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>His cold and reserved attitude, his limited conversation, his discreet +smile, and especially his watch chain with charms on it, all led Colline +to suppose that Barbemuche was a clerk in some embassy, and that he +feared to compromise himself by going into some wine shop.</p> + +<p>"There is no danger of anyone seeing us," said he. "All the diplomatic +body is in bed by this time."</p> + +<p>Barbemuche made up his mind to go in, though at the bottom of his heart +he would have given a good deal for a false nose. For greater security, +he insisted on having a private room, and took care to fasten a napkin +before the glass door of it. These precautions taken, he appeared more +at ease, and called for a bowl of punch. Excited a little by the +generous beverage, Barbemuche became more communicative, and, after +giving some autobiographical details, made bold to express the hope he +had conceived of being personally admitted a member of the Bohemian +Club, for the accomplishment of which ambitious design he solicited the +aid of Colline.</p> + +<p>Colline replied that, for his part, he was entirely at the service of +Barbemuche, but, nevertheless, he could make no positive promise. "I +assure you of my vote," said he. "But I cannot take it upon me to +dispose of those of my comrades."</p> + +<p>"But," asked Barbemuche, "for what reasons could they refuse to admit me +among them?"</p> + +<p>Colline put down the glass which he was just lifting to his mouth, and, +in a very serious tone, addressed the rash Carolus, saying, "You +cultivate the fine arts?"</p> + +<p>"I labor humble in those noble fields of intelligence," replied the +other, who felt bound to hang out the colors of his style.</p> + +<p>Colline found the phrase well turned, and bowed in acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>"You understand music?" he continued.</p> + +<p>"I have played on the bass-viol."</p> + +<p>"A very philosophical instrument. Then, if you understand music, you +also understand that one cannot, without violation of the laws of +harmony, introduce a fifth performer into a quartet; it would cease to +be a quartet."</p> + +<p>"Exactly, and become a quintet."</p> + +<p>"A quintet, very well, now attend to me. You understand astronomy?"</p> + +<p>"A little, I'm a bachelor of arts."</p> + +<p>"There is a little song about that," said Colline. "'Dear bachelor, says +Lisette'—I have forgotten the tune. Well then, you know that there are +four cardinal points. Now suppose there were to turn up a fifth cardinal +point, all the harmony of nature would be upset. What they call a +cataclysm—you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I am waiting for the conclusion," said Carolus, whose intelligence +began to be a little shaky.</p> + +<p>"The conclusion—yes, that is the end of the argument, as death is the +end of life, and marriage of love. Well, my dear sir, I and my friends +are accustomed to live together, and we fear to impair, by the +introduction of another person, the harmony which reigns in our habits, +opinions, tastes, and dispositions. To speak frankly, we are going to +be, some day, the four cardinal points of contemporary art; accustomed +to this idea, it would annoy us to see a fifth point."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," suggested Carolus, "where you are four it is easy to be +five."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but then we cease to be four."</p> + +<p>"The objection is a trivial one."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing trivial in this world; little brooks make great +rivers; little syllables make big verses; the very mountains are made of +grains of sand—so says 'The Wisdom of Nations,' of which there is a +copy on the quay—tell me, my dear sir, which is the furrow that you +usually follow in the noble fields of intelligence?"</p> + +<p>"The great philosophers and the classic authors are my models. I live +upon their study. 'Telemachus' first inspired the consuming passion I +feel."</p> + +<p>"'Telemachus'—there are lots of him on the quay," said Colline. "You +can find him there at any time. I have bought him for five sous—a +second-hand copy—I would consent to part with it to oblige you. In +other respects, it is a great work; very well got up, considering the +age."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Carolus. "I aspire to high philosophy and sound +literature. According to my idea, art is a priesthood—."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said Colline. "There's a song about that too," and he began +to hum....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Art's a priesthood, art's a priesthood,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to the air of the drinking song in "Robert the Devil."</p> + +<p>"I say, then, that art being a solemn mission, writers ought, above all +things—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Colline, who heard one of the small hours striking, +"but it's getting to be tomorrow morning very fast."</p> + +<p>"It is late, in fact," said Carolus. "Let us go."</p> + +<p>"Do you live far off?"</p> + +<p>"Rue Royale St. Honore, No. 10."</p> + +<p>Colline had once had occasion to visit this house, and remembered that +it was a splendid private mansion.</p> + +<p>"I will mention you to my friends," said he to Carolus on parting, "and +you may be sure that I shall use all my influence to make them favorably +disposed to you. Ah, let me give you one piece of advice."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said the other.</p> + +<p>"Be very amiable and polite to Mademoiselles Mimi, Musette and Phemie; +these ladies exercise an authority over my friends, and by managing to +bring their mistresses' influence to bear upon them you will contrive +far more easily to obtain what you require from Marcel, Schaunard and +Rodolphe."</p> + +<p>"I'll try," said Carolus.</p> + +<p>Next day, Colline tumbled in upon the Bohemian association. It was the +hour of breakfast, and for a wonder, breakfast had come with the hour. +The three couples were at table, feasting on artichokes and pepper +sauce.</p> + +<p>"The deuce!" exclaimed the philosopher. "This can't last, or the world +would come to an end. I arrive," he continued, "as the ambassador of the +generous mortal whom we met last night."</p> + +<p>"Can he be sending already to ask for his money again?" said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"It has nothing to do with that," replied Colline. "This young man +wishes to be one of us; to have stock in our society, and share the +profits, of course."</p> + +<p>The three men raised their heads and looked at one another.</p> + +<p>"That's all," concluded Colline. "Now the question is open."</p> + +<p>"What is the social position of your principal?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"He is no principal of mine," answered the other. "Last night he begged +me to accompany him, and overflowed me with attentions and good liquor +for a while. But I have retained my independence."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Sketch us some leading features of his character," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Grandeur of soul, austerity of manners, afraid to go into wine shops, +bachelor of arts, candid as a transparency, plays on the bass-viol, is +disposed to change a five franc piece occasionally."</p> + +<p>"Good again!" said Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"What are his hopes?"</p> + +<p>"As I told you already, his ambition knows no bounds; he aspires to be +'hail-fellow-well-met' with us."</p> + +<p>"That is to say," answered Marcel, "he wishes to speculate upon us, and +to be seen riding in our carriages."</p> + +<p>"What is his profession?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marcel, "what does he play on?"</p> + +<p>"Literature and mixed philosophy. He calls art a priesthood."</p> + +<p>"A priesthood!" cried Rodolphe, in terror.</p> + +<p>"So he says."</p> + +<p>"And what is his road in literature?"</p> + +<p>"He goes after 'Telemachus'."</p> + +<p>"Very good," said Schaunard, eating the seed of his artichoke.</p> + +<p>"Very good! You dummy!" broke our Marcel. "I advise you not to say that +in the street."</p> + +<p>Schaunard relieved his annoyance at this reproof by kicking Phemie under +the table for taking some of his sauce.</p> + +<p>"Once more," said Rodolphe. "What is his condition in the world? What +does he live on, and where does he live? And what is his name?"</p> + +<p>"His station is honorable. He is professor of everything in a rich +family. His name is Carolus Barbemuche. He spends his income in +luxurious living and dwells in the Rue Royale."</p> + +<p>"Furnished lodging?"</p> + +<p>"No, there is real furniture."</p> + +<p>"I claim the floor," said Marcel. "To me it is evident that Colline has +been corrupted. He has already sold his vote for so many drinks. Don't +interrupt me! (Colline was rising to protest.) You shall have your +turn. Colline, mercenary soul that he is, has presented to you this +stranger under an aspect too favorable to be true. I told you before; I +see through this person's designs. He wants to speculate on us. He says +to himself, 'Here are some chaps making their way. I must get into their +pockets. I shall arrive with them at the goal of fame.'"</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" quoth Schaunard, "have you any more sauce there?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Rodolphe, "the edition is out of print."</p> + +<p>"Looking at the question from another point of view," continued Marcel, +"this insidious mortal whom Colline patronizes, perhaps aspires to our +intimacy only from the most culpable motives. Gentlemen, we are not +alone here!" continued the orator, with an eloquent look at the women. +"And Colline's client, smuggling himself into our circle under the cloak +of literature, may perchance be but a vile seducer. Reflect! For one, I +vote against his reception."</p> + +<p>"I demand the floor," said Rodolphe, "only for a correction. In his +remarkable extemporary speech, Marcel has said that this Carolus, with +the view of dishonoring us, wished to introduce himself under the cloak +of literature."</p> + +<p>"A Parliamentary figure."</p> + +<p>"A very bad figure; literature has no cloak!"</p> + +<p>"Having made a report, as chairman of committee," resumed Colline, +rising, "I maintain the conclusions therein embodied. The jealousy which +consumes him disturbs the reason of our friend Marcel; the great artist +is beside himself."</p> + +<p>"Order!" cried Marcel.</p> + +<p>"So much so, that, able designer as he is, he has just introduced into +his speech a figure the incorrectness of which has been ably pointed out +by the talented orator who preceded me."</p> + +<p>"Colline is an ass!" shouted Marcel, with a bang of his fist on the +table that caused a lively sensation among the plates. "Colline knows +nothing in an affair of sentiment; he is incompetent to judge of such +matters; he has an old book in place of a heart."</p> + +<p>Prolonged laughter from Schaunard. During the row, Colline kept gravely +adjusting the folds of his white cravat as if to make way for the +torrents of eloquence contained beneath them. When silence was +reestablished, he thus continued:</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I intend with one word to banish from your minds the +chimerical apprehensions which the suspicions of Marcel may have +engendered in them respecting Carolus."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" said Marcel ironically.</p> + +<p>"It will be as easy as that," continued Colline, blowing the match with +which he had lighted his pipe.</p> + +<p>"Go on! Go on!" cried Schaunard, Rodolphe, and the women together.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen! Although I have been personally and violently attacked in +this meeting, although I have been accused of selling for base liquors +the influence which I possess; secure in a good conscience I shall not +deign to reply to those assaults on my probity, my loyalty, my morality. +[Sensation.] But there is one thing which I will have respected. [Here +the orator, endeavoring to lay his hand on his heart, gave himself a rap +in the stomach.] My well tried and well known prudence has been called +in question. I have been accused of wishing to introduce among you a +person whose intentions were hostile to your happiness—in matters of +sentiment. This supposition is an insult to the virtue of these +ladies—nay more, an insult to their good taste. Carolus Barbemuche is +decidedly ugly." [Visible denial on the face of Phemie; noise under the +table; it is Schaunard kicking her by way of correcting her compromising +frankness.]</p> + +<p>"But," proceeded Colline, "what will reduce to powder the contemptible +argument with which my opponent has armed himself against Carolus by +taking advantage of your terrors, is the fact that the said Carolus is a +Platonist." [Sensation among the men; uproar among the women.]</p> + +<p>This declaration of Colline's produced a reaction in favor of Carolus. +The philosopher wished to improve the effect of his eloquent and adroit +defense.</p> + +<p>"Now then," he continued, "I do not see what well founded prejudices can +exist against this young man, who, after all, has rendered us a service. +As to myself, who am accused of acting thoughtlessly in wishing to +introduce him among us, I consider this opinion an insult to my dignity. +I have acted in the affair with the wisdom of the serpent; if a formal +vote does not maintain me this character for prudence, I offer my +resignation."</p> + +<p>"Do you make it a cabinet question?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>The three consulted, and agreed by common consent to restore to the +philosopher that high reputation for prudence which he claimed. Colline +then gave the floor to Marcel, who, somewhat relieved of his prejudices, +declared that he might perhaps favor the adoption of the report. But +before the decisive and final vote which should open to Carolus the +intimacy of the club, he put to the meeting this amendment:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"WHEREAS, the introduction of a new member into our society is a grave +matter, and a stranger might bring with him some elements of discord +through ignorance of the habits, tempers, and opinions of his comrades,</p> + +<p>RESOLVED, that each member shall pass a say with the said Carolus, and +investigate his manner of life, tastes, literary capacity, and wardrobe. +The members shall afterward communicate their several impressions, and +ballot on his admission accordingly. Moreover, before complete +admission, the said Carolus shall undergo a noviciate of one month, +during which time he shall not have the right to call us by our first +names or take our arm in the street. On the day of reception, a splendid +banquet shall be given at the expense of the new member, at a cost of +not less than twelve francs."</p></div> + +<p>This amendment was adopted by three votes against one. The same night +Colline went to the cafe early on purpose to be the first to see +Carolus. He had not long to wait for him. Barbemuche soon appeared, +carrying in his hand three huge bouquets of roses.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" cried the astonished Colline. "What do you mean to do with that +garden?"</p> + +<p>"I remember what you told me yesterday. Your friends will doubtless +come with their ladies, and it is on their account that I bring these +flowers—very handsome ones."</p> + +<p>"That they are; they must have cost fifteen sous, at least."</p> + +<p>"In the month of December! If you said fifteen francs you would have +come nearer."</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" cried Colline, "three crowns for these simple gifts of flora! +You must be related to the Cordilleras. Well my dear sir, that is +fifteen francs which we must throw out of the window."</p> + +<p>It was Barbemuche's turn to be astonished. Colline related the jealous +suspicions with which Marcel had inspired his friends, and informed +Carolus of the violent discussion which had taken place between them +that morning on the subject of his admission.</p> + +<p>"I protested," said Colline, "that your intentions were the purest, but +there was strong opposition nevertheless. Beware of renewing these +suspicions by much politeness to the ladies; and to begin, let us put +these bouquets out of the way." He took the roses and hid them in a +cupboard. "But this is not all," he resumed. "Before connecting +themselves intimately with you, these gentlemen desire to make a +private examination, each for himself, of your character, tastes, etc."</p> + +<p>Then, lest Barbemuche might do something to shock his friends, Colline +rapidly sketched a moral portrait of each of them. "Contrive to agree +with them separately," added the philosopher, "and they will end by all +liking you."</p> + +<p>Carolus agreed to everything. The three friends soon arrived with their +friends of the other sex. Rodolphe was polite to Carolus, Schaunard +familiar with him, while Marcel remained cold. Carolus forced himself to +be gay and amiable with the men and indifferent to the women. When they +broke up for the night, he asked Rodolphe to dine with him the next day, +and to come as early as noon. The poet accepted, saying to himself, +"Good! I am to begin the inquiry, then."</p> + +<p>Next morning at the hour appointed, he called on Carolus, who did indeed +live in a very handsome private house, where he occupied a sufficiently +comfortable room. But Rodolphe was surprised to find at that time of day +the shutters closed, the curtains drawn, and two lighted candles on the +table. He asked Barbemuche the reason.</p> + +<p>"Study," replied the other, "is the child of mystery and silence."</p> + +<p>They sat down and talked. At the end of an hour, Carolus, with infinite +oratorial address, brought in a phrase which, despite its humble form, +was neither more nor less than a summons made to Rodolphe to hear a +little work, the fruit of Barbemuche's vigils.</p> + +<p>The poet saw himself caught. Curious, however, to learn the color of the +other's style, he bowed politely, assured him that he was enchanted, +that Carolus did not wait for him to finish the sentence. He ran to bolt +the door, and then took up a small memorandum book, the thinness of +which brought a smile of satisfaction to the poet's face.</p> + +<p>"Is that the manuscript of your work?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Carolus. "It is the catalog of my manuscripts and I am +looking for the one which you will allow me to read you. Here it is: +'Don Lopez or Fatality No. 14.' It's on the third shelf," and he +proceeded to open a small closet in which Rodolphe perceived, with +terror, a great quantity of manuscripts. Carolus took out one of these, +shut the closet, and seated himself in front of the poet.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe cast a glance at one of the four piles of elephant paper of +which the work was composed. "Come," said he to himself, "it's not in +verse, but it's called 'Don Lopez.'"</p> + +<p>Carolus began to read:</p> + +<p>"On a cold winter night, two cavaliers, enveloped in large cloaks, and +mounted on sluggish mules, were making their way side by side over one +of the roads which traverse the frightful solitudes of the Sierra +Morena."</p> + +<p>"May the Lord have mercy on me!" ejaculated Rodolphe mentally.</p> + +<p>Carolus continued to read his first chapter, written in the style above +throughout. Rodolphe listened vaguely, and tried to devise some means of +escape.</p> + +<p>"There is the window, but it's fastened; and beside, we are in the +fourth story. Ah, now I understand all these precautions."</p> + +<p>"What do you think of my first chapter?" asked Carolus. "Do not spare +any criticism, I beg of you."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe thought he remembered having heard some scraps of philosophical +declamation upon suicide, put forth by the hero of the romance, Don +Lopez, to wit; so he replied at hazard:</p> + +<p>"The grand figure of Don Lopez is conscientiously studied; it reminds me +of 'Savoyard Vicar's Confession of Faith;' the description of Don +Alvar's mule pleases me exceedingly; it is like a sketch of Gericault's. +There are good lines in the landscape; as to the thoughts, they are +seeds of Rousseau planted in the soil of Lesage. Only allow me to make +one observation: you use too many stops, and you work the word +henceforward too hard. It is a good word, and gives color, but should +not be abused."</p> + +<p>Carolus took up a second pile of paper, and repeated the title "Don +Lopez or, Fatality."</p> + +<p>"I knew a Don Lopez once," said Rodolphe. "He used to sell cigarettes +and Bayonne chocolate. Perhaps he was a relative of your man. Go on."</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the second chapter, the poet interrupted his host:</p> + +<p>"Don't you feel your throat a little dry?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," replied Carolus. "We are coming to the history of +Inesilla."</p> + +<p>"I am very curious to hear it, nevertheless, if you are tired—"</p> + +<p>"Chapter third!" enunciated Carolus in a voice that gave no signs of +fatigue.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe took a careful survey of Barbemuche and perceived that he had a +short neck and a ruddy complexion. "I have one hope left," thought the +poet on making this discovery. "He may have an attack of apoplexy."</p> + +<p>"Will you be so good as to tell me what you think of the love scene?"</p> + +<p>Carolus looked at Rodolphe to observe in his face what effect the +dialogue produced upon him. The poet was bending forward on his chair, +with his neck stretched out in the attitude of one who is listening for +some distant sound.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>"Hist!" said Rodolphe, "don't you hear? I thought somebody cried fire! +Suppose we go and see."</p> + +<p>Carolus listened an instant but heard nothing.</p> + +<p>"It must have been a ringing in my ears," said the other. "Go on, Don +Alvar interests me exceedingly; he is a noble youth."</p> + +<p>Carolus continued with all the music that he could put into his voice:</p> + +<p>"Oh Inesilla! Whatever thou art, angel or demon; and whatever be thy +country, my life is thine, and thee will follow, be it to heaven or +hell!"</p> + +<p>Someone knocked at the door.</p> + +<p>"It's my porter," said Barbemuche, half opening the door.</p> + +<p>It was indeed the porter with a letter. "What an unlucky chance!" cried +Carolus, after he had perused it. "We must put off our reading until some +other time. I have to go out immediately. If you please, we will execute +this little commission together, as it is nothing private, and then we +can come back to dinner."</p> + +<p>"There," thought Rodolphe, "is a letter that has fallen from heaven. I +recognize the seal of Providence."</p> + +<p>When he rejoined the comrades that night, the poet was interrogated by +Marcel and Schaunard.</p> + +<p>"Did he treat you well?" they asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I paid dear for it."</p> + +<p>"How? Did Carolus make you pay?" demanded Schaunard with rising choler.</p> + +<p>"He read a novel at me, inside of which the people are named Don Lopez +and Don Alvar; and the tenors call their mistresses 'angel,' or +'demon.'"</p> + +<p>"How shocking!" cried the Bohemians, in chorus.</p> + +<p>"But otherwise," said Colline, "literature apart, what is your opinion +of him?"</p> + +<p>"A very nice young man. You can judge for yourselves; Carolus means to +treat us all in turn; he invites Schaunard to breakfast with him +tomorrow. Only look out for the closet with the manuscripts in it."</p> + +<p>Schaunard was punctual and went to work with the minuteness of an +auctioneer taking an inventory, or a sheriff levying an execution. +Accordingly he came back full of notes; he had studied Carolus chiefly +in respect of movables and worldly goods.</p> + +<p>"This Barbemuche," he said, on being asked his opinion, "is a lump of +good qualities. He knows the names of all the wines that were ever +invented, and made me eat more nice things than my aunt ever did on her +birthday. He is on very good terms with the tailors in the Rue +Vivienne, and the bootmakers of the Passage des Panoramas; and I have +observed that he is nearly our size, so that, in case of need, we can +lend him our clothes. His habits are less austere than Colline chose to +represent them; he went wherever I pleased to take him, and gave me +breakfast in two acts, the second of which went off in a tavern by the +fish market where I am known for some Carnival orgies. Well, Carolus +went in there as any ordinary mortal might, and that's all. Marcel goes +tomorrow."</p> + +<p>Carolus knew that Marcel was the one who had made the most objections to +his reception. Accordingly, he treated him with particular attention, +and especially won his heart by holding out the hope of procuring him +some sitters in the family of his pupil. When it came to Marcel's turn +to make his report, there were no traces of his original hostility to +Carolus.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day, Colline informed Barbemuche that he was admitted, but +under conditions. "You have a number of vulgar habits," he said, "which +must be reformed."</p> + +<p>"I shall do my best to imitate you," said Carolus.</p> + +<p>During the whole time of his noviciate the Platonic philosopher kept +company with the Bohemians continually, and was thus enabled to study +their habits more thoroughly, not without being very much astonished at +times. One morning, Colline came to see him with a joyful face.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," he said, "it's all over; you are now definitely one of +us. It only remains to fix the day and the place of the grand +entertainment; I have come to talk with you about it."</p> + +<p>"That can be arranged with perfect ease," said Carolus. "The parents of +my pupil are out of town; the young viscount, whose mentor I am, will +lend us the apartments for an evening, only we must invite him to the +party."</p> + +<p>"That will be very nice," replied Colline. "We will open to him the +vistas of literature; but do you think he will consent?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure of it."</p> + +<p>"Then it only remains to fix the day."</p> + +<p>"We will settle that tonight at the cafe."</p> + +<p>Carolus then went to find his pupil and announced to him that he had +just been elected into a distinguished society of literary men and +artists, and that he was going to give a dinner, followed by a little +party, to celebrate his admission. He therefore proposed to him to make +him one of the guests. "And since you cannot be out late," added +Carolus, "and the entertainment may last some time, it will be for our +convenience to have it here. Your servant François knows how to hold his +tongue; your parents will know nothing of it; and you will have made +acquaintance with some of the cleverest people in Paris, artists and +authors."</p> + +<p>"In print?" asked the youth.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, one of them edits 'The Scarf of Iris,' which your mother +takes in. They are very distinguished persons, almost celebrities, +intimate friends of mine, and their wives are charming."</p> + +<p>"Will there be some women?" asked Viscount Paul.</p> + +<p>"Delightful ones," returned Carolus.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear master, I thank you. The entertainment shall certainly take +place here. All the lustres shall be lit up, and I will have the +wrappers taken off the furniture."</p> + +<p>That night at the cafe, Barbemuche announced that the party would come +off next Saturday. The Bohemians told their mistresses to think about +their toilettes.</p> + +<p>"Do not forget," said they, "that we are going into the real drawing +rooms. Therefore, make ready; a rich but simple costume."</p> + +<p>And from that day all the neighborhood was informed that Mademoiselles +Phemie, Mimi, and Musette were going into society.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the festivity, Colline, Schaunard, Marcel, and +Rodolphe called, in a body, on Barbemuche, who looked astonished to see +them so early.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened which will oblige us to put it off?" he asked +with some anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Yes—that is, no," said Colline. "This is how we are placed. Among +ourselves we never stand on ceremony, but when we are to meet strangers, +we wish to preserve a certain decorum."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the other.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Colline, "since we are to meet tonight, the young +gentleman to whom we are indebted for the rooms, out of respect to him +and to ourselves, we come simply to ask you if you cannot lend us some +becoming toggery. It is almost impossible, you see, for us to enter this +gorgeous roof in frock-coats and colored trousers."</p> + +<p>"But," said Carolus, "I have not black clothes for all of you."</p> + +<p>"We will make do with what you have," said Colline.</p> + +<p>"Suit yourselves then," said Carolus, opening a well-furnished wardrobe.</p> + +<p>"What an arsenal of elegancies!" said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Three hats!" exclaimed Schaunard, in ecstasy. "Can a man want three +hats when he had but one head?"</p> + +<p>"And the boots!" said Rodolphe, "only look!"</p> + +<p>"What a number of boots!" howled Colline.</p> + +<p>In a twinkling of an eye each had selected a complete equipment.</p> + +<p>"Till this evening," said they, taking leave of Barbemuche. "The ladies +intend to be most dazzling."</p> + +<p>"But," said Barbemuche, casting a glance at the emptied wardrobe. "You +have left me nothing. What am I to wear?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's different with you," said Rodolphe. "You are the master of the +house; you need not stand upon etiquette."</p> + +<p>"But I have only my dressing gown and slippers, flannel waistcoat and +trousers with stocking feet. You have taken everything."</p> + +<p>"Never mind; we excuse you beforehand," replied the four.</p> + +<p>A very good dinner was served at six. The company arrived, Marcel +limping and out of humor. The young viscount rushed up to the ladies and +led them to the best seats. Mimi was dressed with fanciful elegance; +Musette got up with seductive taste; Phemie looked like a stained glass +window, and hardly dared sit down.</p> + +<p>The dinner lasted two hours and a half, and was delightfully lively. The +young viscount, who sat next to Mimi, kept treading on her foot. Phemie +took twice of every dish. Schaunard was in clover. Rodolphe improvised +sonnets and broke glasses in marking the rhyme. Colline talked to +Marcel, who remained sulky.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with you?" asked the philosopher.</p> + +<p>"My feet are in torture; this Carolus has boots like a woman's."</p> + +<p>"He must be given to understand that, for the future, some of his shoes +are to be made a little larger. Be easy, I will see to it. But now to +the drawing room, where the coffee and liquers await us."</p> + +<p>The revelry recommenced with increased noise. Schaunard seated himself +at the piano and executed, with immense spirit, his new symphony, "The +Death of the Damsel." To this succeeded the characteristic piece of "The +Creditor's March," which was twice encored, and two chords of the piano +were broken.</p> + +<p>Marcel was still morose, and replied to the complaints and +expostulations of Carolus:</p> + +<p>"My dear sir, we shall never be intimate friends, and for this reason: +Physical differences are almost always the certain sign of a moral +difference; on this point philosophy and medicine agree."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Carolus.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Marcel, showing his feet, "your boots, infinitely too +small for me, indicate a radical difference of temper and character; in +other respects, your little party has been charming."</p> + +<p>At one in the morning the guests took leave, and zig-zagged homeward. +Barbemuche felt very ill, and made incoherent harangues to his pupil, +who, for his part, was dreaming of Mademoiselle Mimi's blue eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XIII</a></h2> + +<h3>THE HOUSE WARMING</h3> + + +<p>This took place some time after the union of the poet Rodolphe and +Mademoiselle Mimi. For a week the whole of the Bohemian brotherhood +were grievously perturbed by the disappearance of Rodolphe, who had +suddenly become invisible. They had sought for him in all his customary +haunts, and had everywhere been met by the same reply—</p> + +<p>"We have not seen him for a week."</p> + +<p>Gustave Colline above all was very uneasy, and for the following reason. +A few days previously he had handed to Rodolphe a highly philosophical +article, which the latter was to insert in the columns of "The Beaver," +the organ of the hat trade, of which he was editor. Had this +philosophical article burst upon the gaze of astonished Europe? Such +was the query put to himself by the astonished Colline, and this anxiety +will be understood when it is explained that the philosopher had never +yet had the honor of appearing in print, and that he was consumed by the +desire of seeing what effect would be produced by his prose in pica. To +procure himself this gratification he had already expended six francs in +visiting all the reading rooms of Paris without being able to find "The +Beaver" in any one of them. Not being able to stand it any longer, +Colline swore to himself that he would not take a moment's rest until he +had laid hands on the undiscoverable editor of this paper.</p> + +<p>Aided by chances which it would take too long to tell in detail, the +philosopher was able to keep his word. Within two days he learned +Rodolphe's abiding place and called on him there at six in the morning.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe was then residing in a lodging house in a deserted street +situated in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and was perched on the fifth +floor because there was not a sixth. When Colline came to his door there +was no key in the lock outside. He knocked for ten minutes without +obtaining any answer from within; the din he made at this early hour +attracted the attention of even the porter, who came to ask him to be +quiet.</p> + +<p>"You see very well that the gentleman is asleep," said he.</p> + +<p>"That is why I want to wake him up," replied Colline, knocking again.</p> + +<p>"He does not want to answer then," replied the porter, placing before +Rodolphe's door a pair of patent leather boots and a pair of lady's +boots that he had just cleaned.</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit though," observed Colline, examining the masculine and +feminine foot gear. "New patent leathers! I must have made a mistake; it +cannot be here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, by the way," said the porter, "whom do you want?"</p> + +<p>"A woman's boots!" continued Colline, speaking to himself, and thinking +of his friends austere manners, "Yes, certainly I must have made a +mistake. This is not Rodolphe's room."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir, it is."</p> + +<p>"You must be making a mistake, my good man."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Decidedly you must be making a mistake," said Colline, pointing to the +patent leather boots. "What are those?"</p> + +<p>"Those are Monsieur Rodolphe's boots. What is there to be wondered at in +that?"</p> + +<p>"And these?" asked Colline, pointing to the lady's boots. "Are they +Monsieur Rodolphe's too?"</p> + +<p>"Those are his wife's," said the porter.</p> + +<p>"His wife's!" exclaimed Colline in a tone of stupefaction. "Ah! The +voluptuary, that is why he will not open the door."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the porter, "he is free to do as he likes about that, sir. +If you will leave me your name I will let him know you called."</p> + +<p>"No," said Colline. "Now that I know where to find him I will call +again."</p> + +<p>And he at once went off to tell the important news to his friends.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe's patent leathers were generally considered to be a fable due +to Colline's wealth of imagination, and it was unanimously declared that +his mistress was a paradox.</p> + +<p>This paradox was, however, a truism, for that very evening Marcel +received a letter collectively addressed to the whole of the set. It was +as follows:—</p> + +<p>"Monsieur and Madame Rodolphe, literati, beg you to favor them with your +company at dinner tomorrow evening at five o'clock sharp."</p> + +<p>"N.B.—There will be plates."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said Marcel, when communicating the letter to his comrades, +"the news is confirmed, Rodolphe has really a mistress; further he +invites us to dinner, and the postscript promises crockery. I will not +conceal from you that this last paragraph seems to me a lyrical +exaggeration, but we shall see."</p> + +<p>The following day at the hour named, Marcel, Gustave Colline, and +Alexander Schaunard, keen set as on the last day of Lent, went to +Rodolphe's, whom they found playing with a sandy haired cat, whilst a +young woman was laying the table.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, shaking his friends' hands and indicating +the young lady, "allow me to introduce you to the mistress of the +household."</p> + +<p>"You are the household, are you not?" said Colline, who had a mania for +this kind of joke.</p> + +<p>"Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "I present my best friends; now go and get the +soup ready."</p> + +<p>"Oh madame," said Alexander Schaunard, hastening towards Mimi, "you are +as fresh as a wild flower."</p> + +<p>After having satisfied himself that there were really plates on the +table, Schaunard asked what they were going to have to eat. He even +carried his curiosity so far as to lift up the covers of the stewpans in +which the dinner was cooking. The presence of a lobster produced a +lively impression upon him.</p> + +<p>As to Colline, he had drawn Rodolphe aside to ask about his +philosophical article.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, it is at the printer's. 'The Beaver' appears next +Thursday."</p> + +<p>We give up the task of depicting the philosopher's delight.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe to his friends. "I ask your pardon for +leaving you so long without any news of me, but I was spending my +honeymoon." And he narrated the story of his union with the charming +creature who had brought him as a dowry her eighteen years and a half, +two porcelain cups, and a sandy haired cat named Mimi, like herself.</p> + +<p>"Come, gentlemen," said Rodolphe, "we are going to celebrate my house +warming. I forewarn you, though, that we are about to have merely a +family repast; truffles will be replaced by frank cordiality."</p> + +<p>Indeed, that amiable goddess did not cease to reign amongst the guests, +who found, however, that the so-called frugal repast did not lack a +certain amplitude. Rodolphe, indeed, had spread himself out. Colline +called attention to the fact that the plates were changed, and declared +aloud that Mademoiselle Mimi was worthy of the azure scarf with which +the empresses of the cooking stove were adorned, a phrase which was +Greek to the young girl, and which Rodolphe translated by telling her +"that she would make a capital Cordon Bleu."</p> + +<p>The appearance on the scene of the lobster caused universal admiration. +Under the pretext that he had studied natural history, Schaunard +suggested that he should carve it. He even profited by this circumstance +to break a knife and to take the largest helping for himself, which +excited general indignation. But Schaunard had no self respect, above +all in the matter of lobsters, and as there was still a portion left, he +had the audacity to put it on one side, saying that he would do for a +model for a still life piece he had on hand.</p> + +<p>Indulgent friendship feigned to believe this fiction, but fruit of +immoderate gluttony.</p> + +<p>As to Colline he reserved his sympathies for the dessert, and was even +obstinate enough to cruelly refuse the share of a tipsy cake against a +ticket of admission to the orangery of Versailles offered to him by +Schaunard.</p> + +<p>At this point conversation began to get lively. To three bottles with +red seals succeeded three bottles with green seals, in the midst of +which shortly appeared one which by its neck topped with a silver +helmet, was recognized as belonging to the Royal Champagne Regiment—a +fantastic Champagne vintaged by Saint Ouen, and sold in Paris at two +francs the bottle as bankrupt's stock, so the vendor asserted.</p> + +<p>But it is not the district that makes the wine, and our Bohemians +accepted as the authentic growth of Ai the liquor that was served out to +them in the appropriate glasses, and despite the scant degree of +vivacity shown by the cork in popping from its prison, went into +ecstacies over the excellence of the vintage on seeing the quality of +the froth. Schaunard summoned up all his remaining self-possession to +make a mistake as regards glasses, and help himself to that of Colline, +who kept gravely dipping his biscuit in the mustard pot as he explained +to Mademoiselle Mimi the philosophical article that was to appear in +"The Beaver." All at once he grew pale, and asked leave to go to the +window and look at the sunset, although it was ten o'clock at night, and +the sun had set long ago.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity the Champagne is not iced," said Schaunard, again trying +to substitute his empty glass for the full one of his neighbor, an +attempt this time without success.</p> + +<p>"Madame," observed Colline, who had ceased to take the fresh air, to +Mimi, "Champagne is iced with ice. Ice is formed by the condensation of +water, in Latin aqua. Water freezes at two degrees, and there are four +seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, which was the cause of the +retreat from Moscow."</p> + +<p>All at once Colline suddenly slapped Rodolphe on the shoulder, and in a +thick voice that seemed to mash all the syllables together, said to +him—</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow is Thursday, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Rodolphe. "Tomorrow is Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Thursday."</p> + +<p>"No, I tell you. Tomorrow is Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Sunday!" said Colline, wagging his head, "not a bit of it, it is +Thursday."</p> + +<p>And he fell asleep, making a mold for a cast of his face in the cream +cheese that was before him in his plate.</p> + +<p>"What is he harping about Thursday?" observed Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I have it!" said Rodolphe, who began to understand the persistency +of the philosopher, tormented by a fixed idea, "it is on account of his +article in 'The Beaver.' Listen, he is dreaming of it aloud."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Schaunard. "He shall not have any coffee, eh, madame?"</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Rodolphe, "pour out the coffee, Mimi."</p> + +<p>The latter was about to rise, when Colline, who had recovered a little +self possession, caught her around the waist and whispered +confidentially in her ear:</p> + +<p>"Madame, the coffee plant is a native of Arabia, where it was discovered +by a goat. Its use expanded to Europe. Voltaire used to drink seventy +cups a day. I like mine without sugar, but very hot."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! What a learned man!" thought Mimi as she brought the +coffee and pipes.</p> + +<p>However time was getting on, midnight had long since struck, and +Rodolphe sought to make his guests understand that it was time for them +to withdraw. Marcel, who retained all his senses, got up to go.</p> + +<p>But Schaunard perceived that there was still some brandy in a bottle, +and declared that it could not be midnight so long as there was any +left. As to Colline, he was sitting astride his chair and murmuring in a +low voice:</p> + +<p>"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday."</p> + +<p>"Hang it all," said Rodolphe, greatly embarrassed, "I cannot give them +quarters here tonight; formerly it was all very well, but now it is +another thing," he added, looking at Mimi, whose softly kindling eyes +seemed to appeal for solitude for their two selves. "What is to be +done? Give me a bit of advice, Marcel. Invent a trick to get rid of +them."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't invent," replied Marcel, "but I will imitate. I remember a +play in which a sharp servant manages to get rid of three rascals as +drunk as Silenus who are at his master's."</p> + +<p>"I recollect it," said Rodolphe, "it is in 'Kean.' Indeed, the situation +is the same."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Marcel, "we will see if the stage holds the glass up to +human nature. Stop a bit, we will begin with Schaunard. Here, I say, +Schaunard."</p> + +<p>"Eh? What is it?" replied the latter, who seemed to be floating in the +elysium of mild intoxication.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing more to drink here, and we are all thirsty."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Schaunard, "bottles are so small."</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Marcel, "Rodolphe has decided that we shall pass the +night here, but we must go and get something before the shops are +shut."</p> + +<p>"My grocer lives at the corner of the street," said Rodolphe. "Do you +mind going there, Schaunard? You can fetch two bottles of rum, to be put +down to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes, certainly," said Schaunard, making a mistake in his greatcoat +and taking that of Colline, who was tracing figures on the table cloth +with his knife.</p> + +<p>"One," said Marcel, when Schaunard had gone. "Now let us tackle Colline, +that will be a harder job. Ah! an idea. Hi, hi, Colline," he continued, +shaking the philosopher.</p> + +<p>"What? what? what is it?"</p> + +<p>"Schaunard has just gone, and has taken your hazel overcoat by mistake."</p> + +<p>Colline glanced round again, and perceived indeed in the place of his +garment, Schaunard's little plaid overcoat. A sudden idea flashed across +his mind and filled him with uneasiness. Colline, according to his +custom, had been book-hunting during the day, and had bought for fifteen +sous a Finnish grammar and a little novel of Nisard's entitled "The +Milkwoman's Funeral." These two acquisitions were accompanied by seven +or eight volumes of philosophy that he had always about him as an +arsenal whence to draw reasons in case of an argument. The idea of this +library being in the hands of Schaunard threw him into a cold +perspiration.</p> + +<p>"The wretch!" exclaimed Colline, "what did he take my greatcoat for?"</p> + +<p>"It was by mistake."</p> + +<p>"But my books. He may put them to some improper purpose."</p> + +<p>"Do not be afraid, he will not read them," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"No, but I know him; he is capable of lighting his pipe with them."</p> + +<p>"If you are uneasy you can catch him up," said Rodolphe. "He has only +just this moment gone out, you will overtake him at the street door."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I will overtake him," replied Colline, putting on his hat, +the brim of which was so broad that tea for six people might have been +served upon it.</p> + +<p>"Two," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "now you are free. I am off, and I will +tell the porter not to open the outer door if anyone knocks."</p> + +<p>"Goodnight and thanks," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>As he was showing his friend out Rodolphe heard on the staircase a +prolonged mew, to which his carroty cat replied by another, whilst +trying at the same time to slip out adroitly by the half-opened door.</p> + +<p>"Poor Romeo!" said Rodolphe, "there is his Juliet calling him. Come, off +with you," he added opening the door to the enamored beast, who made a +single leap down the stairs into its lover's arms.</p> + +<p>Left alone with his mistress, who standing before the glass was curling +her hair in a charmingly provocative attitude, Rodolphe approached Mimi +and passed his arms around her. Then, like a musician, who before +commencing a piece, strikes a series of notes to assure himself of the +capacity of the instrument, Rodolphe drew Mimi onto his knee, and +printed on her shoulder a long and sonorous kiss, which imparted a +sudden vibration to the frame of the youthful beauty.</p> + +<p>The instrument was in tune.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XIV</a></h2> + +<h3>MADEMOISELLE MIMI</h3> + + +<p>Oh! my friend Rodolphe, what has happened to change you thus? Am I to +believe the rumors that are current, and that this misfortune has broken +down to such a degree your robust philosophy? How can I, the historian +in ordinary of your Bohemian epic, so full of joyous bursts of +laughter, narrate in a sufficiently melancholy tone the painful +adventure which casts a veil over your constant gaiety, and suddenly +checks the ringing flow of your paradoxes?</p> + +<p>Oh! Rodolphe, my friend, I admit that the evil is serious, but there, +really it is not worthwhile throwing oneself into the water about it. So +I invite you to bury the past as soon as possible. Shun above all the +solitude peopled with phantoms who would help to render your regrets +eternal. Shun the silence where the echoes of recollection would still +be full of your past joys and sorrows. Cast boldly to all the winds of +forgetfulness the name you have so fondly cherished, and with it all +that still remains to you of her who bore it. Curls pressed by lips mad +with desire, a Venice flask in which there still lurks a remainder of +perfume, which at this moment it would be more dangerous for you to +breathe than all the poisons in the world. To the fire with the flowers, +the flowers of gauze, silk and velvet, the white geraniums, the anemones +empurpled by the blood of Adonis, the blue forget-me-nots and all those +charming bouquets that she put together in the far off days of your +brief happiness. Then I loved her too, your Mimi, and saw no danger in +your loving her. But follow my advice—to the fire with the ribbons, the +pretty pink, blue, and yellow ribbons which she wore round her neck to +attract the eye; to the fire with the lace, the caps, the veils and all +the coquettish trifles with which she bedecked herself to go +love-making with Monsieur Cesar, Monsieur Jerome, Monsieur Charles, or +any other gallant in the calendar, whilst you were awaiting her at your +window, shivering from the wintry blast. To the fire, Rodolphe, and +without pity, with all that belonged to her and could still speak to you +of her; to the fire with the love letters. Ah! here is one of them, and +your tears have bedewed it like a fountain. Oh! my unhappy friend!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"As you have not come in, I am going out to call on my aunt. I have +taken what money there was for a cab."</p> + +<p>"Lucille."</p></div> + +<p>That evening, oh! Rodolphe, you had, do you not recollect, to go without +your dinner, and you called on me and let off a volley of jests which +fully attested your tranquillity of mind. For you believed Lucille was +at her aunt's, and if I had not told you that she was with Monsieur +Cesar or with an actor of the Montparnasse Theater, you would have cut +my throat! To the fire, too, with this other note, which has all the +laconic affection of the first.</p> + +<p>"I am gone out to order some boots, you must find the money for me to +go and fetch them tomorrow."</p> + +<p>Ah! my friend, those boots have danced many quadrilles in which you did +not figure as a partner. To the flames with all these remembrances and +to the winds with their ashes.</p> + +<p>But in the first place, oh Rodolphe! for the love of humanity and the +reputation of "The Scarf of Iris" and "The Beaver," resume the reins of +good taste that you have egotistically dropped during your sufferings, +or else horrible things may happen for which you will be responsible. We +may go back to leg-of-mutton sleeves and frilled trousers, and some fine +day see hats come into fashion which would afflict the universe and +call down the wrath of heaven.</p> + +<p>And now the moment is come to relate the loves of our friend Rodolphe +and Mimi. It was just as he was turned four and twenty that Rodolphe was +suddenly smitten with the passion that had such an influence upon his +life. At the time he met Mimi he was leading that broken and fantastic +existence that we have tried to describe in the preceding chapters of +this book. He was certainly one of the gayest endurers of poverty in the +world of Bohemia. When in course of the day he had made a poor dinner +and a smart remark, he walked more proudly in his black coat (pleading +for help through every gaping seam) along the pavement that often +promised to be his only resting place for the night, than an emperor in +his purple robe. In the group amongst whom Rodolphe lived, they +affected, after a fashion common enough amongst some young fellows, to +treat love as a thing of luxury, a pretext for jesting. Gustave Colline, +who had for a long time past been in intimate relations with a waistcoat +maker, whom he was rendering deformed in mind and body by obliging her +to sit day and night copying the manuscripts of his philosophical works, +asserted that love was a kind of purgative, good to take at the +beginning of each season in order to get rid of humors. Amidst all these +false sceptics Rodolphe was the only one who dared to talk of love with +some reverence, and when they had the misfortune to let him harp on +this string, he would go on for an hour plaintively wurbling elegies on +the happiness of being loved, the deep blue of the peaceful lake, the +song of the breeze, the harmony of the stars, &c., &c. This mania had +caused him to be nicknamed the harmonica by Schaunard. Marcel had also +made on this subject a very neat remark when, alluding to the +Teutonically sentimental tirades of Rodolphe and to his premature +calvity, he called him the bald forget-me-not. The real truth was this. +Rodolphe then seriously believed he had done with all things of youth +and love; he insolently chanted a <i>De profundis</i> over his heart, which +he thought dead when it was only silent, yet still ready to awake, still +accessible to joy, and more susceptible than ever to all the sweet pangs +that he no longer hoped for, and that were now driving him to despair. +You would have it, Rodolphe, and we shall not pity you, for the disease +from which you are suffering is one of those we long for most, above all +when we know that we are cured of it forever.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe then met Mimi, whom he had formerly known when she was the +mistress of one of his friends; and he made her his own. There was at +first a great outcry amongst Rodolphe's friends when they learned of +this union, but as Mademoiselle Mimi was very taking, not at all +prudish, and could stand tobacco smoke and literary conversations +without a headache, they became accustomed to her and treated her as a +comrade. Mimi was a charming girl, and especially adapted for both the +plastic and poetical sympathies of Rodolphe. She was twenty two years of +age, small, delicate, and arch. Her face seemed the first sketch of an +aristocratic countenance, but her features, extremely fine in outline, +and as it were, softly lit up by the light of her clear blue eyes, wore, +at certain moments of weariness or ill-humor, an expression of almost +savage brutality, in which a physiologist would perhaps have recognized +the indication of profound egotism or great insensibility. But hers was +usually a charming head, with a fresh and youthful smile and glances +either tender or full of imperious coquetry. The blood of youth flowed +warm and rapid in her veins, and imparted rosy tints to her transparent +skin of camellia-like whiteness. This unhealthy beauty captivated +Rodolphe, and he often during the night spent hours in covering with +kisses the pale forehead of his slumbering mistress, whose humid and +weary eyes shone half-closed beneath the curtain of her magnificent +brown hair. But what contributed above all to make Rodolphe madly in +love with Mademoiselle Mimi were her hands, which in spite of household +cares, she managed to keep as white as those of the Goddess of Idleness. +However, these hands so frail, so tiny, so soft to the lips; these +child-like hands in which Rodolphe had placed his once more awakened +heart; these white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi were soon to rend that +heart with their rosy nails.</p> + +<p>At the end of a month Rodolphe began to perceive that he was wedded to +a thunderstorm, and that his mistress had one great fault. She was a +"gadabout," as they say, and spent a great part of her time amongst the +kept women of the neighborhood, whose acquaintance she had made. The +result that Rodolphe had feared, when he perceived the relations +contracted by his mistress, soon took place. The variable opulence of +some of her new friends caused a forest of ambitious ideas to spring up +in the mind of Mademoiselle Mimi, who up until then had only had modest +tastes, and was content with the necessaries of life that Rodolphe did +his best to procure for her. Mimi began to dream of silks, velvets, and +lace. And, despite Rodolphe's prohibition, she continued to frequent +these women, who were all of one mind in persuading her to break off +with the Bohemian who could not even give her a hundred and fifty francs +to buy a stuff dress.</p> + +<p>"Pretty as you are," said her advisers, "you can easily secure a better +position. You have only to look for it."</p> + +<p>And Mademoiselle Mimi began to look. A witness of her frequent absences, +clumsily accounted for, Rodolphe entered upon the painful track of +suspicion. But as soon as he felt himself on the trail of some proof of +infidelity, he eagerly drew a bandage over his eyes in order to see +nothing. However, a strange, jealous, fantastic, quarrelsome love which +the girl did not understand, because she then only felt for Rodolphe +that lukewarm attachment resulting from habit. Besides, half of her +heart had already been expended over her first love, and the other half +was still full of the remembrance of her first lover.</p> + +<p>Eight months passed by in this fashion, good and evil days alternating. +During this period Rodolphe was a score of times on the point of +separating from Mademoiselle Mimi, who had for him all the clumsy +cruelties of the woman who does not love. Properly speaking, this life +had become a hell for both. But Rodolphe had grown accustomed to these +daily struggles, and dreaded nothing so much as a cessation of this +state of things; for he felt that with it would cease forever the fever +and agitations of youth that he had not felt for so long. And then, if +everything must be told, there were hours in which Mademoiselle Mimi +knew how to make Rodolphe forget all the suspicions that were tearing at +his heart. There were moments when she caused him to bend like a child +at her knee beneath the charm of her blue eyes—the poet to whom she had +given back his lost poetry—the young man to whom she had restored his +youth, and who, thanks to her, was once more beneath love's equator. Two +or three times a month, amidst these stormy quarrels, Rodolphe and Mimi +halted with one accord at the verdant oasis of a night of love, and for +whole hours would give himself up to addressing her in that charming yet +absurd language that passion improvises in its hour of delirium. Mimi +listened calmly at first, rather astonished than moved, but, in the end, +the enthusiastic eloquence of Rodolphe, by turns tender, lively, and +melancholy, won on her by degrees. She felt the ice of indifference that +numbed her heart melt at the contact of the love; she would throw +herself on Rodolphe's breast, and tell him by kisses all that she was +unable to tell him in words. And dawn surprised them thus enlaced +together—eyes fixed on eyes, hands clasped in hands—whilst their moist +and burning lips were still murmuring that immortal word "that for five +thousand years has lingered nightly on lovers' lips."</p> + +<p>But the next day the most futile pretext brought about a quarrel, and +love alarmed fled again for some time.</p> + +<p>In the end, however, Rodolphe perceived that if he did not take care the +white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi would lead him to an abyss in which he +would leave his future and his youth. For a moment stern reason spoke in +him more strongly than love, and he convinced himself by strong +arguments, backed up by proofs, that his mistress did not love him. He +went so far as to say to himself, that the hours of love she granted him +were nothing but a mere sensual caprice such as married women feel for +their husbands when they long for a cashmere shawl or a new dress, or +when their lover is away, in accordance with the proverb that half a +loaf is better than no bread. In short, Rodolphe could forgive his +mistress everything except not being loved. He therefore took a supreme +resolution, and announced to Mademoiselle Mimi that she would have to +look out for another lover. Mimi began to laugh and to utter bravados. +In the end, seeing that Rodolphe was firm in his resolve, and greeted +her with extreme calmness when she returned home after a day and a night +spent out of the house, she began to grow a little uneasy in face of +this firmness, to which she was not accustomed. She was then charming +for two or three days. But her lover did not go back on what he had +said, and contented himself with asking whether she had found anyone.</p> + +<p>"I have not even looked," she replied.</p> + +<p>However, she had looked, and even before Rodolphe had advised her to do +so. In a fortnight she had made two essays. One of her friends had +helped her, and had at first procured her the acquaintance of a very +tender youth, who had unfolded before Mimi's eyes a horizon of Indian +cashmeres and suites of furniture in rosewood. But in the opinion of +Mimi herself this young schoolboy, who might be very good at algebra, +was not very advanced in the art of love, and as she did not like +undertaking education, she left her amorous novice on the lurch, with +his cashmeres still browsing on the plains of Tibet, and his rosewood +furniture still growing in the forests of the New World.</p> + +<p>The schoolboy was soon replaced by a Breton gentleman, with whom Mimi +was soon rapidly smitten, and she had no need to pray long before +becoming his nominal countess.</p> + +<p>Despite his mistress's protestations, Rodolphe had wind of some +intrigue. He wanted to know exactly how matters stood, and one morning, +after a night during which Mademoiselle Mimi had not returned, hastened +to the place where he suspected her to be. There he was able to strike +home at his heart with one of those proofs to which one must give +credence in spite of oneself. He saw Mademoiselle Mimi, with two eyes +encircled with an aureola of satisfied voluptuousness, leaving the +residence in which she had acquired her title of nobility, on the arm of +her new lord and master, who, to tell the truth, appeared far less proud +of her new conquest than Paris after the rape of Helen.</p> + +<p>On seeing her lover appear, Mademoiselle Mimi seemed somewhat surprised. +She came up to him, and for five minutes they talked very quietly +together. They then parted, each on their separate way. Their separation +was agreed upon.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe returned home, and spent the day in packing up all the things +belonging to his mistress.</p> + +<p>During the day that followed his divorce, he received the visit of +several friends, and announced to them what had happened. Every one +congratulated him on this event as on a piece of great good fortune.</p> + +<p>"We will aid you, oh poet!" said one of those who had been the most +frequent spectator of the annoyances Mademoiselle Mimi had made Rodolphe +undergo, "we will help you to free your heart from the clutches of this +evil creature. In a little while you will be cured, and quite ready to +rove with another Mimi along the green lanes of Aulnay and +Fontenay-aux-Roses."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe swore that he had forever done with regrets and despair. He +even let himself be led away to the Bal Mabille, when his dilapidated +get-up did scant honor to "The Scarf of Iris," his editorship of which +procured him free admission to this garden of elegance and pleasure. +There Rodolphe met some fresh friends, with whom he began to drink. He +related to them his woes an unheard of luxury of imaginative style, and +for an hour was perfectly dazzling with liveliness and go. "Alas!" said +the painter Marcel, as he listened to the flood of irony pouring from +his friend's lips, "Rodolphe is too lively, far too lively."</p> + +<p>"He is charming," replied a young woman to whom Rodolphe had just +offered a bouquet, "and although he is very badly got up I would +willingly compromise myself by dancing with him if he would invite me."</p> + +<p>Two seconds later Rodolphe, who had overheard her, was at her feet, +enveloping his invitation in a speech, scented with all the musk and +benjamin of a gallantry at eighty degrees Richelieu. The lady was +confounded by the language sparkling with dazzling adjectives and +phrases modelled on those in vogue during the Regency, and the +invitation was accepted.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe was as ignorant of the elements of dancing as of the rule of +three. But he was impelled by an extraordinary audacity. He did not +hesitate, but improvised a dance unknown to all bygone choreography. It +was a step the originality of which obtained an incredible success, and +that has been celebrated under the title of "regrets and sighs." It was +all very well for the three thousand jets of gas to blink at him, +Rodolphe went on at it all the same, and continued to pour out a flood +of novel madrigals to his partner.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Marcel, "this is incredible. Rodolphe reminds me of a +drunken man rolling amongst broken glass."</p> + +<p>"At any rate he has got hold of a deuced fine woman," said another, +seeing Rodolphe about to leave with his partner.</p> + +<p>"Won't you say good night?" cried Marcel after him.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe came back to the artist and held out his hand, it was cold and +damp as a wet stone.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe's companion was a strapping Normandy wench, whose native +rusticity had promptly acquired an aristocratic tinge amidst the +elegancies of Parisian luxury and an idle life. She was styled Madame +Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate +rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a +month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but +hard knocks. Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think +of giving her anything, and took him off home with her.</p> + +<p>"Lucille," said she to her waiting maid, "I am not at home to anyone." +And passing into her bedroom, she came out ten minutes later, in a +special costume. She found Rodolphe dumb and motionless, for since he +had come in he had been plunged, despite himself, into a gloom full of +silent sobs.</p> + +<p>"Why you no longer look at me or speak to me!" said the astonished +Seraphine.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Rodolphe to himself, lifting his head. "Let us look at her, +but only for the sake of art."</p> + +<p>"And then what a sight met his eyes," as Raoul says in "The Huguenots."</p> + +<p>Seraphine was admirable beautiful. Her splendid figure, cleverly set off +by the cut of her solitary garment, showed itself provocatively through +the half-transparent material. All the imperious fever of desire woke +afresh in Rodolphe's veins. A warm mist mounted to his brain. He looked +at Seraphine otherwise than from a purely aesthetic point of view and +took the pretty girl's hands in his own. They were divine hands, and +might have been wrought by the purest chisels of Grecian statuary. +Rodolphe felt these admirable hands tremble in his own, and feeling less +and less of an art critic, he drew towards him Seraphine, whose face was +already tinged with that flush which is the aurora of voluptuousness.</p> + +<p>"This creature is a true instrument of pleasure, a real Stradivarius of +love, and one on which I would willingly play a tune," thought Rodolphe, +as he heard the fair creature's heart beating a hurried charge in a very +distinct fashion.</p> + +<p>At that moment there was a violent ring at the door of the rooms.</p> + +<p>"Lucile, Lucile," cried Seraphine to the waiting maid, "do not let +anyone in, say I am not home yet."</p> + +<p>At the name of Lucile uttered twice, Rodolphe rose.</p> + +<p>"I do not wish to incommode you in any way, madame," said he. "Besides, +I must take my leave, it is late and I live a long way off. Good +evening."</p> + +<p>"What! You are going?" exclaimed Seraphine, augmenting the fire of her +glances. "Why, why should you go? I am free, you can stay."</p> + +<p>"Impossible," replied Rodolphe, "I am expecting one of my relatives who +is coming from Terra del Fuego this evening, and he would disinherit me +if he did not find me waiting to receive him. Good evening, madame."</p> + +<p>And he quitted the room hurriedly. The servant went to light him out. +Rodolphe accidentally cast his eye on her. She was a delicate looking +girl, with slow movements; her extremely pale face offered a charming +contrast to her dark and naturally curling hair, whilst her blue eyes +resembled two sickly stars.</p> + +<p>"Oh phantom!" exclaimed Rodolphe, shrinking from one who bore the name +and the face of his mistress. "Away, what would you with me?" And he +rushed down the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Why, madame," said the lady's maid, returning to her mistress's room. +"The young fellow is mad."</p> + +<p>"Say rather that he is a fool," claimed the exasperated Seraphine. "Oh!" +she continued, "this will teach me to show kindness. If only that brute +of a Leon had the sense to drop in now!"</p> + +<p>Leon was the gentleman whose love carried a whip.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe ran home without waiting to take breath. Going upstairs he +found his carroty-haired cat giving vent to piteous mewings. For two +nights already it has thus been vainly summoning its faithless love, an +agora Manon Lescaut, who had started on a campaign of gallantry on the +house-tops adjacent.</p> + +<p>"Poor beast," said Rodolphe, "you have been deceived. Your Mimi has +jilted you like mine has jilted me. Bah! Let us console ourselves. You +see, my poor fellow, the hearts of women and she-cats are abysses that +neither men nor toms will ever fathom."</p> + +<p>When he entered his room, although it was fearfully hot, Rodolphe seemed +to feel a cloak of ice about his shoulders. It was the chill of +solitude, that terrible nocturnal solitude that nothing disturbs. He lit +his candle and then perceived the ravaged room. The gaping drawers in +the furniture showed empty, and from floor to ceiling sadness filled the +little room that seemed to Rodolphe vaster than a desert. Stepping +forward he struck his foot against the parcels containing the things +belonging to Mademoiselle Mimi, and he felt an impulse of joy to find +that she had not yet come to fetch them as she had told him in the +morning she would do. Rodolphe felt that, despite all his struggles, the +moment of reaction was at hand, and readily divined that a cruel night +was to expiate all the bitter mirth that he had dispensed in the course +of the evening. However, he hoped that his body, worn out with fatigue, +would sink to sleep before the reawakening of the sorrows so long pent +back in his heart.</p> + +<p>As he approached the couch, and on drawing back the curtains saw the bed +that had not been disturbed for two days, the pillows placed side by +side, beneath one of which still peeped out the trimming of a woman's +night cap, Rodolphe felt his heart gripped in the pitiless vice of that +desolate grief that cannot burst forth. He fell at the foot of the bed, +buried his face in his hands, and, after having cast a glance round the +desolate room, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Oh! Little Mimi, joy of my home, is it really true that you are gone, +that I have driven you away, and that I shall never see you again, my +God. Oh! Pretty brown curly head that has slept so long on this spot, +will you never come back to sleep here again? Oh! Little white hands +with the blue veins, little white hands to whom I had affianced my lips, +have you too received my last kiss?"</p> + +<p>And Rodolphe, in delirious intoxication, plunged his head amongst the +pillows, still impregnated with the perfume of his love's hair. From the +depth of the alcove he seemed to see emerge the ghosts of the sweet +nights he had passed with his young mistress. He heard clear and +sonorous, amidst the nocturnal silence, the open-hearted laugh of +Mademoiselle Mimi, and he thought of the charming and contagious gaiety +with which she had been able so many times to make him forget all the +troubles and all the hardships of their hazardous existence.</p> + +<p>Throughout the night he kept passing in review the eight months that he +had just spent with this girl, who had never loved him perhaps, but +whose tender lies had restored to Rodolphe's heart its youth and +virility.</p> + +<p>Dawn surprised him at the moment when, conquered by fatigue, he had just +closed his eyes, red from the tears shed during the night. A doleful and +terrible vigil, yet such a one as even the most sneering and sceptical +amongst us may find in the depths of their past.</p> + +<p>When his friends called on him in the morning they were alarmed at the +sight of Rodolphe, whose face bore the traces of all the anguish that +had awaited him during his vigil in the Gethsemane of love.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Marcel, "I was sure of it; it is his mirth of yesterday +that has turned in his heart. Things must not go on like this."</p> + +<p>And in concert with two or three comrades he began a series of privately +indiscreet revelations respecting Mademoiselle Mimi, every word of which +pierced like a thorn in Rodolphe's heart. His friends "proved" to him +that all the time his mistress had tricked him like a simpleton at home +and abroad, and that this fair creature, pale as the angel of phthisis, +was a casket filled with evil sentiments and ferocious instincts.</p> + +<p>One and another they thus took it in turns at the task they had set +themselves, which was to bring Rodolphe to that point at which soured +love turns to contempt; but this object was only half attained. The +poet's despair turned to wrath. He threw himself in a rage upon the +packages which he had done up the day before, and after having put on +one side all the objects that his mistress had in her possession when +she came to him, kept all those he had given her during their union, +that is to say, by far the greater number, and, above all, the articles +connected with the toilette to which Mademoiselle Mimi was attached by +all the fibers of a coquetry that had of late become insatiable.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Mimi called in course of the next day to take away her +things. Rodolphe was at home and alone. It needed all his powers of self +esteem to keep him from throwing himself upon his mistress's neck. He +gave her a reception full of silent insult, and Mademoiselle Mimi +replied by those cold and keen scoffs that drive the weakest and most +timid to show their teeth. In face of the contempt with which his +mistress flagellated him with insolent hardihood, Rodolphe's anger broke +out fearfully and brutally. For a moment Mimi, white with terror, asked +herself whether she would escape from his hands alive. At the cries she +uttered some neighbors rushed in and dragged her out of Rodolphe's room.</p> + +<p>Two days later a female friend of Mimi came to ask Rodolphe whether he +would give up the things he had kept.</p> + +<p>"No," he replied.</p> + +<p>And he got his mistress's messenger to talk about her. She informed him +that Mimi was in a very unfortunate condition, and that she would soon +find herself without a lodging.</p> + +<p>"And the lover of whom she is so fond?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied Amelie, the friend in question, "the young fellow has no +intention of taking her for his mistress. He has been keeping another +for a long time past, and he does not seem to trouble much about Mimi, +who is living at my expense, which causes me a great deal of +embarrassment."</p> + +<p>"Let her do as she can," said Rodolphe. "She would have it,—it is no +affair of mine."</p> + +<p>And he began to sing madrigals to Mademoiselle Amelie, and persuaded her +that she was the prettiest woman in the world.</p> + +<p>Amelie informed Mimi of her interview with Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"What did he say? What is he doing? Did he speak to you about me?" asked +Mimi.</p> + +<p>"Not at all; you are already forgotten, my dear. Rodolphe has a fresh +mistress, and he has bought her a superb outfit, for he has received a +great deal of money, and is himself dressed like a prince. He is a very +amiable fellow, and said a lot of nice things to me."</p> + +<p>"I know what all that means," thought Mimi.</p> + +<p>Every day Mademoiselle Amelie called to see Rodolphe on some pretext or +other, and however much the latter tried he could not help speaking of +Mimi to her.</p> + +<p>"She is very lively," replied her friend, "and does not seem to trouble +herself about her position. Besides she declares that she will come back +to you whenever she chooses, without making any advances and merely for +the sake of vexing your friends."</p> + +<p>"Very good," said Rodolphe, "let her come and we shall see."</p> + +<p>And he began to pay court to Amelie, who went off to tell everything to +Mimi, and to assure her that Rodolphe was very much in love with +herself.</p> + +<p>"He kissed me again on the hand and the neck; see it is quite red," said +she. "He wants to take me to a dance tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"My dear friend," said Mimi, rather vexed, "I see what you are driving +at, to make me believe that Rodolphe is in love with you and thinks no +more about me. But you are wasting your time both for him and me."</p> + +<p>The fact was that Rodolphe only showed himself amiable towards Amelie +to get her to call on him the oftener, and to have the opportunity of +speaking to her about his mistress. But with a Machiavelism that had +perhaps its object, and whilst perceiving very well that Rodolphe still +loved Mimi, and that the latter was not indisposed to rejoin him, Amelie +strove, by ingeniously inventive reports, to fend off everything that +might serve to draw the pair together again.</p> + +<p>The day on which she was to go to the ball Amelie called in the morning +to ask Rodolphe whether the engagement still held good.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I do not want to miss the opportunity of being the +cavalier of the most beautiful woman of the day."</p> + +<p>Amelie assumed the coquettish air that she had put on the occasion of +her solitary appearance at a suburban theater as fourth chambermaid, and +promised to be ready that evening.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Rodolphe, "tell Mademoiselle Mimi that if she will be +guilty of an infidelity to her lover in my favor, and come and pass a +night with me, I will give her up all her things."</p> + +<p>Amelie executed Rodolphe's commission, and gave to his words quite +another meaning than that which she had guessed they bore.</p> + +<p>"Your Rodolphe is a rather base fellow," said she to Mimi. "His proposal +is infamous. He wishes by this step to make you descend to the rank of +the vilest creatures, and if you go to him not only will he not give you +your things, but he will show you up as a jest to all his comrades. It +is a plot arranged amongst them."</p> + +<p>"I will not go," said Mimi, and as she saw Amelie engaged in preparing +her toilette, she asked her whether she was going to the ball.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the other.</p> + +<p>"With Rodolphe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is to wait for me this evening twenty yards or so from here."</p> + +<p>"I wish you joy," said Mimi, and seeing the hour of the appointment +approach, she hurried off to Mademoiselle Amelie's lover, and informed +him that the latter was engaged in a little scheme to deceive him with +her own old lover.</p> + +<p>The gentleman, jealous as a tiger and brutal to boot, called at once on +Mademoiselle Amelie, and announced that he would like her to spend the +evening in his company.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock Mimi flew to the spot at which Rodolphe was to meet +Amelie. She saw her lover pacing up and down after the fashion of a man +waiting for some one, and twice passed close to him without daring to +address him. Rodolphe was very well dressed that evening, and the +violent crises through which he had passed during the week had imparted +great character on his face. Mimi was singularly moved. At length she +made up her mind to speak to him. Rodolphe received her without anger, +and asked how she was, after which he inquired as to the motive that had +brought her to him, in mild voice, in which there was an effort to +check a note of sadness.</p> + +<p>"It is bad news that I come to bring you. Mademoiselle Amelie cannot +come to the ball with you. Her lover is keeping her."</p> + +<p>"I shall go to the ball alone, then."</p> + +<p>Here Mademoiselle Mimi feigned to stumble, and leaned against Rodolphe's +shoulder. He took her arm and proposed to escort her home.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mimi. "I am living with Amelie, and as her lover is there I +cannot go in until he has left."</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, then," said the poet. "I made a proposal to you today +through Mademoiselle Amelie. Did she transmit it to you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mimi, "but in terms which, even after what has happened, I +could not credit. No, Rodolphe, I could not believe that, despite all +that you might have to reproach me with, you thought me so worthless as +to accept such a bargain."</p> + +<p>"You did not understand me, or the message has been badly conveyed to +you. My offer holds good," said Rodolphe. "It is nine o'clock. You still +have three hours for reflection. The door will be unlocked until +midnight. Good night. Farewell, or—till we meet again."</p> + +<p>"Farewell, then," said Mimi, in trembling tones.</p> + +<p>And they separated. Rodolphe went home and threw himself, without +undressing, upon his bed. At half past eleven, Mademoiselle Mimi entered +his room.</p> + +<p>"I have come to ask your hospitality," said she. "Amelie's lover has +stayed with her, and I cannot get in."</p> + +<p>They talked together until three in the morning—an explanatory +conversation which grew gradually more familiar.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock their candle went out. Rodolphe wanted to light another.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mimi, "it is not worth the trouble. It is quite time to go to +bed."</p> + +<p>Five minutes later her pretty brown curly head had once more resumed its +place on the pillow, and in a voice full of affection she invited +Rodolphe's lips to feast on her little white hand with their blue veins, +the pearly pallor of which vied with the whiteness of the sheets. +Rodolphe did not light the candle.</p> + +<p>In the morning Rodolphe got up first, and pointing out several packages +to Mimi, said to her, very gently, "There is what belongs to you. You +can take it away. I keep my word."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Mimi. "I am very tired, you see, and I cannot carry all these +heavy parcels away at once. I would rather call again."</p> + +<p>And when she was dressed she only took a collar and a pair of cuffs.</p> + +<p>"I will take away the rest by degrees," she added, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Rodolphe, "take away all or take away none, and let there +be an end of it."</p> + +<p>"Let it, on the contrary, begin again, and, above all, let it last," +said Mimi, kissing Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>After breakfasting together they started off for a day in the country. +Crossing the Luxembourg gardens Rodolphe met a great poet who had always +received him with charming kindness. Out of respect for the +conventionalities Rodolphe was about to pretend not to see him but the +poet did not give him time, and passing by him greeted him with a +friendly gesture and his companion with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Who is that gentleman?" asked Mimi.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe answered her by mentioning a name which made her blush with +pleasure and pride.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Rodolphe. "Our meeting with the poet who has sung of love so +well is a good omen, and will bring luck to our reconciliation."</p> + +<p>"I do love you," said Mimi, squeezing his hand, although they were in +the midst of the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" thought Rodolphe. "Which is better; to allow oneself always to +be deceived through believing, or never to believe for fear of always +being deceived?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XV</a></h2> + +<h3>Donec Gratus</h3> + + +<p>We have told how the painter Marcel made the acquaintance of +Mademoiselle Musette. United one morning by the ministry of caprice, the +registrar of the district, they had fancied, as often happens, that +their union did not extend to their hearts. But one evening when, after +a violent quarrel, they resolved to leave one another on the spot, they +perceived that their hands, which they had joined in a farewell clasp, +would no longer quit one another. Almost in spite of themselves fancy +had become love. Both, half laughingly, acknowledged it.</p> + +<p>"This is very serious. What has happened to us?" said Marcel. "What the +deuce have we been up to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied Musette. "We must have been clumsy over it. We did not +take enough precautions."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, who had become Marcel's neighbor, +entering the room.</p> + +<p>"The matter is," replied Marcel, "that this lady and myself have just +made a pretty discovery. We are in love with one another. We must have +been attacked by the complaint whilst asleep."</p> + +<p>"Oh oh! I don't think that it was whilst you were asleep," observed +Rodolphe. "But what proves that you are in love with one another? +Possibly you exaggerate the danger."</p> + +<p>"We cannot bear one another," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"And we cannot leave one another," added Musette.</p> + +<p>"There, my children, your business is plain. Each has tried to play +cunning, and both have lost. It is the story of Mimi and myself. We +shall soon have run through two almanacs quarrelling day and night. It +is by that system that marriages are rendered eternal. Wed a 'yes' to a +'no,' and you obtain the union of Philemon and Baucis. Your domestic +interior will soon match mine, and if Schaunard and Phemie come and live +in the house, as they have threatened, our trio of establishments will +render it a very pleasant place of residence."</p> + +<p>At that moment Gustave Colline came in. He was informed of the accident +that had befallen Musette and Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Well, philosopher," said the latter, "what do you think of this?"</p> + +<p>Colline rubbed the hat that served him for a roof, and murmured, "I felt +sure of it beforehand. Love is a game of chance. He who plays at bowls +may expect rubbers. It is not good for man to live alone."</p> + +<p>That evening, on returning home, Rodolphe said to Mimi—</p> + +<p>"There is something new. Musette dotes on Marcel, and will not leave +him."</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!" replied Mimi. "She who has such a good appetite, too."</p> + +<p>"And on his side, Marcel is hard and fast in love with Musette."</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow!" said Mimi. "He who is so jealous."</p> + +<p>"That is true," observed Rodolphe. "He and I are pupils of Othello."</p> + +<p>Shortly afterwards the households of Rodolphe and Marcel were reinforced +by the household of Schaunard, the musician, moving into the house with +Phemie Teinturiere.</p> + +<p>From that day all the other inhabitants slept upon a volcano, and at +quarter day sent in a unanimous notice of their intention to move to the +landlord.</p> + +<p>Indeed, hardly a day passed without a storm breaking out in one of these +households. Now it was Mimi and Rodolphe who, no longer having strength +to speak, continued their conversation with the aid of such missiles as +came under their hands. But more frequently it was Schaunard addressing +a few observations to the melancholy Phemie with the end of a walking +stick. As to Marcel and Musette, their arguments were carried on in +private sittings; they took at least the precaution to close their +doors and windows.</p> + +<p>If by chance peace reigned in the three households, the other lodgers +were not the less victims of this temporary concord. The indiscretion of +partition walls allowed all the secrets of Bohemian family life to +transpire, and initiated them, in spite of themselves, into all its +mysteries. Thus more than one neighbor preferred the <i>casus belli</i> to +the ratification of treaties of peace.</p> + +<p>It was, in truth, a singular life that was led for six months. The most +loyal fraternity was practiced without any fuss in this circle, in +which everything was for all, and good or evil fortune shared.</p> + +<p>There were in the month certain days of splendor, when no one would have +gone out without gloves—days of enjoyment, when dinner lasted all day +long. There were others when one would have almost gone to Court without +boots; Lenten days, when, after going without breakfast in common, they +failed to dine together, or managed by economic combination to furnish +forth one of those repasts at which plates and knives were "resting," as +Mademoiselle Mimi put it, in theatrical parlance.</p> + +<p>But the wonderful thing is that this partnership, in which there were +three young and pretty women, no shadow of discord was found amongst +the men. They often yielded to the most futile fancies of their +mistresses, but not one of them would have hesitated for a moment +between the mistress and the friend.</p> + +<p>Love is born above all from spontaneity—it is an improvisation. +Friendship, on the contrary, is, so to say, built up. It is a sentiment +that progresses with circumspection. It is the egoism of the mind, +whilst love is the egoism of the heart.</p> + +<p>The Bohemians had known one another for six years. This long period of +time spent in a daily intimacy had, without altering the well-defined +individuality of each, brought about between them a concord of ideas—a +unity which they would not have found elsewhere. They had manners that +were their own, a tongue amongst themselves to which strangers would not +have been able to find the key. Those who did not know them very well +called their freedom of manner cynicism. It was however, only frankness. +With minds impatient of imposed control, they all hated what was false, +and despised what was low. Accused of exaggerated vanity, they replied +by proudly unfurling the program of their ambition, and, conscious of +their worth, held no false estimate of themselves.</p> + +<p>During the number of years that they had followed the same life +together, though often placed in rivalry by the necessities of their +profession, they had never let go one another's hands, and had passed +without heeding them over personal questions of self-esteem whenever an +attempt had been made to raise these between them in order to disunite +them. Besides, they each esteemed one another at their right worth, and +pride, which is the counter poison of envy, preserved them from all +petty professional jealousy.</p> + +<p>However, after six months of life in common, an epidemic of divorce +suddenly seized on the various households.</p> + +<p>Schaunard opened the ball. One day he perceived that Phemie Teinturiere +had one knee better shaped than the other, and as his was an austere +purism as regards plastics, he sent Phemie about her business, giving +her as a souvenir the cane with which he had addressed such frequent +remarks to her. Then he went back to live with a relative who offered +him free quarters.</p> + +<p>A fortnight later Mimi left Rodolphe to step into the carriage of the +young Vicomte Paul, the ex-pupil of Carolus Barbemuche, who had promised +her dresses to her heart's desire.</p> + +<p>After Mimi it was Musette who went off, and returned with a grand +flourish of trumpets amongst the aristocracy of the world of gallantry +which she had left to follow Marcel.</p> + +<p>This separation took place without quarrel, shock or premeditation. Born +of a fancy that had become love, this union was broken off by another +fancy.</p> + +<p>One evening during the carnival, at the masked ball at the Opera, +whither she had gone with Marcel, Mimi, Musette had for her <i>vis-a-vis</i> +in a quadrille a young man who had formerly courted her. They recognized +one another, and, whilst dancing exchanged a few words. +Unintentionally, perhaps, whilst informing the young man of her present +condition in life, she may have dropped a word of regret as to her past +one. At any rate, at the end of the quadrille Musette made a mistake, +and instead of giving her hand to Marcel, who was her partner, give it +to her <i>vis-a-vis</i>, who led her off, and disappeared with her in the +crowd.</p> + +<p>Marcel looked for her, feeling somewhat uneasy. In an hour's time he +found her on the young man's arm; she was coming out of the Cafe de +l'Opera, humming a tune. On catching sight of Marcel, who had stationed +himself in a corner with folded arms, she made him a sign of farewell, +saying—"I shall be back."</p> + +<p>"That is to say, 'Do not expect me,'" translated Marcel.</p> + +<p>He was jealous but logical, and knew Musette, hence he did not wait for +her, but went home with a full heart and an empty stomach. He looked +into the cupboard to see whether there were not a few scraps to eat, and +perceived a bit of stale bread as hard as granite and a skeleton-like +red herring.</p> + +<p>"I cannot fight against truffles," he thought. "At any rate, Musette +will have some supper."</p> + +<p>And after passing his handkerchief over his eyes under pretext of wiping +his nose, he went to bed.</p> + +<p>Two days later Musette woke up in a boudoir with rose-covered hangings. +A blue brougham was at her door, and all the fairies of fashion had been +summoned to lay their wonders at her feet. Musette was charming, and her +youth seemed yet further rejuvenated in this elegant setting. Then she +began her old life again, was present at every festivity, and +re-conquered her celebrity. She was spoken of everywhere—in the lobbies +of the Bourse, and even at the parliamentary refreshment bars. As to her +new lover, Monsieur Alexis, he was a charming young fellow. He often +complained to Musette of her being somewhat frivolous and inattentive +when he spoke to her of his love. Then Musette would look at him +laughingly, and say—</p> + +<p>"What would you have, my dear fellow? I stayed six months with a man who +fed me on salad and soup without butter, who dressed me in a cotton +gown, and usually took me to the Odeon because he was not well off. As +love costs nothing, and as I was wildly in love with this monster, we +expended a great deal of it together. I have scarcely anything but its +crumbs left. Pick them up, I do no hinder you. Besides, I have not +deceived you about it; if ribbons were not so dear I should still be +with my painter. As to my heart, since I have worn an eighty franc +corset I do not hear it, and I am very much afraid that I have left it +in one of Marcel's drawers."</p> + +<p>The disappearance of the three Bohemian households was the occasion of a +festival in the house they had inhabited. As a token of rejoicing the +landlord gave a grand dinner, and the lodgers lit up their windows.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol +whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened +that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a +whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the +songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep, +idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they +hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they +usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find +themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December +log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation +between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone—that +they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with +them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still.</p> + +<p>One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few +paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed +the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver +himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of +his fare.</p> + +<p>"By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it +my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it—it is +a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the +fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full +view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in +Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own.</p> + +<p>The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment.</p> + +<p>But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to +himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love.</p> + +<p>It was Mademoiselle Musette.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures. +What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun."</p> + +<p>"I think it endurable," replied Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette.</p> + +<p>"I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little +theater where he was on the free list.</p> + +<p>"For the sake of art?"</p> + +<p>"No, for the sake of Laura."</p> + +<p>"Who is Laura?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of +interrogation.</p> + +<p>Marcel kept up the tone.</p> + +<p>"She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here."</p> + +<p>And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill.</p> + +<p>"You are very witty this evening," said Musette.</p> + +<p>"And you very curious," observed Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for +two lovers quarrelling."</p> + +<p>"It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it +will not perhaps be the last, eh?"</p> + +<p>Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet.</p> + +<p>"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are +witness that it is not I who opened fire. Quick, my armor."</p> + +<p>From that moment the firing began.</p> + +<p>It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring +about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again +so lively.</p> + +<p>As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept +looking at Musette. They did not speak, but their eyes, those +plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met. After a quarter of an hour's +diplomacy this congress of glances had tacitly settled the matter. There +was nothing to be done save to ratify it.</p> + +<p>The interrupted conversation was renewed.</p> + +<p>"Candidly now," said Musette to Marcel, "where were you going just now?"</p> + +<p>"I told you, to see Laura."</p> + +<p>"Is she pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Her mouth is a nest of smiles."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I know all that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"But you yourself," said Marcel, "whence came you on the wings of this +four-wheeler?"</p> + +<p>"I came back from the railway station where I had been to see off +Alexis, who is going on a visit to his family."</p> + +<p>"What sort of man is Alexis?"</p> + +<p>In turn Musette sketched a charming portrait of her present lover. +Whilst walking along Marcel and Musette continued thus on the open +Boulevard the comedy of reawakening love. With the same simplicity, in +turn tender and jesting, they went verse by verse through that immortal +ode in which Horace and Lydia extol with such grace the charms of their +new loves, and end by adding a postscript to their old ones. As they +reached the corner of the street a rather strong picket of soldiers +suddenly issued from it.</p> + +<p>Musette struck an attitude of alarm, and clutching hold of Marcel's arm +said, "Ah! Good heavens! Look there, soldiers; there is going to be +another revolution. Let us bolt off, I am awfully afraid. See me +indoors."</p> + +<p>"But where shall we go?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"To my place," said Musette. "You shall see how nice it is. I invite you +to supper. We will talk politics."</p> + +<p>"No," replied Marcel, who thought of Monsieur Alexis. "I will not go to +your place, despite your offer of a supper. I do not like to drink my +wine out of another's glass."</p> + +<p>Musette was silent in face of this refusal. Then through the mist of her +recollections she saw the poor home of the artist, for Marcel had not +become a millionaire. She had an idea, and profiting by meeting another +picket she manifested fresh alarm.</p> + +<p>"They are going to fight," she exclaimed. "I shall never dare go home. +Marcel, my dear fellow, take me to one of my lady friends, who must be +living in your neighborhood."</p> + +<p>As they were crossing the Pont Neuf Musette broke into a laugh.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," replied Musette, "only I remember that my friend has moved. +She is living at Batignolles."</p> + +<p>On seeing Marcel and Musette arrive arm in arm Rodolphe was not +astonished.</p> + +<p>"It is always so," said he, "with these badly buried loves."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XVI</a></h2> + +<h3>The Passage of the Red Sea</h3> + + +<p>For five or six years Marcel had worked at the famous painting which (he +said) represented the Passage of the Red Sea; and for five or six years, +this masterpiece of color had been obstinately refused by the jury. In +fact, by dint of going and returning so many times from the artist's +study to the Exhibition, and from the Exhibition to the study, the +picture knew the road to the Louvre well enough to have gone thither of +itself, if it had been put on wheels. Marcel, who had repainted the +canvas ten times over, from top to bottom, attributed to personal +hostility on the part of the jury the ostracism which annually repulsed +him from the large saloon; nevertheless he was not totally discouraged +by the obstinate rejection which greeted him at every Exhibition. He was +comfortably established in the persuasion that his picture was, on a +somewhat smaller scale, the pendant required by "The Marriage of Cana," +that gigantic masterpiece whose astonishing brilliancy the dust of three +centuries has not been able to tarnish. Accordingly, every year at the +epoch of the Exhibition, Marcel sent his great work to the jury of +examiners; only, to deceive them, he would change some details of his +picture, and the title of it, without disturbing the general +composition.</p> + +<p>Thus, it came before the jury once, under the name of "The Passage of +the Rubicon," but Pharaoh, badly disguised under the mantle of Caeser, +was recognized and rejected with all the honors due him. Next year, +Marcel threw a coat of white over the foreground, to imitate snow, +planted a fir tree in one corner, and dressing an Egyptian like a +grenadier of the Imperial Guard, christened his picture, "The Passage +of the Beresina."</p> + +<p>But the jury had wiped its glasses that day, and were not to be duped by +this new stratagem. It recognized the pertinacious picture by a +thundering big pie-bald horse that was prancing on top of a wave of the +Red Sea. The skin of this horse served Marcel for all his experiments in +coloring; he used to call it, familiarly, his "synoptic table of fine +tones," because it reproduced the most varied combinations of color, +with the different plays of light and shade. Once again, however, the +jury could not find black balls enough to refuse "The Passage of +Beresina."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Marcel, "I thought so! Next year, I shall send it +under the title of 'The Passage of the Panoramas.'"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"They're going to be jolly caught—caught!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sang Schaunard to a new air of his own composition; a terrible air, like +a gamut of thunder-claps, the accompaniment whereof was a terror to all +pianos within hearing.</p> + +<p>"How can they refuse it, without all the vermilion of my Red Sea +mounting to their cheeks, and covering them with the blush of shame?" +ejaculated the artist, as he gazed on his picture. "When I think that +there is five hundred francs' worth of color there, and at least a +million of genius, without counting my lovely youth, now as bald as my +old hat! But they shan't get the better of me! Till my dying day, I will +send them my picture. It shall be engraved on their memories."</p> + +<p>"The surest way of ever having it engraved," said Colline, in a +plaintive tone, and then added to himself, "very neat, that; I shall +repeat it in society!"</p> + +<p>Marcel continued his imprecations, which Schaunard continued to put to +music.</p> + +<p>"Ah they won't admit me! The government pays them, lodges them, and +gives them decorations, on purpose to refuse me once a year; every first +of March! I see their idea! I see it clearly! They want to make me burn +my brushes. They hope that when my Red Sea is refused, I will throw +myself out of the window of despair. But they little know the heart of +man, if they think to take me thus. I will not wait for the opening of +the Exhibition. From today, my work shall be a picture of Damocles, +eternally suspended over their existence. I will send it once a week to +each of them, at his home in the bosom of his family; in the very heart +of his private life. It shall trouble their domestic joys; they shall +find their roasts burnt, their wines sour, and their wives bitter! They +will grow mad rapidly, and go to the Institute in strait-waistcoats. Ha! +Ha! The thought consoles me."</p> + +<p>Some days later, when Marcel had already forgotten his terrible plans of +vengeance against his persecutors, he received a visit from Father +Medicis. So the club called a Jew, named Salomon, who at that time was +well known to all the vagabond of art and literature, and had continual +transactions with them. Father Medicis traded in all sorts of trumpery. +He sold complete sets of furniture from twelve francs up to five +thousand; he bought everything, and knew how to dispose of it again, at +a profit. Proudhon's bank of exchange was nothing in comparison with the +system practiced by Medicis, who possessed the genius of traffic to a +degree at which the ablest of his religion had never before arrived. His +shop was a fairy region where you found anything you wished for. Every +product of nature, every creation of art; whatever issued from the +bowels of the earth or the head of man, was an object of commerce for +him. His business included everything; literally everything that exists; +he even trafficked in the ideal. He bought ideas to sell or speculate in +them. Known to all literary men and all artists, intimate with the +palette and familiar with the desk, he was the very Asmodeus of the +arts. He would sell you cigars for a column of your newspaper, slippers +for a sonnet, fresh fish for paradoxes; he would talk, for so much an +hour, with the people who furnished fashionable gossip to the journals. +He would procure you places for the debates in the Chambers, and +invitations to parties. He lodged wandering artistlings by the day, +week, or month, taking for pay, copies of the pictures in the Louvre. +The green room had no mysteries for him. He would get your pieces into +the theater, or yourself into the boudoir of an actress. He had a copy +of the "Almanac of Twenty Five Thousand Addresses" in his head, and knew +the names, residences, and secrets of all celebrities, even those who +were not celebrated.</p> + +<p>A few pages copied from his waste book, will give a better idea of the +universality of his operations than the most copious explanation could.</p> + +<p class="center">"March 20, 184—."</p> + +<p> +"Sold to M. L——, antiquary, the compass which Archimedes used at the<br /> +siege of Syracuse. 75 fr. <br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. V——, journalist, the entire works, uncut, of M. X——,<br /> +Member of the Academy. 10 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Sold to the same, a criticism of the complete works of M. X——, of the<br /> +Academy. 30 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. R——, literary man, a critical article on the complete<br /> +works of M. Y——, of the Academy. 10 fr., plus half a cwt. of charcoal<br /> +and 4 lbs. of coffee.<br /> +<br /> +Sold to M. Y——, of the Academy, a laudatory review (twelve columns) of<br /> +his complete works. 250 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Sold to M. G——, a porcelain vase which had belonged to Madame Dubarry.<br /> +18 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of little D——, her hair. 15 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. B——, a lot of articles on Society, and the last three<br /> +mistakes in spelling made by the Prefect of the Seine. 6 fr, plus a pair<br /> +of Naples shoes.<br /> +<br /> +Sold to Mdlle. O——, a flaxen head of hair. 120 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. M——, historical painter, a series of humorous designs. 25<br /> +fr.<br /> +<br /> +Informed M. Ferdinand the time when Mme. la Baronne de T—— goes to<br /> +mass, and let him for the day the little room in the Faubourg<br /> +Montmartre: together 30 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. J——, artist, a portrait of M. Isidore as Apollo. 6 fr. <br /> +<br /> +Sold to Mdlle R—— a pair of lobsters and six pair of gloves. 36 fr.<br /> +Received 3 fr.<br /> +<br /> +For the same, procured a credit of six months with Mme. Z——,<br /> +dressmaker. (Price not settled.)<br /> +<br /> +Procured for Mme. Z——, dressmaker, the custom of Mdlle. R——.<br /> +Received for this three yards of velvet, and three yards of lace.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. R——, literary man, a claim of 120 fr. against<br /> +the——newspaper. 5 fr., plus 2 lbs. of tobacco.<br /> +<br /> +Sold M. Ferdinand two love letters. 12 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Sold M. Isidore his portrait as Apollo. 30 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. M——, a cwt. and a half of his work, entitled 'Submarine<br /> +Revolutions.' 15 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Lent Mme la Comtesse de G—— a service of Dresden china. 20 fr.<br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. G——, journalist, fifty-two lines in his article of town<br /> +talk. 100 fr., plus a set of chimney ornaments.<br /> +<br /> +Sold to Messrs. O—— and Co., fifty-two lines in the town talk of<br /> +the——. 300 fr., plus two sets of chimney ornaments.<br /> +<br /> +Let to Mdlle. S. G—— a bed and a brougham for the day (nothing). See<br /> +Mdlle. S. G——'s account in private ledger, folios 26 and 27. <br /> +<br /> +Bought of M. Gustave C—- a treatise on the flax and linen trade. 50<br /> +fr., and a rare edition of Josephus.<br /> +<br /> +Sold Mdlle. S. G—— a complete set of new furniture. 5000 fr.<br /> +<br /> +For the same, paid an apothecary's bill. 75 fr.<br /> +<br /> +For the same, paid a milkman's bill. 3 fr. 85 c."<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p>Those quotations show what an extensive range the operations of the Jew +Medici covered. It may be added, that although some articles of his +commerce were decidedly illicit, he had never got himself into any +trouble.</p> + +<p>The Jew comprehended, on his entrance, that he had come at a favorable +time. In fact, the four friends were at that moment in council, under +the auspices of a ferocious appetite, discussing the grave question of +meat and drink. It was a Sunday at the end of the month—sinister day.</p> + +<p>The arrival of Medicis was therefore hailed by a joyous chorus, for they +knew that he was too saving of his time to spend it in visits of polite +ceremony; his presence announced business.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "How are you all?"</p> + +<p>"Colline!" said Rodolphe, who was studying the horizontal line at full +length on his bed. "Do the hospitable. Give our guest a chair; a guest +is sacred. I salute Abraham in you," added he.</p> + +<p>Colline took an arm chair about as soft as iron, and shoved it towards +the Jew, saying:</p> + +<p>"Suppose, for once, you were Cinna, (you <i>are</i> a great sinner, you +know), and take this seat."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted the others, looking at the floor to see if it +would not open and swallow up the philosopher. Meanwhile the Jew let +himself fall into the arm chair, and was just going to cry out at its +hardness, when he remembered that it was one which he himself had sold +to Colline for a deputy's speech. As the Jew sat down, his pockets +re-echoed with a silvery sound; melodious symphony, which threw the four +friends into a reverie of delight.</p> + +<p>"The accompaniment seems pretty," said Rodolphe aside to Marcel. "Now +for the air!"</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Marcel," said Medicis, "I have merely come to make your +fortune; that is to say, I offer you a superb opportunity of making your +entry into the artistic world. Art, you know, is a barren route, of +which glory is the oasis."</p> + +<p>"Father Medicis," cried Marcel, on the tenter-hooks of impatience, "in +the name of your revered patron, St. Fifty-percent, be brief!"</p> + +<p>"Here it is," continued Medicis, "a rich amateur, who is collecting a +gallery destined to make the tour of Europe, has charged me to procure +him a series of remarkable works. I come to offer you admission into +this museum—in a word, to buy your 'Passage of the Red Sea.'"</p> + +<p>"Money down?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Specie," replied the Jew, making the orchestra pockets strike up.</p> + +<p>"Do you accept this serious offer?" asked Colline.</p> + +<p>"Of course I do!" shouted Rodolphe, "don't you see, you wretch, that he +is talking of 'tin'? Is there nothing sacred for you, atheist that you +are?"</p> + +<p>Colline mounted on a table and assumed the attitude of Harpocrates, the +God of Silence.</p> + +<p>"Push on, Medicis!" said Marcel, exhibiting his picture. "I wish to +leave you the honor of fixing the price of this work, which is above all +price."</p> + +<p>The Jew placed on the table a hundred and fifty francs in new coin.</p> + +<p>"Well, what more?" said Marcel, "that's only the prologue."</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Marcel," replied the Jew, "you know that my first offer is my +last. I shall add nothing. Reflect, a hundred and fifty francs; that is +a sum, it is!"</p> + +<p>"A very small sum," said the artist. "There is that much worth of cobalt +in my Pharaoh's robe. Make it a round sum, at any rate! Square it off; +say two hundred!"</p> + +<p>"I won't add a sou!" said Medicis. "But I stand dinner for the company, +wine to any extent."</p> + +<p>"Going, going, going!" shouted Colline, with three blows of his fist on +the table, "no one speaks?—gone!"