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January 18th, 1907.
Mr. George Wahr,
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Dear Sir:-
THE GARDEN
MAGAZINE
Acknowledging your inquiry of
the 10th regarding a frontispiece of "Th. »
Latin Quarter", we beg to infora jou
that in the most recent editie is vale
hve had this frontispiece has been aft
cut.
We are unable therefor, to
you with same.
Your very tridly.
D
DOUBL
C
Daniel W.
Myc.
DWN AI
F
242
FRE
OF
FRENCH NOVELS
OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
THE LATIN QUARTER
("Scènes de la Vie de Bohème")
哈
​FRENCH NOVELS
OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
Edited by A. R. WALLER,
with Preface to each Volume
by ARTHUR SYMONS, and
frontispiece in photogravure
I
SALAMMBO
BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Translated by J. W. MATTHEWS
II
THE LATIN QUARTER
BY HENRY MURGER
Translated by ELLEN MARRIAGE
and JOHN SELWYN
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY PAGE & CO
HENRY MURGER
THE
LATIN QUARTER
("Scènes de la Vie de Bohème")
Translated by
ELLEN MARRIAGE
AND
JOHN SELWYN
With an Introduction by
ARTHUR SYMONS
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY PAGE AND COMPANY
1901
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PLYMOUTH
W. BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
PAGE
vii
xiv
I. HOW THE BROTHERHOOD CAME TOGETHER
.
I
II. A MESSEnger of ProVIDENCE
•
333333
43
III. LENTEN Loves
53
IV. ALI RODolphe, or, thE INVOLUNTARY TURK
65
V. CHARLEMagne's CROWN-PIECE
•
76
VI. MADEMoiselle MUSETTE
88
VII. FLOODS OF PACTOLUS
•
VIII. WHAT A CROWN-piece CostS
IX. POLAR Violets.
X. THE CAPE OF STORMS
XI. A CAFÉ IN BOHEMIA
XII. A RECEPTION IN BOHEMIA
98
•
113
·
125
136
147
•
159
XIII. THE HOUSE-WARMING
XIV. MADEmoiselle MiMI
·
185
•
196
XV. DONEC GRATUS...
220
XVI. "THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA"
•
232
XVII. THE Toilette of THE GRACES
243
151121
1
V
Contents
XVIII. FRANCINE'S MUFF
PAGE
. 265
XIX. MUSETTE'S WHIMS
XX. MIMI HAS FEATHERS
XXI. ROMEO AND JULIET
295
324
•
345
XXII. EPILOGUE TO THE LOVES OF RODOLPHE AND
MADEMOISELLE MIMI
357
XXIII. YOUTH COMES BUT ONCE.
390
APPENDIX
• 393
vi
"B
INTRODUCTION
OHEMIA," says Murger, "is the preface to
the Academy, the hospital, or the Morgue."
Murger died in a hospital, "ce caravanserail des
douleurs humaines," as he called it; and if he did
not reach the Academy on his way there, he has
had to suffer the praise of Academicians; he has
become a kind of classic in négligé. His Scènes de
la Vie de Bohème sum up an epoch, give us the
map of a country: it is the Bohemia of the Latin
Quarter, as it existed at the Romantic epoch. And
it is also the eternal Bohemia, a country where
people love lightly and sincerely, weep and laugh
freely, are really hungry, really have their ambitions,
and at times die of all these maladies. It is the
gayest and most melancholy country in the world.
Not to have visited it is to have made the grand tour
for nothing. To have lived there too long is to
find all the rest of the world an exile. But in
Murger's pages, perhaps, after all, you will see more
of the country than anything less than a lifetime.
spent in it will show you.
Murger has his place in the Romantic movement,
coming into it by a side door, holding himself a
vii
Introduction
little aloof in the company, and supplying an in-
structive comment on it. He shows us, in his
poets and painters and musicians, the raw material
of Romantics, with a sympathetic mockery; and he
introduces us to a lively part of the audience which
the Romantics gathered about them. It is only
with Alfred de Musset that he finds himself quite at
home. Musette, he said, is Bernerette's younger
sister.
The Bohemians of Murger are like children play-
ing at life with all the gay seriousness of children.
They have never unlearnt the child's gesture of
grasping at any shining thing, the vehemence of
his desire for the moon, the irrational tempest
of his tears or of his mirth, the regardlessness of
anything but the desire of the moment. They
realise very keenly that I am I, they can admit
frankly that you are you, when you cross their path;
but nothing has ever been able to teach them, any
more than the child in the nurse's arms can be
taught, that there exists a vague and vast ab-
straction, neither you nor I, but made up of infinite
identities that have allowed themselves to be
swallowed up for one another's benefit: the in-
tangible, inexplicable monster that we call Society.
Conscious of something against them in the world,
they invent arbitrary nicknames: the Bourgeois, the
Philistines, the Jews.) They have rarely any desire
to revolt; they ask only to be allowed to go their
own way, on their own terms of logical enjoyment
viii
Introduction
and material impossibility. If talent, or the desire
of talent, will bring in money of itself, if the
winter will not freeze them when there is no fire
in the grate, if Mimi will be content with a garret
on the fifth floor, they have little to ask. After all,
comfort is a relative term, and Murger tells us of an
"amateur Bohemian" who, with £400 a year to
live on, chose to let himself be buried in a pauper's
grave. He had found comfort, of a kind, no doubt,
in Bohemia.
In Murger's picture of Bohemia, as Paul de Saint-
Victor has noted, with partial truth, "the flames of
the stake are changed into fireworks." In his own
summing up, at the end of the Preface to the Scènes
de la Vie de Bohème, he speaks of that "delightful
and terrible life, which boasts its conquerors and its
martyrs, on which no one should enter unless he
has made up his mind beforehand to submit to the
ruthless law: Væ Victis!"; there is his "axiom":
Unknown Bohemia is not a thoroughfare, it is a
blind alley; the confession of his dedicatory verses:
"Car cette route si belle
Quand je fis mes premiers pas,
Maintenant je la vois telle,
Telle qu'elle existe, hélas !
"Et debout sur le rivage,
Les pieds mouillés par le flot,
Ami, c'est d'après l'orage
Que j'ai tracé mon tableau."
He could moralise after the event; there is pathos,
ix
Introduction
very touching in its way, in his book; but the
peculiar value of what he has to tell us of Bohemia
is that it is told by a native of the country, who has
lived there in his youth, and who has found life, with
all its pains and pleasures, as much because of the
pains as of the pleasures, admirable. Others have
lived there, quite simply, and when they wrote have
had other things to tell us. There have been writers
who have visited Bohemia on their way to or from
Shakespeare's seaport, inquisitive travellers with
note-books; but Murger, writing of what he had
lived, had precisely the talent to make it live over
again, unmoralised, unchanged; the gay, hapless,
irresponsible, eternally youthful thing that it had
been.
Is the sentiment of the whole thing, it has often
been asked, false sentiment? It is the sentiment
youth has of itself, at the flowering moment of
existence; and to whom, and in what sense, does a
disillusioning experience give the right to deny the
truth of a sentiment which had at least the irresist-
ible sanction of a sensation? This gay and amusing
book, in which youth speaks for itself with its own
voice, is, after all, sad with the consciousness of the
flight of youth.
"La jeunesse n'a qu'un temps,"
Murger sings, in his most famous song. All these
merry, shifting, shiftless people seem continually to
be saying: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die "; they have the feverish gaiety of the gambler
X
Introduction
who has staked all on one throw. It is all for
love, and love, with them, is known always to be
a fragile, inconstant thing, even at the sharpest
moment of enjoyment. If it lasts at all, it will
last as a memory; and they are careful in the
preparation of that kind of posthumous enjoyment.
"Muse de l'infidélité," Murger addresses the eternal
Musette, in one of those moments of recollection :
"Non, ma jeunesse n'est pas morte,
Il n'est pas mort ton souvenir ;
Et si tu frappais à ma porte,
Mon cœur, Musette, irait t'ouvrir.
Puisque à ton nom toujours il tremble,
Muse de l'infidélité,
Reviens encor manger ensemble
Le pain béni de la gaiété.”
And then, along with this pathetic feeling in re-
gard to love, there is another, more sordid, not less
actual, kind of pathos: the cold of winter nights in
a garret, the odour of rich men's dinners as one
passes penniless in the street. These people are
very genuinely poor, and they discover no hidden
treasure. They want, too, to be famous, and they
have neither the talent nor the luck for that, the
poor man's consolation. They see the hospital at
the end of the way; at best, they divine it around
the corner. And meanwhile there is the reality of
day by day, the necessity of a few poor luxuries:
Mimi's bonnet, Francine's muff. Here, once more, is
a sentiment which only the quite rich and fortunate
can afford to distinguish as "false."
xi
Introduction
And Murger handles this material lightly, not
making it less pathetic because he declines to take
melancholy things seriously. Bohemia has its
own philosophy, a laughing kind of Stoicism, and
Murger shows us this philosophy in action. He
becomes a humorist by his faithfulness to the point
of view which it is his business to render.
Murger has an almost English quality in his
humour, a quality so foreign to the French mind
that the English word has been adopted to express
a thing so essentially English. With him, as with
Dickens, for example, mirth runs easily into pathos,
though, with him, more simply, with less parade of
tears. He professes no psychology beyond the
humorous or pathetic representation of
a few
emotions common to most people; giving us, as
he does, youth's valuation of itself as the only
quite important thing in the world, he fills out the
types with a youthful exaggeration. He writes to
entertain, and he finds entertainment to hand in the
probable enough adventures of a few young men
and women living from hand to mouth with per-
sistent gaiety. If you look for realism, as the word
has come to be understood, you will be disappointed.
You will find instead a certain kind of reality, caught
as it were in passing; an improvisation in which
the faults of the artist count for something, in their
suggestion of the mere instincts or accidents of
nature; a human note, cry or laughter, which has
its artistic value, as in some of the tales of Bret
xii
Introduction
Harte, which are at once unreal and warmly
human.
Murger writes of a life which is itself a tragic
comedy in fancy dresses, a life wholly in exaggera-
tion. No one is quite sincere in Bohemia, because
sincerity is a respectable virtue, tedious in the long
run, and the transposition of things part of the
charm of existence there. Everyone poses for
effect, an effect of sincerity, if you will. Life is to
be an art rhetoric is the embellishment of art; let
life be rhetorical, a vari-coloured thing of sonorous
cadences. Murger still touches us, through all that
is unreal in the life that he represents and all that
is unreal in his representation of it; awakening in
us, against our will, against our better judgment, it
may be, a sharp, personal sense of pity, of acute
interest, as at the recollection of something that
had actually happened to ourselves. He gives us
every sentiment for its own sake, taking part with
it uncritically; and, in his forgetfulness to be an
artist, seems to come closer to us, like a comrade.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
xiii
1
TH
PREFACE
HE Bohemians described in this book have
nothing in common with the Bohemians of
boulevard playwrights, who have used the word
as a synonym for pickpocket and murderer; nor
are they recruited from the ranks of bear-leaders,
sword-eaters, vendors of key-rings, inventors of
"infallible systems," stock-brokers of doubtful ante-
cedents and the followers of the thousand and one
vague and mysterious callings in which the principal
occupation is to have none whatever and to be ready
at any time to do anything save that which is right.
The Bohemians of this book are by no means a
race of to-day; they have existed all over the world
ever since time began, and can lay claim to an
illustrious descent. In the time of the ancient
Greeks (not to pursue their genealogy any further)
there was once a famous Bohemian who wandered
about the fertile land of Ionia trusting to luck for
a living, eating the bread of charity, stopping of
nights by hospitable firesides where he hung the
musical lyre to which the "Loves of Helen" had
been sung and the "Fall of Troy."
As we descend the course of ages we find fore-
runners of the modern Bohemian in every epoch
xiv
Preface
famous for art or letters. Bohemia continues the
tradition of Homer through the Middle Ages by the
means of minstrel, improvisatori, les enfants du gai
savoir, and all the melodious vagabonds from the
lowlands of Touraine; all the muses errant who
wandered with a beggar's wallet and a trouvère's
harp over the fair and level land where the eglantine
of Clémence Isaure should still flourish.
In the transition period, between the Age of
Chivalry and the dawn of the Renascence, the
Bohemian still frequents the highways of the realm,
and is even found in Paris streets. Witness Master
Pierre Gringoire, for instance, friend of vagrants and
sworn foe to fasting, hungry and lean as a man may
well be when his life is but one long Lent; there
he goes, prowling along, head in air like a dog
after game, snuffing up the odours from cookshop
and kitchen; staring so hard at the hams hanging
from the pork-butcher's hooks, that they visibly
shrink and lose weight under the covetous gaze of
his glutton's eyes; while he jingles in imagination
(not, alas! in his pockets) those ten crowns promised
him by their worships the aldermen for a right pious
and devout sotie composed by him for the stage of
the Salle of the Palais de Justice. And the chronicles
of Bohemia can place another profile beside the
melancholy and rueful visage of Esméralda's lover
a companion portrait of jollier aspect and less
ascetic humour. This is Master François Villon,
lover of la belle qui fut heaulmière — poet and
-
XV
Preface
vagabond par excellence, with a breadth of imagina-
tion in his poetry. A strange obsession appears in
in it, caused no doubt by a presentiment of a kind
which the ancients attribute to their poets. Villon
is haunted by the idea of the gibbet; and indeed
one day nearly wore a hempen cravat because he
looked a little too closely at the colour of the king's
coinage. And this same Villon, who more than
once outstripped the posse comitatus at his heels,
this roistering frequenter at the low haunts in the
Rue Pierre Lescot, this smell-feast at the court of
the Duke of Egypt, this Salvator Rosa of poetry,
wrote verse with a ring of heart-broken sincerity in
it that touches the hardest hearts, so that at sight
of his muse, her face wet with streaming tears, we
forget the rogue, the vagabond and the rake.
François Villon, besides, has been honoured above
all those poets whose work is little known to folk for
whom French literature only begins "when Mal-
herbe came," for he has been more plundered than
any of them, and even by some of the greatest
names of the modern Parnassus. There has been
a rush for the poor man's field; people have struck
the coin of glory for themselves out of his little
hoard of treasure. Such and such a ballade, written
in the gutter under the drip of the eaves some bitter
day by the Bohemian poet, or some love-song im-
provised in the den where la belle qui fut heaulmière
unclasped her girdle for all-comers, now makes its
appearance, transformed to suit polite society and
xvi
Preface
scented with ambergris and musk, in albums adorned
with the armorial bearings of some aristocratic
Chloris.
But now begins the grand age of the Renascence.
Michel Angelo mounts the scaffolding in the Sixtine
Chapel and looks thoughtful as young Rafael goes
the staircase of the Vatican with the sketches of
up
the Loggie under his arm. Benvenuto is planning
his Perseus and Ghiberti carving the bronze
gates of the Baptistery, while Donatello rears his
marble on the bridge across Arno. The city of the
Medici rivals the city of Leo X. and Julius II. in
the possession of masterpieces, while Titian and
Paul Veronese adorn the city of the Doges-
St. Mark competing with St. Peter.
The fever of genius suddenly broke out with
the violence of an epidemic in Italy, and the
splendid contagion spread through Europe. (Art,
the Creator's rival, became the equal of kings.
Charles V. stoops to pick up Titian's brush, and
Francis I. waits on the printer Etienne Dolet,
who is busy correcting the proofs (it may be) of
Pantagruel.
In the midst of this resurrection of the intellect
the Bohemian seeks, as heretofore, for the poorest
shelter and pittance of food—la pâtée et la niche,
to use Balzac's expression. Clément Marot, a fami-
liar figure in the ante-chambers of the Louvre, is
favoured by the fair Diane, who one day would be
the favourite of a king, and lights three reigns with
b
xvii
Preface
her smile; then the poet's faithless muse will pass
from the boudoir of Diane de Poitiers to the
chamber of Marguerite de Valois, a dangerous
honour, which Marot must pay for by imprison-
ment. Almost at the same time another Bohemian
goes to the court of Ferrara, as Marot went to the
court of Francis I. This is Tasso, whose lips were
kissed by the epic muse in his childhood on the
shore at Sorrento. But, less fortunate than the
lover of Diane and Marguerite, the author of
Gerusalemme must pay for his audacious love of a
daughter of the House of Este with the loss of his
reason and his genius.
The religious wars and political storms that broke
out in France with the arrival of the Medici did not
stay the flight of Art. Jean Goujon, after discover-
ing anew the pagan art of Pheidias, might be struck
down by a bullet on the scaffolding of the Innocents;
but Ronsard would find Pindar's lyre, and with the
help of the Pleiade found the great French school of
lyric poets. To this school of revival succeeded the
reaction, thanks to Malherbe and his followers.
They drove out all the exotic graces introduced into
the language by their predecessors' efforts to accli-
matise them in poetry. And a Bohemian, Mathurin
Régnier, was one of the last to defend the bulwarks
of lyric poetry against the assault of the band of rhet-
oricians and grammarians who pronounced Rabelais
to be a barbarian and Montaigne obscure. It was the
same Mathurin Régnier, the cynic, who tied fresh
xviii
Preface
¦
knots in Horace's scourge, and made indignant out-
cry against his age with "Honour is an old-fashioned
saint, and nobody keeps his day."
In the seventeenth century the enumeration of
Bohemia includes some of the best known names
in literature under Louis XIII. and Louis XIV.
Bohemia counts wits of the Hôtel Rambouillet
among its members and lends a hand in the
weaving of the Guirlande de Julie. Bohemia has
her entrées at the Palais Cardinal and writes the
tragedy of Marianne in collaboration with the poet-
minister, the Robespierre of monarchy. Bohemia
strews Marion Delorme's ruelle with pretty speeches
and pays court to Ninon under the trees in the Place
Royale, breakfasting of a morning at the Goinfres
or the Epée Royale, supping of nights at the
Duc de Joyeuse's table and fighting duels under
the street lamps for Uranie's sonnet as against
the sonnet of Job. Bohemia makes love and war,
and even tries a hand at diplomacy; and in her old
age, tired of adventures, perpetuates a metrical
version of the Old and New Testaments, signing a
receipt for a living on every page till at length, well
fed with fat prebends, she seats herself on a bishop's
seat, or in an Academical armchair founded by one
of her chosen children.
'Twas in the transition period between the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries that two mighty
geniuses appeared, whose names are always brought
forward by the nations to which they belong in any
xix
Preface
literary rivalry. Molière and Shakespeare are two
famous Bohemians, with only too many resemblances
in their destinies.
The most famous names in the literature of the
eighteenth century are likewise to be found in the
archives of Bohemia; Jean Jacques Rousseau and
d'Alembert (the foundling left on the steps of Notre
Dame) among the greatest; and, among the most
obscure, Malfilâtre and Gilbert, these two much
overrated persons, for the inspiration of the one
was only a pale reflection of the pallid lyric fervour
of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, while that of the other
was a blend of incapacity and pride, with a hatred
which had not even the excuse of initiative and
sincerity, since it was only the paid instrument of
party spirit and party rancour.
And here we bring our rapid summary of the illus-
trious history of Bohemia to a close. We have pur-
posely set these prefatory remarks in the forefront of
this book, so as to set the reader on his guard against
any mistaken idea of the meaning of the word
"Bohemian" which he might perhaps be inclined
to entertain before reading it, for the class whose
customs and language we have herein endeavoured
to trace makes it a point of honour to differentiate
itself from those strata of society to which the name
of "Bohemian" has long been misapplied.
To-day, as in the past, any man who enters the
path of Art, with his art as his sole means of
support, is bound to pass by way of Bohemia.
XX
Preface
Those of our contemporaries who display the
noblest shields in the chivalry of Art were most of
them Bohemians once, and in the calm and pros-
perous glory of later life they often look back (per-
haps with regret) to the days when they were
climbing the green upward slope of youth, with no
other fortune, in the sunlight of their twenty years,
but courage (a young man's virtue) and hope, the
riches of the poor.
For the benefit of the nervous reader, the timorous
Philistine, and that section of the public which can-
not have too many dots on the i's of a definition,
we repeat in axiomatic form-
"Bohemia is a stage of the artist's career; it is
the preface to the Academy, the Hospital or the
Morgue."
Let us add that Bohemia neither exists nor can
exist anywhere but in Paris.
Bohemia, like all ranks of society, comprises
various shades and diverse species and subdivisions,
which it may be worth while to enumerate and
classify.
We will begin with Bohemia unknown to fame,
by far the largest section of it. It is made up of
the great clan of poor artists condemned by fate
to preserve their incognito because for one reason
or another they cannot find some little corner above
the heads of the crowd, and so attest their own
existence in Art and show by what they are already
what they may be some day. A race of inveterate
xxi
Preface
dreamers are they, for whom art is always a creed
and not a craft, and enthusiasts by conviction.
The bare sight of a masterpiece throws them into a
fever; their loyal hearts beat high before anything
beautiful: they do not ask to what school it belongs
nor to what master. This Bohemia draws its re-
cruits from among those young aspirants of whom
it is said that "they give promise" as well as from
those who fulfil the promise, yet by heedlessness,
shyness, or ignorance of the practical, fancy that all
is done when the work of art is finished and expect
that fame and fortune will burst in on them by
burglarious entry. These live on the outskirts of
society, as it were, in loneliness and stagnation, till,
fossilised in their art, they take the consecrated
formulæ about "the aureole round the poet's
brow" as a literal statement of fact, and being
persuaded that they shine in the shadow, expect
people to come to look for them there. We once
knew a little school of such originals, so quaint
that it is hard to believe that they really existed;
they called themselves disciples of "art for Art's
sake." According to these simple and ingenuous
beings, "art for Art's sake" consisted in starting a
mutual admiration society, in refraining from help-
ing Chance, who did not so much as know their
address, and waiting for pedestals to come to place
themselves under their feet.
This, as everyone sees, is carrying stoicism to the
point of absurdity. Well, let us assert it once more
xxii
Preface
to be believed; in the depths of unknown Bohemia
there are such beings as these, whose wretchedness
demands a pitying sympathy which common sense
is compelled to refuse; for put it to them quietly
that we are living in the nineteenth century, that
the five-franc piece is Empress of the human race,
and that boots do not drop down ready varnished
from the sky, and they will turn their backs upon
you and abuse you for a Philistine.
Still, at any rate, their mad heroism is thoroughly
carried out; they make no outcry, no complaint,
submitting passively to the hard and obscure fate
which they bring upon themselves. And for the
most part they fall victims to the complaint which
decimates them, a disease which medical science
does not dare to call by its right name-Want.
Yet many of them, if they chose, might escape the
catastrophe that suddenly cuts them off at an age
when life as a rule is only beginning. They need
only make one or two concessions to the hard laws
of necessity, which means they should learn to
live in duplicate, to keep one life for the poet in
them the dreamer that dwells on the mountain
heights where choirs of inspired voices sing to-
gether and another for the labourer that contrives
to provide daily bread. But this double life, which
is almost always carried on in strong and well-
balanced natures-indeed, it is one of their chief
characteristics-is not often to be met with in young
men of this stamp ; while pride, a bastard sort of
xxiii
Preface
common sense.
pride, makes them proof against all counsels of
And so they die young, now and
again one of them leaving some piece of work
behind him for the world to admire at a later day;
and if it had been visible before, the world would
no doubt have applauded it sooner.
The battle of Art is very much like war in some
respects. All the fame goes to the leaders, while
the rank and file share the reward of a few
lines in the order of the day; and the soldiers
that fall on the field are all buried where they
lie
one epitaph must do duty for a score of
thousands.
In the same way the crowd always gazes at the
man that rises above the rest, and never looks down
into the underworld, where the obscure toilers are
striving; they end in obscurity, sometimes without
even the consolation of smiling over a piece of work
completed, and so are laid away from life in a
winding-sheet of indifference.
Another section of unexplored Bohemia is made
up of young men who have been misled, by them-
selves or others. They take a fancy for a vocation,
and urged on by a suicidal mania, die victims of a
chronic attack of pride, idolatrous worshippers of
a chimera.
And here may we be permitted a short digression.
The ways of Art, crowded and perilous as they
are, grow more and more crowded every day, in
spite of the throng, in spite of the obstacles;
xxiv
Preface
Bohemians in consequence have never been more
numerous.
Among many reasons for this affluence we might
perhaps dwell upon the following one.
Plenty of young men have been found to take
seriously declamations as to unhappy artists
and poets.
The names of Gilbert, Malfilâtre,
Chatterton and Moreau have been often, with no
small imprudence and most unprofitably, made to
sound abroad. People have taken the tombs of
these unfortunate persons for pulpits from which
to preach about the martyrdom of Art and of
Poetry.
"Farewell, ungenerous earth,
Cold sunshine, sorrows that flay!
Unseen, as a ghost in the gloom,
And lonely, I pass on my way."
This song of despair, composed by Victor Escousse
after a hollow success had filled him with pride
which stifled him, is, or was at one time, the
Marseillaise of all the volunteers of Art who went
to inscribe their names on the martyr-roll of
Mediocrity.
For ambitious vanity the posthumous apotheosis
and requiem panegyrics possessed all the attraction
that the precipice usually has for weak heads; many
fell under the charm and thought that ill-luck was
one-half of genius; many dreamed of the bed in a
pauper infirmary at which Gilbert died, hoped that
they too might become poets for a quarter of an
XXV
Preface
hour before they died, and quite believed that these
were necessary stages on the way to fame.
It is impossible to deal too severely with such
immoral lies and murderous paradoxes; many a man
has been drawn by them out of paths where he
might have met with success, only to end miserably
in a career where he is blocking the way of those
who, having a true vocation, alone possess the right
to enter upon it.
It is the preaching of such dangerous doctrines
and the uncalled-for glorification of the dead which
has brought into being the ridiculous race of the
"misunderstood," the lachrymose poets whose muse
is always seen with red eyes and dishevelled hair,
and all the mediocrities who cannot create anything
and from the limbo of manuscript call the Muse
a harsh stepmother and Art their executioner.
All really powerful minds have their word to say,
and, as a matter of fact, say it sooner or later.
Genius or talent do not come by pure accident; they
are not there without reason, and for the same
reason they cannot always remain in obscurity. If
the crowd does not go to them, they find their way
to the crowd. Genius is like the sun: everyone can
see it. Talent is the diamond: it may lie out of sight
in the shadow for a long while, but somebody always
finds it. So it is pity thrown away to feel moved
by the lamentations and twaddle talked by a class
of intruders and worthless persons who thrust them-
selves into the domains of Art, Art itself opposing them,
1
1
xxvi
Preface
and who make up a section of Bohemia where idle-
ness, debauchery, and toadyism are the general rule.
Axiom.-Unknown Bohemia is not a thorough-
fare; it is a cul-de-sac.
In truth, it is a life which leads to nothing. It
means brutalising want; intelligence is extinguished
by it, as a lamp goes out for want of air; the heart
is turned to stone by a savage misanthropy; the
best natures become the worst. Anyone so un-
fortunate as to stay too long, to go too far to turn
back, can never get out again; or can only escape
by forcing his way out, at his peril, into a neigh-
bouring Bohemia, whose manners and customs
belong to another jurisdiction than that of the
physiology of literature.
We may cite another-a singular variety. These
are Bohemians who may be called amateurs. They
are not the least curious kind. Bohemian life is
full of attraction for their minds-to have doubts
as to whether each day will provide a dinner, to
sleep out of doors while the clouds shed tears of
rainy nights, and to wear nankeen in December,
would appear to make up the sum of human felicity.
To enter that paradise they leave their home, or
the study which would have brought about a
sure result, turning their backs abruptly on an
honourable career for the quest of adventures and
a life of uncertain chances. But since the most
robust can hardly cling to a mode of life which
would send a Hercules into a consumption, they
xxvii
Preface
throw up the game before long, scamper back in
hot haste to the paternal roast, marry their little
cousin, set up as notaries in some town of thirty
thousand inhabitants, and of an evening by the
fireside they have the satisfaction of telling "what
they went through in their artist days," with all the
pride of a traveller's tale of his tiger hunt. Others
plume themselves on holding out; but when once
they have exhausted all the means of getting credit
open to young men of expectations, they are worse
off than genuine Bohemians, who, never having had
any other resources, can, at any rate, live by their
wits. We have known one of these amateurs, who,
after staying three years in Bohemia and quarrelling
with his family, died one fine morning and was
carried in a pauper's hearse to a pauper's grave;
he had an income of ten thousand francs!
Needless to say, these Bohemians have nothing
whatsoever to do with Art, and they are the most
obscure, amongst the most ignored, in unknown
Bohemia.
Now for Bohemia proper, the subject, in part,
of this book. Those of whom it is composed
are really "called," and have some chance of being
among the "chosen" of Art. This Bohemia, like
the others, bristles with dangers; it lies between the
two gulfs of Anxiety and Want. But, at any rate,
there is a road between the two gulfs, and it leads
to a goal which the Bohemians may behold with
their eyes until they can lay their hands upon it.
xxviii
Preface
This is official Bohemia, so called because its
members have given evidence to the public of their
existence; they have made some sign of their
presence in life other than the entry on the regis-
trar's page; in short (to use their own expression),
they have "got their names up," are known in
the literary and artistic market; there is a sale,
at moderate prices it is true, but still a sale, for
produce bearing their mark.
To arrive at this end, which is quite definitely
determined, all ways are good; and the Bohemian
knows how to turn everything, even the very
accidents by the road, to advantage. Rain or
dust, shadow or sun, nothing brings these bold
adventurers to a stand. Their very faults have
virtues to back them. Ambition keeps their wits
always on the alert, sounds the charge, and urges
them on to the assault of the future; invention
never slackens, it is always grappling with neces-
sity, always carrying a lighted fuse to blow up
any obstacle so soon as it is felt to be in the way.
Their very subsistence is a work of genius, a daily
renewed problem, continually solved by audacious
feats of mathematics. These are the men to
extract a loan from Harpagon and to find truffles
on the raft of the Medusa. They can, at a pinch,
practise abstinence with all the virtue of an an-
chorite; but let a little good fortune come their
way and you shall presently see them riding the
most ruinous hobbies, making love to the youngest
xxix
Preface
and fairest, drinking of the oldest and best. There
are not windows enough for them to fling their
money through. Then, when their last five-franc
piece is dead and buried, they go back to dine at
the ordinary of Chance, where a knife and fork is
always laid for them; and preceded by a pack of
cunning shifts, they go a-poaching in the preserves
of every industry in the neighbourhood of Art,
stalking from morning to evening that shyest of
game known as the five-franc piece.
Bohemians go everywhere and know everything;
sometimes their boots are varnished, sometimes
down at heel, and their knowledge and the manner
of their going varies accordingly. You may find
one of them one day leaning against the chimney-
piece of some fashionable drawing-room, and the
next at a table in some dancing saloon. They
cannot go ten paces on the boulevard but they
meet a friend, nor thirty without coming across
a creditor/
Bohemia has an inner language of its own, taken
from studio talk, the slang of greep-rooms, and
debates in newspaper offices. All eclecticisms of style
meet in this unparalleled idiom, where apocalyptic
terms of expression jostle the cock-and-bull story
and the rusticity of popular sayings is allied with
high-flown periods shaped in the mould whence
Cyrano drew his hectoring tirades; where paradox
(that spoilt child of modern literature) treats common
sense as Cassandra is treated in the pantomimes;
XXX
Preface
where irony bites like the most powerful acid, and
as those dead shots who can hit the bull's-eye with
their eyes bandaged. 'Tis an intelligent argot, albeit
unintelligible to those who have not the key to it,
and audacious beyond the utmost bounds of free
speech in any tongue. The vocabulary of Bohemia
is the hell of rhetoric and the paradise of the
neologism.g of new terms
Such, in brief, is Bohemian life-little known of
the social puritan, disparaged by the puritans of Art,
insulted by fearful and jealous mediocrity in every
form, which cannot clamour forth lies and slander
enough to drown the voices and the names of those
who reach success through this forecourt of fame by
yoking audacity to their talent.
し
​It is a life that needs patience and courage. No
one can attempt the struggle unless he wears the
stout armour of indifference, proof against fools and
envious attacks; and no one can afford to lose his
pride in himself for a moment; it is his staff, and
without it he will stumble by the way. Delightful
and terrible life, which boasts its conquerors and its
martyrs, on which no one should enter unless he has
made up his mind beforehand to submit to the
ruthless law: va victis.)
H. M.
xxxi
HENRY MURGER
1822-1861
"The Latin Quarter"
("Scènes de la Vie de Bohème ")
1845
THE LATIN QUARTER
("Scènes de la Vie de Bohème")
I
HOW THE BROTHERHOOD CAME TOGETHER
།
Comment fest institue le renacles to Boheme
B
EHOLD how Chance (styled by sceptics the
business-agent of Providence) brought to-
gether in a single day every one of the individuals
who afterwards met in the bonds of brotherly union,
constituting an inner circle in that fraction of the
country of Bohemia which the present author has
endeavoured to make known to the public.
One morning (it was the 8th of April) Alexandre
Schaunard, who cultivated the two liberal arts of
music and painting, was suddenly startled out of
his slumber by a lusty peal from the king of a
neighbouring poultry-yard, who acted as his alarm
clock.
"this
Good gracious!" cried Schaunard,
feathered timepiece of mine is fast. Impossible!
It cannot be to-day already!
So saying he skipped nimbly out of a piece of
furniture of his own industrious invention, a kind
B
I
The Latin Quarter
of Jack-of-all-trades, which played the rôle of a
bedstead by night (and, without boasting, played
it passably ill), while by day it represented every-
thing else, the rest of the furniture having been
absent ever since the previous winter-a remarkably
rigorous season.
Schaunard proceeded next to wrap himself against
the nipping breeze of morning in a pink spangled
satin petticoat which he used as a dressing-gown.
This piece of finery had been left behind in his
room one night after a masked ball by a Folly,
foolish to the extent of trusting to Schaunard's
specious promises, when the latter, as the Marquis
de Mondor, jingled a dozen crowns seductively in
his pockets. The said coins, having been cut out
of a sheet of base metal with a punch, possessed
a purely fancy value, and formed indeed a part of
the accessories of a costume borrowed from the
theatre.
His morning toilet thus completed, the artist flung
open first the window, then the shutter. A ray of
sunshine flashed in like an arrow, till he was fain
to close a pair of eyes still veiled in the mists of
slumber; and at that very moment a clock struck
five from a neighbouring steeple.
"It is really the dawn," muttered Schaunard.
"An astonishing fact; but there is a mistake all
the same," he continued, going up to an almanack
on the wall. "The indications of science affirm
that at this season of the year the sun ought
not to rise before half-past five. It is just five
o'clock, and the sun is up already! Blameworthy
zeal! The planet is in the wrong.
I shall com-
2
The Brotherhood
plain to the Astronomical Board. And yet," he
went on, "it is time I began to feel a little anxiety
on my own account. To-day, no doubt, imme-
diately succeeds to yesterday, and as yesterday
was the 7th, to-day must be the 8th of April,
unless Saturn has taken to walking backwards.
From the tenor of this document," he continued
(scanning a formal notice to quit pinned to the
wall), "I gather that this day I am bound to leave
this room clear of all effects by noon precisely, after
counting into the hands of M. Bernard, my landlord,
the sum of seventy-five francs, representing three
quarters' rent, now due, which he claims in execrable
handwriting. And I, as usual, hoped that Chance
would take this matter in hand and settle it for
me; but it rather looks as if Chance had not found
time for it. In fact, I have six hours left, and by
making good use of the time I may, perhaps
Oh, come, let us get to work!"
Schaunard was proceeding to dress himself in a
great-coat of some once shaggy material, now
irremediably bald, when suddenly, as if a tarantula
had bitten him, he began to dance, executing a
choregraphic composition of his own which had
often won the honour of special attention from the
police at public balls.
"Dear me! it is peculiar how the morning air
gives one ideas! I am on the track of my tune, it
seems to me! Let us see- "And Schaunard
sat down half-dressed to the piano, roused the
sleeping instrument with a tempestuous assortment
of chords, and set off in quest of the melodious
phrase which had eluded his pursuit so long.
3
The Latin Quarter
"Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, ré. Boum! boum! Fa,
ré, mi, ré. Eh! eh! That ré rings false, false as
Judas!" cried Schaunard, thumping on the doubtful
key. "Let us try the minor.
"A young person is pulling a daisy to pieces on a
blue lake, and this thing ought to touch off her
affliction neatly. 'Tis an idea that is past its first
youth. But after all, since it's the fashion, and as
no publisher can be found bold enough to bring out
a song without a blue lake in it, why you must
conform. Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, ré. That is not
so bad-it gives a good enough idea of a daisy,
especially to people that are not very well up in
botany. La, si, do, ré (there's that rascally ré
again!). Now to give a good idea of the blue lake
you ought to have dampness, and azure, and moon-
light (for there the moon is in it too). Stay now,
it's coming though; we must not forget the swan.
Fa, mi, la, sol," continued Schaunard, clinking the
crystalline notes of the upper octave. "Now there
is only the girl's farewell, when she makes up her
mind to take the plunge into the blue lake so as to
rejoin her true love that lies buried under the snow.
The ending is not very clear, but it is interesting.
You want something tender and melancholy. There
it comes; now for a dozen bars weeping like
Magdalene, fit to split your heart in pieces. Brr!
brr" cried Schaunard, shivering in his spangled
petticoat, "if it would only split a little firewood
as well! There is a joist in the recess over the bed
that gets very much in the way when I have company
-to dinner. I might light a bit of fire with that
(la, la, ré, mi)—for I feel inspiration coming on me
4
The Brotherhood
with a cold in the head.
Pooh! so much the worse!
Let us get on with drowning the girl."
Schaunard's fingers tortured the quivering key-
board, as with gleaming eyes and straining ears he
pursued the melody that seemed to hover nymph-
like above him, but declined to be caught in the
maze of sounds that rose like a fog from the
vibrating instrument.
"Now we will see how my music and the poet's
words hang together," he continued, and in an un-
pleasant voice he began to try over some poetry of
the order peculiar to comic opera and the lyric
stage-
nant.
"The maid with the golden hair
Flings her mantilla by,
Then to the heavens so fair
Raises a tear-dimmed eye;
Then in the silvery wave
Rippling the lake so blue-
"What! what!" cried Schaunard, justly indig-
"A silvery wave in a blue lake. I never
noticed that till now. Too romantic by half. After
all, the poet is an idiot; he never saw silver nor
yet a lake in his life. His ballad is stupid into the
bargain; the length of his lines does not fit into my
music. I shall compose my own words in future,
which is to say that I mean to set about it, and that
no later than at once. I feel I am in the vein. I
will rough out some model couplets and adapt my
tune to them afterwards."
Schaunard, with his head between his hands,
assumed the pensive attitude proper to a mortal
in commerce with the Muse. Then, after a few
moments of this divine intercourse, he brought
5
The Latin Quarter
into the world one of the misshapen conceptions
known as dummy-verses, which librettists throw off
with considerable facility, to serve as a provisional
basis for the composer's art. Schaunard's dummy,
however, was not devoid of common sense. It
represented accurately enough the disturbance
aroused in his brain by the brutal reality of the
date the 8th of April.
Here are the couplets-
Eight and eight make sixteen
(Six, and you carry the one);
Pleased and proud I had been
If, ere the quarter was done,
I had found some one to lend
(Somebody honest and poor)
Eight hundred francs to a friend;
I'd have paid up, I am sure.
REFRAIN.
Then, when a quarter to twelve
Sounds from the dial of Fate,
I'll go to my landlord myself (thrice),
And settle accounts up to date.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Schaunard, looking
over his composition; "self and twelve ! A
beggarly pair of rhymes, but I have not time now
to enrich them. Let us try the music wedded to
the words."
Again he attacked his ballad, with a frightful
nasal intonation peculiarly his own. The result
was doubtless pleasing to him, for he hailed it with
the jubilant grin which, like a circumflex accent,
bestrode his visage whenever he was particularly
pleased with himself. But his proud ecstasy was of
short duration.
6
The Brotherhood
Eleven o'clock sounded from the neighbouring
steeple. Every sonorous stroke, ringing through
the miserable Schaunard's chamber, died away in
mocking echoes that seemed to inquire, "Are you
ready?"
He started violently on his chair.
"Time runs like a stag. I have to find seventy-
five francs and new lodgings, and only three-
quarters of an hour to do it in-which I never
shall. It is altogether too much in the conjuring
line. See here, I will give myself five minutes to
find out how to do it," and, burying his head
between his knees, he dived into the abysmal
depths of reflection.
The five minutes went by. Schaunard lifted his
head again, but he had found nothing that in the
least resembled his seventy-five francs.
"If I am to get out of this there is precisely
one way of setting about it, and that is to walk
out quite naturally. My friend Chance may be
taking a stroll outside in the sun; he surely
will offer me hospitality until I can settle with
M. Bernard."
So saying, Schaunard stuffed everything that
could be stowed into his great-coat pockets (two
receptacles capacious as cellars), tied up a selection
of linen into a bundle, took leave of his room with
a few words of farewell, and went downstairs.
The concierge seemed to be on the look-out, for
he called across the yard to Schaunard, and barred
his passage out.
"Hi! M. Schaunard. Can you have forgotten?
To-day is the 8th."
7
The Latin Quarter
"Eight and eight make sixteen
(Six, and you carry the one),"
hummed Schaunard.
mind."
"It is the one thought in my
"You are a little behindhand with your moving,
and that is a fact," remarked the concierge. "It
is half-past eleven; the new tenant may come in at
any moment and want your room.
You had better.
look sharp."
"Very well, then, just let me pass. I am going
out to find a cart to remove my things."
"No doubt; but there is one little formality to
discharge first. My orders are not to let you take
away so much as a hair till you have paid up what
you owe for the three last terms. You are ready to
do so, I suppose?"
"Rather!" returned Schaunard, taking a step
forward.
"Then, if you will step into my room, I will give
you the receipts at once."
"I will look in for that when I come back."
"But why not now?" persisted the man.
"I am going out to get change."
"Well,
"Oho! you are going out to get change, are
you?" returned the other suspiciously.
then, just to oblige you, I'll take care of that
little bundle you have under your arm; you might
find it in your way."
"Monsieur le concierge!" said Schaunard with
much dignity, "is it possible that you harbour any
suspicions of me? Can you suppose that I am
capable of removing my furniture in a pocket-
handkerchief?"
8
The Brotherhood
"I beg your pardon, sir," replied the man,
lowering his tone a little, "those are my orders.
M. Bernard expressly forbade me to allow you to
take away one hair until you had paid up."
66
"Now, just look," said Schaunard, untying his
bundle, there are no hairs here. These are shirts
that I am taking to the laundress, not twenty paces
away, next door to the money-changer's."
"That is another thing," the concierge admitted
after a scrutiny of the contents. "If it's a fair
question, M. Schaunard, may I ask for your new
address?"
"I am staying in the Rue de Rivoli," Schaunard
answered coolly; but by this time he had one foot
in the street, and was out and away at his utmost
speed.
"Rue de Rivoli," muttered the concierge with a
finger to his nose, "Rue de Rivoli.
It is very
odd that anybody should let him take a room in the
Rue de Rivoli without coming here to ask about
him, very odd! After all, he can't take away his
things, at any rate, without paying his rent. If
only the new lodger does not come in just as
M. Schaunard is going out. A pretty row there
would be on the stairs! Hullo! just as I thought,"
he cried, suddenly popping his head out at the
wicket, "here comes the new lodger himself."
A young man with a white Louis XIII. hat was,
in fact, turning in under the archway, and behind
him came a commissionaire who seemed to be by no
means bending under his burden.
"Is my room at liberty?" inquired this person as
the concierge' came out to meet him.
9
The Latin Quarter
"Not yet, sir, but it will be ready directly. The
last tenant has gone out to find a cart to fetch his
things. And in the meantime you can put your
furniture down in the courtyard."
"I am afraid it will rain," returned the new
tenant, placidly chewing the stalks of a bunch of
violets that he held between his teeth, "and then
my furniture would be damaged." He turned to the
man behind him who certainly carried a load of
objects of some kind, though the concierge would
have been puzzled to tell exactly what they were.
"Put them down here in the entrance," continued
the man in the white hat, "and go back to my old
lodgings for the rest of my valuable furniture and
works of art."
The commissionaire accordingly proceeded to stack
a series of canvas-covered frames against the wall.
Each separate leaf was some six or seven feet high,
and apparently, if they were put end to end, they might
spread out to any required extent. Their owner
tilted one of them forward and looked inside.
"Look here!" he cried, pointing to a notch torn
in the canvas.
"Here is a misfortune! You have
cracked my great Venetian mirror! Next time try
to mind what you are about, and be particularly
careful of my book-case."
"What does he mean with his Venetian mirror?"
muttered the concierge, peering suspiciously at the
stack of frames. "There is no looking-glass there.
It is a joke, of course; the thing looks like a screen
to me. At any rate, we shall soon see what he
brings next."
"Your lodger is going to let me have the room
10
The Brotherhood
directly, is he not? It is half-past twelve, I should
be glad to move in," remarked the new tenant.
"I don't think he will be long now," said the
concierge. "Besides, there's no harm done yet,
seeing that your furniture is still to come," he
added, laying some stress on the last few words.
The young man was just about to reply when an
orderly in dragoon's uniform entered the yard.
"M. Bernard?" inquired the dragoon, drawing a
letter from a big leather pouch that flapped against
him at every movement.
"This is where he lives."
"Then here is a letter for him. Give me a receipt
for it," and he held out a printed form for sig-
nature.
"Excuse me," said the concierge as he retired
into the house, addressing the owner of the frames,
now tramping impatiently up and down the yard,
"this is a letter from the Government, and I must
go up to M. Bernard with it. He is my employer."
M. Bernard was in the act of shaving when his
concierge appeared.
"What do you want, Durand?"
"An orderly has just come and brought this for
you, sir," said Durand, removing his cap. "It is
from the Government." As he spoke he held out an
envelope stamped with the seal of the War Office.
M. Bernard grew so excited that he all but cut
himself with his razor. "Good Lord!" cried he.
"The War Office! I am sure it is my nomination
as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour that I've been
asking for this long while. My extreme respect-
ability is meeting with recognition at last! Here,
II
The Latin Quarter
Durand," he added, fumbling in his waistcoat
pocket, "here are five francs for you. Go and
drink my health. Stop a bit, though, I haven't my
purse about me; you shall have it in a moment.
Wait."
The concierge's experience of his employer left
him quite unprepared for such an overwhelming
outburst of generosity. He was so moved by it
that he forgot himself and put his cap on again.
At any other moment M. Bernard would have
dealt severely with this breach of the laws of the
social hierarchy; but now it seemed to pass un-
perceived. He put on his spectacles, broke the
seal with the respectful emotion of a vizier receiving
a letter from the sultan, and began to read the
document. At the very first line a ghastly grimace
deepened little crimson wrinkles in the fat of his
monk's jowl; his little eyes darted forth angry
sparks that all but set the bristling tufts of his wig
on fire, and by the time he had done, so chop-fallen
was he, that an earthquake might have shaken
every feature of his countenance.
These are the contents of the missive for which
M. Durand had duly given the Government
receipt. This is the despatch indited upon War
Office stationery, and brought at hot speed by a
dragoon:-
"SIR AND LANDLORD,-Policy, which, according to myth-
ology, is the grandmother of good manners, compels me to
inform you that a painful necessity forbids me to conform to
the established usage of paying rent, more especially when
rent is due. Until this morning I had cherished the hope that
it might be in my power to celebrate this glorious day by
discharging three quarters' arrears. Fond dream! chimerical
12
The Brotherhood
illusion! Even as I slumbered on the pillow of security, ill-
luck (in Greek avavkǹ)-ill-luck dispersed my hopes. The
receipts on which I counted failed to make an appearance
(heavens! how bad trade is just now !)-they failed to appear,
I say, for out of very considerable sums owing to me I have
so far received but three francs-and they were borrowed. I
do not propose to offer them to you. Better days are in store,
do not doubt it, sir, both for our fair France and for me. So
soon as they shall dawn I will try to inform you of the fact,
and to withdraw from your premises the valuables that I now
leave in your keeping. To you, sir, I entrust them, and to the
protection of the enactment which forbids you to dispose of
them within a twelvemonth, should you feel tempted to try
that method of recovering the sums for which you stand
credited on the ledger page of my scrupulous integrity. My
pianoforte I recommend particularly to your care, as also the
large picture-frame containing sixty specimen locks of hair of
every shade of capillary hue, each one shorn from the brows
of the Graces by the scalpel of Eros.
"So, sir, my landlord, you are free to dispose of the roof
that erewhile sheltered me. I hereby grant permission to that
effect. Witness my hand and seal.
"ALEXANDRE SCHAUNARD."
Schaunard had gone to a friend, a clerk in the
War Department, and written the epistle in his
office.
When M. Bernard had read this missive to the
end he crumpled it up indignantly. Then, as his
eyes fell on old Durand, who stood waiting for the
promised five francs, he asked him roughly what he
was doing there.
"Waiting, sir."
"For what?"
"Why,, sir, you were so generous; er-er-the
good news, sir!" stammered out the concierge.
"Get out! What, you rascal, do you stand and
speak to me with your head covered?"
13
The Latin Quarter
"But, sir-
""
"Don't answer me. There. No, wait a bit
though. We will go up to that scoundrelly artist's
room. He has gone off without paying his rent."
"What!" cried Durand. "M. Schaunard?”
"Yes," said the landlord, his fury rising like
Nicollet in a crescendo. "Yes. And if he has taken
a single thing with him, out you go. Do you under-
stand? Out you go-o-o!"
"It can't be," the poor concierge muttered.
"M. Schaunard has not moved out. He went out
for change to pay you, sir, and to order a cart
round to fetch his things."
"Fetch his things!" screamed M. Bernard.
"Quick! he is up there after it now, I'll be bound.
He set the trap to get you out of the way, and did
the trick! idiot that you are!"
"Oh, Lord! idiot that I am!" cried old Durand,
and, quaking from head to foot before the Olympian
wrath of his betters, he was dragged down the
staircase.
Arrived in the courtyard, Durand was hailed at
once by the young fellow in the white hat.
"Look here, concierge," cried he, "am I going
to be put in possession of my room? Is to-day
the 8th of April? Did I engage the lodgings here
and pay you the luck-penny, or did I not?"
"I beg your pardon, sir, I am at your service,"
broke in the landlord. "Durand, I shall speak to
this gentleman myself. Go upstairs. That scoundrel
Schaunard is there packing up his things, no doubt.
Lock him in, if you can catch him, and then go out
for the police."
14
The Brotherhood
Old Durand disappeared up the staircase. The
landlord and the new-comer were left together.
"I beg your pardon, sir," M. Bernard began,
"but to whom have I the pleasure of speaking?"
"I am your new tenant, sir. I engaged a room
here on the sixth floor, and I am beginning to grow
impatient because I can't move in."
"You find me in despair," exclaimed M. Bernard.
"A difficulty has arisen between me and one of my
tenants; in fact, the tenant whom you are about
to replace."
A voice sounded from above; it came from a
window on the top story.
"M.
"M. Bernard, sir!" shouted old Durand.
Schaunard isn't here! But his room is here!
(Idiot that I am!) I mean to say he hasn't taken
anything away-not a single hair, M. Bernard,
sir !"
"That is right. Come down," called M. Bernard.
Then, addressing the young man, "Dear me ! have
a little patience, I beg. My man shall stow all the
insolvent lodger's furniture in the cellar, and you
shall move in in half an hour. Besides, your own
furniture isn't here yet."
"I beg your pardon, sir," the new-comer returned
placidly. M. Bernard took a look about him, but
he saw nothing save the huge screens that had
previously made his concierge uneasy.
"Eh, what? I beg your pardon. Eh? I don't
see any," he murmured.
"Look," returned the other, and he opened
out the leaves of the screen, displaying to the
landlord's gaze a palatial interior full of jasper
15
The Latin Quarter
pillars and bas-reliefs and pictures by great
masters.
"But-your furniture ?"
"Here it is," and, with a wave of the hand, he
indicated the sumptuous splendours of the painted
palace, part of a set of decorations for the amateur
stage, a recent purchase at the Hotel Bullion.
"I am pleased to believe, sir, that you have
something more solid in the way of furniture
than that."
"What, genuine Boule!"
"I must have some guarantee for my rent, you
understand."
"The deuce! Isn't a palace good enough to
cover the rent of a garret?"
"No, sir. I must have furniture-genuine
mahogany furniture."
"Alas! yet neither gold nor mahogany can make
us happy, to quote the ancients. And, speaking for
myself, I cannot endure it. Mahogany is a stupid
sort of wood; everybody has mahogany!"
"But after all, sir, you have some furniture of
some kind, I suppose?"
"No. It fills up the space till there is no room
for anything else. As soon as you bring chairs into
a place you do not know where to sit."
"Still, you have a bedstead? How do you lie
down at night?"
"I lie down trusting in Providence, sir."
"I beg your pardon, one more question. What is
your profession, if you please?"
At that very moment in walked the commissionaire
for the second time. Among the various objects
16
The Brotherhood
slung over his shoulders appeared an unmistak-
able easel. Old Durand pointed this out in dismay
to the landlord.
"Oh, sir, he is a painter !
"An artist! I knew it!" M. Bernard exclaimed
in his turn (and the hairs of his wig stood upright
with fright). "An artist!!! But" (turning to the
concierge) "did you not make any inquiries about
this gentleman? Did you not know what he did?"
"Lord, sir, he gave me five francs for my luck-
penny; how was I to imagine that—"
"When you have done," began the owner of the
easel, but M. Bernard adjusted his spectacles on his
nose with aplomb.
"Sir," said he, "since you have no furniture you
cannot move it in. I am legally entitled to decline
a lodger who brings no guarantee."
"And how about my word?" the artist inquired
with dignity.
"It is no equivalent for furniture. You can look
for lodgings somewhere else. Durand shall give
you back your luck-penny."
"Eh?" cried the dumbfounded concierge, "I paid
it into the savings-bank."
"But I cannot find another
minute," objected he of the hat.
day's shelter, at any rate.”
lodging all in a
"Let me have a
Bernard. "By-
"Go to the hotel," returned M.
the-by," he added quickly as a sudden thought
struck him, "I will let you have the room furnished
if you like. My insolvent lodger's things are up
there. Only the rent, as you know, in such cases is
paid in advance."
C
17
The Latin Quarter
"The question is how much you want for the
den," said the artist, seeing there was no other way
out of it.
"But it is a very good room; the rent will be
twenty-five francs a month, under the circumstances.
You pay in advance."
"So you have said already; the phrase hardly
deserves the honour of an encore." He fell to
fumbling in his pockets. "Have you change for
five hundred francs?"
"Eh? what?" exclaimed his amazed landlord.
"Oh, well, call it half a thousand, then. Have
you never seen such a thing before?" continued the
artist, waving the note before the eyes of landlord
and concierge. The latter appeared to lose his
balance completely at the sight.
"I will give you change," M. Bernard began
respectfully. "There will only be twenty francs to
take, since Durand is giving you back your luck-
penny."
"He may keep it," said the artist, on condition
that he will come up every morning to tell me the
day of the week, the day of the month, the quarter
of the moon, and what kind of a day it is, and what
form of government we are living under."
"Oh, sir!" cried old Durand bowing to an angle
of ninety degrees
"All right, my good fellow, you will act as my
almanack. And in the meantime you will help my
commissionaire with the moving in."
"I will send you your receipt directly, sir," added
the landlord. And that very evening Marcel the
painter was installed as M. Bernard's new lodger.
18
The Brotherhood
Schaunard had fled, and his garret was transformed
into a palace.
The said Schaunard, meanwhile, was beating up
Paris for money.
Schaunard had elevated borrowing into a fine art.
Foreseeing that it might be necessary to "oppress"
foreigners, he had learned the requisite formulæ for
borrowing five francs in every language under the
sun. He had made a profound study of the whole
repertory of ruses by which the precious metals are
wont to escape their pursuers. No pilot is better
acquainted with the state of the tides than he with
the times of low and high water; which is to say,
the days when his friends and acquaintances were
sure to be in funds. So much so, indeed, that if he
were seen entering any particular house, people
would say, not "There is M. Schaunard," but,
"To-day is the first, or the fifteenth of the month."
Partly to facilitate the collection of this kind of
tithe which he levied when hard up, partly to spread
it evenly over the area of persons capable of meeting
the call, Schaunard had drawn up alphabetical lists
of all his acquaintances, and tabulated them under
the headings of quarters and arrondissements.
Opposite each name he set down the highest
possible sum that he could expect to borrow in
proportion to the owner's means, the dates when
he was in funds, a time-table of meals, together
with the probable bill of fare. Schaunard kept
besides a little set of books in perfect order, in
which he entered all the sums that he borrowed
down to the most minute fractions, for he had no
mind to burden himself with debt beyond a certain
19
The Latin Quarter
figure, and the amount of that figure still hung on
the pen of an uncle in Normandy whose property
he was one day to inherit. So soon as Schaunard
owed twenty francs to any one individual, he
stopped borrowing and repaid the money in a lump,
even if he had to borrow from others to whom he
owed smaller amounts. In this way he always kept
up a certain credit on the market, which credit he
was pleased to style his "floating debt," and as it
was known that he invariably paid his debts so
soon as his resources permitted him to do so,
people were very ready to oblige him whenever
they could.
But to-day, since eleven o'clock in the morning
when he started out to scrape together those
seventy-five indispensable francs, he had only
succeeded in making up one poor little five-franc
piece. This had been done with the collaboration
of the letters M V and R on his famous list; all
the rest of the alphabet was passing through a
precisely similar crisis, and this brought his quest
to an end.
By six o'clock a ferocious appetite was ringing
the dinner-bell within, and he had reached the
Barrière du Maine, where the letter U was
domiciled. Schaunard had a serviette ring in U's
establishment, whenever there were serviettes. The
porter called after him as he went past.
"Where are you going, sir?"
"Up to M. U——.”
"He is out."
"And madame?"
"She is out too. They went out to dinner and
20
The Brotherhood
left a message with me for one of their friends who
was sure to come this evening, they said. In fact
they were expecting you, and this is the address they
left with me," added the porter, holding out a scrap
of paper.
Schaunard read these words in his friend U's
handwriting:-
"Gone to dine with Schaunard, Rue- Come and look
us up."
"Well, well," thought he as he went away,
"when chance comes in pretty tricks he plays!"
Then Schaunard bethought himself of a little
eating-house only a few steps away, where he had
made a meal once or twice before for a trifling sum.
To this establishment, known to lower Bohemia as
La Mère Cadet, he now betook himself. La Mère
Cadet, half tavern, half restaurant, situated in the
Chaussée du Maine, is patronised largely by carters
of the Orléans Road with a sprinkling of cantatrices
from Montparnasse and first walking gentlemen from
Bobino's. In summer the place is crammed with
young aspirants from studios round about the
Luxembourg, literary gentlemen unknown to fame,
and scribblers attached to more or less mysterious
journals, who flock to La Mère Cadet, famous for
stewed rabbit, genuine sauerkraut and a thin white
wine with a smack of brimstone.
Two or three stunted trees spread a few sickly
green leaves over the heads of diners in the estab-
lishment; and beneath the shadow of these shrubs,
known to frequenters of La Mère Cadet as "the
grove," Schaunard now took his place.
"My word! what must be, must!" said he to
21
The Latin Quarter
himself. "Now for a blow-out, a private jollification
all to myself."
And without more ado, he called for soup, a half
portion of sauerkraut and two half portions of
stewed rabbit; having remarked that in this case
two halves are greater than the whole by at least
a quarter.
His order attracted the attention of a young
person in white, with a wreath of orange blossoms
in her hair; she wore dancing slippers, and a veil
of imitated imitation floated over a pair of shoulders
which might have been suffered to preserve their
incognito. She was a singer from the Théâtre
Montparnasse, where the wings are entrances, as
one may say, of La Mère Cadet's kitchen. The lady
having stepped in for refreshments between the acts
of Lucia di Lammermoor was taking a half-cup of
coffee, after a dinner composed simply and solely
of an artichoke with oil and vinegar.
"Two portions of stewed rabbit, the dog!" she
muttered to the waitress, "the young man goes in
for high feeding. What is to pay, Adèle?"
"One artichoke, four; one half-cup, four; and
bread, one sou. Nine sous altogether."
"Here it is," returned the vocalist, and out she
went, humming, "Cet amour que Dieu me donne."
"I say! She can take the la!" remarked a
mysterious individual sitting at Schaunard's table
behind a rampart of old books.
"I rather
"Take it!" ejaculated Schaunard.
think she takes it and keeps it to herself. Besides,"
he added, pointing to the plate on which Lucia di
Lammermoor had just partaken of her artichoke,
22
The Brotherhood
"nobody has any idea what it is to steep your head-
notes in vinegar."
"It is a powerful acid, and that is a fact," ad-
mitted the other. "The city of Orleans produces
a brand which justly enjoys a great reputation."
Schaunard took a closer look at this person, who
angled thus for conversation. The fixed gaze of
the man's big blue eyes, which always seemed to
be looking out for something, gave to his face that
expression of smug serenity which you may remark
in the visages of seminarists. His complexion was
of the colour of old ivory, except for a dab of
opaque brick-red upon the cheeks; his mouth might
have been drawn by a student of the first principles
of design (if somebody had given a jog to the
draughtsman's elbow). The lips turned up a little,
negro-fashion, disclosing a set of dog's teeth; the
double chin below reposed on the folds of a white
cravat tied so that one end menaced the firmament
while the other pointed to earth. The hair of this
personage flowed in a yellow torrent from under the
prodigious brim of a tawny-brown felt hat. He
wore a long, nut-brown overcoat with a cape, a
threadbare garment, rough as a nutmeg-grater.
A mass of papers and pamphlets protruded from
its yawning pockets. He sat with a book propped
up before him on the table, careless of Schaunard's
scrutiny, eating his choucroûte garnie with evident
relish, for sounds of unqualified satisfaction escaped
him at frequent intervals; and now again, taking
a pencil from behind his ear, he jotted down a note
in the margin of the work which he was perusing.
Schaunard all at once struck his knife against a
23
The Latin Quarter
glass. "How about my stewed rabbit, eh?" he
called.
The waitress came up with a plate in her hand.
"Monsieur," she said, "stewed rabbit is off the
bill. Here is the last portion, and this gentleman
ordered it," she added, setting it down in front of
the man of books.
cried Schaunard.
"Sacrebleu!"
And in that
"Sacrebleu" there was such a depth of melancholy
disappointment that it went to the heart of the man
of books. He effected a breach in the rampart of
volumes, and pushed the plate through the gap,
saying in his most dulcet tones-
'May I venture, monsieur, to entreat you to
share this dish with me?"
"I cannot think of depriving you of it, monsieur."
"Then would you deprive me of the pleasure of
obliging you, monsieur?"
"Since you put it so, monsieur-
Schaunard held out his plate.
And
"With your permission," observed the stranger,
"I will not offer you the head."
"Oh, monsieur," exclaimed Schaunard, "I shall
not be the loser."
But drawing back his plate he perceived that the
stranger had helped him to the very morsel which
he particularly desired (so he said) to keep for him-
self.
"Well, well," Schaunard growled inwardly, "what
was he after, with his politeness?"
"If the head is the noblest part of man," con-
tinued the other, "it is the most disagreeable member
of the rabbit. So a great many persons cannot en-
24
The Brotherhood
With me it is different; I am extremely
dure it.
fond of it."
"In that case I feel the liveliest regret that you
should have deprived yourself on my account."
"What? Pardon me," said the man of books,
"I kept the head for myself. I even had the honour
to observe to you that-
"Allow me," said Schaunard, pushing his plate
across for inspection. "What is this morsel?"
"9
"Just heaven! What do I see? Ye gods!
What, another head! 'Tis a bicephalous rabbit!
"Bi-?"
"-cephalous. From the Greek. Indeed M. de
Buffon (he who always wrote in full dress) cites
examples of this natural curiosity. Well, upon
my word! I am not sorry to have partaken of the
phenomenon."
Thanks to this incident, conversation did not
languish. Schaunard, not to be behindhand in
civility, called for an extra bottle. The bookman
ordered another. Schaunard contributed a salad
to the feast; the bookman, dessert. By eight
o'clock there were six empty bottles on the table.
Communicativeness, watered by libations of thin
Tiquor, had brought them both insensibly to the
point of autobiography, and they were as well ac
quainted as if they had been brought up together
The bookman having listened to Schaunard's con-
fidences, informed him in return that his name was
Gustave Colline, that he exercised the profession of
philosopher, and made a living by giving instruction
in mathematics, pedagogy, botany and numerous
other sciences which end in y.
25
The Latin
Quarter
What little money Colline made by giving lessons
at pupils' residences, he spent upon old books. His
long, nut-brown overcoat was known to every book-
stall on the quays from the Pont de la Concorde
to the Pont Saint Michel, where his purchases were
so numerous that it would have taken a lifetime and
more to read them through. Nobody, he himself
least of all, could tell what he did with his books.
But the hobby had grown to the dimensions of a
passion, so that if he chanced to go home at night
without a new acquisition, he would adopt the say-
ing of the Emperor Titus, and cry, "I have lost the
day!" Schaunard was so fascinated by his engaging
manners, by his talk (a mosaic of every known style),
and by the atrocious puns which enlivened his con-
versation, that he asked leave on the spot to add
Colline's name to the famous list mentioned above.
And when they left La Mère Cadet, towards nine
o'clock, they had, to every appearance, carried on
a dialogue with the bottle, and were passably dis-
guised in liquor.
Colline proposed a cup of coffee, Schaunard
agreed on condition that he should provide liqueurs.
They turned accordingly into a café, at the sign of
"Momus," god of Sports and Laughter,* in the
Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.
A lively discussion was going on, as they entered,
between two frequenters of that public establish-
ment. One of these was a young man whose face
was completely lost to sight in the depths of an
enormous bushy beard of various shades of colour.
By way of contrast, however, to this prodigious
See CHAMPFLEURY, Les Confessions de Sylvius.
*
26
The Brotherhood
growth on cheek and chin, premature baldness,
setting in above, had left his forehead as bare as
a knee, save for a few straggling hairs (so few that
you might count them), which strove in vain to hide
its nakedness. A black coat, tonsured at the elbows,
gave glimpses of other openings for ventilation at
the armholes, whenever the wearer raised his arms;
his trousers might possibly have been black, once;
but his boots had never been new, the Wandering
Jew might have tramped two or three times round
the world in them already.
Schaunard noticed that his friend Colline ex-
changed a greeting with this person.
"Do you know that gentleman?" he asked the
philosopher.
"Not exactly," returned the other, "only I come
across him sometimes at the Library. I believe he
is a literary man.”
"His coat looks like it, at all events."
The individual engaged in argument with the
owner of the beard was a man of forty or so,
marked out by nature, as it would seem, for an
apoplectic seizure, to judge from the big head
which reposed between his shoulders, without a
neck between. "Idiocy" might be read in capital
letters on the flattened forehead under his skull
cap. M. Mouton-for that was his name-was
registrar of deaths at the mayor's office, in the
Fourth Arrondissement.
"M. Rodolphe!" he was exclaiming in a falsetto
voice, while he seized the young man with a beard
by a button and shook him, "do you wish to have
my opinion? Very well. All the newspapers are
27
The Latin
Quarter
Look you here!
good for nothing.
-I am the father of a family, hey?
Suppose now
Good! And
Do you
I drop into a café for a game of dominoes.
follow me?"
"Go on, go on," said the person addressed as
M. Rodolphe.
"Well," continued old Mouton, punctuating his
remarks by bringing his fist down on the table
with a bang that set all the glasses and pint-pots
trembling. "Well, I take a look at the papers.
Good! What do I find? One says 'white' and
another black.' Fiddle-diddle! What is that to
me? I am a sober father of a family, coming here
for-"
"A game of dominoes."
"Every evening. Very well. Now, suppose, for
the sake of saying something-you understand?"
"Very well," said Rodolphe.
"I read an article that I don't agree with. That
puts me in a fury; I get all of a fluster, because,
look you, the newspapers are full of lies from be-
ginning to end. Yes, lies!" shrieked he in the
shrillest, squeakiest notes of his squeaky voice,
"and journalists are bandits, a set of paltry
scriveners!"
"Still, M. Mouton-"
66
Aye, bandits! They are at the bottom of every-
body's troubles; they got up the Revolution and the
assignats. Murat, now; there's proof for you."
"I beg your pardon," put in Rodolphe, "you
mean Marat."
"No, no, not at all. I mean Murat, for I saw his
funeral myself as a boy-
"3
28
The Brotherhood
"I assure you—”
66
'The same that they made a play about at the
Cirque. So there!"
"Well, well, just so.
Murat it is."
"Why, what have I been telling you this hour
past?" cried the persistent Mouton. "Murat that
used to write in a cellar, eh? Well, suppose now-
weren't the Bourbons in the right of it to guillotine
him when he was playing them false?
"Guillotine him? Who?
Who? Played them false-
what!" exclaimed Rodolphe, buttonholing M.
Mouton in his turn.
"Oh, well, Marat."
"No, no, not at all, M. Mouton. You mean
Murat Hang it all! Let us know what we are
talking about."
"Certainly. Marat, and a low scoundrel he was.
Betrayed the Emperor in 1815. That is what makes
me say that all newspapers are alike," added M.
Mouton, returning to the theme which he had quitted
for what he called an explanation. "For my own
part, do you know what I should like, M. Rodolphe ?
Well, let us suppose now-I should like a good
newspaper. Oh, not a big oné. Good. No set
phrases-that's it!"
"You are very hard to please," put in Rodolphe.
"A newspaper without set phrases!"
"Well, yes; are you following my idea?"
"I am trying to."
"A newspaper that just lets you know how the
King is and about the crops. For after all, what
is the good of all your gazettes, when nobody can
make anything out of them? Suppose now that
29
The Latin Quarter
I am in the mayor's office, am I not? I am registrar.
Good! Well, it is as if people came and said to me,
'M. Mouton, you register deaths; very well, do this
and do that.' Very well; what this, eh? and that,
eh? Well, and it is the same thing with the news-
papers," he concluded.
Evidently," put in a neighbour, who had under-
stood him. And M. Mouton went back to his game
of dominoes amid the congratulations of those who
shared his opinions.
"I have put him in his place," he remarked, in-
dicating Rodolphe, who had gone to join Schaunard
and Colline at their table.
"What a dolt!" said Colline, glancing across at
the registrar.
"He has a good head, with his eyelids like a
carriage-hood, and eyes like loto-knobs," remarked
Schaunard, drawing out a wonderfully coloured
cutty-pipe.
"By Jove, monsieur, you have a very pretty pipe
there!" remarked Rodolphe.
"Oh, I have a still better one for great occasions,"
Schaunard answered carelessly. "Just pass me the
tobacco, Colline."
"There!" cried the philosopher, "I have none left."
"Allow me," said Rodolphe, pulling a packet out
of his pocket and laying it on the table.
Colline thought he ought to respond to this act
of courtesy by the offer of a drink.
Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned upon
literature. Rodolphe, questioned as to his profession,
confessed (for his clothes betrayed him) to his re-
lations with the Muses, and stood drinks all round.
30
The Brotherhood
L
The waiter was going to take the bottle away, but
Schaunard requested him to be so kind as to over-
look it. Two five-franc pieces were jingling in one
of Colline's pockets, and the silvery sound of the
duet had reached Schaunard's ears. Rodolphe
meanwhile quickly overtook his friends, reached the
point of expansiveness, and poured out confidences
in his turn.
The trio would, no doubt, have spent the rest of
the night in the café, if they had not been requested
to leave. Outside in the street, they had scarcely
gone ten paces (which distance was accomplished
in about a quarter of an hour) when they were
overtaken by a deluge of rain. Colline and Rodolphe
lived at opposite ends of Paris; the former in the
Ile Saint Louis, the latter at Montmartre. As for
Schaunard, he had completely forgotten that he had
no lodging at all, and offered his friends hospitality.
"Come home with me," he said; "I lodge near
by, and we will spend the night in talking literature
and art."
"You shall play for us," said Colline, "and
Rodolphe will recite his own poetry.",
"Faith, yes," added Schaunard, "we must laugh;
we can only live once."
Schaunard had some little difficulty in recognising
his house; but arrived in front of it, he sat down
for a moment on a kerbstone, while his friends went
over to a wine-shop, which still kept open, in search
of the first elements of supper. On their return
Schaunard rapped several times on the door, for he
had a dim recollection that the porters always kept
him waiting. At last it opened. Old Durand, in
31
The Latin Quarter
the balmy depths of his beauty sleep, forgot that
Schaunard had ceased to be an inmate of his house,
and heard the name called without putting himself
out in the least.
The ascent of the stairs was a slow and no less diffi-
cult business. Schaunard went first, but on arriving
on the top landing he found a key already in the lock
of his door, and uttered a cry of astonishment.
"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe.
"I can make nothing of this,"
this," murmured
Schaunard; "the key that I carried off with me
this morning is here sticking in the lock! Ha!
we shall soon see. I put it in my pocket. Eh, by
Jove! and here it is, too!" he cried, holding it up.
"It is witchcraft!"
"It is a phantasmagoria!" (from Colline).
"A fancy!" (from Rodolphe).
"But," demurred Schaunard, with growing terror
audible in his voice, "but, do you hear that?"
"What?"
"What?"
"My piano, playing all by itself-ut, la, mi, ré,
do, la, si, sol, ré. Rascally rẻ, that it is! It never
will keep in tune."
"This is not your room, of course," said
Rodolphe; and leaning heavily on Colline, he
whispered, "he is drunk."
"I think so. In the first place, that is not a
piano; it is a flute."
"Why, you are drunk too, my dear fellow," said
the poet to the philosopher, who by this time was
sitting on the floor. "It is a violin !"
"A v
fiddle-de-dee!
I say, Schaunard,”
32
The Brotherhood
stammered Colline, pulling his friend by the legs,
"that is good, is that! Here is this gentleman
saying that it is a vio"
"Confound it!" cried Schaunard, frightened out
of his wits, "there is my piano playing away; it is
witchcraft!"
"Phantasma-goria!" howled Colline, letting a
bottle fall on the floor.
"Fancy!" yelled Rodolphe in his turn.
In the middle of the hubbub the door suddenly
opened, and somebody appeared upon the threshold,
holding a candle-sconce in which three pink candles
were burning.
"What do you want, gentlemen?" he asked,
bowing politely to the three friends.
"Oh, heaven!
What have I done? I have
made a mistake. This isn't my room," exclaimed
Schaunard.
"Be so good as to excuse my friend, monsieur,"
cried Rodolphe and Colline, speaking both at once.
"He is more than half seas over."
All at once a gleam of lucidity crossed Schaunard's
tipsy brain; he had just read an inscription chalked
upon his door :-
-
"I have been here three times for my New Year's
gift.
"PHEMIE."
"Yes," cried he, "I do live here.
That is the
very visiting card which Phémie left me on New
Year's Day. This is my door; it is, indeed.”
"Dear me, monsieur," protested Rodolphe, "I
feel truly confused."
"Believe me, monsieur," Colline added, "my
33
The Latin Quarter
friend in his confusion has in me an energetic
collaborator."
The man in the doorway burst out laughing in
spite of himself.
"If you will step into my room for a moment," he
said, "your friend will find out his mistake, no doubt,
as soon as he sees the place."
"With pleasure." And the poet, taking one of
Schaunard's arms and the philosopher the other,
they brought him into the room, or, to be accurate,
into Marcel's palace, which the reader has doubtless
recognised.
Schaunard, gazing vaguely about him, muttered—
"It is astonishing how the place is improved."
"Well, are you convinced now?" asked Colline.
But Schaunard had caught sight of the piano, and
going up to it, tried over a scale or two.
"Eh! just listen to that now, all of you!" he
said, striking chord after chord. "That is right!
The animal knows its master: si la sol, fa mi ré.
Ah, rascally ré! Always the same, that it is! I told
you it was my piano."
"He persists," said Colline to Rodolphe.
"He persists," said Rodolphe, turning to Marcel.
"That now," added Schaunard, pointing to the
spangled petticoat lying on a chair, "that is not my
ornament, perhaps? Oho!"
And he looked Marcel between the eyes.
"And that- -" he continued, pulling down the
summons, of which mention has been made pre-
viously, and proceeding to read it aloud-
"Wherefore M. Schaunard is bound to remove
his effects, and to leave the premises in tenantable
34
The Brotherhood
repair, before noon on the eighth day of April. Due
notice having been served on him by me, for which
the cost is five francs.' Aha! so I am not M.
Schaunard, who was served with a notice by a
bailiff, and received the honour of a stamp worth
five francs? There again!" he cried, as he caught
sight of his slippers on Marcel's feet, "so those
are not my Turkish slippers which beloved hands
bestowed on me? Monsieur," he added, addressing
Marcel,"will you in your turn explain your presence
among my Lares?"
"Gentlemen," replied Marcel, addressing himself
more particularly to Colline and Rodolphe, "this
gentleman" (indicating Schaunard) "is, I confess,
in his own room."
"Ha!" cried Schaunard, "that is lucky!
"But," resumed Marcel, so am I."
99
"Still, monsieur," Rodolphe broke in, "if our
friend recognises
99
"Yes," said Colline, "if our friend-
""
"And if you on your side recollect," added
Rodolphe, "how comes it that"
"Yes," echoed Colline, "how comes it”
"Will you kindly sit down, gentlemen?" replied
Marcel, and I will clear up the mystery."
66
Suppose we moisten the explanation?" hazarded
Colline.
"And take a bit to eat," added Rodolphe.
With that they all four sat down to table and
attacked the piece of cold veal bought at the wine-
shop, while Marcel proceeded to narrate what had
passed that morning between him and the landlord.
when he came to move in.
35
The Latin Quarter
"So," said Rodolphe, "this gentleman is perfectly
right. This is his room.'
""
'Pray consider yourself at home in it," Marcel
returned politely.
But it was only after immense trouble that
Schaunard could be got to understand what had
happened, and a comical incident still further com-
plicated matters. Schaunard was looking for some-
thing in a wall cupboard when he came upon some
money; it was the change which M. Bernard had
given for the five-hundred franc bill.
"Ah, I knew it!" he cried; "I knew that Chance
would not leave me in the lurch! I remember now!
I went out this morning to look him up. He must
have come in while I was out, as it was quarter-
day. We crossed each other on the way, that is all.
What a good thing I left the key in the drawer!"
"Sweet delusion!" murmured Rodolphe, as he
saw Schaunard dividing the coins into equal piles.
"Illusion, delusion, such is life!" added the
philosopher.
Marcel laughed.
An hour later all four were fast asleep.
Next day at noon they awoke, and at first seemed
very much surprised at the company in which they
found themselves. Schaunard, Colline and Rodolphe
looked as though they had never met before, and
addressed each other as "Monsieur." Marcel was
obliged to remind them that they all came in together
the night before.
Old Durand came in at that very moment.
"Monsieur," said he, addressing Marcel, "to-day
1
36
The Brotherhood
is the ninth of April, eighteen hundred and forty
the streets are muddy, and His Majesty Louis
Philippe is still King of France and Navarre.
What next!" he exclaimed, catching sight of his
former lodger. "M. Schaunard! Why how did
you get in?"
"By telegraph," said Schaunard.
"But I say," continued old Durand, "you are
a droll one, you are-
"Durand," said Marcel, "I do not care to have
my man-servant join in conversation when I am
present. Go to the restaurant near by and order
in breakfast for four persons. Here is the menu,"
he added, holding out a slip of paper.
""
go."
"Now
"You invited me to supper last night, gentlemen,"
Marcel went on, addressing his visitors, "allow me
to offer you luncheon this morning, not in my room,
but in yours," he added, holding out his hand to
Schaunard.
Luncheon over, Rodolphe asked permission to
speak.
"Gentlemen," he began, "permit me to leave
you"
"Oh, no," Schaunard said in a sentimental tone,
"let us never part again!
""
"True, it is very pleasant here," assented Colline.
to leave you for a moment," continued
Rodolphe.
"The Iris, a journal devoted to the
fashions, appears to-morrow. I, as editor, must
go and correct my proofs, but I will be back in an
hour."
"The deuce!" cried Colline, "that reminds me
37
The Latin Quarter
I have a lesson to give to an Indian prince who has
come to Paris to learn Arabic."
"You can go to-morrow," said Marcel.
"Oh no, the prince ought to pay me to-day. And
besides, I must confess that this beautiful day would
be completely spoilt for me if I did not take a look
round the second-hand book market."
"But you are coming back?" queried Schaunard.
"With the swiftness of a dart sped by a sure
hand," returned the philosopher, who loved eccentric
metaphors.
And he went out with Rodolphe. Schaunard and
Marcel were left alone together.
"By-the-by," remarked the former, "how if
instead of reclining upon the pillow of far niente I
should issue forth in quest of gold wherewith to
allay M. Bernard's cupidity?"
"Why, do you still contemplate moving out?"
Marcel asked uneasily.
"Lord! yes,
there is no help for it," said
Schaunard. "I have had notice to quit served
on me by a bailiff at a cost of five francs."
"But if you are moving out, are you going to
take away your furniture?"
"That is what I purpose to do; I am not going
to leave a hair, as M. Bernard says."
"The devil! then I shall be in a fix,” said
Marcel, "for I took your room as a furnished
apartment."
"Stay a bit, though! true; aye, so it is," returned
Schaunard. "Pshaw," he added ruefully, "there
is nothing to show that I shall find my seventy francs
to-day, or to-morow, or the next day."
38
The Brotherhood
"Hold on, though," cried Marcel, "I have an
idea."
"Produce it," said Schaunard.
"This is the situation: legally speaking, this
lodging is mine, for I paid a month's rent in
advance."
"The room, yes; but as to the furniture, if I pay
I have a legal right to remove it; and if I could,
I would even remove it illegally," said Schaunard.
"So as it stands," continued Marcel, "you have
furniture, and nowhere to put it; and I have a room,
and nothing to put in it."
"That is it."
"For my own part, I like this room," continued
Marcel.
"So do I," put in Schaunard, "never liked it like
this before."
"What do you say?"
"Liked it like, for liked it so much. Oh, I know
my native language!"
"Well, so we can settle these matters," Marcel
went on. "Stay with me; I will find the lodgings,
and you shall find the furniture."
"And how about the rent?"
"I will pay what is owing, as I have money just
now. It will be your turn next time. Consider it."
"I never consider anything, especially if it is an
offer that suits me. I accept out of hand. Music
and painting are, in fact, sisters."
"Sisters-in-law,"
rejoined Marcel, and at that
moment Colline and Rodolphe came in together.
They had met on the way.
* Belle-sœurs.
39
The Latin
Quarter
"Gentlemen," cried Rodolphe, jingling the money
in his pockets, "I propose that those present should
dine with me.
99
"That is precisely what I was about to have the
honour to propose myself," said Colline, pulling a
gold piece out of his pocket and sticking it in his
eye. "My prince gave me this to buy a Hindostanee-
Arabic grammar, for which I have just paid six sous
sterling."
"And I got the cashier of the Iris to let me have
thirty francs in advance, on the pretext that I wanted
the money to get myself vaccinated."
"It is pay day, it seems," remarked Schaunard,
"I am the only one that has not taken handsel. It
is humiliating."
"Meantime, my offer of dinner is still open,"
repeated Rodolphe.
"So is mine," said Colline.
"Very well, let us toss to see who shall pay the
bill."
"No," cried Schaunard, "I know a better way
than that; an infinitely better way of getting out of
the difficulty."
"Let us see it!"
"Rodolphe shall give the dinner and Colline will
entertain us at supper."
"That is what I call the wisdom of Solomon,"
cried the philosopher.
"It is worse than Gamacho's wedding-feast,"
added Marcel.
The dinner duly took place in a Provençal
restaurant in the Rue Dauphine, well known for
its ayoli and the literary tastes of its waiters. As
1
+
40
The Brotherhood
it was expedient to leave room for supper, they
ate and drank in moderation. The acquaintance
begun the previous evening between Colline and
Schaunard, and later still with Marcel, was ripening
into intimacy. Each one of the party hoisted the
flag of his opinions on art, and all four discovered
that they possessed the same courage and the same
hope. In the course of chat and discussion they
perceived that they had sympathies in common;
they all had the same turn for the light and dexter-
ous word-play which raises laughter and leaves no
wounds; and lastly, that all the fair virtues of youth
had by no means departed from them and left their
hearts empty, for they were readily moved by any-
thing beautiful which they heard or saw. And since
all four had left a common starting-point to reach
the same goal, it seemed to them that it was
something more than a mere everyday quid pro quo
of Chance, which had brought them thus together;
was it not quite possible that it might be Provi-
dence, who watches over those left to themselves,
that had joined their hands and whispered in their
ears the Evangelist's words, "Love one another.
Bear ye one another's burdens," sayings which
ought to constitute the one and only Charter of
Humanity?
The end of the meal found them almost grave.
When Rodolphe got up and proposed that they
should drink to the Future, Colline replied with
a little speech that certainly was not taken out
of an old book, nor had any pretension to style.
He spoke quite simply in that artless vernacular
which tells so well what is said so ill.
41
The Latin Quarter
"What a fool the philosopher is!" muttered
Schaunard, bending over his glass. "He has made
me mix water with my wine."
After dinner they went to the Café à Momus, where
they had spent the previous evening. From that day
the establishment became uninhabitable for the rest
of its patrons.
Coffee and liqueurs despatched, the Bohemian
clan (now definitely founded) returned to Marcel's
quarters, which received the name of "Schaunard's
Elysium." Colline went out to order the promised
supper, and the rest, meanwhile, provided them-
selves with crackers, rockets, and other pyrotechnical
devices. These they let off from the windows before
sitting down to supper; and the magnificent dis-
play fairly turned the house upside down, the four
friends singing at the top of their voices-
"Let us celebrate this great day!"
Next morning they again found themselves to-
gether, but this time it did not cause them any
astonishment. Before separating for the business.
of the day they shared a frugal lunch at the Café
Momus, where they agreed to meet again in the
evening. For a long time they kept to this daily
routine.
These then are the characters who will pass in
and out of the short stories which form this book.
It is not a novel, and has no other pretension than
that indicated by its title, for the Scenes of Bohemian
Life are but studies of people belonging to a class
hitherto misunderstood, whose chief fault is irregu-
larity. Still, they can say in excuse that this
irregularity is a necessity of their life.
42
S
II
A MESSENGER OF PROVIDENCE
CHAUNARD and Marcel, after working valiantly
all the morning, had come to a sudden stop.
"How hungry it is, by Jove!" exclaimed Schau-
nard; then he added carelessly, "is there not to be
any lunch to-day?"
Never was question more inopportunely raised,
and Marcel seemed very much astonished by it.
"Since when have we begun to lunch two days in
succession?" he demanded. "Yesterday was Thurs-
day." And he rounded out this observation by
pointing with his mahl-stick to the commandment
of the Church-
"Thou shalt eat no meat of a Friday,
Nor anything resembling thereunto."
Schaunard, having no answer to make to this,
betook himself again to his picture, which repre-
sented a plain with a blue tree and a red tree
stretching out their branches to shake hands with
one another—a transparent allusion to the delights
of friendship which, notwithstanding, contained a
good deal of philosophy.
Just at that moment someone knocked at the
door; it was the porter with a letter for Marcel.
"Three sous to pay," added the man.
66 Are you sure?" asked the artist.
"Good, then
43
The Latin Quarter
we will owe you the money," and he shut the door
in his face.
Marcel meanwhile had broken the seal. At the
very first words he began to skip like an acrobat
about the studio, thundering out with all his might
the following well-known ballad, which, with him,
denoted the highest possible pitch of jubilation-
"There were four young men of the neighbourhood,
Who all fell ill, as I've understood;
So they took them off to the hospital-
Al! al! al! al!'"
"Well, yes," said Schaunard, taking it up.
"They laid them all in a full-sized bed,
Two at the foot and two at the head.'
"We know that."
"And a little Sister came that way-
Ay ay ay! ay!'"
continued Marcel.
"If you do not hold your tongue, I shall begin to
play the allegro from my symphony on 'The In-
fluence of Blue in the Arts,'" said Schaunard, who
already felt symptoms of mental derangement; and
he made for the piano.
The threat produced the effect of a little cold
water poured into a boiling pot; Marcel calmed
down as though by enchantment.
"There!" he said, handing over the letter.
"Look!"
It was an invitation to dine with a deputy, an
enlightened patron of the arts, and of Marcel in
particular, who had painted a picture of his country
house.
1
44
A Messenger of Providence
"If it is for to-day, it is unlucky that the card
will not admit two persons," remarked Schaunard ;
"but now I come to think of it, your deputy is
Ministerialist. You cannot, you ought not, to ac-
cept; for your principles forbid your eating bread
soaked in the sweat of the people's brows."
"Pooh!" said Marcel, "my deputy is Centre
Left; he voted against the Government the other
day. Besides, he ought to put me in the way of a
commission, and he promised to give me some intro-
ductions. What is more, you see, I am as ravenous
as Ugolino. Friday or no, I mean to dine to-day, so
there it is!"
"There are other things in the way," Schaunard
went on, being, in fact, a trifle jealous of his friend's
windfall. "You cannot possibly go out to dine in a
short red jacket and a bargeman's cap."
"I am going to Colline's or Rodolphe's to borrow
some clothes."
"Insensate youth! Have you forgotten that we
have passed the twentieth day of the month? By
this time any articles of apparel belonging to those
gentlemen will have been spouted over and over
again."
"I shall find a black coat, anyhow, by five
o'clock," said Marcel.
"It took me three weeks to find one to wear at
my cousin's wedding, and that was in the beginning
of January."
"Very well, I shall go as I am," retorted Marcel,
striding up and down. "It shall not be said that
paltry considerations of etiquette prevented me from
making my first step into society."
45
The Latin Quarter
"By the way, how about boots?" put in Schau-
nard, who seemed greatly to enjoy his friend's
chagrin.
Marcel went out in a state of agitation impossible
to describe.
In two hours' time he came back with a linen
collar.
"It was all I could find," he said mournfully.
"It was not worth while to run about for so
little. There is paper enough here to make a
dozen."
Marcel tore his hair. 66 Hang it all, but we must
have some things here!" he cried.
A strict search, pursued for the space of an hour
through every corner of both rooms, yielded a
costume thus composed :-
A pair of plaid trousers.
A grey hat.
A red cravat.
One glove, which had once been white.
One black glove.
"They will make a pair at a pinch," suggested
Schaunard. "By the time you are dressed you will
look like the solar spectrum. But what is that,
when one is a colourist?"
Marcel meanwhile was trying on the boots. By
some unlucky chance both belonged to the same
foot!
Then, in his despair, Marcel bethought himself of
an old boot lying in a corner-a receptacle for spent
bladders of paint. On this he seized.
"From Garrick to Syllabus," was his friend's
ironical comment; "one is pointed at the toes, and
the other square.”
46
A Messenger of Providence
"No one will see it; I am going to varnish them."
"What a notion! Now you only want a regula-
tion dress-coat."
"Oh, look here!" groaned Marcel, biting his
hand, "I would give ten years of my life and my
right hand for one!"
There was another knock at the door. Marcel
went to open it.
"M. Schaunard?" said a stranger, pausing on
the threshold.
"I am he," said the painter, and begged him to
enter.
"Monsieur," began the stranger, whose honest
countenance marked him out as a typical provincial,
"my cousin has been talking a good deal of your
talent as a portrait painter, and as I am just about
to start on a voyage to the colonies as delegate of
the sugar refiners of Nantes, I should like to leave
a souvenir with my family. So I have come to look
you up."
"Oh, sacred Providence!" muttered Schaunard.
"Marcel, hand a chair to Monsieur
""
"M. Blancheron," the stranger continued. "Blan-
cheron of Nantes, delegate of the sugar industry,
formerly Mayor of V, Captain in the National
Guard, and author of a pamphlet on the sugar
question."
"I feel greatly honoured by being chosen by you,"
said the artist, bowing before the refiners' delegate.
"How do you wish to have your portrait painted?
"In miniature, like that," rejoined M. Blancheron,
pointing to an oil portrait (for to the worthy delegate,
as to a good many other people, there are but two
1
47
The Latin Quarter
kinds of paintings-house and miniature; there is
no middle term).
This artless reply gave Schaunard the measure of
the good soul with whom he had to do, especially
when M. Blancheron added that he wished to have
his portrait done in fine colours.
"I never use any other kind," said Schaunard.
"How large do you desire to have your portrait,
monsieur ?"
"As big as that one," said M. Blancheron, point-
ing to a canvas in the studio. "But what price
does that come to?"
"Fifty to sixty francs; sixty with hands included,
fifty without."
"The devil! my cousin talked about thirty
francs."
"It varies with the season," rejoined the painter,
"colours are much dearer at some times than at
others."
"Why, then, it is like sugar!"
"Exactly."
"Let it be fifty francs, then," said M. Blancheron.
"You are making a mistake. For another ten
francs the hands could be put in; and I should paint
you holding your pamphlet on the sugar question,
which would be very gratifying to you."
"Upon my word, you are right."
"By Jove!" said Schaunard to himself, "if he
keeps on at this, I shall burst; and somebody may
be hurt with the pieces."
"Did you notice?" Marcel continued to whisper.
"What?"
"He has a black coat."
48
A Messenger of Providence
"I comprehend, and I enter into your ideas.
Leave it to me."
"Well, monsieur," said the delegate, "when
shall we begin? We must not leave it too long,
for I start almost directly."
"I am going on a short journey myself; I am
leaving Paris the day after to-morrow. So we can
begin at once, if you like. A great deal can be
done in one good sitting."
"But it will be dark directly, and you cannot
paint by artificial light," said M. Blancheron.
"My studio is so arranged that you can work in
it at any time. If you like to take off your coat
and sit, we can begin now."
"Take off my coat? Why?"
"Did you not tell me that you wanted a portrait
to give to your family?"
"Certainly."
"Well, then, you ought to be painted in the dress
you wear at home-in your dressing-gown. Besides,
it is usual to do so."
"But I have not my dressing-gown with me."
"I keep one on purpose," said Schaunard, pre-
senting to his model's gaze a ragged object be-
spattered with paint. At sight of it the provincial
appeared to hesitate.
"It is a strange-looking garment," he began.
"And very valuable," rejoined the painter. "A
Turkish vizier presented it to M. Horace Vernet,
by whom it was given to me. I am a pupil of his."
"Are you one of Vernet's pupils?" asked Blan-
cheron.
"I am, monsieur, I am proud to say. (Horrors!"
E
49
The Latin Quarter
he muttered to himself, "I am denying my
gods.")
"And well you may be, young man," returned
the delegate, enveloping himself in a dressing-gown
of such distinguished antecedents.
"Hang M. Blancheron's coat up," said Schaunard,
with a significant wink to his friend.
Marcel flew upon his prey. "I say," he mur-
mured, "this is something very good. Could you
not keep a bit for me?"
"I will try, but let that be; dress quickly, and be
off. Come back at ten o'clock, I will keep him here
till then. And on no account forget to bring me
something back in your pockets."
"I will bring you a pineapple," said Marcel as he
went.
As it grew
The coat was hastily slipped on (it fitted him like
a glove), and he departed by another door.
Schaunard meanwhile got to work.
quite dark and the clocks struck six, M. Blancheron
recollected that he had not dined. He made an
observation to this effect.
"I am in the same case," said Schaunard, "but
to oblige you I will dispense with dinner this even-
ing, though I have an invitation to a house in the
Faubourg Saint Germain. We cannot be disturbed
now, it might spoil the likeness," and he set to work
again.
"By-the-by," he added suddenly, "we can dine
without putting ourselves about. There is a very
good restaurant below; they will send us up any-
thing we like"; and Schaunard watched the effect of
this trio of "we's."
50
A Messenger of Providence
"I am quite of your opinion," said M. Blan-
cheron, "and on the other hand, I shall be glad
to think that you will do me the honour of keeping
me company at table."
Schaunard bowed.
"Come!" he said to himself, "this is a good
man, a real messenger of Providence. Will you
give the order?" he asked his host.
"You will oblige me by undertaking it yourself,"
the other returned politely.
"Tu t'en repentiras Nicolas," sang the painter as
he skipped downstairs four steps at a time.
Entering the restaurant, he betook himself to the
counter, where he drew up such a menu that the
Vatel of the establishment read it with blanched
cheeks.
"Bordeaux, as usual."
"Who is going to pay me?"
"Not I, probably," said Schaunard, "but mine
uncle, an epicure; you will see him upstairs. So.
try to distinguish yourself, and let us have dinner
served up in half an hour; and on porcelain, that is
most important."
*
*
At eight o'clock that night M. Blancheron had
already begun to feel the need of some friendly
bosom on which to pour out all his ideas on the
sugar industry, and recited his pamphlet aloud to
a pianoforte accompaniment by Schaunard.
At ten o'clock M. Blancheron and his friend
danced a galop together, and thee and thoued each
other freely. At eleven they swore never to part,
51
The Latin Quarter
and each made a will leaving the whole of his
fortune to the other.
At midnight Marcel came in and found them
weeping in each other's arms and the studio half
an inch deep in water already. Stumbling against
the table, he discovered the remains of a splendid
banquet, and looking at the bottles saw that they
were all perfectly empty.
Then he tried to wake Schaunard, but that
worthy, with his head pillowed on M. Blancheron,
threatened to kill him if he took his friend away
from him.
"Ingrate!" was Marcel's comment, as he drew
a handful of hazel nuts from his coat pocket, "and
I was bringing him home something for dinner!"
52
ONE
III
LENTEN LOVES
NE evening in Lent Rodolphe went home
early intending to work. But scarcely had
he sat down and dipped his pen in the ink when he
was disturbed by an unusual sound. Applying his
ear to the indiscreet partition wall, he could hear
and distinguish perfectly well an onomatopoetic dia-
logue carried on principally in kisses in the next
room.
"Confound it!" thought Rodolphe as he glanced
at the clock. "It is early yet, and my fair neigh-
bour is a Juliet who seldom permits her Romeo to
depart with the lark. It is impossible to work to-
night." So taking up his hat he sallied forth.
As he stepped into the porter's lodge to hang up
his key, he found the portress half imprisoned by
the arm of a gallant. The poor woman was so
overcome that it was fully five minutes before she
could pull the door-string.
"It is a fact," mused Rodolphe, "there are
moments when portresses become mere women."
He opened the street door, and lo! in the corner,
a fireman and a cook-maid were exchanging a pre-
liminary token of affection, standing there holding
each other by the hand.
"Egad!" cried he, as he thought of the warrior
53
The Latin Quarter
and his stalwart companion, "here be heretics, who
scarcely so much as know that Lent has begun."
And he made for the lodging of a friend in the
neighbourhood.
"If Marcel is at home, we will spend the evening
in abusing Colline," said he to himself. "One must
do something, after all."
After a vigorous rapping, the door at length stood
ajar, and a young man simply dressed in little but a
shirt and a pair of eye-glasses put his head out.
"I cannot ask you to come in," said this person.
"Why not?" demanded Rodolphe.
99
'There!" said Marcel, as a feminine head ap-
peared from behind a curtain, "that is my answer.'
"And not a handsome one," was Rodolphe's
retort after the door had been shut in his face.
"So," said he to himself when he turned into the
street, "what next? Suppose I go to Colline's?
We could put in the time abusing Marcel."
But as Rodolphe traversed the Rue de l'Ouest, a
dark street and little frequented at any time, he
perceived a shadowy figure prowling about in a
melancholy manner, muttering rimes between its
teeth.
"Hey day!" said Rodolphe, "who is this Sonnet,
dancing attendance here? Why, Colline!"
"Why, Rodolphe! Where are you going?"
"To your rooms.
99
"You will not find me there."
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting."
"And for what?"
"Ha!" cried Colline, breaking into mock-heroics.
54
Lenten Loves
"For what does one wait, when one is twenty years
old, and there are stars in heaven and songs in the
air?"
"Speak in prose."
"I am waiting for a lady."
"Good night," returned Rodolphe, and he made
off, talking to himself. "Bless me! is it St. Cupid's
Day, and can I scarcely take a step without jostling
a pair of lovers? This is scandalous and immoral!
What can the police be doing?"
As the Luxembourg Gardens were still open,
Rodolphe took the short cut across them. All along
the quieter alleys he saw mysterious couples with
their arms about each other flit before him, as if
scared away by the sound of his footsteps, to seek,
in the language of the poet, the double sweetness
of silence and shade.
"It is an evening out of a novel," said Rodolphe ;
but the languorous charm grew upon him in spite of
himself, and sitting down on a bench, he looked
sentimentally up at the moon.
After a time he felt as if some feverish dream had
taken possession of him. It seemed to him that the
marble population of gods and heroes were coming
down from their pedestals to pay their court to their
neighbours the goddesses and heroines of the
gardens; indeed, he distinctly heard the big Her-
cules singing a madrigal to Velleda, and thought
that the Druidess's tunic looked unusually short.
From his seat on the bench he watched the swan in
the fountain glide across towards a nymph on the
bank.
"Good!" thought Rodolphe, prepared to believe
55
The Latin Quarter
in the whole heathen mythology. "There goes
Jupiter to a tryst with Leda! If only the police do
not interfere!"
Resting his forehead on his hands, he deliberately
pushed further into the briar-rose wood of senti-
mentality. But at the finest point in his dream
Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a tap on the
shoulder from a policeman.
"Time to go out, sir," said the man.
"A good thing too," thought Rodolphe. "If I
had stayed here for another five minutes I should
have had more vergiss-mein-nicht in my heart than
ever grew on the banks of the Rhine, or even in
Alphonse Karr's novels." And he made all haste
out of the Luxembourg Gardens, humming in his
deep bass voice a sentimental tune which he re-
garded as the lover's "Marseillaise."
Half an hour after, in some unexplained way, he
found himself at the "Prado," sitting at a table with
a glass of punch before him, and chatting with a tall
young fellow, famous for his nose-a feature which
possessed the singular quality of looking aquiline
in profile and like a snub nose when seen full face;
a nose of noses-not without sense, with a sufficient
experience of love affairs to be able to give sound
counsel in such cases and to do a friend a good
turn.
"So you are in love?" Alexandre Schaunard (the
owner of the nose) was saying.
"Yes, my dear boy. It came on quite suddenly
just now, like a bad toothache in your heart."
"Pass the tobacco," said Alexandre.
"Imagine it!" continued Rodolphe. "I have
56
Lenten Loves
met nothing but lovers for the past two hours-men
and women by twos and twos. I took it into my
head to go into the Luxembourg, and there I saw
all sorts of phantasmagoria, which stirred my heart
in an extraordinary way, and set me composing
elegies. I bleat and I coo-I am being metamor-
phosed; I am half lamb, half pigeon. Just look at
me; I must be covered with wool and feathers!"
"What can you have been drinking?" Alexandre
put in impatiently. "You are hoaxing me, that is
what it is."
"I am quite cool and composed, I assure you,"
said Rodolphe. "That is, I am not; but I am
going to inform you that I long for a mate. Man
should not live alone, you see, Alexandre; in a word,
you must help me to find a wife. . . . We will take a
turn round the dancing saloon, and you must go to
the first girl that I point out to you, and tell her
that I am in love with her."
"Why don't you go and tell her so yourself?"
returned Alexandre in his splendid nasal bass.
"Eh, my dear boy! I assure you I have quite
forgotten how these things are done. Friends
have always written the opening chapters of all
my love stories for me; sometimes they have even
done the conclusions too. But I never could begin
myself!"
"If you know how to end, it will do," said Alex-
andre; "but I know what you mean. I have seen
a girl with a taste for the oboe; you might perhaps
suit her."
"Oh," answered Rodolphe, "I should like her to
wear white gloves, and she should have blue eyes."
57
The Latin
Quarter
"Oh, confound it! Blue eyes? I don't say no;
but gloves! You cannot have everything at once,
you know. Still, let us go to the aristocratic
quarters."
"There!" said Rodolphe, as they entered the
room frequented by the more fashionable portion
of the assemblage-"there is someone who seems
a very pleasant girl." He pointed out a rather
fashionably dressed damsel in a corner.
"Good!" returned Alexandre. "Keep a little
bit in the background; I will go hurl the firebrand
of passion for you.
When the time comes I will
call you."
Alexandre talked with the girl for about ten
minutes. Every now and again she burst into a
merry peal of laughter, and ended by flinging
Rodolphe a glance which meant plainly enough,
"Come, your advocate has gained your cause.
""
"Go, the victory is ours!" said Alexandre. "The
little creature is not hardhearted, there is no doubt
about it; but you had better look harmless and
simple to begin with."
"I stand in no need of that recommendation."
"Then pass me a little tobacco," said Alexandre,
"and go and sit over there with her."
"Oh, dear, how funny your friend is! "began the
damsel, when Rodolphe seated himself beside her.
"He talks like a hunting horn."
"That is because he is a musician," answered
Rodolphe.
Two hours later Rodolphe and his fair companion
stopped before a house in the Rue Saint Denis.
"I live here,” she said.
58
Lenten Loves
"Well, dear Louise, when shall I see you again,
and where?"
"At your own house, to-morrow evening at eight
o'clock."
"Really?"
"Here is my promise," said Louise, offering two
fresh young cheeks, the ripe fruit of youth and
health, of which Rodolphe took his fill at leisure.
Then he went home intoxicated to madness.
"Ah!" he cried as he strode to and fro in his
room, "it must not pass off thus; I positively must
write some poetry."
Next morning his porter found some thirty pieces
of paper lying about the room, with the following
solitary line majestically inscribed at the head of
each (otherwise blank) sheet-
"O Love! O Love! thou prince of youth!"
That morning Rodolphe, contrary to his usual
habit, had awaked very early, and though he had
slept very little, he got up at once.
"Ah, broad daylight already!" he cried. "Why,
twelve hours to wait! What shall I do to fill those
twelve eternities?"
The pen
Just then his eyes fell on his desk.
seemed to fidget, as if to say, "Work!"
"Work, ah yes! A plague take prose! . . . I
will not stay here, the place stinks of ink."
He installed himself in a café where he was quite
sure of meeting none of his friends. "They would
see that I am in love," he told himself, "and shape
my ideal in advance for me." So after a succinct
59
The Latin Quarter
repast Rodolphe hastened to the railway station,
took the train, and in half an hour was out in the
woods of Ville d'Avray. There set at freedom in
a world grown young with spring, he spent the
whole day in walking about, and only came back to
Paris at nightfall.
First of all Rodolphe put the temple in order for
the reception of the idol; then he dressed himself
for the occasion, regretting as he did so that a white
costume was out of the question.
From seven o'clock till eight he suffered from a
sharp, feverish attack of suspense. The slow torture
recalled old days to his mind, and the ancient loves
which lent them charm. And, faithful to his habit,
he fell a-dreaming of a heroic passion, a ten-volume
love, a perfect lyrical poem, with moonlit nights and
sunsets and meetings under the willow tree and
sighs and jealousy and all the rest of it. It was
always the same with him whenever chance threw
a woman in his way; nor did the fair one ever quit
him without an aureole about her head and a necklet
of tears.
"They would much prefer a hat or a pair of
shoes," remonstrated his friends, but Rodolphe was
obdurate, nor hitherto had his tolerably numerous
blunders cured him. He was always on the look-
out for a woman who should consent to pose as his
idol; an angel in velvet to whom he might indite
sonnets on willow leaves at his leisure.
At last the "hallowed hour" struck, and as
Rodolphe heard the last stroke sound with a sonor-
ous clang of bell metal, it seemed to him that he
saw the alabaster Cupid and Psyche above his
60
Lenten Loves
timepiece arise and fall into each other's arms.
And at that very moment somebody gave a couple
of timid taps on his door.
Rodolphe went to open it, and there stood Louise.
"I have kept my word, you see," she said.
Rodolphe drew the curtains and lighted a new
wax candle; and the girl meanwhile took off her
hat and shawl and laid them on the bed. The
dazzling whiteness of the sheets drew a smile and
something like a blush.
Louise was charming rather than pretty, with a
piquant mixture of simplicity and mischief in her
face, somehow suggesting one of Greuze's themes
treated by Gavarni. All her winning girlish charm
was still further heightened by a toilette which,
simple though it was, showed that she understood
the science of coquetry, a science innate in every
woman, from her first long clothes to her wedding-
dress. Louise appeared, besides, to have made a
special study of the theory of attitudes; for as
Rodolphe looked at her more closely with an artist's
eye, she tried for his benefit a great variety of
graceful poses, the charm of her movements being
for the most part of the studied order. The slender-
ness of her daintily shod feet, however, left nothing
to be desired-not even by a Romantic with a fancy
for the miniature proportions of the Andalusians or
Chinese; as for her hands, it was plain from their
delicate texture that they did no work, and indeed
for the past six months they had had nothing to fear
from needle pricks. To tell the whole truth, Louise
was one of the birds of passage whom fancy, or
oftener still necessity, leads to make their nest for a
61
The
Latin Quarter
day, or rather for a night, in some garret in the
Latin Quarter, where they will sometimes stay for
several days, held willing captives by a riband or
a whim.
•
After an hour's chat with Louise, Rodolphe
pointed by way of example to the Cupid and
Psyche.
"Is that Paul and Virginia?" asked she.
"Yes," said Rodolphe, unwilling to vex her by
a contradiction at the outset.
"It is very like," returned Louise.
"Alas!" sighed Rodolphe as he looked at her,
"the poor child has not very much literature. I feel
sure that she only knows the orthography of the
heart, which knows no 's' in the plural. I must
buy her a grammar."
While he thus meditated, Louise complained that
her shoes hurt her, and he obligingly was helping
her to unlace them, when all on a sudden the light
went out.
"There!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who can have
blown out the candle?"
A joyous burst of laughter answered him.
Some days later Rodolphe met a friend who
accosted him in the street.
"Why, what are you doing? You have dropped
out of sight."
"Making poetry out of my own experience,"
returned Rodolphe, and the unfortunate young man
told the truth.
He had asked more of Louise than the poor child
could give him. Your little hurdy-gurdy cannot
62
Lenten Loves
give out the notes of the lyre, and Louise used to
talk, as one may say, the patois of love, while
Rodolphe insisted that she should use poetical
language. So they understood each other some-
what imperfectly.
A week later, at the very dancing saloon where
she met Rodolphe, Louise came across a fair-haired
young fellow, who danced a good many dances with
her and ended by taking her home.
He was a second-year student; he spoke the prose
language of pleasure very well; he had fine eyes,
and pockets that jingled musically.
Louise asked him for paper and ink, and wrote
Rodolphe a letter thus conceived :—
"Dont count on mee any more. One larst kiss and good-
bye.-LOUISE."
As Rodolphe read this epistle that night, when he
came in, the light suddenly went out.
"There!" he said to himself meditatively, "that
is the very candle which I lighted when Louise came
that evening; it is fitting that it should burn out
now that all is over between us. If I had only
known, I would have chosen a longer one," he
added, with a ring in his voice, half vexation, half
regret, and he laid Louise's note in a drawer, which
he was wont at times to call the catacombs of his
dead love affairs.
One day when Rodolphe was with Marcel he
picked up a scrap of paper off the floor to light his
pipe, and recognised Louise's handwriting and
spelling.
63
The Latin Quarter
"I possess an autograph of the same writer," he
remarked to his friend, "only in mine there are two
fewer mistakes in spelling. Does that not show
that she loved me better?"
"It proves that you are a fool," returned Marcel ;
arms and shoulders have no need of
"white
grammar."
64
O
IV
ALI RODOLPHE
OR, THE INVOLUNTARY TURK
STRACISED by a churlish landlord, Rodolphe
led for a time a nomad life, doing his best to
perfect himself in the arts of sleeping supperless,
and supping without a bed to follow, with Chance
for his chef, and the ground open to the stars for
his lodging. No cloud wandered more than he.
Still amid these painful cross events two things
did not desert him-to wit, his good humour and the
manuscript of The Avenger, a tragedy which had
made the rounds of all the likely openings for
dramatic talent in Paris.
But one day, as it befell, Rodolphe, having been
conducted to the "jug" for a choregraphic per-
formance a trifle too weird for public taste, found
himself face to face with an uncle, a genuine uncle
whom he had not seen for an age, in the shape of
one Monetti, a stove manufacturer, an authority on
chimneys, and a sergeant in the National Guard to
boot.
Touched by his nephew's misfortunes, Uncle
Monetti promised to mend matters; how, we shall
presently see, if the ascent of six pairs of stairs
does not dismay the reader.
F
65
The Latin Quarter
So let us grasp the handrail and climb
Ouf! one hundred and twenty-five steps! Here we
are. One step more takes us into the room, another
would bring us out at the other side. The place is
perhaps small, but it is high up, and besides there
is good air up there and a fine view.
The furniture consists of a good selection of
chimney cowls, a couple of portable stoves, a few
patent grates for economising fuel (especially if
no fuel is put in them), a dozen or so of funnels
and fire-bricks, and a whole host of warming
apparatus; furthermore, to complete the inventory,
add to these a hammock slung from a couple of
hooks in the walls, a garden chair with an
amputated leg, a chandelier still adorned with a
solitary socket, and various fancy articles and
objects of art.
As for the second room, a balcony and a couple
of dwarf cypresses in pots convert it into a park
for the summer.
The tenant of this abode, a young man dressed
like a Turk of comic opera, is just finishing his
breakfast as we enter, a meal which in itself is a
shameless violation of the law of the Prophet, as
may be sufficiently seen by the presence of the
mortal remains of a knuckle of ham and what was
once a full bottle of wine.
Breakfast ended, the youthful Turk extended him-
self on the floor in Oriental fashion, languidly
smoking a narghilé marked "J.G.," and while he
gave himself up to a sense of Asiatic beatitude, he
passed his hand from time to time over the back of
a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who would no
66
Ali Rodolphe
doubt have responded to these caresses if he had
not been made of earthenware.
All at once a sound of footsteps came from the
passage, and the door opened to give admittance
to somebody who without a word went straight up
to a range which did duty as a bureau, drew a roll
of papers out of the oven, and subjected them to a
close scrutiny.
"What!" cried the new-comer, speaking with
a strong Piedmontese accent, "have you not finished
the chapter on 'Ventilation Holes' yet?"
"With your leave, uncle,” replied the Turk, "the
chapter on Ventilation Holes' is one of the most
interesting in your work, and requires to be studied
with especial care. I am now studying it."
"Wretched boy, it is always the same thing!
And my chapter on 'Hot-air Stoves,' how is that
going on?"
By-the-by,
"The hot-air stove is doing well.
uncle, if you would let me have a little firewood it
would not come amiss. It is a small edition of
Siberia up here; I am so cold that I have only to
look at the thermometer, and it drops below zero!'
"What! have you burned a whole faggot
already?"
"With your permission, uncle, there are faggots
and faggots, and yours was a very little one."
"I will send you a block of patent fuel; it keeps
the heat in."
"That is precisely why it gives none out."
'Oh, well, I will send you up a little faggot,"
returned M. Monetti as he withdrew. "But I want
my chapter on 'Hot-air Stoves' to-morrow."
67
The Latin Quarter
"When the fire comes it will inspire me," called
the Turk, as the key was turned a second time in the
lock.
If this history were a tragedy, now would be the
time to bring in the confidant. His name would
be Noureddin or Osman; he would approach our
hero with a mixture of discretion and protection in
fine and just proportion, and worm his secret out
of him with some such lines as these :-
"What boding grief, my lord, o'erwhelms you now?
And why this pallor on your awful brow?
Did Allah's might my lord's designs arrest?
Did Ali execute his stern behest
And bear to exile under alien skies
The wilful fair whose beauty charmed his eyes?"
But this is not a tragedy, and in spite of our
pressing need of a confidant we must do without
him.
Our hero is not what he appears to be. The turban
does not make the Turk, and the youth is no other
than our friend Rodolphe, received into the abode of
his uncle, for whom he is in the act of shaping a
manual, the Complete Guide to Chimneys. The fact
is that M. Monetti, an enthusiast for his art, had
devoted his life to the science of chimney construc-
tion, and had even adapted for his own use a maxim
which serves in some sort as a pendant to that of
Cicero: "The stovemaker is born, not made"
—nascuntur poê . . . liers, the worthy Piedmon-
tese would cry in moments of lofty enthusiasm.
One day it occurred to him to formulate, for the
benefit of future races of man, a theoretical code
68
Ali Rodolphe
of the principles of an art in the practice of which
he excelled. His ideas requiring, however, to be
put in a setting which should make them generally
intelligible, he had, as we have seen, chosen his
nephew for the task. Rodolphe was boarded,
lodged, and so forth, and on completion of the
Guide was to receive a premium of a hundred
crowns.
At the outset, and to encourage his nephew to
work, Monetti had generously made him an advance
of fifty francs. Rodolphe, who had not set eyes on
such a sum for nearly a year, was in a fair way to
go out of his mind; he issued forth in the company
of the coins, for three days nothing was seen of
him, and the fourth he returned-alone.
Monetti, having hopes of a red ribbon, was in a
hurry to see his manual completed. He put his
nephew under lock and key for fear of fresh escap-
ades, and the better to keep him to work took away
his clothes, and left instead the disguise in which
we have just discovered him.
But in spite of all this, the famous Guide went on
at a jog-trot pace. Rodolphe's genius was abso-
lutely unsuited to literature of that kind. Monetti
avenged himself for his nephew's slothful indiffer-
ence in the matter of chimneys by making him suffer
all sorts of hardships, sometimes cutting down his
meals, and frequently cutting off tobacco.
At length, one Sunday, when Rodolphe had toiled
at the chapter on "Air Holes" till his brows were
covered with the ink and sweat of anguish, he
broke the pen, which made his fingers itch, and
went to take a walk in his park.
69
The Latin Quarter
But (as if it had been arranged on purpose to
tantalise him and exasperate his cravings) he could
not so much as glance in any direction without per-
ceiving the countenance of a man with a pipe at
every window.
On the gilded balcony of a newly built house he
remarked a dandy, in a dressing-gown, chewing the
end of an aristocratic Havana. On the floor above
sat an artist wafting abroad a fragrant mist of
Levantine from a pipe with an amber mouthpiece.
Below, at the window of a public-house, a fat
German was blowing the froth from a pot of beer
in the intervals of puffing like a steam-engine at
a Cudmer pipe, from which dense clouds arose; and
in another direction a knot of working-men, their
cutty pipes between their teeth, were walking along,
singing on their way, to the barrier. Every man in
the street, in fact-and there were a good many-
was smoking.
"Alack!" Rodolphe exclaimed enviously, "at
this hour there is not a creature in the world but
smokes save I and my uncle's chimneys." And
leaning his brow on the handrail, Rodolphe medi-
tated upon the bitterness of life.
Just then the sound of a prolonged peal of musical
laughter came up to him from below. He bent over
a little to see whence this burst of merriment
proceeded, and perceived that he had been seen
by a lodger who occupied the floor immediately
beneath-one Mlle. Sidonie, a leading lady at the
Luxembourg Theatre.
Mlle. Sidonie came out upon her terrace rolling
between her fingers with Castilian dexterity a tiny
70
Ali Rodolphe
roll of light tobacco which she took from an em-
broidered velvet pouch.
"What a handsome tobacco pouch!" Rodolphe
muttered to himself in thoughtful adoration.
"Who is that Ali Baba?" Mlle. Sidonie won-
dered, and in her mind she meditated pretexts for
beginning a conversation with Rodolphe, who in
fact was engaged in a similar mental process.
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Mlle. Sidonie, as if
speaking to herself, "how tiresome, I have no
matches!"
"Will you allow me to offer you some, made-
moiselle?" said Rodolphe, and wrapping two or
three matches in a scrap of paper, he let them drop
on the balcony.
"A thousand thanks!" said Sidonie as she lit her
cigarette.
66
"Oh, heavens, mademoiselle," Rodolphe con-
tinued, may I venture to ask, in return for the
slight service which my good angel enabled me to
render'
("What! he is asking something already!"
thought Sidonie, honouring Rodolphe with a closer
attention. "Ah, these Turks! They are fickle,
people say, but very pleasant.") Then, raising her
face to Rodolphe's, she said aloud, "Speak, mon-
sieur, what do you want?"
"Oh, heavens, mademoiselle, I will only beseech
a little tobacco of your charity; I have not had
a smoke for two days. Only one pipe-'
"With pleasure, monsieur. But how is it to be
done? Will you be so good as to come down-
stairs?"
71
The Latin Quarter
"Alas! that is quite out of the question. I am
a prisoner, but I will make use of such freedom as
I have to avail myself of a very simple device," and
fastening a string to his pipe, he let it down to the
terrace, where Mlle. Sidonie abundantly filled it.
Then, with deliberate caution, Rodolphe drew it up
again without accident.
"Ah, mademoiselle," he said, "how much im-
proved my pipe would have been if I could have
lighted it at your eyes!"-an agreeable pleasantry
which has reached its hundredth edition at least,
but Mlle. Sidonie thought it none the less superb.
"You flatter me," she thought it incumbent upon
her to reply.
"Oh, mademoiselle, to me you seem lovely as the
Three Graces."
"Decidedly," thought Sidonie, "Ali Baba is very
polite. -Are you really a Turk?" she inquired.
"Not by vocation, but of necessity. I am a
dramatic author, madame."
"And I am an actress," returned Sidonie, adding,
"Will you do me the honour of dining and spending
the evening with me, monsieur?"
"Ah, mademoiselle, your proposal opens up all
heaven to me, but it is impossible to accept it.
I am a prisoner, as I have already had the honour
of telling you; locked in by my uncle, Monetti,
a stove manufacturer, to whom for the present I am
acting as secretary."
"Still you can dine with me," returned Sidonie.
"Pay attention to what I am going to tell you.
I am about to go back into my room, and I will
knock on the ceiling. If you will look closely at
72
Ali Rodolphe
the spot from which the sound comes, you will find
traces of a square hole there, long since closed up.
If you can contrive to pull up the board laid across
it, we can keep each other company, each in our
separate room.”
Rodolphe set to work at once, and in five minutes'
time had opened up communication between the two
chambers.
"The hole is small," said he, "yet not so small
but that my heart can pass through it."
"Lay
"Now we will dine," returned Sidonie.
the cloth in your room, and I will hand up the
dishes."
Rodolphe let down his turban by a piece of string
and drew it up again laden with provisions; then
the poet and actress sat down to dinner, the one
above, the other below; and while Rodolphe's
teeth were busy with the food, his eyes devoured
Mlle. Sidonie.
"Alas, mademoiselle!" he remarked, when the
meal was over. "Thanks to you, the cravings of
hunger are satisfied. Will you not do as much for
the cravings of my heart, after so prolonged a
fast?"
"Poor boy!" said Sidonie. And mounting on
a piece of furniture, she brought her hand to
Rodolphe's lips. He covered it with kisses.
"Ah!" he cried, "what a pity that you have not,
like Saint Denis, the privilege of carrying your
head in your hands!"
After dinner a conversation, half sentimental,
half literary, sprang up. Rodolphe talked of his
Avenger, and Mlle. Sidonie asked him to read it
73
The Latin Quarter
aloud. So Rodolphe, hanging over the hole in the
ceiling, declaimed his tragedy for the benefit of the
actress below, who the better to hear him had
seated herself in an armchair on the top of a chest
of drawers. Mlle. Sidonie pronounced The Avenger
to be a masterpiece, and as she was apt to have
her own way at the theatre, she promised Rodolphe
that his play should appear.
Uncle Monetti's footstep, light as the tramp of
the Commandant, broke in upon their discourse at
the very tenderest moment. Rodolphe had only
just time to put the board back in its place.
"Stay!" said Monetti, addressing his nephew,
"here is a letter for you. It has been running about
after you this month past."
"Let us look at it," said Rodolphe. "Oh, uncle!"
he cried, "I am rich! The letter informs me that
I have been awarded a prize of three hundred francs
by an Academy of Floral Games. Quick! my coat
and my things, and let me hie to reap my laurels !
They await me at the Capitol."
"
"And how about my chapter on Air Holes'?"
his uncle retorted coolly.
"Eh?
Much that matters! Give me back my
things. I am not going tricked out like this-
"You are not going out at all until the Guide is
finished," said his uncle, as he locked in Rodolphe
with a double turn of the key.
Left alone, Rodolphe was not long about making
up his mind. Tying the bedclothes together, he
made one end fast to his balcony-railing; and by
means of the improvised ladder arrived safely, in
spite of the perils of the descent, upon Mlle.
Sidonie's terrace.
74
Ali Rodolphe
"Who is there?" she cried when Rodolphe tapped
on the window-panes.
"Hush!" said he, "let me in——”
"What do you want? Who are you?"
66
Can you ask? I am the author of The Avenger,
and I have come down to look for my heart, for
I let it fall through the hole in your ceiling."
"Wretched young man," said the actress, "you
might have killed yourself."
"Listen to me, Sidonie," Rodolphe went on,
showing her the newly received letter.
Fortune are smiling upon me, you see.
Love will do the same?"
*
*
*
*
"Fame and
·
*
if only
Next morning Rodolphe contrived to make his
escape from his uncle's house by the aid of a
masculine disguise which Sidonie found for him;
and hurrying away to the representative of the
Academy of Floral Games, received a Golden Eglan-
tine of the value of a hundred crowns, a blossom
which lived almost as long as roses usually do.
A month afterwards M. Monetti received an in-
vitation from his nephew to the first performance
of The Avenger. Thanks to Mlle. Sidonie's talent,
it was performed seventeen times and brought in
forty francs to its author.
Later still, as it was summer-time, Rodolphe took
up his abode in the Avenue de Saint Cloud-on the
fifth branch of the third tree to the left as you come
from the Bois de Boulogne.
75
V
CHARLEMAGNE'S CROWN-PIECE
OWARDS the end of the month of December
Tow
the messengers of Bidault's agency received
for distribution about a hundred copies of a circular
of which we certify the following to be a true and
genuine copy :-
To M.
MM. Rodolphe and Marcel request the honour of your
company at a Soirée, on Christmas Eve (Saturday next).
There is going to be some fun.
P.S. We only live once!!
PROGRAMME.
7 P.M. The salons will be open: lively and animated
conversation.
8 P.M.
The ingenious authors of The Mountain in Labour
(a comedy refused by the Odéon) will take a turn round the
rooms.
8.30 P.M. M. Alexandre Schaunard, the distinguished artist,
will execute his symphonie imitative for the piano, called The
Influence of Blue in Art.
9 P.M.
First reading of a Memoir on the abolition of the
penalty of Tragedy.
9.30 P.M.
M. Gustave Colline, hyperphysical philosopher,
and M. Schaunard will commence a debate on comparative
philosophy and metapolitics. In order to prevent any possible
collision, the two disputants will be tied together.
10 P.M. M. Tristan, a literary man, will relate the story of
his first love. M. Alexandre Schaunard will play a pianoforte
accompaniment.
76
Charlemagne's Crown-piece.
10.30 P.M. Second reading of the Memoir on the abolition
of the penalty of Tragedy.
II P.M. The Story of a Cassowary Hunt, by a foreign
Prince.
II.
At midnight M. Marcel (historical painter) will make a white
chalk drawing, with his eyes bandaged. Subject: The inter-
view between Napoleon and Voltaire in the Champs Elysées.
At the same time M. Rodolphe will improvise a parallel be-
tween the author of Zaïre and the author of The Battle of
Austerlitz.
12.30 A. M. M. Gustave Colline, in modest undress, will give
a revival of the Athletic Sports of the Fourth Olympiad.
I A.M. Third reading of the Memoir on the abolition of the
penalty of Tragedy, followed by a collection in aid of authors
of tragedies, who are likely to be thrown out of employment.
Sports and quadrilles which will be kept up till
2 A.M.
morning.
6 A.M. Rise of the sun upon the scenes, and final chorus.
The ventilators will be open during the whole of the Soirée.
N.B.-Any person attempting to read or recite poetry will
be immediately ejected from the rooms and taken into custody;
you are similarly requested not to carry away candle-ends.
In two days' time copies of this epistle were
circulated freely in the lowest circles of literary and
artistic unsuccess, where they made a profound
sensation.
Nevertheless, among the invited guests there were
found some to cast a doubt upon the splendours
announced by the friends.
"I have good suspicions," remarked one of the
sceptics. "I used to go now and again to Rodolphe's
Wednesdays, in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, you
could only sit down figuratively, and the drink was
water, imperfectly filtered, in eclectic pottery."