</p> + +<p>"Well it's a bargain!" said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"I will send for the picture tomorrow," said the Jew, "and now, +gentlemen, to dinner!"</p> + +<p>The four friends descended the staircase, singing the chorus of "The +Huguenots"—"<i>A table! A table!</i>"</p> + +<p>Medicis treated the Bohemians in a really magnificent way, and gave them +their choice of a number of dishes, which until then were completely +unknown to them. Henceforward hot lobster ceased to be a myth with +Schaunard, who contracted a passion for it that bordered on delirium. +The four friends departed from the gorgeous banquet as drunk as a +vintage-day. Marcel's intoxication was near having the most deplorable +consequences. In passing by his tailor's, at two in the morning, he +absolutely wanted to wake up his creditor, and pay him the hundred and +fifty francs on account. A ray of reason which flashed across the mind +of Colline, stopped the artist on the border of this precipice.</p> + +<p>A week after, Marcel discovered in what gallery his picture had been +placed. While passing through the Faubourg St. Honore, he stopped in the +midst of a group which seemed to regard with curiosity a sign that was +being put up over a shop door. The sign was neither more nor less than +Marcel's picture, which Medicis had sold to a grocer. Only "the Passage +of the Red Sea" had undergone one more alteration, and been given one +more new name. It had received the addition of a steamboat and was +called "the Harbor of Marseilles." The curious bystanders were bestowing +on it a flattering ovation. Marcel returned home in ecstacy at his +triumph, muttering to himself, <i>Vox populi, voz Dei</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XVII</a></h2> + +<h3>The Toilette of the Graces</h3> + + +<p>Mademoiselle Mimi, who was accustomed to sleep far into the day, woke up +one morning at ten o'clock, and was greatly surprised not to find +Rodolphe beside her, nor even in the room. The preceding night, before +falling to sleep, she had, however, seen him at his desk, preparing to +spend the night over a piece of literary work which had been ordered of +him, and in the completion of which Mimi was especially interested. In +fact, the poet had given his companion hopes that out of the fruit of +his labors he would purchase a certain summer gown, that she had noticed +one day at the "Deux Magots," a famous drapery establishment, to the +window of which Mimi's coquetry used very frequently to pay its +devotions. Hence, ever since the work in question had been begun, Mimi +had been greatly interested in its progress. She would often come up to +Rodolphe whilst he was writing, and leaning her head on his shoulder +would say to him in serious tones—</p> + +<p>"Well, is my dress getting on?"</p> + +<p>"There is already enough for a sleeve, so be easy," replied Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>One night having heard Rodolphe snap his fingers, which usually meant +that he was satisfied with his work, Mimi suddenly sat up in bed and +passing her head through the curtains said, "Is my dress finished?"</p> + +<p>"There," replied Rodolphe, showing her four large sheets of paper, +covered with closely written lines. "I have just finished the body."</p> + +<p>"How nice," said Mimi. "Then there is only the skirt now left to do. How +many pages like that are wanted for the skirt?"</p> + +<p>"That depends; but as you are not tall, with ten pages of fifty lines +each, and eight words to the line, we can get a decent skirt."</p> + +<p>"I am not very tall, it is true," said Mimi seriously, "but it must not +look as if we had skimped the stuff. Dresses are worn full, and I should +like nice large folds so that it may rustle as I walk."</p> + +<p>"Very good," replied Rodolphe, seriously. "I will squeeze another word +in each line and we shall manage the rustling." Mimi fell asleep again +quite satisfied.</p> + +<p>As she had been guilty of the imprudence of speaking of the nice dress +that Rodolphe was engaged in making for her to Mademoiselles Musette and +Phemie, these two young persons had not failed to inform Messieurs +Marcel and Schaunard of their friend's generosity towards his mistress, +and these confidences had been followed by unequivocal challenges to +follow the example set by the poet.</p> + +<p>"That is to say," added Mademoiselle Musette, pulling Marcel's +moustache, "that if things go on like this a week longer I shall be +obliged to borrow a pair of your trousers to go out in."</p> + +<p>"I am owed eleven francs by a good house," replied Marcel. "If I get it +in I will devote it to buying you a fashionable fig leaf."</p> + +<p>"And I," said Phemie to Schaunard, "my gown is in ribbons."</p> + +<p>Schaunard took three sous from his pocket and gave them to his mistress, +saying, "Here is enough to buy a needle and thread with. Mend your gown, +that will instruct and amuse you at the same time, <i>utile dulci</i>."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, in a council kept very secret, Marcel and Schaunard agreed +with Rodolphe that each of them should endeavor to satisfy the +justifiable coquetry of their mistresses.</p> + +<p>"These poor girls," said Rodolphe, "a trifle suffices to adorn them, +but then they must have this trifle. Latterly fine arts and literature +have been flourishing; we are earning almost as much as street porters."</p> + +<p>"It is true that I ought not to complain," broke in Marcel. "The fine +arts are in a most healthy condition, one might believe oneself under +the sway of Leo the Tenth."</p> + +<p>"In point of fact," said Rodolphe. "Musette tells me that for the last +week you have started off every morning and do not get home till about +eight in the evening. Have you really got something to do?"</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, a superb job that Medicis got me. I am painting at the +Ave Maria barracks. Eight grenadiers have ordered their portraits at six +francs a head taken all round, likenesses guaranteed for a year, like a +watch. I hope to get the whole regiment. I had the idea, on my own part, +of decking out Musette when Medicis pays me, for it is with him I do +business and not my models."</p> + +<p>"As to me," observed Schaunard carelessly, "although it may not look +like it, I have two hundred francs lying idle."</p> + +<p>"The deuce, let us stir them up," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"In two or three days I count on drawing them," replied Schaunard. "I do +not conceal from you that on doing so I intend to give a free rein to +some of my passions. There is, above all, at the second hand clothes +shop close by a nankeen jacket and a hunting horn, that have for a long +time caught my eye. I shall certainly present myself with them."</p> + +<p>"But," added Marcel and Rodolphe together, "where do you hope to draw +this amount of capital from?"</p> + +<p>"Hearken gentlemen," said Schaunard, putting on a serious air, and +sitting down between his two friends, "we must not hide from one +another that before becoming members of the Institute and ratepayers, we +have still a great deal of rye bread to eat, and that daily bread is +hard to get. On the other hand, we are not alone; as heaven has created +us sensitive to love, each of us has chosen to share his lot."</p> + +<p>"Which is little," interrupted Marcel.</p> + +<p>"But," continued Schaunard, "whilst living with the strictest economy, +it is difficult when one has nothing to put anything on one side, above +all if one's appetite is always larger than one's plate."</p> + +<p>"What are you driving at?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"This," resumed Schaunard, "that in our present situation we should all +be wrong to play the haughty when a chance offers itself, even outside +our art, of putting a figure in front of the cypher that constitutes our +capital."</p> + +<p>"Well!" said Marcel, "which of us can you reproach with playing the +haughty. Great painter as I shall be some day, have I not consented to +devote my brush to the pictorial reproduction of French soldiers, who +pay me out of their scanty pocket money? It seems to me that I am not +afraid to descend the ladder of my future greatness."</p> + +<p>"And I," said Rodolphe, "do not you know that for the past fortnight I +have been writing a medico-chirurgical epic for a celebrated dentist, +who has hired my inspiration at fifteen sous the dozen lines, about half +the price of oysters? However, I do not blush; rather than let my muse +remain idle, I would willingly put a railway guide into verse. When one +has a lyre it is meant to be made use of. And then Mimi has a burning +thirst for boots."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Schaunard, "you will not be offended with me when you know +the source of that Pactolus, the overflowing of which I am awaiting."</p> + +<p>The following is the history of Schaunard's two hundred francs:—</p> + +<p>About a fortnight before he had gone into the shop of a music publisher +who had promised to procure him amongst his customers' pupils for +pianoforte lessons or pianofortes to tune.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said the publisher, on seeing him enter the shop, "you are +just in time. A gentleman has been here who wants a pianist; he is an +Englishman, and will probably pay well. Are you really a good one?"</p> + +<p>Schaunard reflected that a modest air might injure him in the +publisher's estimation. Indeed, a modest musician, and especially a +modest pianist, is a rare creation. Accordingly, he replied boldly:</p> + +<p>"I am a first rate one; if I only had a lung gone, long hair and a black +coat, I should be famous as the sun in the heavens; and instead of +asking me eight hundred francs to engrave my composition 'The Death of +the Damsel,' you would come on your knees to offer me three thousand for +it on a silver plate."</p> + +<p>The person whose address Schaunard took was an Englishman, named Birne. +The musician was first received by a servant in blue, who handed him +over to a servant in green, who passed him on to a servant in black, who +introduced him into a drawing room, where he found himself face to face +with a Briton coiled up in an attitude which made him resemble Hamlet +mediating on human nothingness. Schaunard was about to explain the +reason of his presence, when a sudden volley of shrill cries cut short +his speech. These horrid and ear piercing sounds proceeded from a parrot +hung out on the balcony of the story below.</p> + +<p>"Oh! That beast, that beast!" exclaimed the Englishman, with a bound on +his arm chair, "it will kill me."</p> + +<p>Thereupon the bird began to repeat its vocabulary, much more extensive +than that of ordinary Pollies; and Schaunard stood stupefied when he +heard the animal, prompted by a female voice, reciting the speech of +Theramenes with all the professional intonations.</p> + +<p>This parrot was the favorite of an actress who was then a great favorite +herself, and very much the rage—in her own boudoir. She was one of +those women who, no one knows why, was quoted at fancy prices on the +'Change of dissipation, and whose names are inscribed on the bills of +fare of young noblemen's suppers, where they form the living dessert. It +gives a Christian standing now-a-days to be seen with one of these +Pagans, who often have nothing of antiquity about them except their +age. When they are handsome, there is no such great harm after all; the +worst one risks is to sleep on straw in return for making them sleep on +rosewood. But when their beauty is bought by the ounce at the +perfumer's, and will not stand three drops of water on a rag; then their +wit consists in a couplet of a farce, and their talent lies in the hand +of the <i>claqueur</i>, it is hard indeed to understand how respectable men +with good names, ordinary sense, and decent coats, can let themselves be +carried away by a common place passion for these most mercenary +creatures.</p> + +<p>The actress in question was one of these belles of the day. She called +herself Delores, and professed to be a Spaniard, although she was born +in that Parisian Andalusia known as the Rue Coquenard. From there to the +Rue de Provence is about ten minute's walk, but it had cost her seven +years to make the transit. Her prosperity had begun with the decline of +her personal charms. She had a horse the day when her first false tooth +was inserted, and a pair the day of her second. Now she was living at a +great rate, lodging in a palace, driving four horses on holidays, and +giving balls to which all Paris came—the "all Paris" of these +ladies—that is to say, that collection of lazy seekers after jokes and +scandal; the "all Paris" that plays lansquenet; the sluggards of head +and hand, who kill their own time and other people's; the writers who +turn literary men to get some use out of the feather which nature placed +on their backs; the bullies of the revel, the clipped and sweated +gentlemen, the chevaliers of doubtful orders, all the vagabonds of +kid-glove-dom, that come from God knows where, and go back tither again +some day; all the marked and remarked notorieties; all those daughters +of Eve who retail what they once sold wholesale; all that race of +beings, corrupt from their cradle to their coffin, whom one sees on +first nights at the theater, with Golconda on foreheads and Thibet on +their shoulders, and for whom, notwithstanding, bloom the first violets +of spring and the first passions of youth—all this world which the +chronicles of gossip call "all Paris," was received by Delores who owned +the parrot aforesaid.</p> + +<p>This bird, celebrated for its oratorical talents among all the +neighbors, had gradually become the terror of the nearest. Hung out on +the balcony, it made a pulpit of its perch and spouted interminable +harangues from morning to night. It had learned certain parliamentary +topics from some political friends of the mistress, and was very strong +on the sugar question. It knew all the actress's repertory by heart, and +declaimed it well enough to have been her substitute, in case of +indisposition. Moreover, as she was rather polyglot in her flirtations, +and received visitors from all parts of the world, the parrot spoke all +languages, and would sometimes let out a <i>lingua Franca</i> of oaths +enough to shock the sailors to whom "Vert-Vert" owed his profitable +education. The company of this bird, which might be instructive and +amusing for ten minutes, became a positive torture when prolonged. The +neighbors had often complained; the actress insolently disregarded their +complaints. Two or three other tenants of the house, respectable fathers +of families, indignant at the scandalous state of morals into which they +were initiated by the indiscretions of the parrot, had given warning to +the landlord. But the actress had got on his weak side; whoever might +go, she stayed.</p> + +<p>The Englishman whose sitting room Schaunard now entered, had suffered +with patience for three months. One day he concealed his fury, which +was ready to explode, under a full dress suit and sent in his card to +Mademoiselle Dolores.</p> + +<p>When she beheld him enter, arrayed almost as he would have been to +present himself before Queen Victoria, she at first thought it must be +Hoffmann, in his part of Lord Spleen; and wishing to be civil to a +fellow artist, she offered him some breakfast.</p> + +<p>The Englishman understood French. He had learned it in twenty five +lessons from a Spanish refugee. Accordingly he replied:</p> + +<p>"I accept your invitation on condition of our eating this disagreeable +bird," and he pointed to the cage of the parrot, who, having smelled an +Englishman, saluted him by whistling "God Save the King."</p> + +<p>Dolores thought her neighbor was quizzing her, and was beginning to get +angry, when Mr. Birne added:</p> + +<p>"As I am very rich, I will buy the animal. Put your price on it."</p> + +<p>Dolores answered that she valued the bird, and liked it, and would not +wish to see it pass into the hands of another.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's not in my hands I want to put it," replied the Englishman, +"But under my feet—so—," and he pointed to the heels of his boots.</p> + +<p>Dolores shuddered with indignation and would probably have broken out, +when she perceived on the Englishman's finger a ring, the diamond of +which represented an income of twenty five hundred francs. The discovery +was like a shower bath to her rage. She reflected that it might be +imprudent to quarrel with a man who carried fifty thousand francs on his +little finger.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," she said, "as poor Coco annoys you, I will put him in a +back room, where you cannot hear him."</p> + +<p>The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"However," added he, pointing once more to his boots, "I should have +preferred—."</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid. Where I mean to put him it will be impossible for him +to trouble milord."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I am not a lord; only an esquire."</p> + +<p>With that, Mr. Birne was retiring, after a very low bow, when Delores, +who never neglected her interests, took up a small pocket from a work +table and said:</p> + +<p>"Tonight sir, is my benefit at the theater. I am to play in three +pieces. Will you allow me to offer you some box tickets? The price has +been but very slightly raised." And she put a dozen boxes into the +Briton's hand.</p> + +<p>"After showing myself so prompt to oblige him," thought she, "he cannot +refuse, if he is a gentleman, and if he sees me play in my pink costume, +who knows? He is very ugly, to be sure, and very sad looking, but he +might furnish me the means of going to England without being sea sick."</p> + +<p>The Englishman having taken the tickets, had their purport explained to +him a second time. He then asked the price.</p> + +<p>"The boxes are sixty francs each, and there are ten there, but no +hurry," said added, seeing the Englishman take out his pocketbook. "I +hope that as we are neighbors, this is not the last time I shall have +the honor of a visit from you."</p> + +<p>"I do not like to run up bills," replied Mr. Birne and drawing from the +pocketbook a thousand franc note, he laid it on the table and slid the +tickets into his pockets.</p> + +<p>"I will give you change," said Dolores, opening a little drawer.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said the Englishman, "the rest will do for a drink," and +he went off leaving Dolores thunder struck at his last words.</p> + +<p>"For a drink!" she exclaimed. "What a clown! I will send him back his +money."</p> + +<p>But her neighbor's rudeness had only irritated the epidermis of her +vanity; reflection calmed her. She thought that a thousand francs made a +very nice "pile," after all, and that she had already put up with +impertinences at a cheaper rate.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" she said to herself. "It won't do to be so proud. No one was by, +and this is my washerwoman's mouth. And this Englishman speaks so badly, +perhaps he only means to pay me a compliment."</p> + +<p>So she pocketed her bank note joyfully.</p> + +<p>But that night after the theater she returned home furious. Mr. Birne +had made no use of the tickets, and the ten boxes had remained vacant.</p> + +<p>Thus on appearing on the stage, the unfortunate <i>beneficiaire</i> read on +the countenances of her lady friends, the delight they felt at seeing +the house so badly filled. She even heard an actress of her acquaintance +say to another, as she pointed to the empty boxes, "Poor Dolores, she +has only planted one stage box."</p> + +<p>"True, the boxes are scarcely occupied," was the rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"The stalls, too, are empty."</p> + +<p>"Well, when they see her name on the bill, it acts on the house like an +air pump."</p> + +<p>"Hence, what an idea to put up the price of the seats!"</p> + +<p>"A fine benefit. I will bet that the takings would not fill a money box +or the foot of a stocking."</p> + +<p>"Ah! There she is in her famous red velvet costume."</p> + +<p>"She looks like a lobster."</p> + +<p>"How much did you make out of your last benefit?" said another actress +to her companion.</p> + +<p>"The house was full, my dear, and it was a first night; chairs in the +gangway were worth a louis. But I only got six francs; my milliner had +all the rest. If I was not afraid of chilblains, I would go to Saint +Petersburg."</p> + +<p>"What, you are not yet thirty, and are already thinking of doing your +Russia?"</p> + +<p>"What would you have?" said the other, and she added, "and you, is your +benefit soon coming on?"</p> + +<p>"In a fortnight, I have already three thousand francs worth of tickets +taken, without counting my young fellows from Saint Cyr."</p> + +<p>"Hallo, the stalls are going out."</p> + +<p>"It is because Dolores is singing."</p> + +<p>In fact, Dolores, as red in the face as her costume, was warbling her +verses with a vinegary voice. Just as she was getting though it with +difficulty, two bouquets fell at her feet, thrown by two actresses, her +dear friends, who advanced to the front of their box, exclaiming—:</p> + +<p>"Bravo, Dolores!"</p> + +<p>The fury of the latter may be readily imagined. Thus, on returning home, +although it was the middle of the night, she opened the window and woke +up Coco, who woke up the honest Mr. Birne, who had dropped off to sleep +on the faith of her promise.</p> + +<p>From that day war was declared between the actress and the Englishman; a +war to the knife, without truce or repose, the parties engaged in which +recoiled before no expense or trouble. The parrot took finishing lessons +in English and abused his neighbor all day in it, and in his shrillest +falsetto. It was something awful. Dolores suffered from it herself, but +she hoped that one day or other Mr. Birne would give warning. It was on +that she had set her heart. The Englishman, on his part, began by +establishing a school of drummers in his drawing room, but the police +interfered. He then set up a pistol gallery; his servants riddled fifty +cards a day. Again the commissary of police interposed, showing him an +article in the municipal code, which forbids the usage of firearms +indoors. Mr. Birne stopped firing, but a week after, Dolores found it +was raining in her room. The landlord went to visit Mr. Birne, and found +him taking saltwater baths in his drawing room. This room, which was +very large, had been lined all round with sheets of metal, and had had +all the doors fastened up. Into this extempore pond some hundred pails +of water were poured, and a few tons of salt were added to them. It was +a small edition of the sea. Nothing was lacking, not even fishes. Mr. +Birne bathed there everyday, descending into it by an opening made in +the upper panel of the center door. Before long an ancient and fish-like +smell pervaded the neighborhood, and Dolores had half an inch of water +in her bedroom.</p> + +<p>The landlord grew furious and threatened Mr. Birne with an action for +damages done to his property.</p> + +<p>"Have I not a right," asked the Englishman, "to bathe in my rooms?"</p> + +<p>"Not in that way, sir."</p> + +<p>"Very well, if I have no right to, I won't," said the Briton, full of +respect for the laws of the country in which he lived. "It's a pity; I +enjoyed it very much."</p> + +<p>That very night he had his ocean drained off. It was full time: there +was already an oyster bed forming on the floor.</p> + +<p>However, Mr. Birne had not given up the contest. He was only seeking +some legal means of continuing his singular warfare, which was "nuts" to +all the Paris loungers, for the adventure had been blazed about in the +lobbies of the theaters and other public places. Dolores felt equally +bound to come triumphant out of the contest. Not a few bets were made +upon it.</p> + +<p>It was then that Mr. Birne thought of the piano as an instrument of +warfare. It was not so bad an idea, the most disagreeable of instruments +being well capable of contending against the most disagreeable of birds. +As soon as this lucky thought occurred to him, he hastened to put it +into execution, hired a piano, and inquired for a pianist. The pianist, +it will be remembered, was our friend Schaunard. The Englishman +recounted to him his sufferings from the parrot, and what he had already +done to come to terms with the actress.</p> + +<p>"But milord," said Schaunard, "there is a sure way to rid yourself of +this creature—parsley. The chemists are unanimous in declaring that +this culinary plant is prussic acid to such birds. Chop up a little +parsley, and shake it out of the window on Coco's cage, and the creature +will die as certainly as if Pope Alexander VI had invited it to dinner."</p> + +<p>"I thought of that myself," said the Englishman, "but the beast is taken +good care of. The piano is surer."</p> + +<p>Schaunard looked at the other without catching his meaning at once.</p> + +<p>"See here," resumed the Englishman, "the actress and her animal always +sleep till twelve. Follow my reasoning—"</p> + +<p>"Go on. I am at the heels of it."</p> + +<p>"I intend to disturb their sleep. The law of the country authorizes me +to make music from morning to night. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"But that will not be so disagreeable to her, if she hears me play the +piano all day—for nothing, too. I am a first-rate hand, if I only had a +lung gone—."</p> + +<p>"Exactly, but I don't want you to make good music. You must only strike +on your instrument thus," trying a scale, "and always the same thing +without pity, only one scale. I understand medicine a little; that +drives people mad. They will both go mad; that is what I look for. Come, +Mr. Musician, to work at once. You shall be well paid."</p> + +<p>"And so," said Schaunard, who had recounted the above details to his +friends, "this is what I have been doing for the last fortnight. One +scale continually from seven in the morning till dark. It is not exactly +serious art. But then the Englishman pays me two hundred francs a month +for my noise; it would be cutting one's throat to refuse such a +windfall. I accepted, and in two or three days I take my first month's +money."</p> + +<p>It was after those mutual confidences that the three friends agreed +amongst themselves to profit by the general accession of wealth to give +their mistresses the spring outfit that the coquetry of each of them had +been wishing for so long. It was further agreed that whoever pocketed +his money first should wait for the others, so that the purchases should +be made at the same time, and that Mademoiselle Mimi, Musette, and +Phemie should enjoy the pleasure of casting their old skins, as +Schaunard put it, together.</p> + +<p>Well, two or three days after this council Rodolphe came in first; his +dental poem had been paid for; it weighed in eighty francs. The next +day Marcel drew from Medicis the price of eighteen corporal's +likenesses, at six francs each.</p> + +<p>Marcel and Rodolphe had all the difficulty in the world to hide their +good fortune.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that I sweat gold," said the poet.</p> + +<p>"It is the same with me," said Marcel. "If Schaunard delays much longer, +it would be impossible for me to continue to play the part of the +anonymous Croesus."</p> + +<p>But the very next morning saw Schaunard arrive, splendidly attired in a +bright yellow nankeen jacket.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phemie, dazzled on seeing her lover so +elegantly got up, "where did you find that jacket?"</p> + +<p>"I found it amongst my papers," replied the musician, making a sign to +his two friends to follow him. "I have drawn the coin," said he, when +they were alone. "Behold it," and he displayed a handful of gold.</p> + +<p>"Well," exclaimed Marcel, "forward, let us sack the shops. How happy +Musette will be."</p> + +<p>"How pleased Mimi will be," added Rodolphe. "Come, are you coming +Schaunard?"</p> + +<p>"Allow me to reflect," replied the musician. "In decking out these +ladies with the thousand caprices of fashion, we shall perhaps be guilty +of a mistake. Think on it. Are you not afraid that when they resemble +the engravings in 'The Scarf of Iris,' these splendors will exercise a +deplorable influence upon their characters, and does it suit young +fellows like us to behave towards women as if we were aged and wrinkled +dotards? It is not that I hesitate about sacrificing fifteen or eighteen +francs to dress Phemie; but I tremble. When she has a new bonnet she +will not even recognize me, perhaps. She looks so well with only a +flower in her hair. What do you think about it, philosopher?" broke off +Schaunard, addressing Colline, who had come in within the last few +minutes.</p> + +<p>"Ingratitude is the offspring of kindness," observed the philosopher.</p> + +<p>"On the other hand," continued Schaunard, "when your mistresses are well +dressed, what sort of figure will you cut beside them in your +dilapidated costumes? You will look like their waiting maids. I do not +speak for myself," he broke off, drawing himself up in his nankeen +jacket, "for thank heaven, I could go anywhere now."</p> + +<p>However, despite the spirit of opposition shown by Schaunard, it was +once more agreed that the next day all the shops of the neighborhood +should be ransacked to the advantage of the ladies.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, the next day, at the very moment that we have seen, at the +beginning of this chapter, Mademoiselle Mimi wakes up very much +astonished at Rodolphe's absence, the poet and his two friends were +ascending the stairs, accompanied by a shopman from the Deux Magots and +a milliner with specimens. Schaunard, who had bought the famous hunting +horn, marched before them playing the overture to "The Caravan."</p> + +<p>Musette and Phemie, summoned by Mimi, who was living on the lower floor, +descended the stairs with the swiftness of avalanches on hearing the +news that the bonnets and dresses had been brought for them. Seeing this +poor wealth spread out before them, the three women went almost mad with +joy. Mimi was seized with a fit of hysterical laughter, and skipped +about like a kid, waving a barege scarf. Musette threw her arms around +Marcel's neck, with a little green boot in each hand, which she smote +together like cymbals. Phemie looked at Schaunard and sobbed. She could +only say, "Oh Alexander, Alexander!"</p> + +<p>"There is no danger of her refusing the presents of Artaxerxes," +murmured Colline the philosopher.</p> + +<p>After the first outbursts of joy were over, when the choices had been +made and the bills settled, Rodolphe announced to the three girls that +they would have to make arrangements to try on their new things the next +morning.</p> + +<p>"We will go into the country," said he.</p> + +<p>"A fine thing to make a fuss of," exclaimed Musette. "It is not the +first time that I have bought, cut out, sewn together, and worn a dress +the same day. Besides, we have the night before us, too. We shall be +ready, shall we not, ladies?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! We shall be ready," exclaimed Mimi and Phemie together.</p> + +<p>They at once set to work, and for sixteen hours did not lay aside +scissors or needle.</p> + +<p>The next day was the first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the +resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and +joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young +lover who is going to plant a maypole before the window of his +betrothed. She painted the sky blue, the trees green, and all things in +bright colors. She aroused the torpid sun, who was sleeping in his bed +of mists, his head resting on the snow leaden clouds that served him as +a pillow, and cried to him, "Hi! Hi! My friend, time is up, and I am +here; quick to work. Put on your fine dress of fresh rays without +further delay, and show yourself at once on your balcony to announce my +arrival."</p> + +<p>Upon which the sun had indeed set out, and was marching along as proud +and haughty as some great lord of the court. The swallows, returned from +their Eastern pilgrimage, filled the air with their flight, the may +whitened the bushes, the violets scented the woods, in which the birds +were leaving their nests each with a roll of music under its wings. It +was spring indeed, the true spring of poets and lovers, and not the +spring of the almanac maker—an ugly spring with a red nose and frozen +fingers, which still keeps poor folk shivering at the chimney corner +when the last ashes of the last log have long since burnt out. The balmy +breeze swept through the transparent atmosphere and scattered throughout +the city the first scent of the surrounding country. The rays of the +sun, bright and warm, tapped at the windows. To the invalid they cried, +"open, we are health," and at the garret of the young girl bending +towards her mirror, innocent first love of the most innocent, they said, +"open darling, that we may light up your beauty. We are the messengers +of fine weather. You can now put on your cotton frock and your straw +hat, and lace your smart boots; the groves in which folk foot it are +decked with bright new flowers, and the violins are tuning for the +Sunday dance. Good morning, my dear!"</p> + +<p>When the angelus rang out from the neighboring church, the three hard +working coquettes, who had had scarcely time to sleep a few hours, were +already before their looking glasses, giving their final glance at +their new attire.</p> + +<p>They were all three charming, dressed alike, and wearing on their faces +the same glow of satisfaction imparted by the realization of a long +cherished wish.</p> + +<p>Musette was, above all, dazzlingly beautiful.</p> + +<p>"I have never felt so happy," said she to Marcel. "It seems to me that +God has put into this hour all the happiness of my life, and I am afraid +that there will be no more left me. Ah bah! When there is no more left, +there will still be some more. We have the receipt for making it," she +added, gaily kissing him.</p> + +<p>As to Phemie, one thing vexed her.</p> + +<p>"I am very fond of green grass and the little birds," said she, "but in +the country one never meets anyone, and there will be no one to see my +pretty bonnet and my nice dress. Suppose we went into the country on the +Boulevards?"</p> + +<p>At eight in the morning the whole street was in commotion, due to the +blasts from Schaunard's horn giving the signal to start. All the +neighbors were at their windows to see the Bohemians go by. Colline, who +was of the party, brought up the rear, carrying the ladies' parasols. An +hour later the whole of the joyous band were scattered about the fields +at Fontenay-aux-Roses.</p> + +<p>When they returned home, very late at night, Colline, who during the day +had discharged the duties of treasurer, stated that they had omitted to +spend six francs, and placed this balance on the table.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do with it?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we invest it in Government stock," said Schaunard.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XVIII</a></h2> + +<h3>Francine's Muff</h3> + + +<p>Among the true Bohemians of the real Bohemia I used to know one, named +Jacques D. He was a sculptor, and gave promise of great talent. But +poverty did not give him time to fulfill this promise. He died of +debility in March, 184-, at the Saint Louis Hospital, on bed No. 14 in +the Sainte Victoria ward.</p> + +<p>I made the acquaintance of Jacques at the hospital, when I was detained +there myself by a long illness. Jacques had, as I have said, the makings +of a great talent, and yet he was quite unassuming about it. During the +two months I spent in his company, and during which he felt himself +cradled in the arms of Death, I never once heard him complain or give +himself up to those lamentations which render the unappreciated artist +so ridiculous. He died without attitudinizing. His death brings to my +mind, too, one of the most horrible scenes I ever saw in that +caravanserai of human sufferings. His father, informed of the event, +came to reclaim the body, and for a long time haggled over giving the +thirty-six francs demanded by the hospital authorities. He also haggled +over the funeral service, and so persistently that they ended by +knocking off six francs. At the moment of putting the corpse into the +coffin, the male nurse took off the hospital sheet, and asked one of the +deceased's friends who was there for money for a shroud. The poor devil, +who had not a sou, went to Jacques' father, who got into a fearful rage, +and asked when they would finish bothering him.</p> + +<p>The sister of charity, who was present at this horrible discussion, cast +a glance at the corpse, and uttered these simple and feeling words:</p> + +<p>"Oh! sir, you cannot have him buried like that, poor fellow, it is so +cold. Give him at least a shirt, that he may not arrive quite naked +before his God."</p> + +<p>The father gave five francs to the friend to get a shirt, but +recommended him to go to a wardrobe shop in the Rue Grace-aux-Belles, +where they sold second-hand linen.</p> + +<p>"It will be cheaper there," said he.</p> + +<p>This cruelty on the part of Jacques' father was explained to me later +on. He was furious because his son had chosen an artistic career, and +his anger remained unappeased even in the presence of a coffin.</p> + +<p>But I am not very far from Mademoiselle Francine and her muff. I will +return to them. Mademoiselle Francine was the first and only mistress of +Jacques, who did not die very old, for he was scarcely three and twenty +when his father would have had him laid naked in the earth. The story of +his love was told me by Jacques himself when he was No. 14 and I was No. +16 in the Sainte Victoire ward—an ugly spot to die in.</p> + +<p>Ah reader! Before I begin this story, which would be a touching one if I +could tell it as it was told to me by my friend Jacques, let me take a +pull or two at the old clay pipe he gave me on the day that the doctor +forbade its use by him. Yet at night, when the male nurse was asleep, my +friend Jacques would borrow his pipe with a little tobacco from me. It +is so wearisome at night in those vast wards, when one suffers and +cannot sleep.</p> + +<p>"Only two or three whiffs," he would say, and I would let him have it; +and Sister Sainte-Genevieve did not seem to notice the smoke when she +made her round. Ah, good sister! How kind you were, and how beautiful +you looked, too, when you came to sprinkle us with holy water. We could +see you approaching, walking slowly along the gloomy aisles, draped in +your white veil, which fell in such graceful folds, and which our friend +Jacques admired so much. Ah kind sister! You were the Beatrice of that +Inferno. So sweet were your consolations that we were always complaining +in order to be consoled by you. If my friend Jacques had not died one +snowy day he would have carved you a nice little Virgin Mary to put in +your cell, good Sister Sainte-Genevieve.</p> + +<p class="center">Well, and the muff? I do not see anything of the muff.</p> + +<p><i>Another Reader</i>: And Mademoiselle Francine, where about is she, then?</p> + +<p><i>First Reader</i>: This story is not very lively.</p> + +<p><i>Second Reader</i>: We shall see further on.</p> + +<p>I really beg your pardon, gentlemen, it is my friend Jacques' pipe that +has led me away into these digressions. But, besides, I am not pledged +to make you laugh. Times are not always gay in Bohemia.</p> + +<p>Jacques and Francine had met in a house in the Rue de la +Tour-d'Auvergne, into which they had both moved at the same time at the +April quarter.</p> + +<p>The artist and the young girl were a week without entering on those +neighborly relations which are almost always forced on one when dwelling +on the same floor. However, without having exchanged a word, they were +already acquainted with one another. Francine knew that her neighbor was +a poor devil of an artist, and Jacques had learned that his was a little +seamstress who had quitted her family to escape the ill-usage of a +stepmother. She accomplished miracles of economy to make both ends meet, +and, as she had never known pleasure, had no longing for it. This is +how the pair came under the common law of partition walls. One evening +in April, Jacques came home worn out with fatigue, fasting since +morning, and profoundly sad with one of those vague sadnesses which have +no precise cause, and which seize on you anywhere and at all times; a +kind of apoplexy of the heart to which poor wretches living alone are +especially subject. Jacques, who felt stifling in his narrow room, +opened the window to breathe a little. The evening was a fine one, and +the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of +Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the +winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a +raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens +brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these +birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any +longer, he closed his window, drew the curtain, and, as he had not the +wherewithal to buy oil for his lamp, lit a resin taper that he had +brought back from a trip to the Grande-Chartreuse. Sadder than ever he +filled his pipe.</p> + +<p>"Luckily, I still have enough tobacco to hide the pistol," murmured he, +and he began to smoke.</p> + +<p>My friend Jacques must have been very sad that evening to think about +hiding the pistol. It was his supreme resource on great crises, and was +usually pretty successful. The plan was as follows. Jacques smoked +tobacco on which he used to sprinkle a few drops of laudanum, and he +would smoke until the cloud of smoke from his pipe became thick enough +to veil from him all the objects in his little room, and, above all, a +pistol hanging on the wall. It was a matter of half a score pipes. By +the time the pistol was wholly invisible it almost always happened that +the smoke and the laudanum combined would send Jacques off to sleep, and +it also often happened that his sadness left him at the commencement of +his dreams.</p> + +<p>But on this particular evening he had used up all his tobacco; the +pistol was completely hidden, and yet Jacques was still bitterly sad. +That evening, on the contrary Mademoiselle Francine was extremely +light-hearted when she came home, and like Jacques' sadness, her +light-heartedness was without cause. It was one of those joys that come +from heaven, and that God scatters amongst good hearts. So Mademoiselle +Francine was in a good temper, and sang to herself as she came upstairs. +But as she was going to open her door a puff of wind, coming through the +open staircase window, suddenly blew out her candle.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a nuisance!" exclaimed the girl, "six flights of stairs to go +down and up again."</p> + +<p>But, noticing the light coming from under Jacques' door, the instinct of +idleness grafted on a feeling of curiosity, advised her to go and ask +the artist for a light. "It is a service daily rendered among +neighbors," thought she, "and there is nothing compromising about it."</p> + +<p>She tapped twice, therefore, at the door, and Jacques opened it, +somewhat surprised at this late visit. But scarcely had she taken a step +into the room than the smoke that filled it suddenly choked her, and, +before she was able to speak a word, she sank fainting into a chair, +dropping her candle and her room door key onto the ground. It was +midnight, and everyone in the house was asleep. Jacques thought it +better not to call for help. He was afraid, in the first place, of +compromising his neighbor. He contented himself, therefore, with opening +the window to let in a little fresh air, and, after having sprinkled a +few drops of water on the girl's face, saw her open her eyes and by +degrees come to herself. When, at the end of five minutes' time, she had +wholly recovered consciousness, Francine explained the motive that had +brought her into the artist's room, and made many excuses for what had +happened.</p> + +<p>"Now, then, I am recovered," said she. "I can go into my own room."</p> + +<p>He had already opened the door, when she perceived that she was not +only forgetting to light her candle, but that she had not the key of her +room.</p> + +<p>"Silly thing that I am," said she, putting her candle to the flame of +the resin taper, "I came in here to get a light, and I was going away +without one."</p> + +<p>But at the same moment the draft caused by the door and window, both of +which had remained open, suddenly blew out the taper, and the two young +folk were left in darkness.</p> + +<p>"One would think that it was done on purpose," said Francine. "Forgive +me sir, for all the trouble I am giving you, and be good enough to +strike a light so that I may find my key."</p> + +<p>"Certainly mademoiselle," answered Jacques, feeling for the matches.</p> + +<p>He had soon found them. But a singular idea flashed across his mind, and +he put the matches in his pocket saying, "Dear me, mademoiselle, here is +another trouble. I have not a single match here. I used the last when I +came in."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Francine, "after all I can very well find my way without a +light, my room is not big enough for me to lose myself in it. But I must +have my key. Will you be good enough, sir, to help me to look for it? It +must have fallen to the ground."</p> + +<p>"Let us look for it, mademoiselle," said Jacques.</p> + +<p>And both of them began to seek the lost article in the dark, but as +though guided by a common instinct, it happened during this search, that +their hands, groping in the same spot, met ten times a minute. And, as +they were both equally awkward, they did not find the key.</p> + +<p>"The moon, which is hidden just now by the clouds, shines right into the +room," said Jacques. "Let us wait a bit; by-and-by it will light up the +room and may help us."</p> + +<p>And, pending the appearance of the moon, they began to talk. A +conversation in the dark, in a little room, on a spring night; a +conversation which, at the outset trifling and unimportant, gradually +enters on the chapter of personal confidences. You know what that leads +to. Language by degrees grows confused, full of reticences; voices are +lowered; words alternate with sighs. Hands meeting complete the thought +which from the heart ascends to the lips, and—. Seek the conclusion in +your recollection, young couples. Do you remember, young man. Do you +remember, young lady, you who now walk hand-in-hand, and who, up to two +days back, had never seen one another?</p> + +<p>At length the moon broke through the clouds, and her bright light +flooded the room. Mademoiselle Francine awoke from her reverie uttering +a faint cry.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked Jacques, putting his arm around her waist.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," murmured Francine. "I thought I heard someone knock."</p> + +<p>And, without Jacques noticing it, she pushed the key that she had just +noticed under some of the furniture.</p> + +<p>She did not want to find it now.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>First Reader</i>: I certainly will not let my daughter read this story.</p> + +<p><i>Second Reader</i>: Up till now I have not caught a glimpse of a single +hair of Mademoiselle Francine's muff; and, as to the young woman +herself, I do not know any better what she is like, whether she is fair +or dark.</p> + +<p>Patience, readers, patience. I have promised you a muff, and I will give +you one later on, as my friend Jacques did to his poor love Francine, +who had become his mistress, as I have explained in the line left blank +above.</p> + +<p>She was fair was Francine, fair and lovely, which is not usual. She had +remained ignorant of love until she was twenty, but a vague presentiment +of her approaching end counselled her not to delay if she would become +acquainted with it.</p> + +<p>She met Jacques and loved him. Their connection lasted six months. They +had taken one another in the spring; they were parted in the autumn. +Francine was consumptive. She knew it and her lover Jacques knew it too; +a fortnight after he had taken up with her he had learned it from one of +his friends, who was a doctor.</p> + +<p>"She will go with the autumn leaves," said the latter.</p> + +<p>Francine heard this confidence, and perceived the grief it caused her +lover.</p> + +<p>"What matters the autumn leaves?" said she, putting the whole of her +love into a smile. "What matters the autumn; it is summer, and the +leaves are green; let us profit by that, love. When you see me ready to +depart from this life, you shall take me in your arms and kiss me, and +forbid me to go. I am obedient you know, and I will stay."</p> + +<p>And for five months this charming creature passed through the miseries +of Bohemian life, a smile and a song on her lips. As to Jacques, he let +himself be deluded. His friend often said to him, "Francine is worse, +she must be attended to." Then Jacques went all over Paris to obtain +the wherewithal for the doctor's prescription, but Francine would not +hear of it, and threw the medicine out of the window. At night, when she +was seized with a fit of coughing, she would leave the room and go out +on the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her.</p> + +<p>One day, when they had both gone into the country, Jacques saw a tree +the foliage of which was turning to yellow. He gazed sadly at Francine, +who was walking slowly and somewhat dreamily.</p> + +<p>Francine saw Jacques turn pale and guessed the reason of his pallor.</p> + +<p>"You are foolish," said she, kissing him, "we are only in July, it is +three months to October, loving one another day and night as we do, we +shall double the time we have to spend together. And then, besides, if I +feel worse when the leaves turn yellow, we will go and live in a pine +forest, the leaves are always green there."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In October Francine was obliged to keep her bed. Jacques' friend +attended her. The little room in which they lived was situated at the +top of the house and looked into a court, in which there was a tree, +which day by day grew barer of foliage. Jacques had put a curtain to the +window to hide this tree from the invalid, but Francine insisted on its +being drawn back.</p> + +<p>"Oh my darling!" said she to Jacques. "I will give you a hundred times +more kisses than there are leaves." And she added, "Besides I am much +better now. I shall soon be able to go out, but as it will be cold and I +do not want to have red hands, you must buy me a muff."</p> + +<p>During the whole of her illness this muff was her only dream.</p> + +<p>The day before All Saints', seeing Jacques more grief stricken than +ever, she wished to give him courage, and to prove to him that she was +better she got up.</p> + +<p>The doctor arrived at that moment and forced her to go to bed again.</p> + +<p>"Jacques," whispered he in the artist's ear, "you must summon up your +courage. All is over; Francine is dying."</p> + +<p>Jacques burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"You may give her whatever she asks for now," continued the doctor, +"there is no hope."</p> + +<p>Francine heard with her eyes what the doctor had said to her lover.</p> + +<p>"Do not listen to him," she exclaimed, holding out her arm to Jacques, +"do not listen to him; he is not speaking the truth. We will go out +tomorrow—it is All Saints' Day. It will be cold—go buy me a muff, I beg +of you. I am afraid of chilblains this winter."</p> + +<p>Jacques was going out with his friend, but Francine detained the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Go and get my muff," said she to Jacques. "Get a nice one, so that it +may last a good while."</p> + +<p>When she was alone she said to the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Oh sir! I am going to die, and I know it. But before I pass away give +me something to give me strength for a night, I beg of you. Make me well +for one more night, and let me die afterwards, since God does not wish +me to live longer."</p> + +<p>As the doctor was doing his best to console her, the wind carried into +the room and cast upon the sick girl's bed a yellow leaf, torn from the +tree in the little courtyard.</p> + +<p>Francine opened the curtain, and saw the tree entirely bare.</p> + +<p>"It is the last," said she, putting the leaf under her pillow.</p> + +<p>"You will not die until tomorrow," said the doctor. "You have a night +before you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, what happiness!" exclaimed the poor girl. "A winter's night—it +will be a long one."</p> + +<p>Jacques came back. He brought a muff with him.</p> + +<p>"It is very pretty," said Francine. "I will wear it when I go out."</p> + +<p>So passed the night with Jacques.</p> + +<p>The next day—All Saints'—about the middle of the day, the death agony +seized on her, and her whole body began to quiver.</p> + +<p>"My hands are cold," she murmured. "Give me my muff."</p> + +<p>And she buried her poor hands in the fur.</p> + +<p>"It is the end," said the doctor to Jacques. "Kiss her for the last +time."</p> + +<p>Jacques pressed his lips to those of his love. At the last moment they +wanted to take away her muff, but she clutched it with her hands.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said, "leave it me; it is winter, it is cold. Oh my poor +Jacques! My poor Jacques! What will become of you? Oh heavens!"</p> + +<p>And the next day Jacques was alone.</p> + +<p><i>First Reader</i>: I told you that this was not a very lively story.</p> + +<p>What would you have, reader? We cannot always laugh.</p> + +<p>It was the morning of All Saints. Francine was dead.</p> + +<p>Two men were watching at the bedside. One of them standing up was the +doctor. The other, kneeling beside the bed, was pressing his lips to the +dead girl's hands, and seemed to rivet them there in a despairing kiss. +It was Jacques, her lover. For more than six hours he had been plunged +in a state of heart broken insensibility. An organ playing under the +windows had just roused him from it.</p> + +<p>This organ was playing a tune that Francine was in the habit of singing +of a morning.</p> + +<p>One of those mad hopes that are only born out of deep despair flashed +across Jacques' mind. He went back a month in the past—to the period +when Francine was only sick unto death; he forgot the present, and +imagined for a moment that the dead girl was but sleeping, and that she +would wake up directly, her mouth full of her morning song.</p> + +<p>But the sounds of the organ had not yet died away before Jacques had +already come back to the reality. Francine's mouth was eternally closed +to all songs, and the smile that her last thought had brought to her +lips was fading away from them beneath death's fingers.</p> + +<p>"Take courage, Jacques," said the doctor, who was the sculptor's friend.</p> + +<p>Jacques rose, and said, looking fixedly at him, "it is over, is it +not—there is no longer any hope?"</p> + +<p>Without replying to this wild inquiry, Jacques' friend went and drew the +curtains of the bed, and then, returning to the sculptor, held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Francine is dead," said he. "We were bound to expect it, though heaven +knows that we have done what we could to save her. She was a good girl, +Jacques, who loved you very dearly—dearer and better than you loved her +yourself, for hers was love alone, while yours held an alloy. Francine +is dead, but all is not over yet. We must now think about the steps +necessary for her burial. We must set about that together, and we will +ask one of the neighbors to keep watch here while we are away."</p> + +<p>Jacques allowed himself to be led away by his friend. They passed the +day between the registrar of deaths, the undertaker, and the cemetery. +As Jacques had no money, the doctor pawned his watch, a ring, and some +clothes, to cover the cost of the funeral, that was fixed for the next +day.</p> + +<p>They both got in late at night. The neighbor who had been watching tried +to make Jacques eat a little.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he. "I will. I am very cold and I shall need a little +strength for my work tonight."</p> + +<p>The neighbor and the doctor did not understand him.</p> + +<p>Jacques sat down at the table and ate a few mouthfuls so hurriedly that +he was almost choked. Then he asked for drink. But on lifting his glass +to his lips he let it fall. The glass, which broke on the floor, had +awakened in the artist's mind a recollection which itself revived his +momentary dulled pain. The day on which Francine had called on him for +the first time she had felt ill, and he had given her to drink out of +this glass. Later, when they were living together, they had regarded it +as a love token.</p> + +<p>During his rare moments of wealth the artist would buy for his love one +or two bottles of the strengthening wine prescribed for her, and it was +from this glass that Francine used to sip the liquid whence her love +drew a charming gaiety.</p> + +<p>Jacques remained for more than half an hour staring without uttering a +word at the scattered fragments of this frail and cherished token. It +seemed to him that his heart was also broken, and that he could feel +the fragments tearing his breast. When he had recovered himself, he +picked up the pieces of glass and placed them in a drawer. Then he asked +the neighbor to fetch him two candles, and to send up a bucket of water +by the porter.</p> + +<p>"Do not go away," said he to the doctor, who had no intention of doing +so. "I shall want you presently."</p> + +<p>The water and the candles were brought and the two friends left alone.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to do?" asked the doctor, watching Jacques, who after +filling a wooden bowl with water was sprinkling powdered plaster of +Paris into it.</p> + +<p>"What do I mean to do?" asked the artist, "cannot you guess? I am going +to model Francine's head, and as my courage would fail me if I were left +alone, you must stay with me."</p> + +<p>Jacques then went and drew the curtains of the bed and turned down the +sheet that had been pulled up over the dead girl's face. His hand began +to tremble and a stifled sob broke from his lips.</p> + +<p>"Bring the candles," he cried to his friend, "and come and hold the +bowl for me."</p> + +<p>One of the candles was placed at the head of the bed so as to shed its +light on Francine's face, the other candle was placed at the foot. With +a brush dipped in olive oil the artist coated the eye-brows, the +eye-lashes and the hair, which he arranged as Francine usually wore it.</p> + +<p>"By doing this she will not suffer when we remove the mold," murmured +Jacques to himself.</p> + +<p>These precautions taken and after arranging the dead girl's head in a +favorable position, Jacques began to lay on the plaster in successive +coats until the mold had attained the necessary thickness. In a quarter +of an hour the operation was over and had been thoroughly successful.</p> + +<p>By some strange peculiarity a change had taken place in Francine's face. +The blood, which had not had time to become wholly congealed, warmed no +doubt by the warmth of the plaster, had flowed to the upper part of the +corpse and a rosy tinge gradually showed itself on the dead whiteness of +the cheeks and forehead. The eyelids, which had lifted when the mold was +removed, revealed the tranquil blue eyes in which a vague intelligence +seemed to lurk; from out the lips, parted by the beginning of a smile, +there seemed to issue that last word, forgotten during the last +farewell, that is only heard by the heart.</p> + +<p>Who can affirm that intelligence absolutely ends where insensibility +begins? Who can say that the passions fade away and die exactly at the +last beat of the heart which they have agitated? Cannot the soul +sometimes remain a voluntary captive within the corpse already dressed +for the coffin, and note for a moment from the recesses of its fleshly +prison house, regrets and tears? Those who depart have so many reasons +to mistrust those who remain behind.</p> + +<p>At the moment when Jacques sought to preserve her features by the aid +of art who knows but that a thought of after life had perhaps returned +to awaken Francine in her first slumber of the sleep that knows no end. +Perhaps she had remembered the he whom she had just left was an artist +at the same time as a lover, that he was both because he could not be +one without the other, that for him love was the soul of heart and that +if he had loved her so, it was because she had been for him a mistress +and a woman, a sentiment in form. And then, perhaps, Francine, wishing +to leave Jacques the human form that had become for him an incarnate +ideal, had been able though dead and cold already to once more clothe +her face with all the radiance of love and with all the graces of youth, +to resuscitate the art treasure.</p> + +<p>And perhaps too, the poor girl had thought rightly, for there exist +among true artists singular Pygmalions who, contrary to the original +one, would like to turn their living Galateas to marble.</p> + +<p>In presence of the serenity of this face on which the death pangs had no +longer left any trace, no one would have believed in the prolonged +sufferings that had served as a preface to death. Francine seemed to be +continuing a dream of love, and seeing her thus one would have said that +she had died of beauty.</p> + +<p>The doctor, worn out with fatigue, was asleep in a corner.</p> + +<p>As to Jacques, he was again plunged in doubt. His mind beset with +hallucinations, persisted in believing that she whom he had loved so +well was on the point of awakening, and as faint nervous contractions, +due to the recent action of the plaster, broke at intervals the +immobility of the corpse, this semblance of life served to maintain +Jacques in his blissful illusion, which lasted until morning, when a +police official called to verify the death and authorize internment.</p> + +<p>Besides, if it needed all the folly of despair to doubt of her death on +beholding this beautiful creature, it also needed all the infallibility +of science to believe it.</p> + +<p>While the neighbor was putting Francine into her shroud, Jacques was led +away into the next room, where he found some of his friends who had come +to follow the funeral. The Bohemians desisted as regards Jacques, whom, +however, they loved in brotherly fashion, from all those consolations +which only serve to irritate grief. Without uttering one of those +remarks so hard to frame and so painful to listen to, they silently +shook their friend by the hand in turn.</p> + +<p>"Her death is a great misfortune for Jacques," said one of them.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the painter Lazare, a strange spirit who had been able at +the very outset to conquer all the rebellious impulses of youth by the +inflexibility of one set purpose, and in whom the artist had ended by +stifling the man, "yes, but it is a misfortune that he incurred +voluntarily. Since he knew Francine, Jacques has greatly altered."</p> + +<p>"She made him happy," said another.</p> + +<p>"Happy," replied Lazare, "what do you call happy? How can you call a +passion, which brings a man to the condition in which Jacques is at this +moment, happiness? Show him a masterpiece and he would not even turn +his eyes to look at it; on a Titian or a Raphael. My mistress is +immortal and will never deceive me. She dwells in the Louvre, and her +name is Joconde."</p> + +<p>While Lazare was about to continue his theories on art and sentiment, it +was announced that it was time to start for the church.</p> + +<p>After a few prayers the funeral procession moved on to the cemetery. As +it was All Souls' Day an immense crowd filled it. Many people turned to +look at Jacques walking bareheaded in rear of the hearse.</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow," said one, "it is his mother, no doubt."</p> + +<p>"It is his father," said another.</p> + +<p>"It is his sister," was elsewhere remarked.</p> + +<p>A poet, who had come there to study the varying expressions of regret at +this festival of recollections celebrated once a year amidst November +fogs, alone guessed on seeing him pass that he was following the funeral +of his mistress.</p> + +<p>When they came to the grave the Bohemians ranged themselves about it +bareheaded, Jacques stood close to the edge, his friend the doctor +holding him by the arm.</p> + +<p>The grave diggers were in a hurry and wanted to get things over quickly.</p> + +<p>"There is to be no speechifying," said one of them. "Well, so much the +better. Heave, mate, that's it."</p> + +<p>The coffin taken out of the hearse was lowered into the grave. One man +withdrew the ropes and then with one of his mates took a shovel and +began to cast in the earth. The grave was soon filled up. A little +wooden cross was planted over it.</p> + +<p>In the midst of his sobs the doctor heard Jacques utter this cry of +egoism—</p> + +<p>"Oh my youth! It is you they are burying."</p> + +<p>Jacques belonged to a club styled the Water Drinkers, which seemed to +have been founded in imitation of the famous one of the Rue des +Quatre-Vents, which is treated of in that fine story <i>"Un Grand Homme de +Province."</i> Only there was a great difference between the heroes of the +latter circle and the Water Drinkers who, like all imitators, had +exaggerated the system they sought to put into practice. This difference +will be understood by the fact that in Balzac's book the members of the +club end by attaining the object they proposed to themselves, while +after several years' existence the club of the Water Drinkers was +naturally dissolved by the death of all its members, without the name of +anyone of them remaining attached to a work attesting their existence.</p> + +<p>During his union with Francine, Jacques' intercourse with the Water +Drinkers had become more broken. The necessities of life had obliged the +artist to violate certain conditions solemnly signed and sworn by the +Water Drinkers the day the club was founded.</p> + +<p>Perpetually perched on the stilts of an absurd pride, these young +fellows had laid down as a sovereign principle in their association, +that they must never abandon the lofty heights of art; that is to say, +that despite their mortal poverty, not one of them would make any +concession to necessity. Thus the poet Melchior would never have +consented to abandon what he called his lyre, to write a commercial +prospectus or an electoral address. That was all very well for the poet +Rodolphe, a good-for-nothing who was ready to turn his hand to anything, +and who never let a five franc piece flit past him without trying to +capture it, no matter how. The painter Lazare, a proud wearer of rags, +would never have soiled his brushes by painting the portrait of a tailor +holding a parrot on his forefinger, as our friend the painter Marcel had +once done in exchange for the famous dress coat nicknamed Methuselah, +which the hands of each of his sweethearts had starred over with darns. +All the while he had been living in communion of thought with the Water +Drinkers, the sculptor Jacques had submitted to the tyranny of the club +rules; but when he made the acquaintance of Francine, he would not make +the poor girl, already ill, share of the regimen he had accepted during +his solitude. Jacques' was above all an upright and loyal nature. He +went to the president of the club, the exclusive Lazare, and informed +him that for the future he would accept any work that would bring him +in anything.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, your declaration of love is your artistic renunciation. +We will remain your friends if you like, but we shall no longer be your +partners. Work as you please, for me you are no longer a sculptor, but a +plasterer. It is true that you may drink wine, but we who continue to +drink our water, and eat our dry bread, will remain artists."</p> + +<p>Whatever Lazare might say about it, Jacques remained an artist. But to +keep Francine with him he undertook, when he had a chance, any paying +work. It is thus that he worked for a long time in the workshop of the +ornament maker Romagnesi. Clever in execution and ingenious in +invention, Jacques, without relinquishing high art, might have achieved +a high reputation in those figure groups that have become one of the +chief elements in this commerce. But Jacques was lazy, like all true +artists, and a lover after the fashion of poets. Youth in him had +awakened tardily but ardent, and, with a presentiment of his approaching +end, he had sought to exhaust it in Francine's arms. Thus it happened +that good chances of work knocked at his door without Jacques answering, +because he would have had to disturb himself, and he found it more +comfortable to dream by the light of his beloved's eyes.</p> + +<p>When Francine was dead the sculptor went to see his old friends the +Water Drinkers again. But Lazare's spirit predominated in this club, in +which each of the members lived petrified in the egoism of art. Jacques +did not find what he came there in search of. They scarcely understood +his despair, which they strove to appease by argument, and seeing this +small degree of sympathy, Jacques preferred to isolate his grief rather +than see it laid bare by discussion. He broke off, therefore, completely +with the Water Drinkers and went away to live alone.</p> + +<p>Five or six days after Francine's funeral, Jacques went to a monumental +mason of the Montparnasse cemetery and offered to conclude the following +bargain with him. The mason was to furnish Francine's grave with a +border, which Jacques reserved the right of designing, and in addition +to supply the sculptor with a block of white marble. In return for this +Jacques would place himself for three months at his disposition, either +as a journeyman stone-cutter or sculptor. The monumental mason then had +several important orders on hand. He visited Jacques' studio, and in +presence of several works begun there, had proof that the chance which +gave him the sculptor's services was a lucky one for him. A week later, +Francine's grave had a border, in the midst of which the wooden cross +had been replaced by a stone one with her name graven on it.</p> + +<p>Jacques had luckily to do with an honest fellow who understood that a +couple of hundredweight of cast iron, and three square feet of Pyrenean +marble were no payment for three months' work by Jacques, whose talent +had brought him in several thousand francs. He offered to give the +artist a share in the business, but Jacques would not consent. The lack +of variety in the subjects for treatment was repugnant to his inventive +disposition, besides he had what he wanted, a large block of marble, +from the recesses of which he wished to evolve a masterpiece destined +for Francine's grave.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of spring Jacques' position improved. His friend the +doctor put him in relation with a great foreign nobleman who had come to +settle in Paris, and who was having a magnificent mansion built in one +of the most fashionable districts. Several celebrated artists had been +called in to contribute to the luxury of this little palace. A chimney +piece was commissioned from Jacques. I can still see his design, it was +charming; the whole poetry of winter was expressed in the marble that +was to serve as a frame to the flames. Jacques' studio was too small, he +asked for and obtained a room in the mansion, as yet uninhabited, to +execute his task in. A fairly large sum was even advanced him on the +price agreed on for his work. Jacques began by repaying his friend the +doctor the money the latter had lent him at Francine's death, then he +hurried to the cemetery to cover the earth, beneath which his mistress +slept, with flowers.</p> + +<p>But spring had been there before him, and on the girl's grave a thousand +flowers were springing at hazard amongst the grass. The artist had not +the courage to pull them up, for he thought that these flowers might +perhaps hold something of his dead love. As the gardener asked him what +was to be done with the roses and pansies he had brought with him, +Jacques bade him plant them on a neighboring grave, newly dug, the poor +grave of some poor creature, without any border and having no other +memorial over it than a piece of wood stuck in the ground and surmounted +by a crown of flowers in blackened paper, the scant offering of some +pauper's grief. Jacques left the cemetery in quite a different frame of +mind to what he had entered it. He looked with happy curiosity at the +bright spring sunshine, the same that had so often gilded Francine's +locks when she ran about the fields culling wildflowers with her white +hands. Quite a swarm of pleasant thoughts hummed in his heart. Passing +by a little tavern on the outer Boulevard he remembered that one day, +being caught by a storm, he had taken shelter there with Francine, and +that they had dined there. Jacques went in and had dinner served at the +same table. His dessert was served on a plate with a pictorial pattern; +he recognized it and remembered that Francine had spent half an hour in +guessing the rebus painted on it, and recollected, too, a song sung by +her when inspired by the violet hued wine which does not cost much and +has more gaiety in it than grapes. But this flood of sweet remembrances +recalled his love without reawakening his grief. Accessible to +superstition, like all poetical and dreamy intellects, Jacques fancied +that it was Francine, who, hearing his step beside her, had wafted him +these pleasant remembrances from her grave, and he would not damp them +with a tear. He quitted the tavern with firm step, erect head, bright +eye, beating heart, and almost a smile on his lips, murmuring as he went +along the refrain of Francine's song—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Love hovers round my dwelling<br /></span> +<span class="i4">My door must open be."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This refrain in Jacques' mouth was also a recollection, but then it was +already a song, and perhaps without suspecting it he took that evening +the first step along the road which leads from sorrow to melancholy, and +thence onward to forgetfulness. Alas! Whatever one may wish and whatever +one may do the eternal and just law of change wills it so.</p> + +<p>Even as the flowers, sprung perhaps from Francine, had sprouted on her +tomb the sap of youth stirred in the heart of Jacques, in which the +remembrance of the old love awoke new aspirations for new ones. Besides +Jacques belonged to the race of artists and poets who make passion an +instrument of art and poetry, and whose mind only shows activity in +proportion as it is set in motion by the motive powers of the heart. +With Jacques invention was really the daughter of sentiment, and he put +something of himself into the smallest things he did. He perceived that +souvenirs no longer sufficed him, and that, like the millstone which +wears itself away when corn runs short, his heart was wearing away for +want of emotion. Work had no longer any charm for him, his power of +invention, of yore feverish and spontaneous, now only awoke after much +patient effort. Jacques was discontented, and almost envied the life of +his old friends, the Water Drinkers.</p> + +<p>He sought to divert himself, held out his hand to pleasure, and made +fresh acquaintances. He associated with the poet Rodolphe, whom he had +met at a cafe, and each felt a warm sympathy towards the other. Jacques +explained his worries, and Rodolphe was not long in understanding their +cause.</p> + +<p>"My friend," said he, "I know what it is," and tapping him on the chest +just over the heart he added, "Quick, you must rekindle the fire there, +start a little love affair at once, and ideas will recur to you."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Jacques. "I loved Francine too dearly."</p> + +<p>"It will not hinder you from still always loving her. You will embrace +her on another's lips."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Jacques. "If I could only meet a girl who resembled her."</p> + +<p>And he left Rodolphe deep in thought.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Six weeks later Jacques had recovered all his energy, rekindled by the +tender glances of a young girl whose name was Marie, and whose somewhat +sickly beauty recalled that of poor Francine. Nothing, indeed, could be +prettier than this pretty Marie, who was within six weeks of being +eighteen years of age, as she never failed to mention. Her love affair +with Jacques had its birth by moonlight in the garden of an open air +ball, to the strains of a shrill violin, a grunting double bass, and a +clarinet that trilled like a blackbird. Jacques met her one evening when +gravely walking around the space reserved for the dancers. Seeing him +pass stiffly in his eternal black coat buttoned to the throat, the +pretty and noisy frequenters of the place, who knew him by sight, used +to say amongst themselves, "What is that undertaker doing here? Is there +anyone who wants to be buried?"</p> + +<p>And Jacques walked on always alone, his heart bleeding within him from +the thorns of a remembrance which the orchestra rendered keener by +playing a lively quadrille which sounded to his ears as mournful as a +<i>De Profundis</i>. It was in the midst of this reverie that he noticed +Marie, who was watching him from a corner, and laughing like a wild +thing at his gloomy bearing. Jacques raised his eyes and saw this burst +of laughter in a pink bonnet within three paces of him. He went up to +her and made a few remarks, to which she replied. He offered her his arm +for a stroll around the garden which she accepted. He told her that he +thought her as beautiful as an angel, and she made him repeat it twice +over. He stole some green apples hanging from the trees of the garden +for her, and she devoured them eagerly to the accompaniment of that +ringing laugh which seemed the burden of her constant mirth. Jacques +thought of the Bible, and thought that we should never despair as +regards any woman, and still less as regards those who love apples. He +took another turn round the garden with the pink bonnet, and it is thus +that arriving at the ball alone he did not return from it so.</p> + +<p>However, Jacques had not forgotten Francine; bearing in mind Rodolphe's +words he kissed her daily on Marie's lips, and wrought in secret at the +figure he wished to place on the dead girl's grave.</p> + +<p>One day when he received some money Jacques bought a dress for Marie—a +black dress. The girl was pleased, only she thought that black was not +very lively for summer wear. But Jacques told her that he was very fond +of black, and that she would please him by wearing this dress every day. +Marie obeyed.</p> + +<p>One Saturday Jacques said to her:</p> + +<p>"Come early tomorrow, we will go into the country."</p> + +<p>"How nice!" said Marie. "I am preparing a surprise for you. You shall +see. It will be sunshiny tomorrow."</p> + +<p>Marie spent the night at home finishing a new dress that she had bought +out of her savings—a pretty pink dress. And on Sunday she arrived clad +in her smart purchase at Jacques' studio.</p> + +<p>The artist received her coldly, almost brutally.</p> + +<p>"I thought I should please you by making this bright toilette," said +Marie, who could not understand his coolness.</p> + +<p>"We cannot go into the country today," replied he. "You had better be +off. I have some work today."</p> + +<p>Marie went home with a full heart. On the way she met a young man who +was acquainted with Jacques' story, and who had also paid court to +herself.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Mademoiselle Marie, so you are no longer in mourning?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Mourning?" asked Marie. "For whom?"</p> + +<p>"What, did you not know? It is pretty generally known, though, the +black dress that Jacques gave you—."</p> + +<p>"Well, what of it?" asked Marie.</p> + +<p>"It was mourning. Jacques made you wear mourning for Francine."</p> + +<p>From that day Jacques saw no more of Marie.</p> + +<p>This rupture was unlucky for him. Evil days returned; he had no more +work, and fell into such a fearful state of wretchedness that, no longer +knowing what would become of him, he begged his friend the doctor to +obtain him admission to a hospital. The doctor saw at first glance that +this admission would not be difficult to obtain. Jacques, who did not +suspect his condition, was on the way to rejoin Francine.</p> + +<p>As he could still move about, Jacques begged the superintendent of the +hospital to let him have a little unused room, and he had a stand, some +tools, and some modelling clay brought there. During the first fortnight +he worked at the figure he intended for Francine's grave. It was an +angel with outspread wings. This figure, which was Francine's portrait, +was never quite finished, for Jacques could soon no longer mount the +stairs, and in short time could not leave his bed.</p> + +<p>One day the order book fell into his hands, and seeing the things +prescribed for himself, he understood that he was lost. He wrote to his +family, and sent for Sister Sainte-Genevieve, who looked after him with +charitable care.</p> + +<p>"Sister," said Jacques, "there is upstairs in the room that was lent me, +a little plaster cast. This statuette, which represents an angel, was +intended for a tomb, but I had not time to execute it in marble. Yes, I +had a fine block—white marble with pink veins. Well, sister, I give you +my little statuette for your chapel."</p> + +<p>Jacques died a few days later. As the funeral took place on the very day +of the opening of the annual exhibition of pictures, the Water Drinkers +were not present. "Art before all," said Lazare.</p> + +<p>Jacques' family was not a rich one, and he did not have a grave of his +own.</p> + +<p>He is buried somewhere.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XIX</a></h2> + +<h3>Musette's Fancies</h3> + + +<p>It may be, perhaps, remembered how the painter Marcel sold the Jew +Medici his famous picture of "The Passage of the Red Sea," which was +destined to serve as the sign of a provision dealer's. On the morrow of +this sale, which had been followed by a luxurious dinner stood by the +Jew to the Bohemians as a clincher to the bargain, Marcel, Schaunard, +Colline, and Rodolphe woke up very late. Still bewildered by the fumes +of their intoxication of the day before, at first they no longer +remembered what had taken place, and as noon rung out from a neighboring +steeple, they all looked at one another with a melancholy smile.</p> + +<p>"There goes the bell that piously summons humanity to refresh itself," +said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"In point of fact," replied Rodolphe, "it is the solemn hour when honest +folk enter their dining-room."</p> + +<p>"We must try and become honest folk," murmured Colline, whose patron +saint was Saint Appetite.</p> + +<p>"Ah, milk jug of my nursery!—ah! Four square meals of my childhood, +what has become of you?" said Schaunard. "What has become of you?" he +repeated, to a soft and melancholy tune.</p> + +<p>"To think that at this hour there are in Paris more than a hundred +thousand chops on the gridiron," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"And as many steaks," added Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>By an ironical contrast, while the four friends were putting to one +another the terrible daily problem of how to get their breakfast, the +waiters of a restaurant on the lower floor of the house kept shouting +out the customers' orders.</p> + +<p>"Will those scoundrels never be quiet?" said Marcel. "Every word is like +the stroke of a pick, hollowing out my stomach."</p> + +<p>"The wind is in the north," said Colline, gravely, pointing to a +weathercock on a neighboring roof. "We shall not breakfast today, the +elements are opposed to it."</p> + +<p>"How so?" inquired Marcel.</p> + +<p>"It is an atmospheric phenomenon I have noted," said the philosopher. "A +wind from the north almost always means abstinence, as one from the +south usually means pleasure and good cheer. It is what philosophy calls +a warning from above."</p> + +<p>Gustave Colline's fasting jokes were savage ones.</p> + +<p>At that moment Schaunard, who had plunged one of his hands into the +abyss that served him as a pocket, withdrew it with a yell of pain.</p> + +<p>"Help, there is something in my coat!" he cried, trying to free his +hand, nipped fast in the claws of a live lobster.</p> + +<p>To the cry he had uttered, another one replied. It came from Marcel, +who, mechanically putting his hand into his pocket, had there discovered +a silver mine that he had forgotten—that is to say, the hundred and +fifty francs which Medici had given him the day before in payment for +"The Passage of the Red Sea."</p> + +<p>Memory returned at the same moment to the Bohemians.</p> + +<p>"Bow down, gentlemen," said Marcel, spreading out on the table a pile of +five-franc pieces, amongst which glittered some new louis.</p> + +<p>"One would think they were alive," said Colline.</p> + +<p>"Sweet sounds!" said Schaunard, chinking the gold pieces together.</p> + +<p>"How pretty these medals are!" said Rodolphe. "One would take them for +fragments of sunshine. If I were a king I would have no other small +change, and would have them stamped with my mistress's portrait."</p> + +<p>"To think that there is a country where there are mere pebbles," said +Schaunard. "The Americans used to give four of them for two sous. I had +an ancestor who went to America. He was interred by the savages in their +stomachs. It was a misfortune for the family."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but where does this animal come from?" inquired Marcel, looking at +the lobster which had began to crawl about the room.</p> + +<p>"I remember," said Schaunard, "that yesterday I took a turn in Medicis' +kitchen, I suppose the reptile accidentally fell into my pocket; these +creatures are very short-sighted. Since I have got it," added he, "I +should like to keep it. I will tame it and paint it red, it will look +livelier. I am sad since Phemie's departure; it will be a companion to +me."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," exclaimed Colline, "notice, I beg of you, that the +weathercock has gone round to the south, we shall breakfast."</p> + +<p>"I should think so," said Marcel, taking up a gold piece, "here is +something we will cook with plenty of sauce."</p> + +<p>They proceeded to a long and serious discussion on the bill of fare. +Each dish was the subject of an argument and a vote. Omelette soufflé, +proposed by Schaunard, was anxiously rejected, as were white wines, +against which Marcel delivered an oration that brought out his +oenophilistic knowledge.</p> + +<p>"The first duty of wine is to be red," exclaimed he, "don't talk to me +about your white wines."</p> + +<p>"But," said Schaunard, "Champagne—"</p> + +<p>"Bah! A fashionable cider! An epileptic licorice-water. I would give all +the cellars of Epernay and Ai for a single Burgundian cask. Besides, we +have neither grisettes to seduce, nor a vaudeville to write. I vote +against Champagne."</p> + +<p>The program once agreed upon, Schaunard and Colline went to the +neighboring restaurant to order the repast.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we have some fire," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact," said Rodolphe, "we should not be doing wrong, the +thermometer has been inviting us to it for some time past. Let us have +some fire and astonish the fireplace."</p> + +<p>He ran out on the landing and called to Colline to have some wood sent +in. A few minutes later Schaunard and Colline came up again, followed by +a charcoal dealer bearing a heavy bundle of firewood.</p> + +<p>As Marcel was looking in a drawer for some spare paper to light the +fire, he came by chance across a letter, the handwriting of which made +him start, and which he began to read unseen by his friends.</p> + +<p>It was a letter in pencil, written by Musette when she was living with +Marcel and dated day for day a year ago. It only contained these +words:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear love,</p> + +<p>Do not be uneasy about me, I shall be in shortly. I have gone out +to warm myself a bit by walking, it is freezing indoors and the +wood seller has cut off credit. I broke up the last two rungs of +the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. +Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at +home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex +you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take +a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten +francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be back +for dinner.</p> + +<p>Musette" </p></div> + +<p>"Poor girl," said Marcel, putting the letter in his pocket. And he +remained for a short time pensive, his head resting on his hands.</p> + +<p>At this period the Bohemians had been for some time in a state of +widowhood, with the exception of Colline, whose sweetheart, however, had +still remained invisible and anonymous.</p> + +<p>Phemie herself, Schaunard's amiable companion, had met with a simple +soul who had offered her his heart, a suite of mahogany furniture, and +a ring with his hair—red hair—in it. However, a fortnight after these +gifts, Phemie's lover wanted to take back his heart and his furniture, +because he noticed on looking at his mistress's hands that she wore a +ring set with hair, but black hair this time, and dared to suspect her +of infidelity.</p> + +<p>Yet Phemie had not ceased to be virtuous, only as her friends had +chaffed her several times about her ring with red hair, she had had it +dyed black. The gentleman was so pleased that he bought Phemie a silk +dress; it was the first she had ever had. The day she put it on for the +first time the poor girl exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Now I can die happy."</p> + +<p>As to Musette, she had once more become almost an official personage, +and Marcel had not met her for three or four months. As to Mimi, +Rodolphe had not heard her even mentioned, save by himself when alone.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" suddenly exclaimed Rodolphe, seeing Marcel squatting dreamily +beside the hearth. "Won't the fire light?"</p> + +<p>"There you are," said the painter, setting light to the wood, which +began to crackle and flame.</p> + +<p>While his friends were sharpening their appetites by getting ready the +feast, Marcel had again isolated himself in a corner and was putting the +letter he had just found by chance away with some souvenirs that Musette +had left him. All at once he remembered the address of a woman who was +the intimate friend of his old love.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed, loud enough to be overheard. "I know where to find +her."</p> + +<p>"Find what?" asked Rodolphe. "What are you up to?" he added, seeing the +artist getting ready to write.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, only an urgent letter I had forgotten," replied Marcel, and he +wrote:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear girl,</p> + +<p>I have wealth in my desk, an apoplectic stroke of fortune. We have +a big feed simmering, generous wines, and have lit fires like +respectable citizens. You should only just see it, as you used to +say. Come and pass an hour with us. You will find Rodolphe, Colline +and Schaunard. You shall sing to us at dessert, for dessert will +not be wanting. While we are there we shall probably remain at +table for a week. So do not be afraid of being too late. It is so +long since I heard you laugh. Rodolphe will compose madrigals to +you, and we will drink all manner of things to our dead and gone +loves, with liberty to resuscitate them. Between people like +ourselves—the last kiss is never the last. Ah! If it had not been +so cold last year you might not have left me. You jilted me for a +faggot and because you were afraid of having red hands; you were +right. I am no more vexed with you over it this time than over the +others, but come and warm yourself while there is a fire. With as +many kisses as you like,</p> + +<p>Marcel."</p></div> + +<p>This letter finished, Marcel wrote another to Madame Sidonie, Musette's +friend, begging her to forward the one enclosed in it. Then he went +downstairs to the porter to get him to take the letters. As he was +paying him beforehand, the porter noticed a gold coin in the painter's +hand, and before starting on his errand went up to inform the landlord, +with whom Marcel was behind with his rent.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said he, quite out of breath, "the artist on the sixth floor has +money. You know the tall fellow who laughs in my face when I take him +his bill?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the landlord, "the one who had the imprudence to borrow +money of me to pay me something on account with. He is under notice to +quit."</p> + +<p>"Yes sir. But he is rolling in gold today. I caught sight of it just +now. He is giving a party. It is a good time—"</p> + +<p>"You are right," said the landlord. "I will go up and see for myself +by-and-by."</p> + +<p>Madame Sidonie, who was at home when Marcel's letter was brought, sent +on her maid at once with the one intended for Musette.</p> + +<p>The latter was then residing in a charming suite of rooms in the +Chaussee d'Antin. At the moment Marcel's letter was handed to her, she +had company, and, indeed, was going to give a grand dinner party that +evening.</p> + +<p>"Here is a miracle," she exclaimed, laughing like a mad thing.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked a handsome young fellow, as stiff as a statuette.</p> + +<p>"It is an invitation to dinner," replied the girl. "How well it falls +out."</p> + +<p>"How badly," said the young man.</p> + +<p>"Why so?" asked Musette.</p> + +<p>"What, do you think of going?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so. Arrange things as you please."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, it is not becoming. You can go another time."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is very good, another time. It is an old acquaintance, Marcel, +who invites me to dinner, and that is sufficiently extraordinary for me +to go and have a look at it. Another time! But real dinners in that +house are as rare as eclipses."</p> + +<p>"What, you would break your pledge to us to go and see this +individual," said the young man, "and you tell me so—"</p> + +<p>"Whom do you want me to tell it to, then? To the Grand Turk? It does not +concern him."</p> + +<p>"This is strange frankness."</p> + +<p>"You know very well that I do nothing like other people."</p> + +<p>"But what would you think of me if I let you go, knowing where you are +going to? Think a bit, Musette, it is very unbecoming both to you and +myself; you must ask this young fellow to excuse you—"</p> + +<p>"My dear Monsieur Maurice," said Mademoiselle Musette, in very firm +tones, "you knew me before you took up with me, you knew that I was full +of whims and fancies, and that no living soul can boast of ever having +made me give one up."</p> + +<p>"Ask of me whatever you like," said Maurice, "but this! There are +fancies and fancies."</p> + +<p>"Maurice, I shall go and see Marcel. I am going," she added, putting on +her bonnet. "You may leave me if you like, but it is stronger than I +am; he is the best fellow in the world, and the only one I have ever +loved. If his head had been gold he would have melted it down to give me +rings. Poor fellow," said she, showing the letter, "see, as soon as he +has a little fire, he invites me to come and warm myself. Ah, if he had +not been so idle, and if there had not been so much velvet and silk in +the shops! I was very happy with him, he had the gift of making me feel; +and it is he who gave me the name of Musette on account of my songs. At +any rate, going to see him you may be sure that I shall return to you... +unless you shut your door in my face."</p> + +<p>"You could not more frankly acknowledge that you do not love me," said +the young man.</p> + +<p>"Come, my dear Maurice, you are too sensible a man for us to begin a +serious argument on that point," rejoined Musette. "You keep me like a +fine horse in your stable—and I like you because I love luxury, noise, +glitter, and festivity, and that sort of thing; do not let us go in for +sentiment, it would be useless and ridiculous."</p> + +<p>"At least let me come with you."</p> + +<p>"But you would not enjoy yourself at all," said Musette, "and would +hinder us from enjoying ourselves. Remember that he will necessarily +kiss me."</p> + +<p>"Musette," said Maurice. "Have you often found such accommodating people +as myself?"</p> + +<p>"Viscount," replied Musette, "one day when I was driving in the Champs +Elysees with Lord _____, I met Marcel and his friend Rodolphe, both on +foot, both ill dressed, muddy as water-dogs, and smoking pipes. I had +not seen Marcel for three months, and it seemed to me as if my heart was +going to jump out of the carriage window. I stopped the carriage, and +for half an hour I chatted with Marcel before the whole of Paris, +filing past in its carriages. Marcel offered me a sou bunch of violets +that I fastened in my waistband. When he took leave of me, Lord _____ +wanted to call him back to invite him to dinner with us. I kissed him +for that. That is my way, my dear Monsieur Maurice, if it does not suit +you you should say so at once, and I will take my slippers and my +nightcap."</p> + +<p>"It is sometimes a good thing to be poor then," said Vicomte Maurice, +with a look of envious sadness.</p> + +<p>"No, not at all," said Musette. "If Marcel had been rich I should never +have left him."</p> + +<p>"Go, then," said the young fellow, shaking her by the hand. "You have +put your new dress on," he added, "it becomes you splendidly."</p> + +<p>"That is so," said Musette. "It is a kind of presentiment I had this +morning. Marcel will have the first fruits of it. Goodbye, I am off to +taste a little of the bread of gaiety."</p> + +<p>Musette was that day wearing a charming toilette. Never had the poem of +her youth and beauty been set off by a more seductive binding. Besides, +Musette had the instinctive genius of taste. On coming into the world, +the first thing she had looked about for had been a looking glass to +settle herself in her swaddling clothes by, and before being christened +she had already been guilty of the sin of coquetry. At the time when her +position was of the humblest, when she was reduced to cotton print +frocks, little white caps and kid shoes, she wore in charming style this +poor and simple uniform of the grisettes, those pretty girls, half bees, +half grasshoppers, who sang at their work all week, only asked God for a +little sunshine on Sunday, loved with all their heart, and sometimes +threw themselves out of a window.</p> + +<p>A breed that is now lost, thanks to the present generation of young +fellows, a corrupted and at the same time corrupting race, but, above +everything, vain, foolish and brutal. For the sake of uttering spiteful +paradoxes, they chaffed these poor girls about their hands, disfigured +by the sacred scars of toil, and as a consequence these soon no longer +earned even enough to buy almond paste. By degrees they succeeded in +inoculating them with their own foolishness and vanity, and then the +grisette disappeared. It was then that the lorette sprung up. A hybrid +breed of impertinent creatures of mediocre beauty, half flesh, half +paint, whose boudoir is a shop in which they sell bits of their heart +like slices of roast beef. The majority of these girls who dishonor +pleasure, and are the shame of modern gallantry, are not always equal in +intelligence to the very birds whose feathers they wear in their +bonnets. If by chance they happen to feel, not love nor even a caprice, +but a common place desire, it is for some counter jumping mountebank, +whom the crowd surrounds and applauds at public balls, and whom the +papers, courtiers of all that is ridiculous, render celebrated by their +puffs. Although she was obliged to live in this circle Musette had +neither its manners nor its ways, she had not the servile cupidity of +those creatures who can only read Cocker and only write in figures. She +was an intelligent and witty girl, and some drops of the blood of Mansu +in her veins and, rebellious to all yokes, she had never been able to +help yielding to a fancy, whatever might be the consequences.</p> + +<p>Marcel was really the only man she had ever loved. He was at any rate +the only one for whose sake she had really suffered, and it had needed +all the stubbornness of the instincts that attracted her to all that +glittered and jingled to make her leave him. She was twenty, and for her +luxury was almost a matter of existence. She might do without it for a +time, but she could not give it up completely. Knowing her inconstancy, +she had never consented to padlock her heart with an oath of fidelity. +She had been ardently loved by many young fellows for whom she had +herself felt a strong fancy, and she had always acted towards them with +far-sighted probity; the engagements into which she entered were simple, +frank and rustic as the love-making of Moliere's peasants. "You want me +and I should like you too, shake hands on it and let us enjoy +ourselves." A dozen times if she had liked Musette could have secured a +good position, which is termed a future, but she did not believe in the +future and professed the scepticism of Figaro respecting it.</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow," she sometimes remarked, "is an absurdity of the almanac, it +is a daily pretext that men have invented in order to put off their +business today. Tomorrow may be an earthquake. Today, at any rate, we +are on solid ground."</p> + +<p>One day a gentleman with whom she had stayed nearly six months, and who +had become wildly in love with her, seriously proposed marriage. +Musette burst out laughing in his face at this offer.</p> + +<p>"I imprison my liberty in the bonds of matrimony? Never," said she.</p> + +<p>"But I pass my time in trembling with fear of losing you."</p> + +<p>"It would be worse if I were your wife. Do not let us speak about that +any more. Besides, I am not free," she added, thinking no doubt of +Marcel.</p> + +<p>Thus she passed her youth, her mind caught by every straw blown by the +breeze of fancy, causing the happiness of a great many and almost happy +herself. Vicomte Maurice, under whose protection she then was, had a +great deal of difficulty in accustoming himself to her untamable +disposition, intoxicated with freedom, and it was with jealous +impatience that he awaited the return of Musette after having seen her +start off to Marcel's.</p> + +<p>"Will she stay there?" he kept asking himself all the evening.</p> + +<p>"Poor Maurice," said Musette to herself on her side. "He thinks it +rather hard. Bah! Young men must go through their training."</p> + +<p>Then her mind turning suddenly to other things, she began to think of +Marcel to whom she was going, and while running over the recollections +reawakened by the name of her erst adorer, asked herself by what miracle +the table had been spread at his dwelling. She re-read, as she went +along, the letter that the artist had written to her, and could not help +feeling somewhat saddened by it. But this only lasted a moment. Musette +thought aright, that it was less than ever an occasion for grieving, and +at that moment a strong wind spring up she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"It is funny, even if I did not want to go to Marcel's, this wind would +blow me there."</p> + +<p>And she went on hurriedly, happy as a bird returning to its first nest.</p> + +<p>All at once snow began to fall heavy. Musette looked for a cab. She +could not see one. As she happened to be in the very street in which +dwelt her friend Madame Sidonie, the same who had sent on Marcel's +letter to her, Musette decided to run in for a few minutes until the +weather cleared up sufficiently to enable her to continue her journey.</p> + +<p>When Musette entered Madame Sidonie's rooms she found a gathering there. +They were going on with a game of lansquenet that had lasted three +days.</p> + +<p>"Do not disturb yourselves," said Musette. "I have only just popped in +for a moment."</p> + +<p>"You got Marcel's letter all right?" whispered Madame Sidonie to her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, thanks," replied Musette. "I am going to his place, he has asked +me to dinner. Will you come with me? You would enjoy yourself."</p> + +<p>"No, I can't," said Madame Sidonie, pointing to the card table. "Think +of my rent."</p> + +<p>"There are six louis," said the banker.</p> + +<p>"I'll go two of them," exclaimed Madame Sidonie.</p> + +<p>"I am not proud, I'll start at two," replied the banker, who had already +dealt several times. "King and ace. I am done for," he continued, +dealing the cards. "I am done for, all the kings are out."</p> + +<p>"No politics," said a journalist.</p> + +<p>"And the ace is the foe of my family," continued the banker, who then +turned up another king. "Long live the king! My dear Sidonie, hand me +over two louis."</p> + +<p>"Put them down," said Sidonie, vexed at her loss.</p> + +<p>"That makes four hundred francs you owe me, little one," said the +banker. "You would run it up to a thousand. I pass the deal."</p> + +<p>Sidonie and Musette were chatting together in a low tone. The game went +on.</p> + +<p>At about the same time the Bohemians were sitting down to table. During +the whole of the repast Marcel seemed uneasy. Everytime a step sounded +on the stairs he started.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe of him. "One would think you were +expecting someone. Are we not all here?"</p> + +<p>But at a look from the artist the poet understood his friend's +preoccupation.</p> + +<p>"True," he thought, "we are not all here."</p> + +<p>Marcel's look meant Musette, Rodolphe's answering glance, Mimi.</p> + +<p>"We lack ladies," said Schaunard, all at once.</p> + +<p>"Confound it," yelled Colline, "will you hold your tongue with your +libertine reflections. It was agreed that we should not speak of love, +it turns the sauces."</p> + +<p>And the friends continued to drink fuller bumpers, whilst without the +snow still fell, and on the hearth the logs flamed brightly, scattering +sparks like fireworks.</p> + +<p>Just as Rodolphe was thundering out a song which he had found at the +bottom of his glass, there came several knocks at the door. Marcel, +torpid from incipient drunkenness, leaped up from his chair, and ran to +open it. Musette was not there.</p> + +<p>A gentleman appeared on the threshold; he was not only bad looking, but +his dressing gown was wretchedly made. In his hand he held a slip of +paper.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you so comfortable," he said, looking at the table on +which were the remains of a magnificent leg of mutton.</p> + +<p>"The landlord!" cried Rodolphe. "Let us receive him with the honors due +to his position!" and he commenced beating on his plate with his knife +and fork.</p> + +<p>Colline handed him a chair, and Marcel cried:</p> + +<p>"Come, Schaunard! Pass us a clean glass. You are just in time," he +continued to the landlord, "we were going to drink to your health. My +friend there, Monsieur Colline, was saying some touching things about +you. As you are present, he will begin over again, out of compliment to +you. Do begin again, Colline."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the landlord, "I don't wish to trouble you, +but—-" and he unfolded the paper which he had in his hand.</p> + +<p>"What's the document?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>The landlord, who had cast an inquisitive glance around the room, +perceived some gold on the chimney piece.</p> + +<p>"It is your receipt," he said hastily, "which I had the honor of +sending you once already."</p> + +<p>"My faithful memory recalls the circumstance," replied the artist. "It +was on Friday, the eighth of the month, at a quarter past twelve."</p> + +<p>"It is signed, you see, in due form," said the landlord, "and if it is +agreeable to you—"</p> + +<p>"I was intending to call upon you," interrupted Marcel. "I have a great +deal to talk to you about."</p> + +<p>"At your service."</p> + +<p>"Oblige me by taking something," continued the painter, forcing a glass +of wine on the landlord. "Now, sir," he continued, "you sent me lately a +little paper, with a picture of a lady and a pair of scales on it. It +was signed Godard."</p> + +<p>"The lawyer's name."</p> + +<p>"He writes a very bad hand; I had to get my friend here, who understands +all sorts of hieroglyphics and foreign languages,"—and he pointed to +Colline—"to translate it for me."</p> + +<p>"It was a notice to quit; a precautionary measure, according to the rule +in such cases."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. Now I wanted to have a talk with you about this very notice, +for which I should like to substitute a lease. This house suits me. The +staircase is clean, the street gay, and some of my friends live near; in +short, a thousand reasons attach me to these premises."</p> + +<p>"But," and the landlord unfolded his receipt again, "there is that last +quarter's rent to pay."</p> + +<p>"We shall pay it, sir. Such is our fixed intention."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the landlord kept his eye glued to the money on the +mantelpiece and such was the steady pertinacity of his gaze that the +coins seemed to move towards him of themselves.</p> + +<p>"I am happy to have come at a time when, without inconveniencing +yourself, you can settle this little affair," he said, again producing +his receipt to Marcel, who, not being able to parry the assault, again +avoided it.</p> + +<p>"You have some property in the provinces, I think," he said.</p> + +<p>"Very little, very little. A small house and farm in Burgundy; very +trifling returns; the tenants pay so badly, and therefore," he added, +pushing forward his receipt again, "this small sum comes just in time. +Sixty francs, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marcel, going to the mantelpiece and taking up three pieces +of gold. "Sixty, sixty it is," and he placed the money on the table just +out of the landlord's reach.</p> + +<p>"At last," thought the latter. His countenance lighted up, and he too +laid down his receipt on the table.</p> + +<p>Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe looked anxiously on.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," quoth Marcel, "since you are a Burgundian, you will not be +sorry to see a countryman of yours." He opened a bottle of old Macon, +and poured out a bumper.</p> + +<p>"Ah, perfect!" said the landlord. "Really, I never tasted better."</p> + +<p>"An uncle of mine who lives there, sends me a hamper or two +occasionally."</p> + +<p>The landlord rose, and was stretching out his hand towards the money, +when Marcel stopped him again.</p> + +<p>"You will not refuse another glass?" said he, pouring one out.</p> + +<p>The landlord did not refuse. He drank the second glass, and was once +more attempting to possess himself of the money, when Marcel called out:</p> + +<p>"Stop! I have an idea. I am rather rich just now, for me. My uncle in +Burgundy has sent me something over my usual allowance. Now I may spend +this money too fast. Youth has so many temptations, you know. Therefore, +if it is all the same to you, I will pay a quarter in advance." He took +sixty francs in silver and added them to the three louis which were on +the table.</p> + +<p>"Then I will give you a receipt for the present quarter," said the +landlord. "I have some blank ones in my pocketbook. I will fill it up +and date it ahead. After all," thought he, devouring the hundred and +twenty francs with his eyes, "this tenant is not so bad."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the other three Bohemians, not understanding Marcel's +diplomacy, remained utterly stupefied.</p> + +<p>"But this chimney smokes, which is very disagreeable."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me before? I will send the workmen in tomorrow," +answered the landlord, not wishing to be behindhand in this contest of +good offices. He filled up the second receipt, pushed the two over to +Marcel, and stretched out his hand once more towards the heap of money. +"You don't know how timely this sum comes in," he continued, "I have to +pay some bills for repairs, and was really quite short of cash."</p> + +<p>"Very sorry to have made you wait."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's no matter now! Permit me."—and out went his hand again.</p> + +<p>"Permit me," said Marcel. "We haven't finished with this yet. You know +the old saying, 'when the wine is drawn—'" and he filled the landlord's +glass a third time.</p> + +<p>"One must drink it," remarked the other, and he did so.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said the artist, with a wink at his friends, who now +understood what he was after.</p> + +<p>The landlord's eyes began to twinkle strangely. He wriggled on his +chair, began to talk loosely, in all senses of the word, and promised +Marcel fabulous repairs and embellishments.</p> + +<p>"Bring up the big guns," said the artist aside to the poet. Rodolphe +passed along a bottle of rum.</p> + +<p>After the first glass the landlord sang a ditty, which absolutely made +Schaunard blush.</p> + +<p>After the second, he lamented his conjugal infelicity. His wife's name +being Helen, he compared himself to Menelaus.</p> + +<p>After the third, he had an attack of philosophy, and threw up such +aphorisms as these:</p> + +<p>"Life is a river."</p> + +<p>"Happiness depends not on wealth."</p> + +<p>"Man is a transitory creature."</p> + +<p>"Love is a pleasant feeling."</p> + +<p>Finally, he made Schaunard his confidant, and related to him how he had +"Put into mahogany" a damsel named Euphemia. Of this young person and +her loving simplicity he drew so detailed a portrait, that Schaunard +began to be assailed by a fearful suspicion, which suspicion was reduced +to a certainty when the landlord showed him a letter.</p> + +<p>"Cruel woman!" cried the musician, as he beheld the signature. "It is +like a dagger in my heart."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter!" exclaimed the Bohemians, astonished at this +language.</p> + +<p>"See," said Schaunard, "this letter is from Phemie. See the blot that +serves her for a signature."</p> + +<p>And he handed round the letter of his ex-mistress, which began with the +words, "My dear old pet."</p> + +<p>"I am her dear old pet," said the landlord, vainly trying to rise from +his chair.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Marcel, who was watching him. "He has cast anchor."</p> + +<p>"Phemie, cruel Phemie," murmured Schaunard. "You have wounded me +deeply."</p> + +<p>"I have furnished a little apartment for her at 12, Rue Coquenard," said +the landlord. "Pretty, very pretty. It cost me lots of money. But such +love is beyond price and I have twenty thousand francs a year. She asks +me for money in her letter. Poor little dear, she shall have this," and +he stretched out his hand for the money—"hallo! Where is it?" he added +in astonishment feeling on the table. The money had disappeared.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible for a moral man to become an accomplice in such +wickedness," said Marcel. "My conscience forbids me to pay money to this +old profligate. I shall not pay my rent, but my conscience will at any +rate be clear. What morals, and in a bald headed man too."</p> + +<p>By this time the landlord was completely gone, and talked at random to +the bottles. He had been there nearly two hours, when his wife, alarmed +at his prolonged absence, sent the maid after him. On seeing her master +in such a state, she set up a shriek, and asked, "what are they doing +to him?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," answered Marcel. "He came a few minutes ago to ask for the +rent. As we had no money we begged for time."</p> + +<p>"But he's been and got drunk," said the servant.</p> + +<p>"Very likely," replied Rodolphe. "Most of that was done before he came +here. He told us that he had been arranging his cellar."</p> + +<p>"And he had so completely lost his head," added Colline, "that he +wanted to leave the receipt without the money."</p> + +<p>"Give these to his wife," said Marcel, handing over the receipts. "We +are honest folk, and do not wish to take advantage of his condition."