77
The Latin Quarter
"It is something really serious this time," said
another. "Marcel showed me their plans for the
evening, and it seems there will be magical effects."
"Are there to be ladies?"
"Yes, Phémie Teinturière asked to be queen of
the revels, and Schaunard is sure to ask other ladies
as well."
There in a few words is the origin of the festivity
which produced such bewildered amazement in
transpontine Bohemia. For a year past, or there-
abouts, Marcel and Rodolphe had announced this
sumptuous gala; it was always coming off "next
Saturday," but painful circumstances compelled the
promise to make a progress through the fifty-two
weeks; and things had came to such a pass that
the friends could not take a step abroad without
encountering some ironical remark from the rest of
their acquaintances, some of whom were indelicate
enough to give them vigorous reminders of their
engagements. The matter beginning to wear the
aspect of a hoax, Rodolphe and Marcel resolved
to put a stop to all this by fulfilling their pledges.
And so the above invitation was sent out.
"There is no drawing back now," was Rodolphe's
comment; "we have burnt our boats. We can-
not do things properly on less than a hundred
francs; there is only a week left, and we shall have
to find the money."
"If we must have it, we shall find it," Marcel
had replied. And with an insolent confidence in
Chance this pair of friends slept, convinced in their
own minds that their hundred francs were on the way
-for impossible things have a way of turning up.
78
Charlemagne's Crown-piece
Still, when Thursday came, and nothing had yet
turned up, Rodolphe thought that giving Chance a
help would perhaps be a surer way if he did not
mean to be left in the lurch when the time came for
lighting up the chandeliers. To facilitate this, they
gradually cut down the more sumptuous items of
expenditure in the programme which they had
drawn up.
After proceeding from one modification to another,
after erasing perforce the item Cakes, and carefully
revising and diminishing the item Refreshments,
the total expense was reduced to fifteen francs.
The accounts were simplified, but not, so far,
settled.
"Come, come," said Rodolphe, "we must try
drastic measures now. We may take it first
of all for granted that we cannot put it off this
time."
"Impossible!" returned Marcel.
"How long is it since I last heard the history of
the battle of Studzianka?"
"Nearly two months."
"Two months, good; a decent interval, my uncle
cannot complain. I will go to hear about the battle
of Studzianka to-morrow-that will mean five francs,
for certain."
"And I will go and sell a 'Ruined Manor-house'
to old Medicis. That will be another five francs.
If I have time to put in two or three turrets and
a mill, it may perhaps fetch ten francs, and we shall
have all we want."
And with that the friends slept and dreamed that
the Princess Belgiojoso begged them to change their
79
The Latin Quarter
"At Home" days because they interfered with her
receptions.
Marcel awoke very early, took a piece of canvas
and threw his energies into the construction of a
"Ruined Manor-house," a subject much fancied by
a dealer in the Place du Carrousel; while Rodolphe
betook himself to Uncle Monetti. The veteran stove
manufacturer excelled in the narration of the Retreat
from Moscow, and Rodolphe was wont when hard up
to drop in five or six times a year to give the old
man the satisfaction of telling the story of his
campaigns, expecting a loan of money in return,
for his relative was not over hard to persuade when
his audience knew how to show sufficient en-
thusiasm.
It was nearly two o'clock. Marcel, crossing the
Place du Carrousel, with head down bent and a
canvas under his arm, came upon Rodolphe, who
had just left his uncle. There was that in his bear-
ing which boded no good.
"Well," said Marcel, "did you succeed?"
"No; my uncle has gone to the Musée at
Versailles. Did you?"
"That brute of a Medicis doesn't want any more
ruined castles; he asked me for a Bombardment
999
of Tangier."
"Our characters are hopelessly lost if we do
not give our fête," murmured Rodolphe. "What
would our friend the influential critic think if
I made him put on a white tie and a pair of
primrose-coloured gloves for nothing?" And the
pair returned to the studio in acute throes of
anxiety.
80
Charlemagne's Crown-piece
A neighbouring clock struck four at that very
moment.
"We have only three hours left us," said
Rodolphe.
Marcel came up to his friend-
"But are you quite sure, really sure, that we
have no money here, eh?" he cried.
"Neither here nor anywhere else. Where should
any overplus come from?"
"Suppose we hunt under the furniture-in the
armchairs. They say that émigrés used to hide
treasure in armchairs in Robespierre's time. Who
knows? Perhaps our armchair once belonged to
an émigré; at any rate, it is so hard that I have
often thought there must be metal inside it. Will
you have an autopsy?"
"This is pure farce," retorted Rodolphe in a tone
of severity blended with indulgence.
Marcel, still prosecuting his search in every corner
of the studio, all at once gave a great shout of
triumph.
"Saved!" he cried; "I knew we had valuables of
some sort here. Here! Look!" and he held up
for Rodolphe's inspection a big coin, as large as
a crown - piece, half eaten away by wear and
verdigris.
It was a Carolin coin of some artistic merit.
By good luck the lettering had been preserved, and
the date, of the time of Charlemagne, was still
legible.
"That!" said Rodolphe, glancing with disdainful
eye at his friend's treasure-trove, "it is worth thirty
sous.'
G
81
The Latin
Quarter
"Thirty sous well laid out will produce a great
deal of effect," retorted Marcel. "With twelve
hundred men Bonaparte compelled ten thousand
Austrians to surrender. Skill equals numbers. I
am off to change Charlemagne's crown-piece at
old Medicis'. Is there nothing else that we can
sell? Stop a bit, though, suppose I take the cast
of Jaconowski's tibia?-that Russian drum-major's
shin bone would make up bulk."
"Take the tibia. But it is annoying; there will
not be a single work of art left here."
Whilst Marcel was away Rodolphe, who had quite
decided to give the soirée, whatever happened, went
to find his friend Colline, the hyperphysical philo-
sopher who lived close by.
"I have come," he said, "to beg you to do
me a service. As host, I absolutely must have.
a black coat, and-and I haven't one. - Lend me
yours."
Colline hesitated. "But," he demurred, "as a
guest, I want my black coat myself."
"I will overlook it if you come in an overcoat."
"I have never had an overcoat, as you well
know."
"Very well, listen; there is another way of
managing it. If needs must, you might stop away
and lend your black coat to me."
"That is annoying. I am down on the pro-
gramme; so I should be missed, and that would
not do."
"Plenty of other things will be missing too,"
said Rodolphe. "Lend me your black coat, and if
you mean to come, come as you please-in shirt-
82
Charlemagne's Crown-piece
sleeves, if you like-you would pass for a faithful
domestic."
"Oh, no!" said Colline, flushing up. "I shall
wear my nut-brown paletot. But, indeed, all this
is very annoying." Perceiving as he spoke that
Rodolphe had already taken possession of the
famous black coat, he cried-
""
'Why, wait a bit . . . There are a few little
things in it."
Colline's dress coat deserves some mention. To
begin with, the garment was of an uncompromising
blue colour, though from force of habit Colline spoke
of it as his black coat. And as he was the only
one of the band who owned a dress coat at all, his
friends likewise had fallen into the way of speaking
of the philosopher's official garb as "Colline's black
coat." What is more, this famous article of dress
was of a peculiar cut, as queer a shape as can be
seen; the very long skirts attached to a very short
waist contained a pair of pockets-regular gulfs in
which Colline was wont to stow some score of
volumes which he always carried about upon him;
so that his friends used to say that when the libraries
were closed, the learned might consult the works of
reference in Colline's coat pockets, a library always
open to readers.
This time, by some extraordinary chance, Colline's
pocket merely contained a quarto volume of Bayle,
a treatise in three volumes on the hyperphysical
faculties, a tome of Condillac, a couple of volumes
by Swedenborg and Pope's Essay on Man. When
Colline had cleared out his pocket collection, he
allowed Rodolphe to put on the coat.
83
The Latin Quarter
"Stay," said the other, "the left-hand pocket is
still very heavy; you have left something in it."
"Ah, true," returned Colline, "I forgot to clear
out the foreign language pocket." And so saying
he drew out a couple of Arabic grammars, a Malay
dictionary and a copy of the Complete Ox-driver
in Chinese, his favourite reading.
When Rodolphe came in again he found Marcel
playing at quoits with five - franc pieces to the
number of three, and his first impulse was to re-
fuse the hand which his friend proffered-he was
convinced that a crime had been committed.
"Make haste, make haste!" said Marcel. "Here
are the fifteen francs we wanted. This is how it
happened I met an antiquary at Medicis'. At the
sight of the coin he was almost taken ill; it was the
one thing he wanted to complete his collection. He
has been sending all over the world, and had lost
all hope of filling up the gap. So when he had
taken a good look at my crown-piece he offered
me five francs for it straight off. Medicis jogged
my elbow, and a look said the rest. He meant,
'Let us go halves in the profits, and I will send
up the price.' So between us we ran it up to thirty
francs; I let the Jew have fifteen, and here is the
rest. Now, let our guests come; we are ready to
dazzle them. Why, you have a black dress coat!"
"Yes," said Rodolphe, "it is Colline's coat."
And as he groped for his handkerchief, a small
volume of Manchu tumbled out of the foreign
language pocket.
The two friends set to work at once on their pre-
parations, putting the studio in order and lighting a
84
Charlemagne's Crown-piece
fire in the stove. A painter's canvas-stretcher, with
a row of candles stuck round it, was hung from the
ceiling as a chandelier; a bureau was dragged into
the middle of the studio to serve as a rostrum
for orators; the only armchair, which was to be
occupied by the influential critic, was placed in front
of it, and the table was covered with poems, plays,
novels and articles written by authors who were to
honour the soirée with their presence. In order to
prevent any possible collision between men of letters
of different camps, the studio had been divided
into four quarters, each labelled with a scrawled
placard, thus-
POETS' CORNER.
PROSE WRiters.
ROMANTICS.
CLASSICISTS.
A space was reserved for the ladies in the middle.
"Look here! we are short of chairs," said
Rodolphe.
"Oh, there are a lot out on the landing, in a row
along the wall," said Marcel. "Suppose we take
them in?"
"Certainly we ought," said Rodolphe, seizing on
the chairs, which belonged to one of the neighbours.
As the clock struck six the friends went out for a
hasty dinner, and then came back to light up. They
were dazzled themselves by the result. At seven
o'clock Schaunard arrived with three ladies, who
had left their diamonds and their hats at home.
One of them wore a red shawl with black spots on
it. Schaunard particularly called Rodolphe's atten-
tion to this person.
"She comes of a very good family," he explained.
85
The Latin Quarter
"She is an Englishwoman. The fall of the Stuarts
compelled her to take refuge in exile, and now she
lives very quietly by giving English lessons. I
understand from her that her father was Lord
Chancellor under Cromwell. She must be treated
politely; do not be too free-and-easy with her."
The sound of many footsteps came up from the
staircase. The guests were arriving, and saw, to
their astonishment, that a fire was burning in the
stove.
Rodolphe's black dress coat was well to the fore.
He kissed the hands of the ladies as they entered
with all the grace of the bygone days of the
Regency. When a score or so of visitors had
arrived Schaunard asked whether refreshments
were not going to be handed round.
"Yes, in a moment," said Marcel; "we are
awaiting the arrival of the influential critic before.
warming the punch."
At eight o'clock the room was full, and the pro-
gramme was proceeded with. Refreshments of
some kind (what they were nobody ever knew pre-
cisely) were handed round during every interval.
It was nearly ten o'clock before the white waist-
coat of the influential critic appeared upon the
scene, but he only stayed an hour, and was very
moderate in his potations.
At midnight, as all the firewood was burnt up,
and the temperature was very low, those of the
guests who had chairs drew lots as to who should
convert his seat into fuel.
At one o'clock everybody was standing.
The evening passed off without regrettable inci-
86
Charlemagne's Crown-piece
dents of any kind, unless we except a rent made in
the foreign language pocket of Colline's coat, and a
box on the ear administered by Schaunard to the
daughter of Cromwell's Chancellor.
This memorable soirée was the talk of the Quarter
for a week afterwards, and Phémie Teinturière, the
queen of the evening, used to say, when she told
her friends about it, "It was tremendously grand;
such a lighting up of candles we had, my dear!"
87
M
VI
MADEMOISELLE MUSETTE
ADEMOISELLE MUSETTE was a pretty
girl of twenty, who, shortly after her arrival
in Paris, began to live as pretty girls are apt to
live when their equipment consists of a slender
waist, a good deal of coquetry, a little ambition
and no grammar to speak of. For some time
Musette was the delight of Latin Quarter suppers,
for if she did not always sing in tune, her voice was
quite fresh, and she knew a number of country
glees and songs, an accomplishment which gained
for her the name under which she has since been
made famous by the lapidaries of rime. Then,
quite suddenly, Musette deserted the Rue de la
Harpe for the upper realms of Cytherea, in the
Quartier Bréda.
There she very soon became one of the first orna-
ments of the aristocracy of pleasure, and was in a
fair way to reach the sort of celebrity which consists
in seeing one's name in the Paris papers, and one's
lithographed portrait in the printsellers' shops.
Mlle. Musette, nevertheless, was an exception
among the women who lead such lives as hers.
Like all truly womanly women, she had an in-
stinctive feeling for refinement and poetry, loving
88
Mademoiselle Musette
luxury and all the enjoyments which luxury pro-
cures. In her coquetry there was an ardent long-
ing for all that is fine and rare; and though a
daughter of the people, she would have felt by no
means out of her element amid royal splendours.
But Mlle. Musette, young and beautiful as she
was, had never brought herself to consent to be
the mistress of a man who was not likewise hand-
some and young. She had been known to refuse
with spirit the splendid offers made by an old and
wealthy man (so wealthy, indeed, that people called
him the Peru of the Chaussée d'Antin), though this
person had reared a golden staircase for Musette's
fancies to climb. But Musette was clever and quick-
witted, nor did she suffer fools gladly, whatever
their age, title, or condition.
She was a fine spirited girl was this Musette,
whose motto in love affairs was Champfort's famous
aphorism, "L'amour est l'échange de deux fan-
taisies." And so, never at any time before forming
a connection had she made any of the shameful
bargains which are the disgrace of modern gallantry.
Musette, as she said herself, played fair and ex-
pected others to do the same by her. But though
she was ardent and spontaneous in her likings,
they never lasted long enough to rise to the
height of a passion. And the excessive instability
of her fancy, together with the small attention.
that she gave to the purses of those who paid
court to her, brought great instability into her
own life.
It was a constant succession of ups
and downs, always oscillating between a fifth floor
and an entresol, between an omnibus and a smart
89
The Latin
Quarter
brougham, silk gowns and cotton frocks. Ah,
charming girl, living poem of youth, with your gay
songs and ringing laughter; ah, soft heart, that
beat for all the world beneath that loosened bodice!
Oh, Mlle. Musette, sister of Bernerette and Mimi
Pinson, only an Alfred de Musset could do justice
to your careless, vagabond course in the flowery
byways of youth; and he truly would have made
you famous also, had he heard you as I heard you
singing your favourite round in that sweet voice of
yours that never could keep quite in tune-
"The softest of days of the Spring
And I whispered my love in her ear-
Ah dark little face
Like Cupid's dear mate,
Ah daintiest lace
Of butterfly weight."
The story which we are about to relate is one of
the most charming episodes in the life of the charm-
ing adventuress who flung so many caps over so
many windmills.
Once upon a time, when Mlle. Musette ruled a
young Councillor of State who had politely placed
the key of his patrimony in her hands, it was her
wont to give weekly soirées in her pretty little salon
in the Rue de la Bruyère. The soirées were much
like any others in Paris, with this difference-
people were amused. When there were not seats
enough people sat on each other's knees; and it not
unfrequently happened that two persons drank out
of the same glass. As Rodolphe was Musette's
friend, and never more than her friend (neither of
them could ever tell why), he asked leave to bring
90
Mademoiselle Musette
Marcel the painter, a young fellow with some talent,
he added, for whom the Future was weaving an
academician's robe.
"Bring him," answered Musette.
On the appointed evening Rodolphe accordingly
climbed Marcel's stairs in search of his friend, and
found him engaged on his toilet.
"What!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "are you going
to wear a coloured shirt as evening dress?"
"And is that any offence against established
usage?" Marcel inquired calmly.
""
"Offence? Yes, of the deepest dye, miscreant!
"The devil!" cried Marcel, looking at his shirt,
a blue one covered with vignettes representing
hunting scenes, "the fact is I have no other here.
Pooh! so much the worse for me. I will put on a
white collar, and as 'Methuselah' buttons up to the
throat, no one will notice the colour of my linen."
"Why, are you going to wear 'Methuselah' as
well?" Rodolphe asked uneasily.
"Alas! I must. It is the will of heaven and of my
tailor likewise. But at any rate, his buttons have
just been renewed, and I have gone over him here
and there with lamp-black."
"Methuselah" was simply Marcel's frock coat,
so called because it was the oldest inhabitant of his
wardrobe. Methuselah was made in the extreme
of the fashion of four years ago, and, what was
more, of a hideous green colour, though Marcel
declared that it looked black by candle-light.
In another five minutes Marcel was dressed,
dressed with the utmost perfection of bad taste-
a rapin in evening dress.
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M. Casimir Bonjour's amazement when he heard
that he was elected a member of the Institute could
not surpass the astonishment of Marcel and Rodolphe
when they arrived at Mlle. Musette's house. This
was the cause. Mlle. Musette had some time ago
broken off relations with her lover the Councillor of
State, and he had left her at a very critical juncture.
Her creditors and her landlord had seized her furni-
ture, which was now in the courtyard waiting to be
carried off to the auction-room in the morning.
But in spite of this incident, the idea of giving her
visitors the slip never crossed Musette's mind for a
moment, nor did she cancel her engagements for
that evening. Instead, she solemnly arranged the
courtyard as a drawing-room, put down a carpet
over the stones, made all her preparations as usual,
dressed for the evening, and invited all the other
lodgers in the house to her little fête, to which
heaven kindly contributed its illuminations.
The farce proved an immense success. Never
had the fun been kept up with such spirit and
gaiety. Musette's guests were still dancing and
singing when the brokers' men came to take away
tables, couches and carpet, and the company was
forced to break up.
Musette saw them all depart, singing-
"Twill be long ere they forget—la, ri, ra,
Oh! my Thursday evening;
They'll be talking of it yet-la, ri, ri.”
At last Marcel and Rodolphe were left alone with
Musette; she went up to her flat where there was
nothing left but the bedstead.
"Ah, well," she remarked, "my adventure does
92
Mademoiselle Musette
not look quite such good fun now. I must betake
myself to lodgings in the open. I know that hotel
pretty well, it is a tremendous place for draughts."
"Ah, madame," said Marcel, "if I had the gifts
of Plutus I would build you a temple finer than
Solomon's, but
"But you are not Plutus, my friend. I am obliged
to you all the same for your intentions. Pshaw!"
she added, glancing round the rooms, "I was
getting bored here; and then, the furniture was
old-fashioned. Why, I have had it these six
months! Still, that is not all; after the ball comes
the supper, I suppose."
"A supper-sition," said Marcel, who had a mania.
for making puns, especially of a morning when he
was terrible.
Rodolphe had won at lansquenet the night before,
so he took Musette and Marcel to a restaurant
which had just opened.
After breakfast, as none of the party had the
slightest inclination for sleep, they decided to finish
their day in the country; and since the railway
station was quite near, they took the first train for
Saint Germain.
All day long they wandered through the woods,
only returning to Paris at seven in the evening, and
then it was in spite of Marcel, who persisted that
it was still only half-past twelve, and that if it
looked dark it was because the sky was overcast.
The fact was, that Marcel had been smitten with
Mlle. Musette's charms; he had a heart like a
barrel of powder, a single glance set it alight; as
he told Rodolphe, he had paid his addresses to her
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in no slight fashion. He had even offered to buy
the fair lady a handsomer suite of furniture with
the proceeds of his famous picture, "The Crossing
of the Red Sea," for which reason he beheld with
dismay the approach of the moment when they
must part; for though Musette allowed him to
kiss her fingers and other accessories, she allowed
matters to go no further, and gently repulsed him
every time that he tried to make a burglarious
entry into her heart.
Arrived at Paris, Rodolphe left them, and Musette
asked Marcel to escort her to her door.
"May I be allowed to come and see you?" asked
Marcel; "I am going to paint your portrait."
"I cannot give you my address, my dear fellow,
for by to-morrow I probably shall not have one.
But I will come to see you; I am going to mend
your coat.
There is a hole in it so big that any-
body could move out through it without paying the
landlord."
"I shall look for your coming as for the Mes-
siah!" exclaimed Marcel.
"You will not have so long to wait," laughed
Musette.
'What a charming girl!" said Marcel to him-
self, as he strolled away. "She is the goddess of
gaiety. I shall make two
holes in my coat."
paces before someone
It was Mlle. Musette.
"My dear M. Marcel,'
"she began, “are you a
He had not gone thirty
tapped him on the shoulder.
chivalrous Frenchman?"
"I am; 'Rubens and my Lady' is my motto."
"Well then, give ear, noble sir, and have com-
94
Mademoiselle Musette
passion upon my strait," went on Musette, who had
some tincture of letters, though she murdered
grammar in a way that recalled the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew. "My landlord has carried off the
key of my room, and it is eleven o'clock at night—
do you understand?"
"I do," returned Marcel, offering his arm, and he
brought her to his studio on the Quai aux Fleurs.
Musette was so sleepy that she could scarcely
stand, but she had enough energy left to say, as
she shook Marcel's hand-
"Remember your promise."
"Oh, Musette, charming girl," returned he, with
a quiver in his voice, "you are beneath a hospitable
roof. Sleep in peace. Good night, I am going out."
"Why?" asked Musette, with half-open eyes.
"I am not in the least afraid, I assure you. Be-
sides, there are two rooms here; I will sleep on
your sofa."
"My sofa is too hard to be slept upon; it is
stuffed with flock made of flints. I offer you hospi-
tality in my house, and will throw myself upon that
of a friend who lives on the same landing; it is
more prudent. I usually keep my word, but I am
twenty-two years old, and you, oh, Musette, are
eighteen! So I am going; good night!"
Next morning, at eight o'clock, Marcel, with a
pot of flowers which he had bought in the market,
found that Musette had flung herself down, dressed
as she was, on the bed, and was still lying there fast
asleep. Some sounds that Marcel made awoke her.
She held out her hand.
"Good fellow!" she said.
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"Good fellow!" repeated Marcel.
"Are you sure
that is not the same as saying that I am ridiculous?"
"Oh, why do you say that? It is not nice of
you. Just give me that lovely jar of flowers instead
of saying unkind things."
"Indeed, I brought them up here for you," said
Marcel. "Pray take them, and sing me one of
your charming songs in return for my hospitality;
the echo here in my garret may perhaps keep some-
thing of your voice, and I shall hear you still after
you are gone."
"Ah! so you mean to put me out at the door,"
returned Musette; "and how if I do not mean to
go? Listen, Marcel; having come up thirty-six
steps, I may say what I think. I like you, and you
like me.
It is not love, but the seed of love,
perhaps. Well, I am not going; I shall stay, and I
shall stay here till the flowers that you have just
given me are withered."
"Oh, but they will be withered in two days!"
cried Marcel. "If I had known I would have
brought you everlasting flowers!"
*
For a fortnight Musette and Marcel led the most
delightful life imaginable, though they were often
without a penny. Musette's tender feeling for the
artist was something quite unlike anything that she
had known before, and Marcel on his side began to
fear that he was taking this love affair too seriously.
He did not know that his mistress was very much
afraid of falling in love with him. Every morning,
as he looked at the flowers which were to give the
96
Mademoiselle Musette
signal for parting, he was sorely puzzled to account
for their daily renewed freshness; but he soon found
a clue to the mystery. One night he awoke, and
missed Musette at his side. He rose, hurried across
the room, and found her watering the flowers.
Every night while he was asleep she tended them,
for fear they should die.
H
97
VII
FLOODS OF PACTOLUS
WAS the nineteenth of March. . . . Rodolphe
TWA
will never forget that date, though he should
live to the age of M. Raoul-Rochette, who beheld
the foundation of Nineveh, for it was on that day
(the day of St. Joseph), at three o'clock in the after-
noon, that our friend came out of a bank where he
had just drawn the sum of five hundred francs in
hard cash-current coin of the realm.
The first use that Rodolphe made of this slice
of Peru which had just dropped into his rocket
was not to pay his debts by any means, though
at the same time he had registered a vow to go in
for economy, and to buy nothing extra. Indeed, he
had extremely decided views on this subject, being
wont to say that necessities ought to come before
superfluities, and that was why, leaving his creditors
unpaid, he bought instead a long-coveted Turkish
pipe.
Thus provided, Rodolphe set out for the abode of
his friend Marcel, with whom he had lodged for
some time, and walked into the studio, his pockets
jingling like a peal of village bells for some high
holiday. Marcel, hearing the unwonted sounds,
thought that a neighbour, a "bear" on the Stock
98
Floods of Pactolus
Exchange, must be reckoning up his profits, and
muttered-
"Here is that intriguer near by, at his epigrams
again! If this sort of thing keeps on I shall give
notice. One cannot work with such a racket in the
house. It makes you think of quitting the estate
of a poor artist to turn into that of the forty thieves."
And without the faintest suspicion that his friend
Rodolphe had been transformed into a Croesus,
he set to work again on his picture, "The Crossing
of the Red Sea," which had been on the easel some
three years.
Rodolphe meanwhile had not said a word; in his
own mind he was ruminating on an experiment
which he meant to try on his friend. "We will
have some fine fun directly," he said to himself.
"What a joke! Bless me!" and he dropped a
five-franc piece on the floor.
Marcel looked up and saw Rodolphe looking as
serious as an article in the Revue des deux Mondes.
The artist picked up the coin with an air of great
satisfaction, for rapin as he was, he was something
of a man of the world, and could be very polite to
strangers. He knew besides that Rodolphe had
gone out for money, and seeing that his friend had
succeeded, confined himself to admiring results
without inquiring into the means by which they
had been obtained.
The
So he worked away without a word, and drowned
an Egyptian in the billows of the Red Sea.
homicide was just accomplished when Rodolphe let
fall another five-franc piece, and watching the face
that the artist made, laughed in his beard (a tricolor
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The Latin Quarter
beard, as everybody knows). For at the ringing.
sound of metal Marcel sprang up as if electrified,
crying-
What! Is there a second verse?"
A third coin rolled along the floor, and another,
and again another, till at last a whole quadrille of
five-franc pieces was dancing in the room.
Marcel was beginning to show visible symptoms
of mental derangement, while his friend laughed
like the pit of the Théâtre Français at the first
night performance of Jeanne de Flandre, when all
at once without any warning Rodolphe dived into
his pockets with both hands, and the crown-pieces
began a fabulous steeplechase. It was like Pactolus.
in flood, or the appearance of Jove before Danae.
Marcel stood staring fixedly, motionless and mute.
Astonishment had wrought in him a change similar
to that brought about in Lot's wife of yore, when
she fell a victim to curiosity; so when Rodolphe
flung his last pile of a hundred francs on the floor,
one side of the painter's body was turned to salt
already.
As for Rodolphe, he was still laughing with a
tempestuous hilarity, compared with which the
thunders of M. Sax's orchestra would seem but
the sigh of a suckling.
Dazzled, throttled and dazed with emotion,
Marcel thought he must be dreaming; he tried
to drive away the nightmare and bit his fingers till
they bled, whereby he hurt himself so horribly that
he was like to cry aloud for pain, and so, perceiving
that he was broad awake and that a quantity of
gold lay under his feet, he exclaimed like a character
in a tragedy--
A
100
Floods of Pactolus
"Am I to believe my eyes?"
Then taking Rodolphe's hand in his, he added,
"Give me the explanation of this mystery."
"If I did, it would not be a mystery any longer."
"Still, tell me."
"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my
brow," explained Rodolphe as he picked it up and
arranged it on a table. Then, drawing back a few
paces, he looked respectfully at the piles of francs,
thinking within himself-
"So now am I going to realise my dreams!"
"It cannot be far off six thousand francs," mur-
mured Marcel, staring at the coins on the table.
"I have an idea. I will adjure Rodolphe to buy
my 'Crossing of the Red Sea.'"
But all at once Rodolphe assumed a theatrical
pose, and, with great solemnity of gesture and voice,
said-
"Hear me, Marcel; the fortune which glitters
beneath your eyes is in no wise the result of vile
manœuvres; I have not trafficked in my pen; I am
rich, but honest. That gold was given me by a
generous hand; I have sworn to utilise it in acquir-
ing by work a position worthy of an honest man.
Work is the most sacred of duties_"
"And the horse is the noblest of animals," inter-
rupted Marcel. "Look here!" he went on,
"what
may this oration mean, and where did you get that
prose? You have been taking a course at the school
of common sense, no doubt."
"Do not interrupt; a truce to your raillery!
It will fall blunted, besides, on the cuirass of an
invulnerable will, in which henceforth I am em-
panoplied."
IOI
The Latin Quarter
"Come, come, that is enough of such a prologue.
What are you driving at?"
"These are my projects: Sheltered from the
material embarrassments of life, I shall set to work
seriously; I am going to finish my fairy piece, and
to achieve a settled position in public esteem. In
the first place, I am renouncing Bohemia; I am
going to dress like everybody else; I mean to have
a black frock coat and to go into society.
If you
like to take my way, we can go on living together,
but my programme is to be adopted. The strictest
economy shall be the rule of our lives. If we
manage wisely, we have three months of steady
work assured to us, with no need to think of any-
thing else. But economy is necessary."
"My friend," said Marcel, "economy is a science
which only the wealthy can afford to study; whence
it follows that you and I are ignorant of its first
elements. Still, by making an outlay of six francs
we can purchase the works of M. Jean-Baptiste
Say, a very distinguished economist, and from him
perhaps we may learn the best manner of practis-
ing that art. . . . I say! Have you a Turkish
pipe?"
...
"Yes," said Rodolphe; "I gave twenty-five francs
for it."
"What! twenty-five francs for a pipe, and you
are talking of economy?"
"I
"This is certainly one," returned Rodolphe.
used to break a penny pipe every day of my life;
at the year's end the expense amounted to a good
deal more than twenty-five francs. So it really is an
economy."
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Floods of Pactolus
So it is," said Marcel; "you are right. I should
never have thought of that."
A neighbouring clock struck six at that moment.
"Let us be quick and dine," said Rodolphe. "I
want to begin this very night. But à propos of
dinner I have an observation to make. We waste
valuable time every day by doing our own cooking;
now for the worker time is money; so we cannot
afford to waste time. From this day hence we will
go out for our meals."
66
"Yes," assented Marcel, there is an excellent
restaurant only a few steps away; it is a little ex-
pensive, but as it is near we shall not have so far to
walk; the economy of time will make up for any
extra expense.
99
"We will go there to-day," said Rodolphe, "but
to-morrow and for the future we will hit upon a still
more economical plan. Instead of going out to a
restaurant we will engage a cook——”
66
"No, no," Marcel put in, we had better engage
a man-servant who will also cook for us. Just see
the immense advantage of such a plan. To begin
with, the housework would always be done for us;
the man will black our boots and wash out my
brushes and do our errands; I would even try to
inculcate some taste for the fine arts and take him
as a student. In this way we should save at least
six hours a day spent upon occupations which only
spoil our work."
"Ha!" cried Rodolphe, "I have an idea, too—
but let us go and dine."
Five minutes later the friends were installed in
a private room in the aforesaid restaurant, con-
tinuing their discourse on economy.
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The Latin Quarter
"Here is my idea! How, if instead of engaging
a servant, we were to take a mistress?" hazarded
Rodolphe.
"One mistress for two!" Marcel cried in dismay.
"It would be pushing avarice to the verge of
extravagance; we should squander all our savings
in buying knives with which to cut each other's
throats! I am for the man-servant. In the first
place, he would give us importance.
"So he would; we will procure an intelligent
young fellow, and if he has some notion of spelling
I will teach him the editor's craft."
"That will be a resource for his old age," said
Marcel as he added up the bill, which amounted
to fifteen francs. "I say, that is rather dear! As
a rule we both of us dine for thirty sous."
"Yes," said Rodolphe, "but we dined badly, and
were obliged to take supper afterwards. So looked
at all round this is an economy."
"You are the cleverer, as one may say," the
artist remarked under his breath, completely sub-
jugated by this argument, "you are always right.
Are we going to work this evening?"
"Faith, no. I am going to see my uncle, he is
a good man; I am going to tell him about my new
position, and he will give me some good advice.
And how about you, where are you going,
Marcel ? "
"I? I am going to old
pictures for me to restore.
five francs."
"For what?"
Medicis to see if he has
By-the-by, let me have
"To cross the Pont des Arts."
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Floods of Pactolus
"Oh, but that is a needless expense, and trifling
as it is it is a deviation from our principle."
"I
"I was wrong-it is a fact," said Marcel.
will go by the Pont Neuf-but I shall take a cab."
And the friends separated, each going a different
way; though by a strange coincidence both ways
led straight to the same spot, where they met.
"Why! then you have not found your uncle at
home?" asked Marcel.
"And Medicis was out?" retorted Rodolphe.
And they both burst out laughing.
Still they both reached home at a very early hour
-of the morning.
Another two days found Marcel and Rodolphe
completely metamorphosed. Both dressed like
bridegrooms for a first-class wedding; looking so
handsome, elegant and sleek that they hardly
knew each other in the street.
Their system of economy was nevertheless in full
swing, but the organisation of the work had been
very difficult to carry out. A man-servant of Swiss
origin had been engaged. He was a tall fellow of
four-and-thirty, with an intelligence about on a par
with that of Jocrisse. What was more, he had no
vocation for domestic service. If either of his
masters entrusted Baptiste with a parcel of a size
visible to the naked eye, he would redden with
indignation and send a commissionaire on the
errand. Still, Baptiste had his good points. He
could turn out a dish of jugged hare, for instance,
if supplied with the materials; and as he had been
a distiller before taking service, and retained a
great love of his art, he spent a good deal of his
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The Latin Quarter
masters' time in experimenting on the composition
of a new and superior specific for wounds and
bruises, to which he intended to give his name.
He also excelled in the compounding of walnut
cordial. But in one respect Baptiste was unrivalled,
and this was the art of smoking Marcel's cigars
and lighting them with Rodolphe's manuscript.
At length one day Marcel proposed that Baptiste
should sit to him in costume as Pharaoh for his
"Crossing of the Red Sea." This suggestion
Baptiste met by a point-blank refusal and a request
for his wages.
"Good," said Marcel, "you shall be paid to-
night."
When Rodolphe came in, his friend declared that
Baptiste must be sent away. "He is of no use
whatsoever," said Rodolphe.
"True," assented Marcel, "he is a living object
of art."
"He is as stupid as any goose that ever was
roasted."
"He is idle."
"He must go."
"Let us dismiss him."
"Still, he has his good points, after all. His
jugged hare is very good."
"And his walnut cordial, too. He is the Rafael
of walnut cordial."
"Yes; but that is all he is fit for, and that will
hardly do for us. We waste our whole days in
arguing with him.”
"He is a hindrance to work."
"I have not been able to finish my 'Crossing of
I
106
Floods of Pactolus
the Red Sea' for the Salon, and it is his fault; he
would not sit for Pharaoh."
"Thanks to him, I have not been able to finish
the piecework I was asked to do. He would not
go to the library to look up some notes that I
wanted."
"He is ruining us."
"We really cannot keep him on."
"Let us dismiss him.
pay him off."
But if we do we ought to
"We are going to pay him, but go he must.
Give me the money, and I can settle the accounts."
"What money? But you are cashier, not I."
"Not at all; you are treasurer. You undertook
the general management," said Rodolphe.
"But I have no money, I assure you!" exclaimed
Marcel.
"Is it possible that there is none left already?
No; impossible! No one can spend five hundred
francs in one week, especially living, as we have
done, with the most rigid economy, limiting our-
selves to the strictly necessary." ("To the strictly
superfluous," he ought to have said.) "We must
go through the accounts," added Rodolphe, "and
we shall find out the mistake."
"Yes," agreed Marcel, "but we shall not find
the money.
It is all one; let us look at the
books."
Behold a specimen of the sort of book-keeping
begun in the sacred name of economy-
"19th March. Received: 500 frs.
Spent: A
Turkish pipe, 25 frs.; dinner, 15 frs.; sundries,
40 frs.""
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"What may those sundries be?" interrupted
Rodolphe, as Marcel read out the item.
"You know quite well; it was the night when
we only got home in the morning. There was a
clear saving of coal and candle light, at any rate."
"And next? Go on."
"20th March. Lunch, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.;
dinner, 2 frs.; an eye-glass, 2 frs. 50 c.'-Oh!"
exclaimed Marcel, interrupting himself, "that eye-
glass goes down to your account.
What did you
want with an eye-glass? You can see perfectly—"
"I had to write a notice of the Salon for the
Iris, as you know; it is impossible to do art criticism
without an eye-glass. It was a legitimate expense.
What next?"
"A Malacca cane-
"Cane now! that goes to your account," put in
Rodolphe, "you do not need a cane."
66
99
That is all that we spent on the 20th," said
Marcel, taking no notice of this remark. "On the
21st we went out to lunch, and to dine and to sup.'
"We ought not to have spent very much that day."
"Very little, as a fact-barely thirty francs."
"But on what?"
""
"I can't recollect now; but it goes down under
'Sundries.""
"A vague and misleading heading," observed
Rodolphe.
a
"22nd March.' That was the day Baptiste came.
We let him have five francs on account of wages;
Barbary organ,* 50 c.; to save the lives of four little
Chinese children condemned to be flung into the
A barrel organ.
108
Floods of Pactolus
Yellow River by the incredible barbarity of their
parents, 2 frs. 40 c.'"
"Oh, come now!" cried Rodolphe, "just explain
the glaring contradictions contained in those words.
If you subsidise the Barbary organ, why sneer at
the barbarous parents? And besides, why was it
necessary to preserve some orange-skinned Chinese
infants? If they had been China oranges, you
might have preserved them-in brandy.”
"Tis my nature to be generous," returned
Marcel. "Here, go on; so far we have kept
pretty close to the principle of economy."
"On the 23rd there is nothing particular; the
same may be said of the 24th. On the 25th, 'gave
Baptiste on account, 3 frs.""
"He has been given money very often, it seems
to me," said Marcel by way of a reflection.
"There will be all the less to pay him," returned
Rodolphe. "Go on."
"26th March.
36 frs. 40 c.""
Sundries and necessities for art,
"Why, what can we have bought that was so
useful?" queried Rodolphe; "I remember nothing
myself. '36 frs. 40 c.'! What can it be?"
"How is it you don't remember? That was the
day when we went up the towers of Notre Dame to
see the bird's-eye view of Paris."
"But it only costs eight sous to go up the towers!
"Yes; but when we came down again we went to
Saint Germain to dine."
"Your wording is lucid to a fault."
"And on the 27th there is nothing particular."
"Good! There is economy for you!"
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The Latin Quarter
"On the 28th. 'To Baptiste, on account of wages,
6 frs.""
"Aha! I am quite sure this time that we owe
Baptiste nothing; it might even turn out that he
is in our debt. That must be looked into."
"On the 29th. Dear me, there is nothing down
for the 29th, and instead there is the beginning of
an article on morals!"
"Then the 30th. Ah! we had some friends to
dine with us. A heavy expense-30 frs. 55 c. The
31st, that is to-day. We have not spent anything
yet. You see," said Marcel in conclusion,
"that
the accounts have been accurately kept. The total
does not amount to five hundred francs."
"In that case, then, there must be some cash in
hand."
"We can see," said Marcel, opening a drawer.
"No, there is nothing left; there is only a spider!"
"A spider in the morning is as good as a warn-
ing," said Rodolphe.
"Where the deuce could so much money go?"
began Marcel, aghast at the sight of the empty
cash-box.
"Why, hang it all, it is quite plain!" retorted
Rodolphe. "Baptiste has had it!"
66
Stay, though," cried Marcel, catching sight of
a scrap of paper in the drawer.
for last quarter's rent!"
"Pshaw!" said Rodolphe.
there?"
"Here is a demand
"How did it get
"So you
"And receipted too!" added Marcel.
have been paying the landlord!"
"I? Oh, come now!"
110
Floods of Pactolus
"Then what does this mean?"
"But I assure you-
""
"Pray, what means this mystery?"
They sang in chorus from the finale of the Dame
Blanche; and Baptiste, being fond of music, came
hurrying in at once.
Marcel held up the receipt.
"Oh yes," Baptiste remarked carelessly, "I
forgot to tell you that the landlord came in this
morning, while you were out. I paid him to save
him the trouble of coming again."
"Where did you find the money?"
"Oh, I took it, sir! The drawer was open. It
even occurred to me that you left it open on purpose,
and I said to myself, 'My masters forgot to say
when they went out, "Baptiste, the landlord will
come for the quarter that is due, and he must be
paid."" So I did it as if I had had my orders-with-
out being ordered."
66
Baptiste!" said Marcel in a white heat of pas-
sion, "you went beyond your orders. From this
day you are no longer in our service. Baptiste, give
up your livery!"
Baptiste took off the oil-cloth cap which composed
his livery, and handed it to Marcel.
"Well and good," said the latter,
go."
66 'And my wages?"
66
now you can
You have had
"What do you say, you rogue?
more than your due. You have had fourteen francs
in less than a fortnight. What are you doing with
so much money? Are you keeping a dancer?"
"On the tight-rope," added Rodolphe.
III
The Latin Quarter
"And am I to be left homeless, without so much
as a shelter for my head?" cried the wretched
domestic.
"Take
Marcel was touched, in spite of himself.
back your livery," he said, handing the cap to
Baptiste.
"And yet he is the miserable scoundrel who has
squandered our fortune," said Rodolphe, as the
hapless Baptiste departed. "Where shall we dine
to-day?"
"We shall know that to-morrow," returned
Marcel.
112
VIII
WHAT A CROWN-PIECE COSTS
NE Saturday evening, in the days before
ON
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi kept house to-
gether (as shall be shown in due time), it so fell
out that that gentleman made the acquaintance of
one Mlle. Laure, who dined at the same ordinary.
Now Mlle. Laure kept a toilet repository, and
when she discovered that Rodolphe was editor of
two fashion papers, the Iris and the Castor, plied
him with provocative and eloquent glances in the
hope of obtaining an advertisement for her wares.
To these Rodolphe had replied with a display of
poetical fireworks thrown off in a way that would
have driven Benserade, Voiture and all the Rug-
gieris of the "gallant style" wild with envy; and
dinner ended, Mlle. Laure perceiving that Rodolphe
was a poet, gave him to understand pretty plainly
that she was far from averse to accepting him as
her Petrarch. She even made a tryst for the morrow
without any beating about the bush.
"By Jove," thought Rodolphe, as he escorted
Mlle. Laure to her lodging, "she is really an
amiable woman; she seems to me to possess some
knowledge of grammar, and a fairly well replenished
wardrobe. I feel quite disposed to make her happy."
I
113
The Latin Quarter
Arrived at Mlle. Laure's door, that lady thanked
him for so kindly taking the trouble to come with
her to such an out-of-the-way quarter.
"Ah, madame!" returned Rodolphe, bowing to
the ground before her, "I could have wished that
you dwelt at Moscow or in the Straits Settlements,
that my pleasure in acting as your escort might be
prolonged."
"It is rather far," simpered Mlle. Laure.
"We should have gone by the Boulevards,
madame," said Rodolphe. "Permit me to kiss
your hand, in the person of your cheek," he added,
kissing his companion on the lips before she could
stop him.
"Monsieur!" she exclaimed, "you are going too
fast."
"So as to arrive all the sooner," said Rodolphe.
"The first stages of love should be taken at a
gallop."
"An odd man!" thought the milliner as she went
upstairs.
"A pretty woman!" said Rodolphe to himself as
he turned away. And back again in his own
quarters, he went straight to bed and dreamed the
sweetest dreams. He beheld himself parading with
Mlle. Laure at balls and theatres and in public
places, and the lady on his arm wore dresses more
splendid than those of any coquettish princess in a
fairy tale.
Next day, at eleven o'clock, Rodolphe rose accord-
ing to custom, and his first thought was for Mlle.
Laure.
"A very pretty woman," muttered he. "I am
114
What a Crown-piece Costs
sure she was brought up at Saint Denis. So at
last I am to know the happiness of having a mistress
that is not dowdy-looking. I positively must make
some sacrifice for her. I shall draw my pay at the
Iris office to-day; I will buy a pair of gloves and
take Laure to dine at a restaurant where there are
table napkins. My coat is not very elegant," he
went on as he dressed—" pooh! it is black, though,
and that is the great thing." And he set out for
the office of the Iris.
Just as he crossed the street he met an omnibus,
and pasted over one of the panels was a handbill
thus conceived: "This day, Sunday, the Great
Fountains will play at Versailles."
A thunderbolt dropping at Rodolphe's feet could
not have made a more profound impression than the
sight of that bill.
"This day, Sunday'! I had forgotten that it
was Sunday, and now I shall not get the money.
'This day, Sunday'! Why, all the five-franc pieces
at Paris will be rolling out to Versailles."
Still, urged on by the illusive hopes which spring
eternal in the breast of man, Rodolphe hurried to
the office in case some blessed chance should have
brought the cashier.
M. Boniface, he found, had actually been there,
but had gone away again almost immediately.
"To go to Versailles," so the office boy told
Rodolphe.
"Come," he said to himself, "there is an end of
that. But, let us see," he continued, "my appoint-
ment is not until evening. It is noon; so I have
five hours in which to find five francs-twenty sous
115
The Latin Quarter
per hour-like the horses in the Bois de Boulogne.
So come along."
As he happened to be in the neighbourhood of
the journalist whom he styled the influential critic,
Rodolphe bethought himself of trying something in
that quarter.
"I am sure to find him at home," he thought, as
he climbed the stairs. "It is his 'special column'
day, there is no fear of his going out. I shall
borrow five francs of him."
"Eh! what, is that you?" said the literary man
at sight of Rodolphe. "Just the man I want;
I have a little favour to ask of you."
"Just my case," thought the editor of the Iris.
"Were you at the Odéon yesterday?"
"I am always at the Odéon."
"Then you saw the new piece there?"
"Who but I? I am the audience at the Odéon."
"True," returned the critic, "you are one of the
caryatids of that theatre. There is even a rumour
current that you subsidise that institution. Well,
this is what I want to ask-a paragraph about the
new play."
"That is easy; I have the memory of a dun."
"Whose is the new piece?" the critic inquired, as
Rodolphe wrote.
"It is by a gentleman.
"It is not likely to be a strong play."
"Not as strong as a Turk, assuredly."
"Then it is nothing very powerful. The Turks
don't deserve their reputation for strength, you see;
they could not be Savoyards.'
""
"And what hinders them?"
116
What a Crown-piece Costs
"They can't, because all the Savoyards are
Auvergnats, and the Auvergnats are street porters.
What is more, there are no Turks left, except perhaps
at the masked balls at the Barriers and in the Champs
Elysées, where they sell dates. The Turk is a super-
stition. I have a friend who knows the East; he
assured me that all nations came originally out of
the Rue Coquenard."
"That is a pretty thing to say."
"Think so?" said the critic. "I will put it into
my column."
"Here is my analysis; it is an analysis too, and
no mistake."
"Yes, but it is short."
"You can fill up with putting in dashes, and de-
veloping your critical opinion."
"I have hardly time enough for that, my dear
fellow, and then my critical opinion does not take
up space enough."
"You can put in an adjective at every third
word."
"Could you not slip a little, or rather a long
appreciation of the piece into your analysis, eh?"
"Lord!" returned Rodolphe, "I have some ideas
of my own on tragedy, but I warn you I have
printed them three times in the Castor and the Iris.
"That is of no consequence; how many lines
would your ideas take up?"
"Forty."
"The deuce! You have large ideas of your
own! Well, let me have the loan of your forty
lines."
"Good," thought Rodolphe.
"If I do twenty
117
The Latin
Quarter
francs' worth of copy for him, he cannot refuse to
lend me five francs. I ought to warn you," he went
on, addressing the critic, "that my ideas are not
altogether novel. They are a trifle rubbed at the
elbow. Before printing them at all I have yelled
them aloud in every café in Paris; there is not a
waiter that does not know them by heart."
"Oh! what does that matter to me? Why, you
cannot know me! Is there anything new under the
sun-except virtue?"
"Here it is," said Rodolphe, as he came to an
end.
"Thunder and tempest! Still two columns short.
With what can I fill the abyss?" cried the critic.
"While you are about it, just oblige me with a few
paradoxes."
"I have none about me," said Rodolphe; "still,
I can lend you one or two, only they are not my
own. I bought them for fifty centimes apiece of a
friend who was hard up. They have not been much
used yet."
"Very good," said the critic, and Rodolphe set
himself to write afresh.
"Ha!" thought he, "I shall certainly ask him
for ten francs now; in these times paradoxes are as
dear as partridges." And he knocked off a score of
lines of remarkable nonsense concerning pianos, red
mullet, the common-sense school and Rhine wine
which he called Rhine toilet-vinegar.
"Very pretty!" pronounced the critic; "be so
much my friend as to add that there are more
honest people in the hulks than anywhere else."
"Bless me! why that?"
118
What a Crown-piece Costs
"To make two more lines.
Good, that is done,"
said the influential critic, and he called to his servant
to take the copy to the printer.
"Now let us go for him," thought Rodolphe, and
he soberly articulated his request.
"Oh, my dear fellow, I have not a sou here!
Lolotte is the ruination of me with her cosmetics.
She has just waylaid me, and carried off my last
brass farthing to go to Versailles to see the Nereids
and brazen monsters spout."
"Versailles! There now!" said Rodolphe, "why
it is an epidemic!"
"But what do you want money for?"
"Here is the ditty. I have an appointment at
five o'clock with a lady, a woman of fashion, who
never goes out except in an omnibus. I should like
to unite our destinies (for a few days), and it seems
only decent to enable her to enjoy something of the
sweetness of life-dinners, dances, walks and the
like. I absolutely must have five francs. If I can-
not find the money French literature is disgraced
in my person."
"Why not borrow the sum of the lady herself?"
cried the critic.
"That is hardly possible, the very first time.
one but you can get me out of this fix."
No
"By all the mummies in Egypt, I swear to you
on my sacred word of honour, that I have not
enough to buy a halfpenny pipe. Still, I have
a few books there, which you might melt down
into cash."
"To-day, Sunday; impossible! Mother Mansut,
Lebigre and all the other skinflints on the quays
119
The Latin Quarter
What are
and in the Rue Saint Jacques are shut.
your books? Volumes of poetry, with the portrait
of the author in spectacles? There is no sale for
that kind of thing."
"Not unless they are sold by order of the Court,"
said the critic. "Stay a bit, though, there are some
novels besides and some concert tickets.
If you
manage cleverly you might turn them into money.
"I would rather have something else-a pair of
trousers, for instance."
"Come, now!" said the critic, "take the Bossuet,
and the plaster cast of M. Odilon Barrot; it is the
widow's mite, upon my honour."
"You are doing your best, I see," said Rodolphe.
"I will carry off these treasures, but if I get thirty
sous out of them I shall think of it as a thirteenth
labour of Hercules."
By dint of walking some ten miles or so, and
exerting a certain faculty of eloquence which
Rodolphe knew how to use on great occasions, he
succeeded in inducing his laundress to lend him a
couple of francs on the security of his consignment
of poetry and novels with M. Barrot's portrait.
66
"Come," said he as he went back across the
river, we have the sauce, now for the dish.
Suppose I go to my uncle."
Half an hour later his Uncle Monetti read his
nephew's countenance, and knew what was coming.
So, being on his guard, he was beforehand with his
young relative, and began at once with a series of
recriminations, as thus-
Times were bad; bread was dear; outstanding
1
120
What a Crown-piece Costs
debts were not paid; rent must be paid; trade was
going to the dogs; and so forth, and so forth,
through the whole disingenuous tradesmen's litany.
"Would you believe it?-I have had to borrow
money of my own shop-boy to meet a bill!
"You ought to have sent to me," said Rodolphe ;
"I would have lent you the money.
I had two
hundred francs paid to me three days ago."
"Thank you, my boy; but you want all you
have. . . . Oh! while you are here you might
make out some invoices for me, you that write such
a good hand. I am just going to send them out."
"These five francs are like to cost me dear!
said Rodolphe to himself as he set to work, but he
cut short his task.
"I know how fond you are of music, my dear
uncle," he began, turning to Monetti, "so I have
brought you some tickets for a concert."
"Very kind of you, my boy. Will you stay and
dine with me?"
"Thank you, uncle; I have an invitation to
dinner in the Faubourg Saint Germain. By-the-by,
it is annoying; I shall not have time to go home
for money, and I must buy a pair of gloves."
"You have no gloves? Will you borrow mine?"
'Thanks; no. The size is different; still, if you
would oblige me by a loan of—"
"Twenty-nine sous to buy a pair? Certainly,
my boy, here is the money. You must be well
dressed if you go into society. Better be envied
than pitied, as your aunt used to say. Come, now,
you are getting on, I see. So much the better.
would let you have more," he went on, "but that is
I
121
The Latin Quarter
all I have in the till; I should have to go upstairs,
and I cannot leave the shop, customers drop in every
minute."
"And you were saying that trade was slack!
Uncle Monetti did not seem to hear this remark.
"There is no hurry about returning it," he said,
as his nephew pocketed the coins.
"What a skinflint!" said Rodolphe, as he made
good his escape. "Let us see, now-still thirty-one
sous short.
Where are they to come from? But,
come to think of it, let us go to the Carrefour de
la Providence." For thus Rodolphe was wont to
designate that very centre of Paris-the Palais
Royal-a spot where it is almost impossible to wait
for a few minutes without meeting as many persons
of your acquaintance (more particularly creditors).
So Rodolphe took his stand on the steps of the
Palais Royal. This time Providence was long in
coming; but at last Rodolphe perceived a manifesta-
tion. It took the shape of a figure in a white hat
and a green overcoat, and it carried a gold-headed
cane-a very well-dressed Providence indeed.
Providence, in short, was a good-natured young
fellow, and well to do, though a Socialist.
"I am delighted to see you," he said, as he en-
countered Rodolphe. "Come my way for a bit,
and we will talk."
"Oh, come, I am condemned to the torture of
Socialism," muttered Rodolphe, submitting to be
dragged along by the owner of the white hat,
who, indeed, badgered him without mercy. As
they reached the Pont des Arts Rodolphe inter-
rupted him.
122
What a Crown-piece Costs
"I must go; I have not the wherewithal to pay
this toll."
"Pooh!" said the other, throwing two sous to
the pensioner.
"Now for it!" thought the editor of the Iris as
they crossed the river and arrived at the other end.
He suddenly stopped short at sight of the clock at
the Institut, and waved his hand despairingly to-
wards the dial, crying—
"Confound it! A quarter to five! It is all over
with me!"
"What is the matter?" asked the other in sur-
prise.
"Just this," said Rodolphe : "you have dragged
me over here in spite of myself, and, thanks to you,
I have missed an appointment."
Was it important?"
"I should think it was! I was to call for some
money at five o'clock at the Batignolles; I shall
never do it. Oh, confound it all! What am I to
do?"
"Bless your life, it is very simple," said the
Socialist. "Come home with me; I will lend
you the amount.”
"Impossible! You live over at Montrouge, and
I have business in the Chausée d'Antin at six o'clock.
Confound it all!"
"I have a little small change about me," Provi-
dence began timidly, "only a very little."
"If I had enough to pay my cab fare, I might
possibly arrive at the Batignolles in time."
"That is all I have, my dear boy-thirty-one
sous."
123
The Latin Quarter
"Let me have it, quick! for I must be off," said
Rodolphe. The clock had just struck five, and he
ran as fast as he could to the trysting-place.
"It has been hard to come by," he reflected, as
he counted over his small change. "One hundred
sous; good as gold. After all, I am ready. Laure
shall see that she has to do with a man who under-
stands how to do things properly. I will not take a
single centime home with me to-night. It is in-
cumbent on me to rehabilitate literature and to
prove that men of letters lack only money to be
rich."
Mlle. Laure was true to her tryst.
"That is right!" said he. "Punctual as Bré-
guet's watches!"
They spent the rest of the evening together, and
Rodolphe's spirited efforts melted his five francs in
the crucible of prodigality. Mlle. Laure was fasci-
nated by his manner, and was kind enough not to
notice that Rodolphe was not taking her home until
he reached his own door and brought her in.
"I am doing wrong," said she. "Never make
me repent it by showing the ingratitude which is
the appanage of your sex."
"Madame," said Rodolphe, "I am well known for
my constancy. I carry it, indeed, to such a point
that my friends all wonder at my fidelity and have
nicknamed me 'a General Bertrand in love.'"
1
124
IX
POLAR VIOLETS
N those days Rodolphe was very much in love
IN
with his cousin Angèle (who could not endure
him), and the thermometer of the ingenious cheva-
lier registered twelve degrees below freezing-point.
Mlle. Angèle was the daughter of M. Monetti,
the stove dealer, whose acquaintance the reader has
made already. Mlle. Angèle was eighteen years
old, and had just come home after spending five
years in Burgundy with a female relative who was
expected to leave her her fortune. The female rela-
tive, as it chanced, was an old woman who had
never been young nor handsome. On the other
hand, she had always been cross-grained, although
(and possibly because) she was a bigot in matters of
religion. Angèle, when she left Paris, had been a
charming child, giving promise already of charming
womanhood; but at the end of the five years,
though she was a handsome girl, she had grown
frigid, prim and indifferent. A retired life in the
country, the practices of exaggerated piety and the
petty conscientious scruples instilled in her, had
filled her mind with silly and vulgar prejudices and
narrowed her imagination; while as for her heart,
the functions of that organ were strictly limited—
it was merely the balance-wheel of her internal
125
The Latin Quarter
economy.
The blood in Angèle's veins was (so to
say) holy water. She gave her cousin a glacial
reception when they met. In vain did he try to
touch the tender chords of memory by talking of
old days, when they played at Paul and Virginia,
as cousins are very apt to do; but, after all,
Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin
Angèle (who could not endure him). So when he
heard that the young lady was going to the wedding
dance of a girl friend he grew bold enough to
promise Angèle a bouquet of violets for the occa-
sion; and Angèle, after first asking her father's
permission, accepted her cousin's polite offer, insist-
ing at the same time, however, that they must be
white violets.
Rodolphe was quite delighted to find his cousin in
a better humour. He skipped away, humming as
he went, to his "Mont Saint Bernard," as he called
his abode, for reasons which will presently appear.
But as he went through the Palais Royal he saw a
bouquet of white violets in Mme. Provost's shop
window, and went in out of curiosity to ask the
price of that well-known dealer in flowers. A
presentable bouquet, he found, would cost no less.
than ten francs, but there were others still more
expensive.
"Ten francs, and only a week to find all that
money! Hang it all! It will take some getting
together; but, all the same, my cousin shall have
her bouquet. I have an idea."
These things befell Rodolphe at the genesis of his
literary career. At that time he was living upon
fifteen francs a month allowed him by a friend, a
126
Polar Violets
great poet, who, after a long sojourn in Paris, had
become a country schoolmaster by dint of influence.
Rodolphe, however, must have had extravagance
for his fairy godmother, for his allowance was always
spent in four days; and since he could not bring
himself to abandon his sacred but scarcely remunera-
tive profession of elegiac poet, he nourished himself
for the rest of the month on such chance crumbs as
fell at long intervals from the basket of Providence.
His Lent had no terror for him; he even carried
through it gaily, thanks to a stoical sobriety and
an exuberant imagination on which he drew daily,
and so contrived to hold out till the first of the
month-the Easter Day which terminated his fast.
In those days Rodolphe lived in the Rue Contre-
scarpe Saint Marcel, in a big old house which used
to be known as "L'Hôtel de l'Eminence grise" be-
cause Père Joseph (Richelieu's instrument) had dwelt
there, so it was said. The house is one of the
tallest in Paris, and Rodolphe lodged at the very
top of it. His room was a sort of belvedere, a
delightful abode in summer, but between October
to April a miniature Kamschatka. The four cardinal
winds made their way in through the four windows
which faced the points of the compass, and executed
furious quartettes all winter through; while the
chimney-opening, as if in irony, was so large that
it might have been a state entrance made on purpose
for Boreas and all his suite.
Cold weather had no sooner set in than Rodolphe
devised a systematic plan for obtaining fuel, dividing
what little furniture he had into successive "fell-
ings" of timber, by which means his possessions
127
The Latin Quarter
were considerably reduced by the end of the week.
A bedstead and a couple of chairs were still left,
but these again (to tell the truth) were made of
cast-iron, and by their nature insured against fire.
Rodolphe styled this way of keeping a fire "a re-
moval up the chimney."
It was the month of January, and the thermometer,
which registered twelve degrees of frost on the
Quay des Lunettes, would have gone down another
point or two, if anyone had carried it up to the
belvedere which Rodolphe called "Mont Saint
Bernard," "Spitzbergen" and "Siberia."
When Rodolphe came home that night, after
promising his cousin a bunch of white violets, he
flew into a great fury. The four cardinal winds
had broken another pane of glass in a game of puss
in the corner; it was the third accident of the kind
within the fortnight, and Rodolphe broke out into a
storm of imprecations against Eolus and all his
destructive family.
He then stopped up the new breach with the portrait
of a friend, and lay down dressed as he was between
his two mattresses, as he was pleased to call a couple
of paillasses stuffed with flock and hard as boards.
And all night long he dreamed of white violets.
But five days went by; Rodolphe had found no
way of realising his dream, and on the next day
but one he was to give his cousin her bouquet.
The thermometer meanwhile had dropped still lower,
and despair fastened upon the wretched poet as he
reflected that the price of violets had probably
risen. Providence at last took pity on him, and
this is how it came about.
128
Polar Violets
One morning Rodolphe dropped in to ask his
friend Marcel, the painter, to give him breakfast,
and found the latter in conversation with a woman
in widow's weeds. It appeared that she lived in
the neighbourhood, and having recently lost her
husband, wanted to know how much it would cost
to paint a man's hand on the tombstone with the
following inscription-
"MY CHERISHED WIFE, I WAIT FOR THEE."
To obtain a reduction she pointed out to the artist
that when it should please God to send her to rejoin
her husband, a second hand would have to be painted
with a bracelet on the wrist, and a second inscription
thus conceived-
66 ONCE MORE UNITED NOW ARE WE."
"I shall put it in my will," the widow was saying,
"and I shall stipulate that you shall have the com-
mission."
"Since that is the manner of it, madam, I accept
your terms but it is with the expectation of
the handsel to come. Do not forget me in your
will."
"I should like to have it done as soon as pos-
sible," the widow went on; "still, take your time,
and don't forget the scar on the thumb. I want a
hand that looks like life!"
"It shall be a speaking likeness, madam; be
easy as to that," said Marcel, walking to the door
with her. But just as the lady was going out she
turned back.
"I have still
painter," she said.
something to ask you, mister
"I should like to have a what-
K
129
The Latin Quarter
do-you-call-it in poetry put on my husband's tomb,
saying what a good man he was, and his last words
on his death-bed. Is that the correct thing?"
"Quite correct. That is what is called an epitaph.
Very correct indeed!"
"I suppose you don't know anybody who can do
one for me, cheap? There is my neighbour, M.
Guérin, of course, the letter-writer, but he asks the
coat off one's back!"
Rodolphe gave Marcel a look, and Marcel grasped
the situation at once.
"Madam," he said, indicating Rodolphe, "a
fortunate chance has brought someone here who
may be of use to you under these painful circum-
stances. This gentleman is a distinguished poet-
you could not find a better."
"I must have something sad," said the widow,
"and the spelling must be faultless."
"Madam, my friend has his spelling at the tips
of his fingers. He carried off all the prizes at
school."
"Indeed!" said the widow, "my nephew took a
prize too, and yet he is only seven years old!"
"A very precocious child!" said Marcel.
"But," said the widow, returning to her point,
"does this gentleman make sad poetry?"
"None better, madam; he has seen a great deal
of trouble. My friend is particularly competent.
Sad poetry he generally writes-they are always re-
proaching him for it in the papers."