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! What will madame say?" exclaimed the maid, leading, or +rather dragging off her master, who had a very imperfect idea of the use +of his legs.</p> + +<p>"So much for him!" ejaculated Marcel.</p> + +<p>"He has smelt money," said Rodolphe. "He will come again tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"When he does, I will threaten to tell his wife about Phemie and he will +give us time enough."</p> + +<p>When the landlord had been got outside, the four friends went on smoking +and drinking. Marcel alone retained a glimmer of lucidity in his +intoxication. From time to time, at the slightest sound on the +staircase, he ran and opened the door. But those who were coming up +always halted at one of the lower landings, and then the artist would +slowly return to his place by the fireside. Midnight struck, and Musette +had not come.</p> + +<p>"After all," thought Marcel, "perhaps she was not in when my letter +arrived. She will find it when she gets home tonight, and she will come +tomorrow. We shall still have a fire. It is impossible for her not to +come. Tomorrow."</p> + +<p>And he fell asleep by the fire.</p> + +<p>At the very moment that Marcel fell asleep dreaming of her, Mademoiselle +Musette was leaving the residence of her friend Madame Sidonie, where +she had been staying up till then. Musette was not alone, a young man +accompanied her. A carriage was waiting at the door. They got into it +and went off at full speed.</p> + +<p>The game at lansquenet was still going on in Madame Sidonie's room.</p> + +<p>"Where is Musette?" said someone all at once.</p> + +<p>"Where is young Seraphin?" said another.</p> + +<p>Madame Sidonie began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"They had just gone off together," said she. "It is a funny story. What +a strange being Musette is. Just fancy...." And she informed the company +how Musette, after almost quarreling with Vicomte Maurice and starting +off to find Marcel, had stepped in there by chance and met with young +Seraphin.</p> + +<p>"I suspected something was up," she continued. "I had an eye on them all +the evening. He is very sharp, that youngster. In short, they have gone +off on the quiet, and it would take a sharp one to catch them up. All +the same, it is very funny when one thinks how fond Musette is of her +Marcel."</p> + +<p>"If she is so fond of him, what is the use of Seraphin, almost a lad, +and who had never had a mistress?" said a young fellow.</p> + +<p>"She wants to teach him to read, perhaps," said the journalist, who was +very stupid when he had been losing.</p> + +<p>"All the same," said Sidonie, "what does she want with Seraphin when she +is in love with Marcel? That is what gets over me."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For five days the Bohemians went on leading the happiest life in the +world without stirring out. They remained at table from morning till +night. An admired disorder reigned in the room which was filled with a +Pantagruelic atmosphere. On a regular bed of oyster shells reposed an +army of empty bottles of every size and shape. The table was laden with +fragments of every description, and a forest of wood blazed in the +fireplace.</p> + +<p>On the sixth day Colline, who was director of ceremonies, drew up, as +was his wont every morning, the bill of fare for breakfast, lunch, +dinner, and supper, and submitted it to the approval of his friends, who +each initialed it in token of approbation.</p> + +<p>But when Colline opened the drawer that served as a cashbox, in order to +take the money necessary for the day's consumption, he started back and +became as pale as Banquo's ghost.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" inquired the others, carelessly.</p> + +<p>"The matter is that there are only thirty sous left," replied the +philosopher.</p> + +<p>"The deuce. That will cause some modification in our bill of fare. +Well, thirty sous carefully laid out—. All the same it will be +difficult to run to truffles," said the others.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later the table was spread. There were three dishes most +symmetrically arranged—a dish of herrings, a dish of potatoes, and a +dish of cheese.</p> + +<p>On the hearth smoldered two little brands as big as one's fist.</p> + +<p>Snow was still falling without.</p> + +<p>The four Bohemians sat down to table and gravely unfolded their napkins.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," said Marcel, "this herring has a flavor of pheasant."</p> + +<p>"That is due to the way in which I cooked it," replied Colline. "The +herring has never been properly appreciated."</p> + +<p>At that moment a joyous song rose on the staircase, and a knock came at +the door. Marcel, who had not been able to help shuddering, ran to open +it.</p> + +<p>Musette threw her arms round his neck and held him in an embrace for +five minutes. Marcel felt her tremble in his arms.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am cold," said Musette, mechanically drawing near the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Marcel. "And we had such a rattling good fire."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Musette, glancing at the remains of the five days' +festivity, "I have come too late."</p> + +<p>"Why?" said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Why?" said Musette, blushing slightly.</p> + +<p>She sat down on Marcel's knee. She was still shivering, and her hands +were blue.</p> + +<p>"You were not free, then," whispered Marcel.</p> + +<p>"I, not free!" exclaimed the girl. "Ah Marcel! If I were seated amongst +the stars in Paradise and you made me a sign to come down to you I +should do so. I, not free!"</p> + +<p>She began to shiver again.</p> + +<p>"There are five chairs here," said Rodolphe, "which is an odd number, +without reckoning that the fifth is of a ridiculous shape."</p> + +<p>And breaking the chair against the wall, he threw the fragments into the +fireplace. The fire suddenly burst forth again in a bright and merry +flame, then making a sign to Colline and Schaunard, the poet took them +off with him.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"To buy some tobacco," they replied.</p> + +<p>"At Havana," added Schaunard, with a sign of intelligence to Marcel, who +thanked him with a look.</p> + +<p>"Why did you not come sooner?" he asked Musette when they were alone +together.</p> + +<p>"It is true, I am rather behindhand."</p> + +<p>"Five days to cross the Pont Neuf. You must have gone round by the +Pyrenees?"</p> + +<p>Musette bowed her head and was silent.</p> + +<p>"Ah, naughty girl," said the artist, sadly tapping his hand lightly on +his mistress' breast, "what have you got inside here?"</p> + +<p>"You know very well," she retorted quickly.</p> + +<p>"But what have you been doing since I wrote to you?"</p> + +<p>"Do not question me," said Musette, kissing him several times. "Do not +ask me anything, but let me warm myself beside you. You see I put on my +best dress to come. Poor Maurice, he could not understand it when I set +off to come here, but it was stronger than myself, so I started. The +fire is nice," she added, holding out her little hand to the flames, "I +will stay with you till tomorrow if you like."</p> + +<p>"It will be very cold here," said Marcel, "and we have nothing for +dinner. You have come too late," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Ah, bah!" said Musette. "It will be all the more like old times."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Rodolphe, Colline, and Schaunard, took twenty-four hours to get their +tobacco. When they returned to the house Marcel was alone.</p> + +<p>After an absence of six days Vicomte Maurice saw Musette return.</p> + +<p>He did not in any way reproach her, and only asked her why she seemed +sad.</p> + +<p>"I quarreled with Marcel," said she. "We parted badly."</p> + +<p>"And yet, who knows," said Maurice. "But you will again return to him."</p> + +<p>"What would you?" asked Musette. "I need to breathe the air of that life +from time to time. My life is like a song, each of my loves is a verse, +but Marcel is the refrain."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XX</a></h2> + +<h3>Mimi In Fine Feather</h3> + + +<p>"No, no, no, you are no longer Lisette! No, no, no, you are no longer +Mimi. You are today, my lady the viscomtess, the day after tomorrow you +may, perhaps, be your grace the duchess; the doorway of your dreams has +at length been thrown wide open before you, and you have passed through +it victorious and triumphant. I felt certain you would end up by doing +so, some night or other. It was bound to be; besides, your white hands +were made for idleness, and for a long time past have called for the +ring of some aristocratic alliance. At length you have a coat of arms. +But, we still prefer the one which youth gave to your beauty, when your +blue eyes and your pale face seemed to quarter azure on a lily field. +Noble or serf, you are ever charming, and I readily recognized you when +you passed by in the street the other evening, with rapid and well-shod +foot, aiding the wind with your gloved hand in lifting the skirts of +your new dress, partly in order not to let it be soiled, but a great +deal more in order to show your embroidered petticoats and open-worked +stockings. You had on a wonderful bonnet, and even seemed plunged in +deep perplexity on the subject of the veil of costly lace which floated +over this bonnet. A very serious trouble indeed, for it was a question +of deciding which was best and most advantageous to your coquetry, to +wear this veil up or down. By wearing it down, you risked not being +recognized by those of your friends whom you might meet, and who +certainly would have passed by you ten times without suspecting that +this costly envelope hid Mademoiselle Mimi. On the other hand, by +wearing this veil up, it was it that risked escaping notice, and in that +case, what was the good of having it? You had cleverly solved the +difficulty by alternately raising and lowering at every tenth step; this +wonderful tissue, woven no doubt, in that country of spiders, called +Flanders, and which of itself cost more than the whole of your former +wardrobe."</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mimi! Forgive me—I should say, ah, vicomtess! I was quite right, +you see, when I said to you: 'Patience, do not despair, the future is +big with cashmere shawls, glittering jewels, supper parties, and the +like.' You would not believe me, incredulous one. Well, my predictions +are, however, realized, and I am worth as much, I hope, as your 'Ladies' +Oracle,' a little octavo sorcerer you bought for five sous at a +bookstall on the Pont Neuf, and which you wearied with external +questions. Again, I ask, was I not right in my prophecies; and would you +believe me now, if I tell you that you will not stop at this? If I told +you that listening, I can hear faintly in the depths of your future, +the tramp and neighing of the horses harnessed to blue brougham, driven +by a powdered coachmen, who lets down the steps, saying, 'Where to +madam?' Would you believe me if I told you, too, that later on—ah, as +late as possible, I trust—attaining the object of a long cherished +ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and +will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come +there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at +this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, +believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and +velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, will be melted down in the +crucibles of your fancies, many flowers will fade about your head, many +beneath your feet, and you will change your coat of arms many times. On +your head will glitter in turn the coronets of baroness, countess, and +marchioness, you will take for your motto, 'Inconstancy,' and you will, +according to caprice or to necessity, satisfy each in turn, or even all +at once, all the numerous adorers who will range themselves in the +ante-chamber of your heart as people do at the door of a theater at +which a popular piece is being played. Go on then, go straight onward, +your mind lightened of recollections which have been replaced by +ambition; go, the road is broad, and we hope it will long be smooth to +your feet, but we hope, above all, that all these sumptuosities, these +fine toilettes, may not too soon become the shroud in which your +liveliness will be buried."</p> + +<p>Thus spoke the painter Marcel to Mademoiselle Mimi, whom he had met +three or four days after her second divorce from the poet Rodolphe. +Although he was obliged to veil the raillery with which he besprinkled +her horoscope, Mademoiselle Mimi was not the dupe of Marcel's fine +words, and understood perfectly well that with little respect for her +new title, he was chaffing her to bits.</p> + +<p>"You are cruel towards me, Marcel," said Mademoiselle Mimi, "it is +wrong. I was always very friendly with you when I was Rodolphe's +mistress, and if I have left him, it was, after all, his fault. It was +he who packed me off in a hurry, and, besides, how did he behave to me +during the last few days I spent with him. I was very unhappy, I can +tell you. You do not know what a man Rodolphe was; a mixture of anger +and jealousy, who killed me by bits. He loved me, I know, but his love +was as dangerous as a loaded gun. What a life I led for six months. Ah, +Marcel! I do not want to make myself out better than I am, but I +suffered a great deal with Rodolphe; you know it too, very well. It is +not poverty that made me leave him, no I assure you I had grown +accustomed to it, and I repeat it was he who sent me away. He trampled +on my self-esteem; he told me that he no longer loved me; that I must +get another lover. He even went so far as to indicate a young man who +was courting me, and by his taunts, he served to bring me and this +young man together. I went with him as much out of spite as from +necessity, for I did not love him. You know very well yourself that I do +not care for such very young fellows. They are as wearisome and +sentimental as harmonicas. Well, what is done is done. I do not regret +it, and I would do the same over again. Now that he no longer has me +with him, and knows me to be happy with another, Rodolphe is furious and +very unhappy. I know someone who met him the other day; his eyes were +quite red. That does not astonish me. I felt quite sure it would come to +this, and that he would run after me, but you can tell him that he will +only lose his time, and that this time it is quite in earnest and for +good. Is it long since you saw him, Marcel and is it true that he is +much altered?" inquired Mimi in quite another tone.</p> + +<p>"He is greatly altered indeed," replied Marcel.</p> + +<p>"He is grieving, that is certain, but what am I to do? So much the worse +for him, he would have it so. It had to come to an end somehow. Try to +console him."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" answered Marcel quickly. "The worst of the job is over. Do not +disturb yourself about it, Mimi."</p> + +<p>"You are not telling the truth, my dear fellow," said Mimi, with an +ironical little pout. "Rodolphe will not be so quickly consoled as all +that. If you knew what a state he was in the night before I left. It was +a Friday, I would not stay that night at my new lover's because I am +superstitious, and Friday is an unlucky day."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong, Mimi, in love affairs Friday is a lucky day; the +ancients called it Dies Veneris."</p> + +<p>"I do not know Latin," said Mademoiselle Mimi, continuing her narration. +"I was coming back then from Paul's and found Rodolphe waiting for me in +the street. It was late, past midnight, and I was hungry for I had had +no dinner. I asked Rodolphe to go and get something for supper. He came +back half an hour later, he had run about a great deal to get nothing +worth speaking of, some bread, wine, sardines, cheese, and an apple +tart. I had gone to bed during his absence, and he laid the table beside +the bed. I pretended not to notice him, but I could see him plainly, he +was pale as death. He shuddered and walked about the room like a man who +does not know what he wants to do. He noticed several packages of +clothes on the floor in one corner. The sight of them seemed to annoy +him, and he placed the screen in front of them in order not to see them. +When all was ready we began to sup, he tried to make me drink, but I was +no longer hungry or thirsty, and my heart was quite full. He was cold, +for we had nothing to make a fire of, and one could hear the wind +whistling in the chimney. It was very sad. Rodolphe looked at me, his +eyes were fixed; he put his hand in mine and I felt it tremble, it was +burning and icy all at once. 'This is the funeral supper of our loves,' +he said to me in a low tone. I did not answer, but I had not the courage +to withdraw my hand from his. 'I am sleepy,' said I at last, 'it is +late, let us go to sleep.' Rodolphe looked at me. I had tied one of his +handkerchiefs about my head on account of the cold. He took it off +without saying a word. 'Why do you want to take that off?' said I. 'I am +cold.' 'Oh, Mimi!' said he. 'I beg of you, it will not matter to you, to +put on your little striped cap for tonight.' It was a nightcap of +striped cotton, white and brown. Rodolphe was very fond of seeing me in +this cap, it reminded him of several nights of happiness, for that was +how we counted our happy days. When I thought it was the last time that +I should sleep beside him I dared not refuse to satisfy this fancy of +his. I got up and hunted out my striped cap that was at the bottom of +one of my packages."</p> + +<p>"Out of forgetfulness I forgot to replace the screen. Rodolphe noticed +it and hid the packages just as he had already done before. 'Good +night,' said he. 'Good night,' I answered. I thought that he was going +to kiss me and I should not have hindered him, but he only took my hand, +which he carried to his lips. You know, Marcel, how fond he was of +kissing my hands. I heard his teeth chatter and I felt his body as cold +as marble. He still held my hand and he laid his head on my shoulder, +which was soon quite wet. Rodolphe was in a fearful state. He bit the +sheets to avoid crying out, but I could plainly hear his stifled sobs +and I still felt his tears flowing on my shoulder, which was first +scalded and then chilled. At that moment I needed all my courage and I +did need it, I can tell you. I had only to say a word, I had only to +turn my head, and my lips would have met those of Rodolphe, and we +should have made it up once more. Ah! For a moment I really thought that +he was going to die in my arms, or that, at least, he would go mad, as +he almost did once before, you remember? I felt I was going to yield, I +was going to recant first, I was going to clasp him in my arms, for +really one must have been utterly heartless to remain insensible to such +grief. But I recollected the words he had said to me the day before, +'You have no spirit if you stay with me, for I no longer love you,' Ah! +As I recalled those bitter words I would have seen Rodolphe ready to +die, and if it had only needed a kiss from me to save him, I would have +turned away my lips and let him perish."</p> + +<p>"At last, overcome by fatigue, I sank into a half-sleep. I could still +hear Rodolphe sobbing, and I can swear to you, Marcel, that this sobbing +went on all night long, and that when day broke and I saw in the bed, in +which I had slept for the last time, the lover whom I was going to +leave for another's arms, I was terribly frightened to see the havoc +wrought by this grief on Rodolphe's face. He got up, like myself, +without saying a word, and almost fell flat at the first steps he took, +he was so weak and downcast. However, he dressed himself very quickly, +and only asked me how matters stood and when I was going to leave. I +told him that I did not know. He went off without bidding goodbye or +shaking hands. That is how we separated. What a blow it must have been +to his heart no longer to find me there on coming home, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I was there when Rodolphe came in," said Marcel to Mimi, who was out of +breath from speaking so long. "As he was taking his key from the +landlady, she said, 'The little one has left.' 'Ah!' replied Rodolphe. +'I am not astonished, I expected it.' And he went up to his room, +whither I followed him, fearing some crisis, but nothing occurred. 'As +it is too late to go and hire another room this evening we will do so +tomorrow morning,' said he, 'we will go together. Now let us see after +some dinner.' I thought that he wanted to get drunk, but I was wrong. We +dined very quietly at a restaurant where you have sometimes been with +him. I had ordered some Beaune to stupefy Rodolphe a bit. 'This was +Mimi's favorite wine,' said he, 'we have often drunk it together at this +very table. I remember one day she said to me, holding out her glass, +which she had already emptied several times, 'Fill up again, it is good +for one's bones.' A poor pun, eh? Worthy, at the most, of the mistress +of a farce writer. Ah! She could drink pretty fairly.'"</p> + +<p>"Seeing that he was inclined to stray along the path of recollection I +spoke to him about something else, and then it was no longer a question +of you. He spent the whole evening with me and seemed as calm as the +Mediterranean. But what astonished me most was, that this calmness was +not at all affected. It was genuine indifference. At midnight we went +home. 'You seem surprised at my coolness in the position in which I find +myself,' said he to me, 'well, let me point out a comparison to you, my +dear fellow, it if is commonplace it has, at least, the merit of being +accurate. My heart is like a cistern the tap of which has been turned +on all night, in the morning not a drop of water is left. My heart is +really the same, last night I wept away all the tears that were left me. +It is strange, but I thought myself richer in grief, and yet by a single +night of suffering I am ruined, cleaned out. On my word of honor it is +as I say. Now, in the very bed in which I all but died last night beside +a woman who was no more moved than a stone, I shall sleep like a deck +laborer after a hard day's work, while she rests her head on the pillow +of another.' 'Hambug,' I thought to myself. 'I shall no sooner have left +him than he will be dashing his head against the wall.' However, I left +Rodolphe alone and went to my own room, but I did not go to bed. At +three in the morning I thought I heard a noise in Rodolphe's room and I +went down in a hurry, thinking to find him in a desperate fever."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Mimi.</p> + +<p>"Well my dear, Rodolphe was sleeping, the bed clothes were quite in +order and everything proved that he had soon fallen asleep, and that his +slumbers had been calm."</p> + +<p>"It is possible," said Mimi, "he was so worn out by the night before, +but the next day?"</p> + +<p>"The next day Rodolphe came and roused me up early and we went and took +rooms in another house, into which we moved the same evening."</p> + +<p>"And," asked Mimi, "what did he do on leaving the room we had occupied, +what did he say on abandoning the room in which he had loved me so?"</p> + +<p>"He packed up his things quietly," replied Marcel, "and as he found in a +drawer a pair of thread gloves you had forgotten, as well as two or +three of your letters—"</p> + +<p>"I know," said Mimi in a tone which seemed to imply, "I forgot them on +purpose so that he might have some souvenir of me left! What did he do +with them?" she added.</p> + +<p>"If I remember rightly," said Marcel, "he threw the letters into the +fireplace and the gloves out of the window, but without any theatrical +effort, and quite naturally, as one does when one wants to get rid of +something useless."</p> + +<p>"My dear Monsieur Marcel, I assure you that from the bottom of my heart +I hope that this indifference may last. But, once more in all sincerity, +I do not believe in such a speedy cure and, in spite of all you tell me, +I am convinced that my poet's heart is broken."</p> + +<p>"That may be," replied Marcel, taking leave of Mimi, "but unless I may +be very much mistaken, the pieces are still good for something."</p> + +<p>During this colloquy in a public thoroughfare, Vicomte Paul was awaiting +his new mistress, who was behindhand in her appointment, and decidedly +disagreeable towards him. He seated himself at her feet and warbled his +favorite strain, namely, that she was charming, fair as a lily, gentle +as a lamb, but that he loved her above all on account of the beauties of +her soul.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" thought Mimi, loosening the waves of her dark hair over her snowy +shoulders, "my lover Rodolphe, was not so exclusive."</p> + +<p>As Marcel had stated, Rodolphe seemed to be radically cured of his love +for Mademoiselle Mimi, and three or four days after his separation, the +poet reappeared completely metamorphosed. He was attired with an +elegance that must have rendered him unrecognizable by his very looking +glass. Nothing, indeed, about him seemed to justify the fear that he +intended to commit suicide, as Mademoiselle Mimi had started the rumor, +with all kinds of hypocritical condolences. Rodolphe was, in fact, quite +calm. He listened with unmoved countenance to all the stories told him +about the new and sumptuous existence led by his mistress—who took +pleasure in keeping him informed on these points—by a young girl who +had remained her confidant, and who had occasion to see Rodolphe almost +every evening.</p> + +<p>"Mimi is very happy with Vicomte Paul," the poet was told. "She seems +thoroughly smitten with him, only one thing causes her any uneasiness, +she is afraid least you should disturb her tranquillity by coming after +her, which by the way, would be dangerous for you, for the vicomte +worships his mistress and is a good fencer."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Rodolphe. "She can sleep in peace, I have no wish to go and +cast vinegar over the sweetness of her honeymoon. As to her young +lover, he can leave his dagger at home like Gastibelza. I have no wish +to attempt the life of a young gentleman who has still the happiness of +being nursed by illusions."</p> + +<p>As they did not fail to carry back to Mimi the way in which her ex-lover +received all these details, she on her part did not forget to reply, +shrugging her shoulders:</p> + +<p>"That is all very well, you will see what will come of it in a day or +two."</p> + +<p>However, Rodolphe was himself, and more than any one else, astonished at +this sudden indifference which, without passing through the usual +transitions of sadness and melancholy, had followed the stormy feelings +by which he had been stirred only a few days before. Forgetfulness, so +slow to come—above all for the virtues of love—that forgetfulness +which they summon so loudly and repulse with equal loudness when they +feel it approaching, that pitiless consoler that had all at once, and +without his being able to defend himself from it, invaded Rodolphe's +heart, and the name of the woman he so dearly loved could now be heard +without awakening any echo in it. Strange fact; Rodolphe, whose memory +was strong enough to recall to mind things that had occurred in the +farthest days of his past and beings who had figured in or influenced +his most remote existence—Rodolphe could not, whatever efforts he might +make, recall with clearness after four days' separation, the features of +that mistress who had nearly broken his life between her slender +fingers. He could no longer recall the softness of the eyes by the light +of which he had so often fallen asleep. He could no longer remember the +notes of that voice whose anger and whose caressing utterances had +alternately maddened him. A poet, who was a friend of his, and who had +not seen him since his absence, met him one evening. Rodolphe seemed +busy and preoccupied, he was walking rapidly along the street, twirling +his cane.</p> + +<p>"Hallo," said the poet, holding out his hand, "so here you are," and he +looked curiously at Rodolphe. Seeing that the latter looked somewhat +downcast he thought it right to adopt a consoling tone.</p> + +<p>"Come, courage, my dear fellow. I know that it is hard, but then it must +always have come to this. Better now than later on; in three months you +will be quite cured."</p> + +<p>"What are you driving at?" said Rodolphe. "I am not ill, my dear +fellow."</p> + +<p>"Come," said the other, "do not play the braggart. I know the whole +story and if I did not, I could read it in your face."</p> + +<p>"Take care, you are making a mistake," said Rodolphe, "I am very much +annoyed this evening, it is true, but you have not exactly hit on the +cause of my annoyance."</p> + +<p>"Good, but why defend yourself? It is quite natural. A connection that +has lasted a couple of years cannot be broken off so readily."</p> + +<p>"Everyone tells me the same thing," said Rodolphe, getting impatient. +"Well, upon my honor, you make a mistake, you and the others. I am very +vexed, and I look like it, that is possible, but this is the reason why; +I was expecting my tailor with a new dress coat today, and he had not +come. That is what I am annoyed about."</p> + +<p>"Bad, bad," said the other laughing.</p> + +<p>"Not at all bad, but good on the contrary, very good, excellent in fact. +Follow my argument and you shall see."</p> + +<p>"Come," said the poet, "I will listen to you. Just prove to me how any +one can in reason look so wretched because a tailor has failed to keep +his word. Come, come, I am waiting."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Rodolphe, "you know very well that the greatest effects +spring from the most trifling causes. I ought this evening to pay a very +important visit, and I cannot do so for want of a dress coat. Now do you +see it?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. There is up to this no sufficient reason shown for a state +of desolation. You are in despair because—-. You are very silly to try +to deceive. That is my opinion."</p> + +<p>"My friend," said Rodolphe, "you are very opinionated. It is always +enough to vex us when we miss happiness, and at any rate pleasure, +because it is almost always so much lost for ever, and we are wrong in +saying, 'I will make up for it another time.' I will resume; I had an +appointment this evening with a lady. I was to meet her at a friend's +house, whence I should, perhaps taken her home to mine, if it were +nearer than her own, and even if it were not. At this house there was a +party. At parties one must wear a dress coat. I have no dress coat. My +tailor was to bring me one; he does not do so. I do not go to the party. +I do not meet the lady who is, perhaps, met by someone else. I do not +see her home either to my place or hers, and she is, perhaps, seen home +by another. So as I told you, I have lost an opportunity of happiness +and pleasure; hence I am vexed; hence I look so, and quite naturally."</p> + +<p>"Very good," said his friend, "with one foot just out of one hell, you +want to put the other foot in another; but, my dear fellow, when I met +you, you seemed to be waiting for some one."</p> + +<p>"So I was."</p> + +<p>"But," continued the other, "we are in the neighborhood in which your +ex-mistress is living. What is there to prove that you were not waiting +for her?"</p> + +<p>"Although separated from her, special reasons oblige me to live in this +neighborhood. But, although neighbors, we are as distant as if she were +at one pole and I at the other. Besides, at this particular moment, my +ex-mistress is seated at her fireside taking lessons in French grammar +from Vicomte Paul, who wishes to bring her back to the paths of virtue +by the road of orthography. Good heavens, how he will spoil her! +However, that regards himself, now that he is editor-in-chief of her +happiness. You see, therefore, that your reflections are absurd, and +that, instead of following up the half-effaced traces of my old love, I +am on the track of my new one, who is already to some extent my +neighbor, and will become yet more so: for I am willing to take all the +necessary steps, and if she will take the rest, we shall not be long in +coming to an understanding."</p> + +<p>"Really," said the poet, "are you in love again already?"</p> + +<p>"This is what it is," replied Rodolphe, "my heart resembles those +lodgings that are advertised to let as soon as a tenant leaves them. As +soon as one love leaves my heart, I put up a bill for another. The +locality besides is habitable and in perfect repair."</p> + +<p>"And who is this new idol? Where and when did you make her +acquaintance?"</p> + +<p>"Come," said Rodolphe, "let us go through things in order. When Mimi +went away I thought that I should never be in love again in my life, and +imagined that my heart was dead of fatigue, exhaustion, whatever you +like. It had been beating so long and so fast, too fast, that the thing +was probable. In short I believed it dead, quite dead, and thought of +burying it like Marlborough. In honor of the occasion I gave a little +funeral dinner, to which I invited some of my friends. The guests were +to assume a melancholy air, and the bottles had crape around their +necks."</p> + +<p>"You did not invite me."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, but I did not know your address in that part of cloudland +which you inhabit. One of the guests had brought a young lady, a young +woman also abandoned a short time before by her lover. She was told my +story. It was one of my friends who plays very nicely upon the +violoncello of sentiment who did this. He spoke to the young widow of +the qualities of my heart, the poor defunct whom we were about to inter, +and invited her to drink to its eternal repose. 'Come now,' said she, +raising her glass, 'I drink, on the contrary, to its very good health,' +and she gave me a look, enough, as they say, to awake the dead. It was +indeed the occasion to say so, for she had scarcely finished her toast +than I heard my heart singing the <i>O Filii</i> of the Resurrection. What +would you have done in my place?"</p> + +<p>"A pretty question—what is her name?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know yet, I shall only ask her at the moment we sign our +lease. I know very well that in the opinion of some people I have +overstepped the legal delays, but you see I plead in my own court, and I +have granted a dispensation. What I do know is that she brings me as a +dowry cheerfulness, which is the health of the soul, and health which +is the cheerfulness of the body."</p> + +<p>"Is she pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Very pretty, especially as regards her complexion; one would say that +she made up every morning with Watteau's palate, 'She is fair, and her +conquering glances kindle love in every heart.' As witness mine."</p> + +<p>"A blonde? You astonish me."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have had enough of ivory and ebony; I am going in for a +blonde," and Rodolphe began to skip about as he sang:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Praises sing unto my sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">She is fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Yellow as the ripening wheat<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Is her hair."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Poor Mimi," said his friend, "so soon forgotten."</p> + +<p>This name cast into Rodolphe's mirthsomeness, suddenly gave another turn +to the conversation. Rodolphe took his friend by the arm, and related to +him at length the causes of his rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, the +terrors that had awaited him when she had left; how he was in despair +because he thought that she had carried off with her all that remained +to him of youth and passion, and how two days later he had recognized +his mistake on feeling the gunpowder in his heart, though swamped with +so many sobs and tears, dry, kindle, and explode at the first look of +love cast at him by the first woman he met. He narrated the sudden and +imperious invasion of forgetfulness, without his even having summoned it +in aid of his grief, and how this grief was dead and buried in the said +forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>"Is it not a miracle?" said he to the poet, who, knowing by heart and +from experience all the painful chapters of shattered loves, replied:</p> + +<p>"No, no, my friend, there is no more of a miracle for you than for the +rest of us. What has happened to you has happened to myself. The women +we love, when they become our mistresses, cease to be for us what they +really are. We do not see them only with a lover's eyes, but with a +poet's. As a painter throws on the shoulders of a lay figure the +imperial purple or the star-spangled robe of a Holy Virgin, so we have +always whole stores of glittering mantles and robes of pure white linen +which we cast over the shoulders of dull, sulky, or spiteful creatures, +and when they have thus assumed the garb in which our ideal loves float +before us in our waking dreams, we let ourselves be taken in by this +disguise, we incarnate our dream in the first corner, and address her +in our language, which she does not understand. However, let this +creature at whose feet we live prostrate, tear away herself the dense +envelope beneath which we have hidden her, and reveal to us her evil +nature and her base instincts; let her place our hands on the spot where +her heart should be, but where nothing beats any longer, and has perhaps +never beaten; let her open her veil, and show us her faded eyes, pale +lips, and haggard features; we replace that veil and exclaim, 'It is not +true! It is not true! I love you, and you, too, love me! This white +bosom holds a heart that has all its youthfulness; I love you, and you +love me! You are beautiful, you are young. At the bottom of all your +vices there is love. I love you, and you love me!' Then in the end, +always quite in the end, when, after having all very well put triple +bandages over our eyes, we see ourselves the dupes of our mistakes, we +drive away the wretch who was our idol of yesterday; we take back from +her the golden veils of poesy, which, on the morrow, we again cast on +the shoulders of some other unknown, who becomes at once an +aureola-surrounded idol. That is what we all are—monstrous egoists—who +love love for love's sake—you understand me? We sip the divine liquor +from the first cup that comes to hand. 'What matter the bottle, so long +as we draw intoxication from it?'"</p> + +<p>"What you say is as true as that two and two make four," said Rodolphe +to the poet.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the latter, "it is true, and as sad as three quarters of +the things that are true. Good night."</p> + +<p>Two days later Mademoiselle Mimi learned that Rodolphe had a new +mistress. She only asked one thing—whether he kissed her hands as often +as he used to kiss her own?</p> + +<p>"Quite as often," replied Marcel. "In addition, he is kissing the hairs +of her head one after the other, and they are to remain with one another +until he has finished."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replied Mimi, passing her hand through her own tresses. "It was +lucky he did not think of doing the same with me, or we should have +remained together all our lives. Do you think it is really true that he +no longer loves me at all?"</p> + +<p>"Humph—and you, do you still love him?"</p> + +<p>"I! I never loved him in my life."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mimi, yes. You loved him at those moments when a woman's heart +changes place. You loved him; do nothing to deny it; it is your +justification."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said Mimi, "he loves another now."</p> + +<p>"True," said Marcel, "but no matter. Later on the remembrance of you +will be to him like the flowers that we place fresh and full of perfume +between the leaves of a book, and which long afterwards we find dead, +discolored, and faded, but still always preserving a vague perfume of +their first freshness."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One evening, when she was humming in a low tone to herself, Vicomte Paul +said to Mimi, "What are you singing, dear?"</p> + +<p>"The funeral chant of our loves, that my lover Rodolphe has lately +composed."</p> + +<p>And she began to sing:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"I have not a sou now, my dear, and the rule<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In such a case surely is soon to forget,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">So tearless, for she who would weep is a fool,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">You'll blot out all mem'ry of me, eh, my pet?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Well, still all the same we have spent as you know<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Some days that were happy—and each with its night,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They did not last long, but, alas, here below,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The shortest are ever those we deem most bright."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XXI</a></h2> + +<h3>Romeo and Juliet</h3> + + +<p>Attired like a fashion plate out of his paper, the "Scarf of Iris," with +new gloves, polished boots, freshly shaven face, curled hair, waxed +moustache, stick in hand, glass in eye, smiling, youthful, altogether +nice looking, in such guise our friend, the poet Rodolphe, might have +been seen one November evening on the boulevard waiting for a cab to +take him home.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe waiting for a cab? What cataclysm had then taken place in his +existence?</p> + +<p>At the very hour that the transformed poet was twirling his moustache, +chewing the end of an enormous regalia, and charming the fair sex, one +of his friends was also passing down the boulevard. It was the +philosopher, Gustave Colline. Rodolphe saw him coming, and at once +recognized him; as indeed, who would not who had once seen him? Colline +as usual was laden with a dozen volumes. Clad in that immortal hazel +overcoat, the durability of which makes one believe that it must have +been built by the Romans, and with his head covered by his famous broad +brimmed hat, a dome of beaver, beneath which buzzed a swarm of +hyperphysical dreams, and which was nicknamed Mambrino's Helmet of +Modern Philosophy, Gustave Colline was walking slowly along, chewing the +cud of the preface of a book that had already been in the press for the +last three months—in his imagination. As he advanced towards the spot +where Rodolphe was standing, Colline thought for a moment that he +recognized him, but the supreme elegance displayed by the poet threw the +philosopher into a state of doubt and uncertainty.</p> + +<p>"Rodolphe with gloves and a walking stick. Chimera! Utopia! Mental +aberration! Rodolphe curled and oiled; he who has not so much as Father +Time. What could I be thinking of? Besides, at this present moment my +unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing +melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, +has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that +young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage +of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and +soon get another Kettle-holder."</p> + +<p>Colline was so delighted with his wretched joke, that he would willingly +have applauded it, had not the stern voice of philosophy woke up within +him, and put an energetic stop to this perversion of wit.</p> + +<p>However, as he halted close to Rodolphe, Colline was forced to yield to +evidence. It was certainly Rodolphe, curled, gloved, and with a cane. It +was impossible, but it was true.</p> + +<p>"Eh! Eh! By Jove!" said Colline. "I am not mistaken. It is you, I am +certain."</p> + +<p>"So am I," replied Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>Colline began to look at his friend, imparting to his countenance the +expression pictorially made use of by M. Lebrun, the king's painter in +ordinary, to express surprise. But all at once he noted two strange +articles with which Rodolphe was laden—firstly, a rope ladder, and +secondly, a cage, in which some kind of a bird was fluttering. At this +sight, Gustave Colline's physiognomy expressed a sentiment which +Monsieur Lebrun, the king's painter in ordinary, forgot to depict in his +picture of "The Passions."</p> + +<p>"Come," said Rodolphe to his friend, "I see very plainly the curiosity +of your mind peeping out through the window of your eyes; and I am going +to satisfy it, only, let us quit the public thoroughfare. It is cold +enough here to freeze your questions and my answers."</p> + +<p>And they both went into a cafe.</p> + +<p>Colline's eyes remained riveted on the rope ladder as well as the cage, +in which the bird, thawed by the atmosphere of the cafe, began to sing +in a language unknown to Colline, who was, however, a polyglottist.</p> + +<p>"Well then," said the philosopher pointing to the rope ladder, "what is +that?"</p> + +<p>"A connecting link between my love and me," replied Rodolphe, in lute +like accents.</p> + +<p>"And that?" asked Colline, pointing to the bird.</p> + +<p>"That," said the poet, whose voice grew soft as the summer breeze, "is a +clock."</p> + +<p>"Tell me without parables—in vile prose, but truly."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Have you read Shakespeare?"</p> + +<p>"Have I read him? 'To be or not to be?' He was a great philosopher. Yes, +I have read him."</p> + +<p>"Do your remember <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Do I remember?" said Colline, and he began to recite:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Wilt thou begone? It is not yet day,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">It was the nightingale, and not the lark."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I should rather think I remember. But what then?"</p> + +<p>"What!" said Rodolphe, pointing to the ladder and the bird. "You do not +understand! This is the story: I am in love, my dear fellow, in love +with a girl named Juliet."</p> + +<p>"Well, what then?" said Colline impatiently.</p> + +<p>"This. My new idol being named Juliet, I have hit on a plan. It is to go +through Shakespeare's play with her. In the first place, my name is no +longer Rodolphe, but Romeo Montague, and you will oblige me by not +calling me otherwise. Besides, in order that everyone may know it, I +have had some new visiting cards engraved. But that is not all. I shall +profit by the fact that we are not in Carnival time to wear a velvet +doublet and a sword."</p> + +<p>"To kill Tybalt with?" said Colline.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," continued Rodolphe. "Finally, this ladder that you see is to +enable me to visit my mistress, who, as it happens, has a balcony."</p> + +<p>"But the bird, the bird?" said the obstinate Colline.</p> + +<p>"Why, this bird, which is a pigeon, is to play the part of the +nightingale, and indicate every morning the precise moment when, as I am +about to leave her loved arms, my mistress will throw them about my neck +and repeat to me in her sweet tones the balcony scene, 'It is not yet +near day,' that is to say, 'It is not yet eleven, the streets are muddy, +do not go yet, we are comfortable here.' In order to perfect the +imitation, I will try to get a nurse, and place her under the orders of +my beloved and I hope that the almanac will be kind enough to grant me a +little moonlight now and then, when I scale my Juliet's balcony. What do +you say to my project, philosopher?"</p> + +<p>"It is very fine," said Colline, "but could you also explain to me the +mysteries of this splendid outer covering that rendered you +unrecognizable? You have become rich, then?"</p> + +<p>Rodolphe did not reply, but made a sign to one of the waiters, and +carelessly threw down a louis, saying:</p> + +<p>"Take for what we have had."</p> + +<p>Then he tapped his waistcoat pocket, which gave forth a jingling sound.</p> + +<p>"Have you got a bell in your pocket, for it to jingle as loud as that?"</p> + +<p>"Only a few louis."</p> + +<p>"Louis! In gold?" said Colline, in a voice choked with wonderment. "Let +me see what they are like."</p> + +<p>After which the two friends parted, Colline to go and relate the opulent +ways and new loves of Rodolphe, and the latter to return home.</p> + +<p>This took place during the week that had followed the second rupture +between Rodolphe and Mademoiselle Mimi. The poet, when he had broken off +with his mistress, felt a need of change of air and surroundings, and +accompanied by his friend Marcel, he left the gloomy lodging house, the +landlord of which saw both him and Marcel depart without overmuch +regret. Both, as we have said, sought quarters elsewhere, and hired two +rooms in the same house and on the same floor. The room chosen by +Rodolphe was incomparably more comfortable than any he had inhabited up +till then. There were articles of furniture almost imposing, above all a +sofa covered with red stuff, that was intended to imitate velvet, and +did not.</p> + +<p>There were also on the mantelpiece two china vases, painted with +flowers, between an elaborate clock, with fearful ornamentation. +Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard, and when the landlord came to wind +up the clock, begged him to do nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p>"I am willing to leave the clock on the mantel shelf," said he, "but +only as an object of art. It points to midnight—a good hour; let it +stick to it. The day it marks five minutes past I will move. A clock," +continued Rodolphe, who had never been able to submit to the imperious +tyranny of the dial, "is a domestic foe who implacably reckons up to +your existence hour by hour and minute by minute, and says to you every +moment, 'Here is a fraction of your life gone.' I could not sleep in +peace in a room in which there was one of these instruments of torture, +in the vicinity of which carelessness and reverie are impossible. A +clock, the hands of which stretch to your bed and prick yours whilst you +are still plunged in the soft delights of your first awakening. A clock, +whose voice cries to you, 'Ting, ting, ting; it is the hour for +business. Leave your charming dream, escape from the caresses of your +visions, and sometimes of realities. Put on your hat and boots. It is +cold, it rains, but go about your business. It is time—ting, ting.' It +is quite enough already to have an almanac. Let my clock remain +paralyzed, or—-."</p> + +<p>Whilst delivering this monologue he was examining his new dwelling, and +felt himself moved by the secret uneasiness which one almost always +feels when going into a fresh lodging.</p> + +<p>"I have noticed," he reflected, "that the places we inhabit exercise a +mysterious influence upon our thoughts, and consequently upon our +actions. This room is cold and silent as a tomb. If ever mirth reigns +here it will be brought in from without, and even then it will not be +for long, for laughter will die away without echoes under this low +ceiling, cold and white as a snowy sky. Alas! What will my life be like +within these four walls?"</p> + +<p>However, a few days later this room, erst so sad, was full of light, and +rang with joyous sounds, it was the house warming, and numerous bottles +explained the lively humor of the guests. Rodolphe allowed himself to be +won upon by the contagious good humor of his guests. Isolated in a +corner with a young woman who had come there by chance, and whom he had +taken possession of, the poet was sonnetteering with her with tongue and +hands. Towards the close of the festivities he had obtained a rendezvous +for the next day.</p> + +<p>"Well!" said he to himself when he was alone, "the evening hasn't been +such a bad one. My stay here hasn't begun amiss."</p> + +<p>The next day Mademoiselle Juliet called at the appointed hour. The +evening was spent only in explanations. Juliet had learned the recent +rupture of Rodolphe with the blue eyed girl whom he had so dearly loved; +she knew that after having already left her once before Rodolphe had +taken her back, and she was afraid of being the victim of a similar +reawakening of love.</p> + +<p>"You see," said she, with a pretty little pout, "I don't at all care +about playing a ridiculous part. I warn you that I am very forward, and +once <i>mistress</i> here," and she underlined by a look the meaning she gave +to the word, "I remain, and do not give up my place."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe summoned all his eloquence to the rescue to convince her that +her fears were without foundation, and the girl, having on her side a +willingness to be convinced, they ended by coming to an understanding. +Only they were no longer at an understanding when midnight struck, for +Rodolphe wanted Juliet to stay, and she insisted on going.</p> + +<p>"No," she said to him as he persisted in trying to persuade her. "Why be +in such a hurry? We shall always arrive in time at what we want to, +provided you do not halt on the way. I will return tomorrow."</p> + +<p>And she returned thus every evening for a week, to go away in the same +way when midnight struck.</p> + +<p>This delay did not annoy Rodolphe very much. In matters of love, and +even of mere fancy, he was one of that school of travelers who prolong +their journey and render it picturesque. The little sentimental preface +had for its result to lead on Rodolphe at the outset further than he +meant to go. And it was no doubt to lead him to that point at which +fancy, ripened by the resistance opposed to it, begins to resemble love, +that Mademoiselle Juliet had made use of this stratagem.</p> + +<p>At each fresh visit that she paid to Rodolphe, Juliet remarked a more +pronounced tone of sincerity in what he said. He felt when she was a +little behindhand in keeping her appointment an impatience that +delighted her, and he even wrote her letters the language of which was +enough to give her hopes that she would speedily become his legitimate +mistress.</p> + +<p>When Marcel, who was his confidant, once caught sight of one of +Rodolphe's epistles, he said to him:</p> + +<p>"Is it an exercise of style, or do you really think what you have said +here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I really think it," replied Rodolphe, "and I am even a bit +astonished at it: but it is so. I was a week back in a very sad state of +mind. The solitude and silence that had so abruptly succeeded the storms +and tempests of my old household alarmed me terribly, but Juliet arrived +almost at the moment. I heard the sounds of twenty year old laughter +ring in my ears. I had before me a rosy face, eyes beaming with smiles, +a mouth overflowing with kisses, and I have quietly allowed myself to +glide down the hill of fancy that might perhaps lead me on to love. I +love to love."</p> + +<p>However, Rodolphe was not long in perceiving that it only depended upon +himself to bring this little romance to a crisis, and it was than that +he had the notion of copying from Shakespeare the scene of the love of +<i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. His future mistress had deemed the notion amusing, and +agreed to share in the jest.</p> + +<p>It was the very evening that the rendezvous was appointed for that +Rodolphe met the philosopher Colline, just as he had bought the rope +ladder that was to aid him to scale Juliet's balcony. The birdseller to +whom he had applied not having a nightingale, Rodolphe replaced it by a +pigeon, which he was assured sang every morning at daybreak.</p> + +<p>Returned home, the poet reflected that to ascend a rope ladder was not +an easy matter, and that it would be a good thing to rehearse the +balcony scene, if he would not in addition to the chances of a fall, run +the risk of appearing awkward and ridiculous in the eyes of her who was +awaiting him. Having fastened his ladder to two nails firmly driven into +the ceiling, Rodolphe employed the two hours remaining to him in +practicing gymnastics, and after an infinite number of attempts, +succeeded in managing after a fashion to get up half a score of rungs.</p> + +<p>"Come, that is all right," he said to himself, "I am now sure of my +affair and besides, if I stuck half way, 'love would lend me his +wings.'"</p> + +<p>And laden with his ladder and his pigeon cage, he set out for the abode +of Juliet, who lived near. Her room looked into a little garden, and had +indeed a balcony. But the room was on the ground floor, and the balcony +could be stepped over as easily as possible.</p> + +<p>Hence Rodolphe was completely crushed when he perceived this local +arrangement, which put to naught his poetical project of an escalade.</p> + +<p>"All the same," said he to Juliet, "we can go through the episode of the +balcony. Here is a bird that will arouse us tomorrow with his melodious +notes, and warn us of the exact moment when we are to part from one +another in despair."</p> + +<p>And Rodolphe hung up the cage beside the fireplace.</p> + +<p>The next day at five in the morning the pigeon was exact to time, and +filled the room with a prolonged cooing that would have awakened the two +lovers—if they had gone to sleep.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Juliet, "this is the moment to go into the balcony and bid +one another despairing farewells—what do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"The pigeon is too fast," said Rodolphe. "It is November, and the sun +does not rise till noon."</p> + +<p>"All the same," said Juliet, "I am going to get up."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I feel quite empty, and I will not hide from you the fact that I could +very well eat a mouthfull."</p> + +<p>"The agreement that prevails in our sympathies is astonishing. I am +awfully hungry too," said Rodolphe, also rising and hurriedly slipping +on his clothes.</p> + +<p>Juliet had already lit a fire, and was looking in her sideboard to see +whether she could find anything. Rodolphe helped her in this search.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said he, "onions."</p> + +<p>"And some bacon," said Juliet.</p> + +<p>"Some butter."</p> + +<p>"Bread."</p> + +<p>Alas! That was all.</p> + +<p>During the search the pigeon, a careless optimist, was singing on its +perch.</p> + +<p>Romeo looked at Juliet, Juliet looked at Romeo, and both looked at the +pigeon.</p> + +<p>They did not say anything, but the fate of the pigeon-clock was settled. +Even if he had appealed it would have been useless, hunger is such a +cruel counsellor.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe had lit some charcoal, and was turning bacon in the spluttering +butter with a solemn air.</p> + +<p>Juliet was peeling onions in a melancholy attitude.</p> + +<p>The pigeon was still singing, it was the song of the swan.</p> + +<p>To these lamentations was joined the spluttering of the butter in the +stew pan.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later the butter was still spluttering, but the pigeon sang +no longer.</p> + +<p>Romeo and Juliet grilled their clock.</p> + +<p>"He had a nice voice," said Juliet sitting down to table.</p> + +<p>"He is very tender," said Rodolphe, carving his alarum, nicely browned.</p> + +<p>The two lovers looked at one another, and each surprised a tear in the +other's eye.</p> + +<p>Hypocrites, it was the onions that made them weep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XXII</a></h2> + +<h3>Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi</h3> + + +<p>Shortly after his final rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, who had left +him, as may be remembered, to ride in the carriage of Vicomte Paul, the +poet Rodolphe had sought to divert his thoughts by taking a new +mistress.</p> + +<p>She was the same blonde for whom we have seen him masquerading as Romeo. +But this union, which was on the one part only a matter of spite, and on +the other one of fancy, could not last long. The girl was after all +only a light of love, warbling to perfection the gamut of trickery, +witty enough to note the wit of others and to make use of it on +occasion, and with only enough heart to feel heartburn when she had +eaten too much. Add to this unbridled self-esteem and a ferocious +coquetry, which would have impelled her to prefer a broken leg for her +lover rather than a flounce the less to her dress, or a faded ribbon to +her bonnet. A commonplace creature of doubtful beauty, endowed by nature +with every evil instinct, and yet seductive from certain points of view +and at certain times. She was not long in perceiving that Rodolphe had +only taken her to help him forget the absent, whom she made him on the +contrary regret, for his old love had never been so noisy and so lively +in his heart.</p> + +<p>One day Juliet, Rodolphe's new mistress, was talking about her lover, +the poet, with a medical student who was courting her. The student +replied,—</p> + +<p>"My dear child, that fellow only makes use of you as they use nitrate to +cauterize wounds. He wants to cauterize his heart and nerve. You are +very wrong to bother yourself about being faithful to him."</p> + +<p>"Ah, ah!" cried the girl, breaking into a laugh. "Do you really think +that I put myself out about him?"</p> + +<p>And that very evening she gave the student a proof to the contrary.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the indiscretion of one of those officious friends who are +unable to retain unpublished news capable of vexing you, Rodolphe soon +got wind of the matter, and made it a pretext for breaking off with his +temporary mistress.</p> + +<p>He then shut himself up in positive solitude, in which all the +flitter-mice of <i>ennui</i> soon came and nested, and he called work to his +aid but in vain. Every evening, after wasting as much perspiration over +the job as he did in ink, he produced a score of lines in which some old +idea, as worn out as the Wandering Jew, and vilely clad in rags cribbed +from the literary dust heap, danced clumsily on the tight rope of +paradox. On reading through these lines Rodolphe was as bewildered as a +man who sees nettles spring up in a bed in which he thought he had +planted roses. He would then tear up the paper, on which he had just +scattered this chaplet of absurdities, and trample it under foot in a +rage.</p> + +<p>"Come," said he, striking himself on the chest just above the heart, +"the cord is broken, there is nothing but to resign ourselves to it."</p> + +<p>And as for some time past a like failure followed all his attempts at +work, he was seized with one of those fits of depression which shake the +most stubborn pride and cloud the most lucid intellects. Nothing is +indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take +place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is +more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn +supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse.</p> + +<p>The most violent human anguish, the deepest wounds to the quick of the +heart, do not cause suffering approaching that which one feels in these +hours of doubt and impatience, so frequent for those who give +themselves up to the dangerous calling of imagination.</p> + +<p>To these violent crises succeeded painful fits of depression. Rodolphe +would then remain for whole hours as though petrified in a state of +stupefied immobility. His elbows upon the table, his eyes fixed upon the +luminous patch made by the rays of the lamp falling upon the sheet of +paper,—the battlefield on which his mind was vanquished daily, and on +which his pen had become foundered in its attempts to pursue the +unattainable idea—he saw slowly defile before him, like the figures of +dissolving views with which the children are amused, fantastic pictures +which unfolded before him the panorama of his past. It was at first the +laborious days in which each hour marked the accomplishment of some +task, the studious nights spent in <i>tete-a-tete</i> with the muse who came +to adorn with her fairy visions his solitary and patient poverty. And he +remembered then with envy the pride of skill that intoxicated him of +yore when he had completed the task imposed on him by his will.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing is equal to you!" he exclaimed. "Voluptuous fatigues of +labor which render the mattresses of idleness so sweet. Not the +satisfaction of self-esteem nor the feverish slumbers stifled beneath +the heavy drapery of mysterious alcoves equals that calm and honest joy, +that legitimate self satisfaction which work bestows on the laborer as +a first salary."</p> + +<p>And with eyes still fixed on these visions which continued to retrace +for him the scenes of bygone days, he once more ascended the six flights +of stairs of all the garrets in which his adventurous existence had been +spent, in which the Muse, his only love in those days, a faithful and +persevering sweetheart had always followed him, living happily with +poverty and never breaking off her song of hope. But, lo, in the midst +of this regular and tranquil life there suddenly appears a woman's face, +and seeing her enter the dwelling where she had been until then sole +queen and mistress, the poet's Muse rose sadly and gave place to the +new-comer in whom she had divined a rival. Rodolphe hesitated a moment +between the Muse to whom his look seemed to say, "Stay," whilst a +gesture addressed to the stranger said, "Come."</p> + +<p>And how could he repulse her, this charming creature who came to him +armed with all the seductions of a beauty at its dawn? Tiny mouth and +rosy lips, speaking in bold and simple language, full of coaxing +promises. How refuse his hand to this little white one, delicately +veined with blue, that was held out to him full of caresses? How say, +"Get you gone," to these eighteen years, the presence of which already +filled the home with a perfume of youth and gaiety? And then with her +sweet voice, tenderly thrilling, she sang the cavatina of temptation so +well. With her bright and sparkling eyes she said so clearly, "I am +love," with her lips, where kisses nestled, "I am pleasure," with her +whole being, in short, "I am happiness," that Rodolphe let himself be +caught by them. And, besides, was not this young girl after all real and +living poetry, had he not owed her his freshest inspirations, had she +not often initiated him into enthusiasms which bore him so far afield in +the ether of reverie that he lost sight of all things of earth? If he +had suffered deeply on account of her, was not this suffering the +expiation of the immense joys she had bestowed upon him? Was it not the +ordinary vengeance of human fate which forbids absolute happiness as an +impiety? If the law of Christianity forgives those who have much loved, +it is because they have also much suffered, and terrestrial love never +became a divine passion save on condition of being purified by tears. As +one grows intoxicated by breathing the odor of faded roses, Rodolphe +again became so by reviving in recollection that past life in which +every day brought about a fresh elegy, a terrible drama, or a grotesque +comedy. He went through all the phases of his strange love from their +honeymoon to the domestic storms that had brought about their last +rupture, he recalled all the tricks of his ex-mistress, repeated all her +witty sayings. He saw her going to and fro about their little household, +humming her favorite song, and facing with the same careless gaiety good +or evil days.</p> + +<p>And in the end he arrived at the conclusion that common sense was always +wrong in love affairs. What, indeed, had he gained by their rupture? At +the time when he was living with Mimi she deceived him, it was true, but +if he was aware of this it was his fault after all that he was so, and +because he gave himself infinite pains to become aware of it, because he +passed his time on the alert for proofs, and himself sharpened the +daggers which he plunged into his heart. Besides, was not Mimi clever +enough to prove to him at need that he was mistaken? And then for whose +sake was she false to him? It was generally a shawl or a bonnet—for the +sake of things and not men. That calm, that tranquillity which he had +hoped for on separating from his mistress, had he found them again +after her departure? Alas, no! There was only herself the less in the +house. Of old his grief could find vent, he could break into abuse, or +representations—he could show all he suffered and excite the pity of +her who caused his sufferings. But now his grief was solitary, his +jealousy had become madness, for formerly he could at any rate, when he +suspected anything, hinder Mimi from going out, keep her beside him in +his possession, and now he might meet her in the street on the arm of +her new lover, and must turn aside to let her pass, happy no doubt, and +bent upon pleasure.</p> + +<p>This wretched life lasted three or four months. By degrees he recovered +his calmness. Marcel, who had undertaken a long journey to drive Musette +out of his mind, returned to Paris, and again came to live with +Rodolphe. They consoled one another.</p> + +<p>One Sunday, crossing the Luxembourg Gardens, Rodolphe met Mimi +resplendently dressed. She was going to a public ball. She nodded to +him, to which he responded by a bow. This meeting gave him a great +shock, but his emotion was less painful than usual. He walked about for +a little while in the gardens, and then returned home. When Marcel came +in that evening he found him at work.</p> + +<p>"What!" said Marcel, leaning over his shoulder. "You are +working—verses?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Rodolphe cheerfully, "I believe that the machine will +still work. During the last four hours I have once more found the go of +bygone time, I have seen Mimi."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Marcel uneasily. "On what terms are you?"</p> + +<p>"Do not be afraid," said Rodolphe, "we only bowed to one another. It +went no further than that."</p> + +<p>"Really and truly?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"Really and truly. It is all over between us, I feel it; but if I can +get to work again I forgive her."</p> + +<p>"If it is so completely finished," said Marcel, who had read through +Rodolphe's verses, "why do you write verses about her?"</p> + +<p>"Alas!" replied the poet, "I take my poetry where I can find it."</p> + +<p>For a week he worked at this little poem. When he had finished it he +read it to Marcel, who expressed himself satisfied with it, and who +encouraged Rodolphe to utilize in other ways the poetical vein that had +come back to him.</p> + +<p>"For," remarked he, "it was not worth while leaving Mimi if you are +always to live under her shadow. After all, though," he continued, +smiling, "instead of lecturing others, I should do well to lecture +myself, for my heart is still full of Musette. Well, after all, perhaps +we shall not always be young fellows in love with such imps."</p> + +<p>"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "there is no need to say in one's youth, 'Be off +with you.'"</p> + +<p>"That is true," observed Marcel, "but there are days on which I feel I +should like to be a respectable old fellow, a member of the Institute, +decorated with several orders, and, having done with the Musettes of +this circle of society; the devil fly away with me if I would return to +it. And you," he continued, laughing, "would you like to be sixty?"</p> + +<p>"Today," replied Rodolphe, "I would rather have sixty francs."</p> + +<p>A few days later, Mademoiselle Mimi having gone into a cafe with young +Vicomte Paul, opened a magazine, in which the verses Rodolphe had +written on her were printed.</p> + +<p>"Good," said she, laughing at first, "here is my friend Rodolphe saying +nasty things of me in the papers."</p> + +<p>But when she finished the verses she remained intent and thoughtful. +Vicomte Paul guessing that she was thinking of Rodolphe, sought to +divert her attention.</p> + +<p>"I will buy you a pair of earrings," said he.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Mimi, "you have money, you have."</p> + +<p>"And a Leghorn straw hat," continued the viscount.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mimi. "If you want to please me, buy me this."</p> + +<p>And she showed him the magazine in which she had just been reading +Rodolphe's poetry.</p> + +<p>"Oh! As to that, no," said the viscount, vexed.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Mimi coldly. "I will buy it myself with money I will +earn. In point of fact, I would rather that it was not with yours."</p> + +<p>And for two days Mimi went back to her old flower maker's workrooms, +where she earned enough to buy this number. She learned Rodolphe's +poetry by heart, and, to annoy Vicomte Paul, repeated it all day long to +her friends. The verses were as follows:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">WHEN I was seeking where to pledge my truth<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Chance brought me face to face with you one day;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">once I offered you my heart, my youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">"Do with them what you will," I dared to say.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">But "what you would," was cruel, dear; alas!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The youth I trusted with you is no more:<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The heart is shattered like a fallen glass,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And the wind sings a funeral mass<br /></span> +<span class="i8">On the deserted chamber floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Where he who loved you ne'er may pass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Between us now, my dear, 'tis all UP,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I am a spectre and a phantom you,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Our love is dead and buried; if you agree,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We'll sing around its tombstone dirges due.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">But let us take an air in a low key,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Lest we should strain our voices, more or less;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Some solemn minor, free from flourishes;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I'll take the bass, sing you the melody.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Mi, re, mi, do, re, la,—ah! not that song!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Hearing the song that once you used to sing<br /></span> +<span class="i8">My heart would palpitate—though dead so long—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And, at the <i>De Profundis</i>, upward spring.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do,—this other brings<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Back to the mind a valse of long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The fife's shrill laughter mocked the sounding strings<br /></span> +<span class="i8">That wept their notes of crystal to the bow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Sol, do, do, si, si, la,—ah! stay your hand!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">This is the air we sang last year in chorus,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With Germans shouting for their fatherland<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In Meudon woods, while summer's moon stood o'er us.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Well, well, we will not sing nor speculate,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But—since we know they never more may be—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">On our lost loves, without a grudge or hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Drop, while we smile, a final memory.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">What times we had up there; do you remember?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">When on your window panes the rain would stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And, seated by the fire, in dark December,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I felt your eyes inspire me many a dream.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">The live coal crackled, kindling with the heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The kettle sang, melodious and sedate,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A music for the visionary feet<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of salamanders leaping in the grate:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Languid and lazy, with an unread book,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">You scarcely tried to keep your lids apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">While to my youthful love new growth I took,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Kissing your hands and yielding you my heart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">In merely entering one night believe,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">One felt a scent of love and gaiety,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Which filled our little room from morn to eve,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">For fortune loved our hospitality.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">And winter went: then, through the open sash,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Spring flew, to say the year's long night was done;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We heard the call, and ran with impulse rash<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In the green country side to meet the sun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">It was the Friday of the Holy Week,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The weather, for a wonder, mild and fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">From hill to valley, and from plain to peak,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We wandered long, delighting in the air.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">At length, exhausted by the pilgrimage,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We found a sort of natural divan,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Whence we could view the landscape, or engage<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Our eyes in rapture on the heaven's wide span.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Hand clasped in hand, shoulder on shoulder laid,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With sense of something ventured, something missed,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Our two lips parted, each; no word was said,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And silently we kissed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Around us blue-bell and shy violet<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Their simple incense seemed to wave on high;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Surely we saw, with glances heavenward set,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">God smiling from his azure balcony.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"Love on!" he seemed to say, "I make more sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The road of life you are to wander by,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Spreading the velvet moss beneath your feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Kiss, if you will; I shall not play the spy."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Love on, love on! In murmurs of the breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In limpid stream, and in the woodland screen<br /></span> +<span class="i8">That burgeons fresh in the renovated green,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In stars, in flowers, and music of the trees,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Love on, love on! But if my golden sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">My spring, that comes once more to gladden earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">If these should move your breasts to grateful mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I ask no thanksgiving, your kiss is one.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">A month passed by; and, when the roses bloomed<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In beds that we had planted in the spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">When least of all I thought my love was doomed,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">You cast it from you like a noisome thing.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Not that your scorn was all reserved for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">It flies about the world by fits and starts;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Your changeful fancy fits impartially<br /></span> +<span class="i8">From knave of diamonds to knave of hearts.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">And now you are happy, with a brilliant suite<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of bowing slaves and insincere gallants;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Go where you will, you see them at your feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A bed of perfumed posies round you flaunts:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">The Ball's your garden: an admiring globe<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of lovers rolls about the lit saloon,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And, at the rustling of your silken robe,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The pack, in chorus, bay you like the moon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Shod in the softness of a supple boot<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Which Cinderella would have found too small,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">One scarcely sees your little pointed foot<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Shod in the softness of a supple boot<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Which Cinderella would have found too small,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">One scarcely sees your little pointed foot<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">In the soft baths that indolence has brought<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Your once brown hands have got the ivory white,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The pallor of the lily which has caught<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The silver moonbeam of a summer night:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">On your white arm half clouded, and half clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Pearls shine in bracelets made of chiselled gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">On your trim waist a shawl of true Cashmere<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Aesthetically falls in waving fold:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Honiton point and costly Mechlin lace,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With gothic guipure of a creamy white—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The matchless cobwebs of long vanished days—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Combine to make your presence rich and bright.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">But I preferred a simpler guise than that,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Your frock of muslin or plain calico,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Simple adornments, with a veilless hat,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Boots, black or grey, a collar white and low.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">The splendor your admirers now adore<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Will never bring me back my ancient heats;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And you are dead and buried, all the more<br /></span> +<span class="i8">For the silk shroud where heart no longer beats.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">So when I worked at this funereal dirge,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Where grief for a lost lifetime stands confessed,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I wore a clerk's costume of sable serge,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Though not gold eye glasses or pleated vest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">My penholder was wrapped in mournful crape,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The paper with black lines was bordered round<br /></span> +<span class="i8">On which I labored to provide escape<br /></span> +<span class="i8">For love's last memory hidden in the ground.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">And now, when all the heart that I can save<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Is used to furnish forth its epitaph.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Gay as a sexton digging his own grave<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I burst into a wild and frantic laugh;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">A laugh engendered by a mocking vein;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The pen I grasped was trembling as I wrote;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And even while I laughed, a scalding rain<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of tears turned all the writing to a blot.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was the 24th of December, and that evening the Latin Quarter bore a +special aspect. Since four o'clock in the afternoon the pawnbroking +establishments and the shops of the second hand clothes dealers and +booksellers had been encumbered by a noisy crowd, who, later in the +evening, took the ham and beef shops, cook shops, and grocers by +assault. The shopmen, even if they had had a hundred arms, like +Briareus, would not have sufficed to serve the customers who struggled +with one another for provisions. At the baker's they formed a string as +in times of dearth. The wine shop keepers got rid of the produce of +three vintages, and a clever statistician would have found it difficult +to reckon up the number of knuckles of ham and of sausages which were +sold at the famous shop of Borel, in the Rue Dauphine. In this one +evening Daddy Cretaine, nicknamed Petit-Pain, exhausted eighteen +editions of his cakes. All night long sounds of rejoicing broke out from +the lodging houses, the windows of which were brilliantly lit up, and an +atmosphere of revelry filled the district.</p> + +<p>The old festival of Christmas Eve was being celebrated.</p> + +<p>That evening, towards ten o'clock, Marcel and Rodolphe were proceeding +homeward somewhat sadly. Passing up the Rue Dauphine they noticed a +great crowd in the shop of a provision dealer, and halted a moment +before the window. Tantalized by the sight of the toothsome gastronomic +products, the two Bohemians resembled, during this contemplation, that +person in a Spanish romance who caused hams to shrink only by looking at +them.</p> + +<p>"That is called a truffled turkey," said Marcel, pointing to a splendid +bird, showing through its rosy and transparent skin the Perigordian +tubercles with which it was stuffed. "I have seen impious folk eat it +without first going down on their knees before it," added the painter, +casting upon the turkey looks capable of roasting it.</p> + +<p>"And what do you think of that modest leg of salt marsh mutton?" asked +Rodolphe. "What fine coloring! One might think it was just unhooked from +that butcher's shop in one of Jordaen's pictures. Such a leg of mutton +is the favorite dish of the gods, and of my godmother Madame +Chandelier."</p> + +<p>"Look at those fish!" resumed Marcel, pointing to some trout. "They are +the most expert swimmers of the aquatic race. Those little creatures, +without any appearance of pretension, could, however, make a fortune by +the exhibition of their skill; fancy, they can swim up a perpendicular +waterfall as easily as we should accept an invitation to supper. I have +almost had a chance of tasting them."</p> + +<p>"And down there—those large golden fruit, the foliage of which +resembles a trophy of savage sabre blades! They are called pineapples, +and are the pippins of the tropics."</p> + +<p>"That is a matter of indifference to me," said Marcel. "So far as fruits +are concerned, I prefer that piece of beef, that ham, or that simple +gammon of bacon, cuirassed with jelly as transparent as amber."</p> + +<p>"You are right," replied Rodolphe. "Ham is the friend of man, when he +has one. However, I would not repulse that pheasant."</p> + +<p>"I should think not; it is the dish of crowned heads."</p> + +<p>And as, continuing on their way, they met joyful processions proceeding +homewards, to do honor to Momus, Bacchus, Comus, and all the other +divinities with names ending in "us," they asked themselves who was the +Gamacho whose wedding was being celebrated with such a profusion of +victuals.</p> + +<p>Marcel was the first who recollected the date and its festival.</p> + +<p>"It is Christmas Eve," said he.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember last year's?" inquired Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Marcel. "At Momus's. It was Barbemuche who stood treat. I +should never have thought that a delicate girl like Phemie could have +held so much sausage."</p> + +<p>"What a pity that Momus has cut off our credit," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Alas," said Marcel, "calendars succeed but do not resemble one +another."</p> + +<p>"Would not you like to keep Christmas Eve?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"With whom and with what?" inquired the painter.</p> + +<p>"With me."</p> + +<p>"And the coin?"</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," said Rodolphe, "I will go into the cafe, where I know +some people who play high. I will borrow a few sesterces from some +favorite of fortune, and I will get something to wash down a sardine or +a pig's trotter."</p> + +<p>"Go," said Marcel. "I am as hungry as a dog. I will wait for you here," +Rodolphe went into the cafe where he knew several people. A gentleman +who had just won three hundred francs at cards made a regular treat of +lending the poet a forty sous piece, which he handed over with that ill +humor caused by the fever of play. At another time and elsewhere than +at a card-table, he would very likely have been good for forty francs.</p> + +<p>"Well?" inquired Marcel, on seeing Rodolphe return.</p> + +<p>"Here are the takings," said the poet, showing the money.</p> + +<p>"A bite and a sup," said Marcel.</p> + +<p>With this small sum they were however able to obtain bread, wine, cold +meat, tobacco, fire and light.</p> + +<p>They returned home to the lodging-house in which each had a separate +room. Marcel's, which also served him as a studio, being the larger, was +chosen as the banquetting hall, and the two friends set about the +preparations for their feast there.</p> + +<p>But to the little table at which they were seated, beside a fireplace in +which the damp logs burned away without flame or heat, came a melancholy +guest, the phantom of the vanished past.</p> + +<p>They remained for an hour at least, silent, and thoughtful, but no doubt +preoccupied by the same idea and striving to hide it. It was Marcel who +first broke silence.</p> + +<p>"Come," said he to Rodolphe, "this is not what we promised ourselves."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied Marcel. "Do not try to pretend with me now. You are +thinking of that which should be forgotten and I too, by Jove, I do not +deny it."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it must be for the last time. To the devil with recollections +that make wine taste sour and render us miserable when everybody else +are amusing themselves," exclaimed Marcel, alluding to the joyful shouts +coming from the rooms adjoining theirs. "Come, let us think of something +else, and let this be the last time."</p> + +<p>"That is what we always say and yet—," said Rodolphe, falling anew into +the reverie.</p> + +<p>"And yet we are continually going back to it," resumed Marcel. "That is +because instead of frankly seeking to forget, we make the most trivial +things a pretext to recall remembrances, which is due above all to the +fact that we persist in living amidst the same surroundings in which the +beings who have so long been our torment lived. We are less the slaves +of passion than of habit. It is this captivity that must be escaped +from, or we shall wear ourselves out in a ridiculous and shameful +slavery. Well, the past is past, we must break the ties that still bind +us to it. The hour has come to go forward without looking backward; we +have had our share of youth, carelessness, and paradox. All these are +very fine—a very pretty novel could be written on them; but this comedy +of amourous follies, this loss of time, of days wasted with the +prodigality of people who believe they have an eternity to spend—all +this must have an end. It is no longer possible for us to continue to +live much longer on the outskirts of society—on the outskirts of life +almost—under the penalty of justifying the contempt felt for us, and of +despising ourselves. For, after all, is it a life we lead? And are not +the independence, the freedom of mannerism of which we boast so loudly, +very mediocre advantages? True liberty consists of being able to +dispense with the aid of others, and to exist by oneself, and have we +got to that? No, the first scoundrel, whose name we would not bear for +five minutes, avenges himself for our jests, and becomes our lord and +master the day on which we borrow from him five francs, which he lends +us after having made us dispense the worth of a hundred and fifty in +ruses or in humiliations. For my part, I have had enough of it. Poetry +does not alone exist in disorderly living, touch-and-go happiness, loves +that last as long as a bedroom candle, more or less eccentric revolts +against those prejudices which will eternally rule the world, for it is +easier to upset a dynasty than a custom, however ridiculous it may be. +It is not enough to wear a summer coat in December to have talent; one +can be a real poet or artist whilst going about well shod and eating +three meals a day. Whatever one may say, and whatever one may do, if one +wants to attain anything one must always take the commonplace way. This +speech may astonish you, friend Rodolphe; you may say that I am breaking +my idols, you will call me corrupted; and yet what I tell you is the +expression of my sincere wishes. Despite myself, a slow and salutary +metamorphosis has taken place within me; reason has entered my +mind—burglariously, if you like, and perhaps against my will, but it +has got in at last—and has proved to me that I was on a wrong track, +and that it would be at once ridiculous and dangerous to persevere in +it. Indeed, what will happen if we continue this monotonous and idle +vagabondage? We shall get to thirty, unknown, isolated, disgusted with +all things and with ourselves, full of envy towards all those whom we +see reach their goal, whatever it may be, and obliged, in order to live, +to have recourse to shameful parasitism. Do not imagine that this is a +fancy picture I have conjured up especially to frighten you. The future +does not systematically appear to be all black, but neither does it all +rose colored; I see it clearly as it is. Up till now the life we have +led has been forced upon us—we had the excuse of necessity. Now we are +no longer to be excused, and if we do not re-enter the world, it will be +voluntarily, for the obstacles against which we have had to struggle no +longer exist."</p> + +<p>"I say," said Rodolphe, "what are you driving at? Why and wherefore this +lecture?"</p> + +<p>"You thoroughly understand me," replied Marcel, in the same serious +tones. "Just now I saw you, like myself, assailed by recollections that +made you regret the past. You were thinking of Mimi and I was thinking +of Musette. Like me, you would have liked to have had your mistress +beside you. Well, I tell you that we ought neither of us to think of +these creatures; that we were not created and sent into the world solely +to sacrifice our existence to these commonplace Manon Lescaut's, and +that the Chevalier Desgrieux, who is so fine, so true, and so poetical, +is only saved from being ridiculous by his youth and the illusions he +cherishes. At twenty he can follow his mistress to America without +ceasing to be interesting, but at twenty-five he would have shown Manon +the door, and would have been right. It is all very well to talk; we are +old, my dear fellow; we have lived too fast, our hearts are cracked, and +no longer ring truly; one cannot be in love with a Musette or a Mimi +for three years with impunity. For me it is all over, and I wish to be +thoroughly divorced from her remembrance. I am now going to commit to +the flames some trifles that she has left me during her various stays, +and which oblige me to think of her when I come across them."</p> + +<p>And Marcel, who had risen, went and took from a drawer a little +cardboard box in which were the souvenirs of Musette—a faded bouquet, a +sash, a bit of ribbon, and some letters.</p> + +<p>"Come," said he to the poet, "follow my example, Rodolphe."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," said the latter, making an effort, "you are right. I +too will make an end of it with that girl with the white hands."</p> + +<p>And, rising suddenly, he went and fetched a small packet containing +souvenirs of Mimi of much the same kind as those of which Marcel was +silently making an inventory.</p> + +<p>"This comes in handy," murmured the painter. "This trumpery will help us +to rekindle the fire which is going out."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Rodolphe, "it is cold enough here to hatch polar bears."</p> + +<p>"Come," said Marcel, "let us burn in a duet. There goes Musette's prose; +it blazes like punch. She was very fond of punch. Come Rodolphe, +attention!"</p> + +<p>And for some minutes they alternately emptied into the fire, which +blazed clear and noisily, the reliquaries of their past love.</p> + +<p>"Poor Musette!" murmured Marcel to himself, looking at the last object +remaining in his hands.</p> + +<p>It was a little faded bouquet of wildflowers.</p> + +<p>"Poor Musette, she was very pretty though, and she loved me dearly, is +it not so, little bouquet? Her heart told you so the day she wore you at +her waist. Poor little bouquet, you seem to be pleading for mercy; well, +yes; but on one condition; it is that you will never speak to me of her +any more, never, never!"</p> + +<p>And profiting by a moment when he thought himself unnoticed by Rodolphe, +he slipped the bouquet into his breast pocket.</p> + +<p>"So much the worse, it is stronger than I am. I am cheating," thought +the painter.</p> + +<p>And as he cast a furtive glance towards Rodolphe, he saw the poet, who +had come to the end of his auto-da-fe, putting quietly into his own +pocket, after having tenderly kissed it, a little night cap that had +belonged to Mimi.</p> + +<p>"Come," muttered Marcel, "he is as great a coward as I am."</p> + +<p>At the very moment that Rodolphe was about to return to his room to go +to bed, there were two little taps at Marcel's door.</p> + +<p>"Who the deuce can it be at this time of night?" said the painter, going +to open it.</p> + +<p>A cry of astonishment burst from him when he had done so.</p> + +<p>It was Mimi.</p> + +<p>As the room was very dark Rodolphe did not at first recognize his +mistress, and only distinguishing a woman, he thought that it was some +passing conquest of his friend's, and out of discretion prepared to +withdraw.</p> + +<p>"I am disturbing you," said Mimi, who had remained on the threshold.</p> + +<p>At her voice Rodolphe dropped on his chair as though thunderstruck.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," said Mimi, coming up to him and shaking him by the hand +which he allowed her to take mechanically.</p> + +<p>"What the deuce brings you here and at this time of night?" asked +Marcel.</p> + +<p>"I was very cold," said Mimi shivering. "I saw a light in your room as +I was passing along the street, and although it was very late I came +up."</p> + +<p>She was still shivering, her voice had a cristalline sonority that +pierced Rodolphe's heart like a funeral knell, and filled it with a +mournful alarm. He looked at her more attentively. It was no longer +Mimi, but her ghost.</p> + +<p>Marcel made her sit down beside the fire.</p> + +<p>Mimi smiled at the sight of the flame dancing merrily on the hearth.</p> + +<p>"It is very nice," said she, holding out her poor hands blue with cold. +"By the way, Monsieur Marcel, you do not know why I have called on you?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mimi, "I simply came to ask you whether you could get them +to let me a room here. I have just been turned out of my lodgings +because I owe a month's rent and I do not know where to go to."</p> + +<p>"The deuce!" said Marcel, shaking his head, "we are not in very good +odor with our landlord and our recommendation would be a most +unfortunate one, my poor girl."</p> + +<p>"What is to be done then?" said Mimi. "The fact is I have nowhere to +go."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Marcel. "You are no longer a viscountess, then?"</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, no! Not at all."</p> + +<p>"But since when?"</p> + +<p>"Two months ago, already."</p> + +<p>"Have you been playing tricks on the viscount, then?"</p> + +<p>"No," said she, glancing at Rodolphe, who had taken his place in the +darkest corner of the room, "the viscount kicked up a row with me on +account of some verses that were written about me. We quarrelled, and I +sent him about his business. He is a nice skin flint, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"But," said Marcel, "he had rigged you out very finely, judging by what +I saw the day I met you."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mimi, "would you believe it, that he took everything away +from me when I left him, and I have since heard that he raffled all my +clothes at a wretched table d'hote where he used to take me to dine. He +is wealthy enough, though, and yet with all his fortune he is as miserly +as a clay fireball and as stupid as an owl. He would not allow me to +drink wine without water, and made me fast on Fridays. Would you believe +it, he wanted me to wear black stockings, because they did not want +washing as often as white ones. You have no idea of it, he worried me +nicely I can tell you. I can well say that I did my share of purgatory +with him."</p> + +<p>"And does he know your present situation?" asked Marcel.</p> + +<p>"I have not seen him since and I do not want to," replied Mimi. "It +makes me sick when I think of him. I would rather die of hunger than ask +him for a sou."</p> + +<p>"But," said Marcel, "since you left him you have not been living alone."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I assure you, Monsieur Marcel," exclaimed Mimi quickly. "I have +been working to earn my living, only as artificial flower making was not +a very flourishing business I took up another. I sit to painters. If you +have any jobs to give me," she added gaily.</p> + +<p>And having noticed a movement on the part of Rodolphe, whom she did not +take her eyes off whilst talking to his friend, Mimi went on:</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I only sit for head and hands. I have plenty to do, and I am +owed money by two or three, I shall have some in a couple of days, it is +only for that interval that I want to find a lodging. When I get the +money I shall go back to my own. Ah!" said she, looking at the table, +which was still laden with the preparation for the modest feast which +the two friends had scarcely touched, "you were going to have supper?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Marcel, "we are not hungry."</p> + +<p>"You are very lucky," said Mimi simply.</p> + +<p>At this remark Rodolphe felt a horrible pang in his heart, he made a +sign to Marcel, which the latter understood.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said the artist, "since you are here Mimi, you must take +pot luck with us. We were going to keep Christmas Eve, and then—why—we +began to think of other things."</p> + +<p>"Then I have come at the right moment," said Mimi, casting an almost +famished glance at the food on the table. "I have had no dinner," she +whispered to the artist, so as not to be heard by Rodolphe, who was +gnawing his handkerchief to keep him from bursting into sobs.</p> + +<p>"Draw up, Rodolphe," said Marcel to his friend, "we will all three have +supper together."</p> + +<p>"No," said the poet remaining in his corner.</p> + +<p>"Are you angry, Rodolphe, that I have come here?" asked Mimi gently. +"Where could I go to?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "only I am grieved to see you like this."</p> + +<p>"It is my own fault, Rodolphe, I do not complain, what is done is done, +so think no more about it than I do. Cannot you still be my friend, +because you have been something else? You can, can you not? Well then, +do not frown on me, and come and sit down at the table with us."</p> + +<p>She rose to take him by the hand, but was so weak, that she could not +take a step, and sank back into her chair.</p> + +<p>"The heat has dazed me," she said, "I cannot stand."</p> + +<p>"Come," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "come and join us."</p> + +<p>The poet drew up to the table, and began to eat with them. Mimi was very +lively.</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, it is impossible for us to get you a room in the house."</p> + +<p>"I must go away then," said she, trying to rise.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Marcel. "I have another way of arranging things, you can +stay in my room, and I will go and sleep with Rodolphe."</p> + +<p>"It will put you out very much, I am afraid," said Mimi, "but it will +not be for long, only a couple of days."</p> + +<p>"It will not put us out at all in that case," replied Marcel, "so it is +understood, you are at home here, and we are going to Rodolphe's room. +Good night, Mimi, sleep well."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said she, holding out her hand to Marcel and Rodolphe, who +moved away together.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to lock yourself in?" asked Marcel as he got to the door.</p> + +<p>"Why?" said Mimi, looking at Rodolphe, "I am not afraid."</p> + +<p>When the two friends were alone in Rodolphe's room, which was on the +same floor, Marcel abruptly said to his friend, "Well, what are you +going to do now?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," stammered Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Come, do not shilly-shally, go and join Mimi! If you do, I prophecy +that tomorrow you will be living together again."</p> + +<p>"If it were Musette who had returned, what would you do?" inquired +Rodolphe of his friend.</p> + +<p>"If it were Musette that was in the next room," replied Marcel, "well, +frankly, I believe that I should not have been in this one for a quarter +of an hour past."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Rodolphe, "I will be more courageous than you, I shall +stay here."</p> + +<p>"We shall see that," said Marcel, who had already got into bed. "Are you +coming to bed?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," replied Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>But in the middle of the night, Marcel waking up, perceived that +Rodolphe had left him.</p> + +<p>In the morning, he went and tapped discreetly at the door of the room in +which Mimi was.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said she, and on seeing him, she made a sign to him to speak +low in order not to wake Rodolphe who was asleep. He was seated in an +arm chair, which he had drawn up to the side of the bed, his head +resting on a pillow beside that of Mimi.</p> + +<p>"It is like that that you passed the night?" said Marcel in great +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the girl.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe woke up all at once, and after kissing Mimi, held out his hand +to Marcel, who seemed greatly puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I am going to find some money for breakfast," said he to the painter. +"You will keep Mimi company."</p> + +<p>"Well," asked Marcel of the girl when they were alone together, "what +took place last night?"</p> + +<p>"Very sad things," said Mimi. "Rodolphe still loves me."</p> + +<p>"I know that very well."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you wanted to separate him from me. I am not angry about it, +Marcel, you were quite right, I have done no good to the poor fellow."</p> + +<p>"And you," asked Marcel, "do you still love him?"</p> + +<p>"Do I love him?" said she, clasping her hands. "It is that that tortures +me. I am greatly changed, my friend, and it needed but little time for +that."</p> + +<p>"Well, now he loves you, you love him and you cannot do without one +another, come together again and try and remain."</p> + +<p>"It is impossible," said Mimi.</p> + +<p>"Why?" inquired Marcel. "Certainly it would be more sensible for you to +separate, but as for your not meeting again, you would have to be a +thousand leagues from one another."</p> + +<p>"In a little while I shall be further off than that."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Do not speak of it to Rodolphe, it would cause him too much pain, but I +am going away forever."</p> + +<p>"But whither?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Marcel," said Mimi sobbing, "look."</p> + +<p>And lifting up the sheet of the bed a little she showed the artist her +shoulders, neck and arms.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" exclaimed Marcel mournfully, "poor girl."</p> + +<p>"Is it not true, my friend, that I do not deceive myself and that I am +soon going to die."</p> + +<p>"But how did you get into such a state in so short a time?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replied Mimi, "with the life I have been leading for the past two +months it is not astonishing; nights spent in tears, days passed in +posing in studios without any fire, poor living, grief, and then you do +not know all, I tried to poison myself with Eau de Javelle. I was saved +but not for long as you see. Besides I have never been very strong, in +short it is my fault, if I had remained quietly with Rodolphe I should +not be like this. Poor fellow, here I am again upon his hands, but it +will not be for long, the last dress he will give me will be all white, +Marcel, and I shall be buried in it. Ah! If you knew how I suffer +because I am going to die. Rodolphe knows that I am ill, he remained for +over an hour without speaking last night when he saw my arms and +shoulders so thin. He no longer recognized his Mimi. Alas! My very +looking glass does not know me. Ah! All the same I was pretty and he did +love me. Oh, God!" she exclaimed, burying her face in Marcel's hands. "I +am going to leave you and Rodolphe too, oh God!" and sobs choked her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Come, Mimi," said Marcel, "never despair, you will get well, you only +want care and rest."</p> + +<p>"Ah, no!" said Mimi. "It is all over, I feel it. I have no longer any +strength, and when I came here last night it took me over an hour to get +up the stairs. If I found a woman here I should have gone down by way of +the window. However, he was free since we were no longer together, but +you see, Marcel, I was sure he loved me still. It was on account of +that," she said, bursting into tears, "it is on account of that that I +do not want to die at once, but it is all over with me. He must be very +good, poor fellow, to take me back after all the pain I have given him. +Ah! God is not just, since he does not leave me only the time to make +Rodolphe forget the grief I caused him. He does not know the state in +which I am. I would not have him lie beside me, for I feel as if the +earthworms were already devouring my body. We passed the night in +weeping and talking of old times. Ah! How sad it is, my friend, to see +behind one the happiness one has formerly passed by without noticing it. +I feel as if I had fire in my chest, and when I move my limbs it seems +as if they were going to snap. Hand me my dress, I want to cut the cards +to see whether Rodolphe will bring in any money. I should like to have a +good breakfast with you, like we used to; that would not hurt me. God +cannot make me worse than I am. See," she added, showing Marcel the pack +of cards she had cut, "Spades—it is the color of death. Clubs," she +added more gaily, "yes we shall have some money."</p> + +<p>Marcel did not know what to say in presence of the lucid delirium of +this poor creature, who already felt, as she said, the worms of the +grave.</p> + +<p>In an hour's time Rodolphe was back. He was accompanied by Schaunard and +Gustave Colline. The musician wore a summer jacket. He had sold his +winter suit to lend money to Rodolphe on learning that Mimi was ill. +Colline on his side had gone and sold some books. If he could have got +anyone to buy one of his arms or legs he would have agreed to the +bargain rather than part with his cherished volumes. But Schaunard had +pointed out to him that nothing could be done with his arms or his +legs.</p> + +<p>Mimi strove to recover her gaiety to greet her old friends.</p> + +<p>"I am no longer naughty," said she to them, "and Rodolphe has forgiven +me. If he will keep me with him I will wear wooden shoes and a mob-cap, +it is all the same to me. Silk is certainly not good for my health," she +added with a frightful smile.</p> + +<p>At Marcel's suggestion, Rodolphe had sent for one of his friends who had +just passed as a doctor. It was the same who had formerly attended +Francine. When he came they left him alone with Mimi.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe, informed by Marcel, was already aware of the danger run by his +mistress. When the doctor had spoken to Mimi, he said to Rodolphe: "You +cannot keep her here. Save for a miracle she is doomed. You must send +her to the hospital. I will give you a letter for La Pitie. I know one +of the house surgeons there; she will be well looked after. If she +lasts till the spring we may perhaps pull her through, but if she stays +here she will be dead in a week."</p> + +<p>"I shall never dare propose it to her," said Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to her about it," replied the doctor, "and she agreed. Tomorrow +I will send you the order of admission to La Pitie."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Mimi to Rodolphe, "the doctor is right; you cannot nurse +me here. At the hospital they may perhaps cure me, you must send me +there. Ah! You see I do so long to live now, that I would be willing to +end my days with one hand in a raging fire and the other in yours. +Besides, you will come and see me. You must not grieve, I shall be well +taken care of: the doctor told me so. You get chicken at the hospital +and they have fires there. Whilst I am taking care of myself there, you +will work to earn money, and when I am cured I will come back and live +with you. I have plenty of hope now. I shall come back as pretty as I +used to be. I was very ill in the days before I knew you, and I was +cured. Yet I was not happy in those days, I might just as well have +died. Now that I have found you again and that we can be happy, they +will cure me again, for I shall fight hard against my illness. I will +drink all the nasty things they give me, and if death seizes on me it +will be by force. Give me the looking glass: it seems to me that I have +little color in my cheeks. Yes," said she, looking at herself in the +glass, "my color is coming back, and my hands, see, they are still +pretty; kiss me once more, it will not be the last time, my poor +darling," she added, clasping Rodolphe round the neck, and burying his +face in her loosened tresses.</p> + +<p>Before leaving for the hospital, she wanted her friends the Bohemians to +stay and pass the evening with her.</p> + +<p>"Make me laugh," said she, "cheerfulness is health to me. It is that wet +blanket of a viscount made me ill. Fancy, he wanted to make me learn +orthography; what the deuce should I have done with it? And his friends, +what a set! A regular poultry yard, of which the viscount was the +peacock. He marked his linen himself. If he ever marries I am sure that +it will be he who will suckle the children."</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more heart breaking than the almost posthumous gaiety +of poor Mimi. All the Bohemians made painful efforts to hide their tears +and continue the conversation in the jesting tone started by the +unfortunate girl, for whom fate was so swiftly spinning the linen of her +last garment.</p> + +<p>The next morning Rodolphe received the order of admission to the +hospital. Mimi could not walk, she had to be carried down to the cab. +During the journey she suffered horribly from the jolts of the vehicle. +Admist all her sufferings the last thing that dies in woman, coquetry, +still survived; two or three times she had the cab stopped before the +drapers' shops to look at the display in the windows.</p> + +<p>On entering the ward indicated in the letter of admission Mimi felt a +terrible pang at her heart, something within her told her that it was +between these bare and leprous walls that her life was to end. She +exerted the whole of the will left her to hide the mournful impression +that had chilled her.</p> + +<p>When she was put to bed she gave Rodolphe a final kiss and bid him +goodbye, bidding him come and see her the next Sunday which was a +visitors' day.</p> + +<p>"It does not smell very nice here," said she to him, "bring me some +flowers, some violets, there are still some about."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rodolphe, "goodbye till Sunday."</p> + +<p>And he drew together the curtains of her bed. On hearing the departing +steps of her lover, Mimi was suddenly seized with an almost delirious +attack of fever. She suddenly opened the curtains, and leaning half out +of bed, cried in a voice broken with tears:</p> + +<p>"Rodolphe, take me home, I want to go away."</p> + +<p>The sister of charity hastened to her and tried to calm her.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Mimi, "I am going to die here."</p> + +<p>On Sunday morning, the day he was to go and see Mimi, Rodolphe +remembered that he had promised her some violets. With poetic and loving +superstition he went on foot in horrible weather to look for the flowers +his sweetheart had asked him for, in the woods of Aulnay and Fontenay, +where he had so often been with her. The country, so lively and joyful +in the sunshine of the bright days of June and July, he found chill and +dreary. For two hours he beat the snow covered thickets, lifting the +bushes with a stick, and ended by finding a few tiny blossoms, and as it +happened, in a part of the wood bordering the Le Plessis pool, which had +been their favorite spot when they came into the country.</p> + +<p>Passing through the village of Chatillon to get back to Paris, Rodolphe +met in the square before the church a baptismal procession, in which he +recognized one of his friends who was the godfather, with a singer from +the opera.</p> + +<p>"What the deuce are you doing here?" asked the friend, very much +surprised to see Rodolphe in those parts.</p> + +<p>The poet told him what had happened.</p> + +<p>The young fellow, who had known Mimi, was greatly saddened at this +story, and feeling in his pocket took out a bag of christening +sweetmeats and handed it to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Poor Mimi, give her this from me and tell her I will come and see +her."</p> + +<p>"Come quickly, then, if you would come in time," said Rodolphe, as he +left him.</p> + +<p>When Rodolphe got to the hospital, Mimi, who could not move, threw her +arms about him in a look.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there are my flowers!" said she, with the smile of satisfied +desire.</p> + +<p>Rodolphe related his pilgrimage into that part of the country that had +been the paradise of their loves.</p> + +<p>"Dear flowers," said the poor girl, kissing the violets. The sweetmeats +greatly pleased her too. "I am not quite forgotten, then. The young +fellows are good. Ah! I love all your friends," said she to Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>This interview was almost merry. Schaunard and Colline had rejoined +Rodolphe. The nurses had almost to turn them out, for they had +overstayed visiting time.</p> + +<p>"Goodbye," said Mimi. "Thursday without fail, and come early."</p> + +<p>The following day on coming home at night, Rodolphe received a letter +from a medical student, a dresser at the hospital, to whose care he had +recommended the invalid. The letter only contained these words:—</p> + +<p>"My dear friend, I have very bad news for you. No. 8 is dead. This +morning on going through the ward I found her bed vacant."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe dropped on to a chair and did not shed a tear. When Marcel came +in later he found his friend in the same stupefied attitude. With a +gesture the poet showed him the latter.</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!" said Marcel.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," said Rodolphe, putting his hand to his heart; "I feel +nothing here. Was my love killed on learning that Mimi was to die?"</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" murmured the painter.</p> + +<p>Mimi's death caused great mourning amongst the Bohemians.</p> + +<p>A week later Rodolphe met in the street the dresser who had informed him +of his mistress's death.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear Rodolphe!" said he, hastening up to the poet. "Forgive me +the pain I caused you by my heedlessness."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"What," replied the dresser, "you do not know? You have not seen her +again?"</p> + +<p>"Seen whom?" exclaimed Rodolphe.</p> + +<p>"Her, Mimi."</p> + +<p>"What?" said the poet, turning deadly pale.</p> + +<p>"I made a mistake. When I wrote you that terrible news I was the victim +of an error. This is how it was. I had been away from the hospital for a +couple of days. When I returned, on going the rounds with the surgeons, +I found Mimi's bed empty. I asked the sister of charity what had become +of the patient, and she told me that she had died during the night. This +is what had happened. During my absence Mimi had been moved to another +ward. In No. 8 bed, which she left, they put another woman who died the +same day. That will explain the mistake into which I fell. The day after +that on which I wrote to you, I found Mimi in the next ward. Your +absence had put her in a terrible state; she gave me a letter for you +and I took it on to your place at once."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" said Rodolphe. "Since I thought Mimi dead I have not dared +to go home. I have been sleeping here and there at friends' places. Mimi +alive! Good heavens! What must she think of my absence? Poor girl, poor +girl! How is she? When did you see her last?"</p> + +<p>"The day before yesterday. She was neither better nor worse, but very +uneasy; she fancies you must be ill."</p> + +<p>"Let us go to La Pitie at once," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her."</p> + +<p>"Stop here for a moment," said the dresser, when they reached the +entrance to the hospital, "I will go and ask the house surgeon for +permission for you to enter."</p> + +<p>Rodolphe waited in the hall for a quarter of an hour. When the dresser +returned he took him by the hand and said these words:</p> + +<p>"My friend, suppose that the letter I wrote to you a week ago was true?"</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Rodolphe, leaning against a pillar, "Mimi—"</p> + +<p>"This morning at four o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Take me to the amphitheatre," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her."</p> + +<p>"She is no longer there," said the dresser. And pointing out to the poet +a large van which was in the courtyard drawn up before a building above +which was inscribed, "Amphiteatre," he added, "she is there."</p> + +<p>It was indeed the vehicle in which the corpses that are unclaimed are +taken to their pauper's grave.</p> + +<p>"Goodbye," said Rodolphe to the dresser.</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to come with you a bit?" suggested the latter.</p> + +<p>"No," said Rodolphe, turning away, "I need to be alone."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><a href="#TABLE">CHAPTER XXIII</a></h2> + +<h3>YOUTH IS FLEETING</h3> + + +<p>A year after Mimi's death Rodolphe and Marcel, who had not quitted one +another, celebrated by a festival their entrance into the official +world. Marcel, who had at length secured admission to the annual +exhibition of pictures, had had two paintings hung, one of which had +been bought by a rich Englishman, formerly Musette's protector. With the +product of this sale, and also of a Government order, Marcel had partly +paid off his past debts. He had furnished decent rooms, and had a real +studio. Almost at the same time Schaunard and Rodolphe came before the +public who bestow fame and fortune—the one with an album of airs that +were sung at all the concerts, and which gave him the commencement of a +reputation; the other with a book that occupied the critics for a month. +As to Barbemuche he had long since given up Bohemianism. Gustave Colline +had inherited money and made a good marriage. He gave evening parties +with music and light refreshments.</p> + +<p>One evening Rodolphe, seated in his own armchair with his feet on his +own rug, saw Marcel come in quite flurried.</p> + +<p>"You do not know what has just happened to me," said he.</p> + +<p>"No," replied the poet. "I know that I have been to your place, that you +were at home, and that you would not answer the door."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I heard you. But guess who was with me."</p> + +<p>"How do I know?"</p> + +<p>"Musette, who burst upon me last evening like a bombshell, got up as a +<i>debardeur</i>."</p> + +<p>"Musette! You have once more found Musette!" said Rodolphe, in a tone of +regret.</p> + +<p>"Do not be alarmed. Hostilities were not resumed. Musette came to pass +with me her last night of Bohemianism."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"She is going to be married."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said Rodolphe. "Who is the victim?"</p> + +<p>"A postmaster who was her last lover's guardian; a queer sort of fellow, +it would seem. Musette said to him, 'My dear sir, before definitely +giving you my hand and going to the registrar's I want to drink my last +glass of Champagne, dance my last quadrille, and embrace for the last +time my lover, Marcel, who is now a gentleman, like everybody else is +seems.' And for a week the dear creature has been looking for me. Hence +it was that she burst upon me last evening, just at the moment I was +thinking of her. Ah, my friend! Altogether we had a sad night of it. It +was not at all the same thing it used to be, not at all. We were like +some wretched copy of a masterpiece? I have even written on the subject +of this last separation a little ballad which I will whine out to you if +you will allow me," and Marcel began to chant the following verses:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">I saw a swallow yesterday,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He brought Spring's promise to the air;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"Remember her," he seemed to say,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"Who loved you when she'd time to spare;"<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And all the day I sate before<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The almanac of yonder year,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When I did nothing but adore,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And you were pleased to hold me dear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">But do not think my love is dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or to forget you I begin.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">If you sought entry to my shed<br /></span> +<span class="i4">My heart would leap to let you in:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Since at your name it trembles still—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Muse of oblivious fantasy!—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Return and share, if share you will,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Joy's consecrated bread with me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">The decorations of the nest<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Which saw our mutual ardor burn,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Already seem to wear their best<br /></span> +<span class="i4">At the mere hope of return.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Come, see if you can recognize<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Things your departure reft of glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The bed, the glass of extra size,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In which you often drank for me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">You shall resume the plain white gown<br /></span> +<span class="i4">You used to look so nice in, then;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On Sunday we can still run down<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To wander in the woods again.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Beneath the bower, at evening,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Again we'll drink the liquid bright<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In which your song would dip its wing<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Before in air it took to flight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Musette, who has at last confessed<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The carnival of life was gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Came back, one morning, to the nest<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whence, like a wild bird, she had flown:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But, while I kissed the fugitive,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">My heart no more emotion knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For, she had ceased, for me, to live,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And "You," she said, "no more are you."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Heart of my heart!" I answered, "Go!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We cannot call the dead love back;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Best let it lie, interred, below<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The tombstone of the almanac<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Perhaps a spirit that remembers<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The happy time it notes for me<br /></span> +<span class="i4">May find some day among its embers<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of a lost Paradise the key."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Well," said Marcel, when he had finished, "you may feel reassured now, +my love for Musette is dead and buried here," he added ironically, +indicating the manuscript of the poem.</p> + +<p>"Poor lad," said Rodolphe, "your wit is fighting a duel with your +heart, take care it does not kill it."</p> + +<p>"That is already lifeless," replied the painter, "we are done for, old +fellow, we are dead and buried. Youth is fleeting! Where are you going +to dine this evening?"</p> + +<p>"If you like," said Rodolphe, "we will go and dine for twelve sous at +our old restaurant in the Rue du Four, where they have plates of huge +crockery, and where we used to feel so hungry when we had done dinner."</p> + +<p>"No," replied Marcel, "I am quite willing to look back at that past, but +it must be through the medium of a bottle of good wine and sitting in a +comfortable armchair. What would you, I am corrupted. I only care for +what is good!"</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18445-h.txt or 18445-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/4/18445">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/4/18445</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Bohemians of the Latin Quarter + + +Author: Henry Murger + + + +Release Date: May 27, 2006 [eBook #18445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER*** + + +E-text prepared by Chuck Greif from digital text provided by the Worchel +Institute for the Study of Beat and Bohemian Literature +(http://home.swbell.net/worchel/index.html) + + + +Note: This book by Henry Murger, originally published in 1851, was + the source of two operas titled "La Boheme"--one by Giacomo + Puccini (1896) and the other by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1897). + Project Gutenberg also has the original French version of + the book (Scenes de la vie de boheme); see + http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18446. + + + + + +BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER + +by + +HENRY MURGER + + + + + + + +1888 + +Vizetelly & Co. London + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +Preface +Chapter I, How The Bohemian Club Was Formed +Chapter II, A Good Angel +Chapter III, Lenten Loves +Chapter IV, Ali Rodolphe; Or, The Turk Perforce +Chapter V, The Carlovingian Coin +Chapter VI, Mademoiselle Musette +Chapter VII, The Billows of Pactolus +Chapter VIII, The Cost Of a Five Franc Piece +Chapter IX, The White Violets +Chapter X, The Cape of Storms +Chapter XI, A Bohemian Cafe +Chapter XII, A Bohemian "At Home" +Chapter XIII, The House Warming +Chapter XIV, Mademoiselle Mimi +Chapter XV, Donec Gratus +Chapter XVI, The Passage of the Red Sea +Chapter XVII, The Toilette of the Graces +Chapter XVIII, Francine's Muff +Chapter XIX, Musette's Fancies +Chapter XX, Mimi in Fine Feather +Chapter XXI, Romeo and Juliet +Chapter XXII, Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi +Chapter XXIII, Youth Is Fleeting + + + + +PREFACE + + +The Bohemians of whom it is a question in this book have no connection +with the Bohemians whom melodramatists have rendered synonymous with +robbers and assassins. Neither are they recruited from among the +dancing-bear leaders, sword swallowers, gilt watch-guard vendors, street +lottery keepers and a thousand other vague and mysterious professionals +whose main business is to have no business at all, and who are always +ready to turn their hands to anything except good. + +The class of Bohemians referred to in this book are not a race of today, +they have existed in all climes and ages, and can claim an illustrious +descent. In ancient Greece, to go no farther back in this genealogy, +there existed a celebrated Bohemian, who lived from hand to mouth round +the fertile country of Ionia, eating the bread of charity, and halting +in the evening to tune beside some hospitable hearth the harmonious lyre +that had sung the loves of Helen and the fall of Troy. Descending the +steps of time modern Bohemia finds ancestors at every artistic and +literary epoch. In the Middle Ages it perpetuates the Homeric tradition +with its minstrels and ballad makers, the children of the gay science, +all the melodious vagabonds of Touraine, all the errant songsters who, +with the beggar's wallet and the trouvere's harp slung at their backs, +traversed, singing as they went, the plains of the beautiful land where +the eglantine of Clemence Isaure flourished. + +At the transitional period between the days of chivalry and the dawn of +the Renaissance, Bohemia continued to stroll along all the highways of +the kingdom, and already to some extent about the streets of Paris. +There is Master Pierre Gringoire, friend of the vagrants and foe to +fasting. Lean and famished as a man whose very existence is one long +Lent, he lounges about the town, his nose in the air like a pointer's, +sniffing the odor from kitchen and cook shop. His eyes glittering +with covetous gluttony cause the hams hung outside the pork +butcher's to shrink by merely looking at them, whilst he jingles in +imagination--alas! and not in his pockets--the ten crowns promised him +by the echevins in payment of the pious and devout fare he has composed +for the theater in the hall of the Palais de Justice. Beside the doleful +and melancholy figure of the lover of Esmeralda, the chronicles of +Bohemia can evoke a companion of less ascetic humor and more cheerful +face--Master Francois Villon, par excellence, is this latter, and one +whose poetry, full of imagination, is no doubt on account of those +presentiments which the ancients attributed to their fates, continually +marked by a singular foreboding of the gallows, on which the said Villon +one day nearly swung in a hempen collar for having looked too closely at +the color of the king's crowns. This same Villon, who more than once +outran the watch started in his pursuit, this noisy guest at the dens of +the Rue Pierre Lescot, this spunger at the court of the Duke of Egypt, +this Salvator Rosa of poesy, has strung together elegies the +heartbreaking sentiment and truthful accents of which move the most +pitiless and make them forget the ruffian, the vagabond and the +debauchee, before this muse drowned in her own tears. + +Besides, amongst all those whose but little known work has only been +familiar to men for whom French literature does not begin the day when +"Malherbe came," Francois Villon has had the honor of being the most +pillaged, even by the big-wigs of modern Parnassus. They threw +themselves upon the poor man's field and coined glory from his humble +treasure. There are ballads scribbled under a penthouse at the street +corner on a cold day by the Bohemian rhapsodist, stanzas improvised in +the hovel in which the "belle qui fut haultmire" loosened her gilt +girdle to all comers, which now-a-days metamorphosed into dainty +gallantries scented with musk and amber, figure in the armorial bearing +enriched album of some aristocratic Chloris. + +But behold the grand century of the Renaissance opens, Michaelangelo +ascends the scaffolds of the Sistine Chapel and watches with anxious air +young Raphael mounting the steps of the Vatican with the cartoon of the +Loggie under his arm. Benvenuto Cellini is meditating his Perseus, +Ghiberti is carving the Baptistery doors at the same time that Donatello +is rearing his marbles on the bridges of the Arno; and whilst the city +of the Medici is staking masterpieces against that of Leo X and +Julius II, Titian and Paul Veronese are rendering the home of Doges +illustrious. Saint Mark's competes with Saint Peter's. + +This fever of genius that had broken out suddenly in the Italian +peninsula with epidemic violence spreads its glorious contagion +throughout Europe. Art, the rival of God, strides on, the equal of +kings. Charles V stoops to pick up Titian's brush, and Francis I dances +attendance at the printing office where Etienne Dolet is perhaps +correcting the proofs of "Pantagruel." + +Amidst this resurrection of intelligence, Bohemia continued as in the +past to seek, according to Balzac's expression, a bone and a kennel. +Clement Marot, the familiar of the ante-chamber of the Louvre, became, +even before she was a monarch's mistress, the favorite of that fair +Diana, whose smile lit up three reigns. From the boudoir of Diane de +Poitiers, the faithless muse of the poet passed to that of Marguerite de +Valois, a dangerous favor that Marot paid for by imprisonment. Almost +at the same epoch another Bohemian, whose childhood on the shores of +Sorrento had been caressed by the kisses of an epic muse, Tasso, entered +the court of the Duke of Ferrara as Marot had that of Francis I. But +less fortunate than the lover of Diane and Marguerite, the author of +"Jerusalem Delivered" paid with his reason and the loss of his genius +the audacity of his love for a daughter of the house of Este. + +The religious contests and political storms that marked the arrival of +Medicis in France did not check the soaring flight of art. At the moment +when a ball struck on the scaffold of the Fontaine des Innocents Jean +Goujon who had found the Pagan chisel of Phidias, Ronsard discovered the +lyre of Pindar and founded, aided by his pleiad, the great French lyric +school. To this school succeeded the reaction of Malherbe and his +fellows, who sought to drive from the French tongue all the exotic +graces that their predecessors had tried to nationalize on Parnassus. It +was a Bohemian, Mathurin Regnier, who was one of the last defenders of +the bulwarks of poetry, assailed by the phalanx of rhetoricians and +grammarians who declared Rabelais barbarous and Montaigne obscure. It +was this same cynic, Mathurin Regnier, who, adding fresh knots to the +satiric whip of Horace, exclaimed, in indignation at the manners of his +day, "Honor is an old saint past praying to." + +The roll call of Bohemia during the seventeenth century contains a +portion of the names belonging to the literature of the reigns of Louis +XIII and Louis XIV, it reckons members amongst the wits of the Hotel +Rambouillet, where it takes its share in the production of the +"Guirlande de Julie," it has its entries into the Palais Cardinal, where +it collaborates, in the tragedy of "Marianne," with the poet-minister +who was the Robespierre of the monarchy. It bestrews the couch of Marion +Delorme with madrigals, and woos Ninon de l'Enclos beneath the trees of +the Place Royal; it breakfasts in the morning at the tavern of the +Goinfres or the Epee Royale, and sups in the evening at the table of the +Duc de Joyeuse; it fights duels under a street lamp for the sonnet of +Urania against the sonnet of Job. Bohemia makes love, war, and even +diplomacy, and in its old days, weary of adventures, it turns the Old +and New Testament into poetry, figures on the list of benefices, and +well nourished with fat prebendaryships, seats itself on an episcopal +throne, or a chair of the Academy, founded by one of its children. + +It was in the transition period between the sixteenth and eighteenth +centuries that appeared those two lofty geniuses, whom each of the +nations amongst which they lived opposed to one another in their +struggles of literary rivalry. Moliere and Shakespeare, those +illustrious Bohemians, whose fate was too nearly akin. + +The most celebrated names of the literature of the eighteenth century +are also to be found in the archives of Bohemia, which, amongst the +glorious ones of this epoch, can cite Jean Jacques Rousseau and +d'Alembert, the foundling of the porch of Notre Dame, and amongst the +obscure, Malfilatre and Gilbert, two overrated reputations, for the +inspiration of the one was but a faint reflection of the weak lyricism +of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, and the inspiration of the other but the +blending of proud impotence with a hatred which had not even the excuse +of initiative and sincerity, since it was only the paid instrument of +party rancour. + +We close with this epoch this brief summary of Bohemia in different +ages, a prolegomena besprinkled with illustrious names that we have +purposely placed at the beginning of this work, to put the reader on his +guard against any misapplication he might fall into on encountering the +title of Bohemians; long bestowed upon classes from which those whose +manners and language we have striven to depict hold it an honor to +differ. + +Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without +any other means of livelihood than his art itself, will be forced to +walk in the paths of Bohemia. The greater number of our contemporaries +who display the noblest blazonry of art have been Bohemians, and amidst +their calm and prosperous glory they often recall, perhaps with regret, +the time when, climbing the verdant slope of youth, they had no other +fortune in the sunshine of their twenty years than courage, which is the +virtue of the young, and hope, which is the wealth of the poor. + +For the uneasy reader, for the timorous citizen, for all those for whom +an "i" can never be too plainly dotted in definition, we repeat as an +axiom: "Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the +Academy, the Hotel Dieu, or the Morgue." + +We will add that Bohemia only exists and is only possible in Paris. + +We will begin with unknown Bohemians, the largest class. It is made up +of the great family of poor artists, fatally condemned to the law of +incognito, because they cannot or do not know how to obtain a scrap of +publicity, to attest their existence in art, and by showing what they +are already prove what they may some day become. They are the race of +obstinate dreamers for whom art has remained a faith and not a +profession; enthusiastic folk of strong convictions, whom the sight of a +masterpiece is enough to throw into a fever, and whose loyal heart beats +high in presence of all that is beautiful, without asking the name of +the master and the school. This Bohemian is recruited from amongst those +young fellows of whom it is said that they give great hopes, and from +amongst those who realize the hopes given, but who, from carelessness, +timidity, or ignorance of practical life, imagine that everything is +done that can be when the work is completed, and wait for public +admiration and fortune to break in on them by escalade and burglary. +They live, so to say, on the outskirts of life, in isolation and +inertia. Petrified in art, they accept to the very letter the symbolism +of the academical dithyrambic, which places an aureola about the heads +of poets, and, persuaded that they are gleaming in their obscurity, wait +for others to come and seek them out. We used to know a small school +composed of men of this type, so strange, that one finds it hard to +believe in their existence; they styled themselves the disciples of art +for art's sake. According to these simpletons, art for art's sake +consisted of deifying one another, in abstaining from helping chance, +who did not even know their address, and in waiting for pedestals to +come of their own accord and place themselves under them. + +It is, as one sees, the ridiculousness of stoicism. Well, then we again +affirm, there exist in the heart of unknown Bohemia, similar beings +whose poverty excites a sympathetic pity which common sense obliges you +to go back on, for if you quietly remark to them that we live in the +nineteenth century, that the five-franc piece is the empress of +humanity, and that boots do not drop already blacked from heaven, they +turn their backs on you and call you a tradesman. + +For the rest, they are logical in their mad heroism, they utter neither +cries nor complainings, and passively undergo the obscure and rigorous +fate they make for themselves. They die for the most part, decimated by +that disease to which science does not dare give its real name, want. If +they would, however, many could escape from this fatal _denouement_ +which suddenly terminates their life at an age when ordinary life is +only beginning. It would suffice for that for them to make a few +concessions to the stern laws of necessity; for them to know how to +duplicate their being, to have within themselves two natures, the poet +ever dreaming on the lofty summits where the choir of inspired voices +are warbling, and the man, worker-out of his life, able to knead his +daily bread, but this duality which almost always exists among strongly +tempered natures, of whom it is one of the distinctive characteristics, +is not met with amongst the greater number of these young fellows, whom +pride, a bastard pride, has rendered invulnerable to all the advice of +reason. Thus they die young, leaving sometimes behind them a work which +the world admires later on and which it would no doubt have applauded +sooner if it had not remained invisible. + +In artistic struggles it is almost the same as in war, the whole of the +glory acquired falls to the leaders; the army shares as its reward the +few lines in a dispatch. As to the soldiers struck down in battle, they +are buried where they fall, and one epitaph serves for twenty thousand +dead. + +So, too, the crowd, which always has its eyes fixed on the rising sun, +never lowers its glance towards that underground world where the obscure +workers are struggling; their existence finishes unknown and without +sometimes even having had the consolation of smiling at an accomplished +task, they depart from this life, enwrapped in a shroud of indifference. + +There exists in ignored Bohemia another fraction; it is composed of +young fellows who have been deceived, or have deceived themselves. They +mistake a fancy for a vocation, and impelled by a homicidal fatality, +they die, some the victims of a perpetual fit of pride, others +worshippers of a chimera. + +The paths of art, so choked and so dangerous, are, despite encumberment +and obstacles, day by day more crowded, and consequently Bohemians were +never more numerous. + +If one sought out all the causes that have led to this influx, one might +perhaps come across the following. + +Many young fellows have taken the declamations made on the subject of +unfortunate poets and artists quite seriously. The names of Gilbert, +Malfilatre, Chatterton, and Moreau have been too often, too imprudently, +and, above all, too uselessly uttered. The tomb of these unfortunates +has been converted into a pulpit, from whence has been preached the +martyrdom of art and poetry, + + "Farewell mankind, ye stony-hearted host, + Flint-bosomed earth and sun with frozen ray, + From out amidst you, solitary ghost + I glide unseen away." + +This despairing song of Victor Escousse, stifled by the pride which had +been implanted in him by a factitious triumph, was for a time the +"Marseillaise" of the volunteers of art who were bent on inscribing +their names on the martyrology of mediocrity. + +For these funereal apotheoses, these encomiastic requiems, having all +the attraction of the abyss for weak minds and ambitious vanities, many +of these yielding to this attraction have thought that fatality was the +half of genius; many have dreamt of the hospital bed on which Gilbert +died, hoping that they would become poets, as he did a quarter of an +hour before dying, and believing that it was an obligatory stage in +order to arrive at glory. + +Too much blame cannot be attached to these immortal falsehoods, these +deadly paradoxes, which turn aside from the path in which they might +have succeeded so many people who come to a wretched ending in a career +in which they incommode those to whom a true vocation only gives the +right of entering on it. + +It is these dangerous preachings, this useless posthumous exaltations, +that have created the ridiculous race of the unappreciated, the whining +poets whose muse has always red eyes and ill-combed locks, and all the +mediocrities of impotence who, doomed to non-publication, call the muse +a harsh stepmother, and art an executioner. + +All truly powerful minds have their word to say, and, indeed, utter it +sooner or later. Genius or talent are not unforeseen accidents in +humanity; they have a cause of existence, and for that reason cannot +always remain in obscurity, for, if the crowd does not come to seek +them, they know how to reach it. Genius is the sun, everyone sees it. +Talent is the diamond that may for a long time remain hidden in +obscurity, but which is always perceived by some one. It is, therefore, +wrong to be moved to pity over the lamentations and stock phrases of +that class of intruders and inutilities entered upon an artistic career +in which idleness, debauchery, and parasitism form the foundations of +manners. + +Axiom, "Unknown Bohemianism is not a path, it is a blind alley." + +Indeed, this life is something that does not lead to anything. It is a +stultified wretchedness, amidst which intelligence dies out like a lamp +in a place without air, in which the heart grows petrified in a fierce +misanthropy, and in which the best natures become the worst. If one has +the misfortune to remain too long and to advance too far in this blind +alley one can no longer get out, or one emerges by dangerous breaches +and only to fall into an adjacent Bohemia, the manners of which belong +to another jurisdiction than that of literary physiology. + +We will also cite a singular variety of Bohemians who might be called +amateurs. They are not the least curious. They find in Bohemian life an +existence full of seductions, not to dine every day, to sleep in the +open air on wet nights, and to dress in nankeen in the month of December +seems to them the paradise of human felicity, and to enter it some +abandon the family home, and others the study which leads to an assured +result. They suddenly turn their backs upon an honorable future to seek +the adventure of a hazardous career. But as the most robust cannot stand +a mode of living that would render Hercules consumptive, they soon give +up the game, and, hastening back to the paternal roast joint, marry +their little cousins, set up as a notary in a town of thirty thousand +inhabitants, and by their fireside of an evening have the satisfaction +of relating their artistic misery with the magniloquence of a traveller +narrating a tiger hunt. Others persist and put their self-esteem in it, +but when once they have exhausted those resources of credit which a +young fellow with well-to-do relatives can always find, they are more +wretched than the real Bohemians, who, never having had any other +resources, have at least those of intelligence. We knew one of these +amateur Bohemians who, after having remained three years in Bohemia and +quarrelled with his family, died one morning, and was taken to the +common grave in a pauper's hearse. He had ten thousand francs a year. + +It is needless to say that these Bohemians have nothing whatever in +common with art, and that they are the most obscure amongst the least +known of ignored Bohemia. + +We now come to the real Bohemia, to that which forms, in part, the +subject of this book. Those who compose it are really amongst those +called by art, and have the chance of being also amongst its elect. This +Bohemia, like the others, bristles with perils, two abysses flank it on +either side--poverty and doubt. But between these two gulfs there is at +least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their +eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand. + +It is official Bohemia so-called because those who form part of it have +publicly proved their existence, have signalised their presence in the +world elsewhere than on a census list, have, to employ one of their own +expressions, "their name in the bill," who are known in the literary and +artistic market, and whose products, bearing their stamp, are current +there, at moderate rates it is true. + +To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and +the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route. +Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers, +whose sins are backed by virtue. Their mind is kept ever on the alert by +their ambition, which sounds a charge in front and urges them to the +assault of the future; incessantly at war with necessity, their +invention always marching with lighted match blows up the obstacle +almost before it incommodes them. Their daily existence is a work of +genius, a daily problem which they always succeed in solving by the aid +of audacious mathematics. They would have forced Harpagon to lend them +money, and have found truffles on the raft of the "Medusa." At need, +too, they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an +anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see +them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest +and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding +sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last +crown is dead and buried, they begin to dine again at that table spread +by chance, at which their place is always laid, and, preceded by a pack +of tricks, go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with +art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five-franc +piece. + +The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere, according as they have +patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to be met one day leaning +against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing room, and the next +seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place. They cannot take ten +steps on the Boulevard without meeting a friend, and thirty, no matter +where, without encountering a creditor. + +Bohemians speak amongst themselves a special language borrowed from the +conversation of the studios, the jargon of behind the scenes, and the +discussions of the editor's room. All the eclecticisms of style are met +with in this unheard of idiom, in which apocalyptic phrases jostle cock +and bull stories, in which the rusticity of a popular saying is wedded +to extravagant periods from the same mold in which Cyrano de Bergerac +cast his tirades; in which the paradox, that spoilt child of modern +literature, treats reason as the pantaloon is treated in a pantomime; in +which irony has the intensity of the strongest acids and the skill of +those marksmen who can hit the bull's-eye blindfold; a slang +intelligent, though unintelligible to those who have not its key, and +the audacity of which surpasses that of the freest tongues. This +Bohemian vocabulary is the hell of rhetoric and the paradise of +neologism. + +Such is in brief that Bohemian life, badly known to the puritans of +society, decried by the puritans of art, insulted by all the timorous +and jealous mediocrities who cannot find enough of outcries, lies, and +calumnies to drown the voices and the names of those who arrive through +the vestibule to renown by harnessing audacity to their talent. + +A life of patience, of courage, in which one cannot fight unless clad in +a strong armour of indifference impervious to the attacks of fools and +the envious, in which one must not, if one would not stumble on the +road, quit for a single moment that pride in oneself which serves as a +leaning staff; a charming and a terrible life, which has conquerors and +its martyrs, and on which one should not enter save in resigning oneself +in advance to submit to the pitiless law _vae victis_. + +H. M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW THE BOHEMIAN CLUB WAS FORMED + + +One morning--it was the eighth of April--Alexander Schaunard, who +cultivated the two liberal arts of painting and music, was rudely +awakened by the peal of a neighbouring cock, which served him for an +alarm. + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Schaunard, "my feathered clock goes too fast: it +cannot possibly be today yet!" So saying, he leaped precipitately out of +a piece of furniture of his own ingenious contrivance, which, sustaining +the part of bed by night, (sustaining it badly enough too,) did duty by +day for all the rest of the furniture which was absent by reason of the +severe cold for which the past winter had been noted. + +To protect himself against the biting north-wind, Schaunard slipped on +in haste a pink satin petticoat with spangled stars, which served him +for dressing-gown. This gay garment had been left at the artist's +lodging, one masked-ball night, by a _folie_, who was fool enough to let +herself be entrapped by the deceitful promises of Schaunard when, +disguised as a marquis, he rattled in his pocket a seducingly sonorous +dozen of crowns--theatrical money punched out of a lead plate and +borrowed of a property-man. Having thus made his home toilette, the +artist proceeded to open his blind and window. A solar ray, like an +arrow of light, flashed suddenly into the room, and compelled him to +open his eyes that were still veiled by the mists of sleep. At the same +moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck five. + +"It is the Morn herself!" muttered Schaunard; "astonishing, but"--and he +consulted an almanac nailed to the wall--"not the less a mistake. The +results of science affirm that at this season of the year the sun ought +not to rise till half-past five: it is only five o'clock, and there he +is! A culpable excess of zeal! The luminary is wrong; I shall have to +make a complaint to the longitude-office. However, I must begin to be a +little anxious. Today is the day after yesterday, certainly; and since +yesterday was the seventh, unless old Saturn goes backward, it must be +the eighth of April today. And if I may believe this paper," continued +Schaunard, going to read an official notice-to-quit posted on the wall, +"today, therefore, at twelve precisely, I ought to have evacuated the +premises, and paid into the hands of my landlord, Monsieur Bernard, the +sum of seventy-five francs for three quarters' rent due, which he +demands of me in very bad handwriting. I had hoped--as I always do--that +Providence would take the responsibility of discharging this debt, but +it seems it hasn't had time. Well, I have six hours before me yet. By +making good use of them, perhaps--to work! to work!" + +He was preparing to put on an overcoat, originally of a long-haired, +woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if +bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of +his own composition, which at the public balls had often caused him to +be honoured with the particular attention of the police. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is surprising how the morning air gives one +ideas! It strikes me that I am on the scent of my air; Let's see." And, +half-dressed as he was, Schaunard seated himself at his piano. After +having waked the sleeping instrument by a terrific hurly-burly of notes, +he began, talking to himself all the while, to hunt over the keys for +the tune he had long been seeking. + +"Do, sol, mi, do la, si, do re. Bah! it's as false as Judas, that re!" +and he struck violently on the doubtful note. "We must represent +adroitly the grief of a young person picking to pieces a white daisy +over a blue lake. There's an idea that's not in its infancy! However, +since it is fashion, and you couldn't find a music publisher who would +dare to publish a ballad without a blue lake in it, we must go with the +fashion. Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, re! That's not so bad; it gives a +fair idea of a daisy, especially to people well up in botany. La, si, +do, re. Confound that re! Now to make the blue lake intelligible. We +should have something moist, azure, moonlight--for the moon comes in too; +here it is; don't let's forget the swan. Fa, mi, la, sol," continued +Schaunard, rattling over the keys. "Lastly, an adieu of the young girl, +who determines to throw herself into the blue lake, to rejoin her +beloved who is buried under the snow. The catastrophe is not very +perspicuous, but decidedly interesting. We must have something tender, +melancholy. It's coming, it's coming! Here are a dozen bars crying like +Magdalens, enough to split one's heart--Brr, brr!" and Schaunard shivered +in his spangled petticoat, "if it could only split one's wood! There's a +beam in my alcove which bothers me a good deal when I have company at +dinner. I should like to make a fire with it--la, la, re, mi--for I feel +my inspiration coming to me through the medium of a cold in the head. So +much the worse, but it can't be helped. Let us continue to drown our +young girl;" and while his fingers assailed the trembling keys, +Schaunard, with sparkling eyes and straining ears, gave chase to the +melody which, like an impalpable sylph, hovered amid the sonorous mist +which the vibrations of the instrument seemed to let loose in the room. + +"Now let us see," he continued, "how my music will fit into my poet's +words;" and he hummed, in voice the reverse of agreeable, this fragment +of verse of the patent comic-opera sort: + + "The fair and youthful maiden, + As she flung her mantle by, + Threw a glance with sorrow laden + Up to the starry sky + And in the azure waters + Of the silver-waved lake." + +"How is that?" he exclaimed, in transports of just indignation; "the +azure waters of a silver lake! I didn't see that. This poet is an idiot. +I'll bet he never saw a lake, or silver either. A stupid ballad too, in +every way; the length of the lines cramps the music. For the future I +shall compose my verses myself; and without waiting, since I feel in the +humour, I shall manufacture some couplets to adapt my melody to." + +So saying, and taking his head between his hands, he assumed the grave +attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few +minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings +of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, +monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the +composer's inspiration. Only Schaunard's were no nonsense-verses, but +very good sense, expressing with sufficient clearness the inquietude +awakened in his mind by the rude arrival of that date, the eighth of +April. + +Thus they ran: + + "Eight and eight make sixteen just, + Put down six and carry one: + My poor soul would be at rest + Could I only find some one, + Some honest poor relation, + Who'd eight hundred francs advance, + To pay each obligation, + Whenever I've a chance." + + Chorus + + "And ere the clock on the last and fatal morning + Should sound mid-day, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + To old Bernard, like a man who needs no warning, + My rent I'd pay!" + +"The duece!" exclaimed Schaunard, reading over his composition, "one and +some one--those rhymes are poor enough, but I have no time to make them +richer. Now let us try how the notes will unite with the syllables." And +in his peculiarly frightful nasal tone he recommenced the execution of +his ballad. Satisfied with the result he had just obtained, Schaunard +congratulated himself with an exultant grimace, which mounted over his +nose like a circumflex accent whenever he had occasion to be pleased +with himself. But this triumphant happiness was destined to have no long +duration. Eleven o'clock resounded from the neighbouring steeple. Every +stroke diffused itself through the room in mocking sounds which seemed +to say to the unlucky Schaunard, "Are you ready?" + +The artist bounded on his chair. "The time flies like a bird!" he +exclaimed. "I have but three-quarters of an hour left to find my +seventy-five francs and my new lodging. I shall never get them; that +would be too much like magic. Let me see: I give myself five minutes to +find out how to obtain them;" and burying his head between his knees, he +descended into the depths of reflection. + +The five minutes elapsed, and Schaunard raised his head without having +found anything which resembled seventy-five francs. + +"Decidedly, I have but one way of getting out of this, which is simply +to go away. It is fine weather and my friend Monsieur Chance may be +walking in the sun. He must give me hospitality till I have found the +means of squaring off with Monsieur Bernard." + +Having stuffed into the cellar-like pockets of his overcoat all the +articles they would hold, Schaunard tied up some linen in a +handkerchief, and took an affectionate farewell of his home. While +crossing the court, he was suddenly stopped by the porter, who seemed to +be on the watch for him. + +"Hallo! Monsieur Schaunard," cried he, blocking up the artist's way, +"don't you remember that this is the eighth of April?" + + "Eight and eight make sixteen just, + Put down six and carry one," + +hummed Schaunard. "I don't remember anything else." + +"You are a little behindhand then with your moving," said the porter; +"it is half-past eleven, and the new tenant to whom your room has been +let may come any minute. You must make haste." + +"Let me pass, then," replied Schaunard; "I am going after a cart." + +"No doubt, but before moving there is a little formality to be gone +through. I have orders not to let you take away a hair unless you pay +the three quarters due. Are you ready?" + +"Why, of course," said Schaunard, making a step forward. + +"Well come into my lodge then, and I will give you your receipt." + +"I shall take it when I come back." + +"But why not at once?" persisted the porter. + +"I am going to a money changer's. I have no change." + +"Ah, you are going to get change!" replied the other, not at all at his +ease. "Then I will take care of that little parcel under your arm, which +might be in your way." + +"Monsieur Porter," exclaimed the artist, with a dignified air, "you +mistrust me, perhaps! Do you think I am carrying away my furniture in a +handkerchief?" + +"Excuse me," answered the porter, dropping his tone a little, "but such +are my orders. Monsieur Bernard has expressly charged me not to let you +take away a hair before you have paid." + +"But look, will you?" said Schaunard, opening his bundle, "these are not +hairs, they are shirts, and I am taking them to my washerwoman, who +lives next door to the money changer's twenty steps off." + +"That alters the case," said the porter, after he had examined the +contents of the bundle. "Would it be impolite, Monsieur Schaunard, to +inquire your new address?" + +"Rue de Rivoli!" replied the artist, and having once got outside the +gate, he made off as fast as possible. + +"Rue de Rivoli!" muttered the porter, scratching his nose, "it's very +odd they should have let him lodgings in the Rue de Rivoli, and never +come here to ask about him. Very odd, that. At any rate, he can't carry +off his furniture without paying. If only the new tenant don't come +moving in just as Monsieur Schaunard is moving out! That would make a +nice mess! Well, sure enough," he exclaimed, suddenly putting his head +out of his little window, "here he comes, the new tenant!" + +In fact, a young man in a white hat, followed by a porter who did not +seem over-burdened by the weight of his load, had just entered the +court. "Is my room ready?" he demanded of the house-porter, who had +stepped out to meet him. + +"Not yet, sir, but it will be in a moment. The person who occupies it +has gone after a cart for his things. Meanwhile, sir, you may put your +furniture in the court." + +"I am afraid it's going to rain," replied the young man, chewing a +bouquet of violets which he held in his mouth, "My furniture might be +spoiled. My friend," continued he, turning to the man who was behind +him, with something on a trunk which the porter could not exactly make +out, "put that down and go back to my old lodging to fetch the remaining +valuables." + +The man ranged along the wall several frames six or seven feet high, +folded together, and apparently being capable of being extended. + +"Look here," said the new-comer to his follower, half opening one of the +screens and showing him a rent in the canvas, "what an accident! You +have cracked my grand Venetian glass. Take more care on your second +trip, especially with my library." + +"What does he mean by his Venetian glass?" muttered the porter, walking +up and down with an uneasy air before the frames ranged against the +wall. "I don't see any glass. Some joke, no doubt. I only see a screen. +We shall see, at any rate, what he will bring next trip." + +"Is your tenant not going to make room for me soon?" inquired the young +man, "it is half-past twelve, and I want to move in." + +"He won't be much longer," answered the porter, "but there is no harm +done yet, since your furniture has not come," added he, with a stress on +the concluding words. + +As the young man was about to reply, a dragoon entered the court. + +"Is this Monsieur Bernard's?" he asked, drawing a letter from a huge +leather portfolio which swung at his side. + +"He lives here," replied the porter. + +"Here is a letter for him," said the dragoon; "give me a receipt," and +he handed to the porter a bulletin of despatches which the latter +entered his lodge to sign. + +"Excuse me for leaving you alone," said he to the young man who was +stalking impatiently about the court, "but this is a letter from the +Minister to my landlord, and I am going to take it up to him." + +Monsieur Bernard was just beginning to shave when the porter knocked at +his door. + +"What do you want, Durand?" + +"Sir," replied the other, lifting his cap, "a soldier has just brought +this for you. It comes from the Ministry." And he handed to Monsieur +Bernard the letter, the envelope of which bore the stamp of the War +Department. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Monsieur Bernard, in such agitation that he all but +cut himself. "From the Minister of War! I am sure it is my nomination as +Knight of the Legion of Honour, which I have long solicited. At last +they have done justice to my good conduct. Here, Durand," said he, +fumbling in his waistcoat-pocket, "here are five francs to drink to my +health. Stay! I haven't my purse about me. Wait, and I will give you the +money in a moment." + +The porter was so overcome by this stunning fit of generosity, which was +not at all in accordance with his landlord's ordinary habits, that he +absolutely put on his cap again. + +But Monsieur Bernard, who at any other time would have severely +reprimanded this infraction of the laws of social hierarchy, appeared +not to notice it. He put on his spectacles, broke the seal of the +envelope with the respectful anxiety of a vizier receiving a sultan's +firman, and began to read the dispatch. At the first line a frightful +grimace ploughed his fat, monk-like cheeks with crimson furrows, and his +little eyes flashed sparks that seemed ready to set fire to his bushy +wig. In fact, all his features were so turned upside-down that you would +have said his countenance had just suffered a shock of face-quake. + +For these were the contents of the letter bearing the ministerial stamp, +brought by a dragoon--orderly, and for which Durand had given the +government a receipt: + + "Friend landlord: Politeness-who, according to ancient mythology, + is the grandmother of good manners--compels me to inform you that I + am under the cruel necessity of not conforming to the prevalent + custom of paying rent--prevalent especially when the rent is due. Up + to this morning I had cherished the hope of being able to celebrate + this fair day by the payments of my three quarters. Vain chimera, + bitter illusion! While I was slumbering on the pillow of + confidence, ill-luck--what the Greeks call _ananke_--was scattering + my hopes. The returns on which I counted--times are so bad!-have + failed, and of the considerable sums which I was to receive I have + only realised three francs, which were lent me, and I will not + insult you by the offer of them. Better days will come for our dear + country and for me. Doubt it not, sir! When they come, I shall fly + to inform you of their arrival, and to withdraw from your lodgings + the precious objects which I leave there, putting them under your + protection and that of the law, which hinders you from selling them + before the expiration of a year, in case you should be disposed to + try to do so with the object of obtaining the sum for which you + stand credited in the ledger of my honesty. I commend to your + special care my piano, and also the large frame containing sixty + locks of hair whose different colours run through the whole gamut + of capillary shades; the scissors of love have stolen them from the + forehead of the Graces." + + "Therefore, dear sir, and landlord, you may dispose of the roof + under which I have dwelt. I grant you full authority, and have + hereto set my hand and seal." + + "ALEXANDER SCHAUNARD" + +On finishing this letter, (which the artist had written at the desk of a +friend who was a clerk in the War Office,) Monsieur Bernard indignantly +crushed it in his hand, and as his glance fell on old Durand, who was +waiting for the promised gratification, he roughly demanded what he was +doing. + +"Waiting, sir." + +"For what?" + +"For the present, on account of the good news," stammered the porter. + +"Get out, you scoundrel! Do you presume to speak to me with your cap +on?" + +"But, sir--" + +"Don't you answer me! Get out! No, stay there! We shall go up to the +room of that scamp of an artist who has run off without paying." + +"What! Monsieur Schaunard?" ejaculated the porter. + +"Yes," cried the landlord with increasing fury, "and if he has carried +away the smallest article, I send you off, straight off!" + +"But it can't be," murmured the poor porter, "Monsieur Schaunard has not +run away. He has gone to get change to pay you, and order a cart for his +furniture." + +"A cart for his furniture!" exclaimed the other, "run! I'm sure he has +it here. He laid a trap to get you away from your lodge, fool that you +are!" + +"Fool that I am! Heaven help me!" cried the porter, all in a tremble +before the thundering wrath of his superior, who hurried him down the +stairs. When they arrived in the court the porter was hailed by the +young man in the white hat. + +"Come now! Am I not soon going to be in possession of my lodging? Is +this the eighth of April? Did I hire a room here and pay you a deposit +to bind the bargain? Yes or no?" + +"Excuse me, sir," interposed the landlord, "I am at your service. +Durand, I will talk to the gentleman myself. Run up there, that scamp +Schaunard has come back to pack up. If you find him, shut him in, and +then come down again and run for the police." + +Old Durand vanished up the staircase. + +"Excuse me, sir," continued the landlord, with a bow to the young man +now left alone with him, "to whom have I the honour of speaking?" + +"Your new tenant. I have hired a room in the sixth story of this house, +and am beginning to be tired of waiting for my lodging to become +vacant." + +"I am very sorry indeed," replied Monsieur Bernard, "there has been a +little difficulty with one of my tenants, the one whom you are to +replace." + +"Sir," cried old Durand from a window at the very top of the house, +"Monsieur Schaunard is not here, but his room--stupid!--I mean he has +carried nothing away, not a hair, sir!" + +"Very well, come down," replied the landlord. "Have a little patience, I +beg of you," he continued to the young man. "My porter will bring down +to the cellar the furniture in the room of my defaulting tenant, and you +may take possession in half an hour. Beside, your furniture has not come +yet." + +"But it has," answered the young man quietly. + +Monsieur Bernard looked around, and saw only the large screens which had +already mystified his porter. + +"How is this?" he muttered. "I don't see anything." + +"Behold!" replied the youth, unfolding the leaves of the frame, and +displaying to the view of the astonished landlord a magnificent interior +of a palace, with jasper columns, bas-reliefs, and paintings of old +masters. + +"But your furniture?" demanded Monsieur Bernard. + +"Here it is," replied the young man, pointing to the splendid furniture +_painted_ in the palace, which he had bought at a sale of second-hand +theatrical decorations. + +"I hope you have some more serious furniture than this," said the +landlord. "You know I must have security for my rent." + +"The deuce! Is a palace not sufficient security for the rent of a +garret?" + +"No sir, I want real chairs and tables in solid mahogany." + +"Alas! Neither gold nor mahogany makes us happy, as for the ancient poet +well says. And I can't bear mahogany; it's too common a wood. Everybody +has it." + +"But surely sir, you must have some sort of furniture." + +"No, it takes up too much room. You are stuck full of chairs, and have +no place to sit down." + +"But at any rate, you have a bed. What do you sleep on?" + +"On a good conscience, sir." + +"Excuse me, one more question," said the landlord, "What is your +profession?" + +At this very moment the young man's porter, returning on his second +trip, entered the court. Among the articles with which his truck was +loaded, an easel occupied a conspicuous position. + +"Sir! Sir!!" shrieked old Durance, pointing out the easel to his +landlord, "it's a painter!" + +"I was sure he was an artist!" exclaimed the landlord in his turn, the +hair of his wig standing up in affright, "a painter!! And you never +inquired after this person," he continued to his porter, "you didn't +know what he did!" + +"He gave me five francs _arrest_," answered the poor fellow, "how could +I suspect--" + +"When you have finished," put in the stranger-- + +"Sir," replied Monsieur Bernard, mounting his spectacles with great +decision, "since you have no furniture, you can't come in. The law +authorizes me to refuse a tenant who brings no security." + +"And my word, then?" + +"Your word is not furniture, you must go somewhere else. Durance will +give you back your earnest money." + +"Oh dear!" exclaimed the porter, in consternation, "I've put it in the +Savings' Bank." + +"But consider sir," objected the young man. "I can't find another +lodging in a moment! At least grant me hospitality for a day." + +"Go to a hotel!" replied Monsieur Bernard. "By the way," added he, +struck with a sudden idea, "if you like, I can let you a furnished room, +the one you were to occupy, which has the furniture of my defaulting +tenant in it. Only you know that when rooms are let this way, you pay in +advance." + +"Well," said the artist, finding he could do no better, "I should like +to know what you are going to ask me for your hole." + +"It is a very comfortable lodging, and the rent will be twenty-five +francs a month, considering the circumstances, paid in advance." + +"You have said that already, the expression does not deserve being +repeated," said the young man, feeling in his pocket. "Have you change +for five hundred francs?" + +"I beg your pardon," quoth the astonished landlord. + +"Five hundred, half a thousand; did you never see one before?" +continued the artist, shaking the bank-note in the faces of the landlord +and porter, who fairly lost their balance at the sight. + +"You shall have it in a moment, sir," said the now respectful owner of +the house, "there will only be twenty francs to take out, for Durand +will return your deposit." + +"He may keep it," replied the artist, "on condition of coming every +morning to tell me the day of the week and month, the quarter of the +moon, the weather it is going to be, and the form of government we are +under." + +Old Durand described an angle of ninety degrees forward. + +"Yes, my good fellow, you shall serve me for almanac. Meanwhile, help my +porter to bring the things in." + +"I shall send you your receipt immediately," said the landlord, and that +very night the painter Marcel was installed in the lodging of the +fugitive Schaunard. During this time the aforesaid Schaunard was beating +his roll-call, as he styled it, through the city. + +Schaunard had carried the art of borrowing to the perfection of a +science. Foreseeing the possible necessity of having to _spoil the +foreigners_, he had learned how to ask for five francs in every language +of the world. He had thoroughly studied all the stratagems which specie +employs to escape those who are hunting for it, and knew, better than a +pilot knows the hours of the tide, at what periods it was high or low +water; that is to say, on what days his friends and acquaintances were +accustomed to be in funds. Accordingly, there were houses where his +appearance of a morning made people say, not "Here is Monsieur +Schaunard," but "This is the first or the fifteenth." To facilitate, and +at the same time equalize this species of tax which he was going to +levy, when compelled by necessity, from those who were able to pay it to +him, Schaunard had drawn up by districts and streets an alphabetical +table containing the names of all his acquaintances. Opposite each name +was inscribed the maximum of the sum which the party's finances +authorized the artist to borrow of him, the time when he was flush, and +his dinner hour, as well as his usual bill of fare. Beside this table, +he kept a book, in perfect order, on which he entered the sums lent him, +down to the smallest fraction; for he would never burden himself beyond +a certain amount which was within the fortune of a country relative, +whose heir-apparent he was. As soon as he owed one person twenty francs, +he closed the account and paid him off, even if obliged to borrow for +the purpose of those to whom he owed less. In this way he always kept up +a certain credit which he called his floating debt, and as people knew +that he was accustomed to repay as soon as his means permitted him, +those who could accommodate him were very ready to do so. + +But on the present occasion, from eleven in the morning, when he had +started to try and collect the seventy-five francs requisite, up to six +in the afternoon, he had only raised three francs, contributed by three +letters (M., V., and R.) of his famous list. All the rest of the +alphabet, having, like himself, their quarter to pay, had adjourned his +claim indefinitely. + +The clock of his stomach sounded the dinner-hour. He was then at the +Maine barrier, where letter U lived. Schaunard mounted to letter U's +room, where he had a knife and fork, when there were such articles on +the premises. + +"Where are you going, sir?" asked the porter, stopping him before he had +completed his ascent. + +"To Monsieur U," replied the artist. + +"He's out." + +"And madame?" + +"Out too. They told me to say to a friend who was coming to see them +this evening, that they were gone out to dine. In fact, if you are the +gentleman they expected, this is the address they left." It was a scrap +of paper on which his friend U. had written. "We are gone to dine with +Schaunard, No.__, Rue de__. Come for us there." + +"Well," said he, going away, "accident does make queer farces +sometimes." Then remembering that there was a little tavern near by, +where he had more than once procured a meal at a not unreasonable rate, +he directed his steps to this establishment, situated in the adjoining +road, and known among the lowest class of artistdom as "Mother Cadet's." +It is a drinking-house which is also an eating-house, and its ordinary +customers are carters of the Orleans railway, singing-ladies of Mont +Parnasse, and juvenile "leads" from the Bobino theatre. During the warm +season the students of the numerous painters' studios which border on +the Luxembourg, the unappreciated and unedited men of the letters, the +writers of leaders in mysterious newspapers, throng to dine at "Mother +Cadet's," which is famous for its rabbit stew, its veritable sour-crout, +and a miled white wine which smacks of flint. + +Schaunard sat down in the grove; for so at "Mother Cadet's" they called +the scattered foliage of two or three rickety trees whose sickly boughs +had been trained into a sort of arbor. + +"Hang the expense!" said Schaunard to himself, "I have to have a good +blow-out, a regular Belthazzar's feast in private life," and without +more ado, he ordered a bowl of soup, half a plate of sour-crout, and two +half stews, having observed that you get more for two halves than one +whole one. + +This extensive order attracted the attention of a young person in white +with a head-dress of orange flowers and ballshoes; a veil of _sham +imitation_ lace streamed down her shoulders, which she had no special +reason to be proud of. She was a _prima donna_ of the Mont Parnasse +theatre, the greenroom of which opens into Mother Cadet's kitchen; she +had come to take a meal between two acts of _Lucia_, and was at that +moment finishing with a small cup of coffee her dinner, composed +exclusively of an artichoke seasoned with oil and vinegar. + +"Two stews! Duece take it!" said she, in an aside to the girl who acted +as waiter at the establishment. "That young man feeds himself well. How +much do I owe, Adele?" + +"Artichoke four, coffee four, bread one, that makes nine sous." + +"There they are," said the singer and off she went humming: + + "This affection Heaven has given." + +"Why she is giving us the la!" exclaimed a mysterious personage half +hidden behind a rampart of old books, who was seated at the same table +with Schaunard. + +"Giving it!" replied the other, "keeping it, I should say. Just +imagine!" he added, pointing to the vinegar on the plate from which +Lucia had been eating her artichoke, "pickling that falsetto of hers!" + +"It is a strong acid, to be sure," added the personage who had first +spoken. "They make some at Orleans which has deservedly a great +reputation." + +Schaunard carefully examined this individual, who was thus fishing for a +conversation with him. The fixed stare of his large blue eyes, which +always seemed looking for something, gave his features the character of +happy tranquility which is common among theological students. His face +had a uniform tint of old ivory, except his cheeks, which had a coat, as +it were of brickdust. His mouth seemed to have been sketched by a +student in the rudiments of drawing, whose elbow had been jogged while +he was tracing it. His lips, which pouted almost like a negro's, +disclosed teeth not unlike a stag-hound's and his double-chin reposed +itself upon a white cravat, one of whose points threatened the stars, +while the other was ready to pierce the ground. A torrent of light hair +escaped from under the enormous brim of his well-worn felt-hat. He wore +a hazel-coloured overcoat with a large cape, worn thread-bare and rough +as a grater; from its yawning pockets peeped bundles of manuscripts and +pamphlets. The enjoyment of his sour-crout, which he devoured with +numerous and audible marks of approbation, rendered him heedless of the +scrutiny to which he was subjected, but did not prevent him from +continuing to read an old book open before him, in which he made +marginal notes from time to time with a pencil that he carried behind +his ear. + +"Hullo!" cried Schaunard suddenly, making his glass ring with his knife, +"my stew!" + +"Sir," said the girl, running up plate in hand, "there is none left, +here is the last, and this gentleman has ordered it." Therewith she +deposited the dish before the man with the books. + +"The deuce!" cried Schaunard. There was such an air of melancholy +disappointment in his ejaculation, that the possessor of the books was +moved to the soul by it. He broke down the pile of old works which +formed a barrier between him and Schaunard, and putting the dish in the +centre of the table, said, in his sweetest tones: + +"Might I be so bold as to beg you, sir, to share this with me?" + +"Sir," replied the artist, "I could not think of depriving you of it." + +"Then will you deprive me of the pleasure of being agreeable to you?" + +"If you insist, sir," and Schaunard held out his plate. + +"Permit me not to give you the head," said the stranger. + +"Really sir, I cannot allow you," Schaunard began, but on taking back +his plate he perceived that the other had given him the very piece which +he implied he would keep for himself. + +"What is he playing off his politeness on me for?" he muttered to +himself. + +"If the head is the most noble part of man," said the stranger, "it is +the least agreeable part of the rabbit. There are many persons who +cannot bear it. I happen to like it very much, however." + +"If so," said Schaunard, "I regret exceedingly that you robbed yourself +for me." + +"How? Excuse me," quoth he of the books, "I kept the head, as I had the +honor of observing to you." + +"Allow me," rejoined Schaunard, thrusting his plate under his nose, +"what part do you call that?" + +"Good heavens!" cried the stranger, "what do I see? Another head? It is +a bicephalous rabbit!" + +"Buy what?" said Schaunard. + +"Cephalous--comes from the Greek. In fact, Baffon (who used to wear +ruffles) cites some cases of this monstrosity. On the whole, I am not +sorry to have eaten a phenomenon." + +Thanks to this incident, the conversation was definitely established. +Schaunard, not willing to be behindhand in courtesy, called for an extra +quart of wine. The hero of the books called for a third. Schaunard +treated to salad, the other to dessert. At eight o'clock there were six +empty bottles on the table. As they talked, their natural frankness, +assisted by their libations, had urged them to interchange biographies, +and they knew each other as well as if they had always lived together. +He of the books, after hearing the confidential disclosures of +Schaunard, had informed him that his name was Gustave Colline; he was a +philosopher by profession, and got his living by giving lessons in +rhetoric, mathematics and several other _ics_. + +What little money he picked up by his profession was spent in buying +books. His hazel-coloured coat was known to all the stall keepers on the +quay from the Pont de la Concorde to the Pont Saint Michel. What he did +with these books, so numerous that no man's lifetime would have been +long enough to read them, nobody knew, least of all, himself. But this +hobby of his amounted to monomania: when he came home at night without +bringing a musty quarto with him, he would repeat the saying of Titus, +"I have lost a day." His enticing manners, his language, which was a +mosaic of every possible style, and the fearful puns which embellished +his conversation, completely won Schaunard, who demanded on the spot +permission of Colline to add his name to those on the famous list +already mentioned. + +They left Mother Cadet's at nine o'clock at night, both fairly primed, +and with the gait of men who have been engaged in close conversation +with sundry bottles. + +Colline offered to stand coffee, and Schaunard accepted on condition +that he should be allowed to pay for the accompanying nips of liquor. +They turned into a cafe in the Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, and +bearing on its sign the name of Momus, god of play and pleasure. + +At the moment they entered a lively argument broke out between two of +the frequenters of the place. One of them was a young fellow whose face +was hidden by a dense thicket of beard of several distinct shades. By +way of a balance to this wealth of hair on his chin, a precocious +baldness had despoiled his forehead, which was as bare as a billiard +ball. He vainly strove to conceal the nakedness of the land by brushing +forward a tuft of hairs so scanty that they could almost be counted. He +wore a black coat worn at the elbows, and revealing whenever he raised +his arms too high a ventilator under the armpits. His trousers might +have once been black, but his boots, which had never been new, seemed to +have already gone round the world two or three times on the feet of the +Wandering Jew. + +Schaunard noticed that his new friend Colline and the young fellow with +the big beard nodded to one another. + +"You know the gentleman?" said he to the philosopher. + +"Not exactly," replied the latter, "but I meet him sometimes at the +National Library. I believe that he is a literary man." + +"He wears the garb of one, at any rate," said Schaunard. + +The individual with whom this young fellow was arguing was a man of +forty, foredoomed, by a big head wedged between his shoulders without +any break in the shape of a neck, to the thunderstroke of apoplexy. +Idiocy was written in capital letters on his low forehead, surmounted by +a little black skull-cap. His name was Monsieur Mouton, and he was a +clerk at the town hall of the 4th Arrondissement, where he acted as +registrar of deaths. + +"Monsieur Rodolphe," exclaimed he, in the squeaky tones of a eunuch, +shaking the young fellow by a button of his coat which he had laid hold +of. "Do you want to know my opinion? Well, all your newspapers are of no +use whatsoever. Come now, let us put a supposititious case. I am the +father of a family, am I not? Good. I go to the cafe for a game at +dominoes? Follow my argument now." + +"Go on," said Rodolphe. + +"Well," continued Daddy Mouton, punctuating each of his sentences by a +blow with his fist which made the jugs and glasses on the table rattle +again. "Well, I come across the papers. What do I see? One which says +black when the other says white, and so on and so on. What is all that +to me? I am the father of a family who goes to the cafe--" + +"For a game at dominoes," said Rodolphe. + +"Every evening," continued Monsieur Mouton. "Well, to put a case--you +understand?" + +"Exactly," observed Rodolphe. + +"I read an article which is not according to my views. That puts me in a +rage, and I fret my heart out, because you see, Monsieur Rodolphe, +newspapers are all lies. Yes, lies," he screeched in his shrillest +falsetto, "and the journalists are robbers." + +"But, Monsieur Mouton--" + +"Yes, brigands," continued the clerk. "They are the cause of all our +misfortunes; they brought about the Revolution and its paper money, +witness Murat." + +"Excuse me," said Rodolphe, "you mean Marat." + +"No, no," resumed Monsieur Mouton, "Murat, for I saw his funeral when I +was quite a child--" + +"But I assure you--" + +"They even brought you a piece at the Circus about him, so there." + +"Exactly," said Rodolphe, "that was Murat." + +"Well what else have I been saying for an hour past?" exclaimed the +obstinate Mouton. "Murat, who used to work in a cellar, eh? Well, to put +a case. Were not the Bourbons right to guillotine him, since he had +played the traitor?" + +"Guillotine who? Play the traitor to whom?" cried Rodolphe, +button-holing Monsieur Mouton in turn. + +"Why Marat." + +"No, no, Monsieur Mouton. Murat, let us understand one another, hang it +all!" + +"Precisely, Marat, a scoundrel. He betrayed the Emperor in 1815. That is +why I say all the papers are alike," continued Monsieur Mouton, +returning to the original theme of what he called an explanation. "Do +you know what I should like, Monsieur Rodolphe? Well, to put a case. I +should like a good paper. Ah! not too large and not stuffed with +phrases." + +"You are exacting," interrupted Rodolphe, "a newspaper without phrases." + +"Yes, certainly. Follow my idea?" + +"I am trying to." + +"A paper which should simply give the state of the King's health and of +the crops. For after all, what is the use of all your papers that no one +can understand? To put a case. I am at the town hall, am I not? I keep +my books; very good. Well, it is just as if someone came to me and said, +'Monsieur Mouton, you enter the deaths--well, do this, do that.' What do +you mean by this and that? Well, it is the same thing with newspapers," +he wound up with. + +"Evidently," said a neighbor who had understood. + +And Monsieur Mouton having received the congratulations of some of the +other frequenters of the cafe who shared his opinion, resumed his game +at dominoes. + +"I have taught him his place," said he, indicating Rodolphe, who had +returned to the same table at which Schaunard and Colline were seated. + +"What a blockhead!" said Rodolphe to the two young fellows. + +"He has a fine head, with his eyelids like the hood of a cabriolet, and +his eyes like glass marbles," said Schaunard, pulling out a wonderfully +coloured pipe. + +"By Jupiter, sir," said Rodolphe, "that is a very pretty pipe of yours." + +"Oh! I have a much finer one I wear in society," replied Schaunard, +carelessly, "pass me some tobacco, Colline." + +"Hullo!" said the philosopher, "I have none left." + +"Allow me to offer you some," observed Rodolphe, pulling a packet of +tobacco out of his pocket and placing it on the table. + +To this civility Colline thought it his duty to respond by an offer of +glasses round. + +Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned on literature. Rodolphe, +questioned as to the profession already revealed by his garb, confessed +his relation with the Muses, and stood a second round of drinks. As the +waiter was going off with the bottle Schaunard requested him to be good +enough to forget it. He had heard the silvery tinkle of a couple of +five-franc pieces in one of Colline's pockets. Rodolphe had soon reached +the same level of expansiveness as the two friends, and poured out his +confidences in turn. + +They would no doubt have passed the night at the cafe if they had not +been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken +them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a +violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, +one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the other at Montmartre. + +Schaunard, who had wholly forgotten that he was without a residence, +offered them hospitality. + +"Come to my place," said he, "I live close by, we will pass the night in +discussing literature and art." + +"You shall play and Rodolphe will recite some of his verses to us," said +Colline. + +"Right you are," said Schaunard, "life is short, and we must enjoy +ourselves whilst we can." + +Arriving at the house, which Schaunard had some difficulty in +recognizing, he sat down for a moment on a corner-post waiting for +Rodolphe and Colline, who had gone into a wine-shop that was still open +to obtain the primary element of a supper. When they came back, +Schaunard rapped several times at the door, for he vaguely recollected +that the porter had a habit of keeping him waiting. The door at length +opened, and old Durand, half aroused from his first sleep, and no longer +recalling that Schaunard had ceased to be his tenant, did not disturb +himself when the latter called out his name to him. + +When they had all three gained the top of the stairs, the ascent of +which had been as lengthy as it was difficult, Schaunard, who was the +foremost, uttered a cry of astonishment at finding the key in the +keyhole of his door. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe. + +"I cannot make it out," muttered the other. "I find the key in the door, +though I took it away with me this morning. Ah! we shall see. I put it +in my pocket. Why, confound it, here it is still!" he exclaimed, +displaying a key. "This is witchcraft." + +"Phantasmagoria," said Colline. + +"Fancy," added Rodolphe. + +"But," resumed Schaunard, whose voice betrayed a commencement of alarm, +"do you hear that?" + +"What?" + +"What?" + +"My piano, which is playing of its own accord _do la mi re do, la si sol +re._ Scoundrel of a re, it is still false." + +"But it cannot be in your room," said Rodolphe, and he added in a +whisper to Colline, against whom he was leaning heavily, "he is tight." + +"So I think. In the first place, it is not a piano at all, it is a +flute." + +"But you are screwed too, my dear fellow," observed the poet to the +philosopher, who had sat down on the landing, "it is a violin." + +"A vio--, pooh! I say, Schaunard," hiccupped Colline, pulling his friend +by the legs, "here is a joke, this gentleman makes out that it is a +vio--" + +"Hang it all," exclaimed Schaunard in the height of terror, "it is +magic." + +"Phantasma-goria," howled Colline, letting fall one of the bottles he +held by his hand. + +"Fancy," yelled Rodolphe in turn. + +In the midst of this uproar the room door suddenly opened, and an +individual holding a triple-branched candlestick in which pink candles +were burning, appeared on the threshold. + +"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked he, bowing courteously to the three +friends. + +"Good heavens, what am I about? I have made a mistake, this is not my +room," said Schaunard. + +"Sir," added Colline and Rodolphe, simultaneously, addressing the person +who had opened the door, "be good enough to excuse our friend, he is as +drunk as three fiddlers." + +Suddenly a gleam of lucidity flashed through Schaunard's intoxication, +he read on his door these words written in chalk: + + "I have called three times for my New Year's gift--PHEMIE." + +"But it is all right, it is all right, I am indeed at home," he +exclaimed, "here is the visiting card Phemie left me on New Year's Day; +it is really my door." + +"Good heavens, sir," said Rodolphe, "I am truly bewildered." + +"Believe me, sir," added Colline, "that for my part, I am an active +partner in my friend's confusion." + +The young fellow who had opened the door could not help laughing. + +"If you come into my room for a moment," he replied, "no doubt your +friend, as soon as he has looked around, will see his mistake." + +"Willingly." + +And the poet and philosopher each taking Schaunard by an arm, led him +into the room, or rather the palace of Marcel, whom no doubt our readers +have recognized. + +Schaunard cast his eyes vaguely around him, murmuring, "It is +astonishing how my dwelling is embellished!" + +"Well, are you satisfied now?" asked Colline. + +But Schaunard having noticed the piano had gone to it, and was playing +scales. + +"Here, you fellows, listen to this," said he, striking the notes, "this +is something like, the animal has recognized his master,_ si la sol, fa +mi re._ Ah! wretched re, you are always the same. I told you it was my +instrument." + +"He insists on it," said Colline to Rodolphe. + +"He insists on it," repeated Rodolphe to Marcel. + +"And that," added Schaunard, pointing to the star-adorned petticoat that +was lying on a chair, "it is not an adornment of mine, perhaps? Ah!" + +And he looked Marcel straight in the face. + +"And this," continued he, unfastening from the wall the notice to quit +already spoken of. + +And he began to read, "Therefore Monsieur Schaunard is hereby required +to give up possession of the said premises, and to leave them in +tenantable repair, before noon on the eighth day of April. As witness +the present formal notice to quit, the cost of which is five francs." +"Ha! ha! so I am not the Monsieur Schaunard to whom formal notice to +quit is given at a cost of five francs? And these, again," he continued, +recognizing his slippers on Marcel's feet, "are not those my papouches, +the gift of a beloved hand? It is your turn, sir," said he to Marcel, +"to explain your presence amongst my household goods." + +"Gentlemen," replied Marcel, addressing himself more especially to +Colline and Rodolphe, "this gentleman," and he pointed to Schaunard, "is +at home, I admit." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Schaunard, "that's lucky." + +"But," continued Marcel, "I am at home too." + +"But, sir," broke in Rodolphe, "if our friend recognizes--" + +"Yes," said Colline, "if our friend--" + +"And if on your side you recall that--," added Rodolphe, "how is it +that--" + +"Yes," replied his echo Colline, "how is it that--" + +"Have the kindness to sit down, gentlemen," replied Marcel, "and I will +explain the mystery to you." + +"If we were to liquify the explanation?" risked Colline. + +"Over a mouthful of something," added Rodolphe. + +The four young fellows sat down to table and attacked a piece of cold +veal which the wine-shop keeper had let them have. + +Marcel then explained what had taken place in the morning between +himself and the landlord when he had come to move in. + +"Then," observed Rodolphe, "this gentleman is quite right, and we are in +his place?" + +"You are at home," said Marcel politely. + +But it was a tremendous task to make Schaunard understand what had taken +place. A comical incident served to further complicate the situation. +Schaunard, when looking for something in a sideboard, found the change +of the five hundred franc note that Marcel had handed to Monsieur +Bernard that morning. + +"Ah! I was quite sure," he exclaimed, "that Fortune would not desert me. +I remember now that I went out this morning to run after her. On account +of its being quarter-day she must have looked in during my absence. We +crossed one another on the way, that it is. How right I was to leave the +key in my drawer!" + +"Delightful madness!" murmured Rodolphe, looking at Schaunard, who was +building up the money in equal piles. + +"A dream, a falsehood, such is life," added the philosopher. + +Marcel laughed. + +An hour later they had all four fallen asleep. + +The next day they woke up at noon, and at first seemed very much +surprised to find themselves together. Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe +did not appear to recognize one another, and addressed one another as +"sir." Marcel had to remind them that they had come together the evening +before. + +At that moment old Durand entered the room. + +"Sir," said he to Marcel, "it is the month of April, eighteen hundred +and forty, there is mud in the streets, and His Majesty Louis-Philippe +is still King of France and Navarre. What!" exclaimed the porter on +seeing his former tenant, "Monsieur Schaunard, how did you come here?" + +"By the telegraph," replied Schaunard. + +"Ah!" replied the porter, "you are still a joker--" + +"Durand," said Marcel, "I do not like subordinates mingling in +conversation with me, go to the nearest restaurant and have a breakfast +for four sent up. Here is the bill of fare," he added, handing him a +slip of paper on which he had written it. "Go." + +"Gentlemen," continued Marcel, addressing the three young fellows, "you +invited me to supper last night, allow me to offer you a breakfast this +morning, not in my room, but in ours," he added, holding out his hand to +Schaunard. + +"Oh! no," said Schaunard sentimentally, "let us never leave one +another." + +"That's right, we are very comfortable here," added Colline. + +"To leave you for a moment," continued Rodolphe. "Tomorrow the 'Scarf of +Iris,' a fashion paper of which I am editor, appears, and I must go and +correct my proofs; I will be back in an hour." + +"The deuce!" said Colline, "that reminds me that I have a lesson to give +to an Indian prince who has come to Paris to learn Arabic." + +"Go tomorrow," said Marcel. + +"Oh, no!" said the philosopher, "the prince is to pay me today. And then +I must acknowledge to you that this auspicious day would be spoilt for +me if I did not take a stroll amongst the bookstalls." + +"But will you come back?" said Schaunard. + +"With the swiftness of an arrow launched by a steady hand," replied the +philosopher, who loved eccentric imagery. + +And he went out with Rodolphe. + +"In point of fact," said Schaunard when left alone with Marcel, "instead +of lolling on the sybarite's pillow, suppose I was to go out to seek +some gold to appease the cupidity of Monsieur Bernard?" + +"Then," said Marcel uneasily, "you still mean to move?" + +"Hang it," replied Schaunard, "I must, since I have received a formal +notice to quit, at a cost of five francs." + +"But," said Marcel, "if you move, shall you take your furniture with +you?" + +"I have that idea. I will not leave a hair, as Monsieur Bernard says." + +"The deuce! That will be very awkward for me," said Marcel, "since I +have hired your room furnished." + +"There now, that's so," replied Schaunard. "Ah! bah," he added in a +melancholy tone, "there is nothing to prove that I shall find my +thousand francs today, tomorrow, or even later on." + +"Stop a bit," exclaimed Marcel, "I have an idea." + +"Unfold it." + +"This is the state of things. Legally, this lodging is mine, since I +have paid a month in advance." + +"The lodging, yes, but as to the furniture, if I pay, I can legally take +it away, and if it were possible I would even take it away illegally." + +"So that," continued Marcel, "you have furniture and no lodging, and I +have lodging and no furniture." + +"That is the position," observed Schaunard. + +"This lodging suits me," said Marcel. + +"And for my part is has never suited me better," said Schaunard. + +"Well then, we can settle this business," resumed Marcel, "stay with me, +I will apply house-room, and you shall supply the furniture." + +"And the rent?" said Schaunard. + +"Since I have some money just now I will pay it, it will be your turn +next time. Think about it." + +"I never think about anything, above all accepting a suggestion which +suits me. Carried unanimously, in point of fact, Painting and Music are +sisters." + +"Sisters-in-law," observed Marcel. + +At that moment Colline and Rodolphe, who had met one another, came in. + +Marcel and Schaunard informed them of their partnership. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, tapping his waistcoat pocket, "I am ready to +stand dinner all round." + +"That is just what I was going to have the honour of proposing," said +Colline, taking out a gold coin which he stuck in his eye like a glass. +"My prince gave me this to buy an Arabic grammar, which I have just paid +six sous ready cash for." + +"I," said Rodolphe, "have got the cashier of the 'Scarf of Iris' to +advance me thirty francs under the pretext that I wanted it to get +vaccinated." + +"It is general pay-day then?" said Schaunard, "there is only myself +unable to stand anything. It is humiliating." + +"Meanwhile," said Rodolphe, "I maintain my offer of a dinner." + +"So do I," said Colline. + +"Very well," said Rodolphe, "we will toss up which shall settle the +bill." + +"No," said Schaunard, "I have something far better than that to offer +you as a way of getting over the difficulty." + +"Let us have it." + +"Rodolphe shall pay for dinner, and Colline shall stand supper." + +"That is what I call Solomonic jurisprudence," exclaimed the +philosopher. + +"It is worse than Camacho's wedding," added Marcel. + +The dinner took place at a Provencal restaurant in the Rue Dauphine, +celebrated for its literary waiters and its "Ayoli." As it was necessary +to leave room for the supper, they ate and drank in moderation. The +acquaintance, begun the evening before between Colline and Schaunard and +later on with Marcel, became more intimate; each of the young fellows +hoisted the flag of his artistic opinions, and all four recognized that +they had like courage and similar hopes. Talking and arguing they +perceived that their sympathies were akin, that they had all the same +knack in that chaff which amuses without hurting, and that the virtues +of youth had not left a vacant spot in their heart, easily stirred by +the sight of the narration of anything noble. All four starting from the +same mark to reach the same goal, they thought that there was something +more than chance in their meeting, and that it might after all be +Providence who thus joined their hands and whispered in their ears the +evangelic motto, which should be the sole charter of humanity, "Love one +another." + +At the end of the repast, which closed in somewhat grave mood, Rodolphe +rose to propose a toast to the future, and Colline replied in a short +speech that was not taken from any book, had no pretension to style, +and was merely couched in the good old dialect of simplicity, making +that which is so badly delivered so well understood. + +"What a donkey this philosopher is!" murmured Schaunard, whose face was +buried in his glass, "here is he obliging me to put water in my wine." + +After dinner they went to take coffee at the Cafe Momus, where they had +already spent the preceding evening. It was from that day that the +establishment in question became uninhabitable by its other frequenters. + +After coffee and nips of liqueurs the Bohemian clan, definitely founded, +returned to Marcel's lodging, which took the name of Schaunard's +Elysium. Whilst Colline went to order the supper he had promised, the +others bought squibs, crackers and other pyrotechnic materials, and +before sitting down to table they let off from the windows a magnificent +display of fireworks which turned the whole house topsy-turvey, and +during which the four friends shouted at the top of their voices-- + + "Let us celebrate this happy day." + +The next morning they again found themselves all four together but +without seeming astonished this time. Before each going about his +business they went together and breakfasted frugally at the Cafe Momus, +where they made an appointment for the evening and where for a long time +they were seen to return daily. + +Such are the chief personages who will reappear in the episodes of which +this volume is made up, a volume which is not a romance and has no other +pretension than that set forth on its title-page, for the "Bohemians of +the Latin Quarter" is only a series of social studies, the heroes of +which belong to a class badly judged till now, whose greatest crime is +lack of order, and who can even plead in excuse that this very lack of +order is a necessity of the life they lead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A GOOD ANGEL + + +Schaunard and Marcel, who had been grinding away valiantly a whole +morning, suddenly struck work. + +"Thunder and lightning! I'm hungry!" cried Schaunard. And he added +carelessly, "Do we breakfast today?" + +Marcel appeared much astonished at this very inopportune question. + +"How long has it been the fashion to breakfast two days running?" he +asked. "And yesterday was Thursday." He finished his reply by tracing +with his mahl-stick the ecclesiastic ordinance: + + "On Friday eat no meat, + Nor aught resembling it." + +Schaunard, finding no answer, returned to his picture, which represented +a plain inhabited by a red tree and a blue tree shaking branches; an +evident allusion to the sweets of friendship, which had a very +philosophical effect. + +At this moment the porter knocked; he had brought a letter for Marcel. + +"Three sous," said he. + +"You are sure?" replied the artist. "Very well, you can owe it to us." + +He shut the door in the man's face, and opened the letter. At the first +line, he began to vault around the room like a rope-dancer and thundered +out, at the top of his voice, this romantic ditty, which indicated with +him the highest pitch of ecstasy: + + "There were four juveniles in our street; + They fell so sick they could not eat; + They carried them to the hospital!-- + Tal! Tal! Tal! Tal!" + +"Oh yes!" said Schaunard, taking him up: + + "They put all four into one big bed, + Two at the feet and two at the head." + +"Think I don't know it?" Marcel continued: + + "There came a sister of Charity-- + Ty! Ty! tee! tee!" + +"If you don't stop," said Schaunard, who suspected signs of mental +alienation, "I'll play the allegro of my symphony on 'The Influence of +Blue in the Arts.'" So saying, he approached the piano. + +This menace had the effect of a drop of cold water in a boiling fluid. +Marcel grew calm as if by magic. "Look there!" said he, passing the +letter to his friend. It was an invitation to dine with a deputy, an +enlightened patron of the arts in general and Marcel in particular, +since the latter had taken the portrait of his country-house. + +"For today," sighed Schaunard. "Unluckily the ticket is not good for +two. But stay! Now I think of it, your deputy is of the government +party; you cannot, you must not accept. Your principles will not permit +you to partake of the bread which has been watered by the tears of the +people." + +"Bah!" replied Marcel, "my deputy is a moderate radical; he voted +against the government the other day. Besides, he is going to get me an +order, and he has promised to introduce me in society. Moreover, this +may be Friday as much as it likes; I am famished as Ugolino, and I mean +to dine today. There now!" + +"There are other difficulties," continued Schaunard, who could not help +being a little jealous of the good fortune that had fallen to his +friend's lot. "You can't dine out in a red flannel shirt and slippers." + +"I shall borrow clothes of Rodolphe or Colline." + +"Infatuated youth! Do you forget that this is the twentieth, and at this +time of the month their wardrobe is up to the very top of the spout?" + +"Between now and five o'clock this evening I shall find a dress-coat." + +"I took three weeks to get one when I went to my cousin's wedding and +that was in January." + +"Well, then, I shall go as I am," said Marcel, with a theatrical stride. +"It shall certainly never be said that a miserable question of etiquette +hindered me from making my first step in society." + +"Without boots," suggested his friend. + +Marcel rushed out in a state of agitation impossible to describe. At the +end of two hours he returned, loaded with a false collar. + +"Hardly worth while to run so far for that," said Schaunard. "There was +paper enough to make a dozen." + +"But," cried Marcel, tearing his hair, "we must have some +things--confound it!" And he commenced a thorough investigation of every +corner of the two rooms. After an hour's search, he realized a costume +thus composed: + +A pair of plaid trousers, a gray hat, a red cravat, a blue waistcoat, +two boots, one black glove, and one glove that had been white. + +"That will make two black gloves on a pinch," said Schaunard. "You are +going to look like the solar spectrum in that dress. To be sure, a +colourist such as you are--" + +Marcel was trying the boots. Alas! They are both for the same foot! The +artist, in despair, perceived an old boot in a corner which had served +as the receptacle of their empty bladders. He seized upon it. + +"From Garrick to Syllable," said his jesting comrade, "one square-toed +and the other round." + +"I am going to varnish them and it won't show." + +"A good idea! Now you only want the dress-coat." + +"Oh!" cried Marcel, biting his fists: + + "To have one would I give ten years of life, + And this right hand, I tell thee." + +They heard another knock at the door. Marcel opened it. + +"Monsieur Schaunard?" inquired a stranger, halting on the threshold. + +"At your service," replied the painter, inviting him in. + +The stranger had one of those honest faces which typify the provincial. + +"Sir," said he. "My cousin has often spoke to me of your talent for +portrait painting, and being on the point of making a voyage to the +colonies, whither I am deputed by the sugar refiners of the city of +Nantes, I wish to leave my family something to remember me by. That is +why I am come to see you." + +"Holy Providence!" ejaculated Schaunard. "Marcel, a seat for Monsieur--" + +"Blancheron," said the new-comer, "Blancheron of Nantes, delegate of the +sugar interest, Ex-Mayor, Captain of the National Guard, and author of a +pamphlet on the sugar question." + +"I am highly honoured at having been chosen by you," said the artist, +with a low reverence to the delegate of the refiners. "How do you wish +to have your portrait taken?" + +"In miniature," replied Blancheron, "like that," and he pointed to a +portrait in oil, for the delegate was one of that class with whom +everything smaller than the side of a house is miniature. Schaunard had +the measure of his man immediately, especially when the other added that +he wished to be painted with the best colours. + +"I never use any other," said the artist. "How large do you wish it to +be?" + +"About so big," answered the other, pointing to a kit-cat. "How much +will it be?" + +"Sixty francs with the hands, fifty without." + +"The deuce it will! My cousin talked of thirty francs." + +"It depends on the season. Colours are much dearer at some times of the +year than at others." + +"Bless me! It's just like sugar!" + +"Precisely." + +"Fifty francs then be it." + +"You are wrong there; for ten francs more you will have your hands, and +I will put in them your pamphlet on the sugar question, which will have +a very good effect." + +"By Jove, you are right!" + +"Thunder and lightning!" said Schaunard to himself, "if he goes on so, I +shall burst, and hurt him with one of the pieces." + +"Did you see?" whispered Marcel. + +"What?" + +"He has a black coat." + +"I take. Let me manage." + +"Well," quoth the delegate, "when do we begin? There is no time to +lose, for I sail soon." + +"I have to take a little trip myself the day after tomorrow; so, if you +please, we will begin at once. One good sitting will help us along some +way." + +"But it will soon be night, and you can't paint by candle light." + +"My room is arranged so that we can work at all hours in it. If you will +take off your coat, and put yourself in position, we will commence." + +"Take off my coat! What for?" + +"You told me that you intend this portrait for your family." + +"Certainly." + +"Well, then, you ought to be represented in your at-home dress--in your +dressing gown. It is the custom to be so." + +"But I haven't any dressing gown here." + +"But I have. The case is provided for," quoth Schaunard, presenting to +his sitter a very ragged garment, so ornamented with paint-marks that +the honest provincial hesitated about setting into it. + +"A very odd dress," said he. + +"And very valuable. A Turkish vizier gave it to Horace Vernet, and he +gave it to me when he had done with it. I am a pupil of his." + +"Are you a pupil of Vernet's?" + +"I am proud to be," said the artist. "Wretch that I am!" he muttered to +himself, "I deny my gods and masters!" + +"You have reason to be proud, my young friend," replied the delegate +donning the dressing-gown with the illustrious origin. + +"Hang up Monsieur Blancheron's coat in the wardrobe," said Schaunard to +his friend, with a significant wink. + +"Ain't he too good?" whispered Marcel as he pounced on his prey, and +nodded towards Blancheron. "If you could only keep a piece of him." + +"I'll try; but do you dress yourself, and cut. Come back by ten; I will +keep him till then. Above all, bring me something in your pocket." + +"I'll bring you a pineapple," said Marcel as he evaporated. + +He dressed himself hastily; the dress-coat fit him like a glove. Then he +went out by the second door of the studio. + +Schaunard set himself to work. When it was fairly night, Monsieur +Blancheron heard the clock strike six, and remembered that he had not +dined. He informed Schaunard of the fact. + +"I am in the same position," said the other, "but to oblige you, I will +go without today, though I had an invitation in the Faubourg St. +Germain. But we can't break off now, it might spoil the resemblance." +And he painted away harder than ever. "By the way," said he, suddenly, +"we can dine without breaking off. There is a capital restaurant +downstairs, which will send us up anything we like." And Schaunard +awaited the effect of his trial of plurals. + +"I accept your idea," said Blancheron, "an in return, I hope you will do +me the honor of keeping me company at table." + +Schaunard bowed. "Really," said he to himself, "this is a fine fellow--a +very god-send. Will you order the dinner?" he asked his Amphitryon. + +"You will oblige me by taking that trouble," replied the other, +politely. + +"So much the worse for you, my boy," said the painter as he pitched down +the stairs, four steps at a time. Marching up to the counter, he wrote +out a bill of fare that made the Vatel of the establishment turn pale. + +"Claret! Who's to pay for it?" + +"Probably not I," said Schaunard, "but an uncle of mine that you will +find up there, a very good judge. So, do your best, and let us have +dinner in half an hour, served on your porcelain." + +At eight o'clock, Monsieur Blancheron felt the necessity of pouring into +a friend's ear his idea on the sugar question, and accordingly recited +his pamphlet to Schaunard, who accompanied him on the piano. + +At ten, they danced the galop together. + +At eleven, they swore never to separate, and to make wills in each +other's favor. + +At twelve, Marcel returned, and found them locked in a mutual embrace, +and dissolved in tears. The floor was half an inch deep in fluid--either +from that cause or the liquor that had been spilt. He stumbled against +the table, and remarked the splendid relics of the sumptuous feast. He +tried the bottles, they were utterly empty. He attempted to rouse +Schaunard, but the later menaced him with speedy death, if he tore him +from his friend Blancheron, of whom he was making a pillow. + +"Ungrateful wretch!" said Marcel, taking out of his pocket a handful of +nuts, "when I had brought him some dinner!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LENTEN LOVES + + +One evening in Lent Rodolphe returned home early with the idea of +working. But scarcely had he sat down at his table and dipped his pen in +the ink than he was disturbed by a singular noise. Putting his ear to +the treacherous partition that separated him from the next room, he +listened, and plainly distinguished a dialogue broken by the sound of +kisses and other amourous interruptions. + +"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, glancing at his clock, "it is still +early, and my neighbor is a Juliet who usually keeps her Romeo till long +after the lark has sung. I cannot work tonight." + +And taking his hat he went out. Handing in his key at the porter's +lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant. +The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she +could open the latch. + +"In point of fact," though Rodolphe, "there are times when porters grow +human again." + +Passing through the door he found in its recess a sapper and a cook +exchanging the luck-penny of love. + +"Hang it," said Rodolphe, alluding to the warrior and his robust +companion, "here are heretics who scarcely think that we are in Lent." + +And he set out for the abode of one of his friends who lived in the +neighborhood. + +"If Marcel is at home," he said to himself, "we will pass the evening in +abusing Colline. One must do something." + +As he rapped vigorously, the door was partly opened, and a young man, +simply clad in a shirt and an eye-glass, presented himself. + +"I cannot receive you," said he to Rodolphe. + +"Why not?" asked the latter. + +"There," said Marcel, pointing to a feminine head that had just peeped +out from behind a curtain, "there is my answer." + +"It is not a pretty one," said Rodolphe, who had just had the door +closed in his face. "Ah!" said he to himself when he got into the +street, "what shall I do? Suppose I call on Colline, we could pass the +time in abusing Marcel." + +Passing along the Rue de l'Ouest, usually dark and unfrequented, +Rodolphe made out a shade walking up and down in melancholy fashion, and +muttering in rhyme. + +"Ho, ho!" said Rodolphe, "who is this animated sonnet loitering here? +What, Colline!" + +"What Rodolphe! Where are you going?" + +"To your place." + +"You won't find me there." + +"What are you doing here?" + +"Waiting." + +"What are you waiting for?" + +"Ah!" said Colline in a tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for +when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and songs in the +air?" + +"Speak in prose." + +"I am waiting for a girl." + +"Good night," said Rodolphe, who went on his way continuing his +monologue. "What," said he, "is it St. Cupid's Day and cannot I take a +step without running up against people in love? It is scandalously +immoral. What are the police about?" + +As the gardens of the Luxembourg were still open, Rodolphe passed into +them to shorten his road. Amidst the deserted paths he often saw +flitting before him, as though disturbed by his footsteps, couples +mysteriously interlaced, and seeking, as a poet has remarked, the +two-fold luxury of silence and shade. + +"This," said Rodolphe, "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet +overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat +and gazed sentimentally at the moon. + +In a short time he was wholly under the spell of a feverish +hallucination. It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who +peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the +goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the +great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to +him to have grown singularly short. + +From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way +towards a nymph of the vicinity. + +"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is +Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the +park keeper does not surprise them." + +Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the +flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream +Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped +him on the shoulder. + +"It is closing time, sir," said he. + +"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five +minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be +found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances." + +And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was +for him the _Marseillaise_ of love. + +Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated +before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on +account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline +when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that +was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures +to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend. + +"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in +love." + +"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad +toothache in the heart." + +"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander. + +"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing +but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the +Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that +stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat +and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle +dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers." + +"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are +chaffing me." + +"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say, +no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see, +Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help +me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the +first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love +her." + +"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his +magnificent nasal bass. + +"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite +forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love +stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and +sometimes even the _denouement_; I never know how to begin." + +"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand +you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her." + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue +eyes." + +"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no--but gloves--you know that we +can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic +regions." + +"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the +fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and +he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a +corner. + +"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am +going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary +to put in an appearance I will call you." + +For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time +broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards +Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your +advocate has won the cause." + +"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt +far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with." + +"You have no need to recommend me to do that." + +"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside +her." + +"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by +her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet." + +"That is because he is a musician." + +Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house +in the Rue St. Denis. + +"It is here that I live," said the girl. + +"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?" + +"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening." + +"For sure?" + +"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to +Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health. + +Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated. + +"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like +that, I must write some verses." + +The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of +paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line-- + + "Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth." + +That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and +although he had slept very little, he got up at once. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to +wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?" + +And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as +though intending to say to him "Work." + +"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of +ink." + +He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet +any friends. + +"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for +me in advance." + +After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got +into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray. + +Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature, +and only returned to Paris at nightfall. + +After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature, +Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being +able to dress in white. + +From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of +expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the +old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already +began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a +genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the +willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time +chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without +bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about +her neck. + +"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him. + +But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had +made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who +would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he +could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves. + +At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke +sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock +entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two +timid taps were given at the door. + +Rodolphe went and opened it. It was Louise. + +"You see I have kept my word," said she. + +Rodolphe drew the curtain and lit a fresh candle. + +During this operation the girl had removed her bonnet and shawl, which +she went and placed on the bed. The dazzling whiteness of the sheets +caused her to smile, and almost to blush. + +Louise was rather pleasing than pretty; her fresh colored face presented +an attractive blending of simplicity and archness. It was something like +an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions +were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple, +attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess +from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise +appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of +attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the +artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly shod feet were of +satisfactory smallness, even for a romantic lover smitten by Andalusian +or Chinese miniatures. As to her hands, their softness attested +idleness. In fact, for six months past she had no longer any reason to +fear needle pricks. In short, Louise was one of those fickle birds of +passage who from fancy, and often from necessity, make for a day, or +rather a night, their nest in the garrets of the students' quarter, and +remain there willingly for a few days, if one knows how to retain them +by a whim or by some ribbons. + +After having chatted for an hour with Louise, Rodolphe showed her, as an +example, the group of Cupid and Psyche. + +"Isn't it Paul and Virginia?" + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe, who did not want to vex her at the outset by +contradicting her. + +"They are very well done," said Louise. + +"Alas!" thought Rodolphe, gazing at her, "the poor child is not up to +much as regards literature. I am sure that her only orthography is that +of the heart. I must buy her a dictionary." + +However, as Louise complained of her boots incommoding her, he +obligingly helped her to unlace them. + +All at once the light went out. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who has blown the candle out?" + +A joyful burst of laughter replied to him. + +A few days later Rodolphe met one of his friends in the street. + +"What are you up to?" said the latter. "One no longer sees anything of +you." + +"I am studying the poetry of intimacy," replied Rodolphe. + +The poor fellow spoke the truth. He sought from Louise more than the +poor girl could give him. An oaten pipe, she had not the strains of a +lyre. She spoke to, so to say, the jargon of love, and Rodolphe +insisted upon speaking the classic language. Thus they scarcely +understood each other. + +A week later, at the same ball at which she had found Rodolphe, Louise +met a fair young fellow, who danced with her several times, and at the +close of the entertainment took her home with him. + +He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very +fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket. + +Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter +couched as follows:-- + + "Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time. + Good bye. + + Louise." + +As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his +light suddenly went out. + +"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the +evening that Louise came--it was bound to finish with our union. If I +had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half +annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer, +which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves. + +One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light +his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting +and the orthography of Louise. + +"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only +there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that +she loved me better than you?" + +"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and +shoulders have no need of grammar." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ALI RODOLPHE; OR, THE TURK PERFORCE + + +Ostracized by an inhospitable proprietor, Rodolphe had for some time +been leading a life compared with which the existence of a cloud is +rather stationary. He practiced assiduously the arts of going to bed +without supper, and supping without going to bed. He often dined with +Duke Humphrey, and generally slept at the sign of a clear sky. Still, +amid all these crosses and troubles, two things never forsook him; his +good humor and the manuscript of "The Avenger," a drama which had gone +the rounds of all the theaters in Paris. + +One day Rodolphe, who had been jugged for some slight choreographic +extravagances, stumbled upon an uncle of his, one Monetti, a stove maker +and smokey chimney doctor, and sargeant of the National Guard, whom he +had not seen for an age. Touched by his nephew's misfortunes, Uncle +Monetti promised to ameliorate his position. We shall see how, if the +reader is not afraid of mounting six stories. + +Take note of the banister, then, and follow. Up we go! Whew! One hundred +and twenty-five steps! Here we are at last. One more step, and we are in +the room; one more yet, and we should be out of it again. It's little, +but high up, with the advantages of good air and a fine prospect. + +The furniture is composed of two French stoves, several German ditto, +some ovens on the economic plan, (especially if you never make fire in +them,) a dozen stove pipes, some red clay, some sheet iron, and a whole +host of heating apparatus. We may mention, to complete the inventory, a +hammock suspended from two nails inserted in the wall, a three-legged +garden chair, a candlestick adorned with its _bobeche_, and some other +similar objects of elegant art. As to the second room--that is to say, +the balcony--two dwarf cypresses, in pots, make a park of it for fine +weather. + +At the moment of our entry, the occupant of the premises, a young man, +dressed like a Turk of the Comic Opera, is finishing a repast, in which +he shamelessly violates the law of the Prophet. Witness a bone that was +once a ham, and a bottle that has been full of wine. His meal over, the +young Turk stretches himself on the floor in true Eastern style, and +begins carelessly to smoke a _narghile_. While abandoning himself to +this Asiatic luxury, he passes his hand from time to time over the back +of a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who would doubtless respond to its +caresses where he not also in terra cotta, to match the rest of the +furniture. + +Suddenly a noise was heard in the entry, and the door opened, admitting +a person who, without saying a word, marched straight to one of the +stoves, which served the purpose of a secretary, opened the stove-door, +and drew out a bundle of papers. + +"Hallo!" cried the new-comer, after examining the manuscript +attentively, "the chapter on ventilators not finished yet!" + +"Allow me to observe, uncle," replied the Turk, "the chapter on +ventilators is one of the most interesting in your book, and requires to +be studied with care. I am studying it." + +"But you miserable fellow, you are always saying that same thing. And +the chapter on stoves--where are you in that?" + +"The stoves are going on well, but, by the way, uncle, if you could give +me a little wood, it wouldn't hurt me. It is a little Siberia here. I am +so cold, that I make a thermometer go down below zero by just looking at +it." + +"What! you've used up one faggot already?" + +"Allow me to remark again, uncle, there are different kinds of faggots, +and yours was the very smallest kind." + +"I'll send you an economic log--that keeps the heat." + +"Exactly, and doesn't give any." + +"Well," said the uncle as he went off, "you shall have a little faggot, +and I must have my chapter on stoves for tomorrow." + +"When I have fire, that will inspire me," answered the Turk as he heard +himself locked in. + +Were we making a tragedy, this would be the time to bring in a +confidant. Noureddin or Osman he should be called, and he should advance +towards our hero with an air at the same time discreet and patronizing, +to console him for his reverses, by means of these three verses: + + 'What saddening grief, my Lord, assails you now? + Why sits this pallor on your noble brow? + Does Allah lend your plans no helping hand? + Or cruel Ali, with severe command, + Remove to other shores the beauteous dame, + Who charmed your eyes and set your heart on flame!' + +But we are not making a tragedy, so we must do without our confidant, +though he would be very convenient. + +Our hero is not what he appears to be. The turban does not make the +Turk. This young man is our friend Rodolphe, entertained by his uncle, +for whom he is drawing up a manual of "The Perfect Chimney Constructor." +In fact, Monsieur Monetti, an enthusiast for his art, had consecrated +his days to this science of chimneys. One day he formed the idea of +drawing up, for the benefit of posterity, a theoretic code of the +principles of that art, in the practice of which he so excelled, and he +had chosen his nephew, as we have seen, to frame the substance of his +ideas in an intelligible form. Rodolphe was found in board, lodging, and +other contingencies, and at the completion of the manual was to receive +a recompense of three hundred francs. + +In the beginning, to encourage his nephew, Monetti had generously made +him an advance of fifty francs. But Rodolphe, who had not seen so much +silver together for nearly a year, half crazy, in company with his +money, stayed out three days, and on the fourth came home alone! +Thereupon the uncle, who was in haste to have his "Manual" finished +inasmuch as he hoped to get a patent for it, dreading some new diversion +on his nephew's part, determined to make him work by preventing him from +going out. To this end he carried off his garments, and left him instead +the disguise under which we have seen him. Nevertheless, the famous +"Manual" continued to make very slow progress, for Rodolphe had no +genius whatever for this kind of literature. The uncle avenged himself +for this lazy indifference on the great subject of chimneys by making +his nephew undergo a host of annoyances. Sometimes he cut short his +commons, and frequently stopped the supply of tobacco. + +One Sunday, after having sweated blood and ink upon the great chapter of +ventilators, Rodolphe broke the pen, which was burning his fingers, and +went out to walk--in his "park." As if on purpose to plague him, and +excite his envy the more, he could not cast a single look about him +without perceiving the figure of a smoker on every window. + +On the gilt balcony of a new house opposite, an exquisite in his +dressing gown was biting off the end of an aristocratic "Pantellas" +cigar. A story above, an artist was sending before him an odorous cloud +of Turkish tobacco from his amber-mouthed pipe. At the window of a +_brasserie_, a fat German was crowning a foaming tankard, and emitting, +with the regularity of a machine, the dense puffs that escaped from his +meershaum. On the other side, a group of workmen were singing as they +passed on their way to the barriers, their "throat-scorchers" between +their teeth. Finally, all the other pedestrians visible in the street +were smoking. + +"Woe is me!" sighed Rodolphe, "except myself and my uncle's chimneys, +all creation is smoking at this hour!" And he rested his forehead on the +bar of the balcony, and thought how dreary life was. + +Suddenly, a burst of long and musical laughter parted under his feet. +Rodolphe bent forward a little, to discover the source of this volley of +gaiety, and perceived that he had been perceived by the tenant of the +story beneath him, Mademoiselle Sidonia, of the Luxembourg Theater. The +young lady advanced to the front of her balcony, rolling between her +fingers, with the dexterity of a Spaniard, a paper-full of light-colored +tobacco, which she took from a bag of embroidered velvet. + +"What a sweet cigar girl it is!" murmured Rodolphe, in an ecstacy of +contemplation. + +"Who is this Ali Baba?" thought Mademoiselle Sidonia on her part. And +she meditated on a pretext for engaging in conversation with Rodolphe, +who was himself trying to do the very same. + +"Bless me!" cried the lady, as if talking to herself, "what a bore! I've +no matches!" + +"Allow me to offer you some, mademoiselle," said Rodolphe, letting fall +on the balcony two or three lucifers rolled up in paper. + +"A thousand thanks," replied Sidonia, lighting her cigarette. + +"Pray, mademoiselle," continued Rodolphe, "in exchange for the trifling +service which my good angel has permitted me to render you, may I ask +you to do me a favor?" + +"Asking already," thought the actress, as she regarded Rodolphe with +more attention. "They say these Turks are fickle, but very agreeable. +Speak sir," she continued, raising her head towards the young man, "what +do you wish?" + +"The charity of a little tobacco, mademoiselle, only one pipe. I have +not smoked for two whole days." + +"Most willingly, but how? Will you take the trouble to come downstairs?" + +"Alas! I can't! I am shut up here, but am still free to employ a very +simple means." He fastened his pipe to a string, and let it glide down to +her balcony, where Sidonia filled it profusely herself. Rodolphe then +proceeded, with much ease and deliberation, to remount his pipe, which +arrived without accident. "Ah, mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, "how much +better this pipe would have seemed, if I could have lighted it at your +eyes!" + +It was at least the hundredth edition of this amiable pleasantry, but +Sidonia found it superb for all that, and thought herself bound to +reply, "You flatter me." + +"I assure you, mademoiselle, in right-down earnest, I think you +handsomer than all the Three Graces together." + +"Decidedly, Ali Baba is very polite," thought Sidonia. "Are you really a +Turk?" she asked Rodolphe. + +"Not by profession," he replied, "but by necessity. I am a dramatic +author." + +"I am an artist," she replied, then added, "My dear sir and neighbor, +will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?" + +"Alas!" answered Rodolphe, "though your invitation is like opening +heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell +you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and +chimney doctor, whose secretary I am now." + +"You shall dine with me for all that," replied Sidonia. "Listen, I shall +re-enter my room, and tap on the ceiling. Look where I strike and you +will find the traces of a trap which used to be there, and has since +been fastened up. Find the means of removing the piece of wood which +closes the hole, and then, although we are each in our own room, we +shall be as good as together." + +Rodolphe went to work at once. In five minutes a communication was +established between the two rooms. + +"It is a very little hole," said he, "but there will always be room +enough to pass you my heart." + +"Now," said Sidonia, "we will go to dinner. Set your table, and I will +pass you the dishes." + +Rodolphe let down his turban by a string, and brought it back laden with +eatables, then the poet and the actress proceeded to dine--on their +respective floors. Rodolphe devoured the pie with his teeth, and Sidonia +with his eyes. + +"Thanks to you, mademoiselle," he said, when their repast was finished, +"my stomach is satisfied. Can you not also satisfy the void of my heart, +which has been so long empty?" + +"Poor fellow!" said Sidonia, and climbing on a piece of furniture, she +lifted up her hand to Rodolphe's lips, who gloved it with kisses. + +"What a pity," he exclaimed, "you can't do as St. Denis, who had the +privilege of carrying his head in his hands!" + +To the dinner succeeded a sentimental literary conversation. Rodolphe +spoke of "The Avenger," and Sidonia asked him to read it. Leaning over +the hole, he began declaiming his drama to the actress, who, to hear +better, had put her arm chair on the top of a chest of drawers. She +pronounced "The Avenger" a masterpiece, and having some influence at the +theater, promised Rodolphe to get his piece received. + +But at the most interesting moment a step was heard in the entry, about +as light as that of the Commander's ghost in "Don Juan." It was Uncle +Monetti. Rodolphe had only just time to shut the trap. + +"Here," said Monetti to his nephew, "this letter has been running after +you for a month." + +"Uncle! Uncle!" cried Rodolphe, "I am rich at last! This letter informs +me that I have gained a prize of three hundred francs, given by an +academy of floral games. Quick! my coat and my things! Let me go to +gather my laurels. They await me at the Capitol!" + +"And my chapter on ventilators?" said Monetti, coldly. + +"I like that! Give me my things, I tell you; I can't go out so!" + +"You shall go out when my 'Manual' is finished," quoth the uncle, +shutting up his nephew under lock and key. + +Rodolphe, when left alone, did not hesitate on the course to take. He +transformed his quilt into a knotted rope, which he fastened firmly to +his own balcony, and in spite of the risk, descended by this extempore +ladder upon Mademoiselle Sidonia's. + +"Who is there?" she cried, on hearing Rodolphe knock at her window. + +"Hush!" he replied, "open!" + +"What do you want? Who are you?" + +"Can you ask? I am the author of 'The Avenger,' come to look for my +heart, which I dropped through the trap into your room." + +"Rash youth!" said the actress, "you might have killed yourself!" + +"Listen, Sidonia," continued Rodolphe, showing her the letter he just +received. "You see, wealth and glory smile on me, let love do the same!" + + * * * * * + +The following morning, by means of a masculine disguise, which Sidonia +procured for him, Rodolphe was enabled to escape from his uncle's +lodging. He ran to the secretary of the academy of floral games, to +receive a crown of gold sweetbrier, worth three hundred francs, which +lived + + "--as live roses the fairest-- + The space of a day." + +A month after, Monsieur Monetti was invited by his nephew to assist at +the first representation of "The Avenger." Thanks to the talent of +Mademoiselle Sidonia, the piece had a run of seventeen nights, and +brought in forty francs to its author. + +Some time later--it was in the warm season--Rodolphe lodged in the +Avenue St. Cloud, third tree as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, on +the fifth branch. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CARLOVINGIAN COIN + + +Towards the end of December the messengers of Bidault's agency were +entrusted with the distribution of about a hundred copies of a letter of +invitation, of which we certify that the following to be a true and +genuine copy:-- + + ----- + + _M.M. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company on + Saturday next, Christmas Eve. Fun!_ + + _P.S. Life is short!_ + + _PROGRAM OF THE ENTERTAINMENT_ + + _PART I_ + + _7 o'clock--Opening of the saloons. Brisk and witty conversation._ + + _8.--Appearance of the talented authors of "The Mountain in Labor," + comedy refused at the Odeon Theater._ + + _8:30.--M. Alexander Schaunard, the eminent virtuoso, will play + his imitative symphony, "The Influence of Blue in Art," on the + piano._ + + _9.--First reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of + tragedy."_ + + _9:30.--Philosophical and metaphysical argument between M. Colline, + hyperphysical philosopher, and M. Schaunard. To avoid any collision + between the two antagonists, they will both be securely fastened._ + + _10.--M. Tristan, master of literature, will narrate his early + loves, accompanied on the piano by M. Alexander Schaunard._ + + _10:30.--Second reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the + penalty of tragedy."_ + + _11.--Narration of a cassowary hunt by a foreign prince._ + + _PART II_ + + _Midnight.--M. Marcel, historical painter, will execute with his + eyes bandaged an impromptu sketch in chalk of the meeting of + Voltaire and Napolean in the Elyssian Fields. M. Rodolphe will also + improvise a parallel between the author of Zaire, and the victor of + Austerlitz._ + + _12:30.--M. Gustave Colline, in a decent undress, will give an + imitation of the athletic games of the 4th Olympiad._ + + _1.--Third reading of the essay on the "Abolition of the penalty of + tragedy," and subscription on behalf of tragic authors who will one + day find themselves out of employment._ + + _2.--Commencement of games and organization of quadrilles to last + until morning._ + + _6.--Sunrise and final chorus._ + + _During the whole of entertainment ventilators will be in action._ + + _N.B. Anyone attempting to read or recite poetry will be summarily + ejected and handed over to the police. The guests are equally + requested not to help themselves to the candle ends._ + +Two days later, copies of this invitation were circulating among the +lower depths of art and literature, and created a profound sensation. + +There were, however, amongst the invited guests, some who cast doubt +upon the splendor of the promises made by the two friends. + +"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone +to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could +only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a +little filtered water in eclectic pottery." + +"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me +the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical." + +"Will there be any ladies?" + +"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard +is to bring some ladies of position." + +This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction +in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel +and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take +place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their +promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of +not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark +from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet +enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter +beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved +to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had +entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above. + +"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our +ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that +are indispensable to do the thing properly." + +"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel. + +And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends +went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the +way, the way of impossibility. + +However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as +of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a +helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time +came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively +modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon +themselves. + +And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously +reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item +"liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs. + +The problem was simplified, but not yet solved. + +"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must now have recourse to strong +measures, we cannot cry off this time." + +"No, that is impossible," replied Marcel. + +"How long is it since I have heard the story of the Battle of +Studzianka?" + +"About two months." + +"Two months, good, that is a decent interval; my uncle will have no +ground for grumbling. I will go tomorrow and hear his account of that +engagement, that will be five francs for certain." + +"I," said Marcel, "will go and sell a deserted manor house to old +Medicis. That will make another five francs. If I have time enough to +put in three towers and a mill, it will perhaps run to ten francs, and +our budget will be complete." + +And the two friends fell asleep dreaming that the Princess Belgiojoso +begged them to change their reception day, in order not to rob her of +her customary guests. + +Awake at dawn, Marcel took a canvas and rapidly set to work to build up +a deserted manor house, an article which he was in the habit of +supplying to a broker of the Place de Carrousel. On his side, Rodolphe +went to pay a visit to his Uncle Monetti, who shone in the story of the +Retreat from Moscow, and to whom Rodolphe accorded five or six times in +course of the year, when matters were really serious, the satisfaction +of narrating his campaigns, in return for a small loan which the veteran +stove maker did not refuse too obstinately when due enthusiasm was +displayed in listening to his narrations. + +About two o'clock, Marcel with hanging head and a canvas under his arm, +met on the Place de Carrousel Rodolphe, who was returning from his +uncle's, and whose bearing also presaged ill news. + +"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?" + +"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?" + +"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He +wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers." + +"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," +murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think +if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing." + +And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness. + +At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four. + +"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly. + +"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain +sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?" + +"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?" + +"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? +They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the +days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an +emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often +occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?" + +"This is mere comedy," replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was +mingled with indulgence. + +Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the +studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph. + +"We are saved!" he exclaimed. "I was sure that there was money here. +Behold!" and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and +half eaten away by rust and verdigris. + +It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily +intact, showed the date of Charlemagne's reign. + +"That, that's worth thirty sous," said Rodolphe, with a contemptuous +glance at his friend's find. + +"Thirty sous well employed will go a great way," replied Marcel. "With +twelve hundred men Bonaparte made ten thousand Austrians lay down their +arms. Skill can replace numbers. I will go and swap the Carlovingian +crown at Daddy Medicis'. Is there not anything else saleable here? +Suppose I take the plaster cast of the tibia of Jaconowski, the Russian +drum major." + +"Take the tibia. But it is a nuisance, there will not be a single +ornament left here." + +During Marcel's absence, Rodolphe, his mind made up that that party +should be given in any case, went in search of his friend Colline, the +hyperphysical philosopher, who lived hard by. + +"I have come," said he, "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must +positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; lend me +yours." + +"But," said Colline hesitating, "as a guest I shall want my black +swallow-tail too." + +"I will allow you to come in a frock coat." + +"That won't do. You know very well I have never had a frock coat." + +"Well, then, it can be settled in another way. If needs be, you need not +come to my party, and can lend me your swallow-tail." + +"That would be unpleasant. I am on the program, and must not be +lacking." + +"There are plenty of other things that will be lacking," said Rodolphe. +"Lend me your black swallow-tail, and if you will come, come as you +like; in your shirt sleeves, you will pass for a faithful servant." + +"Oh no!" said Colline, blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the +same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized +on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. +There are some odds and ends in the pockets." + +Colline's swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place it was +of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my +black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a +dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when +speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black +swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special +cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very +short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was +accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally +carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during +the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men +could go and refer to the skirts of Colline's swallow-tail--a library +always open. + +That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline's swallow-tail only contained +a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in +three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope's +"Essay on Man." When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed +Rodolphe to clothe himself in it. + +"Hallo!" said the latter, "the left pocket still feels very heavy; you +have left something in it." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Colline, "that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign +languages pocket." + +And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a +stock breeder's manual in Chinese, his favorite reading. + +When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with +three five franc pieces. At first Rodolphe refused his friend's +proferred hand--he thought some crime had been committed. + +"Let us make haste, let us make haste," said Marcel, "we have the +fifteen francs required. This is how it happened. I met an antiquary at +Medicis'. When he saw the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the only +one wanting in his cabinet. He had sent everywhere to get this vacancy +filled up, and had lost all hope. Thus, when he had thoroughly examined +my Carlovingian crown piece, he did not hesitate for a moment to offer +me five francs for it. Medicis nudged me with his elbow; a look from +him completed the business. He meant, 'share the profits of the sale, +and I will bid against him.' We ran it up to thirty francs. I gave the +Jew fifteen, and here are the rest. Now our guests may come; we are in a +position to dazzle them. Hallo! You have got a swallow-tail!" + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "Colline's swallow-tail." And as he was feeling +for his handkerchief, Rodolphe pulled out a small volume in a Tartar +dialect, overlooked in the foreign literature pocket. + +The two friends at once proceeded to make their preparations. The studio +was set in order, a fire kindled in the stove, the stretcher of a +picture, garnished with composite candles, suspended from the ceiling +as a chandelier, and a writing table placed in the middle of the studio +to serve as a rostrum for the orators. The solitary armchair, which was +to be reserved for the influential critic, was placed in front of it, +and upon a table were arranged all the books, romances, poems, +pamphlets, &c., the authors of which were to honor the company with +their presence. + +In order to avoid any collision between members of the different schools +of literature, the studio had been, moreover, divided into four +compartments, at the entrance to each of which could be read, on four +hurriedly manufactured placards, the inscriptions--"Poets," "Prose +Writers," "Classic School," and "Romantic School." + +The ladies were to occupy a space reserved in the middle of the studio. + +"Humph! Chairs are lacking," said Rodolphe. + +"Oh!" remarked Marcel, "there are several on the landing, fastened along +the wall. Suppose we were to gather them." + +"Certainly, let us gather them by all means," said Rodolphe, starting +off to seize on the chairs, which belonged to some neighbor. + +Six o'clock struck: the two friends went off to a hasty dinner, and +returned to light up the saloons. They were themselves dazzled by the +result. At seven o'clock Schaunard arrived, accompanied by three ladies, +who had forgotten their diamonds and their bonnets. One of them wore a +red shawl with black spots. Schaunard pointed out this lady particularly +to Rodolphe. + +"She is a woman accustomed to the best society," said he, "an +Englishwoman whom the fall of the Stuarts has driven into exile, she +lives in a modest way by giving lessons in English. Her father was Lord +Chancellor under Cromwell, she told me, so we must be polite with her. +Don't be too familiar." + +Numerous footsteps were heard on the stairs. It was the guests arriving. +They seemed astonished to see a fire burning in the stove. + +Rodolphe's swallow-tail went to greet the ladies, and kissed their hands +with a grace worthy of the Regency. When there was a score of persons +present, Schaunard asked whether it was not time for a round of drinks. + +"Presently," said Marcel. "We are waiting for the arrival of the +influential critic to set fire to the punch." + +At eight o'clock the whole of the guests had arrived, and the execution +of the program commenced. Each item was alternated with a round of drink +of some kind, no one ever knew what. + +Towards ten o'clock the white waistcoat of the influential critic made +its appearance. He only stayed an hour, and was very sober in the +consumption of refreshments. + +At midnight, as there was no more wood, and it was very cold, the guests +who were seated drew lots as to who should cast his chair into the fire. + +By one o'clock every one was standing. + +Amiable gaiety did not cease to reign amongst the guests. There were no +accidents to be regretted, with the exception of a rent in the foreign +languages pocket of Colline's swallow-tail and a smack in the face given +by Schaunard to the daughter of Cromwell's Lord Chancellor. + +This memorable evening was for a week the staple subject of gossip in +the district, and Phemie Teinturiere, who had been the queen of the +fete, was accustomed to remark, when talking it over with her friends,-- + +"It was awfully fine. There were composite candles, my dear." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MADEMOISELLE MUSETTE + + +Mademoiselle Musette was a pretty girl of twenty who shortly after her +arrival in Paris had become what many pretty girls become when they +have a neat figure, plenty of coquesttishness, a dash of ambition and +hardly any education. After having for a long time shone as the star of +the supper parties of the Latin Quarter, at which she used to sing in a +voice, still very fresh if not very true, a number of country ditties, +which earned her the nickname under which she has since been +immortalized by one of our neatest rhymsters, Mademoiselle Musette +suddenly left the Rue de la Harpe to go and dwell upon the Cytherean +heights of the Breda district. + +She speedily became one of the foremost of the aristocracy of pleasure +and slowly made her way towards that celebrity which consists in being +mentioned in the columns devoted to Parisian gossip, or lithographed at +the printsellers. + +However Mademoiselle Musette was an exception to the women amongst whom +she lived. Of a nature instinctively elegant and poetical, like all +women who are really such, she loved luxury and the many enjoyments +which it procures; her coquetry warmly coveted all that was handsome and +distinguished; a daughter of the people, she would not have been in any +way out of her element amidst the most regal sumptuosity. But +Mademoiselle Musette, who was young and pretty, had never consented to +be the mistress of any man who was not like herself young and handsome. +She had been known bravely to refuse the magnificient offers of an old +man so rich that he was styled the Peru of the Chaussee d'Antin, and who +had offered a golden ladder to the gratification of her fancies. +Intelligent and witty, she had also a repugnance for fools and +simpletons, whatever might be their age, their title and their name. + +Musette, therefore, was an honest and pretty girl, who in love adopted +half of Champfort's famous amphoris, "Love is the interchange of two +caprices." Thus her connection had never been preceded by one of those +shameful bargains which dishonor modern gallantry. As she herself said, +Musette played fair and insisted that she should receive full change for +her sincerity. + +But if her fancies were lively and spontaneous, they were never durable +enough to reach the height of a passion. And the excessive mobility of +her caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the +boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a +corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual +alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth +stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem +of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for +one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, +sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred de +Musset to fitly narrate your careless and vagabond course amidst the +flowery paths of youth; and he would certainly have celebrated you, if +like me, he had heard you sing in your pretty false notes, this couplet +from one of your favorite ditties: + + "It was a day in Spring + When love I strove to sing + Unto a nut brown maid. + O'er face as fair as dawn + Cast a bewitching shade," + +The story we are about to tell is one of the most charming in the life +of this charming adventuress who wore so many green gowns. + +At a time when she was the mistress of a young Counsellor of State, who +had gallantly placed in her hands the key of his ancestral coffers, +Mademoiselle Musette was in the habit of receiving once a week in her +pretty drawing room in the Rue de la Bruyere. These evenings resembled +most Parisian evenings, with the difference that people amused +themselves. When there was not enough room they sat on one another's +knees, and it often happened that the same glass served for two. +Rodolphe, who was a friend of Musette and never anything more than a +friend, without either of them knowing why--Rodolphe asked leave to +bring his friend, the painter Marcel. + +"A young fellow of talent," he added, "for whom the future is +embroidering his Academician's coat." + +"Bring him," said Musette. + +The evening they were to go together to Musette's Rodolphe called on +Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet. + +"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?" + +"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly. + +"Shock custom, it stuns it." + +"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a +pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another +here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as +'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines." + +"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?" + +"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides +it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory +black." + +"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it +was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the +fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but +Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight. + +In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect +bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society. + +M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his +election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on +reaching Mademoiselle Musette's. + +This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for +some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, +had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings +having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had +been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken +away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle +Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and +did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing +room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, +dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little +entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination. + +This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed +such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters +came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to +withdraw. + +Musette bowed her guests out, singing: + + "They will laugh long and loud, tralala, + At my Thursday night's crowd + They will laugh long and loud, tralala." + +Marcel and Rodolphe alone remained with Musette, who ascended to her +room where there was nothing left but the bed. + +"Ah, but my adventure is no longer such a lively one after all," said +Musette. "I shall have to take up my quarters out of doors." + +"Oh madame!" said Marcel, "if I had the gifts of Plutus I should like to +offer you a temple finer than that of Solomon, but--" + +"You are not Plutus. All the same I thank you for your good intentions. +Ah!" she added, glancing around the room, "I was getting bored here, and +then the furniture was old. I had had it nearly six months. But that is +not all, after the dance one should sup." + +"Let us sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all +in the morning, when he was terrible. + +As Rodolphe had gained some money at the lansquenet played during the +evening, he carried off Musette and Marcel to a restaurant which was +just opening. + +After breakfast, the three, who had no inclination for sleep, spoke of +finishing the day in the country, and as they found themselves close to +the railway station they got into the first train that started, which +landed them at Saint Germain. + +During the whole of the night of the party and all of the rest of the +day Marcel, who was gunpowder which a single glance sufficed to kindle, +had been violently smitten by Mademoiselle Musette and paid her +"highly-colored court," as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as +to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the +last with the result of the sale of his famous picture, "The Passage of +the Red Sea." Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it +became necessary to part from Musette, who whilst allowing him to kiss +her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every +time that he tried to violently burgle her heart. + +On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the +artist to see her to her door. + +"Will you allow me to call on you?" asked Marcel, "I will paint your +portrait." + +"My dear fellow," replied she, "I cannot give you my address, since +tomorrow I may no longer have one, but I will call and see you, and I +will mend your coat, which has a hole so big that one could shoot the +moon through it." + +"I will await your coming like that of the messiah," said Marcel. + +"Not quite so long," said Musette, laughing. + +"What a charming girl," said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked +away. "She is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat." + +He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the +shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette. + +"My dear Monsieur Marcel," said she, "are you a true knight?" + +"I am. 'Rubens and my lady,' that is my motto." + +"Well then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir," returned +Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered +grammar in fine style, "the landlord has taken away the key of my room +and it is eleven o'clock at night. Do you understand?" + +"I understand," said Marcel, offering Musette his arm. He took her to +his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs. + +Musette was hardly able to keep awake, but she still had strength +enough to say to Marcel, taking him by the hand, "You remember what you +have promised?" + +"Oh Musette! charming creature!" said the artist in a somewhat moved +tone, "you are here beneath a hospitable roof, sleep in peace. Good +night, I am off." + +"Why so?" said Musette, her eyes half closed. "I am not afraid, I can +assure you. In the first place, there are two rooms. I will sleep on +your sofa." + +"My sofa is too hard to sleep on, it is stuffed with carded pebbles. I +will give you hospitality here, and ask it for myself from a friend who +lives on the same landing. It will be more prudent," said he. "I usually +keep my word, but I am twenty-two and you are eighteen, Musette,--and I +am off. Good night." + +The next morning at eight o'clock Marcel entered her room with a pot of +flowers that he had gone and bought in the market. He found Musette, who +had thrown herself fully dressed on the bed, and was still sleeping. At +the noise made by him she woke, and held out her hand. + +"What a good fellow," said she. + +"Good fellow," repeated Marcel, "is not that a term of ridicule?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Musette, "why should you say that to me? It is not nice. +Instead of saying spiteful things offer me that pretty pot of flowers." + +"It is, indeed, for you that I have brought them up," said Marcel. "Take +it, and in return for my hospitality sing me one of your songs, the echo +of my garret may perhaps retain something of your voice, and I shall +still hear you after you have departed." + +"Oh! so you want to show me the door?" said Musette. "Listen, Marcel, I +do not beat about the bush to say what my thoughts are. You like me and +I like you. It is not love, but it is perhaps its seed. Well, I am not +going away, I am going to stop here, and I shall stay here as long as +the flowers you have just given me remain unfaded." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Marcel, "they will fade in a couple of days. If I had +known I would have bought immortelles." + + * * * * * + +For a fortnight Musette and Marcel lived together, and led, although +often without money, the most charming life in the world. Musette felt +for the artist an affection which had nothing in common with her +preceding passions, and Marcel began to fear that he was seriously in +love with his mistress. Ignorant that she herself was very much afraid +of being equally smitten, he glanced every morning at the condition of +the flowers, the death of which was to bring about the severance of +their connection, and found it very difficult to account for their +continued freshness. But he soon had a key to the mystery. One night, +waking up, he no longer found Musette beside him. He rose, hastened into +the next room, and perceived his mistress, who profited nightly by his +slumbers to water the flowers and hinder them from perishing. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BILLOWS OF PACTOLUS + + +It was the nineteenth of March, 184--. Should Rodolphe reach the age of +Methuselah, he will never forget the date; for it was on that day, at +three in the afternoon, that our friend issued from a banker's where he +had just received five hundred francs in current and sounding specie. + +The first use Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into +his pocket was not to pay his debts, inasmuch as he had sworn to himself +to practice economy and go to no extra expense. He had a fixed idea on +this subject, and declared that before thinking of superfluities, one +ought to provide for necessaries. Therefore it was that he paid none of +his creditors, and bought a Turkish pipe which he had long coveted. + +Armed with this purchase, he directed his steps towards the lodging of +his friend Marcel, who had for some time given him shelter. As he +entered Marcel's studio, Rodolphe's pockets rang like a village-steeple +on a grand holiday. On hearing this unusual sound, Marcel supposed it +was one of his neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on +'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door +beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to +the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one +to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn robber, forty times +over." + +So, never suspecting that it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a +Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which +had been on his easel nearly three years. + +Rodolphe, who had not yet spoken, meditating an experiment which he was +about to make on his friend, said to himself, "We shall laugh in a +minute. Won't it be fun?" and he let fall a five-franc piece on the +floor. + +Marcel raised his eyes and looked at Rodolphe, who was as grave as an +article in the "Revue des deux Mondes." Then he picked up the piece of +money with a well-satisfied air, and made a courteous salute to it; for, +vagabond artist as he was, he understood the usages of society, and was +very civil to strangers. Knowing, moreover, that Rodolphe had gone out +to look for money, Marcel, seeing that his friend had succeeded in his +operations, contented himself with admiring the result, without +inquiring by what means it had been obtained. Accordingly, he went to +work again without speaking, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the +waves of the Red Sea. As he was terminating this homicide, Rodolphe let +fall another piece, laughing in his sleeve at the face the painter was +going to make. + +At the sonorous sound of the metal, Marcel bounded up as if he had +received an electric shock, and cried, "What! Number two!" + +A third piece rolled on the floor, then another, then one more; finally +a whole quadrille of five-franc pieces were dancing in the room. + +Marcel began to show evident signs of mental alienation; and Rodolphe +laughed like the pit of a Parisian theatre at the first representation +of a very tragical tragedy. Suddenly, and without any warning, he +plunged both hands into his pockets, and the money rushed out in a +supernatural steeple-chase. It was an inundation of Pactolus; it was +Jupiter entering Danae's chamber. + +Marcel remained silent, motionless, with a fixed stare; his astonishment +was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which +the untimely curiosity of Lott's wife brought upon her: by the time that +Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter +was petrified all down one side of his body. + +Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the +thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the +crying of a child at the breast. + +Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in +a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought +blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, +though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in +a tragedy, he ejaculated: + +"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added, +"Explain to me this mystery." + +"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more." + +"Come, now!" + +"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking +up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and +looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking +to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!" + +"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought +Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the +table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red +Sea.'" + +All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with +great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist: + +"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not +the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but +honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in +laboriously acquiring a serious position--such as a virtuous man should +occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties--." + +"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel. + +"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good +sense, no doubt." + +"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries. +They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in +which I am from this moment clad." + +"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion." + +"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of +life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond +existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go +to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we +will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The +strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we +have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must +be economical." + +"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable +for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first +elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the +works of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, who +will perhaps teach us how to practice the art. Hallo! You have a Turkish +pipe there!" + +"Yes, I bought it for twenty-five francs." + +"How is that! You talk of economy, and give twenty-five francs for a +pipe!" + +"And this is an economy. I used to break a two-sous pipe every day, and +at the end of the year that came to a great deal more." + +"True, I should never have thought of that." + +They heard a neighboring clock strike six. + +"Let us have dinner at once," said Rodolphe. "I mean to begin from +tonight. Talking of dinner, it occurs to me that we lose much valuable +time every day in cooking ours; now time is money, so we must economize +it. From this day we will dine out." + +"Yes," said Marcel, "there is a capital restaurant twenty steps off. +It's rather dear, but not far to go, so we shall gain in time what we +lose in money." + +"We will go there today," said Rodolphe, "but tomorrow or next day we +will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the +restaurant, we will hire a cook." + +"No, no," put in Marcel, "we will hire a servant to be cook and +everything. Just see the immense advantages which will result from it. +First of all, our rooms will be always in order; he will clean our +boots, go on errands, wash my brushes; I will even try and give him a +taste of the fine arts, and make him grind colors. In this way, we shall +save at least six hours a day." + +Five minutes after, the two friends were installed in one of the little +rooms of the restaurant, and continuing their schemes of economy. + +"We must get an intelligent lad," said Rodolphe, "if he has a sprinkling +of spelling, I will teach him to write articles, and make an editor of +him." + +"That will be his resource for his old age," said Marcel, adding up the +bill. "Well, this is dear, rather! Fifteen francs! We used both to dine +for a franc and a half." + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe, "but then we dined so badly that we were +obliged to sup at night. So, on the whole, it is an economy." + +"You always have the best of the argument," muttered the convinced +artist. "Shall we work tonight?" + +"No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will +give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?" + +"I shall go to Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures +to give me. By the way, give me five francs." + +"For what?" + +"To cross the Pont des Arts." + +"Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! +That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a +violation of our rule." + +"I am wrong, to be sure," said Marcel. "I will take a cab and go by the +Pont Neuf." + +So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but +somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they +didn't go home till morning. + +Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. +Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, +and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they +met in the street. Still their system of economy was in full blast, +though it was not without much difficulty that their "organization of +labor" had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow +thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an +average donkey. + +But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his +business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he +blushed with indignation, and sent it by porter. However, he had some +merits; for instance, he could hash hare well and his first profession +having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time--or his +masters', rather--in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also +succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But where he was unrivalled +was in smoking Marcel's cigars and lighting them with Rodolphe's +manuscripts. + +One day Marcel wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for +Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste +replied by a flat refusal, and demanded his wages. + +"Very well," said Marcel, "I will settle with you tonight." + +When Rodolphe returned, his friends declared that they must send away +Baptiste. "He is of no use to us at all." + +"No, indeed--only an ornament, and not much of that." + +"Awfully stupid." + +"And equally lazy." + +"We must turn him off." + +"Let us!" + +"Still, he has some good points. He hashes hare very well." + +"And the lamp-black! He is a very Raphael for that." + +"Yes, but that's all he is good for. We lose time arguing with him." + +"He keeps us from working." + +"He is the cause of my 'Passage' not being finished in time for the +Exhibition. He wouldn't sit for Pharaoh." + +"Thanks to him, I couldn't finish my article in time. He wouldn't go to +the public library and hunt up the notes I wanted." + +"He is ruining us." + +"Decidedly we can't keep him." + +"Send him away then! But we must pay him." + +"That we'll do. Give me the money, and I will settle accounts with +him." + +"Money! But it is not I who keeps the purse, but you." + +"Not at all! It is you who are charged with the financial department." + +"But I assure you," said Marcel, "I have no money." + +"Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can't have spent five +hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid +economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute +necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must +look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is." + +"Yes, but we shan't find where the money is. However, let us see the +account-book, at any rate." + +And this is the way they kept their accounts which had been begun under +the auspices of Saint Economy: + +_"March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, +15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr."_ + +"What are those sundries?" asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading. + +"You know very well," replied the other, "that night when we didn't go +home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that." + +"Well, afterwards?" + +_"March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an +opera glass, 2 fr. 50 c._--that goes to your account. What did you want +a glass for? You see perfectly well." + +"You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the 'Scarf of +Iris.' It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The +expense is quite legitimate. Well?--" + +"A bamboo cane--" + +"Ah, that goes to your account," said Rodolphe. "You didn't want a +cane." + +"That was all we spent the 20th," was Marcel's only answer. "The 21st we +breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out." + +"We ought not to have spent much that day." + +"Not much, in fact--hardly thirty francs." + +"But what for?" + +"I don't know; it's marked sundries." + +"Vague and treacherous heading!" + +"'21st. (The day that Baptiste came.) _5 francs to him on account of his +wages. 50 centimes to the organ man.'"_ + +"23rd. Nothing set down. 24th, ditto. Two good days!" + +_"'25th. Baptiste, on account, 3 fr._ It seems to me we give him money +very often," said Marcel, by way of reflection. + +"There will be less owing to him," said Rodolphe. "Go on!" + +_"'26th. Sundries, useful in an artistic point of view, 36 fr.'"_ + +"What did we buy that was useful? I don't recollect. What can it have +been?" + +"You don't remember! The day we went to the top of Notre Dame for a +bird's-eye view of Paris." + +"But it costs only eight sous to go up the tower." + +"Yes, but then we went to dine at Saint Germain after we came down." + +"Clear as mud!" + +"27th. Nothing to set down." + +"Good! There's economy for you." + +_"'28th. Baptiste, on account, 6 fr.'"_ + +"Now this time I am sure we owe Baptiste nothing more. Perhaps he is +even in our debt. We must see." + +"29th. Nothing set down, except the beginning of an article on 'Social +Morals.'" + +"30th. Ah! We had company at dinner--heavy expenses the 30th, 55 fr. +31st.--that's today--we have spent nothing yet. You see," continued +Marcel, "the account has been kept very carefully, and the total does +not reach five hundred francs." + +"Then there ought to be money in the drawer." + +"We can see," said Marcel, opening it. + +"Anything there?" + +"Yes, a spider." + + "A spider in the morning + Of sorrow is a warning," hummed Rodolphe. + +"Where the deuce has all the money gone?" exclaimed Marcel, totally +upset at the sight of the empty drawer. + +"Very simple," replied Rodolphe. "Baptiste has had it all." + +"Stop a minute!" cried Marcel, rummaging in the drawer, where he +perceived a paper. "The bill for last quarter's rent!" + +"How did it come there?" + +"And paid, too," added Marcel. "You paid the landlord, then!" + +"Me! Come now!" said Rodolphe. + +"But what means--" + +"But I assure you--" + +"Oh, what can be this mystery?" sang the two in chorus to the final air +of "The White Lady." + +Baptiste, who loved music, came running in at once. Marcel showed him +the paper. + +"Ah, yes," said Baptiste carelessly, "I forgot to tell you. The landlord +came this morning while you were out. I paid him, to save him the +trouble of coming back." + +"Where did you find the money?" + +"I took it out of the open drawer. I thought, sir, you had left it open +on purpose, and forgot to tell me to pay him, so I did just as if you +had told me." + +"Baptiste!" said Marcel, in a white heat, "you have gone beyond your +orders. From this day you cease to form part of our household. Take off +your livery!" + +Baptiste took off the glazed leather cap which composed his livery, and +handed it to Marcel. + +"Very well," said the latter, "now you may go." + +"And my wages?" + +"Wages? You scamp! You have had fourteen francs in a little more than a +week. What do you do with so much money? Do you keep a dancer?" + +"A rope dancer?" suggested Rodolphe. + +"Then I am to be left," said the unhappy domestic, "without a covering +for my head!" + +"Take your livery," said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he +restored the cap to Baptiste. + +"Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes," said Rodolphe, +seeing poor Baptiste go out. "Where shall we dine today?" + +"We shall know tomorrow," replied Marcel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE + + +One Saturday evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into +housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her +appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he +frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure. +Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The +Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods +puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these +provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, +sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the +fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, +Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly +to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch. +She even, without circumlocution, made an appointment with him for the +next day. + +"By Jove," said Rodolphe to himself, as he saw Mademoiselle Laure home, +"this is certainly a very amiable young person. She seems to me to have +a good grammar and a tolerably extensive wardrobe. I am quite disposed +to make her happy." + +On reaching the door of her house, Mademoiselle Laure relinquished +Rodolphe's arm, thanking him for the trouble he had taken in +accompanying her to such a remote locality. + +"Oh! madame," replied Rodolphe, bowing to the ground, "I should like you +to have lived at Moscow or the islands of the Sound, in order to have +had the pleasure of being your escort the longer." + +"That would be rather far," said Laure, affectedly. + +"We could have gone by way of the Boulevards, madame," said Rodolphe. +"Allow me to kiss you hand in the shape of your cheek," he added, +kissing his companion on the lips before Laure could make any +resistance. + +"Oh sir!" she exclaimed, "you go too fast." + +"It is to reach my destination sooner," said Rodolphe. "In love, the +first stages should be ridden at a gallop." + +"What a funny fellow," though the milliner, as she entered her dwelling. + +"A pretty girl," said Rodolphe, as he walked away. + +Returning home, he went to bed at once, and had the most delightful +dreams. He saw himself at balls, theaters, and public promenades with +Mademoiselle Laure on his arm, clad in dresses more magnificent than +those of the girl with the ass's skin of the fairy tale. + +The next morning at eleven o'clock, according to habit, Rodolphe got up. +His first thought was for Mademoiselle Laure. + +"She is a very well mannered woman," he murmured, "I feel sure that she +was brought up at Saint Denis. I shall at length realize the happiness +of having a mistress who is not pitted with the small-pox. Decidedly I +will make sacrifices for her. I will go and draw my screw at 'The Scarf +of Iris.' I will buy some gloves, and I will take Laure to dinner at a +restaurant where table napkins are in use. My coat is not up to much," +said he as he dressed himself, "but, bah! black is good wear." + +And he went out to go to the office of "The Scarf of Iris." + +Crossing the street he came across an omnibus, on the side of which was +pasted a bill, with the words, "Display of Fountains at Versailles, +today, Sunday." + +A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe's feet would not have produced a +deeper impression upon him than the sight of this bill. + +"Today, Sunday! I had forgotten it," he exclaimed. "I shall not be able +to get any money. Today, Sunday!!! All the spare coin in Paris is on its +way to Versailles." + +However, impelled by one of those fabulous hopes to which a man always +clings, Rodolphe hurried to the office of the paper, reckoning that some +happy chance might have taken the cashier there. + +Monsieur Boniface had, indeed, looked in for a moment, but had left at +once. + +"For Versailles," said the office messenger to Rodolphe. + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "it is all over!... But let me see," he thought, +"my appointment is for this evening. It is noon, so I have five hours to +find five francs in--twenty sous an hour, like the horses in the Bois du +Boulogne. Forward." + +As he found himself in a neighborhood where the journalist, whom he +styled the influential critic, resided, Rodolphe thought of having a try +at him. + +"I am sure to find him in," said he, as he ascended the stairs, "it is +the day he writes his criticism--there is no fear of his being out. I +will borrow five francs of him." + +"Hallo! it's you, is it?" said the journalist, on seeing Rodolphe. "You +come at the right moment. I have a slight service to ask of you." + +"How lucky it falls out," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris." + +"Were you at the Odeon Theater last night?" + +"I am always at the Odeon." + +"You have seen the new piece, then?" + +"Who else would have seen it? I am the Odeon audience." + +"That is true," said the critic, "you are one of the caryatides of the +theater. It is even rumored that it is you who finds the money for its +subvention. Well, that is what I want of you, a summary of the plot of +the new piece." + +"That is easy, I have the memory of a creditor." + +"Whom is this piece by?" asked the critic of Rodolphe, whilst the latter +was writing. + +"A gentleman." + +"It cannot be up to much." + +"Well, it is not as strong as a Turk." + +"Then it cannot be very robust. The Turks, you see, have usurped a +reputation for strength. Besides, there are no longer any Turks except +at masked balls and in the Champs-Elysees where they sell dates. One of +my friends knows the East and he assures me that all the natives of it +were born in the Rue Coquenard." + +"That is smart," said Rodolphe. + +"You think so?" observed the critic, "I will put it in my article." + +"Here is my analysis of the piece, it is to the point," resumed +Rodolphe. + +"Yes, but it is short." + +"By putting in dashes and developing your critical opinion it will fill +some space." + +"I have scarcely time, my dear fellow, and then my critical opinion will +not fill enough space either." + +"You can stick in an adjective at every third word." + +"Cannot you tail on to your analysis a little, or rather a long +criticism of the piece, eh?" asked the critic. + +"Humph," said Rodolphe. "I have certainly some opinions upon tragedy, +but I have printed them three times in 'The Beaver' and 'The Scarf of +Iris.'" + +"No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?" + +"Forty lines." + +"The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines." + +"Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy +for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the +critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at +the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, +there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart." + +"What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there +anything new in the world except virtue?" + +"Here you are," said Rodolphe, as he finished. + +"Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is +this chasm to be filled?" exclaimed the critic. "Since you are here +supply me with some paradoxes." + +"I have not any about me," said Rodolphe, "though I can lend you some. +Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my +friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet." + +"Very good," said the critic. + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. "I shall +certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as +partridges." And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about +pianos, goldfish and Rhine wine, which was called toilet wine just as +we speak of toilet vinegar. + +"It is very good," said the critic. "Now do me the favor to add that the +place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere else is the +galleys." + +"Why?" + +"To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished," said the +influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the +printers. + +"And now," thought Rodolphe, "let us strike home." And he gravely +proposed his request. + +"Ah! my dear fellow," said the critic, "I have not a sou in the place. +Lolette ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last +copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters +spout forth the floods." + +"To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!" exclaimed Rodolphe. + +"But why do you want money?" + +"That is my story," replied Rodolphe, "I have at five this evening an +appointment with a lady, a very well bred lady who never goes out save +in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and +it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of +this life. For dinner, dances, &c., &c., I must have five francs, and if +I do not find them French literature is dishonoured in my person." + +"Why don't you borrow the sum of the lady herself?" exclaimed the +critic. + +"The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me +out of this fix." + +"By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not +enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell." + +"Impossible today, Mother Mansut's, Lebigre's, and all the shops on the +quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? +Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such +things never sell." + +"Unless the author is criminally convicted," said the critic. "Wait a +bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about +it skillfully you may, perhaps, make money of them." + +"I would rather have something else, a pair of trowsers, for instance." + +"Come," said the critic, "take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster +cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor, it is the widow's +mite." + +"I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away +these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it +as the thirteenth labor of Hercules." + +After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an +eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in +getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, +the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot. + +"Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I +must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle." + +Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti's, who read upon his +nephew's face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and +forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as: + +"Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are +terribly high, commerce decaying, &c., &c.," all the hypocritical litany +of shopkeepers. + +"Would you believe it," said the uncle, "that I have been forced to +borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?" + +"You should have sent to me," said Rodolphe. "I would have lent it you, +I received two hundred francs three days ago." + +"Thanks, my lad," said the uncle, "but you have need of your fortune. +Ah! whilst you are here, you might, you who write such a good hand, copy +out some bills for me that I want to send out." + +"My five francs are going to cost me dear," said Rodolphe to himself, +setting about the task, which he condensed. + +"My dear uncle," said he to Monetti, "I know how fond you are of music +and I have brought you some concert tickets." + +"You are very kind, my boy. Will you stay to dinner?" + +"Thanks, uncle, but I am expected at dinner in the Faubourg Saint +Germain, indeed, I am rather put out about it for I have not time to run +home and get the money to buy gloves." + +"You have no gloves, shall I lend you mine?" said his uncle. + +"Thanks, we do not take the same size, only you would greatly oblige me +by the loan of--" + +"Twenty nine sous to buy a pair? Certainly, my boy, here you are. When +one goes into society one should be well dressed. Better be envied than +pitied, as your aunt used to say. Come, I see you are getting on in the +world, so much the better. I would have given you more," he went on, +"but it is all I have in the till. I should have to go upstairs and I +cannot leave the shop, customers drop in every moment." + +"You were saying that business was not flourishing?" + +Uncle Monetti pretended not to hear, and said to his nephew who was +pocketing the twenty nine sous: + +"Do not be in a hurry about repayment." + +"What a screw," said Rodolphe, bolting. "Ah!" he continued, "there are +still thirty-one sous lacking. Where am I to find them? I know, let's be +off to the crossroads of Providence." + +This was the name bestowed by Rodolphe on the most central point in +Paris, that is to say, the Palais Royal, a spot where it is almost +impossible to remain ten minutes without meeting ten people of one's +acquaintance, creditors above all. Rodolphe therefore went and stationed +himself at the entrance to the Palais Royal. This time Providence was +long in coming. At last Rodolphe caught sight of it. Providence had a +white hat, a green coat, and a gold headed cane--a well dressed +Providence. + +It was a rich and obliging fellow, although a phalansterian. + +"I am delighted to see you," said he to Rodolphe, "come and walk a +little way with me; we can have a talk." + +"So I am to have the infliction of the phalanstere," murmured Rodolphe, +suffering himself to be led away from the wearer of the white hat, who, +indeed, phalanstered him to the utmost. + +As they drew near the Pont des Arts Rodolphe said to his companion-- + +"I must leave you, not having sufficient to pay the toll." + +"Nonsense," said the other, catching hold of Rodolphe and throwing two +sous to the toll keeper. + +"This is the right moment," thought the editor of "The Scarf of Iris," +as they crossed the bridge. Arrived at the further end in front of the +clock of the Institute, Rodolphe stopped short, pointed to the dial +with a despairing gesture, and exclaimed:-- + +"Confound it all, a quarter to five! I am done for." + +"What is the matter?" cried his astonished friend. + +"The matter is," said Rodolphe, "that, thanks to your dragging me here +in spite of myself, I have missed an appointment." + +"An important one?" + +"I should think so; money that I was to call for at five o'clock +at--Batignolles. I shall never be able to get there. Hang it; what am I +to do?" + +"Why," said the phalansterian, "nothing is simpler; come home with me +and I will lend you some." + +"Impossible, you live at Montrouge, and I have business at six o'clock +at the Chaussee d'Antin. Confound it." + +"I have a trifle about me," said Providence, timidly, "but it is very +little." + +"If I had enough to take a cab I might get to Batignolles in time." + +"Here is the contents of my purse, my dear fellow, thirty one sous." + +"Give it to me at once, that I may bolt," said Rodolphe, who had just +heard five o'clock strike, and who hastened off to keep his appointment. + +"It has been hard to get," said he, counting out his money. "A hundred +sous exactly. At last I am supplied, and Laure will see that she has to +do with a man who knows how to do things properly. I won't take a +centime home this evening. We must rehabilitate literature, and prove +that its votaries only need money to be wealthy." + +Rodolphe found Mademoiselle Laure at the trysting place. + +"Good," said he, "for punctuality she is a feminine chronometer." + +He spent the evening with her, and bravely melted down his five francs +in the crucible of prodigality. Mademoiselle Laure was charmed with his +manners, and was good enough only to notice that Rodolphe had not +escorted her home at the moment when he was ushering her into his own +room. + +"I am committing a fault," said she. "Do not make me repent of it by the +ingratitude which is characteristic of your sex." + +"Madame," said Rodolphe, "I am known for my constancy. It is such that +all my friends are astonished at my fidelity, and have nicknamed me the +General Bertrand of Love." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WHITE VIOLETS + + +About this time Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, +who couldn't bear him; and the thermometer was twelve degrees below +freezing point. + +Mademoiselle Angela was the daughter of Monsieur Monetti, the chimney +doctor, of whom we have already had occasion to speak. She was eighteen +years old, and had just come from Burgundy, where she lived five years +with a relative who was to leave her all her property. This relative was +an old lady who had never been young apparently--certainly never +handsome, but had always been very ill-natured, although--or perhaps +because--very superstitious. Angela, who at her departure was a charming +child, and promised to be a charming girl, came back at the end of the +five years a pretty enough young lady, but cold, dry, and uninteresting. +Her secluded provincial life, and the narrow and bigoted education she +had received, had filled her mind with vulgar prejudices, shrunk her +imagination, and converted her heart into a sort of organ, limited to +fulfilling its function of physical balance wheel. You might say that +she had holy water in her veins instead of blood. She received her +cousin with an icy reserve; and he lost his time whenever he attempted +to touch the chord of her recollections--recollections of the time when +they had sketched out that flirtation in the Paul-and-Virginia style +which is traditional between cousins of different sexes. Still Rodolphe +was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and +learning one day that the young lady was going shortly to the wedding +ball of one of her friends, he made bold to promise Angela a bouquet of +violets for the ball. And after asking permission of her father, Angela +accepted her cousin's gallant offer--always on condition that the +violets should be white. + +Overjoyed at his cousin's amiability, Rodolphe danced and sang his way +back to Mount St. Bernard, as he called his lodging--why will be seen +presently. As he passed by a florist's in crossing the Palais Royal, he +saw some white violets in the showcase, and was curious enough to ask +their price. A presentable bouquet could not be had for less than ten +francs; there were some that cost more. + +"The deuce!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "ten francs! and only eight days to +find this fortune! It will be a hard pull, but never mind, my cousin +shall have her flowers." + +This happened in the time of Rodolphe's literary genesis, as the +transcendentalists would say. His only income at that period was an +allowance of fifteen francs a month, made him by a friend, who, after +living a long while in Paris as a poet, had, by the help of influential +acquaintances, gained the mastership of a provincial school. Rodolphe, +who was the child of prodigality, always spent his allowance in four +days; and, not choosing to abandon his holy but not very profitable +profession of elegiac poet, lived for the rest of the month on the rare +droppings from the basket of Providence. This long Lent had no terrors +for him; he passed through it gaily, thanks to his stoical temperament +and to the imaginary treasures which he expended every day while +waiting for the first of the month, that Easter which terminated his +fast. He lived at this time at the very top of one of the loftiest +houses in Paris. His room was shaped like a belvidere, and was a +delicious habitation in summer, but from October to April a perfect +little Kamschatka. The four cardinal winds which penetrated by the four +windows,--there was one on each of the four sides--made fearful music in +it throughout the cold seasons. Then in irony as it were, there was a +huge fireplace, the immense chimney of which seemed a gate of honor +reserved for Boreas and his retinue. On the first attack of cold, +Rodolphe had recourse to an original system of warming; he cut up +successively what little furniture he had, and at the end of a week his +stock was considerably abridged; in fact, he had only a bed and two +chairs left; it should be remarked that these items were insured against +fire by their nature, being of iron. This manner of heating himself he +called _moving up the chimney_. + +It was January, and the thermometer, which indicated twelve degrees +below freezing point on the Spectacle Quay, would have stood two or +three lower if moved to the belvidere, which Rodolphe called +indifferently Mount St. Bernard, Spitzenberg, and Siberia. + +The night when he promised his cousin the white violets, he was seized +with a great rage on returning home; the four cardinal winds, in playing +puss-in-the-corner round his chamber, had broken a pane of glass--the +third time in a fortnight. After exploding in a volley of frantic +imprecations upon Eolus and all his family, and plugging up the breach +with a friend's portrait, Rodolphe lay down, dressed as he was, between +his two mattresses, and dreamed of white violets all night. + +At the end of five days, Rodolphe had found nothing to help him toward +realizing his dreams. He must have the bouquet the day after tomorrow. +Meanwhile, the thermometer fell still lower, and the luckless poet was +ready to despair as he thought the violets might have risen higher. +Finally his good angel had pity on him, and came to his relief as +follows. + +One morning, Rodolphe went to take his chance of getting a breakfast +from his friend Marcel the painter, and found him conversing with a +woman in mourning. It was a widow who had just lost her husband, and who +wanted to know how much it would cost to paint on the tomb which she had +erected, a man's hand, with this inscription beneath: + + "I WAIT FOR HER TO WHOM MY FAITH WAS PLIGHTED." + +To get the work at a cheaper rate, she observed to the artist that when +she was called to rejoin her husband, he would have another hand to +paint--her hand with a bracelet on the wrist and the supplementary line +beneath: + + "AT LENGTH, BEHOLD US THUS ONCE MORE UNITED." + +"I shall put this clause in my will," she said, "and require that the +task be intrusted to you." + +"In that case, madame," replied the artist, "I will do it at the price +you offer--but only in the hope of seeing your hand. Don't go and forget +me in your will." + +"I should like to have this as soon as possible," said the disconsolate +one, "nevertheless, take your time to do it well and don't forget the +scar on the thumb. I want a living hand." + +"Don't be afraid, madame, it shall be a speaking one," said Marcel, as +he bowed the widow out. But hardly had she crossed the threshold when +she returned, saying, "I have one more thing to ask you, sir: I should +like to have inscribed on my husband's tomb something in verse which +would tell of his good conduct and his last words. Is that good style?" + +"Very good style--they call that an epitaph--the very best style." + +"You don't know anyone who would do that for me cheap? There is my +neighbor Monsieur Guerin, the public writer, but he asks the clothes off +my back." + +Here Rodolphe looked at Marcel, who understood him at once. + +"Madame," said the artist, pointing to Rodolphe, "a happy fortune has +conducted hither the very person who can be of service to you in this +mournful juncture. This gentleman is a renowned poet; you couldn't find +a better one." + +"I want something very melancholy," said the widow, "and the spelling +all right." + +"Madame," replied Marcel, "my friend spells like a book. He had all the +prizes at school." + +"Indeed!" said the widow, "my grand-nephew had just had a prize too; he +is only seven years old." + +"A very forward child, madame." + +"But are you sure that the gentleman can make very melancholy verses?" + +"No one better, madame, for he has undergone much sorrow in his life. +The papers always find fault with his verses for being too melancholy." + +"What!" cried the widow, "do they talk about him in the papers? He must +know quite as much, then, as Monsieur Guerin, the public writer." + +"And a great deal more. Apply to him, madame, and you will not repent of +it." + +After having explained to Rodolphe the sort of inscription in verse +which she wished to place on her husband's tomb, the widow agreed to +give Rodolphe ten francs if it suited her--only she must have it very +soon. The poet promised she should have it the very next day. + +"Oh good genius of Artemisia!" cried Rodolphe as the widow disappeared. +"I promise you that you shall be suited--full allowance of melancholy +lyrics, better got up than a duchess, orthography and all. Good old +lady! May Heaven reward you with a life of a hundred and seven +years--equal to that of a good brandy!" + +"I object," said Marcel. + +"That's true," said Rodolphe, "I forgot that you have her hand to paint, +and that so long a life would make you lose money." And lifting his +hands he gravely ejaculated, "Heaven, do not grant my prayer! Ah!" he +continued, "I was in jolly good luck to come here." + +"By the way," asked Marcel, "what did you want?" + +"I recollect--and now especially that I have to pass the night in making +these verses, I cannot do without what I came to ask you for, namely, +first, some dinner; secondly, tobacco and a candle; thirdly, your +polar-bear costume." + +"To go to the masked ball?" + +"No, indeed, but as you see me here, I am as much frozen up as the grand +army in retreat from Russia. Certainly my green frock-coat and +Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would +do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I +do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary." + +"Take the fur!" said Marcel, "it's a good idea; warm as a dish of +charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it." + +Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin. + +"Now," said he, "the thermometer is going to be really mad." + +"Are you going out so?" said Marcel to his friend, after they had +finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish. + +"I just am," replied Rodolphe. "Do you think I care for public opinion? +Besides, today is the beginning of carnival." + +He went half over Paris with all the gravity of the beast whose skin he +occupied. Only on passing before a thermometer in an optician's window +he couldn't help taking a sight at it. + +Having returned home not without causing great terror to his porter, +Rodolphe lit his candle, carefully surrounding it with an extempore +shade of paper to guard it against the malice of the winds, and set to +work at once. But he was not long in perceiving that if his body was +almost entirely protected from the cold, his hands were not; a terrible +numbness seized his fingers which let the pen fall. + +"The bravest man cannot struggle against the elements," said the poet, +falling back helpless in his chair. "Caeser passed the Rubicon, but he +could not have passed the Beresina." + +All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin +breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its +snowy fur. He had an idea! + +Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable mass of papers, among +which were a dozen huge manuscripts of his famous drama, "The Avenger." +This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and +remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen +pounds. He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others +towards the fireplace. + +"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he +exclaimed. "What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would +happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more +fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of +the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five +minutes the first act of "The Avenger" was over, and Rodolphe had +written three verses of his epitaph. + +It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds +when they felt fire in the chimney. + +"It's an illusion," quoth Boreas, as he amused himself by brushing back +the hair of Rodolphe's bear skin. + +"Let's blow down the pipe," suggested another wind, "and make the +chimney smoke." But just as they were about to plague the poor poet, the +south wind perceived Monsieur Arago at a window of the Observatory +threatening them with his finger; so they all made off, for fear of +being put under arrest. Meanwhile the second act of "The Avenger" was +going off with immense success, and Rodolphe had written ten lines. But +he only achieved two during the third act. + +"I always thought that third act too short," said Rodolphe, "luckily the +next one will take longer; there are twenty three scenes in it, +including the great one of the throne." As the last flourish of the +throne scene went up the chimney in fiery flakes, Rodolphe had only +three couplets more to write. "Now for the last act. This is all +monologue. It may last five minutes." The catastrophe flashed and +smouldered, and Rodolphe in a magnificent transport of poetry had +enshrined in lyric stanzas the last words of the illustrious deceased. +"There is enough left for a second representation," said he, pushing the +remainder of the manuscript under his bed. + +At eight o'clock next evening, Mademoiselle Angela entered the ballroom; +in her hand was a splendid nosegay of white violets, and among them two +budding roses, white also. During the whole night men and women were +complimenting the young girl on her bouquet. Angela could not but feel a +little grateful to her cousin who had procured this little triumph for +her vanity; and perhaps she would have thought more of him but for the +gallant persecutions of one of the bride's relatives who had danced +several times with her. He was a fair-haired youth, with a magnificent +moustache curled up at the ends, to hook innocent hearts. The bouquet +had been pulled to pieces by everybody; only two white roses were left. +The young man asked Angela for them; she refused--only to forget them +after the ball on a bench, whence the young fair-haired youth hastened +to take them. + +At that moment it was fourteen degrees below freezing point in +Rodolphe's belvidere. He was leaning against his window looking out at +the lights in the ballroom, where his cousin Angela, who didn't care for +him, was dancing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CAPE OF STORMS + + +In the opening month of each of the four seasons there are some +terrible epochs, usually about the 1st and the 15th. Rodolphe, who could +not witness the approach of one or the other of these two dates without +alarm, nicknamed them the Cape of Storms. On these mornings it is not +Aurora who opens the portals of the East, but creditors, landlords, +bailiffs and their kidney. The day begins with a shower of bills and +accounts and winds up with a hailstorm of protests. _Dies irae_. + +Now one morning, it was the 15th of April, Rodolphe was peacefully +slumbering--and dreaming that one of his uncles had just bequeathed him +a whole province in Peru, the feminine inhabitants included. + +Whilst he was wallowing in this imaginary Pacolus, the sound of a key +turning in the lock interrupted the heir presumptive just at the most +dazzling point of his golden dream. + +Rodolphe sat up in bed, his eyes and mind yet heavy with slumber, and +looked about him. + +He vaguely perceived standing in the middle of his room a man who had +just entered. + +This early visitor bore a bag slung at his back and a large pocketbook +in his hand. He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat +and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of +stairs. His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as +sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter on the march. + +Rodolphe was alarmed for a moment, and at the sight of the cocked hat +and the coat thought that he had a police officer before him. + +But the sight of the tolerably well filled bag made him perceive his +mistake. + +"Ah! I have it," thought he, "it is something on account of my +inheritance, this man comes from the West Indies. But in that case why +is he not black?" + +And making a sign to the man, he said, pointing to the bag, "I know all +about it. Put it down there. Thanks." + +The man was a messenger of the Bank of France. He replied to Rodolphe's +request by holding before his eyes a small strip of paper covered with +writing and figures in various colored inks. + +"You want a receipt," said Rodolphe. "That is right. Pass me the pen +and ink. There, on the table." + +"No, I have come to take money," replied the messenger. "An acceptance +for a hundred and fifty francs. It is the 15th of April." + +"Ah!" observed Rodolphe, examining the acceptance. "Pay to the order +of---- Birmann. It is my tailor. Alas," he added, in melancholy tones +casting his eyes alternately upon a frock coat thrown on the bed and +upon the acceptance, "causes depart but effects return. What, it is the +15th of April? It is extraordinary, I have not yet had any strawberries +this year." + +The messenger, weary of delay, left the room, saying to Rodolphe, "You +have till four o'clock to pay." + +"There is no time like the present," replied Rodolphe. "The humbug," he +added regretfully, following the cocked hat with his eyes, "he has taken +away his bag." + +Rodolphe drew the curtains of his bed and tried to retrace the path to +his inheritance, but he made a mistake on the road and proudly entered +into a dream in which the manager of the Theatre Francais came hat in +hand to ask him for a drama for his theater, and in which he, aware of +the customary practice, asked for an advance. But at the very moment +when the manager appeared to be willing to comply the sleeper was again +half awakened by the entry of a fresh personage, another creature of the +15th. + +It was Monsieur Benoit, landlord of the lodging house in which Rodolphe +was residing. Monsieur Benoit was at once the landlord, the bootmaker +and the money lender of his lodgers. On this morning he exhaled a +frightful odor of bad brandy and overdue rent. He carried an empty bag +in his hand. + +"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, "this is not the manager of the Theater +Francais, he would have a white cravat and the bag would be full." + +"Good morning, Monsieur Rodolphe," said Monsieur Benoit, approaching the +bed. + +"Monsieur Benoit! Good morning. What has given me the pleasure of this +visit?" + +"I have come to remind you that it is the 15th of April." + +"Already! How time flies, it is extraordinary, I must see about buying a +pair of summer trousers. The 15th of April. Good heavens! I should never +have thought of it but for you, Monsieur Benoit. What gratitude I owe +you for this!" + +"You also owe me a hundred and sixty-two francs," replied Monsieur +Benoit, "and it is time this little account was settled." + +"I am not in any absolute hurry--do not put yourself out, Monsieur +Benoit. I will give you time." + +"But," said the landlord, "you have already put me off several times." + +"In that case let us come to a settlement, Monsieur Benoit, let us come +to a settlement, it is all the same to me today as tomorrow. Besides we +are all mortal. Let us come to a settlement." + +An amiable smile smoothed the landlord wrinkles and even his empty bag +swelled with hope. + +"What do I owe you?" asked Rodolphe. + +"In the first place, we have three months' rent at twenty-five francs, +that makes seventy-five francs." + +"Errors excepted," said Rodolphe. "And then?" + +"Then three pairs of boots at twenty francs." + +"One moment, one moment, Monsieur Benoit, do not let us mix matters, +this is no longer to do with the landlord but the bootmaker. I want a +separate account. Accounts are a serious thing, we must not get +muddled." + +"Very good," said Monsieur Benoit, softened by the hope of at length +writing "Paid" at the foot of his accounts. "Here is a special bill for +the boots. Three pairs of boots at twenty francs, sixty francs." + +Rodolphe cast a look of pity on a pair of worn out boots. + +"Alas!" he thought, "they could not be worse if they had been worn by +the Wandering Jew. Yet it was in running after Marie that they got so +worn out. Go on, Monsieur Benoit." + +"We were saying sixty francs," replied the latter. "Then money lent, +twenty seven francs." + +"Stop a bit, Monsieur Benoit. We agreed that each dog would have his +kennel. It is as a friend that you lent me money. Therefore, if you +please, let us quit the regions of bootmaking and enter those of +confidence and friendship which require a separate account. How much +does your friendship for me amount to?" + +"Twenty seven francs." + +"Twenty seven francs. You have purchased a friend cheaply, Monsieur +Benoit. In short, we were saying, seventy five, sixty, and twenty +seven. That makes altogether---?" + +"A hundred and sixty two francs," said Monsieur Benoit, presenting the +three bills. + +"A hundred and sixty two francs," observed Rodolphe, "it is +extraordinary. What a fine thing arithmetic is. Well, Monsieur Benoit, +now that the account is settled we can both rest easy, we know exactly +how we stand. Next month I will ask you for a receipt, and as during +this time the confidence and friendship you must entertain towards me +can only increase, you can, in case it should become necessary, grant me +a further delay. However, if the landlord and the bootmaker are +inclined to be hasty, I would ask the friend to get them to listen to +reason. It is extraordinary, Monsieur Benoit, but every time I think of +your triple character as a landlord, a bootmaker, and a friend, I am +tempted to believe in the Trinity." + +Whilst listening to Rodolphe the landlord had turned at one and the same +time red, green, white, and yellow, and at each fresh jest from his +lodger that rainbow of anger grew deeper and deeper upon his face. + +"Sir," said he, "I do not like to be made game of. I have waited long +enough. I give you notice of quit, and unless you let me have some +money this evening, I know what I shall have to do." + +"Money! money! Am I asking you for money?" said Rodolphe. "Besides, if I +had any, I should not give it to you. On a Friday, it would be unlucky." + +Monsieur Benoit's wrath grew tempestuous, and if the furniture had not +belonged to him he would no doubt have smashed some of it. + +"You are forgetting your bag," cried Rodolphe after him. "What a +business," murmured the young fellow, as he found himself alone. "I +would rather tame lions. But," he continued, jumping out of bed and +dressing hurriedly, "I cannot stay here. The invasion will continue. I +must flee; I must even breakfast. Suppose I go and see Schaunard. I will +ask him for some breakfast, and borrow a trifle. A hundred francs will +be enough. Yes, I'm off to Schaunard's." + +Going downstairs, Rodolphe met Monsieur Benoit, who had received further +shocks from his other lodgers, as was attested by his empty bag. + +"If any one asks for me, tell them I have gone into the country--to the +Alps," said Rodolphe. "Or stay, tell them that I no longer live here." + +"I shall tell the truth," murmured Monsieur Benoit, in a very +significant tone. + +Schaunard was living at Montmartre. It was necessary to go right through +Paris. This peregrination was one most dangerous to Rodolphe. + +"Today," said he, "the streets are paved with creditors." + +However, he did not go along by the outer Boulevards, as he had felt +inclined to. A fanciful hope, on the contrary, urged him to follow the +perilous itinerary of central Paris. Rodolphe thought that on a day when +millions were going about the thoroughfares in the money-cases of bank +messengers, it might happen that a thousand franc note, abandoned on the +roadside, might lie awaiting its Good Samaritan. Thus he walked slowly +along with his eyes on the ground. But he only found two pins. + +After a two hours' walk he got to Schaunard's. + +"Ah, it's you," said the latter. + +"Yes, I have come to ask you for some breakfast." + +"Ah, my dear fellow, you come at the wrong time. My mistress has just +arrived, and I have not seen her for a fortnight. If you had only called +ten minutes earlier." + +"Well, have you got a hundred francs to lend me?" + +"What! you too!" exclaimed Schaunard, in the height of astonishment. +"You have come to ask me for money! You, in the ranks of my enemies!" + +"I will pay you back on Monday." + +"Or at the Greek Calends. My dear fellow, you surely forget what day it +is. I can do nothing for you. But there is no reason to despair; the +day is not yet over. You may still meet with Providence, who never gets +up before noon." + +"Ah!" replied Rodolphe, "Providence has too much to do looking after +little birds. I will go and see Marcel." + +Marcel was then residing in the Rue de Breda. Rodolphe found him in a +very downcast mood, contemplating his great picture that was to +represent the passage of the Red Sea. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, as he entered. "You seem quite in +the dumps." + +"Alas!" replied the painter, in allegorical language, "for the last +fortnight it has been Holy Week." + +"Red herrings and black radishes. Good, I remember." + +Indeed, Rodolphe's memory was still salt with the remembrance of a time +when he had been reduced to the exclusive consumption of the fish in +question. + +"The deuce," said he, "that is serious. I came to borrow a hundred +francs of you." + +"A hundred francs," said Marcel. "You are always in the clouds. The idea +of coming and asking me for that mythological amount at a period when +one is always under the equator of necessity. You must have been taking +hashish." + +"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "I have not been taking anything at all." + +And he left his friend on the banks of the Red Sea. + +From noon to four o'clock Rodolphe successively steered for every house +of his acquaintance. He went through the forty eight districts of Paris, +and covered about eight leagues, but without any success. The influence +of the 15th of April made itself feel with equal severity everywhere. +However, dinner time was drawing near. But it scarcely appeared that +dinner was likely to follow its example, and it seemed to Rodolphe that +he was on the raft of the wrecked Medusa. + +As he was crossing the Pont Neuf an idea all at once occurred to him. + +"Oh! oh!" said he to himself, retracing his steps, "the 15th of April. +But I have an invitation to dinner for today." + +And fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a printed ticket, running as +follows: + ++------------------------------------------------------+ +| | +| Barriere de la Villette, | +| Au Grand Vainqueur. | +| Dining Room to seat 300 people. | +| | +| ____________ | +| | +| Anniversary Dinner | +| In Honor of the Birth Of | +| | +| THE HUMANITARIAN MESSIAH | +| | +| April 15, 184- | +| | +| _______ | +| | +| Admit One | +| N.B.--Only half a bottle of wine per head | ++------------------------------------------------------+ + +"I do not share the opinions of the disciples of this Messiah," said +Rodolphe to himself, "but I will willingly share their repast." And with +the swiftness of a bird he covered the distance separating him from the +Barriere de la Villette. + +When he reached the halls of the Grand Vainqueur, the crowd was +enormous. The dining room, seating three hundred, was thronged with +five hundred people. A vast horizon of veal and carrots spread itself +before the eyes of Rodolphe. + +At length they began to serve the soup. + +As the guests were carrying their spoons to their lips, five or six +people in plain clothes, and several police officers in uniform, pushed +into the room, with a commissary of police at their head. + +"Gentlemen," said the commissary, "by order of the authorities, this +dinner cannot take place. I call upon you to withdraw." + +"Oh!" said Rodolphe, retiring with everyone else. "Oh! what a fatality +has spoiled my dinner." + +He sadly resumed the road to his dwelling, and reached it at about +eleven at night. + +Monsieur Benoit was awaiting him. + +"Ah! it is you," said the landlord. "Have you thought of what I told you +this morning? Have you brought me any money?" + +"I am to receive some tonight. I will give you some of it tomorrow +morning," replied Rodolphe, looking for his key and his candlestick in +their accustomed place. He did not find them. + +"Monsieur Rodolphe," said the landlord, "I am very sorry, but I have let +your room, and I have no other vacant now--you must go somewhere else." + +Rodolphe had a lofty soul, and a night in the open air did not alarm +him. Besides, in the event of bad weather, he could sleep in a box at +the Odeon Theater, as he had already done before. Only he claimed "his +property" from Monsieur Benoit, the said property consisting of a +bundle of papers. + +"That is so," said the landlord. "I have no right to detain those +things. They are in the bureau. Come up with me; if the person who has +taken your room has not gone to bed, we can go in." + +The room had been let during the day to a girl named Mimi, with whom +Rodolphe had formerly begun a love duet. They recognized one another at +once. Rodolphe began to whisper to Mimi and tenderly squeezed her hand. + +"See how it rains," said he, calling attention to the noise of the storm +that had just broken overhead. + +"Sir," said she, pointing to Rodolphe, "this is the gentleman I was +expecting this evening." + +"Oh!" said Monsieur Benoit, grinning on the wrong end of his face. + +Whilst Mademoiselle Mimi was hurriedly getting ready an improvised +supper, midnight struck. + +"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, "the 15th of April is over. I have at +length weathered my Cape of Storms. My dear Mimi," said the young man, +taking the pretty girl in his arms and kissing her on the back of the +neck, "it would have been impossible for you to have allowed me to be +turned out of doors. You have the bump of hospitality." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A BOHEMIAN CAFE + + +You shall hear how it came to pass that Carolus Barbemuche, platonist +and literary man generally, became a member of the Bohemian Club, in the +twenty-fourth year of his age. + +At that time, Gustave Colline, the great philosopher, Marcel, the great +painter, Schaunard, the great musician, and Rodolphe, the great poet (as +they called one another), regularly frequented the Momus Cafe, where +they were surnamed "the Four Musqueteers," because they were always seen +together. In fact, they came together, went away together, played +together, and sometimes didn't pay their shot together, with a unison +worthy of the best orchestra. + +They chose to meet in a room where forty people might have been +accommodated, but they were usually there alone, inasmuch as they had +rendered the place uninhabitable by its ordinary frequenters. The chance +customer who risked himself in this den, became, from the moment of his +entrance, the victim of the terrible four; and, in most cases, made his +escape without finishing his newspaper and cup of coffee, seasoned as +they were by unheard-of maxims on art, sentiment, and political economy. +The conversation of the four comrades was of such a nature that the +waiter who served them had become an idiot in the prime of his life. + +At length things reached such a point that the landlord lost all +patience and came up one night to make a formal statement of his griefs: + +"Firstly. Monsieur Rodolphe comes early in the morning to breakfast, and +carries off to his room all the papers of the establishment, going so +far as to complain if he finds that they have been opened. Consequently, +the other customers, cut off from the usual channels of public opinion +and intelligence, remain until dinner in utter ignorance of political +affairs. The Bosquet party hardly knows the names of the last cabinet." + +"Monsieur Rodolphe has even obliged the cafe to subscribe to 'The +Beaver,' of which he is chief editor. The master of the establishment at +first refused; but as Monsieur Rodolphe and his party kept calling the +waiter every half hour, and crying, 'The Beaver! bring us 'The Beaver' +some other customers, whose curiosity was excited by these obstinate +demands, also asked for 'The Beaver.' So 'The Beaver' was subscribed +to--a hatter's journal, which appeared every month, ornamented with a +vignette and an article on 'The Philosophy of Hats and other things in +general,' by Gustave Colline." + +"Secondly. The aforesaid Monsieur Colline, and his friend Monsieur +Rodolphe, repose themselves from their intellectual labors by playing +backgammon from ten in the morning till midnight and as the +establishment possess but one backgammon board, they monopolize that, to +the detriment of the other amateurs of the game; and when asked for the +board, they only answer, 'Some one is reading it, call tomorrow.' Thus +the Bosquet party find themselves reduced to playing piquet, or talking +about their old love affairs." + +"Thirdly. Monsieur Marcel, forgetting that a cafe is a public place, +brings thither his easel, box of colors, and, in short, all the +instruments of his art. He even disregards the usages of society as far +as to send for models of different sexes; which might shock the morals +of the Bosquet party." + +"Fourthly. Following the example of his friend, Monsieur Schaunard talks +of bringing his piano to the cafe and he has not scrupled to get up a +chorus on a motive from his symphony, 'The Influence of Blue in Art.' +Monsieur Schaunard has gone farther: he has inserted in the lantern +which serves the establishment for sign, a transparency with this +inscription: + + 'COURSE OF MUSIC, VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL, + FOR BOTH SEXES, + GRATIS. + APPLY AT THE COUNTER.' + +In consequence of this, the counter aforesaid is besieged every night by +a number of badly dressed individuals, wanting to know where you go in." + +"Moreover, Monsieur Schaunard gives meetings to a lady calling herself +Mademoiselle Phemie, who always forgets to bring her bonnet. Wherefore, +Monsieur Bosquet, Jr., has declared that he will never more put foot in +an establishment where the laws of nature are thus outraged." + +"Fifthly. Not content with being very poor customers, these gentlemen +have tried to be still more economical. Under pretence of having caught +the mocha of the establishment in improper intercourse with chicory, +they have brought a lamp with spirits-of-wine, and make their own +coffee, sweetening it with their own sugar; all of which is an insult to +the establishment." + +"Sixthly. Corrupted by the discourse of these gentlemen, the waiter +Bergami (so called from his whiskers), forgetting his humble origin and +defying all control, has dared to address to the mistress of the house +a piece of poetry suggestive of the most improper sentiments; by the +irregularity of its style, this letter is recognized as a direct +emanation from the pernicious influence of Monsieur Rodolphe and his +literature." + +"Consequently, in spite of the regret which he feels, the proprietor of +the establishment finds himself obliged to request the Colline party to +choose some other place for their revolutionary meetings." + +Gustave Colline, who was the Cicero of the set, took the floor and +demonstrated to the landlord that his complaints were frivolous and +unfounded; that they did him great honor in making his establishment a +home of intellect; that their departure and that of their friends would +be the ruin of his house, which their presence elevated to the rank of a +literary and artistic club. + +"But," objected the other, "you and those who come to see you call for +so little." + +"This temperance to which you object," replied Colline, "is an argument +in favor of our morals. Moreover, it depends on yourself whether we +spend more or not. You have only to open an account with us." + +The landlord pretended not to hear this, and demanded some explanation +of the incendiary letter addressed by Bergami to his wife. Rodolphe, +accused of acting as secretary to the waiter, strenuously asserted his +innocence-- + +"For," said he, "the lady's virtue was a sure barrier--" + +The landlord would not repress a smile of pride. Finally, Colline +entangled him completely in the folds of his insidious oratory, and +everything was arranged, on the conditions that the party should cease +making their own coffee, that the establishment should receive "The +Beaver" gratis, that Phemie should come in a bonnet, that the backgammon +board should be given up to the Bosquets every Sunday from twelve to +two, and above all, that no one should ask for tick. + +On this basis everything went well for some time. + +It was Christmas Eve. The four friends came to the cafe accompanied by +their friends of the other sex. There was Marcel's Musette, Rodolphe's +new flame, Mimi, a lovely creature, with a voice like a pair of cymbals, +and Schaunard's idol, Phemie Teinturiere. That night, Phemie, according +to agreement, had her bonnet on. As to Madame Colline that should have +been, no one ever saw her; she was always at home, occupied in +punctuating her husband's manuscripts. After the coffee, which was on +this great occasion escorted by a regiment of small glasses of brandy, +they called for punch. The waiter was so little accustomed to the order, +that they had to repeat it twice. Phemie, who had never been to such a +place before, seemed in a state of ecstacy at drinking out of glasses +with feet. Marcel was quarreling with Musette about a new bonnet which +he had not given her. Mimi and Rodolphe, who were in their honeymoon, +carried on a silent conversation, alternated with suspicious noises. As +to Colline, he went about from one to the other, distributing among them +all the polite and ornamental phrases which he had picked up in the +"Muses' Almanac." + +While this joyous company was thus abandoning itself to sport and +laughter, a stranger at the bottom of the room, who occupied a table by +himself, was observing with extraordinary attention the animated scene +before him. For a fortnight or thereabout, he had come thus every night, +being the only customer who could stand the terrible row which the club +made. The boldest pleasantries had failed to move him; he would remain +all the evening, smoking his pipe with mathematical regularity, his eyes +fixed as if watching a treasure, and his ears open to all what was said +around him. As to his other qualities, he seemed quiet and well off, for +he possessed a watch with a gold chain; and one day, Marcel, meeting +him at the bar, caught him in the act of changing a louis to pay his +score. From that moment, the four friends designated him by the name of +"The Capitalist." + +Suddenly Schaunard, who had very good eyes, remarked that the glasses +were empty. + +"Yes," exclaimed Rodolphe, "and this is Christmas Eve! We are good +Christians, and ought to have something extra." + +"Yes, indeed," added Marcel, "let's call for something supernatural." + +"Colline," continued Rodolphe, "ring a little for the waiter." + +Colline rang like one possessed. + +"What shall we have?" asked Marcel. + +Colline made a low bow and pointed to the women. + +"It is the business of these ladies to regulate the nature and order of +our refreshment." + +"I," said Musette, smacking her lips, "should not be afraid of +Champagne." + +"Are you crazy?" exclaimed Marcel. "Champagne! That isn't wine to begin +with." + +"So much the worse; I like it, it makes a noise." + +"I," said Mimi, with a coaxing look at Rodolphe, "would like some +Beaune, in a little basket." + +"Have you lost your senses?" said Rodolphe. + +"No, but I want to lose them," replied Mimi. The poet was thunderstruck. + +"I," said Phemie, dancing herself on the elastic sofa, "would rather +have parfait amour; it's good for the stomach." + +Schaunard articulated, in a nasal tone, some words which made Phemie +tremble on her spring foundation. + +"Bah!" said Marcel, recovering himself the first. "Let us spend a +hundred francs for this once!" + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "they complain of our not being good customers. +Let's astonish them!" + +"Ay," said Colline, "let us give ourselves up to the delights of a +splendid banquet! Do we not owe passive obedience to these ladies? Love +lies on devotion; wine is the essence of pleasure, pleasure the duty of +youth; women are flowers and must be moistened. Moisten away! Waiter, +waiter!" and Colline hung upon the bell rope with feverish excitement. + +Swift as the wind, the waiter came. When he heard talk of Champagne, +Burgundy, and various liqueurs, his physiognomy ran through a whole +gamut of astonishment. But there was more to come. + +"I have a hole in my inside," said Mimi. "I should like some ham." + +"And I some sardines, and bread and butter," struck in Musette. + +"And I, radishes," quoth Phemie, "and a little meat with them." + +"We should have no objection," answered they. + +"Waiter!" quoth Colline, gravely, "bring us all that is requisite for a +good supper." + +The waiter turned all the colors of the rainbow. He descended slowly to +the bar, and informed his master of the extraordinary orders he had +received. + +The landlord took it for a joke; but on a new summons from the bell, he +ascended himself and addressed Colline, for whom he had a certain +respect. Colline explained to him that they wished to see Christmas in +at his house, and that he would oblige them by serving what they had +asked for. Momus made no answer, but backed out, twisting his napkin. +For a quarter of an hour he held a consultation with his wife, who, +thanks to her liberal education at the St. Denis Convent, fortunately +had a weakness for arts and letters, and advised him to serve the +supper. + +"To be sure," said the landlord, "they may have money for once, by +chance." + +So he told the waiter to take up whatever they asked for, and then +plunged into a game of piquet with an old customer. Fatal imprudence! + +From ten to twelve the waiter did nothing but run up and downstairs. +Every moment he was asked for something more. Musette would eat English +fashion, and change her fork at every mouthful. Mimi drank all sorts of +wine, in all sorts of glasses. Schaunard had a quenchless Sahara in his +throat. Colline played a crossfire with his eyes, and while munching his +napkin, as his habit was, kept pinching the leg of the table, which he +took for Phemie's knee. Marcel and Rodolphe maintained the stirrups of +self-possession, expecting the catastrophe, not without anxiety. + +The stranger regarded the scene with grave curiosity; from time to time +he opened his mouth as if for a smile; then you might have heard a +noise like that of a window which creaks in shutting. It was the +stranger laughing to himself. + +At a quarter before twelve the bill was sent up. It amounted to the +enormous sum of twenty five francs and three-quarters. + +"Come," said Marcel, "we will draw lots for who shall go and diplomatize +with our host. It is getting serious." They took a set of dominoes; the +highest was to go. + +Unluckily, the lot fell upon Schaunard, who was an excellent virtuoso, +but a very bad ambassador. He arrived, too, at the bar just as the +landlord had lost his third game. Momus was in a fearful bad humor, and, +at Schaunard's first words, broke out into a violent rage. Schaunard was +a good musician, but he had an indifferent temper, and he replied by a +double discharge of slang. The dispute grew more and more bitter, till +the landlord went upstairs, swearing that he would be paid, and that no +one should stir until he was. Colline endeavored to interpose his +pacifying oratory; but, on perceiving a napkin which Colline had made +lint of, the host's anger redoubled; and to indemnify himself, he +actually dared to lay profane hands on the philosopher's hazel overcoat +and the ladies' shawls. + +A volley of abuse was interchanged by the Bohemians and the irate +landlord. + +The women talked to one another of their dresses and their conquests. + +At this point the stranger abandoned his impassible attitude; gradually +he rose, made a step forward, then another, and walked as an ordinary +man might do; he approached the landlord, took him aside, and spoke to +him in a low tone. Rodolphe and Marcel followed him with their eyes. At +length, the host went out, saying to the stranger: + +"Certainly, I consent, Monsieur Barbemuche, certainly; arrange it with +them yourself." + +Monsieur Barbemuche returned to his table to take his hat; put it on, +turned around to the right, and in three steps came close to Rodolphe +and Marcel. He took off his hat, bowed to the men, waved a salute to the +women, pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and began in a feeble +voice: + +"Gentlemen, excuse the liberty I am about to take. For a long time, I +have been burning with desire to make your acquaintance, but have never, +till now, found a favorable opportunity. Will you allow me to seize the +present one?" + +"Certainly, certainly," said Colline. Rodolphe and Marcel bowed, and +said nothing. The excessive delicacy of Schaunard came nigh spoiling +everything. + +"Excuse me, sir," said he briskly, "but you have not the honor of +knowing us, and the usages of society forbid--would you be so good as to +give me a pipeful of tobacco? In other respects I am of my friends' +opinion." + +"Gentlemen," continued Barbemuche. "I am a disciple of the fine arts, +like yourselves. So far as I have been able to judge from what I have +heard of your conversation, our tastes are the same. I have a most eager +desire to be a friend of yours, and to be able to find you here every +night. The landlord is a brute: but I said a word to him, and you are +quite free to go. I trust you will not refuse me the opportunity of +finding you here again, by accepting this slight service." + +A blush of indignation mounted to Schaunard's face. "He is speculating +on our condition," said he. "We cannot accept. He has paid our bill. I +will play him at billiards for the twenty five francs and give him +points." + +Barbemuche accepted his proposition, and had the good sense to lose. +This gained him the esteem of the party. They broke up with the +understanding that they were to meet next day. + +"Now," said Schaunard, "our dignity is saved. We owe him nothing." + +"We can almost ask him for another supper," said Colline. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A BOHEMIAN "AT HOME" + + +The night when he paid out of his own purse for the supper consumed at +the cafe, Barbemuche managed to make Colline accompany him. Since his +first presence at the meetings of the four friends whom he had relieved +from their embarrassing position, Carolus had especially remarked +Gustave, and already felt an attractive sympathy for this Socrates +whose Plato he was destined to become. It was for this reason he had +chosen him to be his introducer. On the way, Barbemuche proposed that +they should enter a cafe which was still open, and take something to +drink. Not only did Colline refuse, but he doubled his speed in passing +the cafe, and carefully pulled down his hyperphysic hat over his face. + +"But why won't you come in?" politely asked the other. + +"I have my reasons," replied Colline. "There is a barmaid in that +establishment who is very much addicted to the exact sciences, and I +could not help having a long discussion with her, to avoid which I +never pass through this street at noon, or any other time of day. To +tell you the truth," added he innocently, "I once lived with Marcel in +this neighborhood." + +"Still I should be very glad to offer you a glass of punch, and have a +few minutes' talk with you. Is there no other place in the vicinity +where you could step in without being hindered by any mathematical +difficulties?" asked Barbemuche, who thought it a good opportunity for +saying something very clever. + +Colline mused an instant. "There is a little place here," he said, +pointing to a wine shop, "where I stand on a better footing." + +Barbemuche made a face, and seemed to hesitate. "Is it a respectable +place?" he demanded. + +His cold and reserved attitude, his limited conversation, his discreet +smile, and especially his watch chain with charms on it, all led Colline +to suppose that Barbemuche was a clerk in some embassy, and that he +feared to compromise himself by going into some wine shop. + +"There is no danger of anyone seeing us," said he. "All the diplomatic +body is in bed by this time." + +Barbemuche made up his mind to go in, though at the bottom of his heart +he would have given a good deal for a false nose. For greater security, +he insisted on having a private room, and took care to fasten a napkin +before the glass door of it. These precautions taken, he appeared more +at ease, and called for a bowl of punch. Excited a little by the +generous beverage, Barbemuche became more communicative, and, after +giving some autobiographical details, made bold to express the hope he +had conceived of being personally admitted a member of the Bohemian +Club, for the accomplishment of which ambitious design he solicited the +aid of Colline. + +Colline replied that, for his part, he was entirely at the service of +Barbemuche, but, nevertheless, he could make no positive promise. "I +assure you of my vote," said he. "But I cannot take it upon me to +dispose of those of my comrades." + +"But," asked Barbemuche, "for what reasons could they refuse to admit me +among them?" + +Colline put down the glass which he was just lifting to his mouth, and, +in a very serious tone, addressed the rash Carolus, saying, "You +cultivate the fine arts?" + +"I labor humble in those noble fields of intelligence," replied the +other, who felt bound to hang out the colors of his style. + +Colline found the phrase well turned, and bowed in acknowledgment. + +"You understand music?" he continued. + +"I have played on the bass-viol." + +"A very philosophical instrument. Then, if you understand music, you +also understand that one cannot, without violation of the laws of +harmony, introduce a fifth performer into a quartet; it would cease to +be a quartet." + +"Exactly, and become a quintet." + +"A quintet, very well, now attend to me. You understand astronomy?" + +"A little, I'm a bachelor of arts." + +"There is a little song about that," said Colline. "'Dear bachelor, says +Lisette'--I have forgotten the tune. Well then, you know that there are +four cardinal points. Now suppose there were to turn up a fifth cardinal +point, all the harmony of nature would be upset. What they call a +cataclysm--you understand?" + +"I am waiting for the conclusion," said Carolus, whose intelligence +began to be a little shaky. + +"The conclusion--yes, that is the end of the argument, as death is the +end of life, and marriage of love. Well, my dear sir, I and my friends +are accustomed to live together, and we fear to impair, by the +introduction of another person, the harmony which reigns in our habits, +opinions, tastes, and dispositions. To speak frankly, we are going to +be, some day, the four cardinal points of contemporary art; accustomed +to this idea, it would annoy us to see a fifth point." + +"Nevertheless," suggested Carolus, "where you are four it is easy to be +five." + +"Yes, but then we cease to be four." + +"The objection is a trivial one." + +"There is nothing trivial in this world; little brooks make great +rivers; little syllables make big verses; the very mountains are made of +grains of sand--so says 'The Wisdom of Nations,' of which there is a +copy on the quay--tell me, my dear sir, which is the furrow that you +usually follow in the noble fields of intelligence?" + +"The great philosophers and the classic authors are my models. I live +upon their study. 'Telemachus' first inspired the consuming passion I +feel." + +"'Telemachus'--there are lots of him on the quay," said Colline. "You +can find him there at any time. I have bought him for five sous--a +second-hand copy--I would consent to part with it to oblige you. In +other respects, it is a great work; very well got up, considering the +age." + +"Yes, sir," said Carolus. "I aspire to high philosophy and sound +literature. According to my idea, art is a priesthood--." + +"Yes, yes," said Colline. "There's a song about that too," and he began +to hum.... + + "Art's a priesthood, art's a priesthood," + +to the air of the drinking song in "Robert the Devil." + +"I say, then, that art being a solemn mission, writers ought, above all +things--" + +"Excuse me," said Colline, who heard one of the small hours striking, +"but it's getting to be tomorrow morning very fast." + +"It is late, in fact," said Carolus. "Let us go." + +"Do you live far off?" + +"Rue Royale St. Honore, No. 10." + +Colline had once had occasion to visit this house, and remembered that +it was a splendid private mansion. + +"I will mention you to my friends," said he to Carolus on parting, "and +you may be sure that I shall use all my influence to make them favorably +disposed to you. Ah, let me give you one piece of advice." + +"Go on," said the other. + +"Be very amiable and polite to Mademoiselles Mimi, Musette and Phemie; +these ladies exercise an authority over my friends, and by managing to +bring their mistresses' influence to bear upon them you will contrive +far more easily to obtain what you require from Marcel, Schaunard and +Rodolphe." + +"I'll try," said Carolus. + +Next day, Colline tumbled in upon the Bohemian association. It was the +hour of breakfast, and for a wonder, breakfast had come with the hour. +The three couples were at table, feasting on artichokes and pepper +sauce. + +"The deuce!" exclaimed the philosopher. "This can't last, or the world +would come to an end. I arrive," he continued, "as the ambassador of the +generous mortal whom we met last night." + +"Can he be sending already to ask for his money again?" said Marcel. + +"It has nothing to do with that," replied Colline. "This young man +wishes to be one of us; to have stock in our society, and share the +profits, of course." + +The three men raised their heads and looked at one another. + +"That's all," concluded Colline. "Now the question is open." + +"What is the social position of your principal?" asked Rodolphe. + +"He is no principal of mine," answered the other. "Last night he begged +me to accompany him, and overflowed me with attentions and good liquor +for a while. But I have retained my independence." + +"Good," said Schaunard. + +"Sketch us some leading features of his character," said Marcel. + +"Grandeur of soul, austerity of manners, afraid to go into wine shops, +bachelor of arts, candid as a transparency, plays on the bass-viol, is +disposed to change a five franc piece occasionally." + +"Good again!" said Schaunard. + +"What are his hopes?" + +"As I told you already, his ambition knows no bounds; he aspires to be +'hail-fellow-well-met' with us." + +"That is to say," answered Marcel, "he wishes to speculate upon us, and +to be seen riding in our carriages." + +"What is his profession?" asked Rodolphe. + +"Yes," said Marcel, "what does he play on?" + +"Literature and mixed philosophy. He calls art a priesthood." + +"A priesthood!" cried Rodolphe, in terror. + +"So he says." + +"And what is his road in literature?" + +"He goes after 'Telemachus'." + +"Very good," said Schaunard, eating the seed of his artichoke. + +"Very good! You dummy!" broke our Marcel. "I advise you not to say that +in the street." + +Schaunard relieved his annoyance at this reproof by kicking Phemie under +the table for taking some of his sauce. + +"Once more," said Rodolphe. "What is his condition in the world? What +does he live on, and where does he live? And what is his name?" + +"His station is honorable. He is professor of everything in a rich +family. His name is Carolus Barbemuche. He spends his income in +luxurious living and dwells in the Rue Royale." + +"Furnished lodging?" + +"No, there is real furniture." + +"I claim the floor," said Marcel. "To me it is evident that Colline has +been corrupted. He has already sold his vote for so many drinks. Don't +interrupt me! (Colline was rising to protest.) You shall have your +turn. Colline, mercenary soul that he is, has presented to you this +stranger under an aspect too favorable to be true. I told you before; I +see through this person's designs. He wants to speculate on us. He says +to himself, 'Here are some chaps making their way. I must get into their +pockets. I shall arrive with them at the goal of fame.'" + +"Bravo!" quoth Schaunard, "have you any more sauce there?" + +"No," replied Rodolphe, "the edition is out of print." + +"Looking at the question from another point of view," continued Marcel, +"this insidious mortal whom Colline patronizes, perhaps aspires to our +intimacy only from the most culpable motives. Gentlemen, we are not +alone here!" continued the orator, with an eloquent look at the women. +"And Colline's client, smuggling himself into our circle under the cloak +of literature, may perchance be but a vile seducer. Reflect! For one, I +vote against his reception." + +"I demand the floor," said Rodolphe, "only for a correction. In his +remarkable extemporary speech, Marcel has said that this Carolus, with +the view of dishonoring us, wished to introduce himself under the cloak +of literature." + +"A Parliamentary figure." + +"A very bad figure; literature has no cloak!" + +"Having made a report, as chairman of committee," resumed Colline, +rising, "I maintain the conclusions therein embodied. The jealousy which +consumes him disturbs the reason of our friend Marcel; the great artist +is beside himself." + +"Order!" cried Marcel. + +"So much so, that, able designer as he is, he has just introduced into +his speech a figure the incorrectness of which has been ably pointed out +by the talented orator who preceded me." + +"Colline is an ass!" shouted Marcel, with a bang of his fist on the +table that caused a lively sensation among the plates. "Colline knows +nothing in an affair of sentiment; he is incompetent to judge of such +matters; he has an old book in place of a heart." + +Prolonged laughter from Schaunard. During the row, Colline kept gravely +adjusting the folds of his white cravat as if to make way for the +torrents of eloquence contained beneath them. When silence was +reestablished, he thus continued: + +"Gentlemen, I intend with one word to banish from your minds the +chimerical apprehensions which the suspicions of Marcel may have +engendered in them respecting Carolus." + +"Oh, yes!" said Marcel ironically. + +"It will be as easy as that," continued Colline, blowing the match with +which he had lighted his pipe. + +"Go on! Go on!" cried Schaunard, Rodolphe, and the women together. + +"Gentlemen! Although I have been personally and violently attacked in +this meeting, although I have been accused of selling for base liquors +the influence which I possess; secure in a good conscience I shall not +deign to reply to those assaults on my probity, my loyalty, my morality. +[Sensation.] But there is one thing which I will have respected. [Here +the orator, endeavoring to lay his hand on his heart, gave himself a rap +in the stomach.] My well tried and well known prudence has been called +in question. I have been accused of wishing to introduce among you a +person whose intentions were hostile to your happiness--in matters of +sentiment. This supposition is an insult to the virtue of these +ladies--nay more, an insult to their good taste. Carolus Barbemuche is +decidedly ugly." [Visible denial on the face of Phemie; noise under the +table; it is Schaunard kicking her by way of correcting her compromising +frankness.] + +"But," proceeded Colline, "what will reduce to powder the contemptible +argument with which my opponent has armed himself against Carolus by +taking advantage of your terrors, is the fact that the said Carolus is a +Platonist." [Sensation among the men; uproar among the women.] + +This declaration of Colline's produced a reaction in favor of Carolus. +The philosopher wished to improve the effect of his eloquent and adroit +defense. + +"Now then," he continued, "I do not see what well founded prejudices can +exist against this young man, who, after all, has rendered us a service. +As to myself, who am accused of acting thoughtlessly in wishing to +introduce him among us, I consider this opinion an insult to my dignity. +I have acted in the affair with the wisdom of the serpent; if a formal +vote does not maintain me this character for prudence, I offer my +resignation." + +"Do you make it a cabinet question?" asked Marcel. + +"I do." + +The three consulted, and agreed by common consent to restore to the +philosopher that high reputation for prudence which he claimed. Colline +then gave the floor to Marcel, who, somewhat relieved of his prejudices, +declared that he might perhaps favor the adoption of the report. But +before the decisive and final vote which should open to Carolus the +intimacy of the club, he put to the meeting this amendment: + + "WHEREAS, the introduction of a new member into our society is a + grave matter, and a stranger might bring with him some elements of + discord through ignorance of the habits, tempers, and opinions of + his comrades, + + RESOLVED, that each member shall pass a say with the said Carolus, + and investigate his manner of life, tastes, literary capacity, and + wardrobe. The members shall afterward communicate their several + impressions, and ballot on his admission accordingly. Moreover, + before complete admission, the said Carolus shall undergo a + noviciate of one month, during which time he shall not have the + right to call us by our first names or take our arm in the street. + On the day of reception, a splendid banquet shall be given at the + expense of the new member, at a cost of not less than twelve + francs." + +This amendment was adopted by three votes against one. The same night +Colline went to the cafe early on purpose to be the first to see +Carolus. He had not long to wait for him. Barbemuche soon appeared, +carrying in his hand three huge bouquets of roses. + +"Hullo!" cried the astonished Colline. "What do you mean to do with that +garden?" + +"I remember what you told me yesterday. Your friends will doubtless +come with their ladies, and it is on their account that I bring these +flowers--very handsome ones." + +"That they are; they must have cost fifteen sous, at least." + +"In the month of December! If you said fifteen francs you would have +come nearer." + +"Heavens!" cried Colline, "three crowns for these simple gifts of flora! +You must be related to the Cordilleras. Well my dear sir, that is +fifteen francs which we must throw out of the window." + +It was Barbemuche's turn to be astonished. Colline related the jealous +suspicions with which Marcel had inspired his friends, and informed +Carolus of the violent discussion which had taken place between them +that morning on the subject of his admission. + +"I protested," said Colline, "that your intentions were the purest, but +there was strong opposition nevertheless. Beware of renewing these +suspicions by much politeness to the ladies; and to begin, let us put +these bouquets out of the way." He took the roses and hid them in a +cupboard. "But this is not all," he resumed. "Before connecting +themselves intimately with you, these gentlemen desire to make a +private examination, each for himself, of your character, tastes, etc." + +Then, lest Barbemuche might do something to shock his friends, Colline +rapidly sketched a moral portrait of each of them. "Contrive to agree +with them separately," added the philosopher, "and they will end by all +liking you." + +Carolus agreed to everything. The three friends soon arrived with their +friends of the other sex. Rodolphe was polite to Carolus, Schaunard +familiar with him, while Marcel remained cold. Carolus forced himself to +be gay and amiable with the men and indifferent to the women. When they +broke up for the night, he asked Rodolphe to dine with him the next day, +and to come as early as noon. The poet accepted, saying to himself, +"Good! I am to begin the inquiry, then." + +Next morning at the hour appointed, he called on Carolus, who did indeed +live in a very handsome private house, where he occupied a sufficiently +comfortable room. But Rodolphe was surprised to find at that time of day +the shutters closed, the curtains drawn, and two lighted candles on the +table. He asked Barbemuche the reason. + +"Study," replied the other, "is the child of mystery and silence." + +They sat down and talked. At the end of an hour, Carolus, with infinite +oratorial address, brought in a phrase which, despite its humble form, +was neither more nor less than a summons made to Rodolphe to hear a +little work, the fruit of Barbemuche's vigils. + +The poet saw himself caught. Curious, however, to learn the color of the +other's style, he bowed politely, assured him that he was enchanted, +that Carolus did not wait for him to finish the sentence. He ran to bolt +the door, and then took up a small memorandum book, the thinness of +which brought a smile of satisfaction to the poet's face. + +"Is that the manuscript of your work?" he asked. + +"No," replied Carolus. "It is the catalog of my manuscripts and I am +looking for the one which you will allow me to read you. Here it is: +'Don Lopez or Fatality No. 14.' It's on the third shelf," and he +proceeded to open a small closet in which Rodolphe perceived, with +terror, a great quantity of manuscripts. Carolus took out one of these, +shut the closet, and seated himself in front of the poet. + +Rodolphe cast a glance at one of the four piles of elephant paper of +which the work was composed. "Come," said he to himself, "it's not in +verse, but it's called 'Don Lopez.'" + +Carolus began to read: + +"On a cold winter night, two cavaliers, enveloped in large cloaks, and +mounted on sluggish mules, were making their way side by side over one +of the roads which traverse the frightful solitudes of the Sierra +Morena." + +"May the Lord have mercy on me!" ejaculated Rodolphe mentally. + +Carolus continued to read his first chapter, written in the style above +throughout. Rodolphe listened vaguely, and tried to devise some means of +escape. + +"There is the window, but it's fastened; and beside, we are in the +fourth story. Ah, now I understand all these precautions." + +"What do you think of my first chapter?" asked Carolus. "Do not spare +any criticism, I beg of you." + +Rodolphe thought he remembered having heard some scraps of philosophical +declamation upon suicide, put forth by the hero of the romance, Don +Lopez, to wit; so he replied at hazard: + +"The grand figure of Don Lopez is conscientiously studied; it reminds me +of 'Savoyard Vicar's Confession of Faith;' the description of Don +Alvar's mule pleases me exceedingly; it is like a sketch of Gericault's. +There are good lines in the landscape; as to the thoughts, they are +seeds of Rousseau planted in the soil of Lesage. Only allow me to make +one observation: you use too many stops, and you work the word +henceforward too hard. It is a good word, and gives color, but should +not be abused." + +Carolus took up a second pile of paper, and repeated the title "Don +Lopez or, Fatality." + +"I knew a Don Lopez once," said Rodolphe. "He used to sell cigarettes +and Bayonne chocolate. Perhaps he was a relative of your man. Go on." + +At the conclusion of the second chapter, the poet interrupted his host: + +"Don't you feel your throat a little dry?" he inquired. + +"Not at all," replied Carolus. "We are coming to the history of +Inesilla." + +"I am very curious to hear it, nevertheless, if you are tired--" + +"Chapter third!" enunciated Carolus in a voice that gave no signs of +fatigue. + +Rodolphe took a careful survey of Barbemuche and perceived that he had a +short neck and a ruddy complexion. "I have one hope left," thought the +poet on making this discovery. "He may have an attack of apoplexy." + +"Will you be so good as to tell me what you think of the love scene?" + +Carolus looked at Rodolphe to observe in his face what effect the +dialogue produced upon him. The poet was bending forward on his chair, +with his neck stretched out in the attitude of one who is listening for +some distant sound. + +"What's the matter with you?" + +"Hist!" said Rodolphe, "don't you hear? I thought somebody cried fire! +Suppose we go and see." + +Carolus listened an instant but heard nothing. + +"It must have been a ringing in my ears," said the other. "Go on, Don +Alvar interests me exceedingly; he is a noble youth." + +Carolus continued with all the music that he could put into his voice: + +"Oh Inesilla! Whatever thou art, angel or demon; and whatever be thy +country, my life is thine, and thee will follow, be it to heaven or +hell!" + +Someone knocked at the door. + +"It's my porter," said Barbemuche, half opening the door. + +It was indeed the porter with a letter. "What an unlucky chance!" cried +Carolus, after he had perused it. "We must put off our reading until some +other time. I have to go out immediately. If you please, we will execute +this little commission together, as it is nothing private, and then we +can come back to dinner." + +"There," thought Rodolphe, "is a letter that has fallen from heaven. I +recognize the seal of Providence." + +When he rejoined the comrades that night, the poet was interrogated by +Marcel and Schaunard. + +"Did he treat you well?" they asked. + +"Yes, but I paid dear for it." + +"How? Did Carolus make you pay?" demanded Schaunard with rising choler. + +"He read a novel at me, inside of which the people are named Don Lopez +and Don Alvar; and the tenors call their mistresses 'angel,' or +'demon.'" + +"How shocking!" cried the Bohemians, in chorus. + +"But otherwise," said Colline, "literature apart, what is your opinion +of him?" + +"A very nice young man. You can judge for yourselves; Carolus means to +treat us all in turn; he invites Schaunard to breakfast with him +tomorrow. Only look out for the closet with the manuscripts in it." + +Schaunard was punctual and went to work with the minuteness of an +auctioneer taking an inventory, or a sheriff levying an execution. +Accordingly he came back full of notes; he had studied Carolus chiefly +in respect of movables and worldly goods. + +"This Barbemuche," he said, on being asked his opinion, "is a lump of +good qualities. He knows the names of all the wines that were ever +invented, and made me eat more nice things than my aunt ever did on her +birthday. He is on very good terms with the tailors in the Rue +Vivienne, and the bootmakers of the Passage des Panoramas; and I have +observed that he is nearly our size, so that, in case of need, we can +lend him our clothes. His habits are less austere than Colline chose to +represent them; he went wherever I pleased to take him, and gave me +breakfast in two acts, the second of which went off in a tavern by the +fish market where I am known for some Carnival orgies. Well, Carolus +went in there as any ordinary mortal might, and that's all. Marcel goes +tomorrow." + +Carolus knew that Marcel was the one who had made the most objections to +his reception. Accordingly, he treated him with particular attention, +and especially won his heart by holding out the hope of procuring him +some sitters in the family of his pupil. When it came to Marcel's turn +to make his report, there were no traces of his original hostility to +Carolus. + +On the fourth day, Colline informed Barbemuche that he was admitted, but +under conditions. "You have a number of vulgar habits," he said, "which +must be reformed." + +"I shall do my best to imitate you," said Carolus. + +During the whole time of his noviciate the Platonic philosopher kept +company with the Bohemians continually, and was thus enabled to study +their habits more thoroughly, not without being very much astonished at +times. One morning, Colline came to see him with a joyful face. + +"My dear fellow," he said, "it's all over; you are now definitely one of +us. It only remains to fix the day and the place of the grand +entertainment; I have come to talk with you about it." + +"That can be arranged with perfect ease," said Carolus. "The parents of +my pupil are out of town; the young viscount, whose mentor I am, will +lend us the apartments for an evening, only we must invite him to the +party." + +"That will be very nice," replied Colline. "We will open to him the +vistas of literature; but do you think he will consent?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"Then it only remains to fix the day." + +"We will settle that tonight at the cafe." + +Carolus then went to find his pupil and announced to him that he had +just been elected into a distinguished society of literary men and +artists, and that he was going to give a dinner, followed by a little +party, to celebrate his admission. He therefore proposed to him to make +him one of the guests. "And since you cannot be out late," added +Carolus, "and the entertainment may last some time, it will be for our +convenience to have it here. Your servant Francois knows how to hold his +tongue; your parents will know nothing of it; and you will have made +acquaintance with some of the cleverest people in Paris, artists and +authors." + +"In print?" asked the youth. + +"Certainly, one of them edits 'The Scarf of Iris,' which your mother +takes in. They are very distinguished persons, almost celebrities, +intimate friends of mine, and their wives are charming." + +"Will there be some women?" asked Viscount Paul. + +"Delightful ones," returned Carolus. + +"Oh, dear master, I thank you. The entertainment shall certainly take +place here. All the lustres shall be lit up, and I will have the +wrappers taken off the furniture." + +That night at the cafe, Barbemuche announced that the party would come +off next Saturday. The Bohemians told their mistresses to think about +their toilettes. + +"Do not forget," said they, "that we are going into the real drawing +rooms. Therefore, make ready; a rich but simple costume." + +And from that day all the neighborhood was informed that Mademoiselles +Phemie, Mimi, and Musette were going into society. + +On the morning of the festivity, Colline, Schaunard, Marcel, and +Rodolphe called, in a body, on Barbemuche, who looked astonished to see +them so early. + +"Has anything happened which will oblige us to put it off?" he asked +with some anxiety. + +"Yes--that is, no," said Colline. "This is how we are placed. Among +ourselves we never stand on ceremony, but when we are to meet strangers, +we wish to preserve a certain decorum." + +"Well?" said the other. + +"Well," continued Colline, "since we are to meet tonight, the young +gentleman to whom we are indebted for the rooms, out of respect to him +and to ourselves, we come simply to ask you if you cannot lend us some +becoming toggery. It is almost impossible, you see, for us to enter this +gorgeous roof in frock-coats and colored trousers." + +"But," said Carolus, "I have not black clothes for all of you." + +"We will make do with what you have," said Colline. + +"Suit yourselves then," said Carolus, opening a well-furnished wardrobe. + +"What an arsenal of elegancies!" said Marcel. + +"Three hats!" exclaimed Schaunard, in ecstasy. "Can a man want three +hats when he had but one head?" + +"And the boots!" said Rodolphe, "only look!" + +"What a number of boots!" howled Colline. + +In a twinkling of an eye each had selected a complete equipment. + +"Till this evening," said they, taking leave of Barbemuche. "The ladies +intend to be most dazzling." + +"But," said Barbemuche, casting a glance at the emptied wardrobe. "You +have left me nothing. What am I to wear?" + +"Ah, it's different with you," said Rodolphe. "You are the master of the +house; you need not stand upon etiquette." + +"But I have only my dressing gown and slippers, flannel waistcoat and +trousers with stocking feet. You have taken everything." + +"Never mind; we excuse you beforehand," replied the four. + +A very good dinner was served at six. The company arrived, Marcel +limping and out of humor. The young viscount rushed up to the ladies and +led them to the best seats. Mimi was dressed with fanciful elegance; +Musette got up with seductive taste; Phemie looked like a stained glass +window, and hardly dared sit down. + +The dinner lasted two hours and a half, and was delightfully lively. The +young viscount, who sat next to Mimi, kept treading on her foot. Phemie +took twice of every dish. Schaunard was in clover. Rodolphe improvised +sonnets and broke glasses in marking the rhyme. Colline talked to +Marcel, who remained sulky. + +"What is the matter with you?" asked the philosopher. + +"My feet are in torture; this Carolus has boots like a woman's." + +"He must be given to understand that, for the future, some of his shoes +are to be made a little larger. Be easy, I will see to it. But now to +the drawing room, where the coffee and liquers await us." + +The revelry recommenced with increased noise. Schaunard seated himself +at the piano and executed, with immense spirit, his new symphony, "The +Death of the Damsel." To this succeeded the characteristic piece of "The +Creditor's March," which was twice encored, and two chords of the piano +were broken. + +Marcel was still morose, and replied to the complaints and +expostulations of Carolus: + +"My dear sir, we shall never be intimate friends, and for this reason: +Physical differences are almost always the certain sign of a moral +difference; on this point philosophy and medicine agree." + +"Well?" said Carolus. + +"Well," continued Marcel, showing his feet, "your boots, infinitely too +small for me, indicate a radical difference of temper and character; in +other respects, your little party has been charming." + +At one in the morning the guests took leave, and zig-zagged homeward. +Barbemuche felt very ill, and made incoherent harangues to his pupil, +who, for his part, was dreaming of Mademoiselle Mimi's blue eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE HOUSE WARMING + + +This took place some time after the union of the poet Rodolphe and +Mademoiselle Mimi. For a week the whole of the Bohemian brotherhood +were grievously perturbed by the disappearance of Rodolphe, who had +suddenly become invisible. They had sought for him in all his customary +haunts, and had everywhere been met by the same reply-- + +"We have not seen him for a week." + +Gustave Colline above all was very uneasy, and for the following reason. +A few days previously he had handed to Rodolphe a highly philosophical +article, which the latter was to insert in the columns of "The Beaver," +the organ of the hat trade, of which he was editor. Had this +philosophical article burst upon the gaze of astonished Europe? Such +was the query put to himself by the astonished Colline, and this anxiety +will be understood when it is explained that the philosopher had never +yet had the honor of appearing in print, and that he was consumed by the +desire of seeing what effect would be produced by his prose in pica. To +procure himself this gratification he had already expended six francs in +visiting all the reading rooms of Paris without being able to find "The +Beaver" in any one of them. Not being able to stand it any longer, +Colline swore to himself that he would not take a moment's rest until he +had laid hands on the undiscoverable editor of this paper. + +Aided by chances which it would take too long to tell in detail, the +philosopher was able to keep his word. Within two days he learned +Rodolphe's abiding place and called on him there at six in the morning. + +Rodolphe was then residing in a lodging house in a deserted street +situated in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and was perched on the fifth +floor because there was not a sixth. When Colline came to his door there +was no key in the lock outside. He knocked for ten minutes without +obtaining any answer from within; the din he made at this early hour +attracted the attention of even the porter, who came to ask him to be +quiet. + +"You see very well that the gentleman is asleep," said he. + +"That is why I want to wake him up," replied Colline, knocking again. + +"He does not want to answer then," replied the porter, placing before +Rodolphe's door a pair of patent leather boots and a pair of lady's +boots that he had just cleaned. + +"Wait a bit though," observed Colline, examining the masculine and +feminine foot gear. "New patent leathers! I must have made a mistake; it +cannot be here." + +"Yes, by the way," said the porter, "whom do you want?" + +"A woman's boots!" continued Colline, speaking to himself, and thinking +of his friends austere manners, "Yes, certainly I must have made a +mistake. This is not Rodolphe's room." + +"I beg your pardon, sir, it is." + +"You must be making a mistake, my good man." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Decidedly you must be making a mistake," said Colline, pointing to the +patent leather boots. "What are those?" + +"Those are Monsieur Rodolphe's boots. What is there to be wondered at in +that?" + +"And these?" asked Colline, pointing to the lady's boots. "Are they +Monsieur Rodolphe's too?" + +"Those are his wife's," said the porter. + +"His wife's!" exclaimed Colline in a tone of stupefaction. "Ah! The +voluptuary, that is why he will not open the door." + +"Well," said the porter, "he is free to do as he likes about that, sir. +If you will leave me your name I will let him know you called." + +"No," said Colline. "Now that I know where to find him I will call +again." + +And he at once went off to tell the important news to his friends. + +Rodolphe's patent leathers were generally considered to be a fable due +to Colline's wealth of imagination, and it was unanimously declared that +his mistress was a paradox. + +This paradox was, however, a truism, for that very evening Marcel +received a letter collectively addressed to the whole of the set. It was +as follows:-- + +"Monsieur and Madame Rodolphe, literati, beg you to favor them with your +company at dinner tomorrow evening at five o'clock sharp." + +"N.B.--There will be plates." + +"Gentlemen," said Marcel, when communicating the letter to his comrades, +"the news is confirmed, Rodolphe has really a mistress; further he +invites us to dinner, and the postscript promises crockery. I will not +conceal from you that this last paragraph seems to me a lyrical +exaggeration, but we shall see." + +The following day at the hour named, Marcel, Gustave Colline, and +Alexander Schaunard, keen set as on the last day of Lent, went to +Rodolphe's, whom they found playing with a sandy haired cat, whilst a +young woman was laying the table. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, shaking his friends' hands and indicating +the young lady, "allow me to introduce you to the mistress of the +household." + +"You are the household, are you not?" said Colline, who had a mania for +this kind of joke. + +"Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "I present my best friends; now go and get the +soup ready." + +"Oh madame," said Alexander Schaunard, hastening towards Mimi, "you are +as fresh as a wild flower." + +After having satisfied himself that there were really plates on the +table, Schaunard asked what they were going to have to eat. He even +carried his curiosity so far as to lift up the covers of the stewpans in +which the dinner was cooking. The presence of a lobster produced a +lively impression upon him. + +As to Colline, he had drawn Rodolphe aside to ask about his +philosophical article. + +"My dear fellow, it is at the printer's. 'The Beaver' appears next +Thursday." + +We give up the task of depicting the philosopher's delight. + +"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe to his friends. "I ask your pardon for +leaving you so long without any news of me, but I was spending my +honeymoon." And he narrated the story of his union with the charming +creature who had brought him as a dowry her eighteen years and a half, +two porcelain cups, and a sandy haired cat named Mimi, like herself. + +"Come, gentlemen," said Rodolphe, "we are going to celebrate my house +warming. I forewarn you, though, that we are about to have merely a +family repast; truffles will be replaced by frank cordiality." + +Indeed, that amiable goddess did not cease to reign amongst the guests, +who found, however, that the so-called frugal repast did not lack a +certain amplitude. Rodolphe, indeed, had spread himself out. Colline +called attention to the fact that the plates were changed, and declared +aloud that Mademoiselle Mimi was worthy of the azure scarf with which +the empresses of the cooking stove were adorned, a phrase which was +Greek to the young girl, and which Rodolphe translated by telling her +"that she would make a capital Cordon Bleu." + +The appearance on the scene of the lobster caused universal admiration. +Under the pretext that he had studied natural history, Schaunard +suggested that he should carve it. He even profited by this circumstance +to break a knife and to take the largest helping for himself, which +excited general indignation. But Schaunard had no self respect, above +all in the matter of lobsters, and as there was still a portion left, he +had the audacity to put it on one side, saying that he would do for a +model for a still life piece he had on hand. + +Indulgent friendship feigned to believe this fiction, but fruit of +immoderate gluttony. + +As to Colline he reserved his sympathies for the dessert, and was even +obstinate enough to cruelly refuse the share of a tipsy cake against a +ticket of admission to the orangery of Versailles offered to him by +Schaunard. + +At this point conversation began to get lively. To three bottles with +red seals succeeded three bottles with green seals, in the midst of +which shortly appeared one which by its neck topped with a silver +helmet, was recognized as belonging to the Royal Champagne Regiment--a +fantastic Champagne vintaged by Saint Ouen, and sold in Paris at two +francs the bottle as bankrupt's stock, so the vendor asserted. + +But it is not the district that makes the wine, and our Bohemians +accepted as the authentic growth of Ai the liquor that was served out to +them in the appropriate glasses, and despite the scant degree of +vivacity shown by the cork in popping from its prison, went into +ecstacies over the excellence of the vintage on seeing the quality of +the froth. Schaunard summoned up all his remaining self-possession to +make a mistake as regards glasses, and help himself to that of Colline, +who kept gravely dipping his biscuit in the mustard pot as he explained +to Mademoiselle Mimi the philosophical article that was to appear in +"The Beaver." All at once he grew pale, and asked leave to go to the +window and look at the sunset, although it was ten o'clock at night, and +the sun had set long ago. + +"It is a pity the Champagne is not iced," said Schaunard, again trying +to substitute his empty glass for the full one of his neighbor, an +attempt this time without success. + +"Madame," observed Colline, who had ceased to take the fresh air, to +Mimi, "Champagne is iced with ice. Ice is formed by the condensation of +water, in Latin aqua. Water freezes at two degrees, and there are four +seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, which was the cause of the +retreat from Moscow." + +All at once Colline suddenly slapped Rodolphe on the shoulder, and in a +thick voice that seemed to mash all the syllables together, said to +him-- + +"Tomorrow is Thursday, is it not?" + +"No," replied Rodolphe. "Tomorrow is Sunday." + +"Thursday." + +"No, I tell you. Tomorrow is Sunday." + +"Sunday!" said Colline, wagging his head, "not a bit of it, it is +Thursday." + +And he fell asleep, making a mold for a cast of his face in the cream +cheese that was before him in his plate. + +"What is he harping about Thursday?" observed Marcel. + +"Ah, I have it!" said Rodolphe, who began to understand the persistency +of the philosopher, tormented by a fixed idea, "it is on account of his +article in 'The Beaver.' Listen, he is dreaming of it aloud." + +"Good," said Schaunard. "He shall not have any coffee, eh, madame?" + +"By the way," said Rodolphe, "pour out the coffee, Mimi." + +The latter was about to rise, when Colline, who had recovered a little +self possession, caught her around the waist and whispered +confidentially in her ear: + +"Madame, the coffee plant is a native of Arabia, where it was discovered +by a goat. Its use expanded to Europe. Voltaire used to drink seventy +cups a day. I like mine without sugar, but very hot." + +"Good heavens! What a learned man!" thought Mimi as she brought the +coffee and pipes. + +However time was getting on, midnight had long since struck, and +Rodolphe sought to make his guests understand that it was time for them +to withdraw. Marcel, who retained all his senses, got up to go. + +But Schaunard perceived that there was still some brandy in a bottle, +and declared that it could not be midnight so long as there was any +left. As to Colline, he was sitting astride his chair and murmuring in a +low voice: + +"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday." + +"Hang it all," said Rodolphe, greatly embarrassed, "I cannot give them +quarters here tonight; formerly it was all very well, but now it is +another thing," he added, looking at Mimi, whose softly kindling eyes +seemed to appeal for solitude for their two selves. "What is to be +done? Give me a bit of advice, Marcel. Invent a trick to get rid of +them." + +"No, I won't invent," replied Marcel, "but I will imitate. I remember a +play in which a sharp servant manages to get rid of three rascals as +drunk as Silenus who are at his master's." + +"I recollect it," said Rodolphe, "it is in 'Kean.' Indeed, the situation +is the same." + +"Well," said Marcel, "we will see if the stage holds the glass up to +human nature. Stop a bit, we will begin with Schaunard. Here, I say, +Schaunard." + +"Eh? What is it?" replied the latter, who seemed to be floating in the +elysium of mild intoxication. + +"There is nothing more to drink here, and we are all thirsty." + +"Yes," said Schaunard, "bottles are so small." + +"Well," continued Marcel, "Rodolphe has decided that we shall pass the +night here, but we must go and get something before the shops are +shut." + +"My grocer lives at the corner of the street," said Rodolphe. "Do you +mind going there, Schaunard? You can fetch two bottles of rum, to be put +down to me." + +"Oh! yes, certainly," said Schaunard, making a mistake in his greatcoat +and taking that of Colline, who was tracing figures on the table cloth +with his knife. + +"One," said Marcel, when Schaunard had gone. "Now let us tackle Colline, +that will be a harder job. Ah! an idea. Hi, hi, Colline," he continued, +shaking the philosopher. + +"What? what? what is it?" + +"Schaunard has just gone, and has taken your hazel overcoat by mistake." + +Colline glanced round again, and perceived indeed in the place of his +garment, Schaunard's little plaid overcoat. A sudden idea flashed across +his mind and filled him with uneasiness. Colline, according to his +custom, had been book-hunting during the day, and had bought for fifteen +sous a Finnish grammar and a little novel of Nisard's entitled "The +Milkwoman's Funeral." These two acquisitions were accompanied by seven +or eight volumes of philosophy that he had always about him as an +arsenal whence to draw reasons in case of an argument. The idea of this +library being in the hands of Schaunard threw him into a cold +perspiration. + +"The wretch!" exclaimed Colline, "what did he take my greatcoat for?" + +"It was by mistake." + +"But my books. He may put them to some improper purpose." + +"Do not be afraid, he will not read them," said Rodolphe. + +"No, but I know him; he is capable of lighting his pipe with them." + +"If you are uneasy you can catch him up," said Rodolphe. "He has only +just this moment gone out, you will overtake him at the street door." + +"Certainly I will overtake him," replied Colline, putting on his hat, +the brim of which was so broad that tea for six people might have been +served upon it. + +"Two," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "now you are free. I am off, and I will +tell the porter not to open the outer door if anyone knocks." + +"Goodnight and thanks," said Rodolphe. + +As he was showing his friend out Rodolphe heard on the staircase a +prolonged mew, to which his carroty cat replied by another, whilst +trying at the same time to slip out adroitly by the half-opened door. + +"Poor Romeo!" said Rodolphe, "there is his Juliet calling him. Come, off +with you," he added opening the door to the enamored beast, who made a +single leap down the stairs into its lover's arms. + +Left alone with his mistress, who standing before the glass was curling +her hair in a charmingly provocative attitude, Rodolphe approached Mimi +and passed his arms around her. Then, like a musician, who before +commencing a piece, strikes a series of notes to assure himself of the +capacity of the instrument, Rodolphe drew Mimi onto his knee, and +printed on her shoulder a long and sonorous kiss, which imparted a +sudden vibration to the frame of the youthful beauty. + +The instrument was in tune. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MADEMOISELLE MIMI + + +Oh! my friend Rodolphe, what has happened to change you thus? Am I to +believe the rumors that are current, and that this misfortune has broken +down to such a degree your robust philosophy? How can I, the historian +in ordinary of your Bohemian epic, so full of joyous bursts of +laughter, narrate in a sufficiently melancholy tone the painful +adventure which casts a veil over your constant gaiety, and suddenly +checks the ringing flow of your paradoxes? + +Oh! Rodolphe, my friend, I admit that the evil is serious, but there, +really it is not worthwhile throwing oneself into the water about it. So +I invite you to bury the past as soon as possible. Shun above all the +solitude peopled with phantoms who would help to render your regrets +eternal. Shun the silence where the echoes of recollection would still +be full of your past joys and sorrows. Cast boldly to all the winds of +forgetfulness the name you have so fondly cherished, and with it all +that still remains to you of her who bore it. Curls pressed by lips mad +with desire, a Venice flask in which there still lurks a remainder of +perfume, which at this moment it would be more dangerous for you to +breathe than all the poisons in the world. To the fire with the flowers, +the flowers of gauze, silk and velvet, the white geraniums, the anemones +empurpled by the blood of Adonis, the blue forget-me-nots and all those +charming bouquets that she put together in the far off days of your +brief happiness. Then I loved her too, your Mimi, and saw no danger in +your loving her. But follow my advice--to the fire with the ribbons, the +pretty pink, blue, and yellow ribbons which she wore round her neck to +attract the eye; to the fire with the lace, the caps, the veils and all +the coquettish trifles with which she bedecked herself to go +love-making with Monsieur Cesar, Monsieur Jerome, Monsieur Charles, or +any other gallant in the calendar, whilst you were awaiting her at your +window, shivering from the wintry blast. To the fire, Rodolphe, and +without pity, with all that belonged to her and could still speak to you +of her; to the fire with the love letters. Ah! here is one of them, and +your tears have bedewed it like a fountain. Oh! my unhappy friend! + + "As you have not come in, I am going out to call on my aunt. I have + taken what money there was for a cab." + + "Lucille." + +That evening, oh! Rodolphe, you had, do you not recollect, to go without +your dinner, and you called on me and let off a volley of jests which +fully attested your tranquillity of mind. For you believed Lucille was +at her aunt's, and if I had not told you that she was with Monsieur +Cesar or with an actor of the Montparnasse Theater, you would have cut +my throat! To the fire, too, with this other note, which has all the +laconic affection of the first. + +"I am gone out to order some boots, you must find the money for me to +go and fetch them tomorrow." + +Ah! my friend, those boots have danced many quadrilles in which you did +not figure as a partner. To the flames with all these remembrances and +to the winds with their ashes. + +But in the first place, oh Rodolphe! for the love of humanity and the +reputation of "The Scarf of Iris" and "The Beaver," resume the reins of +good taste that you have egotistically dropped during your sufferings, +or else horrible things may happen for which you will be responsible. We +may go back to leg-of-mutton sleeves and frilled trousers, and some fine +day see hats come into fashion which would afflict the universe and +call down the wrath of heaven. + +And now the moment is come to relate the loves of our friend Rodolphe +and Mimi. It was just as he was turned four and twenty that Rodolphe was +suddenly smitten with the passion that had such an influence upon his +life. At the time he met Mimi he was leading that broken and fantastic +existence that we have tried to describe in the preceding chapters of +this book. He was certainly one of the gayest endurers of poverty in the +world of Bohemia. When in course of the day he had made a poor dinner +and a smart remark, he walked more proudly in his black coat (pleading +for help through every gaping seam) along the pavement that often +promised to be his only resting place for the night, than an emperor in +his purple robe. In the group amongst whom Rodolphe lived, they +affected, after a fashion common enough amongst some young fellows, to +treat love as a thing of luxury, a pretext for jesting. Gustave Colline, +who had for a long time past been in intimate relations with a waistcoat +maker, whom he was rendering deformed in mind and body by obliging her +to sit day and night copying the manuscripts of his philosophical works, +asserted that love was a kind of purgative, good to take at the +beginning of each season in order to get rid of humors. Amidst all these +false sceptics Rodolphe was the only one who dared to talk of love with +some reverence, and when they had the misfortune to let him harp on +this string, he would go on for an hour plaintively wurbling elegies on +the happiness of being loved, the deep blue of the peaceful lake, the +song of the breeze, the harmony of the stars, &c., &c. This mania had +caused him to be nicknamed the harmonica by Schaunard. Marcel had also +made on this subject a very neat remark when, alluding to the +Teutonically sentimental tirades of Rodolphe and to his premature +calvity, he called him the bald forget-me-not. The real truth was this. +Rodolphe then seriously believed he had done with all things of youth +and love; he insolently chanted a _De profundis_ over his heart, which +he thought dead when it was only silent, yet still ready to awake, still +accessible to joy, and more susceptible than ever to all the sweet pangs +that he no longer hoped for, and that were now driving him to despair. +You would have it, Rodolphe, and we shall not pity you, for the disease +from which you are suffering is one of those we long for most, above all +when we know that we are cured of it forever. + +Rodolphe then met Mimi, whom he had formerly known when she was the +mistress of one of his friends; and he made her his own. There was at +first a great outcry amongst Rodolphe's friends when they learned of +this union, but as Mademoiselle Mimi was very taking, not at all +prudish, and could stand tobacco smoke and literary conversations +without a headache, they became accustomed to her and treated her as a +comrade. Mimi was a charming girl, and especially adapted for both the +plastic and poetical sympathies of Rodolphe. She was twenty two years of +age, small, delicate, and arch. Her face seemed the first sketch of an +aristocratic countenance, but her features, extremely fine in outline, +and as it were, softly lit up by the light of her clear blue eyes, wore, +at certain moments of weariness or ill-humor, an expression of almost +savage brutality, in which a physiologist would perhaps have recognized +the indication of profound egotism or great insensibility. But hers was +usually a charming head, with a fresh and youthful smile and glances +either tender or full of imperious coquetry. The blood of youth flowed +warm and rapid in her veins, and imparted rosy tints to her transparent +skin of camellia-like whiteness. This unhealthy beauty captivated +Rodolphe, and he often during the night spent hours in covering with +kisses the pale forehead of his slumbering mistress, whose humid and +weary eyes shone half-closed beneath the curtain of her magnificent +brown hair. But what contributed above all to make Rodolphe madly in +love with Mademoiselle Mimi were her hands, which in spite of household +cares, she managed to keep as white as those of the Goddess of Idleness. +However, these hands so frail, so tiny, so soft to the lips; these +child-like hands in which Rodolphe had placed his once more awakened +heart; these white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi were soon to rend that +heart with their rosy nails. + +At the end of a month Rodolphe began to perceive that he was wedded to +a thunderstorm, and that his mistress had one great fault. She was a +"gadabout," as they say, and spent a great part of her time amongst the +kept women of the neighborhood, whose acquaintance she had made. The +result that Rodolphe had feared, when he perceived the relations +contracted by his mistress, soon took place. The variable opulence of +some of her new friends caused a forest of ambitious ideas to spring up +in the mind of Mademoiselle Mimi, who up until then had only had modest +tastes, and was content with the necessaries of life that Rodolphe did +his best to procure for her. Mimi began to dream of silks, velvets, and +lace. And, despite Rodolphe's prohibition, she continued to frequent +these women, who were all of one mind in persuading her to break off +with the Bohemian who could not even give her a hundred and fifty francs +to buy a stuff dress. + +"Pretty as you are," said her advisers, "you can easily secure a better +position. You have only to look for it." + +And Mademoiselle Mimi began to look. A witness of her frequent absences, +clumsily accounted for, Rodolphe entered upon the painful track of +suspicion. But as soon as he felt himself on the trail of some proof of +infidelity, he eagerly drew a bandage over his eyes in order to see +nothing. However, a strange, jealous, fantastic, quarrelsome love which +the girl did not understand, because she then only felt for Rodolphe +that lukewarm attachment resulting from habit. Besides, half of her +heart had already been expended over her first love, and the other half +was still full of the remembrance of her first lover. + +Eight months passed by in this fashion, good and evil days alternating. +During this period Rodolphe was a score of times on the point of +separating from Mademoiselle Mimi, who had for him all the clumsy +cruelties of the woman who does not love. Properly speaking, this life +had become a hell for both. But Rodolphe had grown accustomed to these +daily struggles, and dreaded nothing so much as a cessation of this +state of things; for he felt that with it would cease forever the fever +and agitations of youth that he had not felt for so long. And then, if +everything must be told, there were hours in which Mademoiselle Mimi +knew how to make Rodolphe forget all the suspicions that were tearing at +his heart. There were moments when she caused him to bend like a child +at her knee beneath the charm of her blue eyes--the poet to whom she had +given back his lost poetry--the young man to whom she had restored his +youth, and who, thanks to her, was once more beneath love's equator. Two +or three times a month, amidst these stormy quarrels, Rodolphe and Mimi +halted with one accord at the verdant oasis of a night of love, and for +whole hours would give himself up to addressing her in that charming yet +absurd language that passion improvises in its hour of delirium. Mimi +listened calmly at first, rather astonished than moved, but, in the end, +the enthusiastic eloquence of Rodolphe, by turns tender, lively, and +melancholy, won on her by degrees. She felt the ice of indifference that +numbed her heart melt at the contact of the love; she would throw +herself on Rodolphe's breast, and tell him by kisses all that she was +unable to tell him in words. And dawn surprised them thus enlaced +together--eyes fixed on eyes, hands clasped in hands--whilst their moist +and burning lips were still murmuring that immortal word "that for five +thousand years has lingered nightly on lovers' lips." + +But the next day the most futile pretext brought about a quarrel, and +love alarmed fled again for some time. + +In the end, however, Rodolphe perceived that if he did not take care the +white hands of Mademoiselle Mimi would lead him to an abyss in which he +would leave his future and his youth. For a moment stern reason spoke in +him more strongly than love, and he convinced himself by strong +arguments, backed up by proofs, that his mistress did not love him. He +went so far as to say to himself, that the hours of love she granted him +were nothing but a mere sensual caprice such as married women feel for +their husbands when they long for a cashmere shawl or a new dress, or +when their lover is away, in accordance with the proverb that half a +loaf is better than no bread. In short, Rodolphe could forgive his +mistress everything except not being loved. He therefore took a supreme +resolution, and announced to Mademoiselle Mimi that she would have to +look out for another lover. Mimi began to laugh and to utter bravados. +In the end, seeing that Rodolphe was firm in his resolve, and greeted +her with extreme calmness when she returned home after a day and a night +spent out of the house, she began to grow a little uneasy in face of +this firmness, to which she was not accustomed. She was then charming +for two or three days. But her lover did not go back on what he had +said, and contented himself with asking whether she had found anyone. + +"I have not even looked," she replied. + +However, she had looked, and even before Rodolphe had advised her to do +so. In a fortnight she had made two essays. One of her friends had +helped her, and had at first procured her the acquaintance of a very +tender youth, who had unfolded before Mimi's eyes a horizon of Indian +cashmeres and suites of furniture in rosewood. But in the opinion of +Mimi herself this young schoolboy, who might be very good at algebra, +was not very advanced in the art of love, and as she did not like +undertaking education, she left her amorous novice on the lurch, with +his cashmeres still browsing on the plains of Tibet, and his rosewood +furniture still growing in the forests of the New World. + +The schoolboy was soon replaced by a Breton gentleman, with whom Mimi +was soon rapidly smitten, and she had no need to pray long before +becoming his nominal countess. + +Despite his mistress's protestations, Rodolphe had wind of some +intrigue. He wanted to know exactly how matters stood, and one morning, +after a night during which Mademoiselle Mimi had not returned, hastened +to the place where he suspected her to be. There he was able to strike +home at his heart with one of those proofs to which one must give +credence in spite of oneself. He saw Mademoiselle Mimi, with two eyes +encircled with an aureola of satisfied voluptuousness, leaving the +residence in which she had acquired her title of nobility, on the arm of +her new lord and master, who, to tell the truth, appeared far less proud +of her new conquest than Paris after the rape of Helen. + +On seeing her lover appear, Mademoiselle Mimi seemed somewhat surprised. +She came up to him, and for five minutes they talked very quietly +together. They then parted, each on their separate way. Their separation +was agreed upon. + +Rodolphe returned home, and spent the day in packing up all the things +belonging to his mistress. + +During the day that followed his divorce, he received the visit of +several friends, and announced to them what had happened. Every one +congratulated him on this event as on a piece of great good fortune. + +"We will aid you, oh poet!" said one of those who had been the most +frequent spectator of the annoyances Mademoiselle Mimi had made Rodolphe +undergo, "we will help you to free your heart from the clutches of this +evil creature. In a little while you will be cured, and quite ready to +rove with another Mimi along the green lanes of Aulnay and +Fontenay-aux-Roses." + +Rodolphe swore that he had forever done with regrets and despair. He +even let himself be led away to the Bal Mabille, when his dilapidated +get-up did scant honor to "The Scarf of Iris," his editorship of which +procured him free admission to this garden of elegance and pleasure. +There Rodolphe met some fresh friends, with whom he began to drink. He +related to them his woes an unheard of luxury of imaginative style, and +for an hour was perfectly dazzling with liveliness and go. "Alas!" said +the painter Marcel, as he listened to the flood of irony pouring from +his friend's lips, "Rodolphe is too lively, far too lively." + +"He is charming," replied a young woman to whom Rodolphe had just +offered a bouquet, "and although he is very badly got up I would +willingly compromise myself by dancing with him if he would invite me." + +Two seconds later Rodolphe, who had overheard her, was at her feet, +enveloping his invitation in a speech, scented with all the musk and +benjamin of a gallantry at eighty degrees Richelieu. The lady was +confounded by the language sparkling with dazzling adjectives and +phrases modelled on those in vogue during the Regency, and the +invitation was accepted. + +Rodolphe was as ignorant of the elements of dancing as of the rule of +three. But he was impelled by an extraordinary audacity. He did not +hesitate, but improvised a dance unknown to all bygone choreography. It +was a step the originality of which obtained an incredible success, and +that has been celebrated under the title of "regrets and sighs." It was +all very well for the three thousand jets of gas to blink at him, +Rodolphe went on at it all the same, and continued to pour out a flood +of novel madrigals to his partner. + +"Well," said Marcel, "this is incredible. Rodolphe reminds me of a +drunken man rolling amongst broken glass." + +"At any rate he has got hold of a deuced fine woman," said another, +seeing Rodolphe about to leave with his partner. + +"Won't you say good night?" cried Marcel after him. + +Rodolphe came back to the artist and held out his hand, it was cold and +damp as a wet stone. + +Rodolphe's companion was a strapping Normandy wench, whose native +rusticity had promptly acquired an aristocratic tinge amidst the +elegancies of Parisian luxury and an idle life. She was styled Madame +Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate +rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a +month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but +hard knocks. Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think +of giving her anything, and took him off home with her. + +"Lucille," said she to her waiting maid, "I am not at home to anyone." +And passing into her bedroom, she came out ten minutes later, in a +special costume. She found Rodolphe dumb and motionless, for since he +had come in he had been plunged, despite himself, into a gloom full of +silent sobs. + +"Why you no longer look at me or speak to me!" said the astonished +Seraphine. + +"Come," said Rodolphe to himself, lifting his head. "Let us look at her, +but only for the sake of art." + +"And then what a sight met his eyes," as Raoul says in "The Huguenots." + +Seraphine was admirable beautiful. Her splendid figure, cleverly set off +by the cut of her solitary garment, showed itself provocatively through +the half-transparent material. All the imperious fever of desire woke +afresh in Rodolphe's veins. A warm mist mounted to his brain. He looked +at Seraphine otherwise than from a purely aesthetic point of view and +took the pretty girl's hands in his own. They were divine hands, and +might have been wrought by the purest chisels of Grecian statuary. +Rodolphe felt these admirable hands tremble in his own, and feeling less +and less of an art critic, he drew towards him Seraphine, whose face was +already tinged with that flush which is the aurora of voluptuousness. + +"This creature is a true instrument of pleasure, a real Stradivarius of +love, and one on which I would willingly play a tune," thought Rodolphe, +as he heard the fair creature's heart beating a hurried charge in a very +distinct fashion. + +At that moment there was a violent ring at the door of the rooms. + +"Lucile, Lucile," cried Seraphine to the waiting maid, "do not let +anyone in, say I am not home yet." + +At the name of Lucile uttered twice, Rodolphe rose. + +"I do not wish to incommode you in any way, madame," said he. "Besides, +I must take my leave, it is late and I live a long way off. Good +evening." + +"What! You are going?" exclaimed Seraphine, augmenting the fire of her +glances. "Why, why should you go? I am free, you can stay." + +"Impossible," replied Rodolphe, "I am expecting one of my relatives who +is coming from Terra del Fuego this evening, and he would disinherit me +if he did not find me waiting to receive him. Good evening, madame." + +And he quitted the room hurriedly. The servant went to light him out. +Rodolphe accidentally cast his eye on her. She was a delicate looking +girl, with slow movements; her extremely pale face offered a charming +contrast to her dark and naturally curling hair, whilst her blue eyes +resembled two sickly stars. + +"Oh phantom!" exclaimed Rodolphe, shrinking from one who bore the name +and the face of his mistress. "Away, what would you with me?" And he +rushed down the stairs. + +"Why, madame," said the lady's maid, returning to her mistress's room. +"The young fellow is mad." + +"Say rather that he is a fool," claimed the exasperated Seraphine. "Oh!" +she continued, "this will teach me to show kindness. If only that brute +of a Leon had the sense to drop in now!" + +Leon was the gentleman whose love carried a whip. + +Rodolphe ran home without waiting to take breath. Going upstairs he +found his carroty-haired cat giving vent to piteous mewings. For two +nights already it has thus been vainly summoning its faithless love, an +agora Manon Lescaut, who had started on a campaign of gallantry on the +house-tops adjacent. + +"Poor beast," said Rodolphe, "you have been deceived. Your Mimi has +jilted you like mine has jilted me. Bah! Let us console ourselves. You +see, my poor fellow, the hearts of women and she-cats are abysses that +neither men nor toms will ever fathom." + +When he entered his room, although it was fearfully hot, Rodolphe seemed +to feel a cloak of ice about his shoulders. It was the chill of +solitude, that terrible nocturnal solitude that nothing disturbs. He lit +his candle and then perceived the ravaged room. The gaping drawers in +the furniture showed empty, and from floor to ceiling sadness filled the +little room that seemed to Rodolphe vaster than a desert. Stepping +forward he struck his foot against the parcels containing the things +belonging to Mademoiselle Mimi, and he felt an impulse of joy to find +that she had not yet come to fetch them as she had told him in the +morning she would do. Rodolphe felt that, despite all his struggles, the +moment of reaction was at hand, and readily divined that a cruel night +was to expiate all the bitter mirth that he had dispensed in the course +of the evening. However, he hoped that his body, worn out with fatigue, +would sink to sleep before the reawakening of the sorrows so long pent +back in his heart. + +As he approached the couch, and on drawing back the curtains saw the bed +that had not been disturbed for two days, the pillows placed side by +side, beneath one of which still peeped out the trimming of a woman's +night cap, Rodolphe felt his heart gripped in the pitiless vice of that +desolate grief that cannot burst forth. He fell at the foot of the bed, +buried his face in his hands, and, after having cast a glance round the +desolate room, exclaimed: + +"Oh! Little Mimi, joy of my home, is it really true that you are gone, +that I have driven you away, and that I shall never see you again, my +God. Oh! Pretty brown curly head that has slept so long on this spot, +will you never come back to sleep here again? Oh! Little white hands +with the blue veins, little white hands to whom I had affianced my lips, +have you too received my last kiss?" + +And Rodolphe, in delirious intoxication, plunged his head amongst the +pillows, still impregnated with the perfume of his love's hair. From the +depth of the alcove he seemed to see emerge the ghosts of the sweet +nights he had passed with his young mistress. He heard clear and +sonorous, amidst the nocturnal silence, the open-hearted laugh of +Mademoiselle Mimi, and he thought of the charming and contagious gaiety +with which she had been able so many times to make him forget all the +troubles and all the hardships of their hazardous existence. + +Throughout the night he kept passing in review the eight months that he +had just spent with this girl, who had never loved him perhaps, but +whose tender lies had restored to Rodolphe's heart its youth and +virility. + +Dawn surprised him at the moment when, conquered by fatigue, he had just +closed his eyes, red from the tears shed during the night. A doleful and +terrible vigil, yet such a one as even the most sneering and sceptical +amongst us may find in the depths of their past. + +When his friends called on him in the morning they were alarmed at the +sight of Rodolphe, whose face bore the traces of all the anguish that +had awaited him during his vigil in the Gethsemane of love. + +"Good!" said Marcel, "I was sure of it; it is his mirth of yesterday +that has turned in his heart. Things must not go on like this." + +And in concert with two or three comrades he began a series of privately +indiscreet revelations respecting Mademoiselle Mimi, every word of which +pierced like a thorn in Rodolphe's heart. His friends "proved" to him +that all the time his mistress had tricked him like a simpleton at home +and abroad, and that this fair creature, pale as the angel of phthisis, +was a casket filled with evil sentiments and ferocious instincts. + +One and another they thus took it in turns at the task they had set +themselves, which was to bring Rodolphe to that point at which soured +love turns to contempt; but this object was only half attained. The +poet's despair turned to wrath. He threw himself in a rage upon the +packages which he had done up the day before, and after having put on +one side all the objects that his mistress had in her possession when +she came to him, kept all those he had given her during their union, +that is to say, by far the greater number, and, above all, the articles +connected with the toilette to which Mademoiselle Mimi was attached by +all the fibers of a coquetry that had of late become insatiable. + +Mademoiselle Mimi called in course of the next day to take away her +things. Rodolphe was at home and alone. It needed all his powers of self +esteem to keep him from throwing himself upon his mistress's neck. He +gave her a reception full of silent insult, and Mademoiselle Mimi +replied by those cold and keen scoffs that drive the weakest and most +timid to show their teeth. In face of the contempt with which his +mistress flagellated him with insolent hardihood, Rodolphe's anger broke +out fearfully and brutally. For a moment Mimi, white with terror, asked +herself whether she would escape from his hands alive. At the cries she +uttered some neighbors rushed in and dragged her out of Rodolphe's room. + +Two days later a female friend of Mimi came to ask Rodolphe whether he +would give up the things he had kept. + +"No," he replied. + +And he got his mistress's messenger to talk about her. She informed him +that Mimi was in a very unfortunate condition, and that she would soon +find herself without a lodging. + +"And the lover of whom she is so fond?" + +"Oh!" replied Amelie, the friend in question, "the young fellow has no +intention of taking her for his mistress. He has been keeping another +for a long time past, and he does not seem to trouble much about Mimi, +who is living at my expense, which causes me a great deal of +embarrassment." + +"Let her do as she can," said Rodolphe. "She would have it,--it is no +affair of mine." + +And he began to sing madrigals to Mademoiselle Amelie, and persuaded her +that she was the prettiest woman in the world. + +Amelie informed Mimi of her interview with Rodolphe. + +"What did he say? What is he doing? Did he speak to you about me?" asked +Mimi. + +"Not at all; you are already forgotten, my dear. Rodolphe has a fresh +mistress, and he has bought her a superb outfit, for he has received a +great deal of money, and is himself dressed like a prince. He is a very +amiable fellow, and said a lot of nice things to me." + +"I know what all that means," thought Mimi. + +Every day Mademoiselle Amelie called to see Rodolphe on some pretext or +other, and however much the latter tried he could not help speaking of +Mimi to her. + +"She is very lively," replied her friend, "and does not seem to trouble +herself about her position. Besides she declares that she will come back +to you whenever she chooses, without making any advances and merely for +the sake of vexing your friends." + +"Very good," said Rodolphe, "let her come and we shall see." + +And he began to pay court to Amelie, who went off to tell everything to +Mimi, and to assure her that Rodolphe was very much in love with +herself. + +"He kissed me again on the hand and the neck; see it is quite red," said +she. "He wants to take me to a dance tomorrow." + +"My dear friend," said Mimi, rather vexed, "I see what you are driving +at, to make me believe that Rodolphe is in love with you and thinks no +more about me. But you are wasting your time both for him and me." + +The fact was that Rodolphe only showed himself amiable towards Amelie +to get her to call on him the oftener, and to have the opportunity of +speaking to her about his mistress. But with a Machiavelism that had +perhaps its object, and whilst perceiving very well that Rodolphe still +loved Mimi, and that the latter was not indisposed to rejoin him, Amelie +strove, by ingeniously inventive reports, to fend off everything that +might serve to draw the pair together again. + +The day on which she was to go to the ball Amelie called in the morning +to ask Rodolphe whether the engagement still held good. + +"Yes," he replied, "I do not want to miss the opportunity of being the +cavalier of the most beautiful woman of the day." + +Amelie assumed the coquettish air that she had put on the occasion of +her solitary appearance at a suburban theater as fourth chambermaid, and +promised to be ready that evening. + +"By the way," said Rodolphe, "tell Mademoiselle Mimi that if she will be +guilty of an infidelity to her lover in my favor, and come and pass a +night with me, I will give her up all her things." + +Amelie executed Rodolphe's commission, and gave to his words quite +another meaning than that which she had guessed they bore. + +"Your Rodolphe is a rather base fellow," said she to Mimi. "His proposal +is infamous. He wishes by this step to make you descend to the rank of +the vilest creatures, and if you go to him not only will he not give you +your things, but he will show you up as a jest to all his comrades. It +is a plot arranged amongst them." + +"I will not go," said Mimi, and as she saw Amelie engaged in preparing +her toilette, she asked her whether she was going to the ball. + +"Yes," replied the other. + +"With Rodolphe?" + +"Yes, he is to wait for me this evening twenty yards or so from here." + +"I wish you joy," said Mimi, and seeing the hour of the appointment +approach, she hurried off to Mademoiselle Amelie's lover, and informed +him that the latter was engaged in a little scheme to deceive him with +her own old lover. + +The gentleman, jealous as a tiger and brutal to boot, called at once on +Mademoiselle Amelie, and announced that he would like her to spend the +evening in his company. + +At eight o'clock Mimi flew to the spot at which Rodolphe was to meet +Amelie. She saw her lover pacing up and down after the fashion of a man +waiting for some one, and twice passed close to him without daring to +address him. Rodolphe was very well dressed that evening, and the +violent crises through which he had passed during the week had imparted +great character on his face. Mimi was singularly moved. At length she +made up her mind to speak to him. Rodolphe received her without anger, +and asked how she was, after which he inquired as to the motive that had +brought her to him, in mild voice, in which there was an effort to +check a note of sadness. + +"It is bad news that I come to bring you. Mademoiselle Amelie cannot +come to the ball with you. Her lover is keeping her." + +"I shall go to the ball alone, then." + +Here Mademoiselle Mimi feigned to stumble, and leaned against Rodolphe's +shoulder. He took her arm and proposed to escort her home. + +"No," said Mimi. "I am living with Amelie, and as her lover is there I +cannot go in until he has left." + +"Listen to me, then," said the poet. "I made a proposal to you today +through Mademoiselle Amelie. Did she transmit it to you?" + +"Yes," said Mimi, "but in terms which, even after what has happened, I +could not credit. No, Rodolphe, I could not believe that, despite all +that you might have to reproach me with, you thought me so worthless as +to accept such a bargain." + +"You did not understand me, or the message has been badly conveyed to +you. My offer holds good," said Rodolphe. "It is nine o'clock. You still +have three hours for reflection. The door will be unlocked until +midnight. Good night. Farewell, or--till we meet again." + +"Farewell, then," said Mimi, in trembling tones. + +And they separated. Rodolphe went home and threw himself, without +undressing, upon his bed. At half past eleven, Mademoiselle Mimi entered +his room. + +"I have come to ask your hospitality," said she. "Amelie's lover has +stayed with her, and I cannot get in." + +They talked together until three in the morning--an explanatory +conversation which grew gradually more familiar. + +At four o'clock their candle went out. Rodolphe wanted to light another. + +"No," said Mimi, "it is not worth the trouble. It is quite time to go to +bed." + +Five minutes later her pretty brown curly head had once more resumed its +place on the pillow, and in a voice full of affection she invited +Rodolphe's lips to feast on her little white hand with their blue veins, +the pearly pallor of which vied with the whiteness of the sheets. +Rodolphe did not light the candle. + +In the morning Rodolphe got up first, and pointing out several packages +to Mimi, said to her, very gently, "There is what belongs to you. You +can take it away. I keep my word." + +"Oh!" said Mimi. "I am very tired, you see, and I cannot carry all these +heavy parcels away at once. I would rather call again." + +And when she was dressed she only took a collar and a pair of cuffs. + +"I will take away the rest by degrees," she added, smiling. + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "take away all or take away none, and let there +be an end of it." + +"Let it, on the contrary, begin again, and, above all, let it last," +said Mimi, kissing Rodolphe. + +After breakfasting together they started off for a day in the country. +Crossing the Luxembourg gardens Rodolphe met a great poet who had always +received him with charming kindness. Out of respect for the +conventionalities Rodolphe was about to pretend not to see him but the +poet did not give him time, and passing by him greeted him with a +friendly gesture and his companion with a smile. + +"Who is that gentleman?" asked Mimi. + +Rodolphe answered her by mentioning a name which made her blush with +pleasure and pride. + +"Oh!" said Rodolphe. "Our meeting with the poet who has sung of love so +well is a good omen, and will bring luck to our reconciliation." + +"I do love you," said Mimi, squeezing his hand, although they were in +the midst of the crowd. + +"Alas!" thought Rodolphe. "Which is better; to allow oneself always to +be deceived through believing, or never to believe for fear of always +being deceived?" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Donec Gratus + + +We have told how the painter Marcel made the acquaintance of +Mademoiselle Musette. United one morning by the ministry of caprice, the +registrar of the district, they had fancied, as often happens, that +their union did not extend to their hearts. But one evening when, after +a violent quarrel, they resolved to leave one another on the spot, they +perceived that their hands, which they had joined in a farewell clasp, +would no longer quit one another. Almost in spite of themselves fancy +had become love. Both, half laughingly, acknowledged it. + +"This is very serious. What has happened to us?" said Marcel. "What the +deuce have we been up to?" + +"Oh!" replied Musette. "We must have been clumsy over it. We did not +take enough precautions." + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, who had become Marcel's neighbor, +entering the room. + +"The matter is," replied Marcel, "that this lady and myself have just +made a pretty discovery. We are in love with one another. We must have +been attacked by the complaint whilst asleep." + +"Oh oh! I don't think that it was whilst you were asleep," observed +Rodolphe. "But what proves that you are in love with one another? +Possibly you exaggerate the danger." + +"We cannot bear one another," said Marcel. + +"And we cannot leave one another," added Musette. + +"There, my children, your business is plain. Each has tried to play +cunning, and both have lost. It is the story of Mimi and myself. We +shall soon have run through two almanacs quarrelling day and night. It +is by that system that marriages are rendered eternal. Wed a 'yes' to a +'no,' and you obtain the union of Philemon and Baucis. Your domestic +interior will soon match mine, and if Schaunard and Phemie come and live +in the house, as they have threatened, our trio of establishments will +render it a very pleasant place of residence." + +At that moment Gustave Colline came in. He was informed of the accident +that had befallen Musette and Marcel. + +"Well, philosopher," said the latter, "what do you think of this?" + +Colline rubbed the hat that served him for a roof, and murmured, "I felt +sure of it beforehand. Love is a game of chance. He who plays at bowls +may expect rubbers. It is not good for man to live alone." + +That evening, on returning home, Rodolphe said to Mimi-- + +"There is something new. Musette dotes on Marcel, and will not leave +him." + +"Poor girl!" replied Mimi. "She who has such a good appetite, too." + +"And on his side, Marcel is hard and fast in love with Musette." + +"Poor fellow!" said Mimi. "He who is so jealous." + +"That is true," observed Rodolphe. "He and I are pupils of Othello." + +Shortly afterwards the households of Rodolphe and Marcel were reinforced +by the household of Schaunard, the musician, moving into the house with +Phemie Teinturiere. + +From that day all the other inhabitants slept upon a volcano, and at +quarter day sent in a unanimous notice of their intention to move to the +landlord. + +Indeed, hardly a day passed without a storm breaking out in one of these +households. Now it was Mimi and Rodolphe who, no longer having strength +to speak, continued their conversation with the aid of such missiles as +came under their hands. But more frequently it was Schaunard addressing +a few observations to the melancholy Phemie with the end of a walking +stick. As to Marcel and Musette, their arguments were carried on in +private sittings; they took at least the precaution to close their +doors and windows. + +If by chance peace reigned in the three households, the other lodgers +were not the less victims of this temporary concord. The indiscretion of +partition walls allowed all the secrets of Bohemian family life to +transpire, and initiated them, in spite of themselves, into all its +mysteries. Thus more than one neighbor preferred the _casus belli_ to +the ratification of treaties of peace. + +It was, in truth, a singular life that was led for six months. The most +loyal fraternity was practiced without any fuss in this circle, in +which everything was for all, and good or evil fortune shared. + +There were in the month certain days of splendor, when no one would have +gone out without gloves--days of enjoyment, when dinner lasted all day +long. There were others when one would have almost gone to Court without +boots; Lenten days, when, after going without breakfast in common, they +failed to dine together, or managed by economic combination to furnish +forth one of those repasts at which plates and knives were "resting," as +Mademoiselle Mimi put it, in theatrical parlance. + +But the wonderful thing is that this partnership, in which there were +three young and pretty women, no shadow of discord was found amongst +the men. They often yielded to the most futile fancies of their +mistresses, but not one of them would have hesitated for a moment +between the mistress and the friend. + +Love is born above all from spontaneity--it is an improvisation. +Friendship, on the contrary, is, so to say, built up. It is a sentiment +that progresses with circumspection. It is the egoism of the mind, +whilst love is the egoism of the heart. + +The Bohemians had known one another for six years. This long period of +time spent in a daily intimacy had, without altering the well-defined +individuality of each, brought about between them a concord of ideas--a +unity which they would not have found elsewhere. They had manners that +were their own, a tongue amongst themselves to which strangers would not +have been able to find the key. Those who did not know them very well +called their freedom of manner cynicism. It was however, only frankness. +With minds impatient of imposed control, they all hated what was false, +and despised what was low. Accused of exaggerated vanity, they replied +by proudly unfurling the program of their ambition, and, conscious of +their worth, held no false estimate of themselves. + +During the number of years that they had followed the same life +together, though often placed in rivalry by the necessities of their +profession, they had never let go one another's hands, and had passed +without heeding them over personal questions of self-esteem whenever an +attempt had been made to raise these between them in order to disunite +them. Besides, they each esteemed one another at their right worth, and +pride, which is the counter poison of envy, preserved them from all +petty professional jealousy. + +However, after six months of life in common, an epidemic of divorce +suddenly seized on the various households. + +Schaunard opened the ball. One day he perceived that Phemie Teinturiere +had one knee better shaped than the other, and as his was an austere +purism as regards plastics, he sent Phemie about her business, giving +her as a souvenir the cane with which he had addressed such frequent +remarks to her. Then he went back to live with a relative who offered +him free quarters. + +A fortnight later Mimi left Rodolphe to step into the carriage of the +young Vicomte Paul, the ex-pupil of Carolus Barbemuche, who had promised +her dresses to her heart's desire. + +After Mimi it was Musette who went off, and returned with a grand +flourish of trumpets amongst the aristocracy of the world of gallantry +which she had left to follow Marcel. + +This separation took place without quarrel, shock or premeditation. Born +of a fancy that had become love, this union was broken off by another +fancy. + +One evening during the carnival, at the masked ball at the Opera, +whither she had gone with Marcel, Mimi, Musette had for her _vis-a-vis_ +in a quadrille a young man who had formerly courted her. They recognized +one another, and, whilst dancing exchanged a few words. +Unintentionally, perhaps, whilst informing the young man of her present +condition in life, she may have dropped a word of regret as to her past +one. At any rate, at the end of the quadrille Musette made a mistake, +and instead of giving her hand to Marcel, who was her partner, give it +to her _vis-a-vis_, who led her off, and disappeared with her in the +crowd. + +Marcel looked for her, feeling somewhat uneasy. In an hour's time he +found her on the young man's arm; she was coming out of the Cafe de +l'Opera, humming a tune. On catching sight of Marcel, who had stationed +himself in a corner with folded arms, she made him a sign of farewell, +saying--"I shall be back." + +"That is to say, 'Do not expect me,'" translated Marcel. + +He was jealous but logical, and knew Musette, hence he did not wait for +her, but went home with a full heart and an empty stomach. He looked +into the cupboard to see whether there were not a few scraps to eat, and +perceived a bit of stale bread as hard as granite and a skeleton-like +red herring. + +"I cannot fight against truffles," he thought. "At any rate, Musette +will have some supper." + +And after passing his handkerchief over his eyes under pretext of wiping +his nose, he went to bed. + +Two days later Musette woke up in a boudoir with rose-covered hangings. +A blue brougham was at her door, and all the fairies of fashion had been +summoned to lay their wonders at her feet. Musette was charming, and her +youth seemed yet further rejuvenated in this elegant setting. Then she +began her old life again, was present at every festivity, and +re-conquered her celebrity. She was spoken of everywhere--in the lobbies +of the Bourse, and even at the parliamentary refreshment bars. As to her +new lover, Monsieur Alexis, he was a charming young fellow. He often +complained to Musette of her being somewhat frivolous and inattentive +when he spoke to her of his love. Then Musette would look at him +laughingly, and say-- + +"What would you have, my dear fellow? I stayed six months with a man who +fed me on salad and soup without butter, who dressed me in a cotton +gown, and usually took me to the Odeon because he was not well off. As +love costs nothing, and as I was wildly in love with this monster, we +expended a great deal of it together. I have scarcely anything but its +crumbs left. Pick them up, I do no hinder you. Besides, I have not +deceived you about it; if ribbons were not so dear I should still be +with my painter. As to my heart, since I have worn an eighty franc +corset I do not hear it, and I am very much afraid that I have left it +in one of Marcel's drawers." + +The disappearance of the three Bohemian households was the occasion of a +festival in the house they had inhabited. As a token of rejoicing the +landlord gave a grand dinner, and the lodgers lit up their windows. + +Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol +whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened +that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a +whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the +songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep, +idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they +hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they +usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find +themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December +log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation +between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that +they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with +them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still. + +One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few +paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed +the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver +himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of +his fare. + +"By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it +my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it--it is +a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the +fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full +view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?" + +"Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in +Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own. + +The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment. + +But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to +himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love. + +It was Mademoiselle Musette. + +"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures. +What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun." + +"I think it endurable," replied Marcel. + +"Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette. + +"I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little +theater where he was on the free list. + +"For the sake of art?" + +"No, for the sake of Laura." + +"Who is Laura?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of +interrogation. + +Marcel kept up the tone. + +"She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here." + +And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill. + +"You are very witty this evening," said Musette. + +"And you very curious," observed Marcel. + +"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for +two lovers quarrelling." + +"It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel. + +Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it +will not perhaps be the last, eh?" + +Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet. + +"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are +witness that it is not I who opened fire. Quick, my armor." + +From that moment the firing began. + +It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring +about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again +so lively. + +As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept +looking at Musette. They did not speak, but their eyes, those +plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met. After a quarter of an hour's +diplomacy this congress of glances had tacitly settled the matter. There +was nothing to be done save to ratify it. + +The interrupted conversation was renewed. + +"Candidly now," said Musette to Marcel, "where were you going just now?" + +"I told you, to see Laura." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"Her mouth is a nest of smiles." + +"Oh! I know all that sort of thing." + +"But you yourself," said Marcel, "whence came you on the wings of this +four-wheeler?" + +"I came back from the railway station where I had been to see off +Alexis, who is going on a visit to his family." + +"What sort of man is Alexis?" + +In turn Musette sketched a charming portrait of her present lover. +Whilst walking along Marcel and Musette continued thus on the open +Boulevard the comedy of reawakening love. With the same simplicity, in +turn tender and jesting, they went verse by verse through that immortal +ode in which Horace and Lydia extol with such grace the charms of their +new loves, and end by adding a postscript to their old ones. As they +reached the corner of the street a rather strong picket of soldiers +suddenly issued from it. + +Musette struck an attitude of alarm, and clutching hold of Marcel's arm +said, "Ah! Good heavens! Look there, soldiers; there is going to be +another revolution. Let us bolt off, I am awfully afraid. See me +indoors." + +"But where shall we go?" asked Marcel. + +"To my place," said Musette. "You shall see how nice it is. I invite you +to supper. We will talk politics." + +"No," replied Marcel, who thought of Monsieur Alexis. "I will not go to +your place, despite your offer of a supper. I do not like to drink my +wine out of another's glass." + +Musette was silent in face of this refusal. Then through the mist of her +recollections she saw the poor home of the artist, for Marcel had not +become a millionaire. She had an idea, and profiting by meeting another +picket she manifested fresh alarm. + +"They are going to fight," she exclaimed. "I shall never dare go home. +Marcel, my dear fellow, take me to one of my lady friends, who must be +living in your neighborhood." + +As they were crossing the Pont Neuf Musette broke into a laugh. + +"What is it?" asked Marcel. + +"Nothing," replied Musette, "only I remember that my friend has moved. +She is living at Batignolles." + +On seeing Marcel and Musette arrive arm in arm Rodolphe was not +astonished. + +"It is always so," said he, "with these badly buried loves." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +The Passage of the Red Sea + + +For five or six years Marcel had worked at the famous painting which (he +said) represented the Passage of the Red Sea; and for five or six years, +this masterpiece of color had been obstinately refused by the jury. In +fact, by dint of going and returning so many times from the artist's +study to the Exhibition, and from the Exhibition to the study, the +picture knew the road to the Louvre well enough to have gone thither of +itself, if it had been put on wheels. Marcel, who had repainted the +canvas ten times over, from top to bottom, attributed to personal +hostility on the part of the jury the ostracism which annually repulsed +him from the large saloon; nevertheless he was not totally discouraged +by the obstinate rejection which greeted him at every Exhibition. He was +comfortably established in the persuasion that his picture was, on a +somewhat smaller scale, the pendant required by "The Marriage of Cana," +that gigantic masterpiece whose astonishing brilliancy the dust of three +centuries has not been able to tarnish. Accordingly, every year at the +epoch of the Exhibition, Marcel sent his great work to the jury of +examiners; only, to deceive them, he would change some details of his +picture, and the title of it, without disturbing the general +composition. + +Thus, it came before the jury once, under the name of "The Passage of +the Rubicon," but Pharaoh, badly disguised under the mantle of Caeser, +was recognized and rejected with all the honors due him. Next year, +Marcel threw a coat of white over the foreground, to imitate snow, +planted a fir tree in one corner, and dressing an Egyptian like a +grenadier of the Imperial Guard, christened his picture, "The Passage +of the Beresina." + +But the jury had wiped its glasses that day, and were not to be duped by +this new stratagem. It recognized the pertinacious picture by a +thundering big pie-bald horse that was prancing on top of a wave of the +Red Sea. The skin of this horse served Marcel for all his experiments in +coloring; he used to call it, familiarly, his "synoptic table of fine +tones," because it reproduced the most varied combinations of color, +with the different plays of light and shade. Once again, however, the +jury could not find black balls enough to refuse "The Passage of +Beresina." + +"Very well," said Marcel, "I thought so! Next year, I shall send it +under the title of 'The Passage of the Panoramas.'" + + "They're going to be jolly caught--caught!" + +sang Schaunard to a new air of his own composition; a terrible air, like +a gamut of thunder-claps, the accompaniment whereof was a terror to all +pianos within hearing. + +"How can they refuse it, without all the vermilion of my Red Sea +mounting to their cheeks, and covering them with the blush of shame?" +ejaculated the artist, as he gazed on his picture. "When I think that +there is five hundred francs' worth of color there, and at least a +million of genius, without counting my lovely youth, now as bald as my +old hat! But they shan't get the better of me! Till my dying day, I will +send them my picture. It shall be engraved on their memories." + +"The surest way of ever having it engraved," said Colline, in a +plaintive tone, and then added to himself, "very neat, that; I shall +repeat it in society!" + +Marcel continued his imprecations, which Schaunard continued to put to +music. + +"Ah they won't admit me! The government pays them, lodges them, and +gives them decorations, on purpose to refuse me once a year; every first +of March! I see their idea! I see it clearly! They want to make me burn +my brushes. They hope that when my Red Sea is refused, I will throw +myself out of the window of despair. But they little know the heart of +man, if they think to take me thus. I will not wait for the opening of +the Exhibition. From today, my work shall be a picture of Damocles, +eternally suspended over their existence. I will send it once a week to +each of them, at his home in the bosom of his family; in the very heart +of his private life. It shall trouble their domestic joys; they shall +find their roasts burnt, their wines sour, and their wives bitter! They +will grow mad rapidly, and go to the Institute in strait-waistcoats. Ha! +Ha! The thought consoles me." + +Some days later, when Marcel had already forgotten his terrible plans of +vengeance against his persecutors, he received a visit from Father +Medicis. So the club called a Jew, named Salomon, who at that time was +well known to all the vagabond of art and literature, and had continual +transactions with them. Father Medicis traded in all sorts of trumpery. +He sold complete sets of furniture from twelve francs up to five +thousand; he bought everything, and knew how to dispose of it again, at +a profit. Proudhon's bank of exchange was nothing in comparison with the +system practiced by Medicis, who possessed the genius of traffic to a +degree at which the ablest of his religion had never before arrived. His +shop was a fairy region where you found anything you wished for. Every +product of nature, every creation of art; whatever issued from the +bowels of the earth or the head of man, was an object of commerce for +him. His business included everything; literally everything that exists; +he even trafficked in the ideal. He bought ideas to sell or speculate in +them. Known to all literary men and all artists, intimate with the +palette and familiar with the desk, he was the very Asmodeus of the +arts. He would sell you cigars for a column of your newspaper, slippers +for a sonnet, fresh fish for paradoxes; he would talk, for so much an +hour, with the people who furnished fashionable gossip to the journals. +He would procure you places for the debates in the Chambers, and +invitations to parties. He lodged wandering artistlings by the day, +week, or month, taking for pay, copies of the pictures in the Louvre. +The green room had no mysteries for him. He would get your pieces into +the theater, or yourself into the boudoir of an actress. He had a copy +of the "Almanac of Twenty Five Thousand Addresses" in his head, and knew +the names, residences, and secrets of all celebrities, even those who +were not celebrated. + +A few pages copied from his waste book, will give a better idea of the +universality of his operations than the most copious explanation could. + + "March 20, 184--." + +"Sold to M. L----, antiquary, the compass which Archimedes used at the +siege of Syracuse. 75 fr. + +Bought of M. V----, journalist, the entire works, uncut, of M. X----, +Member of the Academy. 10 fr. + +Sold to the same, a criticism of the complete works of M. X----, of the +Academy. 30 fr. + +Bought of M. R----, literary man, a critical article on the complete +works of M. Y----, of the Academy. 