"What!" cried the widow, "do they put him in
the papers? Then he must be quite as learned as
M. Guérin, the letter-writer!"
130
Polar Violets
"Far more learned. Apply to him, madam; you
will not repent it."
The widow gave the poet the gist of the matter
for the poetry on her husband's tomb, and agreed
to pay him ten francs if she was pleased with it.
Only, she must have it at once. The poet under-
took to let her have it the very next day, through
his friend.
"Oh, Artemisia! kind fairy," cried Rodolphe
when the widow had departed; "thou shalt be con-
tented, I promise thee. I will yield thee good
measure of funeral song, and the spelling shall be
better turned out than a duchess. Ah! good old
creature, may Heaven reward thee; mayest thou
attain, like good brandy, to the hundred and seventh
year of thine age!"
"I am opposed to that!" Marcel cried.
"True," said Rodolphe, "I was forgetting that
you have one more hand to paint after her decease,
and such longevity would keep you out of your
money." And raising his hands, he added, "Heed
not my prayer, O Heaven!-Ha, a fine bit of luck
for me that I came here to-day!" he added.
"By-the-by, what did you want?"
"I am just thinking it over now, especially as I
shall be obliged to sit up all night over this poetry.
I cannot do without the things I came to ask for, to
wit: First, a dinner; secondly, some tobacco and a
candle; thirdly, your polar bear costume."
"Are you going to a fancy ball? The first one.
comes off to-night."
"No, I am not; but, such as you see me, I am
as hard-frozen as the Grande Armée on the Retreat
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The Latin Quarter
from Moscow. My green lasting coat and check
merino trousers are very pretty, of course; but too
spring-like altogether, and adapted to an equatorial
climate. If you live so near the north pole as I do,
a polar bear's costume is more suitable-I may even
say it is indispensable."
"Take Bruin," said Marcel.
"It is a good
idea; the thing is as hot as a brazier; you will feel
like a loaf in the oven."
Rodolphe was already in the animal's pelt.
"Now," he cried, "what a furious rage the ther-
mometer will be in!"
"Are you going out like that?" Marcel asked
when they had finished a vague sort of dinner
served on hall-marked plates of the value of one
sou.
"By Jove! much I care what people say of me.
Besides, to-day is the first day of Carnival." So
he walked across Paris with a gravity befitting the
original owner of the skin, and passing Chevalier's
thermometer, saluted it with a derisive thumb to his
nose.
On entering his room (after giving the porter
a terrible fright), the poet lighted his candle, taking
a world of pains to surround it with a transparent
paper screen to thwart the malice of the north wind,
and set to work at once. But he was not long in
finding out that if he was tolerably warm inside his
costume, his hands were not. He had not written
a couple of lines of epitaph before numbness
attacked his fingers so savagely that he was forced
to drop the pen.
"The bravest man cannot fight against the ele-
I
132
Polar Violets
ments," said Rodolphe, falling back paralysed in his
chair. "Cæsar passed the Rubicon, but he would
have stuck fast in the Bérésina."
All at once the poet raised a shout of joy from the
depths of his bear-skin, and got up so suddenly that
he sent a deluge of ink over his white fur. An idea
had occurred to him. He took a hint from Chatter-
ton.
Drawing a considerable mass of manuscript from
under the bed, he found among them some ten huge
bundles of his famous tragedy, The Avenger. In the
course of some two years' work upon it he had
written, cancelled, and rewritten so many times that
the copies altogether weighed more than fourteen
pounds. Rodolphe put the latest version aside, and
hauled the rest across to the fireplace.
"I knew I should find an opening-with patience,"
he cried. "Here is a pretty faggot of manuscript,
and that's a fact. Ah! if I could but have foreseen
what was going to happen I would have written
a prologue, and there would be so much the more
to burn now. . . . But there, one cannot foresee
everything." And he set several sheets alight in
the grate and warmed his hands at the flames. In
another five minutes the first act of The Avenger
had gone off brilliantly and Rodolphe had written.
three lines of the epitaph.
Nothing can describe the astonishment of the
four winds when they discovered the blaze in the
hearth.
"Tis an illusion!" piped the north wind as he
amused himself with ruffling up the white bear's
fur.
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"Suppose we go and blow down the stove-pipe,"
suggested another wind, "that would set the
chimney smoking." But just as they were be-
ginning to pester poor Rodolphe the south wind
caught sight of M. Arago at a window in the
Observatory shaking a warning finger at the whole
quartette of them. So the south wind cried to his
brothers-
"Quick! let us be off at once, the weather
prophet says there will be calm weather to-night;
we have broken the Observatory rules, and if we
are not in by midnight M. Arago will have us
kept in."
Meantime the second act of The Avenger burned
most successfully, and Rodolphe had written ten
lines. But during the third act he only managed
to finish two more.
"I always thought that act was too short," he
muttered, "but you never find out the defects till
you see a thing on the stage. Luckily the next act
will last longer; there are twenty-three scenes, and
one of them-the throne-room scene-was to witness
my glory." The last piece of declamation from the
throne-room scene whisked up the chimney in a
flight of sparks, and Rodolphe had still another six
lines to write.
"Now for the fifth act," he said, as he warmed
himself at the blaze. "It will last quite five
minutes, it is one long soliloquy." Then came the
catastrophe, a brief flare-up followed by darkness,
while Rodolphe was setting forth the last words of
the dear defunct with magical lyrical flourishes.
"There is still enough left for another night's per-
134
Polar Violets
formance," he said to himself as he pushed the rest
of his manuscript back under the bed.
Next evening, at eight o'clock, Mlle. Angèle entered
the ballroom carrying a superb bouquet of white
violets, with two white roses in the middle. All
through the evening the women admired her flowers
and the men made pretty speeches to their wearer.
So Angèle was not altogether ungrateful to the
cousin who contributed to give these little gratifica-
tions to her vanity; and perhaps she might have
thought more of him if it had not been for the
persevering gallantry of a relative of the bride.
This was a young fellow with fair hair and a superb
moustache that turned up at the ends in a couple of
hooks, which always catch novices' hearts. So
Angèle danced several dances with him, and he
asked her for the two white roses which still re-
mained in the middle of her much-fingered bouquet
. . . and Angèle refused, but at the end of the even-
ing she left the roses on a bench and forgot to take
them, and the fair-haired young man rushed across
to pick them up.
At that very moment there were fourteen degrees
of frost in the belvedere, and Rodolphe, leaning
against the window-bars, was looking towards the
Barrière du Maine to see the lighted windows of
the ballroom where Angèle danced-cousin Angèle
who could not endure him.
135
X
THE CAPE OF STORMS
N the month which opens each new season of
IN
the year there are two terrible epochs, which
usually fall upon the first and the fifteenth day.
Rodolphe, who never could behold the approach
of either of these dates without misgivings, called
them "The Cape of Storms." When that day
comes, it is not the dawn that flings open the
portals of the east, but a host of creditors, duns,
landlords, bailiffs' men and other persons
quainted with the art of serving writs. That day
begins with a downpour of accounts, invoices,
receipts and stamped paper of all kinds and ends
with a hail shower of protested bills. Dies iræ!
ac-
It so fell out that on the morning of the 15th of
April Rodolphe was sleeping quite peacefully, and
dreaming that an uncle had left him a province in
Peru, with all the fair Peruvians in it, when-just
as he was swimming at large in an imaginary
Pactolus the sound of a key turning in the lock
disturbed the heir-presumptive at the most brilliant
moment in the whole golden dream.
Rodolphe sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes (and
wits) still befogged with slumber, and, staring about
him, became aware that somebody was in the room.
4
136
The Cape of Storms
A man was standing there in the middle of the
floor. What sort of man might he be?
The early riser in question wore a cocked hat;
he had a wallet on his back and a big portfolio in
his hand; his coat was a sort of uniform of greyish
violet; and finally he appeared to be much out of
breath after a climb of five flights. He was, how-
ever, a person of very affable demeanour, though
his sonorous footsteps gave you the impression
that a money-changer's counter might produce, if it
could find means of locomotion.
For a moment Rodolphe was alarmed. At sight
of the cocked hat he fancied he had to do with a
member of the police force, but the passably well-
stuffed wallet put an end to his mistake.
"Ha! I have it," thought he. "Here comes a
first instalment of my legacy; the man has come
from the Indies! But how is it that he is not a
negro?
Beckoning to the visitor, he said, pointing to the
bag, "I know what that is; put it down there,
please."
The man, a messenger from the Bank of France,
responded to the invitation by submitting a piece
of paper, covered with hieroglyphics and figures in
many-coloured inks, to Rodolphe's inspection.
"Do you want a receipt?" asked Rodolphe.
"Right. Hand me the pen and ink off the table,
there."
"No; I have come to take something of you,"
said the collector. This is a bill for a hundred
and fifty francs. To-day is the fifteenth of April."
"Oh!" returned Rodolphe, taking a closer look
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at the bill. "Bill of Birmann's. That's my tailor.
Alas!" he added in a melancholy voice, looking
from an overcoat on the bed to the bill, and back
again at the overcoat, "causes go, but the effects
come back again. What! is to-day the fifteenth of
April? An extraordinary thing; I have not had
any strawberries yet!"
The collector grew tired of this dawdling, and
went, saying as he did so—
"You have till four o'clock."
"Honest folk are not bound to an hour," retorted
Rodolphe. "The swindler!" he added, as he
watched the departure of the man of finance in
the cocked hat. "He is walking off with the
bag!"
Rodolphe drew his bed-curtains, and tried to find
the way back to his inheritance; but he missed the
path, and somehow or other entered, swelling with
pride, upon a dream in which the manager of the
Théâtre Français came to him, hat in hand, to ask for
a tragedy for his theatre. And Rodolphe, knowing
the way to set to work, was asking for a premium,
when, just as the manager seemed ready to give
way, the sleeper was again partly awakened by a
visitor—another creature of the 15th of April.
This was M. Benoît, inappropriately so named,
the landlord of the lodging-house. M. Benoît com-
bined the three several occupations of landlord,
bootmaker and moneylender to his lodgers; and
this morning he was hideously redolent of bad
brandy and pay-day. In his hand was an empty
bag.
"Confound it!" thought Rodolphe. "It is not
T
138
The Cape of Storms
the manager of the Français,' . . . for he would
wear a white tie
and the bag would be full."
"Good day, M. Rodolphe," said M. Benoît,
coming to the bedside.
"M. Benoît! Good day. To what do I owe the
pleasure of your visit?"
"Why, I came in to say that to-day is the fifteenth
of April!"
"Already! How quickly time goes! It is extra-
ordinary. I positively must get a pair of nankeen
trousers. The fifteenth of April. Dear me! I
should not have thought of it but for you,
M. Benoît. I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"You owe me a hundred and sixty-two francs as
well!" M. Benoît continued; "and it is time the
little account was settled."
"I am not exactly pressed, M. Benoît; there is
no need to put yourself out. I will let you have
time. Little accounts grow into big ones."
"But you have put me off already several times."
"In that case let us settle it, M. Benoît; let us
settle it. It is a matter of absolute indifference to
me-to-day or to-morrow. And besides, we are all
of us mortal. Let us settle it."
A beaming smile lighted up the landlord's wrinkles,
and everything about him, down to his empty bag,
swelled visibly with hope.
"What do I owe you?" asked Rodolphe.
"Three months' rent, in the first place, at twenty-
five francs; that is seventy-five francs."
"Errors and omissions excepted. What next?"
"Next three pairs of boots at twenty francs."
"One moment, M. Benoît, one moment; let us
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keep clear of muddles. I have nothing to do with
the landlord now; this is the bootmaker. I want a
separate account. Figures are serious things; we
must not get confused."
"So be it," returned M. Benoît, softened by the
hope of putting a receipt at the foot of every bill.
"Here is a separate memorandum for the boots.
Three pairs of boots at twenty francs makes sixty
francs."
Rodolphe looked pityingly at the down-trodden
pair on the floor.
"Alack!" he thought; "if the Wandering Jew
had had them in wear, they could not well look
worse. And yet, it was running about after Marie
that brought them to this. Go on, M. Benoît."
'Say sixty francs," resumed the landlord. "Next:
money advanced, twenty-seven francs."
"Hold on, M. Benoît. We agreed that every
saint should have his own shrine. It was as a
friend that you lent me the money.
So now, if you
please, we will leave the domain of boots and enter
upon the domains 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 a friend at a
cheap rate, M. Benoît. So, finally, let us say
seventy-five, sixty and twenty-seven-how much
is that?"
"One hundred and sixty-two francs."
"A hundred and sixty-two francs," said Rodolphe ;
"tis an extraordinary thing. What a fine thing
addition is! Well, M. Benoît, now the accounts are
140
The Cape of Storms
we are.
settled, we can both of us be easy; we know where
Next month I will ask for your receipt;
and as in the meantime your confidence in me and
your friendship can only grow, you may, if neces-
sary, grant me a further delay. And if the land-
lord and the bootmaker should prove too urgent,
I will entreat the friend to bring them to reason.
It is an extraordinary thing, M. Benoît; but every
time I think of your triple character I feel tempted
to believe in the Trinity."
As the master of the house listened to Rodolphe
he turned red, green, yellow and white; the rain-
bow tints of wrath deepening more and more in his
countenance at each new gibe from his lodger.
"I do not care to be made game of, sir! I have
waited long enough. I give you notice, and if you
have not paid the money by to-night, I shall see
what I shall do."
Money! money! am I asking you for money?
And what is more, I would not give you any if I
had it. On a Friday it is unlucky."
M. Benoît's wrath grew to a tempest. If the
furniture had not belonged to him, he would
assuredly have fractured the legs of some of the
chairs. As it was, he went out breathing threats.
"You are forgetting your bag," Rodolphe called
after him.
"What a life!" muttered the wretched young man
when he was alone. "I would rather tame lions."
"Still," he went on, as he jumped out of bed,
"I cannot stay here. The invasion of the allies
will continue. I must retreat; I must also break-
fast. Stay, now; suppose I go to see Schaunard?
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I will ask him to lay a knife and fork for me, and
borrow a few sous of him. A hundred francs might
do. Let us go to see Schaunard."
On his way downstairs Rodolphe met his landlord.
M. Benoît had met with repulses from other lodgers,
as his empty bag, that object of art, plainly showed.
"If anyone asks for me, tell them I am away in
the country, or gone to the Alps," said Rodolphe.
"Or no, say that I have gone for good."
"I shall tell them the truth," muttered M. Benoît,
laying a highly significant stress on the words.
Schaunard lived at Montmartre. There was the
whole breadth of Paris to cross, a pilgrimage of the
most dangerous kind for Rodolphe.
"The streets are paved with duns to-day," said
he to himself.
Still, he did not go by the outer ring of boule-
vards, as he had at first a mind to do. A fantastic
hope, on the contrary, encouraged him to take the
dangerous central route through the heart of Paris.
It seemed to him that on such a day when millions
of francs were walking abroad in collectors' wallets,
it might well be that some banknote for a thousand
francs was lying deserted by the wayside awaiting a
good Samaritan. Rodolphe went about softly, his
eyes on the ground. But he only picked up a couple
of pins.
In two hours' time he reached Schaunard's lodging.
"Ha! it is you!"
"Yes, I have come to ask you for lunch."
"Oh, my dear fellow, you come inopportunely;
my mistress has just come, and I have not seen
her for a fortnight. If you had only looked in ten
minutes earlier-
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The Cape of Storms
"You have not a hundred francs or so to lend
me, have you?"
"What! You too!" returned Schaunard, as-
tonished beyond all measure. "Are you asking me
for money? Are you in league with my enemies?"
"I will pay you back on Monday."
"Or at Trinity. My dear fellow, you surely
forget what day it is. I can do nothing for you.
But there is no need to despair, the day is not over
yet. You may still come across Providence, who
never gets up before noon."
"Oh, Providence is too busy looking after the
sparrows. I shall go to Marcel."
At that time Marcel was living in the Rue de
Bréda. Rodolphe found him much depressed,
meditating before his great picture, which was in-
tended to represent "The Passage of the Red Sea."
"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, as he
came in, "you look half dead with mortification!"
"Alas! yes.
It is a fortnight since I entered
upon Holy Week," said the painter-an allegorical
allusion which, for Rodolphe, was clear as spring
water.
"Pickled herrings and radishes!" said he.
"Very good. I remember." And, indeed, re-
collections of a time when he himself had been
reduced to a diet composed exclusively of that fish
were still salt in Rodolphe's memory.
"The devil! this is serious! I came to borrow a
hundred francs of you."
"A hundred francs!" exclaimed Marcel. 'So
you go in for the fantastic as usual. To come and
ask me for this fabulous sum at a time when every-
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body touches the equator of necessity! You have
been taking haschish."
"Alas! I have taken nothing whatever," said
Rodolphe; and with that he left his friend on the
shores of the Red Sea.
Between twelve and four that afternoon Rodolphe
made the tour of all the houses of his acquaint-
ance; he beat up the forty-eight quarters, and
walked about twenty miles without any result what-
soever. The influences of the 15th of April made
themselves everywhere felt with the same rigour;
what was more, the hour of dinner was drawing
near, and it hardly seemed as if dinner were draw-
ing any nearer with the hour, and Rodolphe felt as
though he were starving on the raft of the Medusa.
But as he crossed the Pont Neuf an idea suddenly
struck him, and he turned back.
"Oho! The fifteenth of April! the fifteenth of
April! Why, I have an invitation to dinner for to-
day." Fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a
printed handbill thus conceived :—
BARRIÈRE DE LA VILLETE.
AT THE SIGN OF THE "GREAT Conqueror."
GREAT HALL TO SEAT 300 PEOPLE.
ANNIVERSARY BANQUET
IN HONOUR OF THE BIRTH
OF THE
HUMANITARIAN MESSIAH.
APRIL 15TH, 184-.
ADMIT ONE PERSON.
N.B.-THE BEARER IS ENTITLED TO ONE HALF-BOTTLE
OF WINE ONLY.
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The Cape of Storms
"I do not share the opinions of the Messiah's
disciples," said Rodolphe to himself, "but I will
very readily share their meal." With bird-like
speed he covered the distance which separated him
from the barrier, and on reaching the hall of the
"Great Conqueror" found an enormous crowd. Five
hundred persons were already assembled in the hall,
which would seat three hundred. And a vast per-
spective of veal and carrots unrolled itself before
Rodolphe's eyes.
At length they began to serve the soup.
But just
as the guests were raising the first spoonful to their
mouths in walked five or six individuals in black
coats and a number of policemen with a commissary
at their head.
"Gentlemen," said this functionary, "the authori-
ties will not allow the banquet to take place. I call
upon you all to withdraw!"
"Alas!
said Rodolphe, as he went out with the
crowd, "alas for the fatality which has overturned
my soup."
Sadly he went back home again, and reached his
own door about eleven o'clock. M. Benoît was
waiting for him.
"Oh! it is you," said he. "Have you thought
over what I said this morning? Have you some
money for me?"
"I ought by rights to have some to-night. I
will let you have it in the morning," returned
Rodolphe, searching for his key and candlestick,
and finding neither.
"I am very sorry, M. Rodolphe, but I have let
your room, and I have not another at liberty! You
must look elsewhere.”
L
145
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Rodolphe was not pusillanimous by nature, a
night out of doors had no terrors for him. Besides,
if it should come on to rain, he could sleep at a
pinch in the stage box at the Odéon, as he had
already done once before. So he only asked M.
Benoît for his "things," the said "things" consist-
ing of a mass of papers.
“I
"That is only fair," returned the landlord.
have no right to keep them; they are in the desk.
Step upstairs with me; if the person who has taken
your room has not gone to bed, we may be able to
get in."
The room had been let during the day to a young
girl named Mimi, with whom Rodolphe had once
begun a sentimental duet. They recognised each
other at once. Rodolphe whispered something in
Mimi's ear, and gently pressed her hand.
"Look how it rains!" he said. There was a sound
of a downpour without-a storm had just burst.
Mlle. Mimi went straight up to M. Benoît as he
waited in a corner of the room.
"Monsieur," she said, "this gentleman (indicating
Rodolphe) was the visitor I was expecting this even-
ing. I am not at home to anyone."
"Oh! very well," said M. Benoît, with a grimace.
Midnight struck while Mlle. Mimi was hastily pre-
paring an improvised supper.
"Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, "the fifteenth
of April is over; at last I have doubled the Cape of
Storms. Dear Mimi," the young man added, draw-
ing her to his arms and putting a kiss on the back
of her neck, "you could not possibly have put me
out at the door. You have the bump of hospitality."
146
XI
A CAFÉ IN BOHEMIA
HESE are the circumstances under which
THE
Carolus Barbemuche, literary man and Pla-
tonic philosopher, became a member of Bohemia
in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
In those days Gustave Colline, the great philo-
sopher; Marcel, the great painter; Schaunard, the
great musician; and Rodolphe, the great poet (for
so they styled each other among themselves), used
to be regular frequenters of the Café Momus.
Other people nicknamed them "The Four Mus-
keteers," because they were always seen together;
and, indeed, they came together, went together,
played cards together, and at times declined to
pay their score, all with an accord worthy of an
orchestra at the Conservatoire.
They had selected for a meeting-place a room
amply large enough for forty people to sit in with
comfort, but they always had it to themselves
because in the long run they succeeded in making
it impossible for any regular customers to set foot
in it. Any chance comer venturing into the den
fell a victim to the grim quartette, and most of
them promptly fled, leaving newspaper and coffee
alike unfinished, for their unheard-of aphorisms on
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The Latin Quarter
art, sentiment and political economy were enough
to turn the cream. The conversation of the four
worthies was of such a nature that the waiter who
took their orders had become an idiot in the flower
of his age.
Things, however, got to such a pitch at last
that the proprietor lost patience and came up one
evening to make a categorical statement of his
grievances.
Imprimis. M. Rodolphe had come in at lunch.
time and carried all the newspapers off to "his"
room, pushing unreasonableness to such lengths
that he was angry unless he found the wrappers
intact. Whence it followed that other regular
customers, deprived of the organs of opinion,
remained until dinner - time ignorant as carp of
political news, and the Bosquet circle scarcely knew
the names of the members of the last Cabinet.
The pro-
M. Rodolphe had even compelled the café to take
the Castor, which he edited himself.
prietor had refused at first, but as M. Rodolphe
and his company used to summon the waiter every
quarter of an hour, calling out: "The Castor! bring
us the Castor!" the curiosity of other customers
was roused by these frenzied demands, and they
too asked for the Castor. So the café took in a
copy of the Castor, a monthly journal devoted to
the hat trade, with a vignette and an article on
philosophy under the heading of "Varieties," by
Gustave Colline.
Item. The said M. Colline and his friend M.
Rodolphe, seeking relaxation from intellectual
labours, were in the habit of playing backgammon
1
148
A Café in Bohemia
from ten o'clock in the morning till twelve o'clock
at night; and as the establishment only possessed
a single backgammon board, other persons finding
that these gentlemen had forestalled them, were
balked in their passion for the game. Every time
that the board was asked for the aforesaid gentle-
men only replied, "Backgammon is in hand! Call
again to-morrow." And the Bosquet circle was
thereby reduced to piquet and relating the story of
their first loves.
Item. M. Marcel, disregarding the fact that a
café is a place of public resort, had taken it upon
himself to bring his easel and paint-box and all
the instruments of his art. He even pushed the
nuisance so far as to bring in models of both sexes,
which might offend the Bosquet circle's sense of
propriety.
Item. M. Schaunard, following his friend's ex-
ample, talked of moving in his piano, and was not
afraid to sing in chorus a selection from his sym-
phony, "The Influence of Blue on the Arts."
M. Schaunard had gone farther. He slipped a
transparency into the lamp before the door of the
café, on which might be read: "Vocal and Instru-
mental Music. Free lessons to be had within by
ladies and gentlemen; for particulars apply at the
bar."
Wherefore the said bar was filled every night by
carelessly dressed persons who came in to ask "how
to get the lessons." What is more, M. Schaunard
made appointments here with a lady of the name
of Phémie Teinturière, who always forgot to wear
anything on her head. For which reason M.
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The Latin Quarter
Bosquet, junior, declared that he would never again
set foot inside an establishment where all the laws
of nature were thus set at defiance.
Item. Not content with ordering only a very
moderate amount of refreshment, the gentlemen
had tried to reduce it further still, by bringing in
a spirit lamp and concocting their coffee themselves,
on the pretext of an adulterous connection detected
between chicory and the coffee of the establish-
ment, and by sweetening the beverage with sugar
obtained elsewhere at a low price-an insult to the
laboratory.
Item. Corrupted by the discourse of the afore-
said gentlemen, the waiter Bergami (so called
because of his whiskers), forgetful of his humble
origin, and regardless of all decency, had ventured
to address a copy of verses to the lady behind the
counter, inciting her to forget her duties as a wife
and mother. From the licence of his style it is
evident that this piece was composed under the
pernicious influences of M. Rodolphe and his
writings.
The proprietor of the establishment consequently
felt, with regret, that he was compelled to request
M. Colline and friends to find some other spot for
the discussion of their subversive doctrines.
Gustave Colline, the Cicero of the company, took
it upon himself to reply, and à priori showed the
proprietor of the café that his complaints were
absurd and unfounded, that they did him great
honour by choosing the establishment for an in-
tellectual centre, and that the departure of himself
and his friends would be the ruin of a place thus
•
150
A Café in Bohemia
elevated by their presence to the dignity of an
artistic and literary café.
66 But you order so little, you and those that come
to see you," objected the proprietor.
""
"The sobriety of which you complain tells in
favour of our morals," retorted Colline. Besides,
it is entirely your doing that we do not spend a
great deal more. You have only to open an
account."
-
He
"And we would keep it," added Marcel.
The proprietor did not seem to understand.
went on to ask for some explanation of the flaming
love letter addressed to his wife by Bergami.
Rodolphe, accused of acting as secretary to this
illicit passion, vehemently protested his innocence.
"Besides," added he, "madame's virtue was a
secure barrier, which-
"Oh!" said the proprietor, with a smile of pride,
"my wife was brought up at Saint Denis."
Briefly, Colline contrived to bind the man fast in
the toils of his insidious eloquence, and all was
arranged on the following conditions: The four
friends engaged never again to make coffee for
themselves; the establishment was to receive a
copy of the Castor gratis; Phémie Teinturière
was not to come again bareheaded; the Bosquet
circle were to have the use of the backgammon
board every Sunday from twelve to two o'clock in
the afternoon; and last, but by no means least,
there were to be no new applications for credit.
For some days all went well.
Then, on Christmas Eve, the four friends arrived
at the café with three ladies.
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The Latin Quarter
There were Mlle. Musette, Mlle. Mimi (Rodolphe's
new mistress, an adorable creature with a voice like
the clash of cymbals), and Phémie Teinturière
(Schaunard's idol), who that evening wore a cap.
As for Mlle. Colline, nobody ever saw her; she
always stayed at home, and was busy punctuating
the manuscripts of the four gentlemen. After
coffee, with an escort of liqueurs in honour of
the occasion, they called for punch, and the waiter
was so little accustomed to these grand doings that
the order had to be repeated twice. Phémie had
never been treated in a café before. The idea of
drinking out of a glass with a stem to it appeared
to send her into an ecstasy of delight. Marcel,
suspicious of the origin of Musette's new bonnet,
was quarrelling with her about it; Mimi and
Rodolphe, still in the honeymoon stage, were
carrying on a curious conversation in articulate
sounds; while, as for Colline, he went from woman
to woman with most gracious airs, gallantly string-
ing together for their benefit all the elegant extracts
culled from the collection of the Almanach des
Muses.
While this joyous company gave themselves up to
mirth and laughter a stranger at a solitary table at
the back was watching the lively scene before him
with an odd expression on his face.
Every evening for a fortnight, or thereabouts, he
had come in and sat there in the same way. He
alone of all the customers had been able to stand
the terrific racket made by the Bohemians. His
courage unshaken by the most atrocious jokes, he
stayed there all the evening through, puffing with
152
A Café in Bohemia
mathematical regularity at his pipe, his eyes intent
as if he were guarding a treasure, his ears open to
all that was going on about him. In other respects
he appeared to be of mild manner and easy fortune,
for he possessed a watch, retained in bondage by a
gold chain; and one day Marcel had detected him
in the act of changing a gold piece at the counter.
From that hour he was known among the four
friends as "the capitalist."
All at once Schaunard, whose sight was excellent,
noticed that the glasses were empty.
"By Jove," said Rodolphe, "it's Christmas Eve!
We are all good Christians; we ought to do some-
thing out of the common."
"On my word, we ought. Let us ask for some-
thing superhuman," said Marcel.
"Colline, just give the bell a pull," added
Rodolphe.
Colline pulled frantically at the bell.
"What are we going to have?" asked Marcel.
Colline bent himself up like a bow, and said,
glancing at the women-
"It is for the ladies to settle the nature and order
of the refreshments."
"I should not be afraid of some champagne,"
announced Musette, smacking her lips.
"Cham-
66 Are you mad?" exclaimed Marcel.
pagne is not a wine at all to begin with!"
"So much the worse. I like it; it pops!"
"I like Beaune better, in a little basket," said
Mimi, looking languidly at Rodolphe.
"Are you going out of your senses?"
"No; but I should like to," said Mimi, on whom
153
The Latin Quarter
Beaune produced a peculiar effect; and Rodolphe
was struck dumb at her words.
"As for me," cried Phémie Teinturière, bouncing up
and down on the sofa springs, "I should very much
like some parfait amour; it is good for the digestion."
Upon which Schaunard made some remarks with a
nasal intonation which made Phémie shake in her shoes.
"Aha!" said Marcel, "let us spend a hundred
thousand francs, just for once.'
"And besides," added Rodolphe, "they
"they are
grumbling in the bar because we do not take
enough. We must plunge them into amazement."
"Yes," said Colline, "let us indulge in a gor-
geous banquet. Beside, we owe these ladies a
passive obedience. Love lives by devotion, wine is
the juice of pleasure, pleasure is the duty of youth.
Women are flowers, and ought to be watered. Let
us water them. Waiter! Waiter!"
Colline hung upon the bell-pull, jerking it
feverishly, and the waiter came hurrying in with
the speed of the wind.
But when he heard talk of champagne and
Beaune, and all sorts of liqueurs, every shade of
surprise crossed over his countenance.
"There is a hole in my inside," remarked Mimi;
"I should be glad of some ham."
"I should like sardines and butter," said Musette.
"And I some radishes," added Phémie, "and a
bit of meat with them."
"Say at once that you mean to have supper,"
said Marcel.
"That would do well enough for us," said the
women.
7
154
A Café in Bohemia
"Waiter, bring up supper," said Colline gravely;
and the waiter turned red, white and blue with
astonishment. He went slowly down to the bar,
and informed the proprietor of the extraordinary
orders which he had been given. The proprietor
at first took it for a joke, but when the bell rang
again he went upstairs himself and spoke to Colline,
for whom he entertained a certain respect. Colline
explained that they wished to keep the festival at
his establishment, and asked him to be good enough
to attend to their orders.
The proprietor turned off on his heel without a
word, tying knots in his table napkin as he went.
For a quarter of an hour he took counsel of his
wife, and that lady, who, thanks to a liberal educa-
tion at Saint Denis, had a weakness for art and
letters, persuaded her husband to send up the
supper.
all
"After all, they very likely may have money for
once," he said, and telling the waiter to take up
that was ordered, he became absorbed in a game of
piquet with an old customer. A fatal piece of im-
prudence.
From ten o'clock till midnight the waiter did
nothing but go up and downstairs. Extras were
called for every minute. Musette must be served
in the English style, with a clean knife and fork
for every mouthful; Mimi drank every kind of wine
from every glass; Schaunard seemed to have a
Sahara which nothing could slake in his throat;
Colline was executing a cross fire with his eyes,
and biting holes in his serviette while he squeezed
the table leg, which he mistook for Phémie's knee.
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The Latin Quarter
But as for Marcel and Rodolphe, they kept a tight
hand over themselves, and saw,
not without un-
easiness, that the hour of reckoning was at hand.
The stranger sat watching this scene with a grave
curiosity. From time to time his mouth was seen
to unclose as if for a smile; and a noise was heard
like the creak of a window-sash suddenly drawn.
down. It was the stranger laughing to himself.
At a quarter to twelve the lady behind the counter
sent in the bill. It reached phenomenal propor-
tions; it amounted to twenty-five francs seventy-five
centimes.
"Let us see," said Marcel ; 'we will draw lots
as to who shall go and parley with the proprietor.
This is going to be serious."
They took the box of dominoes and drew for the
highest number, and as ill fortune would have it,
Schaunard was marked out as plenipotentiary.
Schaunard was an excellent amateur, but a wretched
diplomatist, and he arrived in the bar just as the
proprietor had lost his game. Momus, writhing
under the disgrace of three capotes, was in a
murderous mood, and at Schaunard's very first
entrance upon the subject flew into violent passion.
Schaunard was a good musician, but his temper
was deplorable; he replied with double-barrelled
insults. The quarrel was embittered. The pro-
prietor went upstairs to intimate that nobody should
leave the house till the bill was paid. Colline tried
to intervene with dispassionate eloquence, but just
then the proprietor chanced to perceive the table
napkin which Colline had torn into lint, and with
redoubled fury he even went so far as to lay a pro-
156
A Café in Bohemia
fane hand on the philosopher's nut-brown overcoat
and the ladies' pelisses, threatening at the same time
to hold them in pledge.
A platoon fire of insults ensued between the
Bohemians and the master of the house, whilst the
ladies talked of love affairs and dresses.
This roused the stranger from his impassive de-
meanour; he had gradually risen, made first one
step in their direction and then another, walking
like a natural person; and coming up to the pro-
prietor, he took him aside and spoke for a moment
in a low voice. Rodolphe and Marcel followed this
with their eyes. The proprietor finally went out,
saying, "Certainly, M. Barbemuche, certainly; I
have no objection. Arrange it with them."
M. Barbemuche went back to his table for his hat,
put it on his head, wheeled to the right, and made
three steps of it to the spot where Rodolphe and
Marcel were standing. Then he took off his hat
and bowed to the men, saluted the ladies, pulled
out a pocket-handkerchief, blew his nose and began
slowly-
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for the indis-
cretion which I am about to commit. I have been
burning to make your acquaintance this long while
past, but until now I have not met with a favour-
able moment for introducing myself.
Will you
permit me to seize the opportunity which to-day
presents itself?"
"Certainly, certainly!" said Colline, perceiving
the stranger's drift; and Rodolphe and Marcel
bowed in silence, when all was very nearly lost
through Schaunard's exquisite delicacy of feeling.
157
The Latin
Quarter
"Allow me, monsieur!" he said, with some
asperity; "you have not the honour of knowing
us, and it would not do for us to-er-oh, would
you be so kind as to let me fill my pipe? And
whatever my friends may say I say too.
""
"Gentlemen," said Barbemuche, "I, like you, am
a disciple of the arts. So far as I can tell from
what I have heard of your talk, our tastes are the
same. I have the keenest desire to be numbered
among your friends, and to be able to meet you
here of an evening. The proprietor of this estab-
lishment is a brute, but I have had a word or two
with him, and you are now at liberty to withdraw.
I venture to hope that some way of meeting you
here on these premises may be left open to me; if
you accept the little service which—-”
The red of indignation mounted to Schaunard's
countenance.
"He is speculating upon our position," he said,
"and there is nothing for it but to accept. He has
paid our bill. I will play him at billiards for the
twenty-five francs, and give him odds."
Barbemuche accepted this proposal and had the
sense to lose; and this fine trait in his character
won him the esteem of Bohemia.
They separated after arranging to meet again
next day.
"By doing so," Schaunard remarked to Marcel,
"we owe him nothing; our dignity is safe."
"We can almost require another supper," added
Colline.
I
158
XII
A RECEPTION IN BOHEMIA
N the evening that he paid out of his own
ON
pocket the cost of the supper consumed at the
café by the Bohemians, Carolus contrived to leave
in the company of Gustave Colline. Since he had
assisted at the reunions of the four friends in the
estaminet where he had pulled them out of their
scrape, Carolus had specially taken note of Colline,
and was beginning to feel a great affinity for this
Socrates, of whom later he was to become the
Plato. For this reason it was that from the first
he had decided to choose him as his introducer into
their circle.
On their way Barbemuche asked Colline if he
would go in and take something in a café which was
still open.
Colline not only declined, but consider-
ably quickened his pace as he passed the place, and
carefully drew his superlatively imposing felt hat
low down over his eyes.
"Why won't you go in?" asked Barbemuche
with polite insistence.
"I have my reasons," replied Colline. "In that
establishment the lady at the desk gives a good deal
of attention to the exact sciences, and I do not care
just now to enter upon a long discussion with her.
159
The Latin Quarter
Indeed, I make a practice of avoiding it by never
going through this street at midday, or, for that
matter, at any other hour when the sun is shining.
Oh! it is very simple," ingenuously added Colline.
"I have lived in this neighbourhood with Marcel."
"I should, nevertheless, have liked to offer you
a glass of punch, and had a little chat with you.
Don't you know some other place hereabouts where
you could go in without being troubled by these
-mathematical difficulties?" added Barbemuche,
who wished to be tremendously lively.
Colline considered for an instant.
"Here," he said, indicating a little wine shop
close at hand, "is a small establishment where I
am on a better footing."
Barbemuche made a grimace, and seemed to
hesitate. "Is it a decent place?" he inquired.
From his glacial reserved air, his fine tones, his
discreet smile, and, above all, his chain with its little
dangling charms, and his watch, Colline imagined
that Barbemuche was in the service of some em-
bassy, and thought he was afraid of compromis-
ing himself by entering a cabaret. "There is no
fear of our being seen," he said; "at this hour all
the diplomatic body is in bed." Barbemuche decided
to go in; but at the bottom of his heart he would
have been glad to have had on a false nose. By
way of precaution he asked for a private room,
and carefully fastened a table napkin across the
panes of the glass door. This done, he grew more
at ease, and ordered a bowl of punch. A little
elevated by the heat of the liquor, Barbemuche
grew communicative, and after having given some
160
A Reception in Bohemia
details about himself, he ventured to express the hope
he entertained of becoming a member formally and
officially of the Society of Bohemians, and solicited
the support of Colline to assist him in this ambitious
design.
Colline replied that for his part he placed himself
entirely at the disposal of Barbemuche, but for more
than that he could not speak certainly and absolutely.
"I promise you my voice," he said, "but I can-
not take upon myself to dispose of the voices of my
comrades."
"But," said Barbemuche, "upon what grounds
could they refuse to admit me?"
Colline put down upon the table the glass he was
carrying to his lips, and with a very serious air
addressed the ambitious Carolus much to this
effect-
"You cultivate the fine arts?" he asked.
"I labour modestly in those noble fields of intelli-
gence," replied Carolus, who affected to be a stylist.
Colline found the phrase well chosen, and he
bowed.
"You know music?" he said.
"I play the double-bass."
"It is a philosophical instrument.
grave sounds.
It gives forth
Then, if you understand music, you
know that one cannot, without disturbing the laws
of harmony, introduce a fifth executant into a
quartette without that ceasing to be a quartette.
"It would become a quintette," said Carolus.
"Eh?" said Colline.
"Quintette."
"Quite so. The same as if to the Trinity, the
M
161
The Latin Quarter
divine triangle, you added another person. It would
no longer be the Trinity, it would be four-a square
-and there you have a religion faulty in principle."
"Pardon me," said Carolus, whose reasoning
faculties began to stumble among the roots of
Colline's logic. "I do not quite see-
99
"Look, and follow me," continued Colline.
you understand astronomy?"
"A little. I am bachelor-
""
"Do
"There's a song about that," put in Colline,
'Bachelier de Lisette.' I don't remember the tune,
but in that case you will know that there are four
cardinal points. Very good. If a fifth cardinal point
should obtrude, the whole harmony of nature would
be overthrown. That is what is called a cataclysm.
You comprehend?"
"I wait the conclusion."
"In effect, the conclusion of the discourse; as
death is the termination of life and marriage
that of love. Very well, my dear sir, my friends
and I are accustomed to live together, and we
are afraid of seeing by the introduction of another
the disturbance of the concord which reigns in our
manners, opinions, tastes and characters. We look
one day, I tell you frankly, to be the four cardinal
points of contemporary art. It would be annoying
to us to see a fifth cardinal point-
66
99
"When one is four, however," hazarded Carolus,
one may just as well be five."
"Yes, but one is no longer four."
"That is a futile pretext."
"There is nothing futile in the world; all is in
all. The little streams make the great rivers; the
162
A Reception in Bohemia
little syllables form the great Alexandrines; and
the mountains are composed of grains of dust. It
is in the Wisdom of Nations. There is a copy
of it on the quay."
"You think, then, that these gentlemen will raise
objection to my admission to the honour of their
intimate company?"
"So I infer, like the bear," said Colline, who
never neglected this pleasantry.
"You said?" asked Carolus, astonished.
"Pardon me; it is a little gem of a jest," replied
Colline. "Tell me, then, my dear sir, which is the
path you most prefer in the noble fields of intellect?"
"The great philosophers and the good classic
authors are my models. Their study is my nourish-
ment. Telemachus first inspired me with the passion
which is devouring me."
"Telemachus. He is a good deal upon the quay,'
said Colline. "I have just come upon him to-day,
and I bought him for five sous, for it was a chance.
However, I will forego it for your benefit. It is
good work, and well written, for the time."
"Yes," continued Carolus, "the higher philosophy
and pure, healthy literature; those are my aspira-
tions. In my opinion art is a religion."
"Yes, yes, yes," said Colline; "there is also a
song about that," and he hummed-
"Yes, art is a cult
That believers must serve.'
I think it is in Robert le Diable," he added.
"I observed, then, that art, being a solemn func-
tion, writers ought constantly—"
"Pardon me, sir," interrupted Colline, who heard
163
The Latin Quarter
morn-
a late hour striking, "it is to-morrow
ing, and I am afraid of causing anxiety to a
very dear friend of mine. Besides," he murmured
to himself, "I promised to be back. It is her
day."
"Indeed, it is late," said Carolus, "let us be
going."
"Do you live far?" inquired Colline.
"10, Rue Royale St. Honoré."
Colline had once had occasion to go to that house,
and remembered it as a magnificent mansion.
"I will mention you to these gentlemen," he said
to Carolus as they parted, "and rest assured that
I will use all my influence to render them favourable
towards you. Ah, but let me give you a piece of
advice."
"Speak," said Carolus.
"Be amiable and gallant to Mesdemoiselles
Mimi, Musette and Phémie. These ladies exercise
influence over my friends, and if you get on
the right side of them you will obtain the more
easily what you desire of Marcel, Schaunard and
Rodolphe."
"I will endeavour," said Carolus.
Next day Colline dropped into the midst of the
Bohemian brotherhood. It was the breakfast hour,
and breakfast had come with the hour. The three
families were seated at table devoting themselves to
a feast of peppered artichokes.
"Well I never!" said Colline, "there is good
cheer here. That can't last long. I come," he
added, "as ambassador from the generous mortal
whom we met last night in the café."
164
A Reception in Bohemia
"Has he sent to ask payment of the money he
laid down for us?" asked Marcel.
"Oh!" said Mlle. Mimi, "I should not have
thought that of him; he had such a pleasant way
with him."
"It has nothing to do with that," replied Colline.
"This young man wishes to be one of us. He
desires to take an active part in our society, and to
share, of course, in its advantages."
The three Bohemians lifted their heads and looked
at each other.
"Well, now," concluded Colline, "the discussion
is an open one."
"What is the social position of your protégé?"
asked Rodolphe.
"Last
"He is not my protégé," said Colline.
night, when I left you, you asked me to follow him;
he, on his part, invited me to accompany him.
That was all right enough. I went with him. He
showed me very pleasant attentions, and treated me
to first-class drinks, but I maintained my inde-
pendence."
"Very good," said Schaunard.
"Sketch us a few of the principal traits of his
character," said Marcel.
"Greatness of soul, austere manners, shrinking
from entering wine shops, bachelor of letters, the
soul of candour, plays the double-bass, a nature
that can sometimes change a five-franc piece."
"Very good," said Schaunard. "What are his
hopes?"
"I have already told you. His ambition has no
bounds. He aspires to be one of us."
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The Latin Quarter
"That is to say, he wants to make use of us,"
said Marcel. "He would like to be seen driving in
our carriages.”
"What art does he follow?" asked Rodolphe.
"Yes," continued Marcel, "what's his game?"
"His art?" said Colline. "What's his game?
Literature and philosophy combined."
"What are his philosophical subjects?"
"He practises departmental philosophy; he calls
art a religion."
"A religion!" said Rodolphe, with amazement.
"He says so."
"And what is his path in literature?"
"He favours Telemachus."
"Very good," said Schaunard, chewing at his
artichoke fodder.
"What? Very good, idiot?" interrupted Marcel.
"I advise you not to say that in the street."
Schaunard, annoyed at this reprimand, gave a
little kick under the table to Phémie, who was
making an invasion into his sauce.
"Once more," said Rodolphe, "what is his posi-
tion in the world? What are his means of living,
his name, his dwelling-place?"
"His status is honourable; he is professor of all
sorts of things in the bosom of a rich family. His
name is Carolus Barbemuche; he spends his
revenues in the habitations of luxury, and lodges
in the Rue Royale.
"Furnished lodgings?"
"No, he has furniture."
"I ask a hearing," said Marcel. "It is clear to me
that Colline has been corrupted. He has sold his vote
166
A Reception in Bohemia
in advance for the price of a little glass or two.
Don't interrupt," continued Marcel, on seeing the
philosopher rise to protest, "you can reply pre-
sently. Colline, a venal soul, has presented this
stranger to you under an aspect too favourable to
allow of its being an image of truth. I repeat
that I see the designs of this stranger; he wants
to speculate with us. He has said to himself,
'Those are fellows making their way. I will put
my hand in their pockets-my fingers in their pie
—with them I shall attain to fame.'
999
"Very good," said Schaunard. "Isn't there any
more sauce?"
"No," replied Rodolphe, "the edition is ex-
hausted.
"Moreover," continued Marcel, "this insidious
mortal who patronises Colline aspires to the
honour of intimacy with us only with culpable
thoughts. We are not alone here, gentlemen,"
continued the orator, casting expressive looks at
the girls, "and Colline's protégé is introduc-
ing himself at our firesides under the mantle of
literature. He may be nothing but a vile seducer.
Reflect! For my part, I vote against admitting
him."
"I ask a hearing only for a rectification," said
Rodolphe. "In his remarkable oration Marcel has
said that Carolus, the person in question, desired
to dishonour us by introducing himself under the
mantle of literature."
"It is a correct figure," said Marcel.
"I object to it. It is bad. Literature has no
mantle."
167
The Latin Quarter
"Since I fulfil here the functions of reporter,"
said Colline, rising to his feet, "I shall maintain
the conclusions of my report. The jealousy de-
vouring him seems to scare the common sense of
our friend Marcel: the great artist is beside him-
self-
"Order!" shouted Marcel.
"Beside himself to such a point that he, such
an excellent designer, introduces into his discourse
a figure of speech of which the orator who has
succeeded me at this tribune has revealed the
inaccuracy."
"Colline is an idiot!" cried Marcel, giving the
table such a violent thump with his fist as to create
a profound sensation among the plates and dishes.
"Colline understands nothing of sentiment. He is
utterly incompetent in such matters. He has an
old leather book in place of a heart." (Shouts of
laughter from Schaunard.)
During this uproar Colline gravely shook the
crumbs from the folds of his white cravat. When
silence was re-established he continued his dis-
course.
"Gentlemen," he said, "with a single word I am
going to banish from your minds the chimerical fears
which the suspicion of Marcel may have generated
in them touching Carolus."
"Try to extinguish them," cried Marcel in banter-
ing tones.
"It will not be more difficult than that," replied
Colline, putting out with a breath the match with
which he had lighted his pipe.
"Speak! speak!" cried with one voice Rodolphe,
168
A Reception in Bohemia
Schaunard, and the girls, who found immense interest
in the debate.
"Gentlemen," said Colline,
said Colline, "notwithstanding
that I have been personally and violently attacked,
notwithstanding that I have been accused of selling
the influence I may exercise among you for a glass
of spirits-I, strong in my conscience, shall not
reply to the attacks made on my probity, on my
loyalty, on my morality. (Emotion.) But there is
a thing which I desire to maintain respected-
myself. (Here the orator gave himself two blows
on his waistcoat with his fist.) It is my prudence
and circumspection, so well known to you, which
have had doubt cast on them. I am accused of
wishing to bring among you a man who has hostile
designs on your domestic happiness. This sup-
position is an insult to the virtue of these ladies,
and more, an insult to their good taste. Carolus
Barbemuche is extremely ugly. (Visible denial
upon the face of Phémie Teinturière. Disturbance
under the table, made by Schaunard, who corrects
with his foot the compromising frankness of his
young friend.)
"But," continued Colline, "that which will reduce
to powder the miserable argument which my adver-
sary uses for a weapon against Carolus, in working
upon your fears, is that the said Carolus is a Plato-
nist." (Sensation among the men, dismay among
the women.)
"Platonist!" demanded Phémie. "What does
that mean?"
"It is a malady among men who do not dare
to make love to ladies," said Mimi. "I had a lover
like that once for a couple of hours."
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"Rubbish!" said Mlle. Musette.
"You are quite right, my dear," said Marcel.
"Platonism in love is water in wine, you know.
Give us pure wine."
"And long live youth!" said Musette.
Colline's words had created a favourable reaction
towards Carolus. The philosopher deftly profited
by the turn of affairs produced by his eloquent and
adroit exculpation.
"And now," he continued, "I cannot see what
just obstacles can be raised against this individual,
who, after all, has done us service.
As for me,
who stand accused of creating trouble by wish-
ing to introduce him among us, I consider the
opinion derogatory to my dignity. I have acted
in the matter with the prudence of the serpent,
and if a vote to that effect is not made to ac-
credit me with such prudence, I shall offer my
withdrawal."
"Do you wish to make a cabinet question of it?"
said Marcel.
"I do," replied Colline.
The three Bohemians consulted together, and by
common consent agreed to restore to the philosopher
the character for lofty prudence which he claimed.
Colline then left the word to Marcel, who, somewhat
recovered from his objections, declared that he
would perhaps vote for the reporter's conclusions.
Before, however, passing to the final vote which
would confer on Carolus the intimacy of Bohemia,
Marcel put this amendment :-
"Since the introduction of a new member to the
Society is a grave matter, seeing that a stranger
170
A Reception in Bohemia
might import elements of discord into it by ignoring
the manners and habits, the characters and opinions
of his comrades, each one of the members should
pass a day in the company of the said Carolus,
and devote himself to inquiry into his mode of life,
his tastes, his literary capacity and his wardrobe.
The Bohemians would then communicate their re-
spective particular impressions to each other, and
pronounce upon refusal or admission; also before
the accordance of such admission Carolus should
undergo a novitiate of a month, that is to say, that
for that period he should not address them in terms
of intimate friendship nor give them his arm
in the street. On the day of reception a splendid
fête was to be given at the expense of the novice.
The cost of these rejoicings not to exceed twelve
francs."
This amendment was carried by a majority of
three to one, that being Colline, who considered
that sufficient confidence had not been placed in
him, and that the amendment was a renewed attack
upon his prudence.
The same evening Colline went very early
to the café, in order to be the first to see
Carolus.
He had not long to wait. Carolus soon arrived,
carrying three enormous bouquets of roses.
"Good gracious! said Colline in amazement,
"what are you going to do with this garden ?"
"I remembered you told me yesterday that your
friends would probably come with their ladies.
They are very beautiful, and it is for them that
I bring these flowers."
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"But flowers can be had for fifteen sous."
"What!" said Carolus, "and in December? If
you said fifteen francs-
99
"Oh, good heavens!" cried Colline. "Three
crowns for these simple gifts of Flora. What folly!
You must be made of money. But, my dear sir,
they are fifteen francs that will have to be thrown
out of the window."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Colline thereupon related the jealous suspicions
which Marcel had instilled into his friends' minds,
and told Carolus of the stormy discussion which
had taken place among the Bohemians on the ques-
tion of his introduction to the circle. "I protested
that your intentions were immaculate," added
Colline, "but the opposition was none the less
keen. You must be careful, therefore, not to arouse
the jealous suspicions conceived against you by
being too polite to the ladies. And to begin with,
we will put those bouquets out of sight."
And Colline, taking the roses, hid them in a
cupboard.
"But that is not all," he added; "these gentlemen
desire, before linking themselves in close intimacy
with you, to devote themselves each one separately
to an inquiry into your character, your tastes, etc."
Then, in order that Barbemuche should not be too
much hurt with his friends, Colline rapidly sketched
out a moral portrait of each of the Bohemians.
"You must try and accord with the humours of
each," added the philosopher, "and in the end
they will all be for you."
Carolus gave unqualified consent.
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A Reception in Bohemia
The three friends soon arrived, accompanied by
the ladies.
Rodolphe was polite to Carolus, Schaunard was
familiar, Marcel remained cold. As for Carolus, he
exerted himself to be gay and pleasant with the
men, while he was very distant towards the girls.
On parting Barbemuche invited Rodolphe to dine
with him next day, asking him, however, to come
to him at midday.
The poet accepted.
"Good," he said to himself. "It is I who am to
initiate the inquiries."
On the next day, at the appointed hour, Rodolphe
went to call on Carolus. Barbemuche indeed lodged
in a very handsome house in the Rue Royale, and
his room had a certain air of comfort, but Rodolphe
was astonished to see that, although it was broad
daylight, the shutters were closed, the curtains
drawn, and a couple of lighted wax candles were
on the table. He asked Barbemuche to explain
this.
"Study is the daughter of mystery and of silence,"
replied Barbemuche. They sat down and began to
chat. After about an hour's conversation Carolus,
with patience and not a little dexterity of speech,
brought out a phrase which, in spite of its modest
form, was nothing more nor less than a request that
Rodolphe would listen to a little bit of work which
was the fruit of his nights of studious application.
Rodolphe saw that he was trapped. Moreover,
as he was curious to see the colouring of Barbe-
muche's style, he bowed politely, assuring him that
he should be delighted to—'
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Carolus did not wait to hear more. He ran and
bolted the door of the room, securing it carefully,
then he returned to Rodolphe, taking a little copy-
book narrow in shape-and thin enough to bring
a smile of satisfaction and relief to the poet's
face.
"Is that the manuscript of your work?" he
asked.
"No," replied Carolus, "it is the catalogue of
my manuscripts, and I am looking for the number
of the one you permit me to read to you. Here it is
-Don Lopez or Fatality,' number fourteen. It is
on the third shelf," he added, as he opened a small
cupboard, in which Rodolphe saw with dismay an
enormous quantity of manuscripts. Taking one
out, Carolus closed the cupboard and seated him-
self opposite the poet. Rodolphe glanced at the
four copy-books composing the work, written upon
paper about the size of the Champ de Mars.
"Come," he said to himself, "it is not in verse,
but it is called 'Don Lopez."'
Taking the uppermost book, Carolus began to
read-
"One cold winter's night two horsemen, en-
veloped in the folds of their cloaks and mounted
on slow-pacing mules, rode side by side along one
of the roads which traverse the frightful solitude
of the deserts of the Sierra Morena-
"Where am I?" thought Rodolphe, confounded
by this opening. Carolus continued to read the first
chapter, all in the same style.
Rodolphe listened with vague attention, thinking
at the same time of some way of escape.
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A Reception in Bohemia
"There is the window," he thought to himself;
"but, besides its being shut, we are on the fourth
floor. Oh! now I understand all these precautions."
"What do you think of my first chapter?" asked
Carolus. "I beg you won't spare criticism."
Rodolphe recollected having heard somewhere
before the rags of declamatory philosophy on
suicide put forth in the name of Lopez, hero of
the novel, and answered at hazard—
"The great figure of Don Lopez is studied
conscientiously; it recalls the Profession of Faith
of the Savoyard Vicar. The description of Don
Alvar's mule pleases me immensely. One might
imagine it to be a sketch of Géricault's. The
description of the landscape has some fine lines.
As to the sentiments, they are of Jean Jacques
Rousseau's grain-Rousseau sown in the ground
of Le Sage. Only permit me one remark, you put
too many commas, and you abuse the phrase 'in
former days.' They are charming words, fitting
excellently now and again, and giving colour, but
they should not be abused."
Carolus took his second book, and again read
out, "Don Lopez or Fatality.'
999
"I knew a Lopez once," said Rodolphe.
"He
sold cigarettes and Bayonne chocolate. Perhaps he
was related to yours. Go on."
At the end of the second chapter the poet inter-
rupted Carolus.
"Don't you feel your throat getting tired?" he
asked.
"Not in the least," replied Carolus.
shall hear the story of Inésille.”
"Now you
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The Latin Quarter
"I am very curious to do so; but if you are
tired," said the poet, "you must not—”
"Chapter three," said Carolus in a clear voice.
Rodolphe scanned Carolus attentively, and noted
that he had a very short neck and a sanguine com-
plexion. "There is one more hope," thought the
poet, when he had made this discovery. "It is
apoplexy."
"We will pass on to chapter four. You will be
kind enough to tell me what you think of the love
scene."
And Carolus resumed his reading.
Just as he looked at Rodolphe to read in his
face the effect his dialogue was producing, Carolus
perceived that the poet, bending over his chair,
was holding his head in the attitude of a man
who hears distant sounds.
"What is the matter?" asked Carolus.
"Hush!" said Rodolphe.
"Don't you hear? I
fancy I hear them calling 'Fire!'
Shall we go
and see?"
Carolus listened for an instant, but heard nothing.
"My ears deceived me," said Rodolphe. "Go on.
Don Alvar prodigiously interests me. He is a noble
youth."
Carolus continued, putting all the music of his
organ of speech into Don Alvar's words-
666 Oh, Inésille, whatever you may be, angel or
fiend, and whatever may be your country, my life is
yours, and I will follow you--whether it be to
heaven or to hell.'"
At this moment there was a knock at the door,
and a voice called Carolus outside.
176
A Reception in Bohemia
"It is my messenger, I expect," he said, going
to the door and partially opening it.
It was the porter; he brought a letter. Carolus
opened it hurriedly.
"We shall be
"How unfortunate!" he said.
obliged to put off the reading till another time.
This letter compels me to go out immediately."
"Oh," thought Rodolphe, "that letter must
have fallen from heaven. I recognise the hand of
Providence."
66
"If you like," continued Carolus, we will go
together to the place this message comes from, and
afterwards we will dine."
"I am at your disposal," said Rodolphe.
In the evening, when he rejoined his friends, the
poet was catechised by them concerning Barbemuche.
"Are you pleased with him? Has he treated you
well? asked Marcel and Schaunard.
"Yes, but it has cost me dear," said Rodolphe.
"How? Did Carolus make you pay?" demanded
Schaunard, with growing indignation.
"He read me a romance in which there is a
Don Lopez and a Don Alvar, and in which the
leading characters call their mistress angel or
fiend."
"How hateful!" said the Bohemians in chorus.
"But otherwise," said Colline, "putting literature
aside, what is your opinion of Carolus?"
"He is a good sort. For the rest, you can make
your observations personally. Carolus understands
that he has to treat with us one after the other.
Schaunard is invited to breakfast to-morrow morn-
ing. Only," added Rodolphe, "when you go to
N
177
The Latin Quarter
Barbemuche's, beware of the manuscript cupboard.
It is a dangerous piece of furniture."
Schaunard was punctual to his appointment, and
took upon himself the duties of an auctioneer and a
broker's man. He also returned in the evening well
primed with his notes of observation. He had
studied Carolus from the furniture point of view.
"Well," his friends inquired, "what is your
opinion?"
"Oh!" replied Schaunard, "this Barbemuche is
a conglomerate of good qualities; he knows the
names of all the wines, and made me eat all kinds
of delicacies, such things as are not even to be seen
at my aunt's on her birthday. He appears to be a
great patron of the tailors of the Rue Vivienne,
and of the bootmakers of the Panoramas. I also
noticed that he is about our size, so that in an
emergency we can lend him our clothes. His manners
are less severe than Colline wanted to make out;
he let himself be taken wherever I wished to lead him,
and paid for a breakfast for me in two acts, of
which the second took place at a drinking-shop in the
market-place, where I am known only for my orgies in
carnival time. Carolus went in there quite naturally.
That is all! Marcel is invited for to-morrow."
Carolus was aware that Marcel was the one
among the Bohemians who had put the greatest
obstacles in the way of his reception into their
circle. He therefore treated him with special
circumspection, and found his way into the artist's
favour by holding out a hope that he would be able
to procure him commissions to paint the portraits of
the members of his pupil's family.
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A Reception in Bohemia
After Marcel had made his report the friends no
longer displayed the hostile prejudice they had at
first shown towards Carolus.
On the fourth day Colline informed Barbemuche
that he was admitted.
"What! I am received?" said Carolus joyfully.
"Yes," replied Colline, "but under correction."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that you have a number of little vulgar
ways which you must correct."
"I will endeavour to imitate you," replied
Carolus.
During all the time of his novitiate the platonic
philosopher assiduously frequented the company of
the Bohemians, and being thus put to deep study of
their manners and ways, he was not without ex-
periencing occasional sensations of astonishment.
One morning Colline entered Barbemuche's room
with a radiant countenance.
"Well, my dear fellow," he said to him, "you
are definitely one of us now. It is settled. There
only remains to fix the day of the grand fête, and
where it shall take place. I have come to arrange
this with you."
"That can easily be done," replied Carolus.
"My pupil's parents are in the country just at
present; the young viscount to whom I am mentor
will lend me his apartments for an evening. In that
way we shall be more at our ease; only we must
invite the young viscount."
"That will be all right," replied Colline.
will open up the literary horizon to him.
you think he will come?"
"We
But do
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The Latin Quarter
"I'll answer for that."
"Then it remains only to fix the day."
"We will settle it this evening at the café," said
Barbemuche.
Carolus went at once in search of his pupil, and
informed him that he was about to be received as a
member into a famous literary and artistic society,
and that to celebrate the reception he proposed to
give a dinner, followed by a little fête; he invited
him to join his party of guests.
"And as you must not be out late, and the fête
will last late into the night for the general con-
venience," added Carolus, "we will give the little
entertainment here in these rooms. François your
man is discreet, your parents will not know anything
about it, and you will have made acquaintance with
the most intellectual people in Paris-artists and
authors!"
"Printed?" asked the youth.
"Printed?-certainly. One of them is the editor
of the Iris," which your mother reads. They
are very distinguished persons, almost celebrated.
I am their intimate friend; they have charming
wives."
"There will be women?" said Viscount Paul.
"Charming women," replied Carolus.
"Oh! my dear sir, I thank you. Yes, certainly
we will have the fête here. We will light up all
the lustres, and I will have the furniture cleared
out."
In the evening at the café Barbemuche announced
that the affair was to take place on the following
Saturday.
180
A Reception in Bohemia
The Bohemians instructed their mistresses to pre-
pare their toilettes.
"Do not forget," they said, "that we are going
into real drawing-rooms. Therefore, mind, the
dresses must be simple, but rich."
No time was lost in informing the whole street
that Mlles. Mimi, Phémie, and Musette were going
into the great world.
And this is what happened on the morning of
the great occasion. Colline, Schaunard, Marcel and
Rodolphe went in file to Barbemuche, who was
astonished to see them so early.
"Has any accident occurred to defer the fête?"
he asked uneasily.
"Yes and no," replied Colline.
"This is how it
is. Among ourselves, you know, we never use any
ceremony; but when we go among strangers we
must observe a certain decorum."
"Well?" said Barbemuche.
"Well," continued Colline, "as to-night we are
to meet a young gentleman who opens his rooms to
us, respect to him and to ourselves tells us that our
attire, somewhat neglected, may be compromising.
We come simply to ask you if you could for this
evening lend us a few clothes of a fashionable cut.
It is impossible for us, you can understand, to enter
under this sumptuous roof in pâletots and short
jackets."
"But," said Carolus, "I haven't four dress
coats."
"Oh," said Colline, "we will manage with
those you have."
"Look for yourselves, then," said Carolus, open-
ing his fairly well-stocked wardrobe.
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The Latin Quarter
"Ah, but you have a complete arsenal of
elegancies there."
"Three hats!" said Schaunard ecstatically, "what
is the good of three hats when one has only one
head?"