10 fr., plus half a cwt. of charcoal +and 4 lbs. of coffee. + +Sold to M. Y----, of the Academy, a laudatory review (twelve columns) of +his complete works. 250 fr. + +Sold to M. G----, a porcelain vase which had belonged to Madame Dubarry. +18 fr. + +Bought of little D----, her hair. 15 fr. + +Bought of M. B----, a lot of articles on Society, and the last three +mistakes in spelling made by the Prefect of the Seine. 6 fr, plus a pair +of Naples shoes. + +Sold to Mdlle. O----, a flaxen head of hair. 120 fr. + +Bought of M. M----, historical painter, a series of humorous designs. 25 +fr. + +Informed M. Ferdinand the time when Mme. la Baronne de T---- goes to +mass, and let him for the day the little room in the Faubourg +Montmartre: together 30 fr. + +Bought of M. J----, artist, a portrait of M. Isidore as Apollo. 6 fr. + +Sold to Mdlle R---- a pair of lobsters and six pair of gloves. 36 fr. +Received 3 fr. + +For the same, procured a credit of six months with Mme. Z----, +dressmaker. (Price not settled.) + +Procured for Mme. Z----, dressmaker, the custom of Mdlle. R----. +Received for this three yards of velvet, and three yards of lace. + +Bought of M. R----, literary man, a claim of 120 fr. against +the----newspaper. 5 fr., plus 2 lbs. of tobacco. + +Sold M. Ferdinand two love letters. 12 fr. + +Sold M. Isidore his portrait as Apollo. 30 fr. + +Bought of M. M----, a cwt. and a half of his work, entitled 'Submarine +Revolutions.' 15 fr. + +Lent Mme la Comtesse de G---- a service of Dresden china. 20 fr. + +Bought of M. G----, journalist, fifty-two lines in his article of town +talk. 100 fr., plus a set of chimney ornaments. + +Sold to Messrs. O---- and Co., fifty-two lines in the town talk of +the----. 300 fr., plus two sets of chimney ornaments. + +Let to Mdlle. S. G---- a bed and a brougham for the day (nothing). See +Mdlle. S. G----'s account in private ledger, folios 26 and 27. + +Bought of M. Gustave C--- a treatise on the flax and linen trade. 50 +fr., and a rare edition of Josephus. + +Sold Mdlle. S. G---- a complete set of new furniture. 5000 fr. + +For the same, paid an apothecary's bill. 75 fr. + +For the same, paid a milkman's bill. 3 fr. 85 c." + +Those quotations show what an extensive range the operations of the Jew +Medici covered. It may be added, that although some articles of his +commerce were decidedly illicit, he had never got himself into any +trouble. + +The Jew comprehended, on his entrance, that he had come at a favorable +time. In fact, the four friends were at that moment in council, under +the auspices of a ferocious appetite, discussing the grave question of +meat and drink. It was a Sunday at the end of the month--sinister day. + +The arrival of Medicis was therefore hailed by a joyous chorus, for they +knew that he was too saving of his time to spend it in visits of polite +ceremony; his presence announced business. + +"Good evening, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "How are you all?" + +"Colline!" said Rodolphe, who was studying the horizontal line at full +length on his bed. "Do the hospitable. Give our guest a chair; a guest +is sacred. I salute Abraham in you," added he. + +Colline took an arm chair about as soft as iron, and shoved it towards +the Jew, saying: + +"Suppose, for once, you were Cinna, (you _are_ a great sinner, you +know), and take this seat." + +"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted the others, looking at the floor to see if it +would not open and swallow up the philosopher. Meanwhile the Jew let +himself fall into the arm chair, and was just going to cry out at its +hardness, when he remembered that it was one which he himself had sold +to Colline for a deputy's speech. As the Jew sat down, his pockets +re-echoed with a silvery sound; melodious symphony, which threw the four +friends into a reverie of delight. + +"The accompaniment seems pretty," said Rodolphe aside to Marcel. "Now +for the air!" + +"Monsieur Marcel," said Medicis, "I have merely come to make your +fortune; that is to say, I offer you a superb opportunity of making your +entry into the artistic world. Art, you know, is a barren route, of +which glory is the oasis." + +"Father Medicis," cried Marcel, on the tenter-hooks of impatience, "in +the name of your revered patron, St. Fifty-percent, be brief!" + +"Here it is," continued Medicis, "a rich amateur, who is collecting a +gallery destined to make the tour of Europe, has charged me to procure +him a series of remarkable works. I come to offer you admission into +this museum--in a word, to buy your 'Passage of the Red Sea.'" + +"Money down?" asked Marcel. + +"Specie," replied the Jew, making the orchestra pockets strike up. + +"Do you accept this serious offer?" asked Colline. + +"Of course I do!" shouted Rodolphe, "don't you see, you wretch, that he +is talking of 'tin'? Is there nothing sacred for you, atheist that you +are?" + +Colline mounted on a table and assumed the attitude of Harpocrates, the +God of Silence. + +"Push on, Medicis!" said Marcel, exhibiting his picture. "I wish to +leave you the honor of fixing the price of this work, which is above all +price." + +The Jew placed on the table a hundred and fifty francs in new coin. + +"Well, what more?" said Marcel, "that's only the prologue." + +"Monsieur Marcel," replied the Jew, "you know that my first offer is my +last. I shall add nothing. Reflect, a hundred and fifty francs; that is +a sum, it is!" + +"A very small sum," said the artist. "There is that much worth of cobalt +in my Pharaoh's robe. Make it a round sum, at any rate! Square it off; +say two hundred!" + +"I won't add a sou!" said Medicis. "But I stand dinner for the company, +wine to any extent." + +"Going, going, going!" shouted Colline, with three blows of his fist on +the table, "no one speaks?--gone!" + +"Well it's a bargain!" said Marcel. + +"I will send for the picture tomorrow," said the Jew, "and now, +gentlemen, to dinner!" + +The four friends descended the staircase, singing the chorus of "The +Huguenots"--"_A table! A table!_" + +Medicis treated the Bohemians in a really magnificent way, and gave them +their choice of a number of dishes, which until then were completely +unknown to them. Henceforward hot lobster ceased to be a myth with +Schaunard, who contracted a passion for it that bordered on delirium. +The four friends departed from the gorgeous banquet as drunk as a +vintage-day. Marcel's intoxication was near having the most deplorable +consequences. In passing by his tailor's, at two in the morning, he +absolutely wanted to wake up his creditor, and pay him the hundred and +fifty francs on account. A ray of reason which flashed across the mind +of Colline, stopped the artist on the border of this precipice. + +A week after, Marcel discovered in what gallery his picture had been +placed. While passing through the Faubourg St. Honore, he stopped in the +midst of a group which seemed to regard with curiosity a sign that was +being put up over a shop door. The sign was neither more nor less than +Marcel's picture, which Medicis had sold to a grocer. Only "the Passage +of the Red Sea" had undergone one more alteration, and been given one +more new name. It had received the addition of a steamboat and was +called "the Harbor of Marseilles." The curious bystanders were bestowing +on it a flattering ovation. Marcel returned home in ecstacy at his +triumph, muttering to himself, _Vox populi, voz Dei_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Toilette of the Graces + + +Mademoiselle Mimi, who was accustomed to sleep far into the day, woke up +one morning at ten o'clock, and was greatly surprised not to find +Rodolphe beside her, nor even in the room. The preceding night, before +falling to sleep, she had, however, seen him at his desk, preparing to +spend the night over a piece of literary work which had been ordered of +him, and in the completion of which Mimi was especially interested. In +fact, the poet had given his companion hopes that out of the fruit of +his labors he would purchase a certain summer gown, that she had noticed +one day at the "Deux Magots," a famous drapery establishment, to the +window of which Mimi's coquetry used very frequently to pay its +devotions. Hence, ever since the work in question had been begun, Mimi +had been greatly interested in its progress. She would often come up to +Rodolphe whilst he was writing, and leaning her head on his shoulder +would say to him in serious tones-- + +"Well, is my dress getting on?" + +"There is already enough for a sleeve, so be easy," replied Rodolphe. + +One night having heard Rodolphe snap his fingers, which usually meant +that he was satisfied with his work, Mimi suddenly sat up in bed and +passing her head through the curtains said, "Is my dress finished?" + +"There," replied Rodolphe, showing her four large sheets of paper, +covered with closely written lines. "I have just finished the body." + +"How nice," said Mimi. "Then there is only the skirt now left to do. How +many pages like that are wanted for the skirt?" + +"That depends; but as you are not tall, with ten pages of fifty lines +each, and eight words to the line, we can get a decent skirt." + +"I am not very tall, it is true," said Mimi seriously, "but it must not +look as if we had skimped the stuff. Dresses are worn full, and I should +like nice large folds so that it may rustle as I walk." + +"Very good," replied Rodolphe, seriously. "I will squeeze another word +in each line and we shall manage the rustling." Mimi fell asleep again +quite satisfied. + +As she had been guilty of the imprudence of speaking of the nice dress +that Rodolphe was engaged in making for her to Mademoiselles Musette and +Phemie, these two young persons had not failed to inform Messieurs +Marcel and Schaunard of their friend's generosity towards his mistress, +and these confidences had been followed by unequivocal challenges to +follow the example set by the poet. + +"That is to say," added Mademoiselle Musette, pulling Marcel's +moustache, "that if things go on like this a week longer I shall be +obliged to borrow a pair of your trousers to go out in." + +"I am owed eleven francs by a good house," replied Marcel. "If I get it +in I will devote it to buying you a fashionable fig leaf." + +"And I," said Phemie to Schaunard, "my gown is in ribbons." + +Schaunard took three sous from his pocket and gave them to his mistress, +saying, "Here is enough to buy a needle and thread with. Mend your gown, +that will instruct and amuse you at the same time, _utile dulci_." + +Nevertheless, in a council kept very secret, Marcel and Schaunard agreed +with Rodolphe that each of them should endeavor to satisfy the +justifiable coquetry of their mistresses. + +"These poor girls," said Rodolphe, "a trifle suffices to adorn them, +but then they must have this trifle. Latterly fine arts and literature +have been flourishing; we are earning almost as much as street porters." + +"It is true that I ought not to complain," broke in Marcel. "The fine +arts are in a most healthy condition, one might believe oneself under +the sway of Leo the Tenth." + +"In point of fact," said Rodolphe. "Musette tells me that for the last +week you have started off every morning and do not get home till about +eight in the evening. Have you really got something to do?" + +"My dear fellow, a superb job that Medicis got me. I am painting at the +Ave Maria barracks. Eight grenadiers have ordered their portraits at six +francs a head taken all round, likenesses guaranteed for a year, like a +watch. I hope to get the whole regiment. I had the idea, on my own part, +of decking out Musette when Medicis pays me, for it is with him I do +business and not my models." + +"As to me," observed Schaunard carelessly, "although it may not look +like it, I have two hundred francs lying idle." + +"The deuce, let us stir them up," said Rodolphe. + +"In two or three days I count on drawing them," replied Schaunard. "I do +not conceal from you that on doing so I intend to give a free rein to +some of my passions. There is, above all, at the second hand clothes +shop close by a nankeen jacket and a hunting horn, that have for a long +time caught my eye. I shall certainly present myself with them." + +"But," added Marcel and Rodolphe together, "where do you hope to draw +this amount of capital from?" + +"Hearken gentlemen," said Schaunard, putting on a serious air, and +sitting down between his two friends, "we must not hide from one +another that before becoming members of the Institute and ratepayers, we +have still a great deal of rye bread to eat, and that daily bread is +hard to get. On the other hand, we are not alone; as heaven has created +us sensitive to love, each of us has chosen to share his lot." + +"Which is little," interrupted Marcel. + +"But," continued Schaunard, "whilst living with the strictest economy, +it is difficult when one has nothing to put anything on one side, above +all if one's appetite is always larger than one's plate." + +"What are you driving at?" asked Rodolphe. + +"This," resumed Schaunard, "that in our present situation we should all +be wrong to play the haughty when a chance offers itself, even outside +our art, of putting a figure in front of the cypher that constitutes our +capital." + +"Well!" said Marcel, "which of us can you reproach with playing the +haughty. Great painter as I shall be some day, have I not consented to +devote my brush to the pictorial reproduction of French soldiers, who +pay me out of their scanty pocket money? It seems to me that I am not +afraid to descend the ladder of my future greatness." + +"And I," said Rodolphe, "do not you know that for the past fortnight I +have been writing a medico-chirurgical epic for a celebrated dentist, +who has hired my inspiration at fifteen sous the dozen lines, about half +the price of oysters? However, I do not blush; rather than let my muse +remain idle, I would willingly put a railway guide into verse. When one +has a lyre it is meant to be made use of. And then Mimi has a burning +thirst for boots." + +"Then," said Schaunard, "you will not be offended with me when you know +the source of that Pactolus, the overflowing of which I am awaiting." + +The following is the history of Schaunard's two hundred francs:-- + +About a fortnight before he had gone into the shop of a music publisher +who had promised to procure him amongst his customers' pupils for +pianoforte lessons or pianofortes to tune. + +"By Jove!" said the publisher, on seeing him enter the shop, "you are +just in time. A gentleman has been here who wants a pianist; he is an +Englishman, and will probably pay well. Are you really a good one?" + +Schaunard reflected that a modest air might injure him in the +publisher's estimation. Indeed, a modest musician, and especially a +modest pianist, is a rare creation. Accordingly, he replied boldly: + +"I am a first rate one; if I only had a lung gone, long hair and a black +coat, I should be famous as the sun in the heavens; and instead of +asking me eight hundred francs to engrave my composition 'The Death of +the Damsel,' you would come on your knees to offer me three thousand for +it on a silver plate." + +The person whose address Schaunard took was an Englishman, named Birne. +The musician was first received by a servant in blue, who handed him +over to a servant in green, who passed him on to a servant in black, who +introduced him into a drawing room, where he found himself face to face +with a Briton coiled up in an attitude which made him resemble Hamlet +mediating on human nothingness. Schaunard was about to explain the +reason of his presence, when a sudden volley of shrill cries cut short +his speech. These horrid and ear piercing sounds proceeded from a parrot +hung out on the balcony of the story below. + +"Oh! That beast, that beast!" exclaimed the Englishman, with a bound on +his arm chair, "it will kill me." + +Thereupon the bird began to repeat its vocabulary, much more extensive +than that of ordinary Pollies; and Schaunard stood stupefied when he +heard the animal, prompted by a female voice, reciting the speech of +Theramenes with all the professional intonations. + +This parrot was the favorite of an actress who was then a great favorite +herself, and very much the rage--in her own boudoir. She was one of +those women who, no one knows why, was quoted at fancy prices on the +'Change of dissipation, and whose names are inscribed on the bills of +fare of young noblemen's suppers, where they form the living dessert. It +gives a Christian standing now-a-days to be seen with one of these +Pagans, who often have nothing of antiquity about them except their +age. When they are handsome, there is no such great harm after all; the +worst one risks is to sleep on straw in return for making them sleep on +rosewood. But when their beauty is bought by the ounce at the +perfumer's, and will not stand three drops of water on a rag; then their +wit consists in a couplet of a farce, and their talent lies in the hand +of the _claqueur_, it is hard indeed to understand how respectable men +with good names, ordinary sense, and decent coats, can let themselves be +carried away by a common place passion for these most mercenary +creatures. + +The actress in question was one of these belles of the day. She called +herself Delores, and professed to be a Spaniard, although she was born +in that Parisian Andalusia known as the Rue Coquenard. From there to the +Rue de Provence is about ten minute's walk, but it had cost her seven +years to make the transit. Her prosperity had begun with the decline of +her personal charms. She had a horse the day when her first false tooth +was inserted, and a pair the day of her second. Now she was living at a +great rate, lodging in a palace, driving four horses on holidays, and +giving balls to which all Paris came--the "all Paris" of these +ladies--that is to say, that collection of lazy seekers after jokes and +scandal; the "all Paris" that plays lansquenet; the sluggards of head +and hand, who kill their own time and other people's; the writers who +turn literary men to get some use out of the feather which nature placed +on their backs; the bullies of the revel, the clipped and sweated +gentlemen, the chevaliers of doubtful orders, all the vagabonds of +kid-glove-dom, that come from God knows where, and go back tither again +some day; all the marked and remarked notorieties; all those daughters +of Eve who retail what they once sold wholesale; all that race of +beings, corrupt from their cradle to their coffin, whom one sees on +first nights at the theater, with Golconda on foreheads and Thibet on +their shoulders, and for whom, notwithstanding, bloom the first violets +of spring and the first passions of youth--all this world which the +chronicles of gossip call "all Paris," was received by Delores who owned +the parrot aforesaid. + +This bird, celebrated for its oratorical talents among all the +neighbors, had gradually become the terror of the nearest. Hung out on +the balcony, it made a pulpit of its perch and spouted interminable +harangues from morning to night. It had learned certain parliamentary +topics from some political friends of the mistress, and was very strong +on the sugar question. It knew all the actress's repertory by heart, and +declaimed it well enough to have been her substitute, in case of +indisposition. Moreover, as she was rather polyglot in her flirtations, +and received visitors from all parts of the world, the parrot spoke all +languages, and would sometimes let out a _lingua Franca_ of oaths +enough to shock the sailors to whom "Vert-Vert" owed his profitable +education. The company of this bird, which might be instructive and +amusing for ten minutes, became a positive torture when prolonged. The +neighbors had often complained; the actress insolently disregarded their +complaints. Two or three other tenants of the house, respectable fathers +of families, indignant at the scandalous state of morals into which they +were initiated by the indiscretions of the parrot, had given warning to +the landlord. But the actress had got on his weak side; whoever might +go, she stayed. + +The Englishman whose sitting room Schaunard now entered, had suffered +with patience for three months. One day he concealed his fury, which +was ready to explode, under a full dress suit and sent in his card to +Mademoiselle Dolores. + +When she beheld him enter, arrayed almost as he would have been to +present himself before Queen Victoria, she at first thought it must be +Hoffmann, in his part of Lord Spleen; and wishing to be civil to a +fellow artist, she offered him some breakfast. + +The Englishman understood French. He had learned it in twenty five +lessons from a Spanish refugee. Accordingly he replied: + +"I accept your invitation on condition of our eating this disagreeable +bird," and he pointed to the cage of the parrot, who, having smelled an +Englishman, saluted him by whistling "God Save the King." + +Dolores thought her neighbor was quizzing her, and was beginning to get +angry, when Mr. Birne added: + +"As I am very rich, I will buy the animal. Put your price on it." + +Dolores answered that she valued the bird, and liked it, and would not +wish to see it pass into the hands of another. + +"Oh, it's not in my hands I want to put it," replied the Englishman, +"But under my feet--so--," and he pointed to the heels of his boots. + +Dolores shuddered with indignation and would probably have broken out, +when she perceived on the Englishman's finger a ring, the diamond of +which represented an income of twenty five hundred francs. The discovery +was like a shower bath to her rage. She reflected that it might be +imprudent to quarrel with a man who carried fifty thousand francs on his +little finger. + +"Well, sir," she said, "as poor Coco annoys you, I will put him in a +back room, where you cannot hear him." + +The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction. + +"However," added he, pointing once more to his boots, "I should have +preferred--." + +"Don't be afraid. Where I mean to put him it will be impossible for him +to trouble milord." + +"Oh! I am not a lord; only an esquire." + +With that, Mr. Birne was retiring, after a very low bow, when Delores, +who never neglected her interests, took up a small pocket from a work +table and said: + +"Tonight sir, is my benefit at the theater. I am to play in three +pieces. Will you allow me to offer you some box tickets? The price has +been but very slightly raised." And she put a dozen boxes into the +Briton's hand. + +"After showing myself so prompt to oblige him," thought she, "he cannot +refuse, if he is a gentleman, and if he sees me play in my pink costume, +who knows? He is very ugly, to be sure, and very sad looking, but he +might furnish me the means of going to England without being sea sick." + +The Englishman having taken the tickets, had their purport explained to +him a second time. He then asked the price. + +"The boxes are sixty francs each, and there are ten there, but no +hurry," said added, seeing the Englishman take out his pocketbook. "I +hope that as we are neighbors, this is not the last time I shall have +the honor of a visit from you." + +"I do not like to run up bills," replied Mr. Birne and drawing from the +pocketbook a thousand franc note, he laid it on the table and slid the +tickets into his pockets. + +"I will give you change," said Dolores, opening a little drawer. + +"Never mind," said the Englishman, "the rest will do for a drink," and +he went off leaving Dolores thunder struck at his last words. + +"For a drink!" she exclaimed. "What a clown! I will send him back his +money." + +But her neighbor's rudeness had only irritated the epidermis of her +vanity; reflection calmed her. She thought that a thousand francs made a +very nice "pile," after all, and that she had already put up with +impertinences at a cheaper rate. + +"Bah!" she said to herself. "It won't do to be so proud. No one was by, +and this is my washerwoman's mouth. And this Englishman speaks so badly, +perhaps he only means to pay me a compliment." + +So she pocketed her bank note joyfully. + +But that night after the theater she returned home furious. Mr. Birne +had made no use of the tickets, and the ten boxes had remained vacant. + +Thus on appearing on the stage, the unfortunate _beneficiaire_ read on +the countenances of her lady friends, the delight they felt at seeing +the house so badly filled. She even heard an actress of her acquaintance +say to another, as she pointed to the empty boxes, "Poor Dolores, she +has only planted one stage box." + +"True, the boxes are scarcely occupied," was the rejoinder. + +"The stalls, too, are empty." + +"Well, when they see her name on the bill, it acts on the house like an +air pump." + +"Hence, what an idea to put up the price of the seats!" + +"A fine benefit. I will bet that the takings would not fill a money box +or the foot of a stocking." + +"Ah! There she is in her famous red velvet costume." + +"She looks like a lobster." + +"How much did you make out of your last benefit?" said another actress +to her companion. + +"The house was full, my dear, and it was a first night; chairs in the +gangway were worth a louis. But I only got six francs; my milliner had +all the rest. If I was not afraid of chilblains, I would go to Saint +Petersburg." + +"What, you are not yet thirty, and are already thinking of doing your +Russia?" + +"What would you have?" said the other, and she added, "and you, is your +benefit soon coming on?" + +"In a fortnight, I have already three thousand francs worth of tickets +taken, without counting my young fellows from Saint Cyr." + +"Hallo, the stalls are going out." + +"It is because Dolores is singing." + +In fact, Dolores, as red in the face as her costume, was warbling her +verses with a vinegary voice. Just as she was getting though it with +difficulty, two bouquets fell at her feet, thrown by two actresses, her +dear friends, who advanced to the front of their box, exclaiming--: + +"Bravo, Dolores!" + +The fury of the latter may be readily imagined. Thus, on returning home, +although it was the middle of the night, she opened the window and woke +up Coco, who woke up the honest Mr. Birne, who had dropped off to sleep +on the faith of her promise. + +From that day war was declared between the actress and the Englishman; a +war to the knife, without truce or repose, the parties engaged in which +recoiled before no expense or trouble. The parrot took finishing lessons +in English and abused his neighbor all day in it, and in his shrillest +falsetto. It was something awful. Dolores suffered from it herself, but +she hoped that one day or other Mr. Birne would give warning. It was on +that she had set her heart. The Englishman, on his part, began by +establishing a school of drummers in his drawing room, but the police +interfered. He then set up a pistol gallery; his servants riddled fifty +cards a day. Again the commissary of police interposed, showing him an +article in the municipal code, which forbids the usage of firearms +indoors. Mr. Birne stopped firing, but a week after, Dolores found it +was raining in her room. The landlord went to visit Mr. Birne, and found +him taking saltwater baths in his drawing room. This room, which was +very large, had been lined all round with sheets of metal, and had had +all the doors fastened up. Into this extempore pond some hundred pails +of water were poured, and a few tons of salt were added to them. It was +a small edition of the sea. Nothing was lacking, not even fishes. Mr. +Birne bathed there everyday, descending into it by an opening made in +the upper panel of the center door. Before long an ancient and fish-like +smell pervaded the neighborhood, and Dolores had half an inch of water +in her bedroom. + +The landlord grew furious and threatened Mr. Birne with an action for +damages done to his property. + +"Have I not a right," asked the Englishman, "to bathe in my rooms?" + +"Not in that way, sir." + +"Very well, if I have no right to, I won't," said the Briton, full of +respect for the laws of the country in which he lived. "It's a pity; I +enjoyed it very much." + +That very night he had his ocean drained off. It was full time: there +was already an oyster bed forming on the floor. + +However, Mr. Birne had not given up the contest. He was only seeking +some legal means of continuing his singular warfare, which was "nuts" to +all the Paris loungers, for the adventure had been blazed about in the +lobbies of the theaters and other public places. Dolores felt equally +bound to come triumphant out of the contest. Not a few bets were made +upon it. + +It was then that Mr. Birne thought of the piano as an instrument of +warfare. It was not so bad an idea, the most disagreeable of instruments +being well capable of contending against the most disagreeable of birds. +As soon as this lucky thought occurred to him, he hastened to put it +into execution, hired a piano, and inquired for a pianist. The pianist, +it will be remembered, was our friend Schaunard. The Englishman +recounted to him his sufferings from the parrot, and what he had already +done to come to terms with the actress. + +"But milord," said Schaunard, "there is a sure way to rid yourself of +this creature--parsley. The chemists are unanimous in declaring that +this culinary plant is prussic acid to such birds. Chop up a little +parsley, and shake it out of the window on Coco's cage, and the creature +will die as certainly as if Pope Alexander VI had invited it to dinner." + +"I thought of that myself," said the Englishman, "but the beast is taken +good care of. The piano is surer." + +Schaunard looked at the other without catching his meaning at once. + +"See here," resumed the Englishman, "the actress and her animal always +sleep till twelve. Follow my reasoning--" + +"Go on. I am at the heels of it." + +"I intend to disturb their sleep. The law of the country authorizes me +to make music from morning to night. Do you understand?" + +"But that will not be so disagreeable to her, if she hears me play the +piano all day--for nothing, too. I am a first-rate hand, if I only had a +lung gone--." + +"Exactly, but I don't want you to make good music. You must only strike +on your instrument thus," trying a scale, "and always the same thing +without pity, only one scale. I understand medicine a little; that +drives people mad. They will both go mad; that is what I look for. Come, +Mr. Musician, to work at once. You shall be well paid." + +"And so," said Schaunard, who had recounted the above details to his +friends, "this is what I have been doing for the last fortnight. One +scale continually from seven in the morning till dark. It is not exactly +serious art. But then the Englishman pays me two hundred francs a month +for my noise; it would be cutting one's throat to refuse such a +windfall. I accepted, and in two or three days I take my first month's +money." + +It was after those mutual confidences that the three friends agreed +amongst themselves to profit by the general accession of wealth to give +their mistresses the spring outfit that the coquetry of each of them had +been wishing for so long. It was further agreed that whoever pocketed +his money first should wait for the others, so that the purchases should +be made at the same time, and that Mademoiselle Mimi, Musette, and +Phemie should enjoy the pleasure of casting their old skins, as +Schaunard put it, together. + +Well, two or three days after this council Rodolphe came in first; his +dental poem had been paid for; it weighed in eighty francs. The next +day Marcel drew from Medicis the price of eighteen corporal's +likenesses, at six francs each. + +Marcel and Rodolphe had all the difficulty in the world to hide their +good fortune. + +"It seems to me that I sweat gold," said the poet. + +"It is the same with me," said Marcel. "If Schaunard delays much longer, +it would be impossible for me to continue to play the part of the +anonymous Croesus." + +But the very next morning saw Schaunard arrive, splendidly attired in a +bright yellow nankeen jacket. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phemie, dazzled on seeing her lover so +elegantly got up, "where did you find that jacket?" + +"I found it amongst my papers," replied the musician, making a sign to +his two friends to follow him. "I have drawn the coin," said he, when +they were alone. "Behold it," and he displayed a handful of gold. + +"Well," exclaimed Marcel, "forward, let us sack the shops. How happy +Musette will be." + +"How pleased Mimi will be," added Rodolphe. "Come, are you coming +Schaunard?" + +"Allow me to reflect," replied the musician. "In decking out these +ladies with the thousand caprices of fashion, we shall perhaps be guilty +of a mistake. Think on it. Are you not afraid that when they resemble +the engravings in 'The Scarf of Iris,' these splendors will exercise a +deplorable influence upon their characters, and does it suit young +fellows like us to behave towards women as if we were aged and wrinkled +dotards? It is not that I hesitate about sacrificing fifteen or eighteen +francs to dress Phemie; but I tremble. When she has a new bonnet she +will not even recognize me, perhaps. She looks so well with only a +flower in her hair. What do you think about it, philosopher?" broke off +Schaunard, addressing Colline, who had come in within the last few +minutes. + +"Ingratitude is the offspring of kindness," observed the philosopher. + +"On the other hand," continued Schaunard, "when your mistresses are well +dressed, what sort of figure will you cut beside them in your +dilapidated costumes? You will look like their waiting maids. I do not +speak for myself," he broke off, drawing himself up in his nankeen +jacket, "for thank heaven, I could go anywhere now." + +However, despite the spirit of opposition shown by Schaunard, it was +once more agreed that the next day all the shops of the neighborhood +should be ransacked to the advantage of the ladies. + +And, indeed, the next day, at the very moment that we have seen, at the +beginning of this chapter, Mademoiselle Mimi wakes up very much +astonished at Rodolphe's absence, the poet and his two friends were +ascending the stairs, accompanied by a shopman from the Deux Magots and +a milliner with specimens. Schaunard, who had bought the famous hunting +horn, marched before them playing the overture to "The Caravan." + +Musette and Phemie, summoned by Mimi, who was living on the lower floor, +descended the stairs with the swiftness of avalanches on hearing the +news that the bonnets and dresses had been brought for them. Seeing this +poor wealth spread out before them, the three women went almost mad with +joy. Mimi was seized with a fit of hysterical laughter, and skipped +about like a kid, waving a barege scarf. Musette threw her arms around +Marcel's neck, with a little green boot in each hand, which she smote +together like cymbals. Phemie looked at Schaunard and sobbed. She could +only say, "Oh Alexander, Alexander!" + +"There is no danger of her refusing the presents of Artaxerxes," +murmured Colline the philosopher. + +After the first outbursts of joy were over, when the choices had been +made and the bills settled, Rodolphe announced to the three girls that +they would have to make arrangements to try on their new things the next +morning. + +"We will go into the country," said he. + +"A fine thing to make a fuss of," exclaimed Musette. "It is not the +first time that I have bought, cut out, sewn together, and worn a dress +the same day. Besides, we have the night before us, too. We shall be +ready, shall we not, ladies?" + +"Oh yes! We shall be ready," exclaimed Mimi and Phemie together. + +They at once set to work, and for sixteen hours did not lay aside +scissors or needle. + +The next day was the first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the +resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and +joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young +lover who is going to plant a maypole before the window of his +betrothed. She painted the sky blue, the trees green, and all things in +bright colors. She aroused the torpid sun, who was sleeping in his bed +of mists, his head resting on the snow leaden clouds that served him as +a pillow, and cried to him, "Hi! Hi! My friend, time is up, and I am +here; quick to work. Put on your fine dress of fresh rays without +further delay, and show yourself at once on your balcony to announce my +arrival." + +Upon which the sun had indeed set out, and was marching along as proud +and haughty as some great lord of the court. The swallows, returned from +their Eastern pilgrimage, filled the air with their flight, the may +whitened the bushes, the violets scented the woods, in which the birds +were leaving their nests each with a roll of music under its wings. It +was spring indeed, the true spring of poets and lovers, and not the +spring of the almanac maker--an ugly spring with a red nose and frozen +fingers, which still keeps poor folk shivering at the chimney corner +when the last ashes of the last log have long since burnt out. The balmy +breeze swept through the transparent atmosphere and scattered throughout +the city the first scent of the surrounding country. The rays of the +sun, bright and warm, tapped at the windows. To the invalid they cried, +"open, we are health," and at the garret of the young girl bending +towards her mirror, innocent first love of the most innocent, they said, +"open darling, that we may light up your beauty. We are the messengers +of fine weather. You can now put on your cotton frock and your straw +hat, and lace your smart boots; the groves in which folk foot it are +decked with bright new flowers, and the violins are tuning for the +Sunday dance. Good morning, my dear!" + +When the angelus rang out from the neighboring church, the three hard +working coquettes, who had had scarcely time to sleep a few hours, were +already before their looking glasses, giving their final glance at +their new attire. + +They were all three charming, dressed alike, and wearing on their faces +the same glow of satisfaction imparted by the realization of a long +cherished wish. + +Musette was, above all, dazzlingly beautiful. + +"I have never felt so happy," said she to Marcel. "It seems to me that +God has put into this hour all the happiness of my life, and I am afraid +that there will be no more left me. Ah bah! When there is no more left, +there will still be some more. We have the receipt for making it," she +added, gaily kissing him. + +As to Phemie, one thing vexed her. + +"I am very fond of green grass and the little birds," said she, "but in +the country one never meets anyone, and there will be no one to see my +pretty bonnet and my nice dress. Suppose we went into the country on the +Boulevards?" + +At eight in the morning the whole street was in commotion, due to the +blasts from Schaunard's horn giving the signal to start. All the +neighbors were at their windows to see the Bohemians go by. Colline, who +was of the party, brought up the rear, carrying the ladies' parasols. An +hour later the whole of the joyous band were scattered about the fields +at Fontenay-aux-Roses. + +When they returned home, very late at night, Colline, who during the day +had discharged the duties of treasurer, stated that they had omitted to +spend six francs, and placed this balance on the table. + +"What shall we do with it?" asked Marcel. + +"Suppose we invest it in Government stock," said Schaunard. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Francine's Muff + + +Among the true Bohemians of the real Bohemia I used to know one, named +Jacques D. He was a sculptor, and gave promise of great talent. But +poverty did not give him time to fulfill this promise. He died of +debility in March, 184-, at the Saint Louis Hospital, on bed No. 14 in +the Sainte Victoria ward. + +I made the acquaintance of Jacques at the hospital, when I was detained +there myself by a long illness. Jacques had, as I have said, the makings +of a great talent, and yet he was quite unassuming about it. During the +two months I spent in his company, and during which he felt himself +cradled in the arms of Death, I never once heard him complain or give +himself up to those lamentations which render the unappreciated artist +so ridiculous. He died without attitudinizing. His death brings to my +mind, too, one of the most horrible scenes I ever saw in that +caravanserai of human sufferings. His father, informed of the event, +came to reclaim the body, and for a long time haggled over giving the +thirty-six francs demanded by the hospital authorities. He also haggled +over the funeral service, and so persistently that they ended by +knocking off six francs. At the moment of putting the corpse into the +coffin, the male nurse took off the hospital sheet, and asked one of the +deceased's friends who was there for money for a shroud. The poor devil, +who had not a sou, went to Jacques' father, who got into a fearful rage, +and asked when they would finish bothering him. + +The sister of charity, who was present at this horrible discussion, cast +a glance at the corpse, and uttered these simple and feeling words: + +"Oh! sir, you cannot have him buried like that, poor fellow, it is so +cold. Give him at least a shirt, that he may not arrive quite naked +before his God." + +The father gave five francs to the friend to get a shirt, but +recommended him to go to a wardrobe shop in the Rue Grace-aux-Belles, +where they sold second-hand linen. + +"It will be cheaper there," said he. + +This cruelty on the part of Jacques' father was explained to me later +on. He was furious because his son had chosen an artistic career, and +his anger remained unappeased even in the presence of a coffin. + +But I am not very far from Mademoiselle Francine and her muff. I will +return to them. Mademoiselle Francine was the first and only mistress of +Jacques, who did not die very old, for he was scarcely three and twenty +when his father would have had him laid naked in the earth. The story of +his love was told me by Jacques himself when he was No. 14 and I was No. +16 in the Sainte Victoire ward--an ugly spot to die in. + +Ah reader! Before I begin this story, which would be a touching one if I +could tell it as it was told to me by my friend Jacques, let me take a +pull or two at the old clay pipe he gave me on the day that the doctor +forbade its use by him. Yet at night, when the male nurse was asleep, my +friend Jacques would borrow his pipe with a little tobacco from me. It +is so wearisome at night in those vast wards, when one suffers and +cannot sleep. + +"Only two or three whiffs," he would say, and I would let him have it; +and Sister Sainte-Genevieve did not seem to notice the smoke when she +made her round. Ah, good sister! How kind you were, and how beautiful +you looked, too, when you came to sprinkle us with holy water. We could +see you approaching, walking slowly along the gloomy aisles, draped in +your white veil, which fell in such graceful folds, and which our friend +Jacques admired so much. Ah kind sister! You were the Beatrice of that +Inferno. So sweet were your consolations that we were always complaining +in order to be consoled by you. If my friend Jacques had not died one +snowy day he would have carved you a nice little Virgin Mary to put in +your cell, good Sister Sainte-Genevieve. + + Well, and the muff? I do not see anything of the muff. + +_Another Reader_: And Mademoiselle Francine, where about is she, then? + +_First Reader_: This story is not very lively. + +_Second Reader_: We shall see further on. + +I really beg your pardon, gentlemen, it is my friend Jacques' pipe that +has led me away into these digressions. But, besides, I am not pledged +to make you laugh. Times are not always gay in Bohemia. + +Jacques and Francine had met in a house in the Rue de la +Tour-d'Auvergne, into which they had both moved at the same time at the +April quarter. + +The artist and the young girl were a week without entering on those +neighborly relations which are almost always forced on one when dwelling +on the same floor. However, without having exchanged a word, they were +already acquainted with one another. Francine knew that her neighbor was +a poor devil of an artist, and Jacques had learned that his was a little +seamstress who had quitted her family to escape the ill-usage of a +stepmother. She accomplished miracles of economy to make both ends meet, +and, as she had never known pleasure, had no longing for it. This is +how the pair came under the common law of partition walls. One evening +in April, Jacques came home worn out with fatigue, fasting since +morning, and profoundly sad with one of those vague sadnesses which have +no precise cause, and which seize on you anywhere and at all times; a +kind of apoplexy of the heart to which poor wretches living alone are +especially subject. Jacques, who felt stifling in his narrow room, +opened the window to breathe a little. The evening was a fine one, and +the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of +Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the +winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a +raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens +brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these +birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any +longer, he closed his window, drew the curtain, and, as he had not the +wherewithal to buy oil for his lamp, lit a resin taper that he had +brought back from a trip to the Grande-Chartreuse. Sadder than ever he +filled his pipe. + +"Luckily, I still have enough tobacco to hide the pistol," murmured he, +and he began to smoke. + +My friend Jacques must have been very sad that evening to think about +hiding the pistol. It was his supreme resource on great crises, and was +usually pretty successful. The plan was as follows. Jacques smoked +tobacco on which he used to sprinkle a few drops of laudanum, and he +would smoke until the cloud of smoke from his pipe became thick enough +to veil from him all the objects in his little room, and, above all, a +pistol hanging on the wall. It was a matter of half a score pipes. By +the time the pistol was wholly invisible it almost always happened that +the smoke and the laudanum combined would send Jacques off to sleep, and +it also often happened that his sadness left him at the commencement of +his dreams. + +But on this particular evening he had used up all his tobacco; the +pistol was completely hidden, and yet Jacques was still bitterly sad. +That evening, on the contrary Mademoiselle Francine was extremely +light-hearted when she came home, and like Jacques' sadness, her +light-heartedness was without cause. It was one of those joys that come +from heaven, and that God scatters amongst good hearts. So Mademoiselle +Francine was in a good temper, and sang to herself as she came upstairs. +But as she was going to open her door a puff of wind, coming through the +open staircase window, suddenly blew out her candle. + +"Oh, what a nuisance!" exclaimed the girl, "six flights of stairs to go +down and up again." + +But, noticing the light coming from under Jacques' door, the instinct of +idleness grafted on a feeling of curiosity, advised her to go and ask +the artist for a light. "It is a service daily rendered among +neighbors," thought she, "and there is nothing compromising about it." + +She tapped twice, therefore, at the door, and Jacques opened it, +somewhat surprised at this late visit. But scarcely had she taken a step +into the room than the smoke that filled it suddenly choked her, and, +before she was able to speak a word, she sank fainting into a chair, +dropping her candle and her room door key onto the ground. It was +midnight, and everyone in the house was asleep. Jacques thought it +better not to call for help. He was afraid, in the first place, of +compromising his neighbor. He contented himself, therefore, with opening +the window to let in a little fresh air, and, after having sprinkled a +few drops of water on the girl's face, saw her open her eyes and by +degrees come to herself. When, at the end of five minutes' time, she had +wholly recovered consciousness, Francine explained the motive that had +brought her into the artist's room, and made many excuses for what had +happened. + +"Now, then, I am recovered," said she. "I can go into my own room." + +He had already opened the door, when she perceived that she was not +only forgetting to light her candle, but that she had not the key of her +room. + +"Silly thing that I am," said she, putting her candle to the flame of +the resin taper, "I came in here to get a light, and I was going away +without one." + +But at the same moment the draft caused by the door and window, both of +which had remained open, suddenly blew out the taper, and the two young +folk were left in darkness. + +"One would think that it was done on purpose," said Francine. "Forgive +me sir, for all the trouble I am giving you, and be good enough to +strike a light so that I may find my key." + +"Certainly mademoiselle," answered Jacques, feeling for the matches. + +He had soon found them. But a singular idea flashed across his mind, and +he put the matches in his pocket saying, "Dear me, mademoiselle, here is +another trouble. I have not a single match here. I used the last when I +came in." + +"Oh!" said Francine, "after all I can very well find my way without a +light, my room is not big enough for me to lose myself in it. But I must +have my key. Will you be good enough, sir, to help me to look for it? It +must have fallen to the ground." + +"Let us look for it, mademoiselle," said Jacques. + +And both of them began to seek the lost article in the dark, but as +though guided by a common instinct, it happened during this search, that +their hands, groping in the same spot, met ten times a minute. And, as +they were both equally awkward, they did not find the key. + +"The moon, which is hidden just now by the clouds, shines right into the +room," said Jacques. "Let us wait a bit; by-and-by it will light up the +room and may help us." + +And, pending the appearance of the moon, they began to talk. A +conversation in the dark, in a little room, on a spring night; a +conversation which, at the outset trifling and unimportant, gradually +enters on the chapter of personal confidences. You know what that leads +to. Language by degrees grows confused, full of reticences; voices are +lowered; words alternate with sighs. Hands meeting complete the thought +which from the heart ascends to the lips, and--. Seek the conclusion in +your recollection, young couples. Do you remember, young man. Do you +remember, young lady, you who now walk hand-in-hand, and who, up to two +days back, had never seen one another? + +At length the moon broke through the clouds, and her bright light +flooded the room. Mademoiselle Francine awoke from her reverie uttering +a faint cry. + +"What is the matter?" asked Jacques, putting his arm around her waist. + +"Nothing," murmured Francine. "I thought I heard someone knock." + +And, without Jacques noticing it, she pushed the key that she had just +noticed under some of the furniture. + +She did not want to find it now. + + * * * * * + +_First Reader_: I certainly will not let my daughter read this story. + +_Second Reader_: Up till now I have not caught a glimpse of a single +hair of Mademoiselle Francine's muff; and, as to the young woman +herself, I do not know any better what she is like, whether she is fair +or dark. + +Patience, readers, patience. I have promised you a muff, and I will give +you one later on, as my friend Jacques did to his poor love Francine, +who had become his mistress, as I have explained in the line left blank +above. + +She was fair was Francine, fair and lovely, which is not usual. She had +remained ignorant of love until she was twenty, but a vague presentiment +of her approaching end counselled her not to delay if she would become +acquainted with it. + +She met Jacques and loved him. Their connection lasted six months. They +had taken one another in the spring; they were parted in the autumn. +Francine was consumptive. She knew it and her lover Jacques knew it too; +a fortnight after he had taken up with her he had learned it from one of +his friends, who was a doctor. + +"She will go with the autumn leaves," said the latter. + +Francine heard this confidence, and perceived the grief it caused her +lover. + +"What matters the autumn leaves?" said she, putting the whole of her +love into a smile. "What matters the autumn; it is summer, and the +leaves are green; let us profit by that, love. When you see me ready to +depart from this life, you shall take me in your arms and kiss me, and +forbid me to go. I am obedient you know, and I will stay." + +And for five months this charming creature passed through the miseries +of Bohemian life, a smile and a song on her lips. As to Jacques, he let +himself be deluded. His friend often said to him, "Francine is worse, +she must be attended to." Then Jacques went all over Paris to obtain +the wherewithal for the doctor's prescription, but Francine would not +hear of it, and threw the medicine out of the window. At night, when she +was seized with a fit of coughing, she would leave the room and go out +on the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her. + +One day, when they had both gone into the country, Jacques saw a tree +the foliage of which was turning to yellow. He gazed sadly at Francine, +who was walking slowly and somewhat dreamily. + +Francine saw Jacques turn pale and guessed the reason of his pallor. + +"You are foolish," said she, kissing him, "we are only in July, it is +three months to October, loving one another day and night as we do, we +shall double the time we have to spend together. And then, besides, if I +feel worse when the leaves turn yellow, we will go and live in a pine +forest, the leaves are always green there." + + * * * * * + +In October Francine was obliged to keep her bed. Jacques' friend +attended her. The little room in which they lived was situated at the +top of the house and looked into a court, in which there was a tree, +which day by day grew barer of foliage. Jacques had put a curtain to the +window to hide this tree from the invalid, but Francine insisted on its +being drawn back. + +"Oh my darling!" said she to Jacques. "I will give you a hundred times +more kisses than there are leaves." And she added, "Besides I am much +better now. I shall soon be able to go out, but as it will be cold and I +do not want to have red hands, you must buy me a muff." + +During the whole of her illness this muff was her only dream. + +The day before All Saints', seeing Jacques more grief stricken than +ever, she wished to give him courage, and to prove to him that she was +better she got up. + +The doctor arrived at that moment and forced her to go to bed again. + +"Jacques," whispered he in the artist's ear, "you must summon up your +courage. All is over; Francine is dying." + +Jacques burst into tears. + +"You may give her whatever she asks for now," continued the doctor, +"there is no hope." + +Francine heard with her eyes what the doctor had said to her lover. + +"Do not listen to him," she exclaimed, holding out her arm to Jacques, +"do not listen to him; he is not speaking the truth. We will go out +tomorrow--it is All Saints' Day. It will be cold--go buy me a muff, I beg +of you. I am afraid of chilblains this winter." + +Jacques was going out with his friend, but Francine detained the doctor. + +"Go and get my muff," said she to Jacques. "Get a nice one, so that it +may last a good while." + +When she was alone she said to the doctor. + +"Oh sir! I am going to die, and I know it. But before I pass away give +me something to give me strength for a night, I beg of you. Make me well +for one more night, and let me die afterwards, since God does not wish +me to live longer." + +As the doctor was doing his best to console her, the wind carried into +the room and cast upon the sick girl's bed a yellow leaf, torn from the +tree in the little courtyard. + +Francine opened the curtain, and saw the tree entirely bare. + +"It is the last," said she, putting the leaf under her pillow. + +"You will not die until tomorrow," said the doctor. "You have a night +before you." + +"Ah, what happiness!" exclaimed the poor girl. "A winter's night--it +will be a long one." + +Jacques came back. He brought a muff with him. + +"It is very pretty," said Francine. "I will wear it when I go out." + +So passed the night with Jacques. + +The next day--All Saints'--about the middle of the day, the death agony +seized on her, and her whole body began to quiver. + +"My hands are cold," she murmured. "Give me my muff." + +And she buried her poor hands in the fur. + +"It is the end," said the doctor to Jacques. "Kiss her for the last +time." + +Jacques pressed his lips to those of his love. At the last moment they +wanted to take away her muff, but she clutched it with her hands. + +"No, no," she said, "leave it me; it is winter, it is cold. Oh my poor +Jacques! My poor Jacques! What will become of you? Oh heavens!" + +And the next day Jacques was alone. + +_First Reader_: I told you that this was not a very lively story. + +What would you have, reader? We cannot always laugh. + +It was the morning of All Saints. Francine was dead. + +Two men were watching at the bedside. One of them standing up was the +doctor. The other, kneeling beside the bed, was pressing his lips to the +dead girl's hands, and seemed to rivet them there in a despairing kiss. +It was Jacques, her lover. For more than six hours he had been plunged +in a state of heart broken insensibility. An organ playing under the +windows had just roused him from it. + +This organ was playing a tune that Francine was in the habit of singing +of a morning. + +One of those mad hopes that are only born out of deep despair flashed +across Jacques' mind. He went back a month in the past--to the period +when Francine was only sick unto death; he forgot the present, and +imagined for a moment that the dead girl was but sleeping, and that she +would wake up directly, her mouth full of her morning song. + +But the sounds of the organ had not yet died away before Jacques had +already come back to the reality. Francine's mouth was eternally closed +to all songs, and the smile that her last thought had brought to her +lips was fading away from them beneath death's fingers. + +"Take courage, Jacques," said the doctor, who was the sculptor's friend. + +Jacques rose, and said, looking fixedly at him, "it is over, is it +not--there is no longer any hope?" + +Without replying to this wild inquiry, Jacques' friend went and drew the +curtains of the bed, and then, returning to the sculptor, held out his +hand. + +"Francine is dead," said he. "We were bound to expect it, though heaven +knows that we have done what we could to save her. She was a good girl, +Jacques, who loved you very dearly--dearer and better than you loved her +yourself, for hers was love alone, while yours held an alloy. Francine +is dead, but all is not over yet. We must now think about the steps +necessary for her burial. We must set about that together, and we will +ask one of the neighbors to keep watch here while we are away." + +Jacques allowed himself to be led away by his friend. They passed the +day between the registrar of deaths, the undertaker, and the cemetery. +As Jacques had no money, the doctor pawned his watch, a ring, and some +clothes, to cover the cost of the funeral, that was fixed for the next +day. + +They both got in late at night. The neighbor who had been watching tried +to make Jacques eat a little. + +"Yes," said he. "I will. I am very cold and I shall need a little +strength for my work tonight." + +The neighbor and the doctor did not understand him. + +Jacques sat down at the table and ate a few mouthfuls so hurriedly that +he was almost choked. Then he asked for drink. But on lifting his glass +to his lips he let it fall. The glass, which broke on the floor, had +awakened in the artist's mind a recollection which itself revived his +momentary dulled pain. The day on which Francine had called on him for +the first time she had felt ill, and he had given her to drink out of +this glass. Later, when they were living together, they had regarded it +as a love token. + +During his rare moments of wealth the artist would buy for his love one +or two bottles of the strengthening wine prescribed for her, and it was +from this glass that Francine used to sip the liquid whence her love +drew a charming gaiety. + +Jacques remained for more than half an hour staring without uttering a +word at the scattered fragments of this frail and cherished token. It +seemed to him that his heart was also broken, and that he could feel +the fragments tearing his breast. When he had recovered himself, he +picked up the pieces of glass and placed them in a drawer. Then he asked +the neighbor to fetch him two candles, and to send up a bucket of water +by the porter. + +"Do not go away," said he to the doctor, who had no intention of doing +so. "I shall want you presently." + +The water and the candles were brought and the two friends left alone. + +"What do you want to do?" asked the doctor, watching Jacques, who after +filling a wooden bowl with water was sprinkling powdered plaster of +Paris into it. + +"What do I mean to do?" asked the artist, "cannot you guess? I am going +to model Francine's head, and as my courage would fail me if I were left +alone, you must stay with me." + +Jacques then went and drew the curtains of the bed and turned down the +sheet that had been pulled up over the dead girl's face. His hand began +to tremble and a stifled sob broke from his lips. + +"Bring the candles," he cried to his friend, "and come and hold the +bowl for me." + +One of the candles was placed at the head of the bed so as to shed its +light on Francine's face, the other candle was placed at the foot. With +a brush dipped in olive oil the artist coated the eye-brows, the +eye-lashes and the hair, which he arranged as Francine usually wore it. + +"By doing this she will not suffer when we remove the mold," murmured +Jacques to himself. + +These precautions taken and after arranging the dead girl's head in a +favorable position, Jacques began to lay on the plaster in successive +coats until the mold had attained the necessary thickness. In a quarter +of an hour the operation was over and had been thoroughly successful. + +By some strange peculiarity a change had taken place in Francine's face. +The blood, which had not had time to become wholly congealed, warmed no +doubt by the warmth of the plaster, had flowed to the upper part of the +corpse and a rosy tinge gradually showed itself on the dead whiteness of +the cheeks and forehead. The eyelids, which had lifted when the mold was +removed, revealed the tranquil blue eyes in which a vague intelligence +seemed to lurk; from out the lips, parted by the beginning of a smile, +there seemed to issue that last word, forgotten during the last +farewell, that is only heard by the heart. + +Who can affirm that intelligence absolutely ends where insensibility +begins? Who can say that the passions fade away and die exactly at the +last beat of the heart which they have agitated? Cannot the soul +sometimes remain a voluntary captive within the corpse already dressed +for the coffin, and note for a moment from the recesses of its fleshly +prison house, regrets and tears? Those who depart have so many reasons +to mistrust those who remain behind. + +At the moment when Jacques sought to preserve her features by the aid +of art who knows but that a thought of after life had perhaps returned +to awaken Francine in her first slumber of the sleep that knows no end. +Perhaps she had remembered the he whom she had just left was an artist +at the same time as a lover, that he was both because he could not be +one without the other, that for him love was the soul of heart and that +if he had loved her so, it was because she had been for him a mistress +and a woman, a sentiment in form. And then, perhaps, Francine, wishing +to leave Jacques the human form that had become for him an incarnate +ideal, had been able though dead and cold already to once more clothe +her face with all the radiance of love and with all the graces of youth, +to resuscitate the art treasure. + +And perhaps too, the poor girl had thought rightly, for there exist +among true artists singular Pygmalions who, contrary to the original +one, would like to turn their living Galateas to marble. + +In presence of the serenity of this face on which the death pangs had no +longer left any trace, no one would have believed in the prolonged +sufferings that had served as a preface to death. Francine seemed to be +continuing a dream of love, and seeing her thus one would have said that +she had died of beauty. + +The doctor, worn out with fatigue, was asleep in a corner. + +As to Jacques, he was again plunged in doubt. His mind beset with +hallucinations, persisted in believing that she whom he had loved so +well was on the point of awakening, and as faint nervous contractions, +due to the recent action of the plaster, broke at intervals the +immobility of the corpse, this semblance of life served to maintain +Jacques in his blissful illusion, which lasted until morning, when a +police official called to verify the death and authorize internment. + +Besides, if it needed all the folly of despair to doubt of her death on +beholding this beautiful creature, it also needed all the infallibility +of science to believe it. + +While the neighbor was putting Francine into her shroud, Jacques was led +away into the next room, where he found some of his friends who had come +to follow the funeral. The Bohemians desisted as regards Jacques, whom, +however, they loved in brotherly fashion, from all those consolations +which only serve to irritate grief. Without uttering one of those +remarks so hard to frame and so painful to listen to, they silently +shook their friend by the hand in turn. + +"Her death is a great misfortune for Jacques," said one of them. + +"Yes," replied the painter Lazare, a strange spirit who had been able at +the very outset to conquer all the rebellious impulses of youth by the +inflexibility of one set purpose, and in whom the artist had ended by +stifling the man, "yes, but it is a misfortune that he incurred +voluntarily. Since he knew Francine, Jacques has greatly altered." + +"She made him happy," said another. + +"Happy," replied Lazare, "what do you call happy? How can you call a +passion, which brings a man to the condition in which Jacques is at this +moment, happiness? Show him a masterpiece and he would not even turn +his eyes to look at it; on a Titian or a Raphael. My mistress is +immortal and will never deceive me. She dwells in the Louvre, and her +name is Joconde." + +While Lazare was about to continue his theories on art and sentiment, it +was announced that it was time to start for the church. + +After a few prayers the funeral procession moved on to the cemetery. As +it was All Souls' Day an immense crowd filled it. Many people turned to +look at Jacques walking bareheaded in rear of the hearse. + +"Poor fellow," said one, "it is his mother, no doubt." + +"It is his father," said another. + +"It is his sister," was elsewhere remarked. + +A poet, who had come there to study the varying expressions of regret at +this festival of recollections celebrated once a year amidst November +fogs, alone guessed on seeing him pass that he was following the funeral +of his mistress. + +When they came to the grave the Bohemians ranged themselves about it +bareheaded, Jacques stood close to the edge, his friend the doctor +holding him by the arm. + +The grave diggers were in a hurry and wanted to get things over quickly. + +"There is to be no speechifying," said one of them. "Well, so much the +better. Heave, mate, that's it." + +The coffin taken out of the hearse was lowered into the grave. One man +withdrew the ropes and then with one of his mates took a shovel and +began to cast in the earth. The grave was soon filled up. A little +wooden cross was planted over it. + +In the midst of his sobs the doctor heard Jacques utter this cry of +egoism-- + +"Oh my youth! It is you they are burying." + +Jacques belonged to a club styled the Water Drinkers, which seemed to +have been founded in imitation of the famous one of the Rue des +Quatre-Vents, which is treated of in that fine story _"Un Grand Homme de +Province."_ Only there was a great difference between the heroes of the +latter circle and the Water Drinkers who, like all imitators, had +exaggerated the system they sought to put into practice. This difference +will be understood by the fact that in Balzac's book the members of the +club end by attaining the object they proposed to themselves, while +after several years' existence the club of the Water Drinkers was +naturally dissolved by the death of all its members, without the name of +anyone of them remaining attached to a work attesting their existence. + +During his union with Francine, Jacques' intercourse with the Water +Drinkers had become more broken. The necessities of life had obliged the +artist to violate certain conditions solemnly signed and sworn by the +Water Drinkers the day the club was founded. + +Perpetually perched on the stilts of an absurd pride, these young +fellows had laid down as a sovereign principle in their association, +that they must never abandon the lofty heights of art; that is to say, +that despite their mortal poverty, not one of them would make any +concession to necessity. Thus the poet Melchior would never have +consented to abandon what he called his lyre, to write a commercial +prospectus or an electoral address. That was all very well for the poet +Rodolphe, a good-for-nothing who was ready to turn his hand to anything, +and who never let a five franc piece flit past him without trying to +capture it, no matter how. The painter Lazare, a proud wearer of rags, +would never have soiled his brushes by painting the portrait of a tailor +holding a parrot on his forefinger, as our friend the painter Marcel had +once done in exchange for the famous dress coat nicknamed Methuselah, +which the hands of each of his sweethearts had starred over with darns. +All the while he had been living in communion of thought with the Water +Drinkers, the sculptor Jacques had submitted to the tyranny of the club +rules; but when he made the acquaintance of Francine, he would not make +the poor girl, already ill, share of the regimen he had accepted during +his solitude. Jacques' was above all an upright and loyal nature. He +went to the president of the club, the exclusive Lazare, and informed +him that for the future he would accept any work that would bring him +in anything. + +"My dear fellow, your declaration of love is your artistic renunciation. +We will remain your friends if you like, but we shall no longer be your +partners. Work as you please, for me you are no longer a sculptor, but a +plasterer. It is true that you may drink wine, but we who continue to +drink our water, and eat our dry bread, will remain artists." + +Whatever Lazare might say about it, Jacques remained an artist. But to +keep Francine with him he undertook, when he had a chance, any paying +work. It is thus that he worked for a long time in the workshop of the +ornament maker Romagnesi. Clever in execution and ingenious in +invention, Jacques, without relinquishing high art, might have achieved +a high reputation in those figure groups that have become one of the +chief elements in this commerce. But Jacques was lazy, like all true +artists, and a lover after the fashion of poets. Youth in him had +awakened tardily but ardent, and, with a presentiment of his approaching +end, he had sought to exhaust it in Francine's arms. Thus it happened +that good chances of work knocked at his door without Jacques answering, +because he would have had to disturb himself, and he found it more +comfortable to dream by the light of his beloved's eyes. + +When Francine was dead the sculptor went to see his old friends the +Water Drinkers again. But Lazare's spirit predominated in this club, in +which each of the members lived petrified in the egoism of art. Jacques +did not find what he came there in search of. They scarcely understood +his despair, which they strove to appease by argument, and seeing this +small degree of sympathy, Jacques preferred to isolate his grief rather +than see it laid bare by discussion. He broke off, therefore, completely +with the Water Drinkers and went away to live alone. + +Five or six days after Francine's funeral, Jacques went to a monumental +mason of the Montparnasse cemetery and offered to conclude the following +bargain with him. The mason was to furnish Francine's grave with a +border, which Jacques reserved the right of designing, and in addition +to supply the sculptor with a block of white marble. In return for this +Jacques would place himself for three months at his disposition, either +as a journeyman stone-cutter or sculptor. The monumental mason then had +several important orders on hand. He visited Jacques' studio, and in +presence of several works begun there, had proof that the chance which +gave him the sculptor's services was a lucky one for him. A week later, +Francine's grave had a border, in the midst of which the wooden cross +had been replaced by a stone one with her name graven on it. + +Jacques had luckily to do with an honest fellow who understood that a +couple of hundredweight of cast iron, and three square feet of Pyrenean +marble were no payment for three months' work by Jacques, whose talent +had brought him in several thousand francs. He offered to give the +artist a share in the business, but Jacques would not consent. The lack +of variety in the subjects for treatment was repugnant to his inventive +disposition, besides he had what he wanted, a large block of marble, +from the recesses of which he wished to evolve a masterpiece destined +for Francine's grave. + +At the beginning of spring Jacques' position improved. His friend the +doctor put him in relation with a great foreign nobleman who had come to +settle in Paris, and who was having a magnificent mansion built in one +of the most fashionable districts. Several celebrated artists had been +called in to contribute to the luxury of this little palace. A chimney +piece was commissioned from Jacques. I can still see his design, it was +charming; the whole poetry of winter was expressed in the marble that +was to serve as a frame to the flames. Jacques' studio was too small, he +asked for and obtained a room in the mansion, as yet uninhabited, to +execute his task in. A fairly large sum was even advanced him on the +price agreed on for his work. Jacques began by repaying his friend the +doctor the money the latter had lent him at Francine's death, then he +hurried to the cemetery to cover the earth, beneath which his mistress +slept, with flowers. + +But spring had been there before him, and on the girl's grave a thousand +flowers were springing at hazard amongst the grass. The artist had not +the courage to pull them up, for he thought that these flowers might +perhaps hold something of his dead love. As the gardener asked him what +was to be done with the roses and pansies he had brought with him, +Jacques bade him plant them on a neighboring grave, newly dug, the poor +grave of some poor creature, without any border and having no other +memorial over it than a piece of wood stuck in the ground and surmounted +by a crown of flowers in blackened paper, the scant offering of some +pauper's grief. Jacques left the cemetery in quite a different frame of +mind to what he had entered it. He looked with happy curiosity at the +bright spring sunshine, the same that had so often gilded Francine's +locks when she ran about the fields culling wildflowers with her white +hands. Quite a swarm of pleasant thoughts hummed in his heart. Passing +by a little tavern on the outer Boulevard he remembered that one day, +being caught by a storm, he had taken shelter there with Francine, and +that they had dined there. Jacques went in and had dinner served at the +same table. His dessert was served on a plate with a pictorial pattern; +he recognized it and remembered that Francine had spent half an hour in +guessing the rebus painted on it, and recollected, too, a song sung by +her when inspired by the violet hued wine which does not cost much and +has more gaiety in it than grapes. But this flood of sweet remembrances +recalled his love without reawakening his grief. Accessible to +superstition, like all poetical and dreamy intellects, Jacques fancied +that it was Francine, who, hearing his step beside her, had wafted him +these pleasant remembrances from her grave, and he would not damp them +with a tear. He quitted the tavern with firm step, erect head, bright +eye, beating heart, and almost a smile on his lips, murmuring as he went +along the refrain of Francine's song-- + + "Love hovers round my dwelling + My door must open be." + +This refrain in Jacques' mouth was also a recollection, but then it was +already a song, and perhaps without suspecting it he took that evening +the first step along the road which leads from sorrow to melancholy, and +thence onward to forgetfulness. Alas! Whatever one may wish and whatever +one may do the eternal and just law of change wills it so. + +Even as the flowers, sprung perhaps from Francine, had sprouted on her +tomb the sap of youth stirred in the heart of Jacques, in which the +remembrance of the old love awoke new aspirations for new ones. Besides +Jacques belonged to the race of artists and poets who make passion an +instrument of art and poetry, and whose mind only shows activity in +proportion as it is set in motion by the motive powers of the heart. +With Jacques invention was really the daughter of sentiment, and he put +something of himself into the smallest things he did. He perceived that +souvenirs no longer sufficed him, and that, like the millstone which +wears itself away when corn runs short, his heart was wearing away for +want of emotion. Work had no longer any charm for him, his power of +invention, of yore feverish and spontaneous, now only awoke after much +patient effort. Jacques was discontented, and almost envied the life of +his old friends, the Water Drinkers. + +He sought to divert himself, held out his hand to pleasure, and made +fresh acquaintances. He associated with the poet Rodolphe, whom he had +met at a cafe, and each felt a warm sympathy towards the other. Jacques +explained his worries, and Rodolphe was not long in understanding their +cause. + +"My friend," said he, "I know what it is," and tapping him on the chest +just over the heart he added, "Quick, you must rekindle the fire there, +start a little love affair at once, and ideas will recur to you." + +"Ah!" said Jacques. "I loved Francine too dearly." + +"It will not hinder you from still always loving her. You will embrace +her on another's lips." + +"Oh!" said Jacques. "If I could only meet a girl who resembled her." + +And he left Rodolphe deep in thought. + + * * * * * + +Six weeks later Jacques had recovered all his energy, rekindled by the +tender glances of a young girl whose name was Marie, and whose somewhat +sickly beauty recalled that of poor Francine. Nothing, indeed, could be +prettier than this pretty Marie, who was within six weeks of being +eighteen years of age, as she never failed to mention. Her love affair +with Jacques had its birth by moonlight in the garden of an open air +ball, to the strains of a shrill violin, a grunting double bass, and a +clarinet that trilled like a blackbird. Jacques met her one evening when +gravely walking around the space reserved for the dancers. Seeing him +pass stiffly in his eternal black coat buttoned to the throat, the +pretty and noisy frequenters of the place, who knew him by sight, used +to say amongst themselves, "What is that undertaker doing here? Is there +anyone who wants to be buried?" + +And Jacques walked on always alone, his heart bleeding within him from +the thorns of a remembrance which the orchestra rendered keener by +playing a lively quadrille which sounded to his ears as mournful as a +_De Profundis_. It was in the midst of this reverie that he noticed +Marie, who was watching him from a corner, and laughing like a wild +thing at his gloomy bearing. Jacques raised his eyes and saw this burst +of laughter in a pink bonnet within three paces of him. He went up to +her and made a few remarks, to which she replied. He offered her his arm +for a stroll around the garden which she accepted. He told her that he +thought her as beautiful as an angel, and she made him repeat it twice +over. He stole some green apples hanging from the trees of the garden +for her, and she devoured them eagerly to the accompaniment of that +ringing laugh which seemed the burden of her constant mirth. Jacques +thought of the Bible, and thought that we should never despair as +regards any woman, and still less as regards those who love apples. He +took another turn round the garden with the pink bonnet, and it is thus +that arriving at the ball alone he did not return from it so. + +However, Jacques had not forgotten Francine; bearing in mind Rodolphe's +words he kissed her daily on Marie's lips, and wrought in secret at the +figure he wished to place on the dead girl's grave. + +One day when he received some money Jacques bought a dress for Marie--a +black dress. The girl was pleased, only she thought that black was not +very lively for summer wear. But Jacques told her that he was very fond +of black, and that she would please him by wearing this dress every day. +Marie obeyed. + +One Saturday Jacques said to her: + +"Come early tomorrow, we will go into the country." + +"How nice!" said Marie. "I am preparing a surprise for you. You shall +see. It will be sunshiny tomorrow." + +Marie spent the night at home finishing a new dress that she had bought +out of her savings--a pretty pink dress. And on Sunday she arrived clad +in her smart purchase at Jacques' studio. + +The artist received her coldly, almost brutally. + +"I thought I should please you by making this bright toilette," said +Marie, who could not understand his coolness. + +"We cannot go into the country today," replied he. "You had better be +off. I have some work today." + +Marie went home with a full heart. On the way she met a young man who +was acquainted with Jacques' story, and who had also paid court to +herself. + +"Ah! Mademoiselle Marie, so you are no longer in mourning?" said he. + +"Mourning?" asked Marie. "For whom?" + +"What, did you not know? It is pretty generally known, though, the +black dress that Jacques gave you--." + +"Well, what of it?" asked Marie. + +"It was mourning. Jacques made you wear mourning for Francine." + +From that day Jacques saw no more of Marie. + +This rupture was unlucky for him. Evil days returned; he had no more +work, and fell into such a fearful state of wretchedness that, no longer +knowing what would become of him, he begged his friend the doctor to +obtain him admission to a hospital. The doctor saw at first glance that +this admission would not be difficult to obtain. Jacques, who did not +suspect his condition, was on the way to rejoin Francine. + +As he could still move about, Jacques begged the superintendent of the +hospital to let him have a little unused room, and he had a stand, some +tools, and some modelling clay brought there. During the first fortnight +he worked at the figure he intended for Francine's grave. It was an +angel with outspread wings. This figure, which was Francine's portrait, +was never quite finished, for Jacques could soon no longer mount the +stairs, and in short time could not leave his bed. + +One day the order book fell into his hands, and seeing the things +prescribed for himself, he understood that he was lost. He wrote to his +family, and sent for Sister Sainte-Genevieve, who looked after him with +charitable care. + +"Sister," said Jacques, "there is upstairs in the room that was lent me, +a little plaster cast. This statuette, which represents an angel, was +intended for a tomb, but I had not time to execute it in marble. Yes, I +had a fine block--white marble with pink veins. Well, sister, I give you +my little statuette for your chapel." + +Jacques died a few days later. As the funeral took place on the very day +of the opening of the annual exhibition of pictures, the Water Drinkers +were not present. "Art before all," said Lazare. + +Jacques' family was not a rich one, and he did not have a grave of his +own. + +He is buried somewhere. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Musette's Fancies + + +It may be, perhaps, remembered how the painter Marcel sold the Jew +Medici his famous picture of "The Passage of the Red Sea," which was +destined to serve as the sign of a provision dealer's. On the morrow of +this sale, which had been followed by a luxurious dinner stood by the +Jew to the Bohemians as a clincher to the bargain, Marcel, Schaunard, +Colline, and Rodolphe woke up very late. Still bewildered by the fumes +of their intoxication of the day before, at first they no longer +remembered what had taken place, and as noon rung out from a neighboring +steeple, they all looked at one another with a melancholy smile. + +"There goes the bell that piously summons humanity to refresh itself," +said Marcel. + +"In point of fact," replied Rodolphe, "it is the solemn hour when honest +folk enter their dining-room." + +"We must try and become honest folk," murmured Colline, whose patron +saint was Saint Appetite. + +"Ah, milk jug of my nursery!--ah! Four square meals of my childhood, +what has become of you?" said Schaunard. "What has become of you?" he +repeated, to a soft and melancholy tune. + +"To think that at this hour there are in Paris more than a hundred +thousand chops on the gridiron," said Marcel. + +"And as many steaks," added Rodolphe. + +By an ironical contrast, while the four friends were putting to one +another the terrible daily problem of how to get their breakfast, the +waiters of a restaurant on the lower floor of the house kept shouting +out the customers' orders. + +"Will those scoundrels never be quiet?" said Marcel. "Every word is like +the stroke of a pick, hollowing out my stomach." + +"The wind is in the north," said Colline, gravely, pointing to a +weathercock on a neighboring roof. "We shall not breakfast today, the +elements are opposed to it." + +"How so?" inquired Marcel. + +"It is an atmospheric phenomenon I have noted," said the philosopher. "A +wind from the north almost always means abstinence, as one from the +south usually means pleasure and good cheer. It is what philosophy calls +a warning from above." + +Gustave Colline's fasting jokes were savage ones. + +At that moment Schaunard, who had plunged one of his hands into the +abyss that served him as a pocket, withdrew it with a yell of pain. + +"Help, there is something in my coat!" he cried, trying to free his +hand, nipped fast in the claws of a live lobster. + +To the cry he had uttered, another one replied. It came from Marcel, +who, mechanically putting his hand into his pocket, had there discovered +a silver mine that he had forgotten--that is to say, the hundred and +fifty francs which Medici had given him the day before in payment for +"The Passage of the Red Sea." + +Memory returned at the same moment to the Bohemians. + +"Bow down, gentlemen," said Marcel, spreading out on the table a pile of +five-franc pieces, amongst which glittered some new louis. + +"One would think they were alive," said Colline. + +"Sweet sounds!" said Schaunard, chinking the gold pieces together. + +"How pretty these medals are!" said Rodolphe. "One would take them for +fragments of sunshine. If I were a king I would have no other small +change, and would have them stamped with my mistress's portrait." + +"To think that there is a country where there are mere pebbles," said +Schaunard. "The Americans used to give four of them for two sous. I had +an ancestor who went to America. He was interred by the savages in their +stomachs. It was a misfortune for the family." + +"Ah, but where does this animal come from?" inquired Marcel, looking at +the lobster which had began to crawl about the room. + +"I remember," said Schaunard, "that yesterday I took a turn in Medicis' +kitchen, I suppose the reptile accidentally fell into my pocket; these +creatures are very short-sighted. Since I have got it," added he, "I +should like to keep it. I will tame it and paint it red, it will look +livelier. I am sad since Phemie's departure; it will be a companion to +me." + +"Gentlemen," exclaimed Colline, "notice, I beg of you, that the +weathercock has gone round to the south, we shall breakfast." + +"I should think so," said Marcel, taking up a gold piece, "here is +something we will cook with plenty of sauce." + +They proceeded to a long and serious discussion on the bill of fare. +Each dish was the subject of an argument and a vote. Omelette souffle, +proposed by Schaunard, was anxiously rejected, as were white wines, +against which Marcel delivered an oration that brought out his +oenophilistic knowledge. + +"The first duty of wine is to be red," exclaimed he, "don't talk to me +about your white wines." + +"But," said Schaunard, "Champagne--" + +"Bah! A fashionable cider! An epileptic licorice-water. I would give all +the cellars of Epernay and Ai for a single Burgundian cask. Besides, we +have neither grisettes to seduce, nor a vaudeville to write. I vote +against Champagne." + +The program once agreed upon, Schaunard and Colline went to the +neighboring restaurant to order the repast. + +"Suppose we have some fire," said Marcel. + +"As a matter of fact," said Rodolphe, "we should not be doing wrong, the +thermometer has been inviting us to it for some time past. Let us have +some fire and astonish the fireplace." + +He ran out on the landing and called to Colline to have some wood sent +in. A few minutes later Schaunard and Colline came up again, followed by +a charcoal dealer bearing a heavy bundle of firewood. + +As Marcel was looking in a drawer for some spare paper to light the +fire, he came by chance across a letter, the handwriting of which made +him start, and which he began to read unseen by his friends. + +It was a letter in pencil, written by Musette when she was living with +Marcel and dated day for day a year ago. It only contained these +words:-- + + "My dear love, + + Do not be uneasy about me, I shall be in shortly. I have gone out + to warm myself a bit by walking, it is freezing indoors and the + wood seller has cut off credit. I broke up the last two rungs of + the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. + Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at + home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex + you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take + a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten + francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be back + for dinner. + + Musette" + +"Poor girl," said Marcel, putting the letter in his pocket. And he +remained for a short time pensive, his head resting on his hands. + +At this period the Bohemians had been for some time in a state of +widowhood, with the exception of Colline, whose sweetheart, however, had +still remained invisible and anonymous. + +Phemie herself, Schaunard's amiable companion, had met with a simple +soul who had offered her his heart, a suite of mahogany furniture, and +a ring with his hair--red hair--in it. However, a fortnight after these +gifts, Phemie's lover wanted to take back his heart and his furniture, +because he noticed on looking at his mistress's hands that she wore a +ring set with hair, but black hair this time, and dared to suspect her +of infidelity. + +Yet Phemie had not ceased to be virtuous, only as her friends had +chaffed her several times about her ring with red hair, she had had it +dyed black. The gentleman was so pleased that he bought Phemie a silk +dress; it was the first she had ever had. The day she put it on for the +first time the poor girl exclaimed: + +"Now I can die happy." + +As to Musette, she had once more become almost an official personage, +and Marcel had not met her for three or four months. As to Mimi, +Rodolphe had not heard her even mentioned, save by himself when alone. + +"Hallo!" suddenly exclaimed Rodolphe, seeing Marcel squatting dreamily +beside the hearth. "Won't the fire light?" + +"There you are," said the painter, setting light to the wood, which +began to crackle and flame. + +While his friends were sharpening their appetites by getting ready the +feast, Marcel had again isolated himself in a corner and was putting the +letter he had just found by chance away with some souvenirs that Musette +had left him. All at once he remembered the address of a woman who was +the intimate friend of his old love. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, loud enough to be overheard. "I know where to find +her." + +"Find what?" asked Rodolphe. "What are you up to?" he added, seeing the +artist getting ready to write. + +"Nothing, only an urgent letter I had forgotten," replied Marcel, and he +wrote:-- + + "My dear girl, + + I have wealth in my desk, an apoplectic stroke of fortune. We have + a big feed simmering, generous wines, and have lit fires like + respectable citizens. You should only just see it, as you used to + say. Come and pass an hour with us. You will find Rodolphe, Colline + and Schaunard. You shall sing to us at dessert, for dessert will + not be wanting. While we are there we shall probably remain at + table for a week. So do not be afraid of being too late. It is so + long since I heard you laugh. Rodolphe will compose madrigals to + you, and we will drink all manner of things to our dead and gone + loves, with liberty to resuscitate them. Between people like + ourselves--the last kiss is never the last. Ah! If it had not been + so cold last year you might not have left me. You jilted me for a + faggot and because you were afraid of having red hands; you were + right. I am no more vexed with you over it this time than over the + others, but come and warm yourself while there is a fire. With as + many kisses as you like, + + Marcel." + +This letter finished, Marcel wrote another to Madame Sidonie, Musette's +friend, begging her to forward the one enclosed in it. Then he went +downstairs to the porter to get him to take the letters. As he was +paying him beforehand, the porter noticed a gold coin in the painter's +hand, and before starting on his errand went up to inform the landlord, +with whom Marcel was behind with his rent. + +"Sir," said he, quite out of breath, "the artist on the sixth floor has +money. You know the tall fellow who laughs in my face when I take him +his bill?" + +"Yes," said the landlord, "the one who had the imprudence to borrow +money of me to pay me something on account with. He is under notice to +quit." + +"Yes sir. But he is rolling in gold today. I caught sight of it just +now. He is giving a party. It is a good time--" + +"You are right," said the landlord. "I will go up and see for myself +by-and-by." + +Madame Sidonie, who was at home when Marcel's letter was brought, sent +on her maid at once with the one intended for Musette. + +The latter was then residing in a charming suite of rooms in the +Chaussee d'Antin. At the moment Marcel's letter was handed to her, she +had company, and, indeed, was going to give a grand dinner party that +evening. + +"Here is a miracle," she exclaimed, laughing like a mad thing. + +"What is it?" asked a handsome young fellow, as stiff as a statuette. + +"It is an invitation to dinner," replied the girl. "How well it falls +out." + +"How badly," said the young man. + +"Why so?" asked Musette. + +"What, do you think of going?" + +"I should think so. Arrange things as you please." + +"But, my dear, it is not becoming. You can go another time." + +"Ah, that is very good, another time. It is an old acquaintance, Marcel, +who invites me to dinner, and that is sufficiently extraordinary for me +to go and have a look at it. Another time! But real dinners in that +house are as rare as eclipses." + +"What, you would break your pledge to us to go and see this +individual," said the young man, "and you tell me so--" + +"Whom do you want me to tell it to, then? To the Grand Turk? It does not +concern him." + +"This is strange frankness." + +"You know very well that I do nothing like other people." + +"But what would you think of me if I let you go, knowing where you are +going to? Think a bit, Musette, it is very unbecoming both to you and +myself; you must ask this young fellow to excuse you--" + +"My dear Monsieur Maurice," said Mademoiselle Musette, in very firm +tones, "you knew me before you took up with me, you knew that I was full +of whims and fancies, and that no living soul can boast of ever having +made me give one up." + +"Ask of me whatever you like," said Maurice, "but this! There are +fancies and fancies." + +"Maurice, I shall go and see Marcel. I am going," she added, putting on +her bonnet. "You may leave me if you like, but it is stronger than I +am; he is the best fellow in the world, and the only one I have ever +loved. If his head had been gold he would have melted it down to give me +rings. Poor fellow," said she, showing the letter, "see, as soon as he +has a little fire, he invites me to come and warm myself. Ah, if he had +not been so idle, and if there had not been so much velvet and silk in +the shops! I was very happy with him, he had the gift of making me feel; +and it is he who gave me the name of Musette on account of my songs. At +any rate, going to see him you may be sure that I shall return to you... +unless you shut your door in my face." + +"You could not more frankly acknowledge that you do not love me," said +the young man. + +"Come, my dear Maurice, you are too sensible a man for us to begin a +serious argument on that point," rejoined Musette. "You keep me like a +fine horse in your stable--and I like you because I love luxury, noise, +glitter, and festivity, and that sort of thing; do not let us go in for +sentiment, it would be useless and ridiculous." + +"At least let me come with you." + +"But you would not enjoy yourself at all," said Musette, "and would +hinder us from enjoying ourselves. Remember that he will necessarily +kiss me." + +"Musette," said Maurice. "Have you often found such accommodating people +as myself?" + +"Viscount," replied Musette, "one day when I was driving in the Champs +Elysees with Lord _____, I met Marcel and his friend Rodolphe, both on +foot, both ill dressed, muddy as water-dogs, and smoking pipes. I had +not seen Marcel for three months, and it seemed to me as if my heart was +going to jump out of the carriage window. I stopped the carriage, and +for half an hour I chatted with Marcel before the whole of Paris, +filing past in its carriages. Marcel offered me a sou bunch of violets +that I fastened in my waistband. When he took leave of me, Lord _____ +wanted to call him back to invite him to dinner with us. I kissed him +for that. That is my way, my dear Monsieur Maurice, if it does not suit +you you should say so at once, and I will take my slippers and my +nightcap." + +"It is sometimes a good thing to be poor then," said Vicomte Maurice, +with a look of envious sadness. + +"No, not at all," said Musette. "If Marcel had been rich I should never +have left him." + +"Go, then," said the young fellow, shaking her by the hand. "You have +put your new dress on," he added, "it becomes you splendidly." + +"That is so," said Musette. "It is a kind of presentiment I had this +morning. Marcel will have the first fruits of it. Goodbye, I am off to +taste a little of the bread of gaiety." + +Musette was that day wearing a charming toilette. Never had the poem of +her youth and beauty been set off by a more seductive binding. Besides, +Musette had the instinctive genius of taste. On coming into the world, +the first thing she had looked about for had been a looking glass to +settle herself in her swaddling clothes by, and before being christened +she had already been guilty of the sin of coquetry. At the time when her +position was of the humblest, when she was reduced to cotton print +frocks, little white caps and kid shoes, she wore in charming style this +poor and simple uniform of the grisettes, those pretty girls, half bees, +half grasshoppers, who sang at their work all week, only asked God for a +little sunshine on Sunday, loved with all their heart, and sometimes +threw themselves out of a window. + +A breed that is now lost, thanks to the present generation of young +fellows, a corrupted and at the same time corrupting race, but, above +everything, vain, foolish and brutal. For the sake of uttering spiteful +paradoxes, they chaffed these poor girls about their hands, disfigured +by the sacred scars of toil, and as a consequence these soon no longer +earned even enough to buy almond paste. By degrees they succeeded in +inoculating them with their own foolishness and vanity, and then the +grisette disappeared. It was then that the lorette sprung up. A hybrid +breed of impertinent creatures of mediocre beauty, half flesh, half +paint, whose boudoir is a shop in which they sell bits of their heart +like slices of roast beef. The majority of these girls who dishonor +pleasure, and are the shame of modern gallantry, are not always equal in +intelligence to the very birds whose feathers they wear in their +bonnets. If by chance they happen to feel, not love nor even a caprice, +but a common place desire, it is for some counter jumping mountebank, +whom the crowd surrounds and applauds at public balls, and whom the +papers, courtiers of all that is ridiculous, render celebrated by their +puffs. Although she was obliged to live in this circle Musette had +neither its manners nor its ways, she had not the servile cupidity of +those creatures who can only read Cocker and only write in figures. She +was an intelligent and witty girl, and some drops of the blood of Mansu +in her veins and, rebellious to all yokes, she had never been able to +help yielding to a fancy, whatever might be the consequences. + +Marcel was really the only man she had ever loved. He was at any rate +the only one for whose sake she had really suffered, and it had needed +all the stubbornness of the instincts that attracted her to all that +glittered and jingled to make her leave him. She was twenty, and for her +luxury was almost a matter of existence. She might do without it for a +time, but she could not give it up completely. Knowing her inconstancy, +she had never consented to padlock her heart with an oath of fidelity. +She had been ardently loved by many young fellows for whom she had +herself felt a strong fancy, and she had always acted towards them with +far-sighted probity; the engagements into which she entered were simple, +frank and rustic as the love-making of Moliere's peasants. "You want me +and I should like you too, shake hands on it and let us enjoy +ourselves." A dozen times if she had liked Musette could have secured a +good position, which is termed a future, but she did not believe in the +future and professed the scepticism of Figaro respecting it. + +"Tomorrow," she sometimes remarked, "is an absurdity of the almanac, it +is a daily pretext that men have invented in order to put off their +business today. Tomorrow may be an earthquake. Today, at any rate, we +are on solid ground." + +One day a gentleman with whom she had stayed nearly six months, and who +had become wildly in love with her, seriously proposed marriage. +Musette burst out laughing in his face at this offer. + +"I imprison my liberty in the bonds of matrimony? Never," said she. + +"But I pass my time in trembling with fear of losing you." + +"It would be worse if I were your wife. Do not let us speak about that +any more. Besides, I am not free," she added, thinking no doubt of +Marcel. + +Thus she passed her youth, her mind caught by every straw blown by the +breeze of fancy, causing the happiness of a great many and almost happy +herself. Vicomte Maurice, under whose protection she then was, had a +great deal of difficulty in accustoming himself to her untamable +disposition, intoxicated with freedom, and it was with jealous +impatience that he awaited the return of Musette after having seen her +start off to Marcel's. + +"Will she stay there?" he kept asking himself all the evening. + +"Poor Maurice," said Musette to herself on her side. "He thinks it +rather hard. Bah! Young men must go through their training." + +Then her mind turning suddenly to other things, she began to think of +Marcel to whom she was going, and while running over the recollections +reawakened by the name of her erst adorer, asked herself by what miracle +the table had been spread at his dwelling. She re-read, as she went +along, the letter that the artist had written to her, and could not help +feeling somewhat saddened by it. But this only lasted a moment. Musette +thought aright, that it was less than ever an occasion for grieving, and +at that moment a strong wind spring up she exclaimed: + +"It is funny, even if I did not want to go to Marcel's, this wind would +blow me there." + +And she went on hurriedly, happy as a bird returning to its first nest. + +All at once snow began to fall heavy. Musette looked for a cab. She +could not see one. As she happened to be in the very street in which +dwelt her friend Madame Sidonie, the same who had sent on Marcel's +letter to her, Musette decided to run in for a few minutes until the +weather cleared up sufficiently to enable her to continue her journey. + +When Musette entered Madame Sidonie's rooms she found a gathering there. +They were going on with a game of lansquenet that had lasted three +days. + +"Do not disturb yourselves," said Musette. "I have only just popped in +for a moment." + +"You got Marcel's letter all right?" whispered Madame Sidonie to her. + +"Yes, thanks," replied Musette. "I am going to his place, he has asked +me to dinner. Will you come with me? You would enjoy yourself." + +"No, I can't," said Madame Sidonie, pointing to the card table. "Think +of my rent." + +"There are six louis," said the banker. + +"I'll go two of them," exclaimed Madame Sidonie. + +"I am not proud, I'll start at two," replied the banker, who had already +dealt several times. "King and ace. I am done for," he continued, +dealing the cards. "I am done for, all the kings are out." + +"No politics," said a journalist. + +"And the ace is the foe of my family," continued the banker, who then +turned up another king. "Long live the king! My dear Sidonie, hand me +over two louis." + +"Put them down," said Sidonie, vexed at her loss. + +"That makes four hundred francs you owe me, little one," said the +banker. "You would run it up to a thousand. I pass the deal." + +Sidonie and Musette were chatting together in a low tone. The game went +on. + +At about the same time the Bohemians were sitting down to table. During +the whole of the repast Marcel seemed uneasy. Everytime a step sounded +on the stairs he started. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe of him. "One would think you were +expecting someone. Are we not all here?" + +But at a look from the artist the poet understood his friend's +preoccupation. + +"True," he thought, "we are not all here." + +Marcel's look meant Musette, Rodolphe's answering glance, Mimi. + +"We lack ladies," said Schaunard, all at once. + +"Confound it," yelled Colline, "will you hold your tongue with your +libertine reflections. It was agreed that we should not speak of love, +it turns the sauces." + +And the friends continued to drink fuller bumpers, whilst without the +snow still fell, and on the hearth the logs flamed brightly, scattering +sparks like fireworks. + +Just as Rodolphe was thundering out a song which he had found at the +bottom of his glass, there came several knocks at the door. Marcel, +torpid from incipient drunkenness, leaped up from his chair, and ran to +open it. Musette was not there. + +A gentleman appeared on the threshold; he was not only bad looking, but +his dressing gown was wretchedly made. In his hand he held a slip of +paper. + +"I am glad to see you so comfortable," he said, looking at the table on +which were the remains of a magnificent leg of mutton. + +"The landlord!" cried Rodolphe. "Let us receive him with the honors due +to his position!" and he commenced beating on his plate with his knife +and fork. + +Colline handed him a chair, and Marcel cried: + +"Come, Schaunard! Pass us a clean glass. You are just in time," he +continued to the landlord, "we were going to drink to your health. My +friend there, Monsieur Colline, was saying some touching things about +you. As you are present, he will begin over again, out of compliment to +you. Do begin again, Colline." + +"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the landlord, "I don't wish to trouble you, +but---" and he unfolded the paper which he had in his hand. + +"What's the document?" asked Marcel. + +The landlord, who had cast an inquisitive glance around the room, +perceived some gold on the chimney piece. + +"It is your receipt," he said hastily, "which I had the honor of +sending you once already." + +"My faithful memory recalls the circumstance," replied the artist. "It +was on Friday, the eighth of the month, at a quarter past twelve." + +"It is signed, you see, in due form," said the landlord, "and if it is +agreeable to you--" + +"I was intending to call upon you," interrupted Marcel. "I have a great +deal to talk to you about." + +"At your service." + +"Oblige me by taking something," continued the painter, forcing a glass +of wine on the landlord. "Now, sir," he continued, "you sent me lately a +little paper, with a picture of a lady and a pair of scales on it. It +was signed Godard." + +"The lawyer's name." + +"He writes a very bad hand; I had to get my friend here, who understands +all sorts of hieroglyphics and foreign languages,"--and he pointed to +Colline--"to translate it for me." + +"It was a notice to quit; a precautionary measure, according to the rule +in such cases." + +"Exactly. Now I wanted to have a talk with you about this very notice, +for which I should like to substitute a lease. This house suits me. The +staircase is clean, the street gay, and some of my friends live near; in +short, a thousand reasons attach me to these premises." + +"But," and the landlord unfolded his receipt again, "there is that last +quarter's rent to pay." + +"We shall pay it, sir. Such is our fixed intention." + +Nevertheless, the landlord kept his eye glued to the money on the +mantelpiece and such was the steady pertinacity of his gaze that the +coins seemed to move towards him of themselves. + +"I am happy to have come at a time when, without inconveniencing +yourself, you can settle this little affair," he said, again producing +his receipt to Marcel, who, not being able to parry the assault, again +avoided it. + +"You have some property in the provinces, I think," he said. + +"Very little, very little. A small house and farm in Burgundy; very +trifling returns; the tenants pay so badly, and therefore," he added, +pushing forward his receipt again, "this small sum comes just in time. +Sixty francs, you know." + +"Yes," said Marcel, going to the mantelpiece and taking up three pieces +of gold. "Sixty, sixty it is," and he placed the money on the table just +out of the landlord's reach. + +"At last," thought the latter. His countenance lighted up, and he too +laid down his receipt on the table. + +Schaunard, Colline, and Rodolphe looked anxiously on. + +"Well, sir," quoth Marcel, "since you are a Burgundian, you will not be +sorry to see a countryman of yours." He opened a bottle of old Macon, +and poured out a bumper. + +"Ah, perfect!" said the landlord. "Really, I never tasted better." + +"An uncle of mine who lives there, sends me a hamper or two +occasionally." + +The landlord rose, and was stretching out his hand towards the money, +when Marcel stopped him again. + +"You will not refuse another glass?" said he, pouring one out. + +The landlord did not refuse. He drank the second glass, and was once +more attempting to possess himself of the money, when Marcel called out: + +"Stop! I have an idea. I am rather rich just now, for me. My uncle in +Burgundy has sent me something over my usual allowance. Now I may spend +this money too fast. Youth has so many temptations, you know. Therefore, +if it is all the same to you, I will pay a quarter in advance." He took +sixty francs in silver and added them to the three louis which were on +the table. + +"Then I will give you a receipt for the present quarter," said the +landlord. "I have some blank ones in my pocketbook. I will fill it up +and date it ahead. After all," thought he, devouring the hundred and +twenty francs with his eyes, "this tenant is not so bad." + +Meanwhile, the other three Bohemians, not understanding Marcel's +diplomacy, remained utterly stupefied. + +"But this chimney smokes, which is very disagreeable." + +"Why didn't you tell me before? I will send the workmen in tomorrow," +answered the landlord, not wishing to be behindhand in this contest of +good offices. He filled up the second receipt, pushed the two over to +Marcel, and stretched out his hand once more towards the heap of money. +"You don't know how timely this sum comes in," he continued, "I have to +pay some bills for repairs, and was really quite short of cash." + +"Very sorry to have made you wait." + +"Oh, it's no matter now! Permit me."--and out went his hand again. + +"Permit me," said Marcel. "We haven't finished with this yet. You know +the old saying, 'when the wine is drawn--'" and he filled the landlord's +glass a third time. + +"One must drink it," remarked the other, and he did so. + +"Exactly," said the artist, with a wink at his friends, who now +understood what he was after. + +The landlord's eyes began to twinkle strangely. He wriggled on his +chair, began to talk loosely, in all senses of the word, and promised +Marcel fabulous repairs and embellishments. + +"Bring up the big guns," said the artist aside to the poet. Rodolphe +passed along a bottle of rum. + +After the first glass the landlord sang a ditty, which absolutely made +Schaunard blush. + +After the second, he lamented his conjugal infelicity. His wife's name +being Helen, he compared himself to Menelaus. + +After the third, he had an attack of philosophy, and threw up such +aphorisms as these: + +"Life is a river." + +"Happiness depends not on wealth." + +"Man is a transitory creature." + +"Love is a pleasant feeling." + +Finally, he made Schaunard his confidant, and related to him how he had +"Put into mahogany" a damsel named Euphemia. Of this young person and +her loving simplicity he drew so detailed a portrait, that Schaunard +began to be assailed by a fearful suspicion, which suspicion was reduced +to a certainty when the landlord showed him a letter. + +"Cruel woman!" cried the musician, as he beheld the signature. "It is +like a dagger in my heart." + +"What is the matter!" exclaimed the Bohemians, astonished at this +language. + +"See," said Schaunard, "this letter is from Phemie. See the blot that +serves her for a signature." + +And he handed round the letter of his ex-mistress, which began with the +words, "My dear old pet." + +"I am her dear old pet," said the landlord, vainly trying to rise from +his chair. + +"Good," said Marcel, who was watching him. "He has cast anchor." + +"Phemie, cruel Phemie," murmured Schaunard. "You have wounded me +deeply." + +"I have furnished a little apartment for her at 12, Rue Coquenard," said +the landlord. "Pretty, very pretty. It cost me lots of money. But such +love is beyond price and I have twenty thousand francs a year. She asks +me for money in her letter. Poor little dear, she shall have this," and +he stretched out his hand for the money--"hallo! Where is it?" he added +in astonishment feeling on the table. The money had disappeared. + +"It is impossible for a moral man to become an accomplice in such +wickedness," said Marcel. "My conscience forbids me to pay money to this +old profligate. I shall not pay my rent, but my conscience will at any +rate be clear. What morals, and in a bald headed man too." + +By this time the landlord was completely gone, and talked at random to +the bottles. He had been there nearly two hours, when his wife, alarmed +at his prolonged absence, sent the maid after him. On seeing her master +in such a state, she set up a shriek, and asked, "what are they doing +to him?" + +"Nothing," answered Marcel. "He came a few minutes ago to ask for the +rent. As we had no money we begged for time." + +"But he's been and got drunk," said the servant. + +"Very likely," replied Rodolphe. "Most of that was done before he came +here. He told us that he had been arranging his cellar." + +"And he had so completely lost his head," added Colline, "that he +wanted to leave the receipt without the money." + +"Give these to his wife," said Marcel, handing over the receipts. "We +are honest folk, and do not wish to take advantage of his condition." + +"Good heavens! What will madame say?" exclaimed the maid, leading, or +rather dragging off her master, who had a very imperfect idea of the use +of his legs. + +"So much for him!" ejaculated Marcel. + +"He has smelt money," said Rodolphe. "He will come again tomorrow." + +"When he does, I will threaten to tell his wife about Phemie and he will +give us time enough." + +When the landlord had been got outside, the four friends went on smoking +and drinking. Marcel alone retained a glimmer of lucidity in his +intoxication. From time to time, at the slightest sound on the +staircase, he ran and opened the door. But those who were coming up +always halted at one of the lower landings, and then the artist would +slowly return to his place by the fireside. Midnight struck, and Musette +had not come. + +"After all," thought Marcel, "perhaps she was not in when my letter +arrived. She will find it when she gets home tonight, and she will come +tomorrow. We shall still have a fire. It is impossible for her not to +come. Tomorrow." + +And he fell asleep by the fire. + +At the very moment that Marcel fell asleep dreaming of her, Mademoiselle +Musette was leaving the residence of her friend Madame Sidonie, where +she had been staying up till then. Musette was not alone, a young man +accompanied her. A carriage was waiting at the door. They got into it +and went off at full speed. + +The game at lansquenet was still going on in Madame Sidonie's room. + +"Where is Musette?" said someone all at once. + +"Where is young Seraphin?" said another. + +Madame Sidonie began to laugh. + +"They had just gone off together," said she. "It is a funny story. What +a strange being Musette is. Just fancy...." And she informed the company +how Musette, after almost quarreling with Vicomte Maurice and starting +off to find Marcel, had stepped in there by chance and met with young +Seraphin. + +"I suspected something was up," she continued. "I had an eye on them all +the evening. He is very sharp, that youngster. In short, they have gone +off on the quiet, and it would take a sharp one to catch them up. All +the same, it is very funny when one thinks how fond Musette is of her +Marcel." + +"If she is so fond of him, what is the use of Seraphin, almost a lad, +and who had never had a mistress?" said a young fellow. + +"She wants to teach him to read, perhaps," said the journalist, who was +very stupid when he had been losing. + +"All the same," said Sidonie, "what does she want with Seraphin when she +is in love with Marcel? That is what gets over me." + + * * * * * + +For five days the Bohemians went on leading the happiest life in the +world without stirring out. They remained at table from morning till +night. An admired disorder reigned in the room which was filled with a +Pantagruelic atmosphere. On a regular bed of oyster shells reposed an +army of empty bottles of every size and shape. The table was laden with +fragments of every description, and a forest of wood blazed in the +fireplace. + +On the sixth day Colline, who was director of ceremonies, drew up, as +was his wont every morning, the bill of fare for breakfast, lunch, +dinner, and supper, and submitted it to the approval of his friends, who +each initialed it in token of approbation. + +But when Colline opened the drawer that served as a cashbox, in order to +take the money necessary for the day's consumption, he started back and +became as pale as Banquo's ghost. + +"What is the matter?" inquired the others, carelessly. + +"The matter is that there are only thirty sous left," replied the +philosopher. + +"The deuce. That will cause some modification in our bill of fare. +Well, thirty sous carefully laid out--. All the same it will be +difficult to run to truffles," said the others. + +A few minutes later the table was spread. There were three dishes most +symmetrically arranged--a dish of herrings, a dish of potatoes, and a +dish of cheese. + +On the hearth smoldered two little brands as big as one's fist. + +Snow was still falling without. + +The four Bohemians sat down to table and gravely unfolded their napkins. + +"It is strange," said Marcel, "this herring has a flavor of pheasant." + +"That is due to the way in which I cooked it," replied Colline. "The +herring has never been properly appreciated." + +At that moment a joyous song rose on the staircase, and a knock came at +the door. Marcel, who had not been able to help shuddering, ran to open +it. + +Musette threw her arms round his neck and held him in an embrace for +five minutes. Marcel felt her tremble in his arms. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +"I am cold," said Musette, mechanically drawing near the fireplace. + +"Ah!" said Marcel. "And we had such a rattling good fire." + +"Yes," said Musette, glancing at the remains of the five days' +festivity, "I have come too late." + +"Why?" said Marcel. + +"Why?" said Musette, blushing slightly. + +She sat down on Marcel's knee. She was still shivering, and her hands +were blue. + +"You were not free, then," whispered Marcel. + +"I, not free!" exclaimed the girl. "Ah Marcel! If I were seated amongst +the stars in Paradise and you made me a sign to come down to you I +should do so. I, not free!" + +She began to shiver again. + +"There are five chairs here," said Rodolphe, "which is an odd number, +without reckoning that the fifth is of a ridiculous shape." + +And breaking the chair against the wall, he threw the fragments into the +fireplace. The fire suddenly burst forth again in a bright and merry +flame, then making a sign to Colline and Schaunard, the poet took them +off with him. + +"Where are you going?" asked Marcel. + +"To buy some tobacco," they replied. + +"At Havana," added Schaunard, with a sign of intelligence to Marcel, who +thanked him with a look. + +"Why did you not come sooner?" he asked Musette when they were alone +together. + +"It is true, I am rather behindhand." + +"Five days to cross the Pont Neuf. You must have gone round by the +Pyrenees?" + +Musette bowed her head and was silent. + +"Ah, naughty girl," said the artist, sadly tapping his hand lightly on +his mistress' breast, "what have you got inside here?" + +"You know very well," she retorted quickly. + +"But what have you been doing since I wrote to you?" + +"Do not question me," said Musette, kissing him several times. "Do not +ask me anything, but let me warm myself beside you. You see I put on my +best dress to come. Poor Maurice, he could not understand it when I set +off to come here, but it was stronger than myself, so I started. The +fire is nice," she added, holding out her little hand to the flames, "I +will stay with you till tomorrow if you like." + +"It will be very cold here," said Marcel, "and we have nothing for +dinner. You have come too late," he repeated. + +"Ah, bah!" said Musette. "It will be all the more like old times." + + * * * * * + +Rodolphe, Colline, and Schaunard, took twenty-four hours to get their +tobacco. When they returned to the house Marcel was alone. + +After an absence of six days Vicomte Maurice saw Musette return. + +He did not in any way reproach her, and only asked her why she seemed +sad. + +"I quarreled with Marcel," said she. "We parted badly." + +"And yet, who knows," said Maurice. "But you will again return to him." + +"What would you?" asked Musette. "I need to breathe the air of that life +from time to time. My life is like a song, each of my loves is a verse, +but Marcel is the refrain." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Mimi In Fine Feather + + +"No, no, no, you are no longer Lisette! No, no, no, you are no longer +Mimi. You are today, my lady the viscomtess, the day after tomorrow you +may, perhaps, be your grace the duchess; the doorway of your dreams has +at length been thrown wide open before you, and you have passed through +it victorious and triumphant. I felt certain you would end up by doing +so, some night or other. It was bound to be; besides, your white hands +were made for idleness, and for a long time past have called for the +ring of some aristocratic alliance. At length you have a coat of arms. +But, we still prefer the one which youth gave to your beauty, when your +blue eyes and your pale face seemed to quarter azure on a lily field. +Noble or serf, you are ever charming, and I readily recognized you when +you passed by in the street the other evening, with rapid and well-shod +foot, aiding the wind with your gloved hand in lifting the skirts of +your new dress, partly in order not to let it be soiled, but a great +deal more in order to show your embroidered petticoats and open-worked +stockings. You had on a wonderful bonnet, and even seemed plunged in +deep perplexity on the subject of the veil of costly lace which floated +over this bonnet. A very serious trouble indeed, for it was a question +of deciding which was best and most advantageous to your coquetry, to +wear this veil up or down. By wearing it down, you risked not being +recognized by those of your friends whom you might meet, and who +certainly would have passed by you ten times without suspecting that +this costly envelope hid Mademoiselle Mimi. On the other hand, by +wearing this veil up, it was it that risked escaping notice, and in that +case, what was the good of having it? You had cleverly solved the +difficulty by alternately raising and lowering at every tenth step; this +wonderful tissue, woven no doubt, in that country of spiders, called +Flanders, and which of itself cost more than the whole of your former +wardrobe." + +"Ah, Mimi! Forgive me--I should say, ah, vicomtess! I was quite right, +you see, when I said to you: 'Patience, do not despair, the future is +big with cashmere shawls, glittering jewels, supper parties, and the +like.' You would not believe me, incredulous one. Well, my predictions +are, however, realized, and I am worth as much, I hope, as your 'Ladies' +Oracle,' a little octavo sorcerer you bought for five sous at a +bookstall on the Pont Neuf, and which you wearied with external +questions. Again, I ask, was I not right in my prophecies; and would you +believe me now, if I tell you that you will not stop at this? If I told +you that listening, I can hear faintly in the depths of your future, +the tramp and neighing of the horses harnessed to blue brougham, driven +by a powdered coachmen, who lets down the steps, saying, 'Where to +madam?' Would you believe me if I told you, too, that later on--ah, as +late as possible, I trust--attaining the object of a long cherished +ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and +will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come +there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at +this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, +believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and +velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, will be melted down in the +crucibles of your fancies, many flowers will fade about your head, many +beneath your feet, and you will change your coat of arms many times. On +your head will glitter in turn the coronets of baroness, countess, and +marchioness, you will take for your motto, 'Inconstancy,' and you will, +according to caprice or to necessity, satisfy each in turn, or even all +at once, all the numerous adorers who will range themselves in the +ante-chamber of your heart as people do at the door of a theater at +which a popular piece is being played. Go on then, go straight onward, +your mind lightened of recollections which have been replaced by +ambition; go, the road is broad, and we hope it will long be smooth to +your feet, but we hope, above all, that all these sumptuosities, these +fine toilettes, may not too soon become the shroud in which your +liveliness will be buried." + +Thus spoke the painter Marcel to Mademoiselle Mimi, whom he had met +three or four days after her second divorce from the poet Rodolphe. +Although he was obliged to veil the raillery with which he besprinkled +her horoscope, Mademoiselle Mimi was not the dupe of Marcel's fine +words, and understood perfectly well that with little respect for her +new title, he was chaffing her to bits. + +"You are cruel towards me, Marcel," said Mademoiselle Mimi, "it is +wrong. I was always very friendly with you when I was Rodolphe's +mistress, and if I have left him, it was, after all, his fault. It was +he who packed me off in a hurry, and, besides, how did he behave to me +during the last few days I spent with him. I was very unhappy, I can +tell you. You do not know what a man Rodolphe was; a mixture of anger +and jealousy, who killed me by bits. He loved me, I know, but his love +was as dangerous as a loaded gun. What a life I led for six months. Ah, +Marcel! I do not want to make myself out better than I am, but I +suffered a great deal with Rodolphe; you know it too, very well. It is +not poverty that made me leave him, no I assure you I had grown +accustomed to it, and I repeat it was he who sent me away. He trampled +on my self-esteem; he told me that he no longer loved me; that I must +get another lover. He even went so far as to indicate a young man who +was courting me, and by his taunts, he served to bring me and this +young man together. I went with him as much out of spite as from +necessity, for I did not love him. You know very well yourself that I do +not care for such very young fellows. They are as wearisome and +sentimental as harmonicas. Well, what is done is done. I do not regret +it, and I would do the same over again. Now that he no longer has me +with him, and knows me to be happy with another, Rodolphe is furious and +very unhappy. I know someone who met him the other day; his eyes were +quite red. That does not astonish me. I felt quite sure it would come to +this, and that he would run after me, but you can tell him that he will +only lose his time, and that this time it is quite in earnest and for +good. Is it long since you saw him, Marcel and is it true that he is +much altered?" inquired Mimi in quite another tone. + +"He is greatly altered indeed," replied Marcel. + +"He is grieving, that is certain, but what am I to do? So much the worse +for him, he would have it so. It had to come to an end somehow. Try to +console him." + +"Oh!" answered Marcel quickly. "The worst of the job is over. Do not +disturb yourself about it, Mimi." + +"You are not telling the truth, my dear fellow," said Mimi, with an +ironical little pout. "Rodolphe will not be so quickly consoled as all +that. If you knew what a state he was in the night before I left. It was +a Friday, I would not stay that night at my new lover's because I am +superstitious, and Friday is an unlucky day." + +"You are wrong, Mimi, in love affairs Friday is a lucky day; the +ancients called it Dies Veneris." + +"I do not know Latin," said Mademoiselle Mimi, continuing her narration. +"I was coming back then from Paul's and found Rodolphe waiting for me in +the street. It was late, past midnight, and I was hungry for I had had +no dinner. I asked Rodolphe to go and get something for supper. He came +back half an hour later, he had run about a great deal to get nothing +worth speaking of, some bread, wine, sardines, cheese, and an apple +tart. I had gone to bed during his absence, and he laid the table beside +the bed. I pretended not to notice him, but I could see him plainly, he +was pale as death. He shuddered and walked about the room like a man who +does not know what he wants to do. He noticed several packages of +clothes on the floor in one corner. The sight of them seemed to annoy +him, and he placed the screen in front of them in order not to see them. +When all was ready we began to sup, he tried to make me drink, but I was +no longer hungry or thirsty, and my heart was quite full. He was cold, +for we had nothing to make a fire of, and one could hear the wind +whistling in the chimney. It was very sad. Rodolphe looked at me, his +eyes were fixed; he put his hand in mine and I felt it tremble, it was +burning and icy all at once. 'This is the funeral supper of our loves,' +he said to me in a low tone. I did not answer, but I had not the courage +to withdraw my hand from his. 'I am sleepy,' said I at last, 'it is +late, let us go to sleep.' Rodolphe looked at me. I had tied one of his +handkerchiefs about my head on account of the cold. He took it off +without saying a word. 'Why do you want to take that off?' said I. 'I am +cold.' 'Oh, Mimi!' said he. 'I beg of you, it will not matter to you, to +put on your little striped cap for tonight.' It was a nightcap of +striped cotton, white and brown. Rodolphe was very fond of seeing me in +this cap, it reminded him of several nights of happiness, for that was +how we counted our happy days. When I thought it was the last time that +I should sleep beside him I dared not refuse to satisfy this fancy of +his. I got up and hunted out my striped cap that was at the bottom of +one of my packages." + +"Out of forgetfulness I forgot to replace the screen. Rodolphe noticed +it and hid the packages just as he had already done before. 'Good +night,' said he. 'Good night,' I answered. I thought that he was going +to kiss me and I should not have hindered him, but he only took my hand, +which he carried to his lips. You know, Marcel, how fond he was of +kissing my hands. I heard his teeth chatter and I felt his body as cold +as marble. He still held my hand and he laid his head on my shoulder, +which was soon quite wet. Rodolphe was in a fearful state. He bit the +sheets to avoid crying out, but I could plainly hear his stifled sobs +and I still felt his tears flowing on my shoulder, which was first +scalded and then chilled. At that moment I needed all my courage and I +did need it, I can tell you. I had only to say a word, I had only to +turn my head, and my lips would have met those of Rodolphe, and we +should have made it up once more. Ah! For a moment I really thought that +he was going to die in my arms, or that, at least, he would go mad, as +he almost did once before, you remember? I felt I was going to yield, I +was going to recant first, I was going to clasp him in my arms, for +really one must have been utterly heartless to remain insensible to such +grief. But I recollected the words he had said to me the day before, +'You have no spirit if you stay with me, for I no longer love you,' Ah! +As I recalled those bitter words I would have seen Rodolphe ready to +die, and if it had only needed a kiss from me to save him, I would have +turned away my lips and let him perish." + +"At last, overcome by fatigue, I sank into a half-sleep. I could still +hear Rodolphe sobbing, and I can swear to you, Marcel, that this sobbing +went on all night long, and that when day broke and I saw in the bed, in +which I had slept for the last time, the lover whom I was going to +leave for another's arms, I was terribly frightened to see the havoc +wrought by this grief on Rodolphe's face. He got up, like myself, +without saying a word, and almost fell flat at the first steps he took, +he was so weak and downcast. However, he dressed himself very quickly, +and only asked me how matters stood and when I was going to leave. I +told him that I did not know. He went off without bidding goodbye or +shaking hands. That is how we separated. What a blow it must have been +to his heart no longer to find me there on coming home, eh?" + +"I was there when Rodolphe came in," said Marcel to Mimi, who was out of +breath from speaking so long. "As he was taking his key from the +landlady, she said, 'The little one has left.' 'Ah!' replied Rodolphe. +'I am not astonished, I expected it.' And he went up to his room, +whither I followed him, fearing some crisis, but nothing occurred. 'As +it is too late to go and hire another room this evening we will do so +tomorrow morning,' said he, 'we will go together. Now let us see after +some dinner.' I thought that he wanted to get drunk, but I was wrong. We +dined very quietly at a restaurant where you have sometimes been with +him. I had ordered some Beaune to stupefy Rodolphe a bit. 'This was +Mimi's favorite wine,' said he, 'we have often drunk it together at this +very table. I remember one day she said to me, holding out her glass, +which she had already emptied several times, 'Fill up again, it is good +for one's bones.' A poor pun, eh? Worthy, at the most, of the mistress +of a farce writer. Ah! She could drink pretty fairly.'" + +"Seeing that he was inclined to stray along the path of recollection I +spoke to him about something else, and then it was no longer a question +of you. He spent the whole evening with me and seemed as calm as the +Mediterranean. But what astonished me most was, that this calmness was +not at all affected. It was genuine indifference. At midnight we went +home. 'You seem surprised at my coolness in the position in which I find +myself,' said he to me, 'well, let me point out a comparison to you, my +dear fellow, it if is commonplace it has, at least, the merit of being +accurate. My heart is like a cistern the tap of which has been turned +on all night, in the morning not a drop of water is left. My heart is +really the same, last night I wept away all the tears that were left me. +It is strange, but I thought myself richer in grief, and yet by a single +night of suffering I am ruined, cleaned out. On my word of honor it is +as I say. Now, in the very bed in which I all but died last night beside +a woman who was no more moved than a stone, I shall sleep like a deck +laborer after a hard day's work, while she rests her head on the pillow +of another.' 'Hambug,' I thought to myself. 'I shall no sooner have left +him than he will be dashing his head against the wall.' However, I left +Rodolphe alone and went to my own room, but I did not go to bed. At +three in the morning I thought I heard a noise in Rodolphe's room and I +went down in a hurry, thinking to find him in a desperate fever." + +"Well?" said Mimi. + +"Well my dear, Rodolphe was sleeping, the bed clothes were quite in +order and everything proved that he had soon fallen asleep, and that his +slumbers had been calm." + +"It is possible," said Mimi, "he was so worn out by the night before, +but the next day?" + +"The next day Rodolphe came and roused me up early and we went and took +rooms in another house, into which we moved the same evening." + +"And," asked Mimi, "what did he do on leaving the room we had occupied, +what did he say on abandoning the room in which he had loved me so?" + +"He packed up his things quietly," replied Marcel, "and as he found in a +drawer a pair of thread gloves you had forgotten, as well as two or +three of your letters--" + +"I know," said Mimi in a tone which seemed to imply, "I forgot them on +purpose so that he might have some souvenir of me left! What did he do +with them?" she added. + +"If I remember rightly," said Marcel, "he threw the letters into the +fireplace and the gloves out of the window, but without any theatrical +effort, and quite naturally, as one does when one wants to get rid of +something useless." + +"My dear Monsieur Marcel, I assure you that from the bottom of my heart +I hope that this indifference may last. But, once more in all sincerity, +I do not believe in such a speedy cure and, in spite of all you tell me, +I am convinced that my poet's heart is broken." + +"That may be," replied Marcel, taking leave of Mimi, "but unless I may +be very much mistaken, the pieces are still good for something." + +During this colloquy in a public thoroughfare, Vicomte Paul was awaiting +his new mistress, who was behindhand in her appointment, and decidedly +disagreeable towards him. He seated himself at her feet and warbled his +favorite strain, namely, that she was charming, fair as a lily, gentle +as a lamb, but that he loved her above all on account of the beauties of +her soul. + +"Ah!" thought Mimi, loosening the waves of her dark hair over her snowy +shoulders, "my lover Rodolphe, was not so exclusive." + +As Marcel had stated, Rodolphe seemed to be radically cured of his love +for Mademoiselle Mimi, and three or four days after his separation, the +poet reappeared completely metamorphosed. He was attired with an +elegance that must have rendered him unrecognizable by his very looking +glass. Nothing, indeed, about him seemed to justify the fear that he +intended to commit suicide, as Mademoiselle Mimi had started the rumor, +with all kinds of hypocritical condolences. Rodolphe was, in fact, quite +calm. He listened with unmoved countenance to all the stories told him +about the new and sumptuous existence led by his mistress--who took +pleasure in keeping him informed on these points--by a young girl who +had remained her confidant, and who had occasion to see Rodolphe almost +every evening. + +"Mimi is very happy with Vicomte Paul," the poet was told. "She seems +thoroughly smitten with him, only one thing causes her any uneasiness, +she is afraid least you should disturb her tranquillity by coming after +her, which by the way, would be dangerous for you, for the vicomte +worships his mistress and is a good fencer." + +"Oh," said Rodolphe. "She can sleep in peace, I have no wish to go and +cast vinegar over the sweetness of her honeymoon. As to her young +lover, he can leave his dagger at home like Gastibelza. I have no wish +to attempt the life of a young gentleman who has still the happiness of +being nursed by illusions." + +As they did not fail to carry back to Mimi the way in which her ex-lover +received all these details, she on her part did not forget to reply, +shrugging her shoulders: + +"That is all very well, you will see what will come of it in a day or +two." + +However, Rodolphe was himself, and more than any one else, astonished at +this sudden indifference which, without passing through the usual +transitions of sadness and melancholy, had followed the stormy feelings +by which he had been stirred only a few days before. Forgetfulness, so +slow to come--above all for the virtues of love--that forgetfulness +which they summon so loudly and repulse with equal loudness when they +feel it approaching, that pitiless consoler that had all at once, and +without his being able to defend himself from it, invaded Rodolphe's +heart, and the name of the woman he so dearly loved could now be heard +without awakening any echo in it. Strange fact; Rodolphe, whose memory +was strong enough to recall to mind things that had occurred in the +farthest days of his past and beings who had figured in or influenced +his most remote existence--Rodolphe could not, whatever efforts he might +make, recall with clearness after four days' separation, the features of +that mistress who had nearly broken his life between her slender +fingers. He could no longer recall the softness of the eyes by the light +of which he had so often fallen asleep. He could no longer remember the +notes of that voice whose anger and whose caressing utterances had +alternately maddened him. A poet, who was a friend of his, and who had +not seen him since his absence, met him one evening. Rodolphe seemed +busy and preoccupied, he was walking rapidly along the street, twirling +his cane. + +"Hallo," said the poet, holding out his hand, "so here you are," and he +looked curiously at Rodolphe. Seeing that the latter looked somewhat +downcast he thought it right to adopt a consoling tone. + +"Come, courage, my dear fellow. I know that it is hard, but then it must +always have come to this. Better now than later on; in three months you +will be quite cured." + +"What are you driving at?" said Rodolphe. "I am not ill, my dear +fellow." + +"Come," said the other, "do not play the braggart. I know the whole +story and if I did not, I could read it in your face." + +"Take care, you are making a mistake," said Rodolphe, "I am very much +annoyed this evening, it is true, but you have not exactly hit on the +cause of my annoyance." + +"Good, but why defend yourself? It is quite natural. A connection that +has lasted a couple of years cannot be broken off so readily." + +"Everyone tells me the same thing," said Rodolphe, getting impatient. +"Well, upon my honor, you make a mistake, you and the others. I am very +vexed, and I look like it, that is possible, but this is the reason why; +I was expecting my tailor with a new dress coat today, and he had not +come. That is what I am annoyed about." + +"Bad, bad," said the other laughing. + +"Not at all bad, but good on the contrary, very good, excellent in fact. +Follow my argument and you shall see." + +"Come," said the poet, "I will listen to you. Just prove to me how any +one can in reason look so wretched because a tailor has failed to keep +his word. Come, come, I am waiting." + +"Well," said Rodolphe, "you know very well that the greatest effects +spring from the most trifling causes. I ought this evening to pay a very +important visit, and I cannot do so for want of a dress coat. Now do you +see it?" + +"Not at all. There is up to this no sufficient reason shown for a state +of desolation. You are in despair because---. You are very silly to try +to deceive. That is my opinion." + +"My friend," said Rodolphe, "you are very opinionated. It is always +enough to vex us when we miss happiness, and at any rate pleasure, +because it is almost always so much lost for ever, and we are wrong in +saying, 'I will make up for it another time.' I will resume; I had an +appointment this evening with a lady. I was to meet her at a friend's +house, whence I should, perhaps taken her home to mine, if it were +nearer than her own, and even if it were not. At this house there was a +party. At parties one must wear a dress coat. I have no dress coat. My +tailor was to bring me one; he does not do so. I do not go to the party. +I do not meet the lady who is, perhaps, met by someone else. I do not +see her home either to my place or hers, and she is, perhaps, seen home +by another. So as I told you, I have lost an opportunity of happiness +and pleasure; hence I am vexed; hence I look so, and quite naturally." + +"Very good," said his friend, "with one foot just out of one hell, you +want to put the other foot in another; but, my dear fellow, when I met +you, you seemed to be waiting for some one." + +"So I was." + +"But," continued the other, "we are in the neighborhood in which your +ex-mistress is living. What is there to prove that you were not waiting +for her?" + +"Although separated from her, special reasons oblige me to live in this +neighborhood. But, although neighbors, we are as distant as if she were +at one pole and I at the other. Besides, at this particular moment, my +ex-mistress is seated at her fireside taking lessons in French grammar +from Vicomte Paul, who wishes to bring her back to the paths of virtue +by the road of orthography. Good heavens, how he will spoil her! +However, that regards himself, now that he is editor-in-chief of her +happiness. You see, therefore, that your reflections are absurd, and +that, instead of following up the half-effaced traces of my old love, I +am on the track of my new one, who is already to some extent my +neighbor, and will become yet more so: for I am willing to take all the +necessary steps, and if she will take the rest, we shall not be long in +coming to an understanding." + +"Really," said the poet, "are you in love again already?" + +"This is what it is," replied Rodolphe, "my heart resembles those +lodgings that are advertised to let as soon as a tenant leaves them. As +soon as one love leaves my heart, I put up a bill for another. The +locality besides is habitable and in perfect repair." + +"And who is this new idol? Where and when did you make her +acquaintance?" + +"Come," said Rodolphe, "let us go through things in order. When Mimi +went away I thought that I should never be in love again in my life, and +imagined that my heart was dead of fatigue, exhaustion, whatever you +like. It had been beating so long and so fast, too fast, that the thing +was probable. In short I believed it dead, quite dead, and thought of +burying it like Marlborough. In honor of the occasion I gave a little +funeral dinner, to which I invited some of my friends. The guests were +to assume a melancholy air, and the bottles had crape around their +necks." + +"You did not invite me." + +"Excuse me, but I did not know your address in that part of cloudland +which you inhabit. One of the guests had brought a young lady, a young +woman also abandoned a short time before by her lover. She was told my +story. It was one of my friends who plays very nicely upon the +violoncello of sentiment who did this. He spoke to the young widow of +the qualities of my heart, the poor defunct whom we were about to inter, +and invited her to drink to its eternal repose. 'Come now,' said she, +raising her glass, 'I drink, on the contrary, to its very good health,' +and she gave me a look, enough, as they say, to awake the dead. It was +indeed the occasion to say so, for she had scarcely finished her toast +than I heard my heart singing the _O Filii_ of the Resurrection. What +would you have done in my place?" + +"A pretty question--what is her name?" + +"I do not know yet, I shall only ask her at the moment we sign our +lease. I know very well that in the opinion of some people I have +overstepped the legal delays, but you see I plead in my own court, and I +have granted a dispensation. What I do know is that she brings me as a +dowry cheerfulness, which is the health of the soul, and health which +is the cheerfulness of the body." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"Very pretty, especially as regards her complexion; one would say that +she made up every morning with Watteau's palate, 'She is fair, and her +conquering glances kindle love in every heart.' As witness mine." + +"A blonde? You astonish me." + +"Yes. I have had enough of ivory and ebony; I am going in for a +blonde," and Rodolphe began to skip about as he sang: + + "Praises sing unto my sweet, + She is fair, + Yellow as the ripening wheat + Is her hair." + +"Poor Mimi," said his friend, "so soon forgotten." + +This name cast into Rodolphe's mirthsomeness, suddenly gave another turn +to the conversation. Rodolphe took his friend by the arm, and related to +him at length the causes of his rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, the +terrors that had awaited him when she had left; how he was in despair +because he thought that she had carried off with her all that remained +to him of youth and passion, and how two days later he had recognized +his mistake on feeling the gunpowder in his heart, though swamped with +so many sobs and tears, dry, kindle, and explode at the first look of +love cast at him by the first woman he met. He narrated the sudden and +imperious invasion of forgetfulness, without his even having summoned it +in aid of his grief, and how this grief was dead and buried in the said +forgetfulness. + +"Is it not a miracle?" said he to the poet, who, knowing by heart and +from experience all the painful chapters of shattered loves, replied: + +"No, no, my friend, there is no more of a miracle for you than for the +rest of us. What has happened to you has happened to myself. The women +we love, when they become our mistresses, cease to be for us what they +really are. We do not see them only with a lover's eyes, but with a +poet's. As a painter throws on the shoulders of a lay figure the +imperial purple or the star-spangled robe of a Holy Virgin, so we have +always whole stores of glittering mantles and robes of pure white linen +which we cast over the shoulders of dull, sulky, or spiteful creatures, +and when they have thus assumed the garb in which our ideal loves float +before us in our waking dreams, we let ourselves be taken in by this +disguise, we incarnate our dream in the first corner, and address her +in our language, which she does not understand. However, let this +creature at whose feet we live prostrate, tear away herself the dense +envelope beneath which we have hidden her, and reveal to us her evil +nature and her base instincts; let her place our hands on the spot where +her heart should be, but where nothing beats any longer, and has perhaps +never beaten; let her open her veil, and show us her faded eyes, pale +lips, and haggard features; we replace that veil and exclaim, 'It is not +true! It is not true! I love you, and you, too, love me! This white +bosom holds a heart that has all its youthfulness; I love you, and you +love me! You are beautiful, you are young. At the bottom of all your +vices there is love. I love you, and you love me!' Then in the end, +always quite in the end, when, after having all very well put triple +bandages over our eyes, we see ourselves the dupes of our mistakes, we +drive away the wretch who was our idol of yesterday; we take back from +her the golden veils of poesy, which, on the morrow, we again cast on +the shoulders of some other unknown, who becomes at once an +aureola-surrounded idol. That is what we all are--monstrous egoists--who +love love for love's sake--you understand me? We sip the divine liquor +from the first cup that comes to hand. 'What matter the bottle, so long +as we draw intoxication from it?'" + +"What you say is as true as that two and two make four," said Rodolphe +to the poet. + +"Yes," replied the latter, "it is true, and as sad as three quarters of +the things that are true. Good night." + +Two days later Mademoiselle Mimi learned that Rodolphe had a new +mistress. She only asked one thing--whether he kissed her hands as often +as he used to kiss her own? + +"Quite as often," replied Marcel. "In addition, he is kissing the hairs +of her head one after the other, and they are to remain with one another +until he has finished." + +"Ah!" replied Mimi, passing her hand through her own tresses. "It was +lucky he did not think of doing the same with me, or we should have +remained together all our lives. Do you think it is really true that he +no longer loves me at all?" + +"Humph--and you, do you still love him?" + +"I! I never loved him in my life." + +"Yes, Mimi, yes. You loved him at those moments when a woman's heart +changes place. You loved him; do nothing to deny it; it is your +justification." + +"Bah!" said Mimi, "he loves another now." + +"True," said Marcel, "but no matter. Later on the remembrance of you +will be to him like the flowers that we place fresh and full of perfume +between the leaves of a book, and which long afterwards we find dead, +discolored, and faded, but still always preserving a vague perfume of +their first freshness." + + * * * * * + +One evening, when she was humming in a low tone to herself, Vicomte Paul +said to Mimi, "What are you singing, dear?" + +"The funeral chant of our loves, that my lover Rodolphe has lately +composed." + +And she began to sing:-- + + "I have not a sou now, my dear, and the rule + In such a case surely is soon to forget, + So tearless, for she who would weep is a fool, + You'll blot out all mem'ry of me, eh, my pet? + + Well, still all the same we have spent as you know + Some days that were happy--and each with its night, + They did not last long, but, alas, here below, + The shortest are ever those we deem most bright." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Romeo and Juliet + + +Attired like a fashion plate out of his paper, the "Scarf of Iris," with +new gloves, polished boots, freshly shaven face, curled hair, waxed +moustache, stick in hand, glass in eye, smiling, youthful, altogether +nice looking, in such guise our friend, the poet Rodolphe, might have +been seen one November evening on the boulevard waiting for a cab to +take him home. + +Rodolphe waiting for a cab? What cataclysm had then taken place in his +existence? + +At the very hour that the transformed poet was twirling his moustache, +chewing the end of an enormous regalia, and charming the fair sex, one +of his friends was also passing down the boulevard. It was the +philosopher, Gustave Colline. Rodolphe saw him coming, and at once +recognized him; as indeed, who would not who had once seen him? Colline +as usual was laden with a dozen volumes. Clad in that immortal hazel +overcoat, the durability of which makes one believe that it must have +been built by the Romans, and with his head covered by his famous broad +brimmed hat, a dome of beaver, beneath which buzzed a swarm of +hyperphysical dreams, and which was nicknamed Mambrino's Helmet of +Modern Philosophy, Gustave Colline was walking slowly along, chewing the +cud of the preface of a book that had already been in the press for the +last three months--in his imagination. As he advanced towards the spot +where Rodolphe was standing, Colline thought for a moment that he +recognized him, but the supreme elegance displayed by the poet threw the +philosopher into a state of doubt and uncertainty. + +"Rodolphe with gloves and a walking stick. Chimera! Utopia! Mental +aberration! Rodolphe curled and oiled; he who has not so much as Father +Time. What could I be thinking of? Besides, at this present moment my +unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing +melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, +has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that +young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage +of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and +soon get another Kettle-holder." + +Colline was so delighted with his wretched joke, that he would willingly +have applauded it, had not the stern voice of philosophy woke up within +him, and put an energetic stop to this perversion of wit. + +However, as he halted close to Rodolphe, Colline was forced to yield to +evidence. It was certainly Rodolphe, curled, gloved, and with a cane. It +was impossible, but it was true. + +"Eh! Eh! By Jove!" said Colline. "I am not mistaken. It is you, I am +certain." + +"So am I," replied Rodolphe. + +Colline began to look at his friend, imparting to his countenance the +expression pictorially made use of by M. Lebrun, the king's painter in +ordinary, to express surprise. But all at once he noted two strange +articles with which Rodolphe was laden--firstly, a rope ladder, and +secondly, a cage, in which some kind of a bird was fluttering. At this +sight, Gustave Colline's physiognomy expressed a sentiment which +Monsieur Lebrun, the king's painter in ordinary, forgot to depict in his +picture of "The Passions." + +"Come," said Rodolphe to his friend, "I see very plainly the curiosity +of your mind peeping out through the window of your eyes; and I am going +to satisfy it, only, let us quit the public thoroughfare. It is cold +enough here to freeze your questions and my answers." + +And they both went into a cafe. + +Colline's eyes remained riveted on the rope ladder as well as the cage, +in which the bird, thawed by the atmosphere of the cafe, began to sing +in a language unknown to Colline, who was, however, a polyglottist. + +"Well then," said the philosopher pointing to the rope ladder, "what is +that?" + +"A connecting link between my love and me," replied Rodolphe, in lute +like accents. + +"And that?" asked Colline, pointing to the bird. + +"That," said the poet, whose voice grew soft as the summer breeze, "is a +clock." + +"Tell me without parables--in vile prose, but truly." + +"Very well. Have you read Shakespeare?" + +"Have I read him? 'To be or not to be?' He was a great philosopher. Yes, +I have read him." + +"Do your remember _Romeo and Juliet_?" + +"Do I remember?" said Colline, and he began to recite: + + "Wilt thou begone? It is not yet day, + It was the nightingale, and not the lark." + +"I should rather think I remember. But what then?" + +"What!" said Rodolphe, pointing to the ladder and the bird. "You do not +understand! This is the story: I am in love, my dear fellow, in love +with a girl named Juliet." + +"Well, what then?" said Colline impatiently. + +"This. My new idol being named Juliet, I have hit on a plan. It is to go +through Shakespeare's play with her. In the first place, my name is no +longer Rodolphe, but Romeo Montague, and you will oblige me by not +calling me otherwise. Besides, in order that everyone may know it, I +have had some new visiting cards engraved. But that is not all. I shall +profit by the fact that we are not in Carnival time to wear a velvet +doublet and a sword." + +"To kill Tybalt with?" said Colline. + +"Exactly," continued Rodolphe. "Finally, this ladder that you see is to +enable me to visit my mistress, who, as it happens, has a balcony." + +"But the bird, the bird?" said the obstinate Colline. + +"Why, this bird, which is a pigeon, is to play the part of the +nightingale, and indicate every morning the precise moment when, as I am +about to leave her loved arms, my mistress will throw them about my neck +and repeat to me in her sweet tones the balcony scene, 'It is not yet +near day,' that is to say, 'It is not yet eleven, the streets are muddy, +do not go yet, we are comfortable here.' In order to perfect the +imitation, I will try to get a nurse, and place her under the orders of +my beloved and I hope that the almanac will be kind enough to grant me a +little moonlight now and then, when I scale my Juliet's balcony. What do +you say to my project, philosopher?" + +"It is very fine," said Colline, "but could you also explain to me the +mysteries of this splendid outer covering that rendered you +unrecognizable? You have become rich, then?" + +Rodolphe did not reply, but made a sign to one of the waiters, and +carelessly threw down a louis, saying: + +"Take for what we have had." + +Then he tapped his waistcoat pocket, which gave forth a jingling sound. + +"Have you got a bell in your pocket, for it to jingle as loud as that?" + +"Only a few louis." + +"Louis! In gold?" said Colline, in a voice choked with wonderment. "Let +me see what they are like." + +After which the two friends parted, Colline to go and relate the opulent +ways and new loves of Rodolphe, and the latter to return home. + +This took place during the week that had followed the second rupture +between Rodolphe and Mademoiselle Mimi. The poet, when he had broken off +with his mistress, felt a need of change of air and surroundings, and +accompanied by his friend Marcel, he left the gloomy lodging house, the +landlord of which saw both him and Marcel depart without overmuch +regret. Both, as we have said, sought quarters elsewhere, and hired two +rooms in the same house and on the same floor. The room chosen by +Rodolphe was incomparably more comfortable than any he had inhabited up +till then. There were articles of furniture almost imposing, above all a +sofa covered with red stuff, that was intended to imitate velvet, and +did not. + +There were also on the mantelpiece two china vases, painted with +flowers, between an elaborate clock, with fearful ornamentation. +Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard, and when the landlord came to wind +up the clock, begged him to do nothing of the kind. + +"I am willing to leave the clock on the mantel shelf," said he, "but +only as an object of art. It points to midnight--a good hour; let it +stick to it. The day it marks five minutes past I will move. A clock," +continued Rodolphe, who had never been able to submit to the imperious +tyranny of the dial, "is a domestic foe who implacably reckons up to +your existence hour by hour and minute by minute, and says to you every +moment, 'Here is a fraction of your life gone.' I could not sleep in +peace in a room in which there was one of these instruments of torture, +in the vicinity of which carelessness and reverie are impossible. A +clock, the hands of which stretch to your bed and prick yours whilst you +are still plunged in the soft delights of your first awakening. A clock, +whose voice cries to you, 'Ting, ting, ting; it is the hour for +business. Leave your charming dream, escape from the caresses of your +visions, and sometimes of realities. Put on your hat and boots. It is +cold, it rains, but go about your business. It is time--ting, ting.' It +is quite enough already to have an almanac. Let my clock remain +paralyzed, or---." + +Whilst delivering this monologue he was examining his new dwelling, and +felt himself moved by the secret uneasiness which one almost always +feels when going into a fresh lodging. + +"I have noticed," he reflected, "that the places we inhabit exercise a +mysterious influence upon our thoughts, and consequently upon our +actions. This room is cold and silent as a tomb. If ever mirth reigns +here it will be brought in from without, and even then it will not be +for long, for laughter will die away without echoes under this low +ceiling, cold and white as a snowy sky. Alas! What will my life be like +within these four walls?" + +However, a few days later this room, erst so sad, was full of light, and +rang with joyous sounds, it was the house warming, and numerous bottles +explained the lively humor of the guests. Rodolphe allowed himself to be +won upon by the contagious good humor of his guests. Isolated in a +corner with a young woman who had come there by chance, and whom he had +taken possession of, the poet was sonnetteering with her with tongue and +hands. Towards the close of the festivities he had obtained a rendezvous +for the next day. + +"Well!" said he to himself when he was alone, "the evening hasn't been +such a bad one. My stay here hasn't begun amiss." + +The next day Mademoiselle Juliet called at the appointed hour. The +evening was spent only in explanations. Juliet had learned the recent +rupture of Rodolphe with the blue eyed girl whom he had so dearly loved; +she knew that after having already left her once before Rodolphe had +taken her back, and she was afraid of being the victim of a similar +reawakening of love. + +"You see," said she, with a pretty little pout, "I don't at all care +about playing a ridiculous part. I warn you that I am very forward, and +once _mistress_ here," and she underlined by a look the meaning she gave +to the word, "I remain, and do not give up my place." + +Rodolphe summoned all his eloquence to the rescue to convince her that +her fears were without foundation, and the girl, having on her side a +willingness to be convinced, they ended by coming to an understanding. +Only they were no longer at an understanding when midnight struck, for +Rodolphe wanted Juliet to stay, and she insisted on going. + +"No," she said to him as he persisted in trying to persuade her. "Why be +in such a hurry? We shall always arrive in time at what we want to, +provided you do not halt on the way. I will return tomorrow." + +And she returned thus every evening for a week, to go away in the same +way when midnight struck. + +This delay did not annoy Rodolphe very much. In matters of love, and +even of mere fancy, he was one of that school of travelers who prolong +their journey and render it picturesque. The little sentimental preface +had for its result to lead on Rodolphe at the outset further than he +meant to go. And it was no doubt to lead him to that point at which +fancy, ripened by the resistance opposed to it, begins to resemble love, +that Mademoiselle Juliet had made use of this stratagem. + +At each fresh visit that she paid to Rodolphe, Juliet remarked a more +pronounced tone of sincerity in what he said. He felt when she was a +little behindhand in keeping her appointment an impatience that +delighted her, and he even wrote her letters the language of which was +enough to give her hopes that she would speedily become his legitimate +mistress. + +When Marcel, who was his confidant, once caught sight of one of +Rodolphe's epistles, he said to him: + +"Is it an exercise of style, or do you really think what you have said +here?" + +"Yes, I really think it," replied Rodolphe, "and I am even a bit +astonished at it: but it is so. I was a week back in a very sad state of +mind. The solitude and silence that had so abruptly succeeded the storms +and tempests of my old household alarmed me terribly, but Juliet arrived +almost at the moment. I heard the sounds of twenty year old laughter +ring in my ears. I had before me a rosy face, eyes beaming with smiles, +a mouth overflowing with kisses, and I have quietly allowed myself to +glide down the hill of fancy that might perhaps lead me on to love. I +love to love." + +However, Rodolphe was not long in perceiving that it only depended upon +himself to bring this little romance to a crisis, and it was than that +he had the notion of copying from Shakespeare the scene of the love of +_Romeo and Juliet_. His future mistress had deemed the notion amusing, and +agreed to share in the jest. + +It was the very evening that the rendezvous was appointed for that +Rodolphe met the philosopher Colline, just as he had bought the rope +ladder that was to aid him to scale Juliet's balcony. The birdseller to +whom he had applied not having a nightingale, Rodolphe replaced it by a +pigeon, which he was assured sang every morning at daybreak. + +Returned home, the poet reflected that to ascend a rope ladder was not +an easy matter, and that it would be a good thing to rehearse the +balcony scene, if he would not in addition to the chances of a fall, run +the risk of appearing awkward and ridiculous in the eyes of her who was +awaiting him. Having fastened his ladder to two nails firmly driven into +the ceiling, Rodolphe employed the two hours remaining to him in +practicing gymnastics, and after an infinite number of attempts, +succeeded in managing after a fashion to get up half a score of rungs. + +"Come, that is all right," he said to himself, "I am now sure of my +affair and besides, if I stuck half way, 'love would lend me his +wings.'" + +And laden with his ladder and his pigeon cage, he set out for the abode +of Juliet, who lived near. Her room looked into a little garden, and had +indeed a balcony. But the room was on the ground floor, and the balcony +could be stepped over as easily as possible. + +Hence Rodolphe was completely crushed when he perceived this local +arrangement, which put to naught his poetical project of an escalade. + +"All the same," said he to Juliet, "we can go through the episode of the +balcony. Here is a bird that will arouse us tomorrow with his melodious +notes, and warn us of the exact moment when we are to part from one +another in despair." + +And Rodolphe hung up the cage beside the fireplace. + +The next day at five in the morning the pigeon was exact to time, and +filled the room with a prolonged cooing that would have awakened the two +lovers--if they had gone to sleep. + +"Well," said Juliet, "this is the moment to go into the balcony and bid +one another despairing farewells--what do you think of it?" + +"The pigeon is too fast," said Rodolphe. "It is November, and the sun +does not rise till noon." + +"All the same," said Juliet, "I am going to get up." + +"Why?" + +"I feel quite empty, and I will not hide from you the fact that I could +very well eat a mouthfull." + +"The agreement that prevails in our sympathies is astonishing. I am +awfully hungry too," said Rodolphe, also rising and hurriedly slipping +on his clothes. + +Juliet had already lit a fire, and was looking in her sideboard to see +whether she could find anything. Rodolphe helped her in this search. + +"Hullo," said he, "onions." + +"And some bacon," said Juliet. + +"Some butter." + +"Bread." + +Alas! That was all. + +During the search the pigeon, a careless optimist, was singing on its +perch. + +Romeo looked at Juliet, Juliet looked at Romeo, and both looked at the +pigeon. + +They did not say anything, but the fate of the pigeon-clock was settled. +Even if he had appealed it would have been useless, hunger is such a +cruel counsellor. + +Rodolphe had lit some charcoal, and was turning bacon in the spluttering +butter with a solemn air. + +Juliet was peeling onions in a melancholy attitude. + +The pigeon was still singing, it was the song of the swan. + +To these lamentations was joined the spluttering of the butter in the +stew pan. + +Five minutes later the butter was still spluttering, but the pigeon sang +no longer. + +Romeo and Juliet grilled their clock. + +"He had a nice voice," said Juliet sitting down to table. + +"He is very tender," said Rodolphe, carving his alarum, nicely browned. + +The two lovers looked at one another, and each surprised a tear in the +other's eye. + +Hypocrites, it was the onions that made them weep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Epilogue To The Loves Of Rodolphe And Mademoiselle Mimi + + +Shortly after his final rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, who had left +him, as may be remembered, to ride in the carriage of Vicomte Paul, the +poet Rodolphe had sought to divert his thoughts by taking a new +mistress. + +She was the same blonde for whom we have seen him masquerading as Romeo. +But this union, which was on the one part only a matter of spite, and on +the other one of fancy, could not last long. The girl was after all +only a light of love, warbling to perfection the gamut of trickery, +witty enough to note the wit of others and to make use of it on +occasion, and with only enough heart to feel heartburn when she had +eaten too much. Add to this unbridled self-esteem and a ferocious +coquetry, which would have impelled her to prefer a broken leg for her +lover rather than a flounce the less to her dress, or a faded ribbon to +her bonnet. A commonplace creature of doubtful beauty, endowed by nature +with every evil instinct, and yet seductive from certain points of view +and at certain times. She was not long in perceiving that Rodolphe had +only taken her to help him forget the absent, whom she made him on the +contrary regret, for his old love had never been so noisy and so lively +in his heart. + +One day Juliet, Rodolphe's new mistress, was talking about her lover, +the poet, with a medical student who was courting her. The student +replied,-- + +"My dear child, that fellow only makes use of you as they use nitrate to +cauterize wounds. He wants to cauterize his heart and nerve. You are +very wrong to bother yourself about being faithful to him." + +"Ah, ah!" cried the girl, breaking into a laugh. "Do you really think +that I put myself out about him?" + +And that very evening she gave the student a proof to the contrary. + +Thanks to the indiscretion of one of those officious friends who are +unable to retain unpublished news capable of vexing you, Rodolphe soon +got wind of the matter, and made it a pretext for breaking off with his +temporary mistress. + +He then shut himself up in positive solitude, in which all the +flitter-mice of _ennui_ soon came and nested, and he called work to his +aid but in vain. Every evening, after wasting as much perspiration over +the job as he did in ink, he produced a score of lines in which some old +idea, as worn out as the Wandering Jew, and vilely clad in rags cribbed +from the literary dust heap, danced clumsily on the tight rope of +paradox. On reading through these lines Rodolphe was as bewildered as a +man who sees nettles spring up in a bed in which he thought he had +planted roses. He would then tear up the paper, on which he had just +scattered this chaplet of absurdities, and trample it under foot in a +rage. + +"Come," said he, striking himself on the chest just above the heart, +"the cord is broken, there is nothing but to resign ourselves to it." + +And as for some time past a like failure followed all his attempts at +work, he was seized with one of those fits of depression which shake the +most stubborn pride and cloud the most lucid intellects. Nothing is +indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take +place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is +more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn +supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse. + +The most violent human anguish, the deepest wounds to the quick of the +heart, do not cause suffering approaching that which one feels in these +hours of doubt and impatience, so frequent for those who give +themselves up to the dangerous calling of imagination. + +To these violent crises succeeded painful fits of depression. Rodolphe +would then remain for whole hours as though petrified in a state of +stupefied immobility. His elbows upon the table, his eyes fixed upon the +luminous patch made by the rays of the lamp falling upon the sheet of +paper,--the battlefield on which his mind was vanquished daily, and on +which his pen had become foundered in its attempts to pursue the +unattainable idea--he saw slowly defile before him, like the figures of +dissolving views with which the children are amused, fantastic pictures +which unfolded before him the panorama of his past. It was at first the +laborious days in which each hour marked the accomplishment of some +task, the studious nights spent in _tete-a-tete_ with the muse who came +to adorn with her fairy visions his solitary and patient poverty. And he +remembered then with envy the pride of skill that intoxicated him of +yore when he had completed the task imposed on him by his will. + +"Oh, nothing is equal to you!" he exclaimed. "Voluptuous fatigues of +labor which render the mattresses of idleness so sweet. Not the +satisfaction of self-esteem nor the feverish slumbers stifled beneath +the heavy drapery of mysterious alcoves equals that calm and honest joy, +that legitimate self satisfaction which work bestows on the laborer as +a first salary." + +And with eyes still fixed on these visions which continued to retrace +for him the scenes of bygone days, he once more ascended the six flights +of stairs of all the garrets in which his adventurous existence had been +spent, in which the Muse, his only love in those days, a faithful and +persevering sweetheart had always followed him, living happily with +poverty and never breaking off her song of hope. But, lo, in the midst +of this regular and tranquil life there suddenly appears a woman's face, +and seeing her enter the dwelling where she had been until then sole +queen and mistress, the poet's Muse rose sadly and gave place to the +new-comer in whom she had divined a rival. Rodolphe hesitated a moment +between the Muse to whom his look seemed to say, "Stay," whilst a +gesture addressed to the stranger said, "Come." + +And how could he repulse her, this charming creature who came to him +armed with all the seductions of a beauty at its dawn? Tiny mouth and +rosy lips, speaking in bold and simple language, full of coaxing +promises. How refuse his hand to this little white one, delicately +veined with blue, that was held out to him full of caresses? How say, +"Get you gone," to these eighteen years, the presence of which already +filled the home with a perfume of youth and gaiety? And then with her +sweet voice, tenderly thrilling, she sang the cavatina of temptation so +well. With her bright and sparkling eyes she said so clearly, "I am +love," with her lips, where kisses nestled, "I am pleasure," with her +whole being, in short, "I am happiness," that Rodolphe let himself be +caught by them. And, besides, was not this young girl after all real and +living poetry, had he not owed her his freshest inspirations, had she +not often initiated him into enthusiasms which bore him so far afield in +the ether of reverie that he lost sight of all things of earth? If he +had suffered deeply on account of her, was not this suffering the +expiation of the immense joys she had bestowed upon him? Was it not the +ordinary vengeance of human fate which forbids absolute happiness as an +impiety? If the law of Christianity forgives those who have much loved, +it is because they have also much suffered, and terrestrial love never +became a divine passion save on condition of being purified by tears. As +one grows intoxicated by breathing the odor of faded roses, Rodolphe +again became so by reviving in recollection that past life in which +every day brought about a fresh elegy, a terrible drama, or a grotesque +comedy. He went through all the phases of his strange love from their +honeymoon to the domestic storms that had brought about their last +rupture, he recalled all the tricks of his ex-mistress, repeated all her +witty sayings. He saw her going to and fro about their little household, +humming her favorite song, and facing with the same careless gaiety good +or evil days. + +And in the end he arrived at the conclusion that common sense was always +wrong in love affairs. What, indeed, had he gained by their rupture? At +the time when he was living with Mimi she deceived him, it was true, but +if he was aware of this it was his fault after all that he was so, and +because he gave himself infinite pains to become aware of it, because he +passed his time on the alert for proofs, and himself sharpened the +daggers which he plunged into his heart. Besides, was not Mimi clever +enough to prove to him at need that he was mistaken? And then for whose +sake was she false to him? It was generally a shawl or a bonnet--for the +sake of things and not men. That calm, that tranquillity which he had +hoped for on separating from his mistress, had he found them again +after her departure? Alas, no! There was only herself the less in the +house. Of old his grief could find vent, he could break into abuse, or +representations--he could show all he suffered and excite the pity of +her who caused his sufferings. But now his grief was solitary, his +jealousy had become madness, for formerly he could at any rate, when he +suspected anything, hinder Mimi from going out, keep her beside him in +his possession, and now he might meet her in the street on the arm of +her new lover, and must turn aside to let her pass, happy no doubt, and +bent upon pleasure. + +This wretched life lasted three or four months. By degrees he recovered +his calmness. Marcel, who had undertaken a long journey to drive Musette +out of his mind, returned to Paris, and again came to live with +Rodolphe. They consoled one another. + +One Sunday, crossing the Luxembourg Gardens, Rodolphe met Mimi +resplendently dressed. She was going to a public ball. She nodded to +him, to which he responded by a bow. This meeting gave him a great +shock, but his emotion was less painful than usual. He walked about for +a little while in the gardens, and then returned home. When Marcel came +in that evening he found him at work. + +"What!" said Marcel, leaning over his shoulder. "You are +working--verses?" + +"Yes," replied Rodolphe cheerfully, "I believe that the machine will +still work. During the last four hours I have once more found the go of +bygone time, I have seen Mimi." + +"Ah!" said Marcel uneasily. "On what terms are you?" + +"Do not be afraid," said Rodolphe, "we only bowed to one another. It +went no further than that." + +"Really and truly?" asked Marcel. + +"Really and truly. It is all over between us, I feel it; but if I can +get to work again I forgive her." + +"If it is so completely finished," said Marcel, who had read through +Rodolphe's verses, "why do you write verses about her?" + +"Alas!" replied the poet, "I take my poetry where I can find it." + +For a week he worked at this little poem. When he had finished it he +read it to Marcel, who expressed himself satisfied with it, and who +encouraged Rodolphe to utilize in other ways the poetical vein that had +come back to him. + +"For," remarked he, "it was not worth while leaving Mimi if you are +always to live under her shadow. After all, though," he continued, +smiling, "instead of lecturing others, I should do well to lecture +myself, for my heart is still full of Musette. Well, after all, perhaps +we shall not always be young fellows in love with such imps." + +"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "there is no need to say in one's youth, 'Be off +with you.'" + +"That is true," observed Marcel, "but there are days on which I feel I +should like to be a respectable old fellow, a member of the Institute, +decorated with several orders, and, having done with the Musettes of +this circle of society; the devil fly away with me if I would return to +it. And you," he continued, laughing, "would you like to be sixty?" + +"Today," replied Rodolphe, "I would rather have sixty francs." + +A few days later, Mademoiselle Mimi having gone into a cafe with young +Vicomte Paul, opened a magazine, in which the verses Rodolphe had +written on her were printed. + +"Good," said she, laughing at first, "here is my friend Rodolphe saying +nasty things of me in the papers." + +But when she finished the verses she remained intent and thoughtful. +Vicomte Paul guessing that she was thinking of Rodolphe, sought to +divert her attention. + +"I will buy you a pair of earrings," said he. + +"Ah!" said Mimi, "you have money, you have." + +"And a Leghorn straw hat," continued the viscount. + +"No," said Mimi. "If you want to please me, buy me this." + +And she showed him the magazine in which she had just been reading +Rodolphe's poetry. + +"Oh! As to that, no," said the viscount, vexed. + +"Very well," said Mimi coldly. "I will buy it myself with money I will +earn. In point of fact, I would rather that it was not with yours." + +And for two days Mimi went back to her old flower maker's workrooms, +where she earned enough to buy this number. She learned Rodolphe's +poetry by heart, and, to annoy Vicomte Paul, repeated it all day long to +her friends. The verses were as follows: + + WHEN I was seeking where to pledge my truth + Chance brought me face to face with you one day; + once I offered you my heart, my youth, + "Do with them what you will," I dared to say. + + But "what you would," was cruel, dear; alas! + The youth I trusted with you is no more: + The heart is shattered like a fallen glass, + And the wind sings a funeral mass + On the deserted chamber floor, + Where he who loved you ne'er may pass. + + Between us now, my dear, 'tis all UP, + I am a spectre and a phantom you, + Our love is dead and buried; if you agree, + We'll sing around its tombstone dirges due. + + But let us take an air in a low key, + Lest we should strain our voices, more or less; + Some solemn minor, free from flourishes; + I'll take the bass, sing you the melody. + + Mi, re, mi, do, re, la,--ah! not that song! + Hearing the song that once you used to sing + My heart would palpitate--though dead so long-- + And, at the _De Profundis_, upward spring. + + Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do,--this other brings + Back to the mind a valse of long ago, + The fife's shrill laughter mocked the sounding strings + That wept their notes of crystal to the bow. + + Sol, do, do, si, si, la,--ah! stay your hand! + This is the air we sang last year in chorus, + With Germans shouting for their fatherland + In Meudon woods, while summer's moon stood o'er us. + + Well, well, we will not sing nor speculate, + But--since we know they never more may be-- + On our lost loves, without a grudge or hate, + Drop, while we smile, a final memory. + + What times we had up there; do you remember? + When on your window panes the rain would stream, + And, seated by the fire, in dark December, + I felt your eyes inspire me many a dream. + + The live coal crackled, kindling with the heat, + The kettle sang, melodious and sedate, + A music for the visionary feet + Of salamanders leaping in the grate: + + Languid and lazy, with an unread book, + You scarcely tried to keep your lids apart, + While to my youthful love new growth I took, + Kissing your hands and yielding you my heart. + + In merely entering one night believe, + One felt a scent of love and gaiety, + Which filled our little room from morn to eve, + For fortune loved our hospitality. + + And winter went: then, through the open sash, + Spring flew, to say the year's long night was done; + We heard the call, and ran with impulse rash + In the green country side to meet the sun. + + It was the Friday of the Holy Week, + The weather, for a wonder, mild and fair; + From hill to valley, and from plain to peak, + We wandered long, delighting in the air. + + At length, exhausted by the pilgrimage, + We found a sort of natural divan, + Whence we could view the landscape, or engage + Our eyes in rapture on the heaven's wide span. + + Hand clasped in hand, shoulder on shoulder laid, + With sense of something ventured, something missed, + Our two lips parted, each; no word was said, + And silently we kissed. + + Around us blue-bell and shy violet + Their simple incense seemed to wave on high; + Surely we saw, with glances heavenward set, + God smiling from his azure balcony. + + "Love on!" he seemed to say, "I make more sweet + The road of life you are to wander by, + Spreading the velvet moss beneath your feet; + Kiss, if you will; I shall not play the spy." + + Love on, love on! In murmurs of the breeze, + In limpid stream, and in the woodland screen + That burgeons fresh in the renovated green, + In stars, in flowers, and music of the trees, + + Love on, love on! But if my golden sun, + My spring, that comes once more to gladden earth, + If these should move your breasts to grateful mirth, + I ask no thanksgiving, your kiss is one. + + A month passed by; and, when the roses bloomed + In beds that we had planted in the spring, + When least of all I thought my love was doomed, + You cast it from you like a noisome thing. + + Not that your scorn was all reserved for me, + It flies about the world by fits and starts; + Your changeful fancy fits impartially + From knave of diamonds to knave of hearts. + + And now you are happy, with a brilliant suite + Of bowing slaves and insincere gallants; + Go where you will, you see them at your feet; + A bed of perfumed posies round you flaunts: + + The Ball's your garden: an admiring globe + Of lovers rolls about the lit saloon, + And, at the rustling of your silken robe, + The pack, in chorus, bay you like the moon. + + Shod in the softness of a supple boot + Which Cinderella would have found too small, + One scarcely sees your little pointed foot + Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball. + + Shod in the softness of a supple boot + Which Cinderella would have found too small, + One scarcely sees your little pointed foot + Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball. + + In the soft baths that indolence has brought + Your once brown hands have got the ivory white, + The pallor of the lily which has caught + The silver moonbeam of a summer night: + + On your white arm half clouded, and half clear, + Pearls shine in bracelets made of chiselled gold; + On your trim waist a shawl of true Cashmere + Aesthetically falls in waving fold: + + Honiton point and costly Mechlin lace, + With gothic guipure of a creamy white-- + The matchless cobwebs of long vanished days-- + Combine to make your presence rich and bright. + + But I preferred a simpler guise than that, + Your frock of muslin or plain calico, + Simple adornments, with a veilless hat, + Boots, black or grey, a collar white and low. + + The splendor your admirers now adore + Will never bring me back my ancient heats; + And you are dead and buried, all the more + For the silk shroud where heart no longer beats. + + So when I worked at this funereal dirge, + Where grief for a lost lifetime stands confessed, + I wore a clerk's costume of sable serge, + Though not gold eye glasses or pleated vest. + + My penholder was wrapped in mournful crape, + The paper with black lines was bordered round + On which I labored to provide escape + For love's last memory hidden in the ground. + + And now, when all the heart that I can save + Is used to furnish forth its epitaph. + Gay as a sexton digging his own grave + I burst into a wild and frantic laugh; + + A laugh engendered by a mocking vein; + The pen I grasped was trembling as I wrote; + And even while I laughed, a scalding rain + Of tears turned all the writing to a blot. + +It was the 24th of December, and that evening the Latin Quarter bore a +special aspect. Since four o'clock in the afternoon the pawnbroking +establishments and the shops of the second hand clothes dealers and +booksellers had been encumbered by a noisy crowd, who, later in the +evening, took the ham and beef shops, cook shops, and grocers by +assault. The shopmen, even if they had had a hundred arms, like +Briareus, would not have sufficed to serve the customers who struggled +with one another for provisions. At the baker's they formed a string as +in times of dearth. The wine shop keepers got rid of the produce of +three vintages, and a clever statistician would have found it difficult +to reckon up the number of knuckles of ham and of sausages which were +sold at the famous shop of Borel, in the Rue Dauphine. In this one +evening Daddy Cretaine, nicknamed Petit-Pain, exhausted eighteen +editions of his cakes. All night long sounds of rejoicing broke out from +the lodging houses, the windows of which were brilliantly lit up, and an +atmosphere of revelry filled the district. + +The old festival of Christmas Eve was being celebrated. + +That evening, towards ten o'clock, Marcel and Rodolphe were proceeding +homeward somewhat sadly. Passing up the Rue Dauphine they noticed a +great crowd in the shop of a provision dealer, and halted a moment +before the window. Tantalized by the sight of the toothsome gastronomic +products, the two Bohemians resembled, during this contemplation, that +person in a Spanish romance who caused hams to shrink only by looking at +them. + +"That is called a truffled turkey," said Marcel, pointing to a splendid +bird, showing through its rosy and transparent skin the Perigordian +tubercles with which it was stuffed. "I have seen impious folk eat it +without first going down on their knees before it," added the painter, +casting upon the turkey looks capable of roasting it. + +"And what do you think of that modest leg of salt marsh mutton?" asked +Rodolphe. "What fine coloring! One might think it was just unhooked from +that butcher's shop in one of Jordaen's pictures. Such a leg of mutton +is the favorite dish of the gods, and of my godmother Madame +Chandelier." + +"Look at those fish!" resumed Marcel, pointing to some trout. "They are +the most expert swimmers of the aquatic race. Those little creatures, +without any appearance of pretension, could, however, make a fortune by +the exhibition of their skill; fancy, they can swim up a perpendicular +waterfall as easily as we should accept an invitation to supper. I have +almost had a chance of tasting them." + +"And down there--those large golden fruit, the foliage of which +resembles a trophy of savage sabre blades! They are called pineapples, +and are the pippins of the tropics." + +"That is a matter of indifference to me," said Marcel. "So far as fruits +are concerned, I prefer that piece of beef, that ham, or that simple +gammon of bacon, cuirassed with jelly as transparent as amber." + +"You are right," replied Rodolphe. "Ham is the friend of man, when he +has one. However, I would not repulse that pheasant." + +"I should think not; it is the dish of crowned heads." + +And as, continuing on their way, they met joyful processions proceeding +homewards, to do honor to Momus, Bacchus, Comus, and all the other +divinities with names ending in "us," they asked themselves who was the +Gamacho whose wedding was being celebrated with such a profusion of +victuals. + +Marcel was the first who recollected the date and its festival. + +"It is Christmas Eve," said he. + +"Do you remember last year's?" inquired Rodolphe. + +"Yes," replied Marcel. "At Momus's. It was Barbemuche who stood treat. I +should never have thought that a delicate girl like Phemie could have +held so much sausage." + +"What a pity that Momus has cut off our credit," said Rodolphe. + +"Alas," said Marcel, "calendars succeed but do not resemble one +another." + +"Would not you like to keep Christmas Eve?" asked Rodolphe. + +"With whom and with what?" inquired the painter. + +"With me." + +"And the coin?" + +"Wait a moment," said Rodolphe, "I will go into the cafe, where I know +some people who play high. I will borrow a few sesterces from some +favorite of fortune, and I will get something to wash down a sardine or +a pig's trotter." + +"Go," said Marcel. "I am as hungry as a dog. I will wait for you here," +Rodolphe went into the cafe where he knew several people. A gentleman +who had just won three hundred francs at cards made a regular treat of +lending the poet a forty sous piece, which he handed over with that ill +humor caused by the fever of play. At another time and elsewhere than +at a card-table, he would very likely have been good for forty francs. + +"Well?" inquired Marcel, on seeing Rodolphe return. + +"Here are the takings," said the poet, showing the money. + +"A bite and a sup," said Marcel. + +With this small sum they were however able to obtain bread, wine, cold +meat, tobacco, fire and light. + +They returned home to the lodging-house in which each had a separate +room. Marcel's, which also served him as a studio, being the larger, was +chosen as the banquetting hall, and the two friends set about the +preparations for their feast there. + +But to the little table at which they were seated, beside a fireplace in +which the damp logs burned away without flame or heat, came a melancholy +guest, the phantom of the vanished past. + +They remained for an hour at least, silent, and thoughtful, but no doubt +preoccupied by the same idea and striving to hide it. It was Marcel who +first broke silence. + +"Come," said he to Rodolphe, "this is not what we promised ourselves." + +"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe. + +"Oh!" replied Marcel. "Do not try to pretend with me now. You are +thinking of that which should be forgotten and I too, by Jove, I do not +deny it." + +"Well?" + +"Well, it must be for the last time. To the devil with recollections +that make wine taste sour and render us miserable when everybody else +are amusing themselves," exclaimed Marcel, alluding to the joyful shouts +coming from the rooms adjoining theirs. "Come, let us think of something +else, and let this be the last time." + +"That is what we always say and yet--," said Rodolphe, falling anew into +the reverie. + +"And yet we are continually going back to it," resumed Marcel. "That is +because instead of frankly seeking to forget, we make the most trivial +things a pretext to recall remembrances, which is due above all to the +fact that we persist in living amidst the same surroundings in which the +beings who have so long been our torment lived. We are less the slaves +of passion than of habit. It is this captivity that must be escaped +from, or we shall wear ourselves out in a ridiculous and shameful +slavery. Well, the past is past, we must break the ties that still bind +us to it. The hour has come to go forward without looking backward; we +have had our share of youth, carelessness, and paradox. All these are +very fine--a very pretty novel could be written on them; but this comedy +of amourous follies, this loss of time, of days wasted with the +prodigality of people who believe they have an eternity to spend--all +this must have an end. It is no longer possible for us to continue to +live much longer on the outskirts of society--on the outskirts of life +almost--under the penalty of justifying the contempt felt for us, and of +despising ourselves. For, after all, is it a life we lead? And are not +the independence, the freedom of mannerism of which we boast so loudly, +very mediocre advantages? True liberty consists of being able to +dispense with the aid of others, and to exist by oneself, and have we +got to that? No, the first scoundrel, whose name we would not bear for +five minutes, avenges himself for our jests, and becomes our lord and +master the day on which we borrow from him five francs, which he lends +us after having made us dispense the worth of a hundred and fifty in +ruses or in humiliations. For my part, I have had enough of it. Poetry +does not alone exist in disorderly living, touch-and-go happiness, loves +that last as long as a bedroom candle, more or less eccentric revolts +against those prejudices which will eternally rule the world, for it is +easier to upset a dynasty than a custom, however ridiculous it may be. +It is not enough to wear a summer coat in December to have talent; one +can be a real poet or artist whilst going about well shod and eating +three meals a day. Whatever one may say, and whatever one may do, if one +wants to attain anything one must always take the commonplace way. This +speech may astonish you, friend Rodolphe; you may say that I am breaking +my idols, you will call me corrupted; and yet what I tell you is the +expression of my sincere wishes. Despite myself, a slow and salutary +metamorphosis has taken place within me; reason has entered my +mind--burglariously, if you like, and perhaps against my will, but it +has got in at last--and has proved to me that I was on a wrong track, +and that it would be at once ridiculous and dangerous to persevere in +it. Indeed, what will happen if we continue this monotonous and idle +vagabondage? We shall get to thirty, unknown, isolated, disgusted with +all things and with ourselves, full of envy towards all those whom we +see reach their goal, whatever it may be, and obliged, in order to live, +to have recourse to shameful parasitism. Do not imagine that this is a +fancy picture I have conjured up especially to frighten you. The future +does not systematically appear to be all black, but neither does it all +rose colored; I see it clearly as it is. Up till now the life we have +led has been forced upon us--we had the excuse of necessity. Now we are +no longer to be excused, and if we do not re-enter the world, it will be +voluntarily, for the obstacles against which we have had to struggle no +longer exist." + +"I say," said Rodolphe, "what are you driving at? Why and wherefore this +lecture?" + +"You thoroughly understand me," replied Marcel, in the same serious +tones. "Just now I saw you, like myself, assailed by recollections that +made you regret the past. You were thinking of Mimi and I was thinking +of Musette. Like me, you would have liked to have had your mistress +beside you. Well, I tell you that we ought neither of us to think of +these creatures; that we were not created and sent into the world solely +to sacrifice our existence to these commonplace Manon Lescaut's, and +that the Chevalier Desgrieux, who is so fine, so true, and so poetical, +is only saved from being ridiculous by his youth and the illusions he +cherishes. At twenty he can follow his mistress to America without +ceasing to be interesting, but at twenty-five he would have shown Manon +the door, and would have been right. It is all very well to talk; we are +old, my dear fellow; we have lived too fast, our hearts are cracked, and +no longer ring truly; one cannot be in love with a Musette or a Mimi +for three years with impunity. For me it is all over, and I wish to be +thoroughly divorced from her remembrance. I am now going to commit to +the flames some trifles that she has left me during her various stays, +and which oblige me to think of her when I come across them." + +And Marcel, who had risen, went and took from a drawer a little +cardboard box in which were the souvenirs of Musette--a faded bouquet, a +sash, a bit of ribbon, and some letters. + +"Come," said he to the poet, "follow my example, Rodolphe." + +"Very well, then," said the latter, making an effort, "you are right. I +too will make an end of it with that girl with the white hands." + +And, rising suddenly, he went and fetched a small packet containing +souvenirs of Mimi of much the same kind as those of which Marcel was +silently making an inventory. + +"This comes in handy," murmured the painter. "This trumpery will help us +to rekindle the fire which is going out." + +"Indeed," said Rodolphe, "it is cold enough here to hatch polar bears." + +"Come," said Marcel, "let us burn in a duet. There goes Musette's prose; +it blazes like punch. She was very fond of punch. Come Rodolphe, +attention!" + +And for some minutes they alternately emptied into the fire, which +blazed clear and noisily, the reliquaries of their past love. + +"Poor Musette!" murmured Marcel to himself, looking at the last object +remaining in his hands. + +It was a little faded bouquet of wildflowers. + +"Poor Musette, she was very pretty though, and she loved me dearly, is +it not so, little bouquet? Her heart told you so the day she wore you at +her waist. Poor little bouquet, you seem to be pleading for mercy; well, +yes; but on one condition; it is that you will never speak to me of her +any more, never, never!" + +And profiting by a moment when he thought himself unnoticed by Rodolphe, +he slipped the bouquet into his breast pocket. + +"So much the worse, it is stronger than I am. I am cheating," thought +the painter. + +And as he cast a furtive glance towards Rodolphe, he saw the poet, who +had come to the end of his auto-da-fe, putting quietly into his own +pocket, after having tenderly kissed it, a little night cap that had +belonged to Mimi. + +"Come," muttered Marcel, "he is as great a coward as I am." + +At the very moment that Rodolphe was about to return to his room to go +to bed, there were two little taps at Marcel's door. + +"Who the deuce can it be at this time of night?" said the painter, going +to open it. + +A cry of astonishment burst from him when he had done so. + +It was Mimi. + +As the room was very dark Rodolphe did not at first recognize his +mistress, and only distinguishing a woman, he thought that it was some +passing conquest of his friend's, and out of discretion prepared to +withdraw. + +"I am disturbing you," said Mimi, who had remained on the threshold. + +At her voice Rodolphe dropped on his chair as though thunderstruck. + +"Good evening," said Mimi, coming up to him and shaking him by the hand +which he allowed her to take mechanically. + +"What the deuce brings you here and at this time of night?" asked +Marcel. + +"I was very cold," said Mimi shivering. "I saw a light in your room as +I was passing along the street, and although it was very late I came +up." + +She was still shivering, her voice had a cristalline sonority that +pierced Rodolphe's heart like a funeral knell, and filled it with a +mournful alarm. He looked at her more attentively. It was no longer +Mimi, but her ghost. + +Marcel made her sit down beside the fire. + +Mimi smiled at the sight of the flame dancing merrily on the hearth. + +"It is very nice," said she, holding out her poor hands blue with cold. +"By the way, Monsieur Marcel, you do not know why I have called on you?" + +"No, indeed." + +"Well," said Mimi, "I simply came to ask you whether you could get them +to let me a room here. I have just been turned out of my lodgings +because I owe a month's rent and I do not know where to go to." + +"The deuce!" said Marcel, shaking his head, "we are not in very good +odor with our landlord and our recommendation would be a most +unfortunate one, my poor girl." + +"What is to be done then?" said Mimi. "The fact is I have nowhere to +go." + +"Ah!" said Marcel. "You are no longer a viscountess, then?" + +"Good heavens, no! Not at all." + +"But since when?" + +"Two months ago, already." + +"Have you been playing tricks on the viscount, then?" + +"No," said she, glancing at Rodolphe, who had taken his place in the +darkest corner of the room, "the viscount kicked up a row with me on +account of some verses that were written about me. We quarrelled, and I +sent him about his business. He is a nice skin flint, I can tell you." + +"But," said Marcel, "he had rigged you out very finely, judging by what +I saw the day I met you." + +"Well," said Mimi, "would you believe it, that he took everything away +from me when I left him, and I have since heard that he raffled all my +clothes at a wretched table d'hote where he used to take me to dine. He +is wealthy enough, though, and yet with all his fortune he is as miserly +as a clay fireball and as stupid as an owl. He would not allow me to +drink wine without water, and made me fast on Fridays. Would you believe +it, he wanted me to wear black stockings, because they did not want +washing as often as white ones. You have no idea of it, he worried me +nicely I can tell you. I can well say that I did my share of purgatory +with him." + +"And does he know your present situation?" asked Marcel. + +"I have not seen him since and I do not want to," replied Mimi. "It +makes me sick when I think of him. I would rather die of hunger than ask +him for a sou." + +"But," said Marcel, "since you left him you have not been living alone." + +"Yes, I assure you, Monsieur Marcel," exclaimed Mimi quickly. "I have +been working to earn my living, only as artificial flower making was not +a very flourishing business I took up another. I sit to painters. If you +have any jobs to give me," she added gaily. + +And having noticed a movement on the part of Rodolphe, whom she did not +take her eyes off whilst talking to his friend, Mimi went on: + +"Ah, but I only sit for head and hands. I have plenty to do, and I am +owed money by two or three, I shall have some in a couple of days, it is +only for that interval that I want to find a lodging. When I get the +money I shall go back to my own. Ah!" said she, looking at the table, +which was still laden with the preparation for the modest feast which +the two friends had scarcely touched, "you were going to have supper?" + +"No," said Marcel, "we are not hungry." + +"You are very lucky," said Mimi simply. + +At this remark Rodolphe felt a horrible pang in his heart, he made a +sign to Marcel, which the latter understood. + +"By the way," said the artist, "since you are here Mimi, you must take +pot luck with us. We were going to keep Christmas Eve, and then--why--we +began to think of other things." + +"Then I have come at the right moment," said Mimi, casting an almost +famished glance at the food on the table. "I have had no dinner," she +whispered to the artist, so as not to be heard by Rodolphe, who was +gnawing his handkerchief to keep him from bursting into sobs. + +"Draw up, Rodolphe," said Marcel to his friend, "we will all three have +supper together." + +"No," said the poet remaining in his corner. + +"Are you angry, Rodolphe, that I have come here?" asked Mimi gently. +"Where could I go to?" + +"No, Mimi," replied Rodolphe, "only I am grieved to see you like this." + +"It is my own fault, Rodolphe, I do not complain, what is done is done, +so think no more about it than I do. Cannot you still be my friend, +because you have been something else? You can, can you not? Well then, +do not frown on me, and come and sit down at the table with us." + +She rose to take him by the hand, but was so weak, that she could not +take a step, and sank back into her chair. + +"The heat has dazed me," she said, "I cannot stand." + +"Come," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "come and join us." + +The poet drew up to the table, and began to eat with them. Mimi was very +lively. + +"My dear girl, it is impossible for us to get you a room in the house." + +"I must go away then," said she, trying to rise. + +"No, no," said Marcel. "I have another way of arranging things, you can +stay in my room, and I will go and sleep with Rodolphe." + +"It will put you out very much, I am afraid," said Mimi, "but it will +not be for long, only a couple of days." + +"It will not put us out at all in that case," replied Marcel, "so it is +understood, you are at home here, and we are going to Rodolphe's room. +Good night, Mimi, sleep well." + +"Thanks," said she, holding out her hand to Marcel and Rodolphe, who +moved away together. + +"Do you want to lock yourself in?" asked Marcel as he got to the door. + +"Why?" said Mimi, looking at Rodolphe, "I am not afraid." + +When the two friends were alone in Rodolphe's room, which was on the +same floor, Marcel abruptly said to his friend, "Well, what are you +going to do now?" + +"I do not know," stammered Rodolphe. + +"Come, do not shilly-shally, go and join Mimi! If you do, I prophecy +that tomorrow you will be living together again." + +"If it were Musette who had returned, what would you do?" inquired +Rodolphe of his friend. + +"If it were Musette that was in the next room," replied Marcel, "well, +frankly, I believe that I should not have been in this one for a quarter +of an hour past." + +"Well," said Rodolphe, "I will be more courageous than you, I shall +stay here." + +"We shall see that," said Marcel, who had already got into bed. "Are you +coming to bed?" + +"Certainly," replied Rodolphe. + +But in the middle of the night, Marcel waking up, perceived that +Rodolphe had left him. + +In the morning, he went and tapped discreetly at the door of the room in +which Mimi was. + +"Come in," said she, and on seeing him, she made a sign to him to speak +low in order not to wake Rodolphe who was asleep. He was seated in an +arm chair, which he had drawn up to the side of the bed, his head +resting on a pillow beside that of Mimi. + +"It is like that that you passed the night?" said Marcel in great +astonishment. + +"Yes," replied the girl. + +Rodolphe woke up all at once, and after kissing Mimi, held out his hand +to Marcel, who seemed greatly puzzled. + +"I am going to find some money for breakfast," said he to the painter. +"You will keep Mimi company." + +"Well," asked Marcel of the girl when they were alone together, "what +took place last night?" + +"Very sad things," said Mimi. "Rodolphe still loves me." + +"I know that very well." + +"Yes, you wanted to separate him from me. I am not angry about it, +Marcel, you were quite right, I have done no good to the poor fellow." + +"And you," asked Marcel, "do you still love him?" + +"Do I love him?" said she, clasping her hands. "It is that that tortures +me. I am greatly changed, my friend, and it needed but little time for +that." + +"Well, now he loves you, you love him and you cannot do without one +another, come together again and try and remain." + +"It is impossible," said Mimi. + +"Why?" inquired Marcel. "Certainly it would be more sensible for you to +separate, but as for your not meeting again, you would have to be a +thousand leagues from one another." + +"In a little while I shall be further off than that." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Do not speak of it to Rodolphe, it would cause him too much pain, but I +am going away forever." + +"But whither?" + +"Look here, Marcel," said Mimi sobbing, "look." + +And lifting up the sheet of the bed a little she showed the artist her +shoulders, neck and arms. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Marcel mournfully, "poor girl." + +"Is it not true, my friend, that I do not deceive myself and that I am +soon going to die." + +"But how did you get into such a state in so short a time?" + +"Ah!" replied Mimi, "with the life I have been leading for the past two +months it is not astonishing; nights spent in tears, days passed in +posing in studios without any fire, poor living, grief, and then you do +not know all, I tried to poison myself with Eau de Javelle. I was saved +but not for long as you see. Besides I have never been very strong, in +short it is my fault, if I had remained quietly with Rodolphe I should +not be like this. Poor fellow, here I am again upon his hands, but it +will not be for long, the last dress he will give me will be all white, +Marcel, and I shall be buried in it. Ah! If you knew how I suffer +because I am going to die. Rodolphe knows that I am ill, he remained for +over an hour without speaking last night when he saw my arms and +shoulders so thin. He no longer recognized his Mimi. Alas! My very +looking glass does not know me. Ah! All the same I was pretty and he did +love me. Oh, God!" she exclaimed, burying her face in Marcel's hands. "I +am going to leave you and Rodolphe too, oh God!" and sobs choked her +voice. + +"Come, Mimi," said Marcel, "never despair, you will get well, you only +want care and rest." + +"Ah, no!" said Mimi. "It is all over, I feel it. I have no longer any +strength, and when I came here last night it took me over an hour to get +up the stairs. If I found a woman here I should have gone down by way of +the window. However, he was free since we were no longer together, but +you see, Marcel, I was sure he loved me still. It was on account of +that," she said, bursting into tears, "it is on account of that that I +do not want to die at once, but it is all over with me. He must be very +good, poor fellow, to take me back after all the pain I have given him. +Ah! God is not just, since he does not leave me only the time to make +Rodolphe forget the grief I caused him. He does not know the state in +which I am. I would not have him lie beside me, for I feel as if the +earthworms were already devouring my body. We passed the night in +weeping and talking of old times. Ah! How sad it is, my friend, to see +behind one the happiness one has formerly passed by without noticing it. +I feel as if I had fire in my chest, and when I move my limbs it seems +as if they were going to snap. Hand me my dress, I want to cut the cards +to see whether Rodolphe will bring in any money. I should like to have a +good breakfast with you, like we used to; that would not hurt me. God +cannot make me worse than I am. See," she added, showing Marcel the pack +of cards she had cut, "Spades--it is the color of death. Clubs," she +added more gaily, "yes we shall have some money." + +Marcel did not know what to say in presence of the lucid delirium of +this poor creature, who already felt, as she said, the worms of the +grave. + +In an hour's time Rodolphe was back. He was accompanied by Schaunard and +Gustave Colline. The musician wore a summer jacket. He had sold his +winter suit to lend money to Rodolphe on learning that Mimi was ill. +Colline on his side had gone and sold some books. If he could have got +anyone to buy one of his arms or legs he would have agreed to the +bargain rather than part with his cherished volumes. But Schaunard had +pointed out to him that nothing could be done with his arms or his +legs. + +Mimi strove to recover her gaiety to greet her old friends. + +"I am no longer naughty," said she to them, "and Rodolphe has forgiven +me. If he will keep me with him I will wear wooden shoes and a mob-cap, +it is all the same to me. Silk is certainly not good for my health," she +added with a frightful smile. + +At Marcel's suggestion, Rodolphe had sent for one of his friends who had +just passed as a doctor. It was the same who had formerly attended +Francine. When he came they left him alone with Mimi. + +Rodolphe, informed by Marcel, was already aware of the danger run by his +mistress. When the doctor had spoken to Mimi, he said to Rodolphe: "You +cannot keep her here. Save for a miracle she is doomed. You must send +her to the hospital. I will give you a letter for La Pitie. I know one +of the house surgeons there; she will be well looked after. If she +lasts till the spring we may perhaps pull her through, but if she stays +here she will be dead in a week." + +"I shall never dare propose it to her," said Rodolphe. + +"I spoke to her about it," replied the doctor, "and she agreed. Tomorrow +I will send you the order of admission to La Pitie." + +"My dear," said Mimi to Rodolphe, "the doctor is right; you cannot nurse +me here. At the hospital they may perhaps cure me, you must send me +there. Ah! You see I do so long to live now, that I would be willing to +end my days with one hand in a raging fire and the other in yours. +Besides, you will come and see me. You must not grieve, I shall be well +taken care of: the doctor told me so. You get chicken at the hospital +and they have fires there. Whilst I am taking care of myself there, you +will work to earn money, and when I am cured I will come back and live +with you. I have plenty of hope now. I shall come back as pretty as I +used to be. I was very ill in the days before I knew you, and I was +cured. Yet I was not happy in those days, I might just as well have +died. Now that I have found you again and that we can be happy, they +will cure me again, for I shall fight hard against my illness. I will +drink all the nasty things they give me, and if death seizes on me it +will be by force. Give me the looking glass: it seems to me that I have +little color in my cheeks. Yes," said she, looking at herself in the +glass, "my color is coming back, and my hands, see, they are still +pretty; kiss me once more, it will not be the last time, my poor +darling," she added, clasping Rodolphe round the neck, and burying his +face in her loosened tresses. + +Before leaving for the hospital, she wanted her friends the Bohemians to +stay and pass the evening with her. + +"Make me laugh," said she, "cheerfulness is health to me. It is that wet +blanket of a viscount made me ill. Fancy, he wanted to make me learn +orthography; what the deuce should I have done with it? And his friends, +what a set! A regular poultry yard, of which the viscount was the +peacock. He marked his linen himself. If he ever marries I am sure that +it will be he who will suckle the children." + +Nothing could be more heart breaking than the almost posthumous gaiety +of poor Mimi. All the Bohemians made painful efforts to hide their tears +and continue the conversation in the jesting tone started by the +unfortunate girl, for whom fate was so swiftly spinning the linen of her +last garment. + +The next morning Rodolphe received the order of admission to the +hospital. Mimi could not walk, she had to be carried down to the cab. +During the journey she suffered horribly from the jolts of the vehicle. +Admist all her sufferings the last thing that dies in woman, coquetry, +still survived; two or three times she had the cab stopped before the +drapers' shops to look at the display in the windows. + +On entering the ward indicated in the letter of admission Mimi felt a +terrible pang at her heart, something within her told her that it was +between these bare and leprous walls that her life was to end. She +exerted the whole of the will left her to hide the mournful impression +that had chilled her. + +When she was put to bed she gave Rodolphe a final kiss and bid him +goodbye, bidding him come and see her the next Sunday which was a +visitors' day. + +"It does not smell very nice here," said she to him, "bring me some +flowers, some violets, there are still some about." + +"Yes," said Rodolphe, "goodbye till Sunday." + +And he drew together the curtains of her bed. On hearing the departing +steps of her lover, Mimi was suddenly seized with an almost delirious +attack of fever. She suddenly opened the curtains, and leaning half out +of bed, cried in a voice broken with tears: + +"Rodolphe, take me home, I want to go away." + +The sister of charity hastened to her and tried to calm her. + +"Oh!" said Mimi, "I am going to die here." + +On Sunday morning, the day he was to go and see Mimi, Rodolphe +remembered that he had promised her some violets. With poetic and loving +superstition he went on foot in horrible weather to look for the flowers +his sweetheart had asked him for, in the woods of Aulnay and Fontenay, +where he had so often been with her. The country, so lively and joyful +in the sunshine of the bright days of June and July, he found chill and +dreary. For two hours he beat the snow covered thickets, lifting the +bushes with a stick, and ended by finding a few tiny blossoms, and as it +happened, in a part of the wood bordering the Le Plessis pool, which had +been their favorite spot when they came into the country. + +Passing through the village of Chatillon to get back to Paris, Rodolphe +met in the square before the church a baptismal procession, in which he +recognized one of his friends who was the godfather, with a singer from +the opera. + +"What the deuce are you doing here?" asked the friend, very much +surprised to see Rodolphe in those parts. + +The poet told him what had happened. + +The young fellow, who had known Mimi, was greatly saddened at this +story, and feeling in his pocket took out a bag of christening +sweetmeats and handed it to Rodolphe. + +"Poor Mimi, give her this from me and tell her I will come and see +her." + +"Come quickly, then, if you would come in time," said Rodolphe, as he +left him. + +When Rodolphe got to the hospital, Mimi, who could not move, threw her +arms about him in a look. + +"Ah, there are my flowers!" said she, with the smile of satisfied +desire. + +Rodolphe related his pilgrimage into that part of the country that had +been the paradise of their loves. + +"Dear flowers," said the poor girl, kissing the violets. The sweetmeats +greatly pleased her too. "I am not quite forgotten, then. The young +fellows are good. Ah! I love all your friends," said she to Rodolphe. + +This interview was almost merry. Schaunard and Colline had rejoined +Rodolphe. The nurses had almost to turn them out, for they had +overstayed visiting time. + +"Goodbye," said Mimi. "Thursday without fail, and come early." + +The following day on coming home at night, Rodolphe received a letter +from a medical student, a dresser at the hospital, to whose care he had +recommended the invalid. The letter only contained these words:-- + +"My dear friend, I have very bad news for you. No. 8 is dead. This +morning on going through the ward I found her bed vacant." + +Rodolphe dropped on to a chair and did not shed a tear. When Marcel came +in later he found his friend in the same stupefied attitude. With a +gesture the poet showed him the latter. + +"Poor girl!" said Marcel. + +"It is strange," said Rodolphe, putting his hand to his heart; "I feel +nothing here. Was my love killed on learning that Mimi was to die?" + +"Who knows?" murmured the painter. + +Mimi's death caused great mourning amongst the Bohemians. + +A week later Rodolphe met in the street the dresser who had informed him +of his mistress's death. + +"Ah, my dear Rodolphe!" said he, hastening up to the poet. "Forgive me +the pain I caused you by my heedlessness." + +"What do you mean?" asked Rodolphe in astonishment. + +"What," replied the dresser, "you do not know? You have not seen her +again?" + +"Seen whom?" exclaimed Rodolphe. + +"Her, Mimi." + +"What?" said the poet, turning deadly pale. + +"I made a mistake. When I wrote you that terrible news I was the victim +of an error. This is how it was. I had been away from the hospital for a +couple of days. When I returned, on going the rounds with the surgeons, +I found Mimi's bed empty. I asked the sister of charity what had become +of the patient, and she told me that she had died during the night. This +is what had happened. During my absence Mimi had been moved to another +ward. In No. 8 bed, which she left, they put another woman who died the +same day. That will explain the mistake into which I fell. The day after +that on which I wrote to you, I found Mimi in the next ward. Your +absence had put her in a terrible state; she gave me a letter for you +and I took it on to your place at once." + +"Good God!" said Rodolphe. "Since I thought Mimi dead I have not dared +to go home. I have been sleeping here and there at friends' places. Mimi +alive! Good heavens! What must she think of my absence? Poor girl, poor +girl! How is she? When did you see her last?" + +"The day before yesterday. She was neither better nor worse, but very +uneasy; she fancies you must be ill." + +"Let us go to La Pitie at once," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her." + +"Stop here for a moment," said the dresser, when they reached the +entrance to the hospital, "I will go and ask the house surgeon for +permission for you to enter." + +Rodolphe waited in the hall for a quarter of an hour. When the dresser +returned he took him by the hand and said these words: + +"My friend, suppose that the letter I wrote to you a week ago was true?" + +"What!" exclaimed Rodolphe, leaning against a pillar, "Mimi--" + +"This morning at four o'clock." + +"Take me to the amphitheatre," said Rodolphe, "that I may see her." + +"She is no longer there," said the dresser. And pointing out to the poet +a large van which was in the courtyard drawn up before a building above +which was inscribed, "Amphiteatre," he added, "she is there." + +It was indeed the vehicle in which the corpses that are unclaimed are +taken to their pauper's grave. + +"Goodbye," said Rodolphe to the dresser. + +"Would you like me to come with you a bit?" suggested the latter. + +"No," said Rodolphe, turning away, "I need to be alone." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +YOUTH IS FLEETING + + +A year after Mimi's death Rodolphe and Marcel, who had not quitted one +another, celebrated by a festival their entrance into the official +world. Marcel, who had at length secured admission to the annual +exhibition of pictures, had had two paintings hung, one of which had +been bought by a rich Englishman, formerly Musette's protector. With the +product of this sale, and also of a Government order, Marcel had partly +paid off his past debts. He had furnished decent rooms, and had a real +studio. Almost at the same time Schaunard and Rodolphe came before the +public who bestow fame and fortune--the one with an album of airs that +were sung at all the concerts, and which gave him the commencement of a +reputation; the other with a book that occupied the critics for a month. +As to Barbemuche he had long since given up Bohemianism. Gustave Colline +had inherited money and made a good marriage. He gave evening parties +with music and light refreshments. + +One evening Rodolphe, seated in his own armchair with his feet on his +own rug, saw Marcel come in quite flurried. + +"You do not know what has just happened to me," said he. + +"No," replied the poet. "I know that I have been to your place, that you +were at home, and that you would not answer the door." + +"Yes, I heard you. But guess who was with me." + +"How do I know?" + +"Musette, who burst upon me last evening like a bombshell, got up as a +_debardeur_." + +"Musette! You have once more found Musette!" said Rodolphe, in a tone of +regret. + +"Do not be alarmed. Hostilities were not resumed. Musette came to pass +with me her last night of Bohemianism." + +"What?" + +"She is going to be married." + +"Bah!" said Rodolphe. "Who is the victim?" + +"A postmaster who was her last lover's guardian; a queer sort of fellow, +it would seem. Musette said to him, 'My dear sir, before definitely +giving you my hand and going to the registrar's I want to drink my last +glass of Champagne, dance my last quadrille, and embrace for the last +time my lover, Marcel, who is now a gentleman, like everybody else is +seems.' And for a week the dear creature has been looking for me. Hence +it was that she burst upon me last evening, just at the moment I was +thinking of her. Ah, my friend! Altogether we had a sad night of it. It +was not at all the same thing it used to be, not at all. We were like +some wretched copy of a masterpiece? I have even written on the subject +of this last separation a little ballad which I will whine out to you if +you will allow me," and Marcel began to chant the following verses:-- + + I saw a swallow yesterday, + He brought Spring's promise to the air; + "Remember her," he seemed to say, + "Who loved you when she'd time to spare;" + And all the day I sate before + The almanac of yonder year, + When I did nothing but adore, + And you were pleased to hold me dear. + + But do not think my love is dead, + Or to forget you I begin. + + If you sought entry to my shed + My heart would leap to let you in: + Since at your name it trembles still-- + Muse of oblivious fantasy!-- + Return and share, if share you will, + Joy's consecrated bread with me. + + The decorations of the nest + Which saw our mutual ardor burn, + Already seem to wear their best + At the mere hope of return. + Come, see if you can recognize + Things your departure reft of glee, + The bed, the glass of extra size, + In which you often drank for me. + + You shall resume the plain white gown + You used to look so nice in, then; + On Sunday we can still run down + To wander in the woods again. + Beneath the bower, at evening, + Again we'll drink the liquid bright + In which your song would dip its wing + Before in air it took to flight. + + Musette, who has at last confessed + The carnival of life was gone, + Came back, one morning, to the nest + Whence, like a wild bird, she had flown: + But, while I kissed the fugitive, + My heart no more emotion knew, + For, she had ceased, for me, to live, + And "You," she said, "no more are you." + + "Heart of my heart!" I answered, "Go! + We cannot call the dead love back; + Best let it lie, interred, below + The tombstone of the almanac + Perhaps a spirit that remembers + The happy time it notes for me + May find some day among its embers + Of a lost Paradise the key." + +"Well," said Marcel, when he had finished, "you may feel reassured now, +my love for Musette is dead and buried here," he added ironically, +indicating the manuscript of the poem. + +"Poor lad," said Rodolphe, "your wit is fighting a duel with your +heart, take care it does not kill it." + +"That is already lifeless," replied the painter, "we are done for, old +fellow, we are dead and buried. Youth is fleeting! Where are you going +to dine this evening?" + +"If you like," said Rodolphe, "we will go and dine for twelve sous at +our old restaurant in the Rue du Four, where they have plates of huge +crockery, and where we used to feel so hungry when we had done dinner." + +"No," replied Marcel, "I am quite willing to look back at that past, but +it must be through the medium of a bottle of good wine and sitting in a +comfortable armchair. What would you, I am corrupted. I only care for +what is good!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER*** + + +******* This file should be named 18445.txt or 18445.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/4/18445 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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