"And the boots," said Rodolphe. "Only look!"
"There are boots?" shrieked Colline.
And in a twinkling each had found a complete
equipment.
"To-night," said they, as they left Barbemuche,
"the ladies intend to be dazzling."
"But," said Barbemuche, casting his eye over
his rifled portmanteau and cases, "you haven't
left me anything. How am I to receive you?"
"Ah, you. That is different," said Rodolphe.
"You are the host; you can set etiquette aside."
"But," said Carolus, "there is nothing left save
a dressing - gown, a pair of long pantaloons, a
flannel waistcoat, and a pair of slippers. You have
taken everything."
"What does it matter? We will excuse you in
anticipation," replied the Bohemians.
-
At six o'clock a very handsome dinner was served
in the dining room. The Bohemians arrived.
Marcel walked lamely, and was in a vile humour.
Young Viscount Paul hurried to meet the ladies,
and conducted them to the best places. Mimi wore
a highly fanciful toilette, Musette was dressed in
most provocative style, Phémie was like a window
garnished with glasses of all colours. The dinner
lasted two hours and a half, and was uproariously
merry.
Young Viscount Paul was deeply smitten with
182
A Reception in Bohemia
Mimi, who was his neighbour at table, and Phémie
asked for a second help of everything. Schaunard
put vine leaves in his hair, Rodolphe improvised
sonnets and broke glasses in marking the rhythm,
Colline chatted with Marcel, who was still very
cross.
"What is the matter?" asked Colline.
"My feet are in frightful agony, and that
bothers me. This Carolus has got the foot of a
fine lady."
"But," said Colline, "it will be enough to let
him understand that that sort of thing mustn't
happen again, and that in future he must have his
boots made a size or so too large. Make your
mind easy.
I will see to that. But let us go into
the drawing-room, where the liqueurs are waiting
for us."
The festivities recommenced with increased bril-
liancy. Schaunard sat down to the piano and
played his new symphony "The Death of the
Young Girl" with extraordinary vigour and his
beautiful piece "The Creditors' March" won the
honours of a triple encore. Two strings of the
piano were broken.
Marcel's moroseness continued, and when Carolus
grumbled at him for it, he replied-
"My dear sir, it is plain we shall not always
be intimate friends, and for this reason. Physical
dissemblances are almost invariably sure indications
of moral dissemblance. Philosophy and medicine
are agreed on the point."
"Well?" said Carolus.
"Well," said Marcel, displaying his feet, "your
183
The
Latin Quarter
boots, infinitely too narrow for me, indicate that we
have not the same disposition. For the rest of it,
your little entertainment has been charming."
About one in the morning the Bohemians went
away, returning home by devious ways. Barbemuche
was indisposed, and maundered out foolish dis-
courses to his pupil, who in his turn dreamed of
Mimi's blue eyes.
184
XIII
THE HOUSE-WARMING
HESE events took place some little time after
THE
the poet Rodolphe had first set up house-
keeping with Mlle. Mimi, when for a whole week
the Bohemians had been very uneasy about him,
for he was nowhere to be found. They had sought
for him in all his customary haunts, and everywhere
met with the same answer-
"We have not seen him for a week past."
Gustave Colline was especially disturbed, and for
this reason. Some days previously he had entrusted
to Rodolphe an article on the "Higher Philosophy,"
which Rodolphe was to insert in the occasional
column of the Castor, the hatters' paper of which he
was editor. Had this philosophical article appeared
to the eyes of astonished Europe? That was the
question which exercised the unhappy Colline; and
his anxiety will be understood when it is explained
that as yet the philosopher had not known the dignity
of print, and that he was burning with desire to see
what effect his Ciceronic printed prose would produce.
In order to procure this satisfaction, he had already
expended nearly six francs in the reading-rooms of
the literary institutions of Paris, but had failed to
come upon the Castor.
185
The
Latin Quarter
No longer able to contain himself for anxiety,
Colline took a mental oath that he would not rest
until he had laid hand on the missing editor of the
journal.
Assisted by opportunities which it would take too
long to relate, the philosopher contrived to keep
his oath. Two days later, knowing where Rodolphe
lived, he arrived at the door of the house at six
o'clock in the morning.
Rodolphe's apartment was in a furnished lodging-
house of an obscure street in the Faubourg Saint
Germain, where he resided on the fifth floor only
because it had not a sixth. When Colline arrived
at the door he did not find the key in it. He
knocked for a good ten minutes without receiving
any answer. The early morning clatter at last
drew even the attention of the porter, who came
and requested Colline to desist.
"You might know the gentleman is asleep," he
said.
"And on that account I wish to waken him,"
said Colline, renewing his knocks.
"He won't answer you then," said the man, as
he put down at Rodolphe's door a pair of well-
polished boots and a pair of woman's boots which
had also been well attended to.
"Wait a minute," said Colline, taking up the
male and female foot gear.
The masculine boots
were brand new. "I must have mistaken the door,"
he went on; 66 my business is not here."
"But," said the attendant, "whom are you
seeking?"
"Woman's boots!" continued Colline, speaking
186
The House-Warming
to himself, as he recalled his friend's austere mode
of life. "Yes, undoubtedly I have made a mistake.
This cannot be Rodolphe's room."
"Excuse me, sir. It is."
"Eh? No. It is you who are mistaken, my
friend."
"What?"
"I am certain you are in error," went on Colline,
pointing to the polished boots. "What are
those?"
"They are Monsieur Rodolphe's boots. What is
there astonishing in that?"
"And these?" rejoined Colline, pointing to the
small pair. "Are these also Monsieur Rodolphe's,
pray?"
"Ah, the
"They are the lady's," said the man.
"The lady's!" exclaimed Colline.
Sybarite! That is why he would not open.
66
99
'Hang it!" said the porter, "the young man is
his own master. If you will give me your name, I
will go in and inform Monsieur Rodolphe."
"No," said Colline. "Now I know where to
find him I will return presently," and he went back
post-haste to announce the startling intelligence to
his friends.
The polished boots were treated as fabulous—
due to the wealth of Colline's imagination, and
it was unanimously agreed that the lady was a
paradox.
The paradox was nevertheless a truth, for the
same evening Marcel received a letter intended for
all the friends collectively. It was couched in the
following terms :-
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The Latin Quarter
1
"Monsieur Rodolphe, man of letters, and Madame Rodolphe
request the pleasure of your company to dine with them to-
morrow evening at five o'clock precisely.
"N.B.-There will be plates."
"Gentlemen," said Marcel, as he proceeded to com-
municate the missive's contents to his companions,
"it is certain that Rodolphe has a mistress; more,
he invites us to dinner, and," continued he, "the
postscript promises table appointments. I do not
conceal from you that this clause appears to me
a poetical exaggeration. However, we shall see."
Next day at the appointed hour Marcel, Gustave
Colline and Alexandre Schaunard, as hungry as if
it were the last day of Lent, repaired to Rodolphe's
lodging. They found him playing with an Angora
cat, while a young woman was laying the table.
"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, as he shook hands with
his friends and pointed to the young woman, "allow
me to introduce to you the mistress of the house."
"You are the house, aren't you?" said Colline,
who was infected with this kind of wit.
"Mimi," said Rodolphe, "let me present to you
my best friends. And now bring the soup."
"Oh, madame," said Alexandre Schaunard, hurry-
ing towards Mimi, "you are as fresh as a wild flower!"
After convincing himself that there really were
plates on the table, Schaunard proceeded to ascer-
tain what there was to eat, pushing curiosity to the
extent of lifting the lids of the saucepans in which
the dinner was simmering. The presence of a
lobster created a lively impression on him. As to
Colline, he at once drew Rodolphe on one side to
inquire about his philosophical article.
188
The House-Warming
"My dear fellow, it is at the printer's. The
Castor will appear next Tuesday."
We refrain from picturing the delight of the philo-
sopher.
"Gentlemen," said Rodolphe, "I must ask your
pardon for being so long before giving you news of
myself, but it was my honeymoon"; and he re-
counted the history of his union with the charming
creature who had brought him as her dowry her
eighteen and a half years, two porcelain cups
and an Angora cat who was called "Mimi," like
herself. "And so, gentlemen," said Rodolphe, "to-
night we have a house-warming. I warn you for
the rest of it that our repast will be a homely
The truffles will be replaced by the sincerest
one.
cordiality."
Nor did the amiable young divinity Mimi cease to
reign pre-eminent among the friends. They found
that that night's feast, though it might be frugal,
was not wanting in a certain distinction. Rodolphe,
in fact, had put himself to some expense. Colline
noticed that the plates were changed, and loudly
declared that Mademoiselle Mimi was worthy of
the azure scarf with which the empresses of the
oven and the spit are decorated-words which
were Sanskrit to the young girl until Rodolphe
translated them for her by saying "that she
would make an excellent queen of cooks.'
The entrance of the lobster upon the scene excited
general admiration. Under pretence of studying
natural history Schaunard asked permission to
dissect it. He profited by the occasion to break
a knife, and he gave himself the largest share,
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The Latin Quarter
which excited general indignation. But he was
not troubled with excess of delicacy, especially
in the matter of lobster, and as a bit of it still
remained he had the audacity to put it aside for
himself, remarking that it would serve him for the
model of a picture of still life which he had in
hand.
Indulgent friendship feigned to believe in this lie,
a product of immoderate gluttony. As for Colline,
he reserved his sympathies for the dessert, and
maintained his ground in most heartless fashion
against Schaunard, who wanted to exchange an
orange confection for his piece of rum cake.
Conversation now began to wax animated. To
three bottles with a red seal succeeded three bottles
with a green seal, in the midst of which appeared
a flask whose neck and mouth were adorned with a
silver helmet. It was hailed as one of the batch from
Royal Champenois, a fancy champagne concocted
from the vines of Saint Ouen, and sold in Paris at
two francs the bottle, on account, as the wine mer-
chants who vended it said, of bankruptcy.
But it is not the country which makes the wine,
and our Bohemians accepted the liquor served out
to them in the appropriate glasses as the real stuff,
and in spite of the small amount of vivacity displayed
by the cork as it escaped from its bonds, they were
all loud in praise of the fizz it made. Schaunard
employed what remained of his cool audacity in
mistaking Colline's glass for his own, leading Colline
to soak his biscuit in the mustard-pot, while enter-
taining Mimi on the subject of the philosophical
article which was about to appear in the Castor.
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The House-Warming
But suddenly Colline grew very pale, and asked
permission to go to the window and watch the sun
set, although it was now ten o'clock at night, and the
sun had been in bed and asleep for ever so long.
"It is a pity the champagne has not been iced,"
said Schaunard, trying again to substitute his empty
glass for his neighbour's full one, an endeavour
which was unsuccessful.
"Madame," said Colline to Mimi, for he had now
ceased to inhale the fresh air at the window, "cham-
pagne is cooled with ice, ice is formed by the con-
densation of water-in Latin, aqua. Water freezes
at two degrees, and there are four seasons-
summer, autumn and winter. It is that which
caused the retreat from Russia. Rodolphe, give
me a hemistitch of champagne."
"What does he say?" demanded Mimi, who did
not understand.
"It is his little joke," said Rodolphe. "Colline
means a half-glass."
Suddenly Colline gave Rodolphe a smart slap on
the shoulder, and said in a thick voice, as if the
words were wrapped in paste, "To-morrow is
Thursday, isn't it?"
"No," replied Rodolphe, "to-morrow is Sunday."
"No, Thursday."
"No, once more, to-morrow is Sunday."
"Ah! Sunday," said Colline, his head waggling;
"but to-morrow Thurs-day-" And he fell asleep
with his head almost in the cream cheese on his plate.
"What is he mumbling about Thursday?" said
Marcel.
"Ah! I know now," said Rodolphe, who began
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The Latin Quarter
to understand the philosopher's insistence, tortured
as he was by his fixed idea; "it is because of his
article in the Castor. Listen! he is dreaming out
loud about it."
"Good!" said Schaunard.
coffee, will he, madame?"
"He won't want any
"By the way," said Rodolphe, "what about the
coffee, Mimi?"
As she rose to go and prepare it Colline, who had
pulled himself together a little, caught her by the
waist and murmured confidentially in her ear,
"Madame, coffee is indigenous to Arabia, where it
was discovered by a goat. The use of it passed
into Europe. Voltaire used to take seventy-two
cups of it a day. I like it without sugar, but I
take it very hot."
"Gracious! How learned this gentleman is!"
thought Mimi as she brought the coffee and the
pipes.
The hours were, however, running on apace.
Midnight had struck long since, and Rodolphe
endeavoured to make his guests understand that it
was time to retire. Marcel, who alone was in full
command of his senses, rose to go.
But Schaunard perceived that there still remained
some brandy in the bottle, and declared that it
could not be midnight while anything remained in
the flask. As for Colline, he was seated astride on
his chair, and sang in a deep bass voice, "Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday."
"Ah!" said Rodolphe, terribly put about, "I
can't take care of them here all night. Once it
used to be well enough, but now it is quite a
A
1
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The House-Warming
different thing," he added, looking at Mimi, whose
eyes, softly shining, seemed to be yearning for
solitude à deux. What was to be done? "Advise
me, Marcel," Rodolphe whispered. "Invent some
little tarradiddle for getting rid of them."
"No," said Marcel, "I shan't invent, I will
imitate. I remember a play in which a clever valet
finds a way of putting three fellows who were as
tipsy as Silenus outside his master's door."
"I remember it," said Rodolphe. "It is in
Kean. In fact, the situation is the same."
"Very well," said Marcel, "we will see if the
theatre is true to nature. Wait an instant; let us
begin with Schaunard. Hi! Schaunard!" shouted
the painter.
"Eh? What is it?" cried Schaunard, who seemed
to be floating in a sea of mild intoxication.
"There is nothing more to drink here, and we
are all thirsty."
"Ah, yes," said Schaunard, "these bottles-they
are so small."
"Very well," said Marcel, "Rodolphe has decided
that we shall pass the night here, and in that case
something must be fetched before the shops are
closed."
"My grocer lives at the corner of the street,"
said Rodolphe. "Schaunard, you will have to go
and get from him two bottles of rum
account."
--
to my
"Oh yes! oh yes! oh yes!" said Schaunard,
taking Colline's overcoat in mistake for his own,
while Colline was making lunges at the tablecloth
with a knife.
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"That is one settled," said Marcel when Schau-
nard had gone. "This fellow will be tougher. Ah!
I have an idea. Eh! eh! Colline!" he shouted,
giving the philosopher a violent shove.
"What? What? What?"
"Schaunard is gone, and has taken your light
brown overcoat in mistake for his own!"
Colline looked round, and saw that in fact in the
place where his coat had hung there was only
Schaunard's little plaid cutaway.
A sudden idea
crossed his mind and filled him with uneasiness.
Colline, after his usual custom, had been haunting
the bookstalls during the day, and he had bought
for fifteen sous a Finnish grammar and a little
romance by Nisard, entitled The Milkmaid's Funeral.
With these acquisitions there were seven or eight
volumes of the higher philosophy which he was
accustomed to carry about with him, in order always
to have an arsenal to turn to for arguments in case
of philosophical discussions arising. The notion of
this library being in the hands of Schaunard gave
him the cold shivers.
"The wretch!" cried Colline, "what did he take
my coat for?"
"It was by mistake."
"But my books!-he might make a bad use of
them."
"Don't be afraid. He won't read them," said
Rodolphe.
"Yes, but I know him. He is quite capable of
lighting his pipe with them."
"If it makes you uneasy, you can catch him up,"
said Rodolphe. "He has only this instant gone.
You will find him at the door."
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The House-Warming
"Yes, I'll catch him up," said Colline, clapping
on his hat, which was large enough to cover a family
teapot.
"That's number two," said Marcel to Rodolphe.
'Now you are free, I am off; and I will tell the
porter not to open the door if anybody knocks."
"Good night," said Rodolphe, "and many
thanks." As he returned from accompanying his
friend to the street door, Rodolphe heard a pro-
longed noise, to which his cat responded by another
noise, trying at the same time to escape through
the half-open door.
"Poor Romeo!" said Rodolphe. "There is
Juliet calling him. Well, go then," he added,
opening the door to the animal, who made a bound
from the landing into the paws of his admirer.
Alone with his beloved Mimi, who, standing
before a mirror in a charming pose, was curling her
hair, Rodolphe approached her and folded his arms
about her. Then, like a musician who strikes a
succession of chords to assure himself of the perfect
tunefulness of his instrument, Rodolphe drew Mimi
on his knee, and imprinted on her shoulder a long
and passionate kiss, which sent a sudden thrill
through her delicate frame.
The instrument was in perfect harmony.
195
XIV
MADEMOISELLE MIMI
H, my friend Rodolphe, what has happened to
make such a change in you? Must I believe
the rumours that are circulating, and is it possible
that misfortune can so completely destroy your
lofty philosophy? How can I-the humble chronicler
of your Bohemian days, so full of laughter and
merriment-how can I record in sufficiently melan-
choly terms the painful occurrence which stemmed
the flow of your gaiety and with one blow arrested
all your paradoxes?
Blot out the
Oh, Rodolphe, my friend! I admit that the
misfortune was great, but there, really it is not
a question of drowning one's self.
past, I beg you. Flee at once the solitudes
peopled with phantoms, which only perpetuate
your regrets. Fly from the silence, where the
echoes of remembrance are fraught with your joys
and your griefs. Take courage, and cast to the
four winds the name you have so loved, and with
it fling afar all that you possess belonging to her.
Locks of hair half kissed away by the passionate
lips; the little Venetian scent flask where the
breath of perfume lingers, which is for you now
more dangerous than all the poisons in the world;
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Mademoiselle Mimi
into the fire with the flowers of gauze, of silk
and of velvet, the white jasmine, the anemones,
purpled with the blood of Adonis, the blue forget-
me-nots, and all the charming little bouquets which
she put together in the far-off days of your brief
happiness. Yes, I loved her myself your Mimi.
And I did not foresee that there would be danger to
you in loving her. But take my advice; into the
fire with the ribbons, the pretty ribbons, pink, blue
and yellow, which she wore so alluringly round her
neck; into the fire with the laces and the caps, and
the veils, and the coquettish fallals, with which she
adorned herself for the mathematical love arrange-
ments with Monsieur César, Monsieur Jérôme,
Monsieur Charles, and the other gallants of the
Calendar, while you waited at the window shivering
with the biting winds and winter frosts; into the
fire, Rodolphe, and pitilessly, with all which belonged
to her and can speak to you of her; into the fire
with the love-letters. Ah! here is one, and you
have wept over it like a fountain, my unhappy
friend :-
-
"As you have not come in, I am going out to see my Aunt.
I take with me the money which is here, as I shall want a
cab.-LUCILE."
And that evening, Rodolphe, you had no dinner.
Do you remember? And you came to see me and
let off a shower of fireworks of jests, which bore
witness to your peace of mind, for you thought
Lucile was with her aunt, and if I had told you
she was with Monsieur César, or with some actor or
other from Montparnasse, you would certainly have
murdered me. Into the fire, therefore, with this
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other note, which has all the laconic tenderness of
the first :-
-
"I am going to order a pair of boots. You must find the
money without fail by the time they are done—within the
next three days."
Ah, my friend, those little boots have danced
many a turn when you were not the partner. To
the flames with those memories, and to the wind
with their ashes.
But first, oh, Rodolphe, for the love of human-
ity and for the honour of the Iris and of the
Castor, pick up again the reins of good taste
which you let fall during your egotistical sufferings,
lest terrible things befall for which you would be
responsible. We should return to leg-of-mutton
sleeves, to pantaloons à petit pont, we should be
be seeing hats which would offend the universe and
call down the wrath of heaven.
And now the time is come to relate the story of
the loves of our friend Rodolphe and Mlle. Lucile,
surnamed Mlle. Mimi. It was just at the turn of his
four-and-twentieth year that Rodolphe's heart was
suddenly seized with this passion which exercised
such an enormous influence on his life.
At the time of his first meeting with Mimi
Rodolphe led the happy-go-lucky - anyhow exist-
ence which it has been the endeavour to portray
in the preceding chapters. It certainly was one
of the gayest sorts of misery to be found in the
country of Bohemia. And when in the course of
the day he had made a bad dinner and a bon-mot,
he walked on the pavement, which scarcely seemed
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Mademoiselle Mimi
wide enough for him, more proudly in his black coat
-whose every
bare seam appealed for mercy-than
an emperor in his purple robes.
The circle to which Rodolphe belonged, by a pre-
tence not uncommon to certain young people, affected
to treat love as a luxury and the pretext for a jest.
Gustave Colline-who had for a long time past asso-
ciated himself with a waistcoat-maker whom he had
rendered crooked in body and mind by making
her copy the manuscripts of his philosophical
treatises, day in night out-pretended that love
was a sort of purgation, which it was desirable
to take occasionally in order to clear off humours.
Among all these false sceptics, Rodolphe was
the only one who dared to speak with any
reverence of love; and when they were unlucky
enough to let him get upon the subject he would
perorate for an hour at a time on it, chanting of
the delights of being loved, the azure loveliness
of the calm lake, the music of the breeze, the
harmonies of the stars, etc., etc. This had earned
him from Schaunard the nickname of the "Harmoni-
con." Marcel had also found a very nice name for
him in connection with these sentimental and
German tirades, as also in allusion to his prema-
ture baldness, and called him the "Bald Forget-
me-not." The truth of it was that Rodolphe about
that time seriously believed that he had done with
all the things of youth and love; he merely chanted
the De profundis for his heart, which he believed
to be dead; but it was only sleeping. It was ready
to waken, eager for happiness and more sus-
ceptible than ever to all the delightful anguish which
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he had never hoped to know again, but which were
now driving him to despair. Ah, you desired it,
Rodolphe! and we will not pity you; for this pain
that you suffer is the one to be most desired, especi-
ally if one feels it incurable.
Rodolphe had first met Mimi when she was the
mistress of one of his friends, and he had made her
his own.
At first there was a tremendous to-do
among Rodolphe's friends when they heard of his
union; but as Mlle. Mimi was very sociable, no
fool, and endured the smoke of their pipes and their
literary discussions without a headache, they got
used to her and treated her as a comrade. Mimi
was a charming woman, and her disposition admir-
ably suited the poetic and plastic nature of Rodolphe.
She was twenty-two, petite in figure, delicate, full
of roguery.
Her face was of an aristocratic type,
but her features, which were of extreme delicacy,
though they were softly illumined by the light of
her limpid blue eyes, were overcast in moments of
ennui or of ill-humour by an expression of cruelty
that was almost savage, and a physiognomist might
have seen in it the indications of profound egoism
or of great insensibility. Generally, however, it
was a charming countenance, brightened by a sweet,
spontaneous smile and a tender expression touched
with coquetry. Her youthful blood coursed warm
and quickly in her veins, tinting her white, trans-
parent skin like the petals of a camellia. This
fragile loveliness enchained Rodolphe, and he would
pass hours of the night imprinting kisses on the pale
forehead of his sleeping mistress, whose humid,
languorous eyes shone half-closed through the
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Mademoiselle Mimi
tresses of her magnificent brown hair. But what
maddened Rodolphe with passionate admiration
for Mlle. Mimi were her hands, whose white-
ness, in spite of household work, she knew how to
preserve as entirely as if she were the goddess of
idleness herself. Yet these hands, which were so
fragile, so small, so soft to the touch of his lips,
those childlike hands into whose keeping Rodolphe
had given his heart, with its renewed blossom-these
white hands of Mlle. Mimi were soon to mutilate
the poet's heart with their pink nails.
Before a month was over Rodolphe began to see
that he had espoused a tempest, and that his mistress
had a great defect. She was a gossip among the
neighbours, and passed a great part of her time
among the women of the locality, with whom she
speedily struck up acquaintance. The result was
what Rodolphe had feared when he first noted the
acquaintances made by his mistress. The opulence
of some of these new friends created a world of
ambition in the soul of Mimi, who hitherto had had
modest tastes and had been content with the neces-
saries of life which Rodolphe had done his best to
procure for her. Mimi began to dream of silks, and
velvets, and laces, and in spite of Rodolphe's pro-
hibitions she continued to cultivate the society of the
women who united in persuading her to break with
the Bohemian who could not so much as give her a
hundred and fifty francs to buy a gown.
"Pretty as you are," said these counsellors, "you
would easily find a better position; you have only
to seek it."
And Mlle. Mimi set to work to seek it. Noticing
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her frequent absences from home, for which she
made lame excuses, Rodolphe found himself on the
miserable path of suspicion. But from the instant
he imagined he was on the track of any proof of
infidelity he fiercely tied a bandage over his eyes,
so that he should not see anything. However it
might be, he adored Mimi. He had that jealous,
fantastic, querulous, strange love which the young
woman was incapable of comprehending because
she had for Rodolphe only that lukewarm attach-
ment which is the result of habit. And besides,
half of her heart had been given to her first love,
and the other half was still full of the remembrance
of that first love.
In this way eight months passed, alternated by
good times and wretched ones, and during this
period Rodolphe was constantly on the point of
separating himself from Mimi, who was full of all
the cruelties of a woman who has no love in her.
Speaking plainly, their existence had become a hell
for both, but Rodolphe grew accustomed to these
daily miseries, and dreaded nothing so much as to
see this state of things cease, for he felt that with
that there would cease for ever the youthful fevers
and emotions which had revived within him. And
then, all being told, it must be said that there were
times when Mlle. Mimi cleverly enough made
Rodolphe forget the suspicions which lacerated his
heart. There were times when she would creep to
his knees like a child, and in the sweetness of her
blue eyes the poet found again the poetry he had
lost; his youth returned to him and, thanks to her,
he basked in the sunshine of love. Two or three
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Mademoiselle Mimi
times in a month, in the middle of their stormy
quarrels, Rodolphe and Mimi paused, as it were,
by mutual consent, in the refreshing oases of love
and soft caresses. Then Rodolphe would take to
his breast the exquisite head and smiling face, and
for hours would murmur the delightfully absurd lan-
guage which passion improvises in its hours of
delirium. Mimi would listen, calm at first, more
astonished than moved; but at last Rodolphe's
enthusiastic eloquence, now gay, now tender,
now melancholy, would win her. She seemed to
feel the ice of her heart melting under the contact,
a contagious warmth would steal over her, and
casting herself on his bosom, she would tell him
with her kisses all that words had not power to
speak. Dawn would surprise them thus locked in
embraces, their eyes looking into each other's,
their hands locked together, while their passionate
lips uttered the immortal refrain-
"Which for five thousand years
Of nights the lips of lovers have murmured."
But next day the most futile pretext would bring
on a quarrel, and terrified love would fly away.
At last, however, Rodolphe saw that if he was
not careful Mlle. Mimi's white hands would thrust
him into an abyss where he would lose his future
and his youth. One minute austere reason would
speak within him more loudly than love, and he
convinced himself with fine reasonings based upon
proofs that his mistress no longer loved him. He
even went the length of telling himself that the hours
of tenderness she spared him were no more than the
caprices of a feeling like that which married women
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66
feel for their husbands when they want a new gown
or are afflicted with a cashmere fever. Or, their
lovers being absent, the suggestive proverb comes
uppermost, When there is no white bread one
must be content with brown." In short, Rodolphe
was able to pardon his mistress everything except
not being loved by her. He therefore took courage,
and announced to Mlle. Mimi that she would have
to find another lover. Mimi laughed at this, and
treated it lightly. Finally, however, finding that
Rodolphe stuck to his resolution and received her
with perfect coolness after she had absented herself
for a night and a day, she began to get a little
uneasy under a firmness and resolve to which she
was so unaccustomed. For two or three days,
therefore, she was charming, but her lover did not
retract his words, and contented himself with asking
whether she had found someone.
"I have not sought," she answered.
Nevertheless she had sought, and that before
Rodolphe had given her the advice to do so.
In the course of a fortnight she had made two
attempts. One of her women friends had aided
her, and contrived to effect an introduction to a
youth who had dazzled Mimi's eyes with an
horizon of Indian cashmeres and splendid rosewood
furniture, but in Mimi's opinion the young student
who might be very strong in algebra was not a very
brilliant scholar in love; and as she did not like
teaching, she sent the amorous novice with his cash-
meres, which were still nibbling on Thibet meadows,
and his rosewood furniture, that was still in leaf
in the forests of the New World, to the right-about.
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Mademoiselle Mimi
The studious youth was soon replaced by a Breton
gentleman, towards whom Mimi really felt some
attraction, and there was no need for much seeking
to become countess; but in spite of his mistress's
protestations, Rodolphe got wind of the intrigue.
He wanted to know his real position, and one
morning, following a night on which Mimi did
not return home, he went to the house where he
suspected she was, and there he was able at his
leisure to find ample proof of his suspicions. Her
eyes sparkling with triumph, he saw Mimi leave
the mansion where she had ennobled herself, lean-
ing on the arm of her new lord and master, who
evidently was as proud of his new conquest as
Paris the Greek shepherd was when he carried off
the fair Helen.
On seeing her lover Mimi evinced a little sur-
prise. She went to him, and for about five minutes
they talked quietly together. Then they separated,
each going their several ways.
come.
The rupture had
Rodolphe returned home, and passed the day in
putting up in packages all the things which had
belonged to Mimi.
During the day following the divorce from his
mistress he received visits from some of his friends
and told them what had taken place. Every one
congratulated him on the event, as if it were a very
fortunate one.
"We will help you, oh my poet," said one of
those who had been the most frequent witnesses of
the wretchedness Mimi had caused Rodolphe; "we
will help you to withdraw your heart from the
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hands of a wicked woman. And after a little you
will find yourself cured and quite ready to go
running with another Mimi about the green lanes
of d'Aulnay and Fontenay-aux-Roses."
Rodolphe declared that those days were over-
ended in regrets and despair. He however allowed
himself to be taken to the Mabille ball, where his
careless attire very wretchedly represented the Iris,
which procured him free entry of the beautiful
garden with all its elegance and pleasures. There
Rodolphe met new friends, with whom he fell to
drinking. He told them his misfortunes in strange,
extravagant terms, and for quite an hour they were
full of interest and sympathy.
"Alas! alas!" said Marcel, as he listened to the
torrent of irony which fell from his friend's lips,
"Rodolphe is too merry, much too merry!"
"He is charming!" rejoined a young woman to
whom Marcel had just offered a bouquet; "and
although he is frightfully dressed, I would not mind
compromising myself by dancing with him, if he
would ask me."
In two seconds Rodolphe, who had heard her,
was at her feet, clothing his invitation in words.
scented with all the musk and perfume of gallantry
à 80 degrés Richelieu. The lady sat confounded by
this language embroidered by such brilliant ad-
jectives, which would have done credit to the polite
days of the Regency, and which was enough to
make the heels of his shoes blush, for he had never
comported himself in such old Sèvres china fashion.
The invitation was accepted.
Rodolphe was as ignorant of the merest elements
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Mademoiselle Mimi
of dancing as of the rule-of-three, but he was excited
to astounding audacity, and did not hesitate to
break off and improvise a figure unknown to the
devotees of Terpsichore. It was a figure, he said,
called "the figure of regrets and sighs," and its
originality attracted boundless attention. The three
thousand jets of gas might well flicker and flare as
if in mockery and amazement, but Rodolphe kept
on, all the time overwhelming his partner with
entirely unpublished handfuls of madrigals.
"Alas!" said Marcel, "it is almost incredible.
Rodolphe gives me the impression of a drunken
man rolling on shattered glasses."
"Meanwhile he has made conquest of a superb
woman," said another, as he watched Rodolphe
hurrying away with his companion.
"You are not going to say good-bye?" called
Marcel after him.
Rodolphe came back to the artist and stretched
out his hand-a hand that was cold and damp as
a wet stone.
Rodolphe's partner was a fine Normandy girl,
of exuberant nature, whose native rusticity had
speedily grown refined and even aristocratic amidst
Parisian luxuries and a life of idleness. She called
herself something like Madame Séraphine, and at
that time was mistress of a certain Rhumatisme,
peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a month,
which she shared with a clerk who gave her in
return nothing but blows. Rodolphe had pleased
her (she hoped that he would not give her any-
thing), and she took him home to her lodging.
"Lucile," she said to her maid, "I am not at
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Latin Latin
home to anybody," and after going into her room,
where she remained for a few minutes, she returned
attired in an airy costume. She found Rodolphe
motionless and dumb, for ever since he came in he
had sunk, in spite of himself, into the gloom of
silent, sad thoughts.
"You don't look at me. You don't speak to me,"
said Séraphine, astonished.
"Well, come, then," said Rodolphe, lifting
his head. "I will look, but only in the cause of
Art.'
"And what a vision burst upon his sight!"
Her
as Raoul says in the Huguenots.
Séraphine was magnificently handsome.
splendid form, set off to advantage by the fashion
of her garments, gleamed seductively through the
half-transparent tissues. All the imperious ardour
of desire awoke in Rodolphe's veins. A warm mist
seemed to becloud his brain. He began to gaze at
Séraphine from another point of view than the
æsthetic one, and he took her beautiful hands in
his. They were perfect hands, and might have been
carved by the most delicate chisel of some Greek
sculptor. Rodolphe felt these beautiful hands
tremble in his; and less and less the art critic,
he drew Séraphine towards him, her face crimson-
ing with the dawn of love.
"This woman is a veritable instrument of plea-
sure, a real Stradivarius of love, and I will gladly
play upon her," thought Rodolphe, as he heard her
heart beating loudly.
At this moment a violent ring at the bell was
heard at the door.
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Mademoiselle Mimi
"Lucile! Lucile!" cried Séraphine to the maid.
"Don't open the door. Say I have not returned."
At the name of Lucile-twice uttered-Rodolphe
rose.
"I will not inconvenience you in any way,
madame," he said. "Besides, I must be going.
It is late, and I live a long way from here. Good
night."
"What! you are going?" cried Séraphine, re-
doubling the brilliant eloquence of her looks.
"Why, why will you go? I am at liberty. You
can stay."
"Impossible," replied Rodolphe. "I am expecting
to-night a relative who is coming from Tierra del
Fuego, and he would disinherit me if he did not find
me at home to receive him. Good night, madame."
And he rushed out. The maid followed to light
him. Rodolphe chanced to glance at her. She was
a young, fragile, slow-paced woman; her deadly
white face contrasting charmingly with the black-
ness of her naturally curling hair, and her blue
eyes were like two faint stars.
“Ah, phantom!" exclaimed Rodolphe, shrinking
before the figure that bore the name and the
countenance of his mistress. "Away with you!
What do you want of me?" and he rushed down
the staircase.
Madame," said the girl as she re-entered the
room, "that young man is mad!"
"Say he's a fool," replied the exasperated Séra-
phine. "Oh!" she went on, "that will teach me
to be good-natured again. If this stupid Leon had
only the sense to come now."
P
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The Latin Quarter
Leon was the gentleman whose tender friendship
carried a whip.
Rodolphe ran all the way home without stopping.
As he mounted the stairs he found the cat, who was
mewing pitifully. For two nights past he had been
calling thus for the unfaithful sweetheart, an Angora
Manon Lescaut, who had gone in gallant company
to some neighbouring roofs. "Poor beast!" said
Rodolphe, "thou too hast been deceived; thy Mimi
has forsaken thee as mine has. Ah! never mind.
Let us console ourselves. Ah, my poor beast, the
heart of women and of cats is an abyss that man
and tom-cats will never be able to sound."
As he entered the room, although the night was
fearfully hot, Rodolphe seemed to feel as if a mantle
of ice had fallen on his shoulders. It was the chill
of solitude, of that terrible night-loneliness which
nothing comes to disturb. He lighted his candle
and looked round the devastated room. The
cupboards and drawers stood open and empty,
and from the ceiling to the floor profound melan-
choly filled the little chamber, which seemed to
Rodolphe bigger than a desert. His feet stumbled
over the parcels and packages containing the
belongings of Mademoiselle Mimi, and he felt a
sort of gladness to think that as yet no one had
come for them, as she said in the morning would
be the case.
Rodolphe, in spite of his wrestlings with himself,
felt the hour of reaction was at hand, and he knew
that a fearful night would expiate the absurd
attempts at gaiety he had made during the even-
ing. He hoped, however, that broken by fatigue.
210
Mademoiselle Mimi
as he was, he would fall asleep before the awaken-
ing of the anguish which dwelt in his heart.
As he approached and parted the curtains he
gazed upon the bed which had not been slept in
for the last two nights, and at the two pillows
placed one beside the other, on one of which lay
half lost in the coverlet a little trimmed cap.
Rodolphe felt as if his heart was crushed in the
terrible grooves of that misery which cannot vent
itself. He fell at the bed's foot, burying his face
in his hands, after having given one look round,
and cried-
"Oh, little Mimi, joy of my home, is it true that
you are gone that I have sent you away, and that
I shall never see you again? My God! Oh, pretty
brown head, that has so often rested here, will you
never come and sleep here again? Oh, capricious,
changeful voice, whose caressing tones maddened me
with delight and whose little tempers charmed me,
shall I never hear you again? Oh, white little
hands, with their blue veins to which my lips were
wedded; oh, white little hands, have you indeed
received my last kiss?" And in his delirium of
misery Rodolphe plunged his head into the pillows
still fragrant with the perfumes of her hair. In the
shadows of the alcove he seemed to see the phantom
of the nights which he had passed with his young
mistress. He seemed to hear, clear and resonant
through the silence, Mimi's ripples of laughter, and
was filled once again with the delightful contagious
gaiety that so many a time had made him forget
all the anxieties and miseries of their precarious
existence.
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Throughout the night he passed in review the
eight months which had fled by in the society of
this girl who had never perhaps loved him, but
whose tender pretences and deceit had known how
to restore its youth and vigour to Rodolphe's
heart.
The pale dawn surprised him just when, con-
quered by fatigue, he had closed his eyes, reddened
by the tears which he had shed during the past
night. Sad and terrible vigil, such as the most
sceptical and scornful among us may find in our
past years!
In the morning when his friends looked in they
were horrified to see how Rodolphe's face was
ravaged by all the agonies which had assailed him
during his vigil on Love's Mount of Olives.
"Good," said Marcel. "I was certain of it. It
is his assumed gaiety of yesterday which has
reacted on the heart. It must not be allowed to go
on."
And in concert with his companions, he began at
the expense of Mlle. Mimi a host of indiscreet reve-
lations, each of which pierced like pine prickles into
Rodolphe's heart. His friends proved to him that
throughout his mistress had treated him as if he
were a nothing-a ninny, at home and abroad alike;
and that this girl, pale as the angel of consumption,
was a network of corrupt and fierce instincts.
In turn they took up the task, the intention
being that Rodolphe should be led to the point
where embittered love changes to contempt; but
the end was only partially attained. The despair
of the poet changed to rage. He turned savagely
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Mademoiselle Mimi
upon the packages which he had put up on the
previous day, and after having laid on one side all
the articles which his mistress had in her possession
when she came to him, he kept back to himself all
that he had given her during the time of their
being together-that is to say, the greater part,
and, above all, the toilet articles to which Mimi
clung with all the fibres of coquetry, till at last she
had come to be absolutely insatiable.
Mlle. Mimi arrived next day to fetch away her
things. Rodolphe was in and alone. It needed all
his powers of self-control to keep him from cast-
ing his arms about her neck. He received her with
a mutely injured air, and Mimi retorted by such
cold and pointed insults as force out the claws of
the weakest and most timid. Under the disdain
with which his mistress treated him so insolently,
Rodolphe's indignation burst out into brutal and
terrible violence; for a moment Mimi, white with
terror, wondered whether she would escape from
his hands alive, until, alarmed by her cries, some
neighbours came and took her away from the room.
Two days after a friend of Mimi's came and asked
him whether he would give up to her the things
which he had kept back. "No," replied he. And
he began to chat with Mimi's messenger. The
woman told him that Mimi was in a wretched
state of destitution and had not a roof over her
head.
“And the fellow she was so infatuated with?'
"But," said Amélie, the friend in question, "the
young man had no intention of taking her for his
mistress. He has had one this long time, and he
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The Latin Quarter
troubled himself little enough about Mimi, who is
upon my hands, and a great trouble to me."
"She
"It will settle itself," said Rodolphe.
would have it so. It is no concern of mine." And he
recited a madrigal to Mlle. Amélie, and persuaded
her she was the loveliest woman in the world.
Amélie related to Mimi the particulars of her visit
to Rodolphe.
"What did he say? What is he doing?" asked
Mimi. "Did he speak to you of me?"
"Not a word. You are already forgotten, my
dear. Rodolphe has a new mistress, and he has
bought her a splendid dress, for he has received a
lot of money and is dressed like a prince himself.
He is very agreeable. And he said charming things
to me."
"We know what that means," thought Mimi.
Every day Mlle. Amélie went to see Rodolphe on
one pretext or another; and try as he might, he
could not help talking of Mimi.
"She is very cheerful," said the friend, "and
does not appear to be particularly anxious. More-
over, she says she shall return to you when she
likes without any asking, and means to do it to
annoy your friends."
"Very good," said Rodolphe. "Let her come,
and we shall see."
And he began to pay small attentions to Amélie,
who reported all to Mimi when she returned,
assuring her that Rodolphe was much taken with
her. "He has kissed my hands and my neck again,"
she said. "Look, it is quite red! He wants to
take me to the ball to-morrow."
214
Mademoiselle Mimi
"My dear creature," said Mimi, greatly piqued,
"I see what you are driving at-you want to make
me believe that Rodolphe is in love with you, and
that he thinks no longer of me. But you lose your
time both with him and with me."
The fact was that Rodolphe was only agreeable
to Amélie in order to get her to come to him often,
and then he invariably found some excuse for speak-
ing of Mimi; but with a Machiavellism which per-
haps had its object, and perceiving perfectly well
that Rodolphe still loved Mimi, and that they might
yet come together Amélie contrived by great adroit-
ness to keep the two apart.
The day of the ball Amélie came in the morning to
ask Rodolphe if the arrangement was to hold good.
"Yes," replied he. "I should be sorry to miss
the chance of being cavalier to the most beautiful
woman of modern times."
Amélie put on the coquettish air which she had
assumed when she had played soubrette at a small
suburban theatre, and promised she would be ready
in the evening.
"By the way," said Rodolphe, "tell Mademoiselle
Mimi that if she will be unfaithful to her lover in
my favour and come some night to me, I will give
her all her things again."
Amélie fulfilled Rodolphe's commission, lending the
words quite another sense than the one she had
divined they were to convey.
"Your Rodolphe is contemptible," she said.
"His proposition is an infamous one. He wants
by this trick to make you stoop to the ranks of the
lowest creatures; and if you go to him, he will not
215
The Latin Quarter
only not give you up your things, but he will hold
you up as a laughing-stock to his friends. It is a
conspiracy they have made among themselves."
"I shall not go," said Mimi, and when she saw
Amélie preparing to dress for the ball she asked her
if she was going.
"Yes," replied Amélie.
"With Rodolphe?"
"Yes. He is going to meet me this evening a
dozen yards away from the house."
"I hope you will enjoy yourself," said Mimi, and
towards the hour of the rendezvous she ran in great
haste to Mlle. Amélie's own special admirer, and
informed him that she was about to play off a little
treachery against him.
The gentleman, jealous as a tiger and brutal as
a cudgel, arrived at Mlle. Amélie's rooms and in-
formed her that it would be an excellent notion if
she came that night with him.
At eight o'clock Mimi ran to the place where
Rodolphe was to meet Amélie. She saw her lover,
who was walking like a man waiting for someone.
She passed him twice without daring to address
him. Rodolphe was very carefully and well dressed
that evening, and the violent agitation to which he
had recently been the prey had added expression to
his features. Mimi was greatly moved. At last she
decided to speak to him. Rodolphe met her without
showing any signs of anger, and inquired after her
health; after that he listened to the reason which
had brought her to him; all told in a soft voice and
in accents of sadness striving for self-control.
"I bring you bad news," she said. "Mademoiselle
216
Mademoiselle Mimi
Amélie cannot go with you to the ball. Her lover
wants her."
"I will go to the ball alone, then."
At this point Mlle. Mimi feigned to trip, and held
on for support by Rodolphe's shoulder. He took
her by the arm, and offered to conduct her home.
"No," said Mimi; "I live with Amélie, and as
her lover is with her, I cannot go in again till he is
gone."
"Listen," said the poet then, "I made you a
proposal through Mademoiselle Amélie. Has she
delivered it?"
"Yes," said Mimi, "but in terms in which, after
what has happened, I could not place any trust.
No, Rodolphe, I did not believe that in spite of all
you have to reproach me with, you could think me
so poor-spirited as to accept such a bargain."
"You did not understand, or else my message
was misrepresented. But what is said, is said,"
added Rodolphe. "It is nine o'clock. You have
three hours to consider. My key will be hanging
by my door till midnight. Good night or au revoir."
"Good-bye, then," said Mimi in trembling tones,
and they parted. Rodolphe returned home and
flung himself all dressed as he was on his bed. At
half-past eleven Mlle. Mimi entered his room.
"I come to ask your hospitality," she said.
"Amélie's lover is still with her, and I cannot go
in." They talked together till three in the morning—
a sort of explanatory conversation, partly formal,
but now and again dropping into the old familiar
modes of expression. About four o'clock the candle
went out. Rodolphe was about to light another.
217
The Latin
Quarter
"No," said Mimi, "it is not worth while. It is
time to sleep."
And five minutes later her pretty brown head
rested on the pillow, and in tender accents she
invited Rodolphe's lips to press the little blue-veined
hands, whose alabaster pallor rivalled the whiteness
of the bed drapery. Rodolphe did not light the
candle.
The next morning it was Rodolphe who first rose,
and pointing to the packages, said to Mimi very
gently, "Those are the things belonging to you.
You can take them. I keep my word."
"Oh!" said Mimi, "I am very tired, you see, and
I could not carry away those big parcels all at once.
I would rather come back for them." And as she
was dressed she took only a collarette and a pair of
cuffs.
"I will take away the rest-a little at a time,"
she said, smiling.
"No," said Rodolphe. "Take away all, or take
away nothing. This must finish."
"On the contrary, let it begin-and last for ever,"
said Mimi, embracing Rodolphe.
After breakfasting together, they started to go
into the country. In crossing the Luxembourg,
Rodolphe met a famous poet, who had always
received him with charming kindness. Accord-
ing to usage Rodolphe made a pretence of not
seeing him, but the poet did not give him time.
for that; he greeted him with a friendly gesture,
and saluted his young companion with a gracious
smile.
"Who was that gentleman?" asked Mimi.
218
Mademoiselle Mimi
Rodolphe answered with a name that brought a
flush of delight and pride to her cheeks.
"Oh," said Rodolphe, "this meeting with a poet
who sings so enchantingly of love is a good augury
and will bring good luck to our reconciliation."
"I love you. There," said Mimi, squeezing her
lover's hand, although they were in the middle of
the crowded ways.
"Alas!" meditated Rodolphe, "which is better-
to let one's self be deceived by having believed, or
never to believe for fear of being always deceived?"
219
XV
DONEC GRATUS.
T has been related how the painter Marcel made
IT
the acquaintance of Mlle. Musette. United
one day by Caprice, who is the mayor of their
district, they had imagined that, after the ordi-
nary course of such things, their intimacy could
end upon the basis of the same law. But one
evening, after a violent quarrel, which decided
them to break off instantly and for ever, they found
that their hands, meeting in final adieu, would not
separate. Fancy, almost without their being con-
scious of it, had become love. They both admitted
it half-laughingly.
"This," said Marcel, "is a very serious matter.
How the deuce have we done it?"
"Oh," replied Musette, "we are dunderheads!
We have not taken proper precaution."
"What is up!" inquired Rodolphe, whose rooms.
now neighboured Marcel's, as he chanced to look in.
"This has happened," said Marcel, pointing to
Musette, "she and I have just made a grand
discovery. We are in love with each other. It
must have happened while we were asleep."
"Oh! Ah! Asleep. No, I don't think so," said
Rodolphe. "But where is the proof that you do love
each other? Perhaps you exaggerate the danger."
220
Donec Gratus..
"Good heavens! No," replied Marcel. "We
cannot endure one another."
"And we
Musette.
cannot leave each other," added
"Then, my children, the matter is clear. Wanting
to play to the very end, you have both lost. It is
simply my story over again with Mimi. It is a
subject for endless discussion. By this system it is
that the perpetuity of marriage has become an
institution. Unite a yes with a no, and you have
a Philemon and Baucis household; your home will
be a pendant to mine, and if Schaunard and
Phémie are coming here to live, as they threaten, our
trio of establishments will form a very agreeable
whole."
He was
At this moment Gustave Colline entered.
informed of the accident which had befallen Musette
and Marcel.
"Well, philosopher," said Marcel, "what do
you think of it?"
Colline smoothed the nap of the hat which was
as good as a roof to him, and murmured, “I was
sure of it; love is a game of chance in which there
is plenty of excitement. It is not good for man to
be alone."
In the evening when Rodolphe came home, he
said to Mimi, "There is news; Musette is madly in
love with Marcel, and won't leave him."
"Poor girl!" replied Mimi, "and she had such a
good appetite."
"And on his side Marcel is smitten with Musette.
He adores her thirty-six carat,' as that Colline
calls it."
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The Latin Quarter
"Poor fellow!" said Mimi, "and so jealous as
he is."
"Quite true," said Rodolphe. "He and I are
pupils of Othello."
A little while after Schaunard and Phémie set up
their domesticities close by. From that day forward
the other lodgers of the house slept upon such a
volcano that at the end of their term they sent the
landlord notice to quit.
Few days passed, in fact, on which a storm did not
burst in one or other of the establishments. Now
it was Mimi and Rodolphe, who, having exhausted
their speaking powers, explained the rest by any
household projectiles chancing to be at hand. Most
frequently it was Schaunard, who emphasised his
remarks to the melancholy Phémie with the end of
a cane. As for Marcel and Musette, their discus-
sions were conducted in the silence of closed doors;
they, at all events, took the precaution of shutting
their doors and windows.
If by chance peace did reign in the several estab-
lishments, the other lodgers of the place did not
find their sufferings lessened by the transient
concord. The indiscretions of the partition walls
permitted all the secrets of the Bohemian household
management to penetrate them, initiating them in
spite of themselves into its mysteries; and more
than one neighbour preferred a casus belli to rati-
fications of treaties of peace.
The most
All was in
It was, in fact, a singular existence which the
Bohemians led for the next six months.
loyal fraternity was observed by them.
common, and scrupulously shared, good
fortune might send.
or ill as
222
Donec Gratus ..
There were certain days of magnificence, upon
which none of them went down into the street
without gloves; red-letter occasions, when they
dined all day. There were other times when they
went almost without boots or shoes, Lenten days
these, when after going breakfastless, they did not
dine together, or, at all events, only succeeded by
economical combinations in creating one of those
repasts at which plates and dishes, as Mimi said,
"took a holiday."
But strange to say that in this society, which
included, at all events, three young and pretty women,
no discord ever broke out among the men. They
bent often to the most futile caprices of their
mistresses, but not one of them would have hesi-
tated between the girl and the friend.
Love is the child of spontaneity. It is an impro-
visation. Friendship, on the contrary, is built up
so to speak of a sentiment that moves with circum-
spection; it is the egoism of the mind, while love.
is the egoism of the heart.
The Bohemians had known one another for six
years. This long period, passed in daily intimacy
without altering the strongly defined individuality of
each one of them, had bound them in an accordance
of ideas and a unity which they would have vainly
sought elsewhere. They had their own manners
and customs and modes of expression, of which
strangers would not have known where to find the
key. Those who did not properly know them called
their free-going ways cynicism. It was, in fact,
simply frankness. Their spirits, restive against all
constraint, hated the false and held the common-
223
The Latin Quarter
place in contempt. Accused of exaggerated vanities,
they retorted by proudly proclaiming the programme
of their ambition, and having the consciousness of
their worth, they did not abuse it.
During the many years that they had walked
together in the same paths they had often of ne-
cessity been placed in rivalry; but they had never
broken their ties, and had passed over without
heeding personal questions of self-respect every time
that attempts had been made to disunite them.
They, moreover, estimated exactly their Own
individual value; and pride, which is the antidote of
envy, protected them from all petty professional
jealousies.
After six months, however, of this life in common,
an epidemic of divorce suddenly broke out among
Schaunard inaugurated proceedings. One
day he happened to notice that Phémie Teinturière.
had one knee better made than the other, and as in
the matter of sculpture he was an austere purist, he
dismissed Phémie, making her a present of the cane
with which he had been accustomed to emphasise
his frequent observations, and then he went to live
with a relative who offered him a home gratis.
A fortnight after, Mimi left Rodolphe to take
her place in the carriage of young Viscount Paul,
formerly Carolus Barbemuche's pupil, who had
promised her gowns as brilliant as the sun.
After Mimi it was Musette who cleared off and re-
joined with great state the aristocratic ranks of the
gallant Society which she had quitted to follow
Marcel.
This separation took place without quarrel, or dis-
224
Donec Gratus . .
turbance, or premeditation. Born of a caprice which
grew into love, another caprice severed the
connection.
One evening in carnival time, at the opera
masked ball, whither she had gone with Marcel,
Musette had for vis-à-vis a young man who had
formerly paid her attentions. They recognised each
other, and while dancing exchanged a few words
together. Without perhaps intending it, while she
was telling the young man of her present way of
life, she allowed some regrets for the old life
to pass her lips. When the quadrille finished,
Musette made a mistake, and instead of giving her
hand to Marcel her partner, she took the hand of
her vis-à-vis, who led her away into the crowd
and disappeared.
Marcel, not a little uneasy, sought for her. After
about an hour he found her leaning on the young
man's arm; she was leaving the opera coffee-room
singing snatches of songs. At sight of Marcel,
who was standing in a corner with crossed arms,
she waved him adieu, calling, "I am coming back."
999
"That is to say, 'Don't wait for me,' translated
Marcel. He was jealous, but he was logical, and
knew Musette, therefore he did not wait for her;
he returned home with his heart big and an empty
stomach. He sought in the cupboard for possible
leavings-for a supper. He found a morsel of
granite-like bread and the skeleton of a sour
herring.
"I can't contend against truffles," thought he.
"At all events, Musette will have had supper."
And after passing the corner of his handkerchief
९
225
The Latin Quarter
across his eyes, under pretence of wiping his
mouth, he went to bed.
Two days later Musette awoke in a rose-coloured
boudoir, a blue brougham waited at her door, and
all the fairies in the world-requisitioned in her
service-brought their marvels to her feet. Musette
was charming, and her early youth seemed to
renew itself in this setting of elegancies. So she
recommenced the old life, attended all the fêtes,
and regained her celebrity. She was talked of every-
where-in the byways of the Exchange and even
in the parliamentary buffets. As for her new lover,
Monsieur Alexis, he was an agreeable young man.
Often he complained to Musette that she seemed
a little careless and indifferent when he spoke to
her of his love. Then Musette would gaze at him
smilingly, pat his hands, and say-
"What is it you want, dearest? I stopped six
months with a man who fed me on salad and soup,
without butter, who dressed me in a print gown,
and took me to the Odéon a great deal because
he was not rich. As love costs nothing, and I was
madly in love with this creature, we wasted a con-
siderable amount of love, and there are only a few
crumbs of it left. Pick them up. I don't hinder
you. For the rest, I have not deceived you;
and if ribbons were not so dear I should still be
with my painter. As to my heart, since a corset of
eighty francs covers it, I cannot hear it beat very
loudly, and I am almost afraid I must have left it in
one of Marcel's drawers."
The disappearance of the three Bohemian house-
holds was the occasion of a fête in the house which
226
Donec Gratus . . .
had contained them. In token of his satisfaction
the landlord gave a grand dinner and the lodgers
illuminated their windows.
Rodolphe and Marcel now lived together. Each
of them had selected a new divinity, whose names
they were not even precisely certain of. Sometimes
they talked of Mimi or of Musette, and it would
suffice as a theme for the whole evening. They
would recall their memories of the old life, and
Musette's songs and Mimi's songs, and the sleepless
nights, and the idle mornings, and the dream-
dinners.
One after the other they would recall, during these
chats, those memories of the hours that had fled for
ever, and they would usually end up by saying that,
after all, they were glad to be together alone again
with their feet on the fender, stirring the winter
logs, smoking their pipes, and to have each of
them a pretext for gossiping and saying aloud to
the other what each only said in a whisper to
himself when he was alone-that they had greatly
loved those creatures who had left them, taking
with them the shreds of their youth, and it might
be that they loved them still.
One evening, as he was crossing the boulevard,
Marcel saw a young woman a little distance off,
who, as she descended from a cab, displayed an
ankle that was the perfection of form and grace.
The driver himself was fascinated with his fare.
"Good heavens!" said Marcel, "that is a fine
ankle. I should like to offer my arm. Let me see-
how can I manage it? That's my business: it
seems quite strange."
227
The Latin Quarter
"Excuse me, madame," he said, approaching the
unknown, whose face he had not as yet been able to
catch a glimpse of, "you have not by chance found.
my handkerchief?"
"Yes, monsieur," replied the young lady, "here
it is." And she put into Marcel's hand a hand-
kerchief she held.
The artist staggered with astonishment.
But suddenly a burst of laughter right in his face
restored him to himself, for in the joyous fanfare he
recognised the tones of his old love.
It was Musette.
"Ah!" cried she, "Monsieur Marcel is looking
for adventures. What do you think of this one-
eh? It doesn't lack drollery."
"I find it supportable," said Marcel.
"What are you doing so late in this part of the
world?" asked Musette.
"I am going into this tomb," replied the artist,
pointing to a little theatre of which he had the
entrée.
"For the love of Art?"
"No, for love of Laure.
Now," said Marcel to
He
himself, "that is a pretty little play upon words
of double meaning. I will sell it to Colline.
is making a collection of them."
"Who is Laure?" asked Musette, whose looks
sparkled notes of interrogation.
Marcel continued his disagreeable pleasantries.
"I am pursuing a chimera who plays ingénues
in this obscure place," and with a wave of his
hand he indicated a dancer's dress.
"You are very lively this evening," said Musette.
"And you very curious," said Marcel,
228
Donec Gratus ..
"Speak lower. Everybody will hear us, and they
will take us for lovers quarrelling."
"It wouldn't be the first time such a thing had
happened to us," said Marcel.
Musette caught provocation in this phrase, and
replied quickly-
"And perhaps it won't be the last-eh?"
The meaning was obvious; it hissed like a bullet
into Marcel's ear.
"Splendours of heaven!" said he, gazing up at
the stars, "" you are witnesses that it is not I who
struck the first blow. My cuirass-quick!"
The firing had begun.
There was nothing more to be done than to find a
convenient point of union for these two imaginations
which had awakened so quickly.
As they went along Musette looked at Marcel,
and Marcel looked at Musette. They did not speak,
but their eyes--those ambassadors of the heart-
often met. At the end of a quarter of an hour
of diplomacy this congress of looks had tacitly
arranged the matter. It only remained to ratify it.
The interrupted conversation was renewed.
Frankly," said Musette to Marcel, "where were
you going just now?"
"I have told you. I was going to Laure."
"Is she pretty?"
"Her mouth is a nest of smiles."
"I understand," said Musette.
"But yourself," said Marcel, "whence come you
on the wings of this cab?"
"I came from taking Alexis to the railway. He
is going on a tour with his family."
229
The Latin Quarter
"What sort of a fellow is Alexis?"
In her turn Musette drew a taking portrait of
her new lover. All the way they went Marcel and
Musette continued in the open street to play this
comedy of going back to the old love.
In the same naïve key, now railing, now tender,
they recited once more, strophe by strophe, the im-
mortal ode in which Horace and Lydia extol so
gracefully the delights of their renewed loves,
and finish by adding a postscript to their former
loves. As it happened, they reached the corner of
the street just as a strong patrol tramped round it.
Musette manufactured a little terrified attitude,
and clinging to Marcel's arm, she cried-
"Oh, good heavens! Look! The troops are
coming! There is going to be another revolution.
We must save ourselves. I am terribly frightened.
Take me back!"
"But where are we going?" asked Marcel.
"Home with me," said Musette. "You will see
how pretty it is. I will give you some supper, and
we will talk politics."
"No," said Marcel, thinking of Monsieur Alexis,
"I will not go to your house, in spite of supper.
I don't like drinking my wine out of other people's
glasses."
Musette stood silent under this refusal. Then
through the mists of memory she saw the poor
artist's mean dwelling, for Marcel had not become a
millionaire. And she had an idea, and profiting by
the march past of another patrol, she manifested
renewed terror.
"They are going to fight!" she cried.
"I can
230
Donec Gratus . .
never go back. Marcel, dear friend, take me to
a friend of mine who should be living near your
house."
As they crossed the Pont Neuf Musette burst out
into a shout of laughter.
"What is it?" asked Marcel.
66
Nothing," said Musette. "I remember now
that my friend has gone away from this part. She
lives in the Batignolles quarter."
Seeing Marcel and Musette arrive arm in arm
caused Rodolphe no astonishment.
loves always end thus," he said.
"Half-buried
231
XVI
"THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA"
`OR five or six years Marcel had worked at his
FO famous picture, which he said represented "The
Passage of the Red Sea," and for five or six years.
this masterpiece of colouring had been persistently
rejected by the judges. It had been taken so often
to and fro between the artist's studio and the Musée
that if it had been placed on wheels it would have
rolled of itself to the Louvre. Marcel, who had
altered detail and touched up the canvas a hundred
times from top to bottom, ascribed the ostracism
which annually banished him from the salons to per-
sonal animosity on the part of the members of the
council; and at idle moments had composed a little
dictionary of his injuries in honour of these Cerberuses
of the Institute, illustrated with stingingly ferocious
pictures. This work, which became generally cele-
brated, was known in all the studios of the Beaux
Arts, and had attained to the popularity which
attaches to the immortal complaint of Jean Bélin,
painter in ordinary to the Grand Sultan of the
Turks. All the students of the brush in Paris had
scraps of it stored in their memory.
For a long time Marcel was not discouraged by
these irritating refusals met with at each exhibition;
232
"The Passage of the Red Sea "
he was comfortably convinced in his own opinion
that his picture was, in the degree of its smaller
proportions, the pendant long waited for by "The
Marriage of Cana," that gigantic masterpiece whose
brilliant splendour the dust of three centuries, has
been unable to dim. Every year, therefore, before
the opening of the Salon, Marcel submitted his
picture to the examination of the committee. Only,
in order to nonplus them and to try and make
them trip in their prejudiced exclusion of "The
Passage of the Red Sea," Marcel, without altering
any important part of the general composition,
modified some detail of it and changed its title.
Thus one year it appeared before the jury under
the name of "Crossing the Rubicon," but Pharaoh,
poorly disguised under Cæsar's mantle, was recog-
nised, and repulsed with all due honours.
The following year Marcel threw a coating of
white on the surfaces of his canvas to simulate
snow, put a fir tree in the corner, and clothing an
Egyptian in the uniform of the Imperial Guard,
christened his picture "The Passage of the
Bérésina."
The jury, having now rubbed their spectacles upon
the cuffs of their olive-green coats, were not duped
by this fresh device. They perfectly well recognised
the obstinate canvas, mainly by a huge brute of a
multi-coloured horse which stood rearing high on his
hind legs in the middle of a wave of the Red Sea.
The trappings of this animal had afforded Marcel an
opportunity for all his skill in colouring, and in his
own phrasing he called the picture a synopsis of fine
tones, because with its play of light and shade it
233
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Quarter
offered endless combinations of colour. But once
again, insensible to these details, the jury could not
find black balls enough to refuse "The Passage of
the Bérésina."
"Very good," said Marcel, "I will wait. Next
year I will send it again under the title of The
Passage of the Panoramas.'
999
"They will be trapped,
be trapped, trapped, trapped,
trapped!" chanted the musician Schaunard to a
new air of his own composition, an air as terri-
ble and deafening as a gamut of thunder peals,
so that it was dreaded by all the neighbouring
pianos.
"How can they refuse that without all the vermilion
of the Red Sea mounting to their faces and covering
them with shame?" murmured Marcel, contemplat-
ing his picture. "When one thinks, there is a hun-
dred crowns' worth of colour in it, and a million of
genius, without reckoning my glorious youth, which
has become as worn as my hat over it-a serious
work, opening up new horizons to the science of
colour! But they haven't had the last of it. To
my latest breath I will go on sending that picture!
I want to engrave it on their memory."
"That is the surest manner not to engrave it,"
said Gustave Colline, plaintively adding to himself,
"That is a good mot, a very good one. I will
repeat it in the clubs."
Marcel continued his objurgations, which Schau-
nard continued to set to music.
"Ah! they won't accept me," said Marcel.
"Government pays them, houses them, gives them
decorations, with the express object, one might say,
234
"The Passage of the Red Sea"
of refusing me once a year-the first of March, that
is a canvas in a hundred, mounted in a key-pattern
frame. I distinctly see their intention; I see it
clearly. They would like me to break my brushes.
They hope, perhaps, in refusing my 'Red Sea' that
it will drive me to throw myself out of the window
in despair. But they are very ignorant of the human
heart if they count on snuffing me out in that vulgar
fashion. I shall not wait any longer, however, for
the Salon season to come round. From this day
forward my work shall become a Damocles' sword
perpetually hanging over their heads. Every week I
will send it to each of them-to their homes, into
the bosom of their families, straight to the heart
of their private life. It shall trouble their domestic
joys. They shall find their wine like vinegar, their
meat scorched, their wives ill-tempered. They shall
very soon go mad, and be put in strait-waistcoats
for the meetings of the Institute. The idea of that
pleases me immensely."
Some days later, and when Marcel had already
forgotten his vengeful designs against his op-
pressors, he received a visit from old Médecis.
This was a name given by the Bohemians to a Jew
called Solomon, who was well known at that time
to the whole circle of Bohemian artists and literary
men, and was in constant relations with them.
Old Médecis dealt in all kinds of bric-a-brac.
He sold complete suites of furniture from twelve
francs to a thousand crowns. He bought anything
and everything, and sold it at a big profit. Monsieur
Proudhon's bank of exchange is a small thing in
comparison with the system which was worked by
235
The Latin Quarter
Médecis, who possessed trafficking genius to a
degree which the most skilful of his tribe had never
before attained. His shop, situated in the Place
du Carrousel, was a fairy treasure-house, where one
could find everything one wanted. All the products
of nature, all the creations of art, everything that
the depths of the earth or human genius can pro-
duce, Médecis did business in. His trade touched
every conceivable article, absolutely every existing
thing. He did business even with the ideal. He
purchased ideas for the purpose of employing them
himself or for selling again. Known by all the
men of letters and all the artists, intimate with the
palette, and familiar with productions of the pen,
he was the Asmodeus of the Arts. He would barter
you cigars for a magazine article, a pair of slippers
for a sonnet, fresh fish for paradoxes. He would
gossip for hours with journalists whose vocation it
was to record the doings and follies of the world;
he would procure you places in Parliament and
invitations to special soirées; he gave lodging by the
night, by the week, or by the month to outcast
daubers who paid him in copies of the great masters
made at the Louvre. There were no mysteries behind
the scenes for him.
He would get pieces accepted
at the theatres. He would obtain your free admit-
tance. He had in his head the addresses and names
and secrets of all the celebrities even to the less
known ones.
A few pages copied at random from his business
books will, however, better give an idea of the
universality of his business transactions than all the
descriptions:-
236
"The Passage of the Red Sea"
"20th March, 184—
"Sold to M. L—, antiquary, the compass which Archi-
medes used during the Siege of Syracuse, 75 francs.
"Bought of M. V—, journalist, the complete works
(uncut) of M. —, member of the Academy, 10 fr.
"Sold to the same a critical article on the complete works of
M. -, member of the Academy, 30 fr.
-
"Sold to M., member of the Academy, an article of 12
columns on his complete works, 250 fr.
"Bought of M. R—, man of letters, a critical apprecia-
tion of the complete works of M., of the Academy, 10 fr.,
two hundredweight of coal, and 2 kilog. of coffee.
"Sold to M.
a porcelain vase formerly belonging to
Madame du Barry, 18 fr.
Bought of little D her hair, 15 fr.
"Bought of M. B— a lot of articles on the manners and
the three last errors in orthography made by the Préfect of
the Seine, 6 fr.; also a pair of Neapolitan shoes.
"Sold to Mademoiselle O— a blonde wig, 120 fr.
66
Bought of M. M-
drawings, 25 fr.
historical painter, a series of comic
"Indicated to M. Ferdinand the hour at which Madame la
baronne R. de P-- goes to Mass. Likewise let for a day
the little ground floor in the Faubourg Montmartre. In all,
30 fr.
"Sold to M. Isidore his portrait as Apollo, 30 fr.
"Sold to Mademoiselle R—— a couple of lobsters and six
pairs of gloves, 36 fr. (Received on account, 2 fr. 75 c.)
"At the same time obtained credit of six months of Madame
milliner. (Price to be arranged.)
"Procured for Madame ——, milliner, the custom of Made-
moiselle R——. (Received for this three yards of velvet and
six yards of lace.)
"Bought of M. R--, literary man, a bill of 120 fr. upon
the newspaper——now in liquidation, 5 fr.; also two pounds
of Moravian tobacco.
"Sold to M. Ferdinand two love-letters, 12 fr.
"Bought of M. J——, artist, the portrait of M. Isidore as
Apollo, 6 fr.
"Sold to M.
Revolutions," 15 fr.
75 kilog. of his work entitled "Submarine
237
The Latin
Quarter
"Let on hire to Madame la Comtesse de G-- Saxony
china service, 20 fr.
"Bought of M.
--
journalist, 52 lines in his 'Courier of
Paris,' 100 fr.; also a chimney-piece ornament.
"Sold to M. M. O-
Paris' by M.
and Co. 52 lines in the 'Courier of
300 fr.; also a chimney-piece ornament.
"To Mademoiselle S. G-, let on hire a bed and a
brougham for a day (nothing). (See the accounts of Made-
moiselle S. G——, long ledger, folios 26 and 27.)
"Sold to M. Gustave C. a pamphlet on the Linen Industry,
50 fr.; also a rare edition of the works of Flavius Josephus.
"To Mademoiselle S. G-- sold a piece of modern furni-
ture, 5,000 fr.
"For the same paid chemist 75 fr.
"Id.-Paid note to creamery, 3 fr. 85 c.," etc., etc., etc.
These selections will show on what an immense
scale the operations of the Jew Médecis were con-
ducted; and in spite of the shadiness of some of
his widely eclectic transactions, he had never been
interfered with or annoyed by anybody.
Looking in one day upon the Bohemians with the
brisk, animated air which distinguished him, the
Jew saw that he had come at an opportune moment.
The four friends were, in fact, engaged in grave con-
sultation under the presidency of a voracious appetite,
discussing the solemn question of bread and meat.
It was Sunday, the end of the month-fatal and
sinister time!
The entrance, therefore, of Médecis was welcomed
by a joyful chorus. They knew that the Jew set too
much store by his time to spend it in mere compli-
mentary visits, and his coming unmistakably inti-
mated that he was prepared to do business.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said the Jew. "How
are you?"
238
"The Passage of the Red Sea "
"Colline," said Rodolphe, who was stretched on
his bed in lazy enjoyment of his horizontal position,
"do the hospitable; offer our guest a chair. A
guest is sacred. I salute you in Abraham's name,"
added the poet.
Colline dragged forward a chair, which had about
as much elasticity as bronze, and offered it to the
Jew, saying in a hospitable voice, "You must
imagine for the moment that you are Cinna, and
take this chair."
As Médecis let himself drop into the chair, he was
just going to complain of its hardness when he re-
membered that it was an exchange of his own with
Colline against a profession of faith sold to a deputy
who had not the gift of improvisation. As he sat
down the Jew's pockets resounded metallically, and
the music of it plunged the Bohemians into a sweet
and agreeable reverie.
"Let us see what the tune is going to be," said
Rodolphe in an undertone to Marcel; "the accom-
paniment seems pretty."
"Monsieur Marcel," said Médecis, "I have come
simply to make your fortune. That is to say, that
I come to offer you a splendid opportunity for enter-
ing into the artistic world. Art, you know very well,
Monsieur Marcel, is a desert, of which glory is the
oasis."
"Old Médecis," said Marcel, on tenter hooks of
impatience, "in the name of fifty per cent., your
venerated patron, be brief."
"Yes," said Colline, "like King Pépin. Be as
short a man as he, O son of Manasseh."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried the Bohemians, looking
239
The Latin Quarter
for the floor to open and swallow up the phil-
osopher.
But Colline was not engulfed this time.
"This is how it is, then," replied Médecis. "A
rich amateur, who is collecting for a gallery which
is to make the tour of Europe, has commissioned
me to procure for him a series of remarkable pictures.
I have come to offer you entry to this museum of
his. In a word, I have come to buy your 'Passage
of the Red Sea.'"
"Ready money?" said Marcel.
"Ready money," replied the Jew, tuning up the
orchestra in his pockets.
we
"For the red-dy Sea?" ventured Colline.
"Without a doubt," said Rodolphe fiercely, 66
shall have to gag your mouth if you will keep on
talking such absurdities. Idiot, don't you hear he
is talking of money? Is there nothing sacred to
you, Atheist?"
Colline mounted on a stool and assumed the pose
of Harpocrates, god of silence.
"Go on, Médecis," said Marcel, uncovering his
picture. "I should wish to leave to you the honour
of fixing the price of this priceless work."
The Jew counted out on the table fifty crowns in
bright new silver money.
"And after?" said Marcel. "This being the
vanguard”
"Monsieur Marcel," said Médecis, "you know
very well that my first word is always my last. I
shall give no more. Reflect, fifty crowns, that is
one hundred and fifty francs.
sum."
It is a considerable
240
"The Passage of the Red Sea"
"A poor amount," replied the artist. "In my
Pharaoh's robes alone there is fifty crowns' worth
of cobalt. Pay me in a decent way. Make the piles
even. Make it an even sum, and I will call you
Leo the Tenth, Leo X. the Second."
"I have said my last word," replied Médecis.
"I won't give a sou more, but I will give you all a
dinner-the wine at your own choice, and for dessert
I pay in gold."
"No one speaks?" shouted Colline, striking three
blows with his fist on the table. "Gone!"
"Come, then," said Marcel, "that is settled."
"I will send for the picture to-morrow," said the
Jew. "Let us be going now, gentlemen. The cloth
is laid."
The four friends descended the staircase singing
the chorus from the Huguenots-"Come, let us
dine."
Médecis treated the Bohemians in magnificent
fashion. He offered them all sorts of things which
hitherto were unknown quantities to them. From
the date of that dinner lobster and Schaunard had
more than the old bowing acquaintance, and he
conceived a passion for the amphibian which verged
on delirium.
The four friends departed from the scene of the
feast drunk as labourers at vintage time, a
circumstance which nearly had most disastrous
consequences for Marcel, who, passing by his
tailor's door at two o'clock in the morning,
absolutely wanted to waken his creditor to pay
him on account the hundred and fifty francs he
had received, and a glimmer of reason still alive
R
241
The Latin Quarter
in Colline's brain held the artist back from this
suicidal act.
About a week after this festival Marcel learned in
what gallery his picture had found a place. Passing
down the Faubourg St. Honoré, he joined a group
which was watching with immense interest and
curiosity the fixing of a sign above a shop door.
This sign was no other than Marcel's picture, sold
by Médecis to a provision dealer, only "The
Passage of the Red Sea" had undergone another
modification, and bore another title. A steam-
boat had been introduced, and it was called "The
Port of Marseilles." A most flattering ovation rose
from the onlookers when they got full view of the
picture. Marcel, too, was enchanted with his
triumph, and murmured as he passed on, "The
voice of the people is the voice of God."
242
M
XVII
THE TOILETTE OF THE GRACES
ADEMOISELLE MIMI, whose custom it was
to sleep till about midday, woke one morn-
ing on the stroke of ten and was much astonished
at not finding Rodolphe beside her, nor even in
the room. On the previous evening before she fell
asleep she had seen him settle himself at his desk
in order to spend the night upon a special piece of
literary work for which he had received a commission.
It had peculiar interest for Mimi, inasmuch as the
poet had promised her a certain splendid piece of stuff
for a gown which she had seen in the windows of
"The Two Monkeys," a draper's shop famous for the
novelties displayed in its windows, in front of which
Mimi spent many a devout moment. Since therefore
the work in question had begun, Mimi had watched
its progress with great anxiety. She was constantly
coming up beside Rodolphe as he wrote, and, laying
her head on his shoulder, she would say in grave
tones-
"And my gown-how is it getting on?"
"It has one sleeve already. Be calm," would be
Rodolphe's answer.
One night, having heard Rodolphe snap his
fingers, which was a way he had when he was
pleased with his labours, Mimi sat up briskly in bed,
243
The Latin Quarter
and cried as she put her brown head through the
curtains-
"Is my dress done?"
"See," said Rodolphe, showing her four huge
sheets of paper covered with closely written lines,
"I have finished the bodice."
"How delightful!" cried Mimi. "There is no-
thing left now but the skirt. How many pages
skirt?"
like that will it take to make the
"That is according to detail. But you are not
big. A dozen pages with fifty lines of thirty-three
letters can make a respectable skirt, I think."
"I am not big, it is true," said Mimi in serious
tones, "but it will not do to skimp the material;
gowns are worn very full now, and I want close
gathers, so that it will make plenty of frou-
frou."
"All right," gravely said Rodolphe. "I will
put ten letters more in a line, and that will secure
the frou-frou."
And Mimi slept in peace.
As she had committed the imprudence of talking
with her friends Musette and Phémie about the
grand gown Rodolphe had on the way for her,
the two had not failed to inform Marcel and
Schaunard of their friend's generosity to his sweet-
heart, and the communication had been followed by
incitements of no equivocal kind to follow the
poet's example.
"That is to say," added Musette, giving a tug at
Marcel's moustache, "that if things go on a week
longer in this fashion, I shall be obliged to borrow
a pair of trousers to go out in."
244
The Toilette of the Graces
There are twelve francs owing to me from a
safe source, and if I get it I will dedicate it to the
purchase of a vine leaf à la mode."
"And I," said Phémie, "my dressing-gown is
falling to pieces."
Schaunard drew three sous from his pocket and
gave them to his sweetheart, saying—
"There is something to buy needles and thread
with. Mend your dressing-gown. You will find it
at once instructive and amusing. Utile dulci."
Nevertheless, in a very secret cabinet council
Marcel and Schaunard arranged with Rodolphe that
each of them should satisfy these requirements of
their sweethearts.
"These poor girls!" Rodolphe said. "Trifles
please them, and they ought to have the trifles.
For some time now the fine arts and literature have
been going really strong with us, we are making
almost as much as the dealers."
"It is quite true that I can't complain," put in
Marcel. "The fine arts are flourishing splendidly
with me; one might imagine the days of Leo X.
come again."
"Yet," said Rodolphe, "Musette tells me that
you go out early and that you never get home
again till eight o'clock at night. Are you really
busy?"
"My dear fellow, yes-on a splendid thing
Médicis has obtained for me. I am doing por-
traits at the Ave Maria Barracks. Eighteen
grenadiers who want their portraits taken-one
with the other, six francs apiece, the likeness
guaranteed for a year, as watches are.
I hope
245
The Latin Quarter
to get the whole regiment.
I have an idea, too,
of rigging out Musette when Médicis has paid me,
for it is with him I have the contract-not with
the grenadiers themselves."
"As for me," carelessly said Schaunard, "al-
though it is not generally known, I have two
hundred francs sleeping."
"Heavens above!
Rodolphe.
99
Wake them up— began
"In two or three days I shall lay hands on it,"
continued Schaunard. "When I draw it I do not
conceal from you that I intend to give free course
to some of my inclinations. At the old clothes
dealer's down the street there is a nankeen suit
and a hunting-horn which have stared me in the
face this long time, and I mean to make them
mine."
"But," demanded Marcel and Rodolphe, "from
what source do you draw this huge capital?”
"Listen, gentlemen," said Schaunard, assuming
an air of great solemnity and seating himself
between his two friends, "we cannot conceal from
ourselves that before becoming members of the
Institute and taxpayers we have not a little rye-
bread to eat, and daily bread is hard to knead.
Besides, we are not alone now. Seeing that Heaven
has given us sensibilities, each one of us has selected
a partner, with whom he shares his lot—”
"Adorned with a herring," interrupted Marcel.
"Now," continued Schaunard, "while living with
the strictest economy, when one possesses nothing,
it is difficult to put by, especially if one has an
appetite bigger than one's plate."
246
The Toilette of the Graces
"What are you driving at?" demanded Rodolphe.
"At this," continued Schaunard, "that taking
actual facts into consideration, we should all be
wrong to give ourselves airs when-even outside
the limits of our art-the opportunity presents itself
of putting a figure before the zero which at present
is the basis of our social position."
"Very well," said Marcel. "And which of us
can you accuse of giving himself airs? Great
painter as I shall one day be, have I not consented
to devote my brush to a pictorial reproduction of
French warriors who pay me with their pocket-
money? It appears to me that I am not afraid of
descending the ladder of my future greatness."
"And I," said Rodolphe, "are you aware that
for the last fortnight I have been composing a
didactic poem, medico-surgical-dental, for a cele-
brated dentist, who subsidises my inspiration at the
rate of fifteen sous the dozen Alexandrines, a little
higher price than oysters fetch? Yet I do not
blush at it. Sooner than see my muse idle I
would make her put the whole Paris Directory
into metrical form. When one has a lyre-devil
take it is it not for use? And Mimi is always
wanting new boots."
"Then," said Schaunard, "you will enter into
the spirit of my following the source whence the
Pactolus issues, whose influx I am expecting."
This is the history of Schaunard's two hundred
francs. About a fortnight earlier he had gone into
a music publisher's who had promised to find for
him among his customers music and harmony
lessons.
247
The Latin Quarter
"Well, really now," said the publisher as he
had entered, "you come just in the nick of time!
Someone has been here to-day asking me for a
pianist. He is an Englishman. I think he would
pay well.
Are you really expert?"
Schaunard thought that modesty would do him
harm in the publisher's estimation. For a musician,
and above all a pianist, to be modest is such a
great rarity. Schaunard therefore replied, with any
amount of confidence-
"Am I first-class? If only I had now a delicate
lung, long hair and a black coat, I should be as
celebrated as the sun, and instead of asking me
eight hundred francs as my share for printing 'The
Death of the Young Girl,' you would offer me three
thousand on a silver salver. It is certain enough,"
continued the artist, "that my ten fingers having had
ten years of hard labour on the five octaves, I can
manipulate the sharps and flats very thoroughly."
The person to whom Schaunard was directed to
apply was an Englishman named Mr. Birn. The
musician, when he called, was first received by
a blue man-servant, who passed him on to a green
one, who again handed him on to one in black.
This individual ushered him into a drawing-room,
where he found himself in the presence of a
Britisher who was striking a splenetic attitude
suggestive of Hamlet meditating on the littleness
of humanity. Schaunard was about to explain the
occasion of his coming when a storm of piercing
shrieks was heard, and drowned his utterance.
This frightful noise, which almost broke the drum
of his ears, was perpetrated by a paroquet who
248
The Toilette of the Graces
was chained to a perch on the balcony of the floor
beneath.
"Oh, the beast! the beast! the beast!" growled
the Englishman, starting up in his armchair. "It
will be the death of me."
At the same moment the bird commenced to de-
liver its répertoire, which was extraordinarily long,
and Schaunard stood astounded when he heard the
creature, encouraged by a feminine voice, begin
to declaim the opening verses of the speech of
Théramène with the intonation of the Conserva-
toire.
This paroquet was the pet of a famous actress,
and lived in her boudoir. She was one of the
women who-one knows not why or wherefore—
are priced at an absurd figure in the lists of
gallantry, and whose names are inscribed on the
menus of wealthy supper-givers, where they are
served up as living dessert.
In these days it is a mark of distinction for a
Christian to be seen with one of these pagan
women, who have nothing of the antique about
them but the day of their birth. When they are
handsome, it is perhaps no great matter; the most
one risks is the chance of having to sleep on straw
for putting them to sleep on rosewood. But when
their beauty is bought by the ounce at the perfumer's,
and three drops of water on a handkerchief can
destroy it when their wit is enshrined in Vaudeville
couplets, and their talent is held in a claqueur's hand,
one finds it difficult to comprehend how persons of
distinction having something of a name, common
sense, and any knowledge of the world, can allow
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The Latin Quarter
themselves to yield to such banality as exalting and
humouring the caprices of creatures of whom valets
would not make sweethearts.
The actress in question was one of these beauties
of the moment. She was called Dolores, and said
she was a Spaniard, though she was born in the
Parisian Andalusia known as the Rue Coquenard.
Although it was not ten minutes' walk from the Rue
Coquenard to the Rue de Provence, she had not
taken it for eight years. Her prosperity had
begun at the same time as her personal falling
off. Thus on the day of her first false tooth she
had a horse, and two horses when a second tooth
was in requisition. In fact, she lived in great
style. Her apartments were palatial. She figured
at Longchamps and gave balls at which all Paris
was present-the Paris of these ladies. That is to
say, the band of idle courtesans, of all that was
scandalous and frivolous; the players of lansquenet
and of absurdities; the do-nothings with brain or
hand, killers of their own time and of that of others;
scribblers who pose as men of letters, airing the
feathers nature has clothed them in; the bravos
of debauch, shady gentlemen, titled individuals of
mysterious orders, all the habitués of Bohemia, come
whence no one knows and returning thither; all the
noted and unnoted, all the daughters of Eve who
once sold the maternal fruit in baskets, and who
now sell it in boudoirs; all the corrupt race from the
swaddling clothes to the winding-sheet, which is to
be seen at first nights with Golconda on its forehead
and Thibet on its shoulders, and for whom the first
spring violets bloom and the first loves of youth.
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The Toilette of the Graces
All the world that the papers call Paris frequented
the house of Mlle. Dolores, the mistress of the
paroquet in question.
This bird, whose oratorical gifts had rendered it
celebrated far and near, had become the terror of
the nearer neighbours. From its perch in the
balcony it kept up its interminable chatter from
morning till night. Some journalists of his mis-
tress's acquaintance had taught him certain parlia-
mentary forms of expression. The creature waxed
extremely eloquent on the question of sugar. He
knew by heart the actress's répertoire and declaimed
it in such a manner that he might have been her
understudy in the event of her indisposition. More-
over, as she was polyglot in sentiment, and received
visits from every corner of the world, the paroquet
spoke all languages and indulged in idiomatic blas-
phemies which would have brought blushes to the
very cheeks of the sailors who had conducted the
education of Vert-vert to such a point of complete-
ness. The society of this bird, who could be instruc-
tive and agreeable for the space of some ten minutes,
became a veritable purgatory when it was pro-
longed.
The neighbours had frequently complained, but
the actress had insolently ignored or put their com-
plaints to silence. Two or three householders,
worthy fathers of families, indignant and scandalised
at the reference to loose living indulged in by the
paroquet, had given notice to quit. But the actress
knew the landlord's weak point.
The Englishman upon whom Schaunard was
calling had been patient for three months. One
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The Latin Quarter
day, concealing his wrath, which was now at burst-
ing point, under a magnificent uniform which he had
worn when presented to Queen Victoria at a levée
at Windsor, he made a call on Mlle. Dolores.
On seeing him enter she thought at first that it
was Hoffmann in his costume of Lord Spleen, and
wishing to be civil to one of the profession, she
invited him to remain to breakfast. The English-
man gravely replied in the "French tongue in
twenty-five lessons," in which a Spanish refugee had
instructed him.
"I will accept your invitation on condition that
we eat this bird-disagreeable," and he pointed to
the cage of the paroquet, who having already scented
out a foreigner from the British Isles, saluted him
by screaming out, "God save the Queen!"
Dolores thought that her neighbour had come to
insult her, and was disposed to be angry, when he
added-
"As I am very rich, I can put a price on the
beast?"
Dolores replied that she would stick to her bird,
and had no intention of allowing it to pass into
other hands.
"Oh, I don't want it to pass into my hands,"
replied the Englishman, "I want it under my
feet," and he displayed the heel of his boot.
Dolores trembled with indignation, and was about
to give vent to it, when she perceived on the
visitor's finger a ring set with a diamond worth
perhaps a couple of thousand francs or more. The
discovery acted like a douche of cold water on the
flames of her anger. She reflected that it might be
252
The Toilette of the Graces
imprudent to be annoyed with a man who had such
an amount on his little finger.
"Well, monsieur," she said, "since poor Coco is
troublesome to you, I will put him elsewhere, in
some place where you cannot hear him."
The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction.
"I should, however," he added, again showing his
boot, "have much preferred-
39
"Do not be afraid," said Dolores, "in the place
where I shall put him, it will be impossible for him
to annoy milord-
99
“Oh, I am not a milord. I am simply esquire."
But just at the very moment that Mr. Birn was
about to retire, after saluting the lady with a
very modest bow, Dolores, who never neglected her
own interests, took a little packet from a side-table,
and said to the Englishman-
"Monsieur, they are giving to-night at the theatre
a performance for my benefit, and I am going to
play in three pieces. Will you allow me to offer
you some box-tickets? The price of places has been
only a little raised," and she put ten tickets into her
visitor's hands.
"After my showing myself so ready to be agree-
able to him," thought she, "if he has been decently
brought up it will be impossible for him to refuse
me, and if he sees me play in my rose pink costume,
who knows? Between neighbours! The diamond he
has on his finger may be the vanguard of a million.
Gracious! He is very ugly, he is very gloomy, but it
may afford me the opportunity of going to London
without being sea-sick."
The Englishman, after taking the tickets, made
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The Latin Quarter
her explain their use to him once more. Then he
asked the price of them.
"The boxes are sixty francs. There are ten.
But there is no need to pay now," added Dolores,
seeing the Englishman feeling for his purse. "I
hope that as my neighbour you will sometimes give
me the pleasure of a little visit from you."
"I don't like putting off things," said Mr. Birn,
who had now taken out a note of a thousand francs,
which he laid on the table, slipping the theatre
tickets into his pocket.
"I will give you the change," said Dolores, open-
ing a little bureau in which she kept money.
"Oh, no," said the Englishman, that will do for
a pourboire," and he went out leaving Dolores con-
founded by the observation.
"Pourboire!" she cried, when she found herself
alone. "What a boor! I will send him back his
money."
But her neighbour's gross vulgarity had only irri-
tated the epidermis of her vanity. She grew calmer
under the reflection that a surplus of twenty louis
made, after all, a nice little sum, for she had in her
time put up with a good many cheap impertinences.
"Ah, bah!" she said, one mustn't be so proud.
No one saw, and it is washing-bill day. And,
besides, this Englishman makes such a hash of
French that it is quite likely, after all, it was some
compliment he intended making me"; and Dolores
pocketed her louis with a light heart.
But at night after the play she returned home
furious. Mr. Birn had not used the tickets and the
ten seats had remained vacant. Moreover, on going
254
The Toilette of the Graces
on the stage, the unfortunate bénéficiaire read the
delight in the faces of her "friends" of the green-
room at seeing the auditorium so poorly occupied.
She even heard one of them remark to another as
she pointed to the empty places-
"Poor Dolores! There's hardly anyone in the
place. The orchestra stalls are empty. Her
name on the posters has frightened everybody
away!"
"What an idea to raise the price of the seats!"
"A fine benefit! What do you bet the receipts
won't fill a child's money-box or the bottom of a
stocking?"
"Ah! there is her famous crimson velvet costume."
"She looks like a bundle of lobsters!"
"What did you make by your last benefit?" asked
one of the actresses of her companion.
"Heaps, my dear! The stalls went at a louis,
but I did not touch more than six francs. My dress-
maker took the rest. If I was not afraid of being
frozen, I should go to St. Petersburg."
"What! not thirty years old yet, and you want
to conquer your Russia?"
"Well, what then?" said the other, adding, "And
you, when is your
benefit?"
"In a fortnight. I have already sold a thousand
crowns' worth of tickets, without counting my Saint
Cyriens."
"Look, all the orchestra is going out!"
"Yes, Dolores is going to sing."
And Dolores, red as her raiment, commenced her
couplets in vinegar-sour tones. As she finished
two bouquets fell at her feet, thrown by her two
255
The Latin Quarter
actress friends, who came to the front of their
private boxes, crying—
"Bravo, Dolores!"
Her fury may be imagined, and though it was the
middle of the night when she returned home, she
opened the window and wakened Coco, who wakened
the worthy Mr. Birn slumbering in the security of
her given promise. From that day forth war was
declared between the actress and the Englishman,
war to the knife and unceasing, in which the adver-
saries were remorseless. It improved the paroquet's
education: he grew thoroughly well grounded in the
tongue of Albion and screeched insults at his neigh-
bour in his most piercing falsetto. It became in-
tolerable. Dolores herself suffered, but she hoped
that one day or other Mr. Birn would give notice to
quit. It was thus she looked for her revenge.
The
Englishman, on his side, invented all sorts of ways
to avenge himself. He first of all instituted a school
for drum practice, but the police interfered in this.
Mr. Birn's ingenuity next arranged pistol-shot
practice, and his servants grew very expert at it;
but again the police objected, placing before him the
article of municipal law which forbade the use of
firearms in private houses. Mr. Birn gave up firing,
but a few days later Mlle. Dolores found that rain
came into her room. The landlord called upon
Mr. Birn, whom he found just going to take a sea
bath in his drawing-room. This arrangement, which
was on a very extensive scale, had been fixed to
the walls with metal plates, all the doors had been
nailed up, and into this improvised basin fifty
hundredweight of salt had been mixed in two
256
The Toilette of the Graces
hundred buckets of water. It was a veritable little
ocean. Nothing was wanting, not even the fish.
It was entered by an opening made in the upper
panel of the middle door, and Mr. Birn bathed in
his bath every day. Before long the whole neigh-
bourhood smelt the seaside, and Mlle. Dolores had
an inch of water in her bedroom. The landlord was
furious, and threatened to bring an action for
damages to his fixtures.
"Haven't I the right," demanded the Englishman,
"to bathe in my own apartments?"
"No, monsieur."
"If I have not the right, very well," said the
Englishman, full of respect for the law of the land
in which he lived. "It is a pity, for it amused me
very much." And he at once gave orders for the
pouring away of his ocean. It was only just in
time, for a dozen oysters had been spawned on the
floor.
Mr. Birn, however, did not give up the battle, and
set to work to find a legal mode of conducting the
curious warfare, which made a delightful theme of
gossip for all idle Paris, for the incident had been
noised abroad in the theatre promenades and other
public places. Furthermore, Dolores held it a point
of honour to come out of the struggle triumphant,
since bets were made thereon.
It was at this juncture that Mr. Birn thought of
the piano, and it was not a bad suggestion to set the
most discordant of instruments to struggle with the
most discordant of birds. When, therefore, the ex-
cellent idea occurred to him he hurried to put it into
execution. He hired a piano and went in search of
$
257
The Latin Quarter
a pianist, and the one supplied to him was our friend
Schaunard. The Englishman recounted to him the
miseries he had suffered from the paroquet and all
he had done to try and bring the actress to terms.
"But, milord," said Schaunard, "there is a
means of your getting rid of this beast. It is
parsley. All chemists are unanimous in declaring
that this pot-herb is prussic acid to animals. Chop
some parsley, sprinkle it on your tapestry, and let
it drop out of the window on Coco's cage. He will
expire precisely in the same manner as if he had
been invited to dine with Pope Alexander VI."
"I have thought of that," said the Englishman,
"but the beast is so carefully looked after. The
piano is more certain."
Schaunard stared at Mr. Birn, not at first com-
prehending.
"This is what I have planned," went on the
Englishman. "The actress and her beast both
sleep till midday. You follow my idea-I am going
to trouble their sleep. The law of this country
permits me to make music from morning till night.
Do you see what I want of you?"
"But," said Schaunard, "the lady won't find it
disagreeable. She will listen with delight to my
music all day, and encore it. I have immense
power over the instrument, and if only I had a
delicate lung-—"
"Oh," interrupted the Englishman, "I don't ask
you to play good music. All you've got to do is to
thump the keys hard. Like that," added Mr. Birn,
running a scale, "and always, always the same thing,
without mercy, monsieur-without mercy, and always
258
The Toilette of the Graces
the same.
I know something of medicine, and that
sort of thing maddens. They will grow mad under-
neath, and it is upon this that I count. Now, mon-
sieur, set to work at once, and I will pay you well."
"And that," said Schaunard, when he related
these proceedings, "that is what I have been about
for the last fortnight-one scale, nothing but the
one scale from five o'clock in the morning till the
evening. It is not, of course, precisely serious art,
but what of that, my children? The Englishman
pays two hundred francs a month for this row. It
would have been suicidal to refuse such a stroke
of good luck. I accepted the offer, and in two or
three days I shall receive the first month's payment.”
It was at the conclusion of these mutual confi-
dences that the three friends agreed among them-
selves to take advantage of the influx to the
common funds to give their sweethearts the splendid
equipment which each of them had so long sighed
for. It was agreed, over and above, that whichever
of them should get his money first should wait for
the others to receive theirs, so that the purchases
should be made all at the same time, and that
Mlles. Mimi, Musette and Phémie might enjoy to-
gether and simultaneously the delights of having
a new skin, as Schaunard called it.
Now two or three days after this private con-
ference Rodolphe received the price of his dentistry
poem; it amounted to eighty francs. On the follow-
ing day Marcel pocketed the honorarium Médecis paid
him for ten of the portraits of the grenadiers at six
francs each. Marcel and Rodolphe had no little
trouble to hide the fact of their access of wealth.
259
The Latin Quarter
"I must smell of gold, I do think," said the poet.
"Like me," said Marcel. "If Schaunard doesn't
make haste it will be impossible for me to continue
playing the Croesus under the rose." But the next
day the Bohemians beheld Schaunard coming to-
wards them splendidly attired in a suit of gold-
coloured nankeen.
"Oh, good gracious me!" cried Phémie, dazzled
at the sight of her lover in such elegant habiliments,
"where did you get that coat?"
"I found it among my papers," replied the
musician, making a sign to his two friends to follow
him. "I have received it," he said, when they found
themselves alone. "Here are the piles," and he let
the golden torrent pour through his fingers.
"Very good," said Marcel. "Let us get under
way then, and begin to sack the shops. How
happy Musette will be!"
"And Mimi will be overjoyed," cried Rodolphe.
"Come along, be quick, Schaunard!
Aren't you
coming?"
And
"Give me an instant to reflect," replied the
musician. "In decking these ladies with these
worldly vanities perhaps we are committing great
folly. Only think, when they resemble the illustra-
tions of the Iris, are you not afraid that it may
exercise a baneful effect on their characters?
is it becoming for young men like us to treat
women as if we were wrinkled old millionaires? It
isn't that I would hesitate to sacrifice fourteen or
eighteen francs or so on Phémie for dress; but I
tremble lest when she has a new hat she will not
take notice of me. A simple flower in her hair, and
260
The Toilette of the Graces
she looks charming. What do you think, philo-
sopher?" added Schaunard, appealing to Colline,
who had meantime entered.
"Ingratitude is the child of kind actions," said
the philosopher.
"Moreover," continued Schaunard, "when one's
sweetheart is well dressed, what sort of a figure do
you cut in your shabby suits? You look like a sort
of lady's-maid to them. I am not speaking for my-
self," added Schaunard, squaring himself majestic-
ally in his nankeen suit, "for, thank Heaven, I am
presentable anywhere now."
But in spite of Schaunard's opposition it was
finally settled to make a raid upon the milliners
and drapers of the neighbourhood for the benefit
of the three ladies.
And on this morning it was that, as has been
related at the beginning of this chapter, Mlle.
Mimi awoke to find to her astonishment that
Rodolphe was not in the room. The poet and his
two friends were, in fact, just then ascending the
staircase, followed by a tall young man and a
modiste from "The Two Monkeys," bringing pat-
terns and materials, Schaunard, who had bought
the famous trumpet, marching in front playing the
overture to the Caravane.
Musette and Phémie, informed by Mimi, who
lived on the ground floor, that hats and gowns and
all sorts of things were being brought, rushed down-
stairs with the speed of an avalanche. At the sight
of all the finery spreading out before them the three
women nearly went crazy with joy. Mimi, seized
with a fit of hilarity, skipped about like a kid,
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The Latin Quarter
flourishing a small barège scarf over her shoulders.
Musette flung her arms round Marcel's neck, holding
in each hand a little green kid boot, which she beat
together like cymbals. Phémie gazed tearfully at
Schaunard-she could say nothing but "Oh! my
Alexander! my Alexander!"
"There is no fear that they will refuse the gifts
of Artaxerxes," murmured Colline the philosopher.
When the first paroxysm of delight had subsided,
when the goods were selected and the bills paid,
Rodolphe announced to the three ladies that they
would have to arrange for airing their new toilettes
in public the next morning.
"We are going into the country," he said.
"Oh, joy! joy!" cried Mimi. "It is not the first
time that I have bought, cut out, made and worn a
gown all in one day. And we have all night before
us. We shall be ready, shan't we, girls?"
"We shall be ready," cried Musette and Phémie
in a breath.
They fell to work instantly, and for sixteen hours
scissors and needles and thread knew no rest. The
next morning was the first of May. The Easter-
tide bells had for some days past been sounding
the resurrection of spring, and it had come brilliantly
and gaily. It had come-as the old German ballad
has it as lightly as the young girl who hastens
to plant May flowers beneath her lover's window.
It tinted the skies blue, the trees green and all nature
in fair colours. It roused up the lazy sun lost in its
bed of mists, bending over the snowy clouds which
made its pillow, and cried, "Come! waken, my
friend, waken! It is time. Waken! set forth to
262
The Toilette of the Graces
work. Put on your beautiful raiment made of fresh
golden rays without more ado, and show yourself in
your balcony to tell the world I have come!"
Whereupon the sun rose and began his course,
moving proudly and majestically as a courtier; the
swallows, come back from their eastern pilgrimage,
shadowed the air with their flight, the hawthorn
whitened the hedges, violets scented the woodland
herbage beneath the trees whence the birds flew
joyously from their nests with romance in their
little breasts. It was spring, the real, true spring
of poets and lovers, and not Matthew Laensburg's
spring a villainous spring with a red nose, with
sharp finger-nails, who freezes up the poor by their
hearthstones when the last embers of their last
handful of faggots have long died to pale ashes.
Warm breezes floated through the translucent
air, bearing the first fragrance of the country to
the crowded cities. The clear, warm sunbeams
streamed upon the window-panes. They said to
the sick folk, "Open; we bring health"; and they
poured into the chamber of the maiden looking in
her mirror-that innocent and earliest love of in-
nocent youth-"Open, sweet, that we may shine
upon your beauty; we are the messengers of fair
weather. You can don your light gown, your straw
hat, and your little smart shoes. The woods and
fields, carpeted with flowers, wait for your light
tread, and the music is tuning for the dance. Good
morning to you, fair one!"
As the Angelus sounded from the steeple of the
neighbouring church the three industrious coquettes,
who had hardly found time for any sleep, were
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The Latin Quarter
already at their mirrors bestowing final touches on
their new toilettes.
All three of them were charming, dressed alike,
and in their faces was the same expression of the
satisfaction which is born of the realisation of long-
cherished wishes. Musette's beauty was specially
striking.
"I have never been so happy before," she said to
Marcel. "It seems to me as if heaven had put all
the happiness of my life into this moment, and I am
afraid of there being none left. Ah, rubbish!—when
there is no more of it, more must be made. We
have the recipe for making it," she added gaily,
throwing her arms round Marcel's neck.
As to Phémie, one thing disturbed her.
"I like green grass and little birds very much,"
she said, "but one never meets anybody in the
country, and no one will see my pretty hat and my
lovely gown. Couldn't we go into the country in
the streets?"
At eight o'clock the whole place was startled by
the blare of Schaunard's hunting-horn giving the
signal of departure. Everybody ran to the window
to see the Bohemians go by. Colline, who was of
the party, closed in the procession, carrying the
girls' parasols. An hour later all the merry band
were rambling in the fields of Fontenay aux Roses.
They returned home very late. Colline, who had
undertaken the duties of treasurer, explained that
they had forgotten to spend six francs, and placed
these relics upon the table.
"What shall we do with them?" said Marcel.
"Shall we buy consols?" said Schaunard.
254
XVIII
FRANCINE'S MUFF
MONG the real Bohemians of real Bohemia I
AMONG
once knew a man named Jacques D. He
was a sculptor, and gave promise of splendid talent;
but poverty and misery did not give him time to
bring the promise to fruition. He died of decline,
in the March of 1844, at the Hospital of St. Louis,
Ward Sainte Victoire, Bed 14.
I had known Jacques at the hospital, where I was
myself laid up by a long illness. Jacques had in
him, as I have said, the material for great things,
but he did not believe in it much himself. During
the two months I knew him, and through the time
when he felt Death's hand was upon him, I never
once heard him complain or indulge in the lamenta-
tions which make the incompris so ridiculous. He
died without any affectations, terrible to look at in
the convulsions of dissolution. His death brings
back to my memory, moreover, one of the most
atrocious scenes I have ever witnessed in this
caravanserai of human suffering. His father, being
informed of the event, came to claim the body, and
for a long time haggled over paying the thirty-six
francs claimed by the administrative regulations.
He haggled also for the last offices performed by
the Church, and so insistently that they finished by
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The Latin Quarter
giving him back six francs. When the time came
for placing the corpse in the coffin, the attendant,
removing the hospital wrapper, asked one of the
dead man's friends who happened to be present for
money to pay for a shroud for him. The poor devil,
who had not a sou of his own, went to Jacques'
father, who fell into a violent rage, and asked when
they would cease bothering him.
The probationer who assisted in this wretched
business cast a glance at the corpse, and this tender
and simple observation escaped her-
"Oh, monsieur! he cannot be buried like that,
poor fellow! It is so cold. At least give him a
shirt, so that he does not go into the good God's
presence naked!"
The father gave five francs for the shirt, but he
recommended them to go to a second-hand dealer's
in the Rue Grange aux Belles. "It will be cheaper,"
he said.
This cruelty of Jacques' father was explained to
me later. He was furious at his son having em-
braced an artist's career, and his anger was not
appeased even in the presence of death.
But I am a long way from Mlle. Francine and her
muff. I must return. Mlle. Francine had been
Jacques' first and only sweetheart, though he did
not die old, for he was scarcely twenty-three when
his father would have let him be laid naked in the
ground. This love affair of his Jacques himself
related to me when he was Number 14 and I was
Number 16 in the Sainte Victoire Ward―a vile place
to die in.
Ah, reader! before beginning this tale, which
266
Francine's Muff
would be beautiful if I could tell it as it was told
to me by my friend Jacques, let me take a smoke in
the old clay pipe which he gave me the day the
doctor told him he must not smoke any more.
Nevertheless, in the middle of the night, when the
attendant was asleep, my friend Jacques borrowed
his pipe, and asked me for a little tobacco. One
grows very weary at night in these great wards,
when one cannot sleep and one is in pain.
"Only two or three puffs," pleaded he, and I let
him have them; and Sister Geneviève made a pre-
tence of not smelling the smoke when she made her
round. Ah, good sister! Good indeed you were,
and how fair, too, you looked as you passed by
sprinkling the holy water! Slowly, softly, you
came on through the shadowy arches in your
white veil, whose folds made such beautiful lines,
so admired by our friend Jacques. Ah, good sister,
you were the Beatrice of this hell upon earth! Your
consoling words were so sweet that it was worth
while complaining to be consoled by you. Had not
my friend Jacques died one day when the snow was
falling, he would have carved you a sweet little
Virgin to put in your cell. Good Sister Geneviève!
A Reader: "Well, and the muff? I can't see
where the muff comes in."
Another Reader: "And Mademoiselle Francine.
Where is she?
First Reader: "This tale is not very cheerful.”
Second Reader: "Let's get to the end of it."
I profoundly beg your pardon, gentlemen. It is
my friend Jacques' pipe which drew me into these
digressions. Besides, I did not undertake only to
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make you laugh. Bohemia is not always merry.
Jacques and Francine first met each other in a
lodging-house of the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne,
where each had come to live at the beginning of
one April.
The artist and the young girl were quite a week
before striking up the usual sort of acquaintance
which is almost forced upon dwellers on the same
floor. Before, however, having exchanged a single
word they seemed to know each other. Francine
knew that her neighbour was a poor devil of an
artist, and Jacques knew that his neighbour was a
little dressmaker run away from her own family to
escape the bad treatment of a stepmother. She
performed miracles of economy to make both ends
meet, and as pleasure was an unknown quantity to
her she had no desire for it. This is how they came
to obey the common law of their mode of life. One
April evening Jacques returned to his lodging worn
out with fatigue. He had fasted since morning,
and felt profoundly downcast and sad, with one of
those vague depressions which, having no precise
cause, seize upon one anywhere and at any moment
-a sort of apoplexy of the heart to which the
unfortunate who live alone are specially subject.
Jacques, who felt his little room stifling, opened the
window for a breath of fresh air. It was a lovely
evening, and the setting sun was casting his melan-
choly magic of colour on the heights of Montmartre.
Jacques remained pensively at his window listening
to the winged choir of cheery song that broke the
evening calm, and it increased his feeling of melan-
choly. As a raven passed with a croak across the
14
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Francine's Muff
window he thought of the time when ravens brought
bread to Elijah, the pious hermit, and he came to
the conclusion that ravens were no longer so
charitable. Hardly able to bear himself any longer,
he closed the window, drew the curtains, and
not having any money to buy oil for his lamp,
he lighted a resin candle which he had brought
from the Grand Chartreuse when he had visited it.
Dropping deeper and deeper into his sad mood he
got his pipe. "Lucky I have enough tobacco to
hide the pistol," he muttered to himself as he began
to smoke.
He must have been inordinately melancholy that
evening to think of hiding the pistol. It was his
resource at great crises, and was generally suc-
cessful. This was how he did it: Jacques smoked
tobacco on which he had sprinkled a few drops of
laudanum, and he smoked until the cloud of smoke
issuing from his pipe had grown thick enough to
hide all the objects in his little room, especially a
pistol that was hanging on the wall. It was a
matter of a dozen pipes. When the pistol was
quite invisible it almost always happened that the
smoke and laudanum combined sent Jacques to
sleep, and generally on the threshold of his dreams
Jacques' melancholy left him.
But that evening, after using all his tobacco and
the pistol was entirely hidden, Jacques still remained
wretched. That same evening Mlle. Francine, on
the contrary, was in an extremely gay mood as she
mounted to her room, and her gaiety, like Jacques'
melancholy, had no cause. It was simply one of
those happy times with her which fell from heaven,
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sent by God into honest hearts. Mlle. Francine
then was in a merry mood, and sang cheerily as she
ascended the staircase; but as she opened her door
a sudden gust of wind blowing in at the window of
the landing extinguished her candle.
"How provoking!" exclaimed the young girl.
"That means going all the way back, down six
flights and up again!"
But then perceiving a light across the doorway of
Jacques' room, laziness, mingling with a feeling of
curiosity, suggested that she should go and ask the
artist for a light. It is a service, thought she, that
neighbours constantly render each other, and there
was nothing compromising in it. She therefore
tapped two soft little taps on Jacques' door, and he
opened it, a trifle surprised at such a late visit; but
she had scarcely stepped inside the room than the
tobacco smoke took away her breath, and before
she could utter a word she fell senseless into a chair,
and the candlestick and her key slipped to the floor.
It was midnight; everyone in the house was asleep.
Jacques did not deem it wise to call for assistance;
he feared to compromise his neighbour.
He con-
tented himself with opening his window and letting
the fresh air blow in, and after he had sprinkled a
few drops of water on the young girl's face she
opened her eyes and gradually came to herself.
When, five minutes later, she had entirely recovered
consciousness Francine explained what had led her
to the artist's door, and made many apologies for
what had happened.
"Now I am all right again," she said. "I will
go back to my room."
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Francine's Muff
And she had already opened the door of Jacques'
room when she perceived that not only had she still
omitted to light her candle, but that also she had
not her key.
"How stupid I am!" she said, putting her candle
to the resin candle. "I came here for a light, and
I am going away without it!"
But at that moment the current of air set up in
the room by the opening of the window suddenly
extinguished the waxlight, and left the two young
people in darkness.
"One would think it had been done on purpose,"
said Francine. "Forgive me, monsieur, all the
trouble I have occasioned you, and be kind enough
to strike a light, so that I can look for my key."
"Certainly, mademoiselle," replied Jacques, grop-
ing for matches.
He would soon have found them, but a curious
notion struck him, and he put the matches back in
his pocket, exclaiming-
"Good heavens, mademoiselle ! Now comes
another difficulty. I haven't a single match left!
I used the last when I came in."
"I hope that is a neatly made taradiddle,"
thought he.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried Francine; "I could
easily find my way without a light. My room is not
so big that I need lose myself in it; but I must
have my key, monsieur. I beg you to help me
look for it, monsieur. It must be on the floor."
"Let us try," said Jacques.
And down they went on their knees in search of
the lost key; but both being guided by the same
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instinct, it happened that during the search their
hands, groping in the same direction, kept coming
in contact, and as they were both very awkward at
it, they did not find the key.
"The moon, which is so clouded over now, always
shines full into my room," said Jacques.
"Let us
wait a little while.
the clouds."
Presently it will break through
And while they waited for the rising of the moon
they began to chat. A chat in the midst of the
darkness, in a narrow chamber, on a night in
spring; a chat which, at first frivolous and trifling,
reached the chapter of confidences-you know the
road that takes. Words become gradually con-
fused, full of hesitations, voices get lower, the
words alternate with sighs, hands meet and com-
plete the thought which mounts from the heart
to the lips. Find the end of it in your memory,
O young people. Recall, youth, recall, young
maiden-you who now to-day walk hand in hand
and three days ago did not know each other.
At last the moon unveiled herself, and her bril-
liancy flooded the little chamber. Mlle. Francine
started from her reverie, uttering a little cry.
"What is the matter?" asked Jacques, taking
her in his arms.
"Nothing," murmured Francine; "I thought I
heard someone knock." And without Jacques ob-
serving she pushed the key, which she had just
caught sight of, under a chair with her foot. She
did not want to find it.
First Reader: "I certainly shall not let my
daughter read this story."
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Francine's Muff
Second Reader: "So far I haven't seen a single
hair of Mademoiselle Francine's muff, and as for
the girl herself, I don't even know what she is like,
whether she is dark or fair."
Patience, O my readers, patience! I have pro-
mised you a muff, and I will give it you in course of
time, as my friend Jacques gave it to his poor friend
Francine, who became his sweetheart, as I have
indicated above. She was fair, this Francine-fair,
and of a lively disposition, which is not ordinarily
the case.
She had known nothing of love till she
was twenty, but a vague presentiment of early death
warned her not to delay longer if she desired to
know it.
She saw Jacques, and she loved him. Their
union lasted six months. It was begun in spring-
time; they parted in autumn. Francine was con-
sumptive. She knew it, and her friend Jacques
knew it also. A fortnight after they began life
together he learned it from one of his friends who
was a doctor. "She will go with the coming of the
yellow leaves," the doctor said. Francine had over-
heard the words, and saw the despair which it
caused her Jacques.
"What matter the yellow leaves?" she said, all
her love shining in her smile. "What does it
matter about autumn? It is summer now, and the
leaves are green. Let us enjoy it, my friend.
When you see me about to part from life you must
take me in your arms and hold me tight, and forbid
me to go. You know I am obedient, and I shall
remain."
And this exquisite being passed for the next five
T
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months through all the miseries of Bohemian exist-
ence, a song and a smile on her lips.
Jacques tried to deceive himself. His friends
often said to him, "Francine is worse; she needs
care." Then Jacques beat up all Paris to try and
find remedies, but Francine would not hear of them,
and threw the drugs and medicines out of the
window. At night, when the coughing fits seized
her, she would go out of the room and have her fit
out on the landing, that Jacques might not hear.
One day, when they had gone together into the
country, Jacques saw a tree whose leaves were
beginning to fade. He gazed sadly at Francine,
who was walking slowly and dreamily.
Francine saw Jacques grow pale, and she guessed
the cause.
"How silly you are!" she said, embracing him;
"this is only July. There are three months to come
before October. With such love as ours-unchang-
ing, never ceasing-time is double; and besides, if
I feel worse when the leaves begin to fade, we will
go and live together in a pine forest. There the
leaves are always green."
*
*
The
When October came Francine could no longer
leave her bed. Jacques' friend attended her.
little chamber they lodged in was very high up, and
looked into a courtyard where there was a tree,
which every day grew more bare of its leaves.
Jacques fixed a curtain before the window to hide
the tree from the sick girl, but Francine made him
draw it back.
"Oh, my love," she said to Jacques, "I will give
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Francine's Muff
you a hundred times more kisses than it has leaves ";
and then she added, "Besides, I am much better.
I mean to go out soon, but as it will be cold and I
don't want to have red hands, you must buy me a
muff."
All the time she was ill this muff was her dream.
On All Saints' Eve, seeing Jacques more miser-
able even than usual, she wanted to cheer him, and
to prove that she was better she got up. Just at
that moment the doctor came in. He forced her to
return to her bed.
"Jacques," he said in a low voice to the artist,
"courage, man! All is over.
She is dying."
Jacques burst into tears.
"You can give her anything she asks for now,"
added the doctor. "There is no hope!"
Francine guessed from his eyes what the doctor
had said to Jacques.
"Don't listen to him!" she cried, stretching out
her arms towards her lover. "Don't listen to him;
he is telling lies. We will go out together to-
morrow. It is All Saints' Day. It will be cold.
Go and buy me the muff, please; I am afraid of
chilblains this winter."
The doctor was going to follow his friend from
the room, but Francine detained him.
"Go now at once and buy my muff," she said to
Jacques. "Get a good one, so that it will last a
long time."
And when they were alone she said to the doctor-
"Oh, monsieur! I am going to die, and I know
it. But before I go let me have something that
will give me strength to live through one more
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night. I entreat you; make me beautiful for one
night more, and after that I will die, since God will
not let me live any longer."
While the doctor was doing his best to console
her the chill north-east wind swept round the little
draughty room and tossed a faded leaf of the tree
in the courtyard on to her bed. Francine drew
aside the curtain, and saw that the tree was com-
pletely bare.
"It is the last," she murmured, putting the leaf
under her pillow.
"You will not die till to-morrow," said the doctor.
"You have one more night."
"Ah! what happiness!" said the young girl.
"One winter's night. It will be long."
Jacques came in again. He had brought the muff.
"It is a very pretty one," said Francine; "I shall
take it out when I go."
She passed the night with Jacques. The next
day, All Saints' Day, as the midday Angelus
began to ring, the agonies of death seized her, and
her whole frame trembled.
my
"Give me
"My hands are cold," murmured she.
muff." And she thrust her hands into the soft
fur.
"It is the end!" said the doctor to Jacques.
"Kiss her." Jacques sealed his lips upon hers.
At the last moment they wanted to take her muff
away, but she kept her hands tight in it.
"No, no," she said, "leave it. It is winter-
time; it is cold. Ah! my poor Jacques! Ah! my
poor Jacques! What will become of you? Ah!
my God!"
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Francine's Muff
And the next day Jacques was alone.
First Reader: "I said this wasn't going to be
a cheerful tale."
What, then, reader? One can't always be merry.
It was the morning of All Saints' Day. Francine
had just died. Two men watched by the bedside.
One, who was standing near the bed, was the
doctor; the other, kneeling beside it, was pressing
his lips on the dead hands, almost consuming them
in the anguish of his despair. It was Jacques,
Francine's sweetheart. For more than six hours
he had been stupefied with grief. A passing street
organ roused him.
The organ was playing an air that Francine often
used to sing of a morning as she was dressing. One
of those insane hopes which are only born of pro-
found despair passed Jacques' mind. His thoughts
went back into the near past, the time when Fran-
cine was only dying. He forgot the present, and
began to tell himself that the dead girl was only
sleeping, and that presently she would waken and
open her lips to sing her morning song. But the
sounds of the organ had not died away before
Jacques was facing realities once more. Francine's
lips were eternally closed for songs, and the smile
which her last thought had brought to them was
already fast beginning to fade from them in the
shadows of death.
"Be brave, Jacques," said the doctor, who was a
friend of the sculptor's.
Jacques rose, and said, as he looked at the doctor,
"It is all at an end, isn't it? There is no hope?'
Without replying to his folly, his friend closed the
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bed-curtains, and coming beside the sculptor, he
grasped his hand.
"Francine is dead," he said. "It was to be ex-
pected. God knows we have done all we could to
save her. She was a good girl, Jacques, and loved
you very dearly, more even than you loved her, and
differently, for her love was nothing but love,
while yours had alloy in it. Francine is dead,
but all is not yet at an end. There are arrange-
ments to be made for burying her. We will go
and attend to it together, and while we are away
we will ask your neighbour to watch here."
All
Jacques allowed his friend to lead him away.
day they were running about to the registrar's office,
and the undertaker's, and the cemetery. As Jacques
had no money, the doctor pawned his watch, a ring,
and some articles of wearing apparel to defray the
expenses of the funeral, which was fixed for next
day. They returned late in the evening. The
good woman his neighbour made Jacques eat
something.
"Yes," he said, "I shall be glad of it; I am cold,
and I need a little strength, for I have got to work
to-night."
The neighbour and the doctor did not understand.
Jacques sat down to the table, and began to eat
so fast that he nearly choked. Then he asked for
something to drink, but before he had placed the
glass to his lips he let it fall to the ground. The
glass, shattered by the fall, had wakened in his mind.
a memory which recalled his momentarily stifled
anguish. The day when Francine first came to live
with him she, already ailing, had felt faint, and
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Francine's Muff
Jacques had given her a little eau sucrée in that
glass. Afterwards it had been carefully kept as
a relic of love. On the rare occasions when a
little money came in Jacques had bought for
Francine one or two bottles of strengthening wine
which had been prescribed for her, and it was
always from this glass that Francine drank the
wine, which seemed to brighten and sparkle with
her gaiety.
Jacques sat for a long time gazing silently at the
scattered fragments of the fragile cherished souvenir,
and it seemed to him that his heart was breaking
and that he could feel the fragments wounding his
breast. When he recovered himself a little he picked
up the bits of glass and threw them into a drawer.
Then he asked the neighbour to fetch him a couple
of candles, and to have a pail of water put by his
door.
'Don't go away," he said to the doctor, who was
not, in fact, thinking of leaving him, "I shall want
you presently."
The water and the candles were brought, and
then the two friends were alone together.
"What are you going to do?" said the doctor,
seeing Jacques pour some of the water into a
wooden bowl and throw handfuls of plaster into it.
"What am I going to do? Can't you guess?"
said the sculptor. "I am going to take a cast of
Francine's face, and since I should not have the
courage for it if I were alone, I know you will not
leave me."
Then, approaching the bed, Jacques parted the
curtains and drew aside the sheet which covered
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the dead girl's face. His hands began to tremble,
and a half-stifled sob escaped his lips.
"Bring the light," he cried to his friend, "and
come and hold the bowl." One of the candles was
fixed at the head of the bed in a manner to cast all
its brilliancy on the face of the dead; the other was
placed at the foot. Taking a little brush dipped in
oil, the sculptor anointed the eyelashes, the eye-
brows and the hair, which he arranged in the way
Francine had been accustomed to wear it.
"In that way she will not suffer when the mask is
taken off," said Jacques to himself.
These precautions taken, and having placed the
head of the dead girl in a favourable position,
Jacques began to pour the plaster on in successive
layers until the mould had attained the required
thickness. In a quarter of an hour the operation
was ended, and was completely successful. By a
strange accident a change had come over Francine's
face. The blood, which had not as yet had time
entirely to congeal, warmed doubtless by the heat
of the plaster, had flowed back to the surface,
and a rosy flush gradually suffused the dull white-
ness of the brow and cheeks. The eyelids, which
had opened when the mask was lifted, revealed the
soft azure of her eyes, whose expression wore a
kind of vague intelligence, and from the lips, half-
opened in a dawning smile, there seemed to come
that last word-forgotten in the final adieu-which
the heart only hears.
Who can affirm that intelligence is absolutely
quenched when the insensibility of the body begins?
Who can say that the passions are extinguished, and
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Francine's Muff
die exactly at the moment of the last beat of the heart
which they have stirred? May not the soul volun-
tarily linger captive in the body already clothed for
the grave, and, from the threshold of the tomb, spend
a little while in tears and regrets? Those who go
have good reason for mistrusting those who remain.
At the moment Jacques was endeavouring to pre-
serve her features by the help of art, who knows
but that a memory of the life that was past had
come to waken Francine in the first sleep of her long
rest? Perhaps she remembered that he whom she
had left was artist as well as lover; that he was
both the one and the other, because he could not be
one without the other; that for him love was the
soul of art, and that if he had loved her much it
was because she had known how to be woman and
mistress to him-an embodied sentiment.
And so,
perhaps, Francine, desiring to leave Jacques the
human image which had become for him an in-
carnate idea, had known, dead-cold as she was,
how once more to reinvest her face with all the
radiance of her love and the graces of her youth.
In art she would live again.
And perhaps the poor girl's thought was correct
enough, for among true artists there exist these
strange Pygmalions, who, unlike other lovers, would
fain change their living Galateas into marble.
Looking at the serenity of that face which bore no
trace of pain, no one would have guessed at the long
suffering which had preceded her death. Francine
appeared as if she were in a dream of love; and one
might have said she had died of her own beauty.
The doctor, overcome with fatigue, slept in a
corner.
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His soul,
Jacques fell once more into doubt.
floating in delusions, insisted on fancying that she
whom he had so greatly loved would waken once
more, and as faint nerve contractions, produced by
the action of the casting, stirred at intervals the
immobility of the body, the simulation of life held
Jacques in the bonds of his happy illusion till morn-
ing, when an official came to verify the death and
authorise the interment. And truly, if the foolish-
ness of despair doubted of the death of this beautiful
girl, all the infallibility of science was needed to
believe in it.
While the neighbour prepared Francine for her
last rest Jacques was led into another room, where
he found some of his friends assembled to follow the
cortège. In Jacques' presence the Bohemians ab-
stained, out of the affection they had for him, from
all the set consolatory speeches which only aggra-
vate grief. Without uttering one of the words so
difficult to find, so painful to hear, they each silently
wrung the hand of their friend.
"This death is a great misfortune for Jacques,"
said one of them to another.
"Yes," replied the painter Lazare, a strange
creature who almost at the outset of his career
had schooled himself into conquering down all the
rebel passions of youth and imposing rigid inflexi-
bility upon them so strenuously that the artist had
finished by crushing out the man, "but a misfortune
which he voluntarily brought into his life. Since he
knew Francine Jacques is greatly changed."
"She made him happy," said another.
"Happy!" rejoined Lazare. "What do you call
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Francine's Muff
happy? How can you call that happiness, the feel-
ing which puts a man in such a state as Jacques is
in now? Place a masterpiece of painting or of
sculpture before him at this moment, he would
not turn his head to look at it; and yet for one
look again only at Francine I'll dare to say he
would trample over a Titian or a Raphael. My
mistress is immortal, and will never play me false.
She lives in the Louvre, and her name is La
Joconde."
While Lazare was on the point of continuing his
theories of art and sentiment they were summoned
to start for the church.
After a few muttered prayers, the little procession
continued its way to the cemetery. As it was All
Souls' Day an immense crowd was in the place.
A good many people looked after Jacques as he
walked bareheaded behind the hearse.
"Poor fellow!" said one.
doubt."
"It is his mother, no
"It is his father," said another.
"It is his sister," said others.
Come there to study the outward expression of
grief and regret at this mournful festival of memo-
ries, which is celebrated once a year in the November
fogs, a poet, as he saw Jacques pass, guessed that
he was following his dead sweetheart to the grave.
When they reached the opened piece of ground the
Bohemians, bareheaded, gathered round. Jacques
went to the very verge; his friend the doctor held
him by the arm.
The gravediggers and cemetery folk, being extra
busy, were anxious to get the affair over.
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"There is not to be any speech," said one of
them. "So much the better. Whoop! Come
along, quick!"
And the coffin was taken from the hearse, tied with
cords and let down into the grave. The men drew
up the ropes, and taking their spades, began to
shovel in the earth. It was soon filled up, and a
little wooden cross was stuck in. In the midst of
his sobs the doctor heard Jacques cry despairingly—
"Oh, my youth! It is you they are burying!
Jacques was a member of a society called "The
Water Drinkers," which had apparently been
founded in imitation of the famous society of the
Rue des Quatre Vents which is referred to in the
fine novel of Un grand homme de province. Only
there was a vast difference between the heroes of
that fraternity and the Water Drinkers, who, like
most imitators, had exaggerated the system which
they desired to adopt. This difference will be under-
stood by the single fact that in M. de Balzac's book
the members of the brotherhood finish by attaining
the end at which they aimed, proving that every
system which succeeds is good, while after several
years of existence the Society of the Water
Drinkers was naturally broken up by the death
of all its members, without the name of one of
them being attached to any work to attest they
ever existed. During his union with Francine
Jacques' connection with the Society of the Water
Drinkers was very lax. The needs of life had
forced the artist to violate certain of its conditions,
signed and sworn to by the Water Drinkers on the
day the society was founded.
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Francine's Muff
Mounted on their stilts of an absurd pride, these
young men had laid down as a first principle of their
association that they would never forsake the higher
walks of their art; that is to say, that in spite of
the poverty of their mortal lot they would none of
them bow to Necessity. Thus the poet Melchior
would never consent to lay aside what he called his
lyre to write a commercial prospectus or a topical
pamphlet. It was all very well for the poet
Rodolphe, a good-for-nothing, who was good for
everything, and who never let a hundred-sou piece
pass him without trying to hook it in with no matter
what. The painter Lazare, a proud bundle of rags,
had never soiled his brushes by painting the portrait
of a tailor holding a parrot on his finger, as friend
Marcel had once done in exchange for the famous
coat called Methuselah, which the fingers of each
of his lady-loves had embroidered with darns.
He
While the sculptor Jacques held communion of
ideas with the Water Drinkers he submitted to
the tyranny of the society's rules; but since his
connection with Francine he would not subject
the poor girl, already ailing and weak, to the ruling
to which he had submitted in his solitary days.
Jacques' was essentially a true and loyal nature.
went to the president of the society, the exclusive
Lazare, and informed him that henceforth he should
accept all work coming in his way which would be
productive of money. "My dear fellow," replied
Lazare, "your declaration of love was your leave-
taking of art. We will remain your friends if you
desire it, but we are no longer your associates.
Follow your trade at your convenience; for my part,
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I regard you no longer as a sculptor-you are just a
plaster spoiler. It is true you may be able to drink
wine, but we who continue to drink water and eat
our portions of bread, we remain artists."
Notwithstanding Lazare's observations, Jacques re-
mained an artist; but to keep Francine beside him
he undertook, when he got the chance of it, any sort
of bread-winning work. It was in this way he
worked for a long time in the studio of the decorator
Romagnési. Skilful in execution, ingenious in in-
vention, Jacques, without forsaking serious art,
might have acquired a big reputation as a worker
in compositions of the kind which have become
one of the chief elements of trade in luxuries. But
Jacques was idle, like all true artists and amorous
poets are apt to be. Youth in him had matured
tardily but ardently, and, with a presentiment of her
early death, he desired to exhaust it all in the arms
of Francine. So it frequently happened that good
chances of work came knocking at his door without
his answering, because he would have had to put
himself to inconvenience, and found himself only too
well content to dream on in the light of his sweet-
heart's eyes.
When Francine was dead the sculptor went to see
his old friends the Water Drinkers; but the spirit of
Lazare dominated the society, all of whose members
were fossilised in the egoism of art. Jacques did
not find there what he was in search of. They did
not understand his wretchedness, which they sought
to calm down with reason and logic, and seeing
this lack of sympathy he preferred to isolate his
misery rather than have it exposed for discussion.
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Francine's Muff
He broke completely, therefore, with the Water
Drinkers, and lived entirely alone.
A few days after Francine's funeral Jacques went
to a marble-cutter of Montparnasse Cemetery and
proposed the following arrangement to him: the
mason was to furnish him with iron railings round
Francine's grave, in the midst of which Jacques
was to erect a monument of his own design. He
was further to give him a block of white marble
in consideration of his working three months for
him either as stone-carver or as sculptor. The
mason had at that time several important orders.
He went to Jacques' studio, and the sight of the
work he was engaged upon there told him that the
chance which had brought Jacques his way was
a little fortune to him. A week later Francine's
grave had its enclosure, in the midst of which the
wooden cross had been replaced by a stone cross
deeply engraved with her name.
Fortunately Jacques had to do with an honest
man, who was perfectly conscious that a little cast-
iron and three square feet of marble would not pay
three months of Jacques' work, whose talent would
bring him a great deal of money in a short time.
He offered him a share in his business, but Jacques
would not agree to it. The little variety of subject
that could be treated was against his inventive
talent; besides, he had what he wanted - a big
piece of marble from which he intended to create
a masterpiece for Francine's tomb.
At the beginning of the following spring Jacques'
worldly prospects had considerably bettered. His
friend the doctor introduced him to a great foreign
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Latin Latin
nobleman who was about to make his home in Paris,
and was building a magnificent house in one of the
best quarters of the city.
Several famous artists had been commissioned to
adorn and add to the splendour of the little palace.
Jacques was required to carve a mantelpiece for
the great drawing-room. I think I can still see
his cartoons. It was a charming piece of work;
the entire poem of winter-time was told in the
marble which was to make a frame for the flames.
Jacques' studio being too small, he asked for and
obtained for the execution of the work a corner in
the house itself, which was already inhabited. A
good sum was advanced to him on the price agreed
for his labours. From this Jacques began to repay
the doctor the money he had lent him when Francine
died, and he hastened to the cemetery to cover the
ground where his love slept with a veritable field of
flowers.
But the spring had come before Jacques, and upon
the young girl's grave a thousand flowers had
sprung up in the green grass. Jacques had not
the heart to tear them up, for he thought the flowers
had in them something of his lost love. When the
gardener asked him what he wanted done with the
roses and pansies which he had brought, Jacques
told him to plant them on a neighbouring new-made
grave, the poor resting-place of some poor creature,
unenclosed and having no memorial but a morsel of
wood stuck in the ground, surmounted with a wreath
of black paper-the poor tribute of poverty-stricken
grief. Jacques left the cemetery another creature
from that he had entered it. He gazed joyfully at
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Francine's Muff
the glorious spring sun, the sun which had a thou-
sand times gilded the hair of Francine as she passed
through the fields toying with the tall grasses
and wild flowers with her white hands. Sweet
thoughts crowded into his mind. Passing a little
cabaret on the outer boulevard, he recalled a day
when, overtaken by a storm, he had entered the
place with Francine and dined there. Jacques went
in now, and, seating himself at the identical table,
ordered dinner. The dessert was put in a plate
painted with little pictures. He recognised the plate,
and remembered how Francine spent a good half-
hour trying to make out the rebus the pictures pre-
sented; and he also remembered a song she sang,
inspired by some beautiful red wine that was not
very expensive and contained more gaiety than
juice of the grape. But these gentle memories
awoke in him only the old love, not the grief.
to superstition as are all poetical and dreamy minds,
Jacques imagined that it was Francine who, having
heard him near her that morning, had sent him this
handful of happy memories from the depths of
her grave, and he would not dull them with a tear.
He left the tavern with a light step, his head high,
his eyes bright, his heart beating, almost a smile on
his lips, and humming as he went the refrain of
Francine's song :-
"Love's roaming my way,
I will open my door to him
Wide as the day."
Prone
This refrain in Jacques' mouth was a memory,
but also it was a song; and perhaps without being
conscious of it, Jacques took that day the first step
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Quarter
Latin
along the road of transition which leads from sad-
ness to melancholy, and thence to forgetfulness.
Alas! for what one would and what one does.
The eternal and just law of change wills it to be
thus.
Even as the flowers which, born perhaps of Fran-
cine's body, had pushed through her grave, the sap
of youth flowed in Jacques' heart, where the memo-
ries of the old love were wakening vague aspirations
towards new loves. Moreover, Jacques was of the
race of poets and artists who make passion an in-
strument of art and of poetry, and whose souls
live and move only by the heart's promptings. With
Jacques invention was the true child of sentiment,
and into everything he did he put something of
himself. He began to feel that memories were
no longer sufficient for him, and that his heart
was grinding itself away for lack of sustenance,
like a mill when grain is wanting. Work had no
longer any charm for him; invention, once ardent
and spontaneous, no longer came without painful
effort. He grew discontented, and almost envied
the existence of his old friends the Water Drinkers.
He sought distraction, snatched after pleasure
and formed new ties. He chummed with the poet
Rodolphe, whom he met in a café, and they con-
ceived a great mutual sympathy. Jacques told him
of all his wretchedness, and Rodolphe was not long
in grasping the cause of it.
"My friend," he said, "I know what that is," and
tapping Jacques on the breast where his heart was,
added, "Quick, and at once, you must rekindle the
smouldering fire that lies there. Fan without delay
a little passion, and ideas will return to you."
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Francine's Muff
"Ah," said Jacques, "I loved Francine too much
for that!"
"That need not hinder you from still loving her.
You will be kissing her on another's lips.'
"Ah," said Jacques, "if only I could meet with
a girl like her!" And he parted from Rodolphe
deep in thought.
Six weeks later Jacques was his old self again,
re-created by the tender glances of a pretty girl
named Marie, whose too delicate beauty slightly
reminded him of poor Francine. Nothing, in fact,
could be lovelier than this Marie, who was eighteen
years old, "all but six weeks," as she never failed to
add. Her love-making with Jacques had begun in
the moonlight, in the garden of an open-air ball,
to the sound of a harsh violin, a consumptive double-
bass and a clarionette that whistled like a blackbird.
Jacques saw her as she promenaded gravely round
the space reserved for dancing. Seeing him pass,
stiff and bolt upright in his eternal black coat but-
toned to the neck, the smart, giddy girls frequenting
the place, who knew the artist by sight, exclaimed to
each other-
"What does that death's-head of a creature want
here? Does anyone require burying?"
And Jacques walked on alone, his heart bleeding
from the thorns of memory, which the orchestra was
making sharper by its performance of a gay dance
tune that sounded in his ears mournful as
a De
profundis. It was in the middle of his reveries that
he perceived Marie looking at him from a corner
and bursting with laughter at his solemn aspect.
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Jacques lifted his eyes as he heard, not three steps
away, this shout of laughter from under a pink
hat. He approached the young girl, and spoke a
few words to her; she responded. He offered her
his arm for a promenade round the garden; she
accepted. He told her he thought her beautiful as
an angel; she made him say it twice. He stole
green apples for her from the trees; she munched
them enjoyably, laughing loudly, which seemed like
the refrain of her happy nature. Jacques thought
of the Bible, and told himself that one need not
despair with any women, and still less with those
who were fond of apples. He took another turn
with the pink hat round the garden, and so it
came about that having gone to the ball alone, he
did not return in the same fashion.
He had not, however, forgotten Francine, and,
following out Rodolphe's words, he kissed her every
day on Marie's lips and worked in secret at the
figure he intended to place on the dead girl's grave.
One day, when he received some payments,
Jacques bought a dress for Marie-a black one.
The young girl was very pleased, only she considered
that black was not a cheerful colour for the summer;
but Jacques told her he was very fond of black, and
that she would greatly please him by wearing the
gown every day. Marie complied.
One Saturday Jacques said to her, "Come early
to-morrow; we will go into the country."
"How delightful!" said Marie. "I am prepar-
ing a surprise for you. You will see, there will be
sunshine to-morrow."
Marie spent the night in finishing a new gown
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Francine's Muff
which she had saved up her money to buy, a pretty
pink gown. And on Sunday morning she came-
dressed in her smart purchase-to Jacques' studio.
The artist received her coldly, almost savagely.
"And I thought to give you so much pleasure in
making myself a present of this lovely dress!" said
Marie, who could not comprehend Jacques' coldness.
"We are not going into the country," he said.
"You had better go away again. I have to work
to-day."
Marie went home with a swelling heart. On the
way she met a young man who knew Jacques' story,
and who had paid court to her.
"Why, Mademoiselle Marie," said he, "you are
no longer in mourning, I see."
"In mourning?" said Marie.
"For whom?"
"What, you don't know? Yet it is known well
enough by everyone. The black gown he gave
you--
"Well?" said Marie.
"Well, it was meant for mourning. Jacques
made you wear mourning for Francine."
From that day forward Jacques never saw Marie
again.
This rupture was unlucky for him. The bad days
came back, he got no more work, and fell into
fearful poverty. Not knowing what was to become
of him, he begged his friend the doctor to get him
admitted into the hospital. The doctor saw at the
first glance that the admission would not be difficult
to obtain. Jacques, who was aware of his own
state of health, was on the way to rejoin Francine.
He was received into the Hospital Saint Louis.
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As he could still move about and walk, Jacques
begged the superintendent of the hospital to give
him a little disused room, and there he took a stool,
his sculptor's tools and some clay. For the first
couple of weeks he worked at the figure which he
intended for Francine's tomb. It was a great angel
with widespread wings. This figure, which was the
likeness of Francine, was never quite finished, for
Jacques soon became unable to mount his studio
stairs, and in a short time he could no longer leave
his bed. One day the note-book of the ward doctor
came into his hands, and Jacques, seeing what
remedies were prescribed for him, knew that he
could not live. He wrote to his family, and called
Sister Geneviève to him, who tended him with the
greatest care.
"Sister," said Jacques to her, "up in the room
which you got them to lend me is a little plaster
model. This statuette, which represents an angel,
was intended to be placed on a grave, but I have
not had time to do it in marble, although I have a
splendid piece of it at home-white marble, veined
with pink. And so, sister, I give you my little
statuette to put in the chapel of your community."
Jacques died a few days later. As the funeral took
place on the same day as the opening of the Salon
the Water Drinkers did not assist at it. "Art
before ail," as Lazare had said.
Jacques' family was not a rich one, and no special
grave awaited him.
He was buried somewhere.
294
IT
XIX
MUSETTE'S WHIMS
T will perhaps be remembered how the painter
Marcel sold the Jew Médecis his famous picture
of "The Passage of the Red Sea," which ultimately
did duty as a sign over the shop of a provision
dealer. The day following its sale, which had
been celebrated by a grand supper given by the Jew
to the Bohemians as seal to the bargain, Marcel,
Schaunard, Colline and Rodolphe got up very late.
All of them still stupid with the indulgences of the
previous night, they were unable at first to remember
exactly what had happened, and as the midday
Angelus rang from the steeple of a neighbouring
church they looked at each other with melancholy
smiles.
"There is the bell whose pious sound calls
humanity to the refectory," said Marcel.
"Yes; it is in fact," said Rodolphe, "the solemn
hour when honest men repair to the dining-room."
"We must find the way to become honest men,"
murmured Colline, for whom every day was the day
of Saint Appetite.
"Ah, milk-bottles of my nurse! Ah, four meals a
day of
my childhood! What has become of you?"
added Schaunard. "What has become of you?"
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he repeated in a key that was full of soft and dreamy
melancholy.
"I'll venture to say that in Paris at this moment
there are more than a hundred thousand cutlets on
the gridiron !" said Marcel.
"And as many rump steaks!" chimed in Rodolphe.
In ironical antithesis to the discussion of the four
friends on the terrible daily problem of breakfast, the
waiters of the restaurant close by were shrieking out
the orders of consumers.
"They will not cease, those brigands!" said
Marcel. "Their every word is like a dig in my
stomach!"
"The wind is in the north," gravely said Colline,
pointing to a weather-vane twirling on a neighbour-
ing roof. "We shall not have any breakfast to-day.
The elements are opposed to it."
"Why?" challenged Marcel.
That
"It is an atmospherical observation I have made,”
continued the philosopher. "The north wind almost
always signifies abstinence, just as a south wind
ordinarily indicates pleasure and good cheer.
is what philosophy calls warnings from above."
"To be taken fasting!" said Rodolphe, with a
ferocious grin.
At this moment Schaunard, who had thrust his
hand into the abysmal space which served him for a
pocket, dragged it out again with a yell of agony.
"Help! Ah! there is someone in my pockets!"
he howled, as he struggled violently to free his hand
from the claw of a live lobster.
Suddenly another cry responded to his. It was
Marcel, who having mechanically thrust his hands
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Musette's Whims
into his pockets, came upon an America which as
yet had remained undiscovered; that is to say, the
hundred and fifty francs which the Jew Médecis had
given him the night before for "The Passage of the
Red Sea." Memory then returned all at once to
the Bohemians.
"Salute, gentlemen!" said Marcel, pouring on
the table a handful of silver amid which gleamed five
or six new louis.
"They might be alive," said Colline.
"What sweet voices!" said Schaunard, as he
clinked the gold pieces together.
99
"How pretty they are, these medals! said
Rodolphe. "They might be scraps of the sun. If I
were king, I would have no other money than these,
and I would stamp my sweetheart's likeness on
them."
two sous.
"When one thinks that there is a
of gold nuggets," said Schaunand.
the Indians gave four for
relatives visited America.
stomachs of the savages.
his family."
country full
"Formerly
One of my
He was interred in the
It was a great wrong to
"Ah, yes; but," said Marcel, looking at the lobster
who had begun to walk about the room,
"where
does this beast come from?"
"I remember now," said Schaunard. "I made a
tour of Médecis' kitchen, and the reptile must have
tumbled into my pocket without meaning it. These
creatures are short-sighted.
Since I have him, I
shall keep him," he added. "I should prefer to
keep him. I will tame him
It will be more cheerful.
since Phémie went away.
and paint him in red.
I have felt melancholy
He will be company.”
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66
Gentlemen," cried Colline, "please to observe
that the weather-vane has turned to the south. We
will have breakfast."
"We will, indeed," said Marcel, taking one of the
pieces of gold; "we will cook this one with plenty
of sauce.
Slowly and gravely they studied the carte. Each
Idish was the occasion of a discussion and voted on
by the majority. The omelette soufflée, proposed by
Schaunard, was rejected, as also were the white wines,
against which Marcel inveighed in an improvisation
which showed his vinous knowledge.
"The first duty of wine is to be red," cried the
artist. "Talk not to me of your white wines!"
"Yet," said Schaunard, "champagne!"
"Ah, rubbish! An elegant cider! An epileptic
cocoa! I would give all the cellars of Epernay and
of Aï for a bottle of Burgundy. Besides, we have
no grisettes to entice, nor vaudevilles to write. I
vote against champagne."
The programme at last drawn up, Schaunard and
Colline went down to the neighbouring restaurant to
order the banquet.
"What if we have a fire?" said Marcel.
"All right," said Rodolphe. "We shan't be out
of the fashion. The thermometer has suggested it
this long time past. The chimney will be greatly
astonished."
And they ran to the top of the stairs and called to
Colline to send up some wood.
A few minutes after, Schaunard and Colline came
up again, followed by a man with a huge load of
faggots.
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Musette's Whims
While Marcel was rummaging in his drawer for
some waste paper to light the fire with, he chanced
upon a letter whose handwriting gave him a fit of
trembling, and he hid it from his friends as he fell to
reading it.
It was written in pencil by Musette in days gone
by, while she lived with Marcel. This note was a
year old to the day. It contained only a few
words :-
"MY DEAR FRIEND,-Do not be uneasy about me; I shall
be back soon. I have gone out a little way to warm myself
with a walk. It freezes, and there is no fuel. I have broken
up the last two chair-legs, but they did not burn long enough
to boil an egg. The wind comes in, blowing me a lot of bad
advice which would vex you if I listened to it. I would rather
go out for a little while. I am going to look at the shops
round about. They say there is velvet being sold at ten francs
a yard. We shall see if it is true. It seems incredible. I
will be back to dinner.
"MUSETTE."
"Poor girl!" murmured Marcel, slipping the
letter into his pocket, and for a minute he remained
lost in thought, his head in his hands. At this time
the Bohemians had been for a good while past in a
state of widower-hood, with the exception of Colline,
however, whose mistress had always been invisible
and anonymous.
Phémie, Schaunard's amiable companion, had met
with an ingenuous soul who had offered her his
heart, some mahogany furniture and a ring made
of his hair, which was red. A fortnight after he
had given it her, however, Phémie's lover wanted
back his heart and his furniture, because he had
noticed in looking at her hands that she had a hair-
ring-black hair-and he suspected her of treason.
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Nevertheless Phémie had not ceased to be true,
only, as some of her friends had joked her about the
red hair, she had had it dyed black. The gentleman
was so pleased with the explanation that he bought
Phémie a silk gown. It was the first she had ever
had. The day he gave it to her the poor child
cried, "Now I could die."
As to Musette, she had almost become an official
personage, and for three or four months Marcel had
seen nothing of her. As for Mimi, Rodolphe had
never so much as heard her name mentioned except
by himself when he was alone.
"Oh!" cried Rodolphe, seeing Marcel lost in his
reverie at the corner of the mantelshelf, "this fire
will not catch."
"There, that's it," said the painter, lighting his
waste paper under the wood, which began to flare
and crackle gloriously, while his friends whetted
their appetites with preparations for the meal.
Marcel stood thoughtfully apart, and put Musette's
letter which accident had placed in his hands
-into a drawer with several other souvenirs of
her. All at once he remembered the address of
a girl who was an intimate friend of his old
love.
---
"Ah!" he cried, loud enough to be heard, "I
know where to find her!"
"Find what?" said Rodolphe.
"What are you
doing there?" he added, as his friend sat down to
write.
"Nothing-only a very particular letter which I
had forgotten. I will be with you in an instant,"
replied Marcel, and he wrote-
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Musette's Whims
"MY DEAR CHILD,-I have money in my secrétaire, a
plethora of astounding luck. There is a grand breakfast pre-
paring, good wine, and we have made a fire, my dear, like
the well-to-do folks. It is 'a thing to see,' as you once said.
Come and spend a minute or two with us. You will find
Rodolphe here, Colline and Schaunard. You shall sing us
songs at dessert, for there is going to be dessert. Being there,
we shall probably remain at table for a week. Don't be afraid,
therefore, of being too late. It is so long since I heard your
laugh. Rodolphe shall make madrigals for you, and we will
drink all sorts of things in memory of our dead loves, indepen-
dently of their coming to life again. Among people of our
sort the last kiss is never the last. Ah! if it had not been so
cold last year, perhaps you would not have left me.
You were
false to me for the sake of a faggot, and because you were
afraid of having red hands. You did well. I only want you
now for this once for the sake of the others. Come and have
a warm while there is still some fire. I embrace you as much
as you may desire it.
"MARCEL."
This letter finished, Marcel wrote another to
Madame Sidonie, Musette's friend, in which he
asked her to send on the enclosure addressed to
Musette. Then he went downstairs and asked
the porter to take the letter and deliver it. As he
paid him his fee in advance, the porter caught sight
of a piece of gold shining through his fingers, and
before starting on his errands he went to the land-
lord, with whom Marcel was in arrears with his
rent.
"Monsieur," he said breathlessly, "the artist on
the sixth floor has got some money! You know,
the tall fellow who laughs in my face when I take
him your accounts."
"Yes," said the landlord, "the man who had the
audacity to borrow money of me to give me on
account. He has notice to quit."
"Yes, monsieur, but he is covered with gold
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to-day. It perfectly dazzled my eyes just now.
is giving entertainments. Now is the time."
He
"Quite so," said the landlord; "I will go up to
him instantly."
Madame Sidonie, who was at home when Marcel's
letter was delivered, despatched her maid imme-
diately with the letter for Musette, who occupied
charming apartments in the Chaussée d'Antin.
She was entertaining company when the letter
was handed to her, and in the evening she was
going to have a dinner-party."
"Here is a strange thing!" cried Musette, laugh-
ing heartily.
"What is it?" asked a handsome young man,
straight and stiff as a statuette.
"It is an invitation to dinner," said Musette.
"Eh, what do you think of that?"
"I don't think anything of it," said the young
man.
"Why?" said Musette.
"What! you don't think of accepting it?"
"I know that I do; you must manage by your-
self."
"But, my dear, it is not possible. You must go
another time."
"Ah, that's a fine notion that. Another time!
It is an old acquaintance, Marcel, who invites me,
and it will be such a curious thing for me to
meet him again. Another time! Why! real dinners
are as rare as eclipses in that house."
"What! you would upset everything to go and
see this person," said the young man,
"and you
say it to me?"
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Musette's Whims
"Whom else should I say it to-the great
Mogul? What does Marcel care?"
"But really, you are amazingly frank."
"You know very well that I don't do as other
people do," replied Musette.
"But what would you think of
me if I were to let
you go, knowing where you go? Reflect a minute,
Musette; for me-for yourself-it would be most
inconvenient. You must make your excuses to this
young man.'
me.
"My dear Monsieur Maurice," said Musette,
in very firm tones, "you knew me before you took
You knew I was full of whims and caprices,
and that no creature living could ever boast of
making me change my mind."
"Ask me what you please," began Maurice, "but
that-no, there are caprices and caprices——"
66
Maurice, I am going to Marcel's. I am going,"
and she fetched her hat and put it on. "You
can give me up if you please. His will is stronger
than mine. He is the best man in the world, and
the only one I have ever loved. If his heart had
been made of gold, he would have melted it down to
make into rings for me. Poor fellow!" she went
on, showing Maurice her letter, "as there is a bit
of fire he invites me to come and warm myself!
Ah, if he were not so lazy-and there had not been
such lovely silks and velvets in the shops! I was
very happy with him. He had the power of making
me feel, and it was he who gave me the name of
Musette, because of my singing. At least, in going
to him you know that I shall return to you, unless
you shut the door in my face."
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"You could not put it more frankly that you don't
love me," said the young man.
"Come, come, my dear Maurice, you are a man
of too much intelligence for us to engage in serious
argument on this subject. You own me like a fine
horse in your stable. As for me, I like you-
because I like luxury, the noise and stir of concerts
and fêtes, everything which has a merry sound and
a bright glitter. Don't let us indulge in sentiment.
It would be ridiculous and useless."
"At least let me go with you."
"But you wouldn't be at all amused," said
Musette, "and you would hinder us from amusing
ourselves. Bear in mind that he will kiss me, this
young man inevitably he will."
"
"Musette," said Maurice, "have you often met
with such an accommodating creature as I am?"
"Monsieur le Vicomte," replied Musette, "one
day, when I was driving in the Champs Elysées
with Lord
I saw Marcel and his friend
Rodolphe going along on foot, both very shabbily
dressed, muddy as sheep-dogs and smoking their
pipes. It was three months since I had seen Marcel,
and it seemed as if my heart must fly out of the
window to him. I stopped the carriage and we
chatted together for half an hour before all Paris
passing in its fine carriages. Marcel offered me
some Nanterre cakes and a bunch of violets he
bought for a sou, which I fastened in my waistband.
When he went away Lord wanted to call him
back to ask him to dine with us. I kissed him for
thinking of it-and there you have my character,
my dear Monsieur Maurice. If it doesn't please
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Musette's Whims
you, you had better say so at once, and I will go
and fetch away my slippers and my nightcap.
"It seems as if sometimes it is a good thing to be
poor," said Viscount Maurice, in tones weighted
with curious sadness.
"Oh no," said Musette, "if Marcel had been rich,
I should never have left him."
"Go, then," said the young man, warmly clasp-
ing her hand. "You have on your new dress," he
added, "which suits you admirably."
"Why, yes, it does. What a lucky chance that
it came home this morning! Marcel will have the
freshness of it. Adieu!" she added as she went.
"I am going to eat a few morsels of the blessed
bread of gaiety."
Musette had on a ravishingly exquisite toilette that
day. Never had a more seductive cover clothed the
poem of her youth and beauty. Musette, in addition
to this, instinctively owned the genius for elegance.
When she came into the world the first thing her
eyes fixed on was a mirror, to see how she looked
in her swaddling-clothes; and before she was
christened she knew the sin of coquetry. In the
days when her position was of the humblest, when
her wardrobe still consisted only of print dresses,
little bonnets with sarcenet bows, and leather shoes,
she wore the simple dress of a work-girl with ex-
quisite grace. Such pretty girls as she, half bees, half
grasshoppers, who worked with merry songs on
their lips all the week, only asking heaven for a
little sunshine on Sundays, made cheap love with all
their hearts, and occasionally finished by throwing
themselves out of the window. They are a lost race
X
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nowadays, thanks to the present race of young
men-a corrupted and corrupting generation, en-
crusted with vanity, stupidity and caddishness. For
the pleasure of making vile paradoxes, they jeer
at these poor girls because of hands scarred
with the holy wounds of industrious toil, which
do not earn enough to buy a pot of almond paste.
Gradually they have succeeded in inoculating their
vanity and foolishness, and so the grisette no longer
exists. It is thus the lorette has come into being, a
hybrid race of impudent creatures with mediocre
beauty, half flesh, half pomatum, whose boudoirs
are counting-houses where they deal out their
morsels of heart as one cuts a slice of beef. The
greater part of these girls, who are a disgrace and
blot upon pleasure, and the shame of modern
gallantry, have frequently not the intelligence of
the creatures whose feathers decorate their bonnets.
If it happens by any chance that they have no love
affair on hand, not even a fancy, but simply vulgar
desire, they crowd after and applaud some common-
place mime whom the newspapers advertise, lovers
of everything ridiculous, by their puffs. Notwith-
standing she was forced to live in their world,
Musette had not the manners or the trickeries of
these women; she had none of the servile cupidity
of those who can only write figures, and read
nothing but Barême. She was an intelligent, bright
girl, with some gentle blood in her veins, and,
rebelling against any sort of restraint or coercion,
she had never resisted any fancy that came into her
mind, let the consequences be what they might.
Marcel had been the one man she had ever loved.
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Musette's Whims
He was in any case the only one for whom she had
suffered, and it had demanded all the obstinacy of
the instincts which magnetised her towards "all that
sounds gayest, all that shines bright," to draw her
away from him. She was twenty, and luxury for
her was almost a question of health. She could
dispense with it for a time, but she could not re-
nounce it completely. Conscious of her own in-
constancy, she had never consented to bind her
heart in the chains of sworn fidelity. She had been
ardently loved by many for whom she had a real
liking, and she always treated them with a circum-
spect honesty. The engagements she contracted
were simple, frank and rustic as the love declara-
tions of Molière's peasants-"You have an inclina-
tion towards me, and I like you.
Done, we will be
wed." A dozen times, had she wished, Musette
might have secured a stable position, such as is
called "a future," but she had small faith in futures,
entertaining the scepticism of Figaro in regard to
them.
"To-morrow," she would say, "is just an almanack
absurdity; it is a daily pretext invented by men for
not doing their business to-day. To-morrow there
may be an earthquake. No time like the present.
To-day, that is terra-firma."
One day a worthy man with whom she had kept
company for six months, and who had become
madly in love with her, proposed marriage to her.
Musette burst into a shout of laughter at the
proposition.
"I imprison my freedom in a marriage contract?
Not I!" she said.
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The Latin Quarter
"But I pass my life trembling with the fear of
losing you."
"You would lose me much sooner if I were your
wife," replied Musette. "Don't let us talk more
about it. Besides, I am not free," she added, think-
ing, no doubt, of Marcel.
So her life sped on, her spirit turning to meet
all the winds of the unexpected, giving much
happiness, and almost happy herself. Viscomte
Maurice, with whom she was at present, had a
good deal of trouble in accommodating himself to
her dauntless nature, so intoxicated with the idea
of liberty; and it was with an impatience en-
crusted with jealousy that he awaited the return of
Musette after seeing her leave the house to go to
Marcel's.
"Will she stop there?" the young man kept
asking himself all the evening, digging the note of
interrogation into his heart.
"Poor Maurice!" said Musette on her side.
"He found it a trifle rough. Ah, but youth must
be educated." Then her mind passed suddenly to
other fields and pastures; she thought of Marcel
to whom she was hastening, and as she passed in
review the memories conjured up by the name of
her old admirer, she wondered what miracle had
spread his cloth for him. She re-read
as she
walked, the letter that the artist had sent her, and
could not help feeling a little saddened. But that
soon passed. Musette thought, with perfect reason,
that there was less occasion than ever to be sad,
and when just at the moment a gust of wind swept
past her, she exclaimed to herself—
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Musette's Whims
"How odd it is! I never go to Marcel's but the
wind blows me on there."
And continuing her way, she pressed on gaily as a
bird flying home to its own nest. All at once the
snow began to fall. Musette looked round in search
of a cab. She could not see one. As she found
herself in the street in which her friend Madame
Sidonie lived, Musette took it into her head to call
in on her to wait till the snow had passed over.
When Musette entered Madame Sidonie's room she
found a large company assembled. They were
carrying on a game of lansquenet, begun three
days previously.
"Don't disturb yourselves," said Musette.
am only in and out again."
"I
"You have had Marcel's letter?" whispered
Madame Sidonie in her ear.
"Yes," replied Musette, "thank you-I am
going to him. He invites me to dinner. Will you
come with me? You will enjoy yourself very
much."
"Ah, no, I can't," said Sidonie, pointing to the
table; "and my turn? she cried.
"There are six louis," called the banker, who
held the cards.
"I make two!" cried Madame Sidonie.
"I am not proud, I bet on two," replied the
banker, who had passed several times. “King and
ace-I am done," he continued, letting the cards fall.
"All the kings are dead."
"No politics," said a journalist.
"And the ace is the foe of my family," concluded
the banker, who again turned up a king. "Long
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The Latin Quarter
live the King!" cried he. "My dear Sidonie, send
me two louis."
"Well, put them down in your memory," said
Sidonie, furious at her loss.
"That makes five hundred francs you owe, my
dear," said the banker. "You are on the way to a
thousand. I pass."
Sidonie and Musette chatted on in low tones; the
players continued.
At about the same moment the Bohemians sat
down to table. Marcel seemed ill at ease. Each
time footsteps sounded on the stairs outside, the
others saw him start and tremble.
"What is the matter with you?" demanded
Rodolphe. "One would think you were expecting
somebody. Aren't our numbers complete?"
But a certain glance that the artist cast at him
made him understand his friend's perturbation.
"Truly no," he said to himself, "we are not
complete."
Marcel's glance signified Musette; Rodolphe's
gaze was eloquent of Mimi.
"It wants women," suddenly said Schaunard.
"Good heavens!" thundered Colline. "Can't
you be quiet with your libertine ideas? It has been
agreed that we will not talk of love. It turns the
sauces sour!"
And the friends began to drink larger bumpers,
while outside the snow fell and the logs on the
hearth crackled and flamed their fireworks.
Just at the instant Rodolphe was trolling the
couplet of a song he had found at the bottom of his
glass there came knocks at the door.
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Musette's Whims
At the sound, like a diver thrusting with his
foot against the bottom to remount to the surface,
Marcel, excited by the winę he had drunk, rose
hurriedly and rushed to open the door.
It was not Musette.
He
A gentleman was standing on the threshold.
held a small paper in his hand. His exterior was
agreeable, but his dressing-gown was very badly
made.
"I find you in good case," he said, glancing at
the remains of a huge leg of mutton gracing the
middle of the table.
"The landlord," said Rodolphe. "Let us render
him the honours which are his due "; and he tapped
for order on his plate with his knife and fork.
Colline offered him his chair, and Marcel cried-
"Now then, Schaunard, a glass for the gentle-
man. You come opportunely," added the artist
to the landlord. "We were just about to pro-
pose a toast to this establishment. My friend
there, Monsieur Colline, was saying some very
touching things. Since you are here, he will begin
again in honour of your visit. Begin again a little,
Colline."
"Excuse me, gentlemen, I do not wish to disturb
you"; and he opened the little folded paper in his
hand.
"What is this document?" asked Marcel.
The landlord, who had made an inquisitorial tour
of the room, had spied out the gold and silver still
lying on the mantelpiece.
"It is the account for the rent," he said hurriedly.
"I have already had the honour of placing it before
you."
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The Latin Quarter
"Quite so," said Marcel; "my unerring memory
perfectly well recalls the circumstance. It was on a
Friday, the eighth of October, at half-past twelve.
Very good."
"It bears my signature," said the landlord, "and
if it is not inconvenient to you——
99
"Monsieur," said Marcel, "I was proposing to
myself an interview with you. I have a good deal
I wish to say to you."
"I am quite at your service."
"Do me the pleasure, then, of refreshing your-
self," continued Marcel, making the man drink
another glass of wine. "Monsieur," continued
the artist, "you recently sent me a little bit of
paper bearing a representation of a lady who is
holding a pair of scales. The message on it was
signed 'Godard.'"
"That is my bailiff," said the landlord.
"He writes execrably," said Marcel. "My friend
there," he went on, indicating Colline, "who is
widely acquainted with languages, wanted to trans-
late this document, whose porterage cost five francs."
"It was a notice to quit," said the landlord—“a
precautionary measure-the usual——”
“I
"A notice to quit. It was so," said Marcel.
wished to see you that we might confer together
upon this document, which I should desire to convert
into a lease. This house pleases me; the staircase
is clean, the street is very cheerful, and then family
a thousand things attach me to these
reasons
walls."
"But," said the landlord, fingering his account,
"there is the last quarter to settle for."
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Musette's Whims
"We will settle it, monsieur; that is my fullest
intention."
Nevertheless, the landlord did not take his eyes
from the mantelshelf where the money lay, and the
fixity of his looks, filled with acquisitiveness, was so
great that the pieces almost seemed to be rising up
and moving towards him.
"I am fortunate to have arrived at a moment
when it does not inconvenience you.
We can bring
the little matter to an agreeable conclusion," he said,
handing the account to Marcel, who, no longer able
to parry the attack, changed his tactics and recom-
menced with the scene of Don Juan with Monsieur
Dimanche.
"You have, I believe," he said, "estates in the
country?"
"Oh," said the landlord, " very little of that. A
small house in Burgundy-a farm worth little
enough. Poor connection; farmers don't pay.
And as to this," he added, still holding out his bill,
"it will come in very handy. It is sixty francs, as
you are aware――
99
"Sixty. Yes," said Marcel, making his way to
the chimney-piece, from which he took three pieces
of gold, "let us say sixty." And he placed the
three pieces on the table at some distance from the
landlord.
"At last!" murmured he, with a brightening
countenance, and he laid his paper on the table.
Schaunard, Colline and Rodolphe looked on with
disturbed gaze.
"Monsieur," said Marcel, "since you are a Bur-
gundian you will not refuse to speak a few words to
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a compatriot"; and sending the cork flying from a
bottle of old Mâcon, he poured out a bumper of it
for the landlord.
"Ah, perfection!" said he, smacking his lips; "I
never tasted finer."
"I have an uncle living down that way, and
he sends me a basket or two of it now and
again."
The landlord rose, stretching out his hand towards
the money, but Marcel stopped him again.
"You will not refuse to pledge me once again,"
he said, filling the glass again and forcing his
creditor to clink glasses with him and the three
other Bohemians.
The landlord dared not refusé. He drank again,
put down his glass, and was about to take up the
money, when Marcel said-
"A moment, monsieur; I have an idea. I find
myself a little in funds just now; my Burgundy
uncle has sent me a supplement to my income.
I am afraid of wasting this money. Youth, you
know, is giddy. If you do not object, I will pay
you in advance"; and counting sixty more francs
from the silver money, he added them to the louis
on the table.
"In that case I will give you a receipt to the date
of expiry. I have a blank form in my pocket,"
added the landlord, taking out his pocket-book. "I
will fill it in and duly date it. What a delightful
man this lodger!" thought Marcel's creditor, devour-
ing the hundred and twenty francs with his eyes.
At this proposition the three Bohemians, who did
not grasp Marcel's diplomacy, stared blankly.
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Musette's Whims
"But this chimney smokes. It is exceedingly
inconvenient," said Marcel.
"Why have you not told me of it? I would have
sent for the sweep," said the landlord, who would
not be wanting in anything on his part. "I will
order the workmen." And having finished filling
up the second receipt form, he put it with the other,
and pushing both of them in front of Marcel he
stretched his hand once more towards the heap of
silver. "You cannot conceive how opportunely
this money comes in. I have bills to pay for repair
of fixtures, and I was in great embarrassment."
"I regret having made you wait," said Marcel.
"Oh, I was not in distress, gentlemen. I have
the honour--," and his fingers began clawing
again.
"Ah! ah! allow me!" said Marcel. 66 'We are not
at the end of it yet. You know the saying, 'When
the wine is poured out――'?" and he replenished
the landlord's glass.
"One must drink."
"Quite right," smiled the creditor, sitting down
again out of politeness.
A glance from Marcel now made it clear to the
others what his intention was.
The landlord began to talk the most extraordinary
rubbish. He tilted himself back in his chair, making
extravagant promises to Marcel concerning the
embellishments of his room.
"Now forward with the big artillery," said the
artist in an undertone to Rodolphe, pointing to a
bottle of rum.
After the first little glass of it the landlord sang a
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The Latin Quarter
ditty that made Schaunard blush. After the second
little glass he related his conjugal misfortunes, and
as his wife's name was Helen he compared himself
to Menelaus. After the third little glass he had an
access of philosophy, and fired off aphorisms of this
nature-
"Life is a river."
"Fortune does not make happiness."
"Man is ephemeral."
"Ah, love is agreeable."
And taking Schaunard for his confidant, he re-
counted to him a clandestine affair he had with a
young girl he had put in clover who was called
Euphémie; and he painted such an accurate word-
portrait of this young person, who was so full of
ingenuous tenderness, that strange suspicions began
to cross Schaunard's mind, and they assumed definite
shape when the landlord showed him a letter which
he drew from his pocket-book.
"Oh, heavens !" cried Schaunard, recognising the
signature. "Cruel girl! What daggers you drive
into my heart!"
"What is the matter?
startled by his exclamations.
cried the Bohemians,
"Look!" said Schaunard; "this letter is from
Phémie. "See the smudge which serves for signa-
ture," and he handed on the letter of his former
sweetheart. It began thus-—
"MY DEAR BIG LOUF-LOUF,—"
"It is I who am her louf-louf," said the land-
lord, as he tried to get up from his chair without
succeeding.
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Musette's Whims
"All right!" said Marcel. "He has cast anchor."
"Phémie! Cruel Phémie ! " murmured Schaunard.
"What suffering you cause me!
"I have furnished a little room for her at number
12, Rue Coquenard," went on the landlord.
"She
is pretty, very pretty. It cost me a lot of money,
but true love knows nothing of money, and I have an
income of twenty thousand francs. She asks me for
money," he continued, taking back his letter. "Poor
darling! I am going to give it her. It will please
her," and he stretched out his hands towards Marcel's
little pile. "Dear me! Dear me!" he went on in
puzzled tones, feeling all over the table. "Where
is it?"
The money had disappeared.
"It is impossible to conceive that a man of honour
should lend himself to such doings," said Marcel.
"My conscience! Morality forbids me to pour the
price of my earnings into the hands of this old
debauchee; I will not pay my rent, and my soul will
not know remorse on that account. What conduct!
A bald-headed old fellow like that!"
The landlord continued to maunder on, and ad-
dressed his discourse mainly to the bottles. As he
had been away quite two hours, his wife, uneasy
about him, sent her servant to see after him.
She began to scream when she saw him.
"What have you been doing to my master?" she
demanded of the Bohemians.
"Nothing," said Marcel. "He came up here a
little while ago to ask for his rent; as we had
no money to give him we asked him for time."
"But he is drunk," said the servant.
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The Latin Quarter
"The greater part of that business had been done
when he came," replied Rodolphe. "He told us
that he had been putting his wine-cellars in order."
"And he was so careless," continued Colline, "that
he was going to leave us the receipts without the
money."
"You had better give them to his wife," added
the painter, handing the maid the receipts. “We
are honest persons, and we do not want to profit by
his condition."
"Oh, good gracious! What will my mistress
say!" said the servant, clutching at her master, who
could not stand steady on his legs, as she dragged
him out.
"At last!" cried Marcel.
"He will come back to-morrow," said Rodolphe.
"He saw the money."
"When he comes back," said the artist, "I shall
threaten him with informing his wife of his relations
with Mademoiselle Phémie, and then he will give us
time."
Only
When the landlord was well away from the place
the four friends began to drink and smoke.
Marcel kept something of a clear head. Every
moment, at the slightest sound of footsteps on the
stairs, he kept running to open the door; but the
people coming up always turned in at the doors of
the landings below, and the artist returned slowly
back to his corner of the fireplace. Midnight struck,
and Musette had not come.
"Ah, well," thought Marcel, "perhaps she was
not in when my letter was delivered. She will find
it this evening on her return home, and she will
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Musette's Whims
come to-morrow.
It is not possible that she will
And so till to-morrow." And he
refuse to come.
settled himself to sleep in his corner by the fire.
Just at the time Marcel was falling asleep dream-
ing of her Musette was leaving Madame Sidonie's
house, where she had remained all day. Musette
was not alone; she was accompanied by a young
man. A cab was at the door, and they both got in.
The cab went off at a sharp pace.
Madame Sidonie's party of lansquenet continued.
"Where is Musette?" suddenly cried someone.
"Yes, and where is little Séraphin?" said
another.
Madame Sidonie began to laugh.
"They have gone off together," she said. "Ah,
it is a curious story! What a strange creature
Musette is! Only fancy-
39
And she told them all. How Musette, after nearly
having a rupture with Vicomte Maurice, started to
go to Marcel, and having looked in upon her on the
way had met young Séraphin.
"Ah, I suspected something of it," said Sidonie,
breaking off in the middle of her tale. "I have
been watching them all the evening. He is no
fool, this little fellow. In short," she continued,
"they went off without a word of warning,
and who stops them will be clever. But it is
very odd, when one thinks how Musette adores her
Marcel."
"If she so adores him, what is the good of Séra-
phin? He is almost a child. He has never had a
sweetheart," said a young man.
"She wants to teach him to read," said a
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The Latin Quarter
journalist who always talked nonsense when he
had lost.
"Yes," said Sidonie, "since she loves Marcel,
why Séraphin? It passes my comprehension."
Alas! yes, why?
*
*
*
For five days, without leaving the house, the
Bohemians spent a rare time of it. All day long
they feasted. An admirable disorder prevailed in
the room, which acquired a Pantagruelic aspect.
Upon a bank of oyster-shells lay an army of bottles
of all shapes and sizes. The table was strewn with
débris of all kinds, and a forest of wood flamed up
the chimney. On the sixth day Colline, who was
master of the ceremonies, revised, as he did every
morning, the programme for breakfast, lunch, dinner
and supper, submitting it to the approval of his
friends, each of them affixing his signature in token
of acquiescence. But when one morning Colline
opened the cash drawer to take out the necessary
amount for the day's expenditure, he stepped back
with a startled air, and grew pale as Banquo's
ghost.
"What is the matter?" carelessly asked the
others.
"The matter is that there are only thirty sous
left," said the philosopher.
"Oh, the devil! the devil!" cried the others.
"We must make amendments in the programme.'
"Well, thirty sous is something, but we shall
scarcely get truffles."
A few minutes later the table was laid. Three
dishes were ranged symmetrically upon it-
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Musette's Whims
A dish of herrings.
A dish of potatoes.
A dish of cheese.
Two small logs, about as big as a fist, burned in
the grate.
Outside the snow was still falling heavily. The
four Bohemians sat down to table, gravely opening
their serviettes.
"It is curious," said Marcel, "this herring has
quite the flavour of pheasant."
"That comes from the style in which I have
arranged it on the dish," said Colline; "the mere
herring would have been despised."
At that instant a merry song came up the stairs,
and a tap sounded on the door.
from head to foot, ran to open it.
Marcel, trembling
Musette sprang to his breast, and hung about his
neck for ever so long. Marcel felt her whole frame
trembling in his embrace.
"What is the matter?" asked he.
"I am cold," she said mechanically, as she crossed
to the hearth.
"Ah," said Marcel, "and we made such a nice
fire."
"Yes," said Musette, gazing round at the remains
of the banquet which had lasted so many days, "I
have come too late."
"Why have you?" said Marcel.
"Why?" said Musette, reddening a little as she
seated herself on Marcel's knee, still trembling, and
her hands purple with cold.
"Weren't you free to come?" whispered Marcel
in her ear.
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The Latin Quarter
"I not free!" cried the girl.
"Ah, Marcel, I
might be seated among the stars in paradise, and if
you beckoned to me to come to you I would come.
I not free!" And again she shivered.
"There are five chairs here," said Rodolphe. "It
is an odd number, without counting in the ridiculous
shape of the fifth." And breaking up the chair
against the wall, he threw the pieces in the fire.
The flames broke into clear, joyous brilliancy; then,
making signs to Colline and Schaunard, the poet
dragged them away with him out of the room.
"Where are you going?" asked Marcel.
"To buy tobacco," replied they.
"Havana," added Schaunard, with a wink of in-
telligence at Marcel, who thanked him by a look.
"Why did you not come sooner?" he asked
Musette again when they found themselves alone.
"To be sure, I am a little late.”
"Five days for getting across the Pont Neuf.
You must have taken the road by the Pyrenees ! "
said Marcel.
Musette hung her head, and remained silent.
"Ah, naughty girl," sadly went on Marcel, lightly
tapping his finger on her breast, "what have you
got in there?"
"You know well enough," quickly replied she.
"But what have you been doing since I wrote
to you?"
"Don't ask me!" she hurriedly replied, embracing
him again and again. "Don't ask me anything.
Only let me warm myself here beside you while
it is cold. You see, I have put on my prettiest
gown to come. Poor Maurice, he couldn't under-
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Musette's Whims
""
stand it at all when I left him to come here; but-
it was stronger than I-and-I started to come.
That is nice. This fire
She broke off,
stretching her little hands over the flame. "I will
stay with you till to-morrow. Will you like me to
do so?"
"It will be very cold here," said Marcel, "and we
have nothing for dinner. You have come too late,"
he said again.
"Ah, nonsense!" said Musette. "That will only
be like the old days."
*
Rodolphe, Colline and Schaunard stopped away
twenty-four hours buying their tobacco. When they
returned Marcel was alone, and after being a week
away, Viscount Maurice saw Musette back again.
He did not reproach her in any way; he only asked
her why she seemed so sad.
"I quarrelled with Marcel," she said. "We
parted in anger."
"Nevertheless," said Maurice, "you will return to
him one of these days."
"What if I do?" cried Musette. "I need to
breathe the air of that kind of life from time to
time. My foolish existence is like a song. Each of
my love affairs is a couplet - but Marcel is its
refrain."
323
"O
XX
MIMI HAS FEATHERS
I
H! no, no, no, you are no longer Lisette. Oh!
no, no, no, you are no longer Mimi.
"You are now Madame la Vicomtesse; in due
time you will be Madame la Duchesse, for you have
set foot on the rungs of the ladder of greatness;
the door of your dreams has at last been flung wide
open to you, and here you are entering victorious
and triumphant. I was sure it would end like this
for you one day or other. It was bound to be so;
your white hands were made for idleness, and have
long called for the ring of an aristocratic alliance.
Now you have a coat of arms! But we preferred the
one which youth gave your beauty, which with your
pale face and blue eyes seemed like gleams of azure
upon a bed of lilies. Noble or lowly, there-you are
always charming, and I readily recognised you when
you passed me the other evening in the street, with
your fleet feet so exquisitely shod, helping the wind
with your gloved hand to lift the flounces of your
new dress, partly to protect them from the mud,
much more to allow your fine silk stockings and your
embroidered petticoats to be seen. You had an en-
chanting hat, and you were lost in profound study of
the matter of arranging your beautiful lace veil. A
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Mimi has Feathers
serious matter indeed, for it took in the consideration
whether it better became you to wear the veil lowered
or lifted. In wearing it down you risked not being
recognised by any friends you might meet, who
undoubtedly might have passed you a dozen times
without being aware that the rich lace was hiding
Mademoiselle Mimi from sight. On the other hand,
wearing the veil raised risked its beauty being hidden,
and then what was the use of it? You skilfully split
the difficulty by lowering and lifting alternately, every
few steps you took, the marvellous fabric woven
seemingly in that country of the Arachnida called
Flanders, which cost alone more than all your entire
collection of raiment in old days. Ah, Mimi-pardon
me-ah, Madame la Vicomtesse, I was quite right,
you see, when I said to you, 'Patience, do not
despair; the future is big with cashmeres, jewels,
little suppers, etcetera.' You would not believe
me, you incredulous child. Well, my predictions
are realised nevertheless, and I am as good as The
Ladies' Oracle, the little book of magic which you
bought for five sous at the Pont Neuf bookstall,
whose pages you thumbed to death with your never-
ending studies. Once again, was I not right in my
prophecies, and will you believe me now if I tell you
that you will not stop there? If I told you that,
listening carefully, I already hear softly in the dis-
tance of your future the neighing and clatter of
horses harnessed to a blue carriage, driven by
powdered coachmen, and attended by a footman
who says, as he spreads the carpet under your
feet, 'Where to, madame?' Will you believe me if
I also tell you that later-ah! as late as possible-
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great Heaven! attaining the height of an ambition
you have long cherished, you will hold a table at
Belleville or Batignolles, and you will be courted
by elderly military gentlemen and hoary-headed
profligates who will come to play clandestine bac-
carat and lansquenet under your roof? But before
arriving at this period, when the sunshine of your
youth is fading, believe me, dear child, you will use
many and many a yard of silk and of velvet, many
a patrimony will be melted in the crucibles of your
caprices, many a flower will fade upon your brow,
many a one beneath your feet. Many a time you
will change your coat of arms: by turns the wreath of
a baroness, the crown of a countess, and the diadem
of a marchioness. Your device will be 'Inconstancy,'
and you will know how to please all in turn, or even
at the same time, according to caprice or necessity,
these numerous adorers who will come in file into the
ante-chamber of your heart, as they make a queue at
theatre doors where a popular piece is being played.
"Go forward, then, go forward, your spirit dis-
burdened of memories which are replaced by ambi-
tions; go on, the way is beautiful and we wish it
pleasant to your feet; but above all we wish that
all these riches and this luxury, these splendid
toilettes, do not become too soon the shroud of your
heart's gaiety."
In this fashion spoke the painter Marcel to
young Mlle. Mimi whom he chanced to meet some
few days after her second divorce from the poet
Rodolphe. Although she was compelled to smile at
the railleries of the horoscope he drew, Mimi was not
duped by the words he uttered, and perfectly compre-
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Mimi has Feathers
hended that, entertaining little respect for her new
grandeur, he was mocking her bitterly.
"You are disagreeable to me, Marcel," said
Mimi. "It is too bad of you.
I was always nice
to you when I was Rodolphe's sweetheart, and if I
have left him it is all his fault. It is he who sent
me away, and then how did he treat me, pray,
during the last few days of my stay with him? I
was very miserable. There, you don't know what
Rodolphe is! His nature is a petrifaction of
irritability and jealousy, which was killing me by
inches. He loved me, I know, well enough, but his
love was as dangerous as a firearm, and what an
existence I led with him for fifteen months! Ah,
Marcel, I don't want to make myself out better than
I am, but I have cruelly suffered with Rodolphe, you
know I have. It is not poverty which has parted
us. No, indeed it is not. I was used to that, and,
moreover, I repeat it, it was he who sent me away.
He has trampled on my feelings; he said I had no
heart if I stayed on with him; he told me he loved
me no longer, that I must find another sweetheart;
he even went so far as to mention the name of a
young man who was offering me his attentions, and
by his conduct he was the means of bringing me
and the young man together. I went to him more
out of spite than necessity, for I did not care for
him; you know well enough that I have no liking
for such young persons; they bore one, and are
as sentimental as musical glasses.
And now
what is done is done, and I don't regret it,
and I should do it again if it had to be done.
Now that he no longer has me with him, and
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knows that I am happy with another, Rodolphe is
furious and unhappy. I know someone who has
recently met him. His eyes were red. I am not
surprised. I was sure it would be like that, and
that he would be running after me, but you can tell
him that it would be only his pains wasted, and that
this time all is over now and for ever. Is it long
since you have seen him, Marcel, and is it true that
he is so much changed?" added Mimi in another
key.
"Very much changed, indeed," replied Marcel.
"Cruelly changed."
"He is miserable, that is certain, but what would
you have me do? All the worse for him. It was
his wish, he wanted an end to it all. You must
manage to console him."
"Oh, oh!" quickly said Marcel, "the greater
part of that need is met. Don't let that disturb you,
Mimi."
"You are not telling the truth, my dear," said
Mimi, with a little ironical pout. "Rodolphe would
not console himself so quickly as that. If you knew
what a state he was in the day I went away! It
was on a Friday. I would not stay that night with
my new sweetheart because I am superstitious, and
Friday is an unlucky day."
"You are wrong, Mimi. In love Friday is a
lucky day. 'Dies Veneris,' the ancients said."
"I don't know Latin," continued Mlle. Mimi.
"I left Paul, and I found Rodolphe waiting like
a sentinel for me at the corner of the street.
It was
late, after midnight, and I was hungry. I asked
Rodolphe to go and get me something for my supper.
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Mimi has Feathers
He came back after being away half an hour; he
had run about a good deal to get me in the end no-
thing very wonderfully good-bread, wine, sardines,
cheese and an apple tart. I had gone to bed during
his absence; he put the table with the things beside
the bed. I pretended not to see him, but I saw him
well enough. He was as pale as death, he was
shaking all over, and he went about the room like a
man who doesn't know what he is doing. In one
corner there were some parcels of my things done up
ready for taking away. The sight of them seemed
to upset him, and he drew the screen before them to
hide them. He tried to make me drink when we
began to eat the supper, but I was neither hungry
nor thirsty, and my heart seemed all shrivelled up.
It was cold, for there was nothing to make a fire
with; we heard the wind whistling in the chimney.
It was very wretched. Rodolphe looked at me; his
eyes were fixed. He put his hand in mine, and I
could feel it trembling; it was hot and cold by
turns.
"It is the funeral supper of our loves,' he said in
a low voice to me.
at last.
"I did not answer, but I had not the courage to
draw away my hand. 'I am sleepy,' I said to him
'It is late, let us sleep.' Rodolphe looked
at me. I had wrapped one of his neck-handker-
chiefs round my head to keep the cold out; he took
off the handkerchief without speaking a word.
'Why do you take that off?' I asked him. 'I am
cold.'
'Please-I entreat
"Oh, Mimi!' he said then.
you-it won't cost you anything; put on-for
to-night-your little striped cap.'
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"It was a cap made of striped white and brown
cotton. Rodolphe always liked to see me in this
cap, it reminded him of happy times. Reflecting
that it was for the last time, I did not dare to refuse
his whim. I got up and went to find my striped
cap, which was at the bottom of one of my packages.
Inadvertently I neglected to replace the screen.
Rodolphe, observing this, put it back himself, hiding
the packages as he had done before.
"Good night,' said he.
"Good night,' I answered. I thought he was
going to kiss me, and I should not have refused him,
but he only took my hand and carried it to his lips.
You know, Marcel, how fond he is of kissing my
hands. I heard his teeth chatter, and he was as cold
as marble. He kept tight hold of my hand, and he had
laid his head on my shoulder, which was soon wet
with his tears. Rodolphe was in a fearful state; he
strove to stifle his sobs with the coverlet, but I could
hear, and I felt his tears raining on my shoulder,
first burning, then freezing it. I had need of all my
courage then, and it nearly failed me. I had only
to say the words, only to turn my head, my lips would
have met his, and once again we should have made
it up. Ah! once I really thought he would have died
in my arms, or that he would have gone mad, as
once before he almost did, don't you remember? I
was going to give in, I felt I was. I should have been
first to yield; I was about to take him in my arms,
for one would really have been destitute of a soul to
remain insensible to such anguish; but I remem-
bered his words the night before, 'You are heartless
if you stay with me, for I love you no longer.' Ah,
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Mimi has Feathers
recalling these harsh words, I saw him almost die
beside me. I might have turned my lips to his, and
At last, overcome with
I heard him still sobbing,
I might have seen him die.
fatigue, I fell half asleep.
and, Marcel, he sobbed all night; and when daylight
broke, and I looked at this lover I was leaving for
the arms of another, it was frightful to see the
ravages his sufferings had made in his face.
"He got up as I had done, without a word, and
almost fell at the first steps he took, he was so weak
and broken down. He dressed himself, however,
quickly enough, and only asked me which way I
was going and when I should go. I replied that I
did not know. He went out without saying good-
bye, without shaking hands. That is how we
parted. What a blow it must have been for him
when he returned and found me gone! Eh?"
"I was there when Rodolphe came back," said
Marcel as Mimi ceased, quite out of breath with
talking so long. "As the porter's wife gave him
his key she said—
"The little woman is gone.' 'Ah,' said Rodolphe,
'that does not surprise me. I expected it,' and he
went upstairs to his room, where I followed him,
fearing some outburst, but nothing happened. ‘As
it is too late to go and look for another room to-
night,' he said to me, we will do it together to-
morrow morning. Let us go now and have dinner.'
I thought he would drink too much, but I was
wrong. We had a very quiet dinner in a restaurant
where you went with him to dine sometimes. I
ordered Beaune to cheer him up a bit. 'It was
Mimi's favourite wine,' he said. 'We have often
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drunk it together at this very table where we are
sitting. I remember one day she said to me,
holding out her glass which she had emptied more
than once, "Fill it again. It puts balm into my
heart." It was not a very brilliant mot, do you
think?-worthy of a vaudeville scribbler. Ah! she
drank bravely, did Mimi.' Seeing him inclined to
drop away into the paths of old memories, I began
to talk to him of other things, and there was no
further mention of you. He passed all the evening
with me, and seemed as calm as the Mediterranean.
What most amazed me was that there was no affec-
tation in his composure. It was sincere indifference.
Towards midnight we returned home.
"You seem surprised at my calmness in the
situation in which I am placed,' he said to me.
'Let me make you a comparison, my dear fellow,
and if it is commonplace, it at least has the merit of
being apt. My heart is like a fountain which has
been allowed to play all night: in the morning it has
not a single drop left in it.
"So is my heart. I wept away that night all the
tears I had left. It is strange, but I thought I had
more feeling in me, and by a night of suffering I am
quite run dry. On my word of honour it is so, and
here, where last night my very soul seemed about
to render itself up for a woman who stirred no more
than a stone-since that woman now rests her head
upon another's heart I shall sleep like a porter
who has done a big day's work.'
I shall no
"All put on,' I thought to myself.
sooner be gone than he will be battering his head
against the walls.' However, I left him alone and
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Mimi has Feathers
returned to my own room, but I did not go to bed.
About three o'clock in the morning I thought I
heard a noise in Rodolphe's room. I hurried down,
expecting to find him stricken with some terrible
fever--"
"Well?" said Mimi.
"Well, my dear, Rodolphe was asleep, the bed-
clothes were smooth, and everything testified to his
slumber being calm, and that it had come to him
quickly."
"That is possible," said Mimi. "He was so
tired out with the previous night. But the next
day?"
"The next day Rodolphe came and woke me
early, and we went out to find apartments in some
other place, where we went that same evening."
"And," demanded Mimi, "what did he do when
he left the room we occupied? What did he say
as he was leaving the place where he had so loved
me?"
"He packed up calmly," replied Marcel, "and
having found in a drawer a pair of thread gloves
you had left behind you, as well as two or three
letters of yours——”
"I know," said Mimi, in tones which seemed to
say, 'I forgot them on purpose, so that he might
have some remembrance of me.' "What did he do
with them?" she added.
"I think," said Marcel, "that he threw the letters
into the grate and the gloves out of the window;
but not with romantic gestures, without any show-
off-very naturally, as one might do when one gets
rid of rubbish."
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"My dear Monsieur Marcel, I assure you that to
the bottom of my heart I hope this indifference
will last; but there again, most sincerely I do not
believe in such a rapid cure, and in spite of all
you tell me I am convinced that my poet's heart
is broken."
"It may be so," replied Marcel, as he parted from
Mimi. "Still, if I do not greatly mistake, the
pieces are in very good case."
While this colloquy was taking place in the
public street Monsieur le Vicomte Paul was wait-
ing for his new sweetheart, who was terribly late
and made herself exceedingly disagreeable to Mon-
sieur le Vicomte. He stretched himself at her feet
and chanted her favourite theme-that is to say
that she was charming, pale as the moon, gentle
as a lamb, but that he loved her above all for the
loveliness of her soul.
"Ah!" thought Mimi, as she let the waves
of her brown hair roll down on her snowy
shoulders, "my friend Rodolphe was not so super-
fine."
II
As Marcel had said, Rodolphe appeared to be
radically cured of his love for Mlle. Mimi, and
three or four days after his separation from her the
poet reappeared completely metamorphosed. He was
attired with an elegance which rendered him almost
unrecognisable by his own mirror. Nothing about him
in short afforded room for any fear that it was his
intention to cast himself into the depths of nothing-
ness. Mlle. Mimi had spread the report that this
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Mimi has Feathers
seemed possible, adding thereto all sorts of hypo-
critical expressions of regret. Rodolphe was per-
fectly calm; he listened, without a line of his face
disturbing itself, to the tales told of the new and
luxurious life led by his old sweetheart, who was
pleased to let them be circulated by a young
woman who was her friend and confidante, and who
happened to see Rodolphe nearly every evening.
"Mimi was very happy with Vicomte Paul," this
woman told the poet; "he seemed desperately in
love with her. Only one thing troubles her-she
is afraid of your upsetting her by coming after
her, which would, moreover, be dangerous for you,
for the Vicomte adores his mistress and has had
two years' fencing practice!"
"Oh, oh!" said Rodolphe, "let her sleep quite in
peace. I have no desire to go and drop vinegar
into her honeymoon. As to her young lover, he
may safely leave his dagger hanging upon its nail,
like Gastebelza, the man with the carbine. I should
not wish otherwise in connection with a gentleman
who has still the happiness of being at nurse with
his illusions." And as there was no lack of reports
to Mimi of the spirit in which her former sweetheart
received the particulars of her present welfare, she,
on her part, did not forget to reply with a shrug.
"Oh, very well, very well. We shall see, one of
these days, how all that turns out."
Notwithstanding this, and more than anyone else,
Rodolphe was greatly astonished at his own sudden
indifference, which, without passing through the
ordinary phases of sadness and melancholy, came
direct upon the violent tempests which had agitated
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him but a few days before. Forgetfulness is slow in
coming, above all to those bereft of love-forget-
fulness which they call loudly for, and as loudly repel
when they feel its approach; that pitiless consoler had
suddenly with one blow, and without his being able
to defend himself, invaded Rodolphe's heart, and
the name of her he had so loved was never again to
waken an echo there. Strange that Rodolphe, whose
memory was so strong in its power of recalling
things which had happened in the most remote
days of his past years, and the beings who had
moulded or had influenced his existence no matter
how far back-Rodolphe, after four days of separa-
tion, let him strive as he would, was unable dis-
tinctly to recall the features of this girl who had been
able to hold his very life in her slender hands; in the
eyes whose radiance had so often soothed him he no
longer saw any sweetness; of that voice itself, whose
petulance or whose tenderness filled him with delu-
sions of happiness, he could not recall the tones.
poet friend, who had not seen him since his sunder-
ing from Mimi, met him one evening. Rodolphe
appeared busy and anxious as he strode along the
street flourishing his cane about.
A
"Ah," said the poet, holding out his hand,
"there you are"; and he gazed with curiosity at
Rodolphe.
Seeing that he had a long face, he thought it was
right to speak in a consolatory key.
"Come, courage, my dear fellow! I know it was
hard, but it must have come to that some day.
Better now than later. In three months' time the
cure will be complete."
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Mimi has Feathers
"What are you talking about?" said Rodolphe.
"I am not ill, my friend."
"Oh, hang it!" said the other, "you needn't try
to brazen it out. I know the whole affair, and if
not I should be able to read it now in your face."
"Mind, you are making a quid pro quo," said
Rodolphe. "I am worried this evening, to be sure,
but as to the cause of the worry, you haven't quite
put your finger on the right spot."
"Ah, why excuse yourself? It is all natural
enough. An affair like that, which has lasted nearly
two years, is not broken up so easily."
"Everybody tells me the
the same thing," said
Rodolphe impatiently. "But on my honour, you are
quite mistaken-you and everyone. I am profoundly
miserable and doubtless look it, but why I am so is
because my tailor was to bring me home a new coat,
and it has not come. That, that is why I am so
wretched."
"Bad, bad," said the other, laughing.
"Not bad; good. On the contrary, very good.
Follow my argument, and you will
Excellent even.
see."
"Well," said the poet, "I am listening to you.
'Prove to me how one can reasonably wear such a
melancholy exterior because a tailor fails to keep his
word. Go on, go on; I am waiting."
"Ah, well," said Rodolphe, "you know little
causes are productive of great effects. I wanted to
pay a very important visit this evening, and I am
not able to do it because I haven't my coat.
follow me?"
You
"No, the motive does not suffice for the wretched-
Ꮓ
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ness.
You are miserable-because-no, you are too
stupid to make pretences to me. There you have
my opinion."
"My friend," said Rodolphe, "you are very ob-
stinate. There is always a foundation of wretched-
ness where happiness or even pleasure is wanting,
because it is almost always so much loss, and one
cannot always say which of the two it may be. I
will go into that with you another time. I resume.
I had a rendezvous this evening with a lady. I was
to meet her at a house whence I might have con-
ducted her to mine, if it had been shorter than for
me to go to her house, or even if it had been longer.
In this house there was an evening party to be
given. To an evening party one can only go in a
dress suit. I have not a dress suit; my tailor should
have brought me one. He did not bring it. I do
not go to the soirée. I do not meet the lady, whose
favour is, perhaps, being sought by another. I
neither take her to my house nor go to hers. There-
fore, as I told you, I miss a happiness or a pleasure;
therefore I am wretched; therefore I appear so; and
it is all natural enough."
"Granted," said the friend; "therefore, having
drawn one foot out of one hell, you plunge the
other into a fresh one. But, my good friend, when
I met you just now you looked as if you were wait-
ing for someone."
"I was doing so."
66
"But," continued the other, we are in the
quarter where your old sweetheart lives. What will
prove to me that you were not waiting for her?"
"Although we have parted, particular reasons
338
Mimi has Feathers
compel me to remain in this neighbourhood; but
although we are neighbours, we are as far off from
each other as if the poles sundered us. Besides, at
this time of day my former mistress is sitting by the
fire taking lessons in grammar with Monsieur le
Vicomte Paul, who wishes to lead her into the paths
of virtue by the way of orthography. Heavens,
how he will spoil her! However, that is his busi-
ness now that he is her ruler-in-chief. You see,
therefore, that your views were absurd, and that
instead of being on the obliterated tracks of my old
passion, I am on those of the new, who is already a
neighbour of mine, and will become still more inti-
mate, for I agree to take the necessary steps, and,
if she will take the rest, we shall not be long in
understanding each other."
66
Really," said the poet, "you are in love
already?"
"I am," replied Rodolphe; "my heart is like
those apartments that are put up to let directly the
former lodger quits them. When one love leaves
my heart I put up the notice for another. The
place is habitable and in perfect repair."
"And who is the new divinity? Where did you
find her-and when?"
"Ah," said Rodolphe, "let us go step by step.
When Mimi left me I thought I should never in all
my life be in love again, and I fancied my heart
was dead with fatigue, exhaustion, - what you
please. It had throbbed so long, so fast- too
fast, that it was incredible. In brief, I believed it
to be dead, quite dead, and I thought, like Marl-
borough, I would bury it. In honour of this
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occasion I invited some of my friends to a little
funeral dinner. The guests were to put on mournful
visages, and the bottles were to have crape round
their necks."
"You did not invite me."
Forgive me, but I did not know the exact situa-
tion of the cloud you live in. One of my guests
brought a lady, a young woman forsaken by her
lover. They told her my story; one of my friends
related it a fellow who plays very well upon the
violin of sentiment. He talked to this young woman
of the qualities of my heart, the poor corpse they
had assembled to bury, and invited her to drink to
its eternal repose.
"No,' she said, lifting her glass, 'on the con-
trary, I will drink to its health,' and she cast a
glance at me, a glance to waken a dead man, as
they say, and then was the time or never to say it,
for she had not uttered her toast before I felt my
heart singing the 'O Filii' of the Resurrection.
What would you have done in my place?"
"A fine question!
What is her name?"
"I don't know yet. I shall not ask her name till
the moment when we sign our contract. I know
well enough that, in the opinion of some, I am not
within statutable limitations. I am my own so-
licitor, and I can settle the costs with myself.
What I do know is that my future sweetheart
brings me a dowry of gaiety, which is the health of
the mind, and of health, which is the gaiety of the
body."
"Is she pretty?"
"Very pretty-in complexion, at all events. One
340
Mimi has Feathers
would say that she washed herself of a morning
from Watteau's palette.
"My sweetheart is fair,
Witness mine."
"She is fair?
And her conquering darts
Set fire to all hearts.'
You astonish me."
"Yes, I have had enough of ebony and ivory. I
turn to the blonde"; and Rodolphe began to sing
and caper.
"We will sing if you will
To the girl I adore ;
She is fair as Aurore
Or the wheat in the field.'"
"Poor Mimi!" said the friend.
gotten!"
"So soon for-
The name flung into the midst of Rodolphe's
gaiety gave a turn to the conversation. Rodolphe
took his friend by the arm and told him a long
tale of the causes of his rupture with Mlle. Mimi,
the terrible loneliness seizing him when she left
him, how miserable he was because he thought she
had taken away with her all that remained to him of
youth and of passion, and how two days later he
had seen his mistake in feeling the chords of his
heart, softened by the flow of sobs and tears, gather
warmth, and kindle and break into flame under the
first passionate glances cast at him by the first
woman he had met. He told his friend of this
sudden and despotic conquest forgetfulness had
gained without his even having appealed to his old
sorrow for protection against it, and how this sorrow
was dead, shrouded in oblivion.
"Isn't it all marvellous?" he said to the poet,
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who, knowing from his own heart and experience all
the sufferings of wounded and crushed-out love,
replied-
"No, no, my friend, there is no more of the mar-
vellous in it for you than for others. What has
happened to you has happened to me. The women
we love, when they become our mistresses, cease to
be for us what they really are. We see them only
with lovers' eyes; we see them, also, with poets'
eyes. Just as a painter clothes a dummy in imperial
purple or the Madonna's starry veil, we have always
shining robes and snowy raiment to cast about
creatures who are unintelligent, bad, wicked; and
when they are clothed in the garments in which our
ideal loves passed into the azure depths of our
dreams, we allow them to wear this disguise, we
incarnate our dream in the person of the first woman
to whom we speak our language, and she does
not comprehend it.
"This creature herself, nevertheless, at whose
feet we prostrate ourselves, tears away the glorious
garments in which we have clothed her, the better
for us to see her corrupt nature and her low
instincts; nevertheless, she puts her hand on the
place where her heart should be, where there is no
longer a throb, perhaps where never has been life.
She nevertheless draws aside her veil and discloses
her dim eyes and her pale lips and her withered
features. We drag back the veil in its place, and
we cry to ourselves, 'Thou liest! thou liest! I love
thee and thou lovest me. This white bosom covers
a heart which is young. I love thee and thou
lovest me. Thou art beautiful, thou art young.
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Mimi has Feathers
Beneath all thy vices there is love. I love thee, and
thou lovest me!'
"Then at last, oh! always in the end, after
having bound our eyes with triple bandages, we
perceive that we are ourselves the dupes of our own
error. We send away the unhappy being which
but yesterday was our idol; we drag off from her the
golden veil of our poetry, which next day we throw
about the shoulders of some unknown creature, who
passes at once to the throne of the glorified idol.
And that is what we all are, monstrous egotists,
who love love for love's sake-you understand me,
don't you?—and we quaff the divine drink in the first
glass that comes to hand.
"What matters the glass
If ecstasy reigns.'
"It is as true as two and two make four, what
you say," said Rodolphe to the poet.
"Yes," replied he, "it is as true and sad as the
half-and-half of all truths. Good night.'
""
Two days later Mimi learned that Rodolphe had a
new mistress. She only asked one thing, which was
if he caressed her hands as often as he used to do
hers.
"Moreover, he
"Quite as often," said Marcel.
kisses each hair one after the other, and they ought
to remain faithful till he has finished."
"Ah!" said Mimi, passing her fingers through
her hair, "it is lucky he did not think of doing that
with me; we should have remained together all our
lives. Do you think that it is really true that he no
longer loves me one bit?"
“Ah, rubbish! And do you still love him?"
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"I? I never loved him."
"Yes, Mimi; yes you did love him. In those
days when the heart of woman is yielding you
loved him, and do not deny it, for it is your
justification."
"Ah, nonsense!" said Mimi. "He loves another
woman now."
"That is true," said Marcel, "but it will not
interfere. Later your memory will be for him like
the flowers that one places all fresh and fragrant
between the leaves of a book. Long after one finds
them there withered and discoloured-dead, but con-
serving still some faint perfume of their original
sweetness."
One evening when she was humming something
in a low voice to herself, Vicomte Paul said to
Mimi-
"What are you singing, dearest?"
"The funeral poem of our love which Rodolphe
has lately composed." And she began to sing-
"I am too poor, sweetheart, to share your fold,
And Custom hard, in such a parlous state,
Ordains oblivion. E'en as those of old,
O Mimi, tearless you accept your fate.
You see, dear, none can rob us of the past,
For ever ours those nights and happy days;
It does not matter that they did not last-
Those that flew fastest flashed the brightest rays.'"
344
D
XXI
ROMEO AND JULIET
RESSED like a portrait in his own journal-
the Iris-gloved, polished, shaved, curled,
the ends of his moustache twisted to a point,
stick in hand, eye-glass in eye, expansive, smiling,
and rejuvenated, our friend Rodolphe might have
been seen one November evening standing on
the pavement waiting for a cab to drive him
home.
Rodolphe waiting for a cab? What cataclysm
had occurred in his private life? At the same
moment that the transformed poet twirled his mous-
tache, smoked his regalia and charmed the ladies
as they passed, one of his friends was walking along
the same street. It was the philosopher, Gustave
Colline. Rodolphe saw him coming and recognised
him; and who once seeing him was likely to forget
him? Colline was loaded as usual with a dozen
books. Wearing the immortal nut-brown paletôt,
whose durability suggested its having been con-
structed by the Romans, and his head surmounted
with the famous broad-brimmed beaver hat (which
has been christened Mambrino's helmet of modern
philosophy) beneath whose dome germinated the
seed of hyperphysical dreams, Gustave Colline
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walked slowly, ruminating over the preface to a
work which he had had in the press for the past
three months. As he approached the spot where
Rodolphe was standing, Colline thought he recog-
nised him, but the supreme elegance of the poet's
appearance created doubt and uncertainty in the
philosopher's mind.
"Rodolphe in gloves carrying a cane! Chimera!
Utopia! What an aberration! Rodolphe curled!
He who had no hair worth speaking of! Where
is my head? Besides, at such an hour my un-
happy friend is in the act of mournful lamentation
and composing melancholy verses on the departure
of Mademoiselle Mimi, who is the cause of his
wretchedness. How deeply I regret this young
woman! She made coffee with immense distinction
-coffee which is the beverage of serious minds.
But I like to think that Rodolphe will console
himself, and that he will take unto himself a new
coffee-maker."
And Colline was so charmed with his own com-
ment that he was about to cry encore, had not the
philosopher's voice wakened within him and called a
stentorian "Stop that!"
When, however, he had gone a little nearer,
Colline found that he was right: it was Rodolphe,
curled, in gloves, and carrying a cane.
It was
impossible, but it was true.
"Eh, eh! By Jove!" said Colline. "I do not
mistake. It is you, sure enough."
"It is I," replied Rodolphe.
And Colline fell to contemplating his friend,
endowing his face with the expression employed
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Romeo and Juliet
by Monsieur Lebrun, painter to the king, to
convey surprise. But suddenly he observed two
extraordinary objects with which Rodolphe was en-
cumbered. First, a ladder of silken cord; secondly,
a cage in which some kind of bird was hopping
about. At sight of these Gustave Colline's face
took on an expression which Monsieur Lebrun,
painter to the king, has forgotten to present in his
picture of "The Passions."
"Come," said Rodolphe to his friend. "I distinctly
perceive the mental curiosity which is looking out
of the windows of your eyes.
I am about to satisfy
it, only let us quit the public highway. It is so cold
that it will freeze your questions and my answers."
And they went together into a café.
Colline's eyes did not quit the cord ladder or the
cage containing the bird, who, warmed by the
atmosphere of the café, began to sing to Colline in
an unknown tongue, for all he had such a knowledge
of languages.
"Well," said the philosopher, pointing to the
ladder, "what is that?"
"It is a link of union between my friend and me,"
said Rodolphe in the tones of a mandoline.
"And that?" said Colline, pointing to the bird.
"That?" said the poet, his voice taking on the
softness of the evening breeze. "It is a clock."
"Talk without parable-in vile prose, so only
that it is understandable.”
"Good. Have you read Shakespeare?"
"Yes, I have read him-'To be or not to be.'
He was a great philosopher.
him."
Yes, I have read
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"Do you remember Romeo and Juliet ?"
"Do I remember it?" said Colline; and he began
to recite-
"It is not yet near day :
It was the nightingale, and not the lark.'
"By Jove! Yes, I remember. But what then?"
"What!" said Rodolphe, pointing to his ladder
of cords and the birdcage, "you don't understand?
It is the poem itself. I am in love, my friend, in
love with a woman who is called Juliet."
"Well," said Colline impatiently, "what then?"
"Well, my new divinity being called Juliet, I
have conceived the idea of enacting over again
Shakespeare's drama. To begin with, my name is
no longer Rodolphe, I am called Romeo Montague;
and you will oblige me by not calling me anything
else. In fact, that all the world may know it, I
have it engraved on my new visiting cards. But
that is not all. I am going to avail myself of the
opportunity of being somebody else when carnival
time comes to dress myself in a velvet doublet and
wear a sword——”
"To kill Tybalt with?" asked Colline.
"Precisely," continued Rodolphe; "and this
ladder which you see is to assist me to enter my
mistress's chamber, which, as it happens, has a
balcony."
"But the bird, the bird!" said the obstinate
Colline.
"Eh, well, this bird, which is a pigeon, is to play
the part of nightingale, and indicate every morning
the precise moment when, as I quit her adored arms,
my mistress is to embrace me with both arms
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Romeo and Juliet
flung round my neck, and to say in her sweet tones,
exactly as in the balcony scene, 'It is not yet near
day: 'tis not the lark.' That is to say, 'No, it is
not yet eleven. There is mud in the streets. Don't
go. We are so comfortable here.' In order to
complete the imitation, I am going to try and get a
nurse and place her at the service of my lady love;
and I hope that now and again the almanack will
give me a little moonlight, so that I can climb up to
my Juliet's balcony. What do you say to my project,
philosopher?"
"It is delightful," said Colline, "but can you
further explain the mystery of this superb raiment
which renders you almost unrecognisable? Have
you become rich?"
Rodolphe did not reply, but he signed to a waiter,
and carelessly threw down a louis, saying, 'Pay!'"
Then he clapped his pockets, which rattled music-
ally.
"You have a bell-tower in your pockets to pro-
duce such sounds as that?"
"A few louis merely."
"Gold louis?" said Colline in a voice half suffo-
cated with astonishment. "Show us a little how it
is done."
Then the two friends separated, Colline to go and
relate the opulence and the new loves of Rodolphe,
the other to return home.
This took place during the week following the
second rupture of Rodolphe's love passages with
Mlle. Mimi. Accompanied by his friend Marcel,
the poet, when he broke with his sweetheart, had
felt the need of change of air and scene and
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he quitted the furnished rooms, whose landlord saw
him and Marcel part for good without too much
regret. Both, as has been already related, had
sought a lodging elsewhere, and engaged two rooms
in the same house and on the same floor. Rodolphe's
chamber was infinitely more comfortable than any
he had lodged in before. There was really some
substantial furniture in it, especially a couch up-
holstered in a sort of stuff imitating velvet, which
stuff by no means said, "Do as you please."
There were also upon the mantelshelf two porce-
lain vases painted with flowers, flanking an alabaster
clock with hideous ornamentation. Rodolphe put
the vases in a cupboard; and on the landlord
coming to wind up the clock, the poet begged him
not to do so.
A
"I consent to the clock remaining where it is,'
he said, "but only as an object of art. It points to
midnight. That is a good hour. Let it keep to it.
The day it goes to five minutes past I leave.
clock!" continued Rodolphe, who had never been
able to submit himself to the imperious tyranny of
such a thing. "It is an enemy who implacably
measures your existence out of you, hour by hour,
minute by minute, and says to you every instant,
'Here goes a bit of your life.' Ah, I could not
sleep quietly in a room where one of these instru-
ments of torture stands to render dreams and
sweet leisure impossible; a clock, whose hands
stretch to your bed and pinch you in the morning
when you are wrapped in the soft delights of first
awakening; a clock, whose voice cries to you,
'Ding, ding, ding! It is time for work: leave your
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Romeo and Juliet
lovely dreams; come away from the caresses of your
visions (or it may be of your realities). Put on
your hat, your boots; it rains. Get to your busi-
ness. It is time-ding, ding, ding!' It is enough
and more to have an almanack. Let my clock
remain paralysed. If not--" And thus indulging
in his monologue, he examined his new dwelling,
disturbed by that secret disquietude one always
feels on taking up fresh quarters.
"I have noticed," he went on to himself, "that
the places we inhabit exercise a mysterious influence
on our thoughts, and consequently on our actions.
This room is cold and silent as a tomb. If ever
cheerfulness comes here it must be let in from with-
out, and then it will not last long, for laughter
would die echoless under this low ceiling, cold and
white as a snowy sky. Alas! what will my life be
between these four walls?"
*
*
*
*
Notwithstanding, a few days later this melancholy
chamber was full of light and resounded with joyous
chatter. They were having a house-warming, and
numerous bottles assisted the merriment of the
guests. Rodolphe himself was soon won over by the
contagious good humour of his friends. In a corner
beside a young lady, who was one of the company,
and with whom Rodolphe was greatly taken, the
poet made madrigals with lips and hands. Before
the end of the banquet he had obtained from her a
rendezvous for next day.
"Well," he said to himself when he was alone
again, "the evening hasn't passed so badly, and my
coming here seems to begin well."
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The next day, at the appointed hour, Mlle. Juliet
arrived. The evening passed in explanations.
Juliet had heard of the recent rupture between
Rodolphe and the blue-eyed girl he had so deeply
loved. She knew that after giving her up Rodolphe
had taken her back again, and she was afraid of
being a new victim to these amorous comings and
goings.
"You see," she added, with a pretty little mutinous
air, "I have no fancy for playing a ridiculous part.
I warn you I am very troublesome. Once mistress
here," and she emphasised the significance she
gave the word with a look-"I yield my place to
no one!"
Rodolphe called up all his eloquence to convince
her that her fears were ill founded, and the young
woman having every desire to be convinced, they
finished by entirely understanding each other. Only
they did not understand when midnight struck, for
Rodolphe wanted Juliet to remain, and she was
bent on going.
"No," she said, when he insisted. "What is the
need of hurry? We shall reach where we ought to
reach if you do not stop me on the way. I will come
back to-morrow." And she came in this manner
every evening for a week, to leave again when mid-
night sounded.
This slow fashion did not particularly vex
Rodolphe. In love, or even in caprice, he was
of the class of travellers who take their time on
the road and make it picturesque. This little senti-
mental preface resulted in dragging Rodolphe on,
and it was doubtless in order to lead him to the
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Romeo and Juliet
point at which fancy, mellowed by resistance, begins
to resemble love that Mlle. Juliet employed her
stratagem.
At each visit she paid Rodolphe Juliet remarked a
deeper tone of sincerity in what he said to her. He
betrayed, when she happened to come a little late,
a symptomatic impatience which charmed her, and
he even wrote her letters couched in terms which
led her to hope that she would quickly become his
legitimate mistress.
As Marcel, who was his confidant, happened once
to see one of these letters of Rodolphe's, he said to
him laughingly-
"Is it merely a way of speaking, or do you really
mean what you say?"
This solitude
"Yes, I mean it," replied Rodolphe, "and I am
a little astonished at it, but so it is.
A week ago
I was in a wretched frame of mind.
and this silence, which succeeded so cruelly to the
tempests of the old way of living, upset me terribly,
but Juliet came almost suddenly. I heard once
more the echoes of the gaiety of the days when I
was only twenty. I had before me a fresh young
face, eyes beaming with smiles, a mouth made for
kisses, and I allowed myself to be softly led on by
this little woman and a fancy which I thought might
develop into love. I love to love."
Rodolphe, however, saw that it was for him to
bring this little romance to a conclusion, and then it
was that he conceived the notion of copying Shake-
speare's scene of the love-making of Romeo and
Juliet. His future mistress had found the idea
amusing, and consented to play her part in it. It
2 A
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was on the evening for which the rendezvous had
been fixed that Rodolphe met Colline as he was
bringing home his purchase of silken cord with
which he was to scale his Juliet's balcony. The
bird-seller to whom he applied for a nightingale not
having one in stock, Rodolphe had substituted a
pigeon, which the man assured him always sang
every morning at sunrise.
As he entered his room the poet began to reflect
that an ascent on a cord ladder might not be so
easy, and that it would be as well to do a little
rehearsal of the balcony scene if, apart from the
chances of a fall, he did not wish to make himself
ridiculous and clumsy in the eyes of her who would
be waiting for him. Having fastened his ladder to
two nails firmly fixed into the ceiling, Rodolphe em-
ployed his remaining two hours in gymnastics, and
after an infinite number of attempts he succeeded in
climbing a dozen steps.
"Come, that is all right," he said to himself; "I
am sure of it now, and besides, if I stick by the
way, love will give me wings." And laden with his
ladder and his pigeon-cage, he found his way to
Juliet's house, which was not far off. Her room
was situated at the end of a little garden, and really
had outside it a sort of little balcony; but the room
was a ground-floor one, and the balcony could be
climbed with the greatest ease.
Rodolphe was therefore considerably depressed
when he perceived that the position of the balcony
did not allow of his poetical plan for scaling it.
"No matter," he said to Juliet, "we can do the
balcony episode all the same. Here is a bird who
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Romeo and Juliet
will waken us to-morrow morning with his melodious
voice, and will warn us of the precise moment when
we must separate in despair"; and Rodolphe hung
the cage in a corner of the room.
Next morning towards five o'clock the pigeon was
punctual, and filled the room with a cooing which
must have wakened the lovers had they slept.
"Well," said Juliet, now is the time to go out
on the balcony and make our despairing adieus.
What do you think?"
"The pigeon is too fast," said Rodolphe. "This
is November; the sun doesn't rise till midday."
"No matter," said Juliet, "I'm going to get
up."
66
Why should you do that?"
"I'm hungry, and I tell you plainly that I could
eat any amount."
"The harmony between us is wonderfully sym-
pathetic. I am also atrociously hungry," said
Rodolphe, getting up and dressing himself hastily.
Juliet had already lighted a fire, and looked on
her sideboard, where she found nothing, Rodolphe
helping her in the search.
66
"Here," he said, onions!"
"And lard!" said Juliet.
"And butter!"
"And bread!"
Alas! it was all.
During the search the optimistic and careless
pigeon sang on his perch.
Romeo looked at Juliet, Juliet looked at Romeo.
Both looked at the pigeon.
They said no more. The pigeon's fate was sealed.
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It was a lost case for him. Hunger is a cruel
counsellor.
Rodolphe had lighted the fire and put the butter in
the saucepan. His air was grave and solemn.
Juliet sliced the onions in a melancholy attitude,
the pigeon sang on; it was his willow song. With
the soft lamentation was joined the song of the
butter in the saucepan.
Five minutes after the butter still sang, but, like
the Templars, the pigeon sang no more. Romeo
and Juliet had fitted their clock to the gridiron.
"He had a pretty voice," said Juliet as they sat
down to table.
"He is very tender," said Rodolphe, cutting up
his alarum perfectly cooked; and the two lovers,
looking at each other, surprised a tear in each
other's eyes.
Hypocrites! It was the onions which made them
cry!
356
XXII
EPILOGUE TO THE LOVES OF RODOLPHE AND
D
MADEMOISELLE MIMI
URING the early days of his final rupture with
Mademoiselle Mimi, who left him, it will be
remembered, to drive in Vicomte Paul's carriages,
the poet Rodolphe had striven to stifle down regret
by taking another sweetheart. She was fair, and
we have seen him dress himself up as Romeo in a
moment of folly and absurdity. The liaison, how-
ever, which on his side was nothing but a matter of
spite and on hers of caprice, could not have lasted
long. The girl was, after all, a silly creature, who
knew how to harp to perfection on the strings of
gay life, intelligent enough to mark intelligence in
others and take advantage of it, and with no more
feeling than the amount needed to render her un-
comfortable when she had eaten too much. Added to
this she had a boundless love of self and an unbridled
vanity, which had driven her on to prefer her lover
running the risk of a broken leg to having a flounce
the less in her dress or a faded ribbon in her bonnet.
Of questionable beauty, she was a commonplace
creature, full of bad instincts, yet attractive under
certain conditions and at certain times. She at
once saw that Rodolphe had taken her up simply to
help him to forget the absent love, which she did not
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succeed in doing, for never had Mimi lived so
entirely and vividly in his heart as now.
One day Juliet was talking of her lover the poet
with a medical student who was paying court to her.
"My dear child," he said, "that man makes use of
you as use is made of nitrate to cauterise pain. He
wants to cauterise his heart, and you are very
wrong to want to cause bad blood by being true to
him."
"Ah, ah!" cried the young girl, bursting into a
shout of laughter. "Do you really suppose it
interferes with my arrangements?" And the same
evening she gave the student proof to the contrary.
Thanks to the indiscretion of one of his officious
friends, who was unable to keep to himself any
intelligence capable of causing vexation to others,
Rodolphe got wind of the affair, and found a
pretext for breaking with his sweetheart.
Then he shut himself up in absolute solitude,
where all sorts of bats of weariness and melancholy
came to make their nests, and he called hard work
to his assistance, but it was in vain. Every evening,
after struggling till the drops of perspiration fell as
fast as the drops of ink he used, he wrote verses, in
which old ideas, more worn out than the Wandering
Jew, and miserably clothed in rags and tatters
borrowed from literary fripperies, danced clumsily
upon ropes of rubbish. In re-reading over these
lines Rodolphe stood dismayed, like a man who sees
weeds sprung up where he thought he had planted
roses. Then he tore up the pages on which he had
written his platitudes and trampled the fragments
under his feet in an access of rage.
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Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
"No," said he, beating his breast where his
heart lay hidden, "the cord is broken. I must
resign myself." And as for long past the same con-
viction followed all his efforts, he was seized with
the indolence which discourages and shakes the
pride and power of the strongest and most brilliant
intellects. Nothing indeed is more terrible than these
solitary struggles which take place at times between
the stubborn artist and rebellious art. Nothing is
more distressing than these invitations, now sup-
pliant, now imperious, which are addressed to the
disdainful or fugitive muse. The worst human
suffering, the deepest wounds struck at the inmost
heart, do not cause any approach to the agony of
those hours of self-distrust and impatience known to
all who follow the perilous vocation of imaginative
literature. To these violent crises succeeded cruel
exhaustion, and Rodolphe would remain then for
hours at a time, as if petrified in motionless
stupidity. His elbows on the table, his eyes stonily
fixed on the luminous space which the lamp's rays
shed on the sheets of paper, "the battle field"
where his soul was daily vanquished and where his
pen stumbled in its struggles to grasp the elusive
ideas, he saw slowly passing in his mind's eye, like
the figures of a magic-lantern panorama, fantastic
figures of his past. First those laborious days,
whose every hour that struck sounded the accom-
plishment of a task, the studious nights passed in the
company of the muse who came to people his
solitary and patient poverty with her magic charm;
and he recalled with envy the pride which intoxicated
him when he had fulfilled his self-imposed tasks.
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"Oh! nothing can equal you," he would cry,
"nothing can rival it. Luxurious fatigue of work,
which renders the mattress of far niente so soft!
No selfish satisfaction, no feverish delights hidden
amid heavy curtains of mysterious alcoves; nothing
can rival or come near this honest and calm delight,
this legitimate self-content which work gives to the
worker as his first reward." And his eyes still
fixed on these visions which painted for him times
and scenes long past, he would mount in imagina-
tion once more six flights of stairs to all the attics
where his chequered existence had been spent, and
whither his muse, then his only love, faithful and
persevering friend, had always followed him, cheer-
ing his poverty and never interrupting his song of
hope. But lo! in the midst of this tranquil and
regular existence suddenly appears the figure of a
woman, and seeing her enter where she had hitherto
been sole queen and mistress, the poet's muse rose
sadly and yielded up her place to the new-comer in
whom she knew a rival. Rodolphe hesitated for a
moment between the muse, to whom his glance
seemed to cry, "Remain," while an inviting gesture
to the stranger seemed to say, "Come"; and how
could she be repelled, this charming being who
advanced towards him graced with all the seductive-
ness of beauty at its dawn? A little mouth and
rosy lips speaking a frank and ingenuous language,
full of soft promises, how refuse to take the little
white, blue-veined hand caressingly outstretched
towards him? How say, "Begone!" to these flower-
garlanded eighteen years whose presence already
filled the house with the fragrance of youth and of
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Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
gaiety? And then in passionately stirred tones she
sang so sweetly the song of temptation. With
her brilliant, animated eyes she said so eloquently,
"I am love, from whose lips kisses were born. I
am pleasure." By her whole person she said, "I
am happiness," and Rodolphe let her take him
captive. And besides, this girl-was she not, after all,
poetry in herself, living and breathing poetry? Did
he not owe fresh inspirations to her? Had she not
often initiated enthusiasm which bore him SO
far into the ether of dreams and reverie that he lost
sight of earthly things? If he had greatly suffered
because of her, was not this suffering the expiation
of immeasurable delight and joy which she had
given him? Was it not the ordinary revenge of
human fate, which forbids absolute happiness as if
it were impiety? If the Christian law pardons those
who have loved much, it is also because they have
suffered much, and terrestrial love never becomes
a divine passion till it is purified by tears. As the
scent of faded roses intoxicates, so Rodolphe grew
intoxicated once again in the memory of this life of
old days, whose every day produced a new elegy, a
terrible drama, a grotesque comedy. He passed
through all the phases of his strange love for the
dear absent one from the days of their honeymoon
to the domestic storms which had brought about
their last rupture. He recalled all the trickeries of
his former mistress, he repeated to himself all her
little mots and jests. He saw her dancing round
him in their little chamber, humming her song of
"Ma Mie Annette" ("My love Annette") and
meeting with the same careless light-heartedness
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good days and bad days, and winding up the
account, he told himself that reason was always
wrong in love.
In brief, what had he gained by this
rupture? When he lived with Mimi she deceived
him, it is true; but if he had known anything of it,
it was his own fault, and because he gave himself
infinite trouble to ascertain the fact, because he spent
his time in unearthing proof and sharpened with
his own hand the daggers he plunged into his heart.
Besides, was not Mimi skilful enough in demon-
strating to him that it was, after all, he who
deceived himself? And with whom had she been
unfaithful to him? It was generally with a shawl,
with a hat-with things and not with men. This
tranquillity, this calm he had looked for in separating
himself from her, had he found them after her
departure? Alas! no. There was less of it all in
his home. Once upon a time he could pour out his
troubles, he could indulge in injuries and misrepre-
sentations, he could show all he suffered and excite
the pity of those who caused his sufferings, and now
his anguish was solitary, his jealousy had become
rage; for formerly he could at least, when he sus-
pected anything, prevent Mimi from going out, keep
her beside him in his own possession, and now he
met her in the street on the arm of her new lover,
and he had to go out of his way to let her pass,
happy, no doubt, and bent on pleasure.
This wretched existence lasted three or four
months. Very gradually calmness returned. Marcel,
who had gone on a long journey to help him to
forget Musette, returned to Paris and again took
up his quarters with Rodolphe. They consoled each
other.
362
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
One day-one Sunday-crossing the Luxembourg
Rodolphe met Mimi magnificently dressed.
She was going to a ball. She made a sign of
recognition with her head, to which he responded
by a bow. This meeting gave his heart a great
blow, but agitation was less painful than usual. He
walked for some time about the gardens, and then
returned home. When Marcel came in in the
evening he found him at work.
"Ah!" said Marcel, bending over his shoulder,
"you are at work. Verses?"
“I
"Yes," replied Rodolphe in a joyful tone.
don't think the little beast is quite dead yet. I have
been at it for four hours. I have found the spirit
of the old days. I have seen Mimi."
"Ah!" said Marcel in disquieted tones. "And
where are you?"
"Don't be afraid," said Rodolphe. "We have
gone no farther than a passing bow."
“Truly?" said Marcel.
"Truly. It is at an end between us. I feel that.
But if I can work again, I pardon her."
"If all is ended as much as that," said Marcel,
when he had finished reading Rodolphe's verses,
"why make verses to her?"
"Alas!" replied the poet, "I make my poetry
where I find it."
When
For a week he worked at the little poem.
he had finished it he went to read it to Marcel, who
pronounced approval; and this encouraged Rodolphe
to continue to work the vein which he had found
again.
"For," said Marcel, "the pain of parting from
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The Latin Quarter
Mimi is not so great if you can always live with her
shadow. After that," he added, smiling, "instead
of preaching to others, I should do well to preach
to myself, for Musette still fills my heart. Well,
perhaps we shall not be always young men foiled by
such creatures."
"Alas!" rejoined Rodolphe; "there is no need
to say to our youth, 'Begone!'"
"That is true," said Marcel. "And there are
days when I feel I should like to be a real old
gentleman-member of the Institute, decorated with
several orders, and quit of the Musettes of this
world. Deuce take me if I would return to it!
And you," added the artist, laughing, "would you
like to be sixty?"
"I should like sixty francs better," replied
Rodolphe.
A few days after this Mlle. Mimi being in a café
with Vicomte Paul, opened a review, in whose
columns were the verses Rodolphe had made.
"Excellent!" she cried laughingly. "Here is my
friend Rodolphe again, who is reviling me in print."
But when she had finished the verses she sat
silent and dreamy. Vicomte Paul, guessing that
she was thinking of Rodolphe, strove to divert
her mind.
"I am thinking of buying you a pair of earrings,"
he said.
"Ah!" said Mimi, "you have money."
"And a Leghorn hat," continued Vicomte Paul.
"No," said Mimi; "if you want to give me
pleasure, buy me that," and she showed him the
review in which she had read Rodolphe's poetry.
364
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
"Ah, no, not that," said the Vicomte vexedly.
"Very well," coldly said Mimi, "I will buy it
myself with the money I
events, I should prefer it
money."
earn myself. At all
not to be with your
And for two days Mimi went back to her old
flower-mounting work and earned enough to buy
the book. She learned Rodolphe's poetry by heart,
and in order to make Vicomte Paul furious she
repeated the verses constantly to her friends. *
*
*
It was the 24th of December, and the Quartier
Latin wore an unusual aspect. From four o'clock
in the afternoon the offices of the pawnbrokers, the
second-hand clothes shops and booksellers' shops
had been surrounded by an eager crowd, which
pushed on later in the evening to take the eating
and grocers' shops by assault. If the shopmen
had had a hundred arms like Briareus, they could
not have served the customers quick enough.
At the bakers' they formed a queue as if there
was a famine. The wine merchants poured out
the product of many a vintage, and a skilful statis-
tician would have had all his work to number up the
hams and sausages exposed for sale at the famous
Borel of the Rue Dauphine. On this particular
evening old Cretaine (nick-named Petit- Pain)
exhausted eighteen editions of his butter cakes.
All night long stir and bustle and voices sounded
in the lodging - houses, whose windows flared
* See Appendix.
365
The Latin Quarter
with light, and a general air of festivity pre-
vailed.
The antique custom of the midnight-meal was
being celebrated.
That evening, about ten o'clock, Marcel and
Rodolphe returned to their lodging in a very de-
pressed state of mind. Passing up by the Rue
Dauphine, they looked at the immense collection
of good things displayed in a ready-cooked pork-
butcher's shop, and they stopped for an instant on
the pavement tantalised by the fragrance of the
gastronomical wares. The two Bohemians, as they
stood there, resembled the individual in the Spanish
romance, whose hungry gaze shrivelled up the hams
as he looked at them.
"That is called truffled turkey," said Marcel,
pointing to a magnificent bird whose semi-transparent
pink epidermis afforded visions of the Périgord
tubercles with which it was stuffed. "I have seen
irreverent folks eat that without first falling on their
knees," added the painter, casting such burning
glances at the turkey that they might have roasted it.
"And what do you think of this shoulder of
mutton?" chimed in Rodolphe. "What glorious
colour! One might imagine it just taken from that
butcher's shop that is in one of Jordaën's pictures.
Shoulder of mutton is the favourite food of the gods
and of Madame Chandelier, my godmother."
"Just look at these fish," said Marcel, turning his
gaze upon some trout. "They are the most skilful
swimmers of the aquatic species. These small
creatures, who wear the most unpretentious air,
have the power, nevertheless, of amassing revenues
366
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
by their extraordinary activity. Only imagine that
they will ascend a torrent with as much facility as we
would accept an invitation to supper! I could eat
them!"
"And yonder, that pile of gilded fruit whose
leaves resemble a panoply of sabres; they are called
bananas. They are the pippins of the tropics."
"They may be," said Marcel. "I prefer this
piece of beef, this ham, or this simple gammon
cuirassed in clear jelly like amber."
"You are right," replied Rodolphe. "Ham is
the friend of man, when he gets it.
All the same, I
should not refuse this pheasant."
"I should think not. It is the dish of crowned
heads."
And as in continuing their way they met joyous
processions careering along, fêting Momus, Bacchus,
Comus and all the gourmand divinities whose names
end in us, they asked each other who was the
personage named Gamache whose wedding was
celebrated with such a huge provisioning.
Marcel was the first who recalled the date and
fête of the day.
"To-day is the celebration of the Revéillon-the
midnight meal," he said.
"Do you remember what we did on it last year?"
said Rodolphe.
"Yes," replied Marcel. "We were at Momus'.
It was Barbemuche who paid. I could never have
believed that such a delicate-looking girl as Phémie
could have put away such a quantity of sausage."
"What a misfortune that Momus no longer cares
for our patronage!" said Rodolphe.
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The Latin Quarter
"Alas!" said Marcel, "the seasons follow on, but
do not resemble each other."
"Are you not going to keep Revéillon?" asked
Rodolphe.
"With whom and with what?" demanded the
painter.
"With me, then."
"And the wherewithal?
99
"Wait a bit," said Rodolphe. "I am going into
this café where I know men who play high. I will
borrow a few sesterces of one of luck's favourites,
and I will buy something to wash down a sardine or
a pig's trotter."
"Go then," said Marcel. "I am famishing. I
will wait for you."
Rodolphe entered the café, many of whose
frequenters he knew. A gentleman who had just
won three hundred francs in three throws of the ball
found real pleasure in lending the poet a forty-sous
piece, handing it to him with the ill-humoured air
which the fever of gambling bestows. At another
time and another place than round a green table he
might possibly have lent him forty francs.
"Well?" asked Marcel, as Rodolphe returned.
"Here are the receipts," said the poet, showing
the money.
"A crust and a drop," said Marcel.
With this limited amount they were able, however,
to buy bread, wine, a bit of cooked meat, some
tobacco, light, and firing.
They went home to the lodging, where each occu-
pied a separate chamber. Marcel's lodging, which
served him for a studio, being the larger, was chosen
368
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
for the hall of festivities, and the two friends prepared
together for their banquet.
But at the little table to which they sat down, beside
the fire sputtering with damp poor wood that emitted
neither flame nor heat, there came and joined them a
melancholy guest-the phantom of the vanished past.
They remained sitting for full an hour, silent and
thoughtful, both probably occupied with similar
thoughts, and each striving to hide them. Marcel
was the first to break silence.
"No," he said to Rodolphe, "it wasn't quite this
we promised ourselves."
"What do you mean?" said Rodolphe.
"Ah! Hang it!" replied Marcel. "Don't put it
on with me. You are thinking of what is best for-
gotten. I also; I don't deny it. Well, what then?
Let it be for the last time. To the deuce with the
memories which make the wine taste sour and our-
selves wretched when all the world is amusing itself!"
cried Marcel, as the shouts of merriment sounded from
the rooms adjoining theirs. "Come, now, let us think
of other things, and let it be for the last time."
"That is what we always say. And yet--" said
Rodolphe, dropping back into his thoughts.
"And yet we are for ever recurring to them," said
Marcel. "That is because, instead of frankly seek-
ing forgetfulness, we make the most futile things
pretexts for recalling these memories; that is be-
cause, above all, we insist on living in the same
localities where the creatures have lived who have
been our torment. We are the slaves of habit more
than of passion. It is this environment which must
be broken through, this captivity in which we ridicu-
2 B
369
The Latin Quarter
lously and shamefully waste ourselves. Well, the
past is the past; we must snap the chains still holding
us to it. The hour is come for us to go forward and
look no more behind us; we have lived our life of
youthfulness and heedlessness and absurdities. All
that was very fine, and would make a good romance;
but this farce of amorous folly, this waste of days,
thrown away with a prodigality which seems to
think it has eternity to live in, all this must have an
end. Under pain of justifying the scorn it holds us
in and that in which we hold ourselves, it is not
possible for us to live longer on the outskirts of
society, almost on the outskirts of life. For is it
existence which we are leading? And this independ-
ence, this freedom of manners we vaunted so highly,
is it not a very middling advantage? True liberty is
the power to live among others and exist for one's
self; is that our mode of life? No, the first scurvy
fellow that comes along, whose name we would not
bear for a poor five minutes, takes advantage himself
of the banter to which we treat him and becomes our
master the day we borrow a hundred sous of him,
which he lends us after making us spend a hundred
crowns' worth of excuses and humiliation. For my
part I have had enough of it. Poetry does not dwell
only in the disorder of existence, in suddenly trumped-
up pleasures and amusements, in love affairs which
last about the length of a burning candle's life, in
more or less eccentric rebellions against the pre-
judices which will eternally govern the world. A
dynasty is more easily overthrown than a custom,
even though it be a ridiculous one. It is not enough
to throw a summer coat over one in December to
370
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
have talent, one can be a poet and a true artist even
if one keeps one's feet warm and eats three meals a
day. Whatever one may say, or whatever one may
do, if one would achieve anything one must follow
the ordinary road. These words astonish you a little
perhaps, friend Rodolphe; you will say I am de-
stroying my idols, you will call me corrupted, but all
the same, what I say is the expression of my sincere
conviction. Without my being aware of it, it has
worked a slow and salutary change within me ; reason
has entered into my soul burglariously and from with-
out, if you will, and in spite of myself perhaps, but
it has entered, and has proved to me that I was in a
wrong path, and that there will be at once ridicule
and danger to meet in persevering in it. For
example, what would happen if we continue this
monotonous and useless mode of life?
We are
nearing our thirty years-unknown, solitary, dis-
gusted with everything and with ourselves, full of
envy against those whom we see attaining their
desired ends, whatever those may be, forced in order
to keep the breath of life in us to have recourse to
mean, parasitical ways. And do not imagine I am
drawing a fanciful picture expressly for the purpose
of annoying you. I do not look systematically
through smoked glasses at the future, but neither
do I see it through rose-coloured ones any the more
for that. Until now the life we have led has been
imposed upon us; we had the excuse of necessity.
Now we shall no longer be excusable; and if we do
not enter into the common ordinary life around us it
is because we will not, for the obstacles we had to
contend with exist no longer."
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The Latin Quarter
"Ah," said Rodolphe, "what are you driving at?
What is the aim and use of this lecture?"
"You understand me perfectly well," replied
Marcel in the same grave tone. "Just now I saw
you as I was, overcome by memories which brought
you regrets for the days that are gone. You thought
of Mimi as I thought of Musette. You would have
had-as I would-your mistress by your side. Well,
I tell you that we must not, you nor I, think of
them; that we have not been created and put into
the world only to sacrifice our existence to these
commonplace Manons, and that the Chevalier Des-
grieux, who is so handsome, so true and so poetic,
would not save himself from ridicule except by his
youth and the illusions which he preserved. At
twenty years old he might follow his mistress to
the Isles without ceasing to be interesting; but at
five-and-twenty he would have put Manon outside
the door, and he would have been right. We may
well say we are old, my dear friend; we have lived
too much and too fast; our hearts are battered, and
there are only the broken pieces left. It is not
possible to come out scatheless from three years of
love-making with a Musette or a Mimi. For me
all is well over, and as I wish completely to divorce
myself of my memories of her, I am actually going
to throw into the fire some little things which at
sundry times she has left behind with me at our
various halts and that force me to think of her
when I chance upon them."
And Marcel, who had risen, went to take from a
drawer a little pasteboard box in which lay the
souvenirs of Musette-a faded bouquet, a sash, a
bit of ribbon and several letters.
372
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
"Come," he said to the poet, "follow my example,
friend Rodolphe."
"Well, be it so," cried Rodolphe, with an effort.
"You are right. I too will finish with this girl of
the pale hands."
And rising hurriedly he went and found a little
parcel containing his souvenirs of Mimi, which were
of much the same kind as those of which Marcel was
making an inventory.
"It happens luckily," murmured the painter;
"these odds and ends will help to light up the fire,
which is nearly out."
"Yes," said Rodolphe, "the temperature here is
enough to generate white bears."
"Come, now," said Marcel, "let us burn them
together. See, that is Musette's prose, which burns
like punch thrown in. She was very fond of punch.
Attention!"
Come, friend Rodolphe.
And for some minutes they took turns in throwing
into the flames, which began to blaze up clear and
fiercely, the objects of their dead and gone love.
"Poor Musette!" said Marcel in a low tone as he
gazed at the last thing he had in his hands. It was a
little faded bouquet composed of wild flowers. "Poor
Musette! She was very pretty, though, and she
loved me immensely, didn't she, little flowers? Her
heart told you so, did they not, the day she put you
in her waistband? Poor little bouquet! you seem to
be asking mercy of me. Very well. Yes, but on one
condition. It is that you never speak again to me
of her. Never! never!" And profiting by a moment
when he thought Rodolphe did not see him, he
slipped the bouquet into the breast of his coat.
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The Latin Quarter
"So much the worse. He has more nerve than I
have. I am cheating," murmured the painter to
himself.
But then, casting a furtive look at Rodolphe, he
saw the poet, who had arrived at the end of his
auto-da-fé, secretly putting in his pocket a little cap
of Mimi's, after he had tenderly kissed it.
"Ah," muttered Marcel, "he is as great a coward
as I am."
At the very moment Rodolphe turned to go into
his room for the night two little taps came at
Marcel's door.
"Who the deuce is that at this time of night?"
said the painter, going to open the door.
A cry of amazement escaped him when the door
was opened.
It was Mimi.
As the room was very dark Rodolphe did not at
first recognise his mistress, only distinguishing a
woman. He supposed her to be only one of Marcel's
temporary conquests, and discreetly turned to retire.
"I am disturbing you," said Mimi, who remained
standing on the threshold.
At the sound of her voice Rodolphe fell into a
chair as if struck by a blow.
"Good night," said Mimi to him, as she ap-
proached and took his hand, which he mechanically
yielded to her.
"What the devil brought you here?" demanded
Marcel." And at this hour?
""
"I am very cold," replied Mimi shiveringly. "I
saw light in your window as I was passing in the
street, and though it was so late, I came up." And
she was still trembling; her voice had the crystal-
374
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
line deep sound which pierced Rodolphe's heart like
a funeral bell and filled it with a great fear. He
looked furtively but closely at her. It was not
Mimi; it was her shadow.
Marcel made her sit down by the fire.
Mimi smiled at the sight of the beautiful flames,
which danced joyously up the chimney. "That is
very nice," she said, stretching her little purple
hands over the fire. "By the way, Monsieur Marcel,
you don't know why I have come here to you?"
"Upon my honour-no," replied he.
"Well," said Mimi, "I simply came to ask you
if you think I could have a room here. They have
turned me out of my lodging because I owe a
month's rent, and I don't know where to go."
"The devil!" said Marcel, with a head-shake.
"We are not in good odour with our landlord, and
our recommendation would be worse than no good,
my poor child."
"What can I do, then," said Mimi, "since I
don't know where to go?"
"Oh!" said Marcel. "You are no longer
Vicomtesse?"
"Ah! good heavens! no, no longer."
"But since when is that?"
"For more than two months past."
"You gave the young Vicomte a bad time of it?"
"No," she said, casting a veiled glance at Ro-
dolphe, who had placed himself in the darkest
corner of the room, "the Vicomte was savage with
me on account of some verses which were composed
about me. We quarrelled, and I sent him packing.
He is a hateful, miserly prig, so there."
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The Latin Quarter
"Still," said Marcel, "he decked you out pretty
smartly, judging by what I saw the day I met
you."
"Well," said Mimi, "only think that he kept
everything back when I left him, and I heard after-
wards that he put all my things in a lottery at a
table d'hôte where we sometimes used to dine. He
is very rich, this fellow, and with all his money he
is an avaricious, economical dunderhead-stupid as
a goose.
He would not let me drink wine un-
diluted and made me fast on Fridays. Would you
believe that he made me wear black woollen stock-
ings, because they did not soil as quickly as white
ones? What a notion! In short, he bored me
frightfully. Yes, I can tell you that it was purga-
tory to be with him."
"And does he know of your present position?"
asked Marcel.
"I haven't seen him, and I don't want to see
him," replied Mimi. "He makes me seasick when
I think of him. I would sooner die of hunger than
ask him for a sou."
"But," continued Marcel, "since you left him,
you have not been alone?"
"Ah!" quickly cried Mimi, "but I have, Monsieur
Marcel. I have worked for my living; only, as a
flower-maker's calling was not a very lucrative one,
I have found another. I am an artist's model, if
you have employment for me," she added gaily.
And noticing a movement of Rodolphe, from whom
she did not take her eyes all the time she was
talking to his friend, Mimi continued—
"Ah! but I pose only for the head and the hands.
376
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
I have plenty of employment, and two or three
people owe me money. I shall receive it in a day or
two. That is the reason I am in want of a lodging.
When I have some money I shall return to my
proper rooms. Ah!" she went on, looking at the
table where the repast which the two friends had
hardly touched still lay, "you are going to sup?"
"No," said Marcel, "we are not hungry."
"You are very lucky," ingenuously said Mimi.
At these words Rodolphe felt his heart give a
horrible bound. He made a sign to Marcel, who
understood.
"Well," said the artist, "since you are here,
Mimi, you can take pot luck. I had intended to
keep Revéillon with Rodolphe, and then-well, we
began about other things."
"Then I came at a good time," said Mimi, as
she cast a famished look at the food on the table.
"I have not dined, my friend," she said in an under-
tone to the artist, so that she could not be heard by
Rodolphe, who was stifling his mouth up with his
handkerchief to prevent his sobs being audible.
"Come, Rodolphe," said Marcel to his friend,
"let us all three have supper together."
"No," said the poet, not stirring from his corner.
"Does it annoy you, Rodolphe, that I came?"
softly asked Mimi. "Where would you have me
go?"
"No, Mimi," said Rodolphe. "It only gives me
great pain to see you like this."
"It is my own fault, Rodolphe. I do not com-
plain. What is past is past. Don't trouble any
more about me. Can you no longer be my friend
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The Latin Quarter
because you have been something else? Yes, you
can-isn't it so? Well, then, don't look so crossly
at me, and come and sit down with us."
She rose and went to take his hand, but she was
so weak that she could not take a step, and fell back
into the chair.
"The heat has overcome me," she said; "I
can't stand."
"Come," said Marcel to Rodolphe, "come and
keep us company."
The poet came to the table and sat down with
them. Mimi was very bright and animated.
When the frugal supper had ended Marcel said to
Mimi-
"My dear child, it will not be possible to find a
room for you in this house."
"Then I must go," she said, trying to rise.
"No, no," said Marcel, "there is another way of
settling the business. You sleep in my room here,
and I will go and be with Rodolphe."
"That will put you to inconvenience," said Mimi,
"but it will not last long-only a couple of days."
"Well, then, it will not put us to any inconveni-
ence," said Marcel. "So that is settled.
Here you
are at home, and I am going to Rodolphe's room.
Good night, Mimi; sleep well."
"Thank you," she said, giving her hand to Marcel
and to Rodolphe as they went out.
"Will you like to lock the door?" asked Marcel
as they neared the door.
"Why should I?" said Mimi, looking at Rodolphe;
"I am not afraid."
When the two friends were alone together in
378
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
Marcel's room, which was on the same floor, Marcel
said sharply to Rodolphe-
"Well, what are you going to do now?"
"I--" stammered Rodolphe, "I don't know."
"Come, come, don't make any fuss about it. Go
to Mimi, but if you go I prophesy you will be
together again."
"If it was Musette who had come back, what
would you do?" demanded Rodolphe of his friend.
"If it was Musette who was in the next room,"
replied Marcel, "eh-well, frankly, I think in a
quarter of an hour I should not be in this one."
"Well," said Rodolphe, "I have more courage
than you. I stay here."
"We shall see," said Marcel, who was already in
bed. "Are you going to lie down?"
"Certainly, yes," said Rodolphe.
But in the middle of the night Marcel, waking,
found he was gone.
Next morning he went and knocked softly at the
door of the room in which Mimi was.
"Come in," she said. Seeing it was he, she
signed to him to speak low, in order not to disturb
Rodolphe, who was asleep. He was sitting in an
easy chair which he had drawn close beside the bed,
his head resting on the pillow beside Mimi's.
"Is that how you have passed the night?" asked
Marcel in astonishment.
Yes," replied the girl.
Rodolphe awoke suddenly, and after kissing Mimi
he gave his hand to Marcel, who looked considerably
embarrassed.
"I am going to find some money for breakfast,"
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The Latin Quarter
Rodolphe said to the painter. "You can stay and
keep Mimi company."
"Well," asked Marcel of the girl when they
were alone," what has happened during the night?"
"Very sad things," said Mimi; "Rodolphe still
loves me."
"I know that."
You were right;
"Yes, you wanted to separate me from him. I
am not angry with you, Marcel.
I have done the poor fellow great wrong."
"And you," asked Marcel,
him?"
""
do you still love
"Ah! do I love him?" she said, clasping her
hands. "It is that which tortures me. I am very
much changed, and, my poor friend, it has taken
but a short time for that."
"Well, since he loves you and you love him, and
you cannot separate from each other, stay together,
and try to keep to the arrangement."
"It is impossible," said Mimi.
66
"Why?" demanded Marcel. "It would certainly
be much more reasonable for you to part from
each other, but in order never to see each other
again you would have to live a thousand miles
apart."
"Before long I shall be farther than that."
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"Don't tell Rodolphe; it would grieve him too
much. I am going away for ever."
"But where?"
"Listen, my poor Marcel," said Mimi sobbingly.
"Look!" and raising the sheet a little, she showed
the artist her shoulders and neck and arms.
380
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
66
'Ah, good God!" cried Marcel in tones of
grievous surprise. "Poor girl!"
"Yes, I don't deceive myself, my friend, do I?
I am going to die soon."
"But how have you come to this in so short a
time?"
"Ah!" replied Mimi, "with the life I have led
the last two months it is not astonishing. All the
nights passed in crying, the days in fireless studios,
poor nourishment, the grief, and-you don't know
all. I tried to poison myself with Javel water.
They saved me from its effects, but not for long,
as you see. And I have never been very strong.
It is all my own fault; if I had remained quietly
with Rodolphe it would not have happened. My
poor friend! Once more I am in his arms, but it
will not be for long. The last dress he will give
me will be the white one they will bury me in. Ah,
if you knew what I suffer to think that I am going
to die! Rodolphe knows that I am ill. He was an
hour without speaking a word when he saw my
arms and my thin shoulders. He could hardly
recognise his Mimi. Alas! my mirror itself does
not know me. Ah, well, what does it signify? I
was very pretty, and he loved me dearly. Ah, my
God!" she went on, hiding her face in Marcel's
hands. "I am going to leave you and Rodolphe.
Ah, my God!" and her voice was lost in sobs.
"Come, Mimi," said Marcel, "don't fret like that.
You will get better. You only need care and rest.”
"Ah, no," said Mimi. "It is all at an end. I
feel it is; and when I came here last night it took
me an hour to mount the stairs. If I had found a
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girl here I should pretty quickly have gone out
again by the window, though he was free, of course,
since we were no longer together; but, Marcel, I
was certain he still loved me. It is on that
account"-and she burst into tears-" that I don't
want to die directly; but it is all at an end. Marcel,
he must be very good, my poor friend, to have re-
ceived me back after all the wrong I have done him.
Ah, God is cruel and unjust not to leave me time to
make Rodolphe forget the grief I have caused him.
He knows the state I am in. I would not have him
lie down beside me, for it seems to me that I
have already the corruption of death in my body.
We have spent the night in tears and talking of
old times. Ah, how sad it is, my friend, to see
behind us happiness of which, when we passed it,
we took no heed! I have fire in my bosom, and
when I move my limbs it seems as if they must
break. Give me my gown, Marcel. I am going
to see with the cards whether Rodolphe will bring
back any money.
I should like to have a real
good breakfast with you; it won't do me any
harm. God can't make me worse than I am.
Look!" she added, showing her cards, which she
had just cut, "the ace of spades, and it is black
-the colour of death. And here are clubs," she
added cheerily. "Yes, there is money coming."
Marcel was speechless before the delirious sense
of this poor creature, who was, as she said, already
yielding to the corruptions of the grave.
He
About an hour later Rodolphe came back.
was accompanied by Schaunard and Gustave Colline.
The musician wore his summer coat. He had sold
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Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
his cloth coat and lent Rodolphe the money on
learning that Mimi was ill. Colline, on his part,
had sold some books. Anyone might have bought
one of his arms or legs sooner than he would part
with his dear books; but Schaunard had reminded
him that nothing could be done with an arm or a
leg. Mimi made an effort at gaiety to receive her
old friends.
"I am not naughty any longer," she said, "and
Rodolphe has forgiven me. If he will keep me with
him I will put on sabots, and make a fright of my-
self. It is all the same to me. Silk is decidedly not
good for my health," she added, with a ghastly smile.
At Marcel's suggestion Rodolphe sent to ask one
of his friends, who had recently entered the medical
profession, to come and see Mimi. It was the same
one who had attended little Francine. When he
came they left him alone with Mimi.
Rodolphe, warned by Marcel, was already aware
of the danger his mistress was in. When the
doctor had examined Mimi, he said to Rodolphe-
"You will not be able to keep her. Anything
less than a miracle cannot save her. She must go
to the hospital. I will give you a letter for la Pitié ;
I know a resident doctor there, who will attend
her most carefully. If she lives till the spring, she
may be pulled through; but if she remains here,
she will be dead in a week."
"I dare not suggest it to her," said Rodolphe.
"I have told her myself," replied the doctor,
"and she consents. To-morrow I will send you
her letter of admission to the Pitié."
"My friend,” said Mimi to Rodolphe, "the doctor
is right. You could not nurse me here. Perhaps at
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The Latin Quarter
the hospital they may cure me. I must be taken
there. Ah, don't you see, I want so much to live
now that I would gladly finish my days one hand in
the fire and one in yours. Besides, you will come
and see me. You must not be unhappy; this young
doctor tells me I shall be well taken care of; they
give you chicken at the hospital, and they have fire.
While I am nursing up you will be working to earn
money; and when I am cured I shall come and live
with you. I have great hopes now. I shall come
back as pretty as I used to be. I have already been
ill at times before I knew you, but I got better.
Nevertheless, I was not happy then; I would much
sooner have died. Now I have you, and we can be
happy together; they will save me again, for I will
fight with all my power against this illness. I
will drink all the vile stuff they can give me; and if
death takes me, it will be by force. Give me the little
hand-mirror. I think I have got some colour. Yes,"
she went on, looking at herself in the glass, "there
is my pretty pink coming back. And my hands-
see," she said, "they are still very nice, aren't
they? Kiss them once more; it won't be the last
time. There now, my poor friend," she said,
flinging her arms round Rodolphe's neck and bury-
ing her face in his dishevelled hair.
Before leaving for the hospital she would have all
her four Bohemian friends spend the evening with
her. "Make me laugh," she said. "Gaiety is health
to me. It is this nightcap of a Vicomte who has
made me ill. He wanted to teach me to spell; only
think! What on earth was I to do? And his
friends, what a company!-a veritable poultry-yard,
of which he was the peacock. He marked his linen
384
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
himself.
If he ever marries, I feel sure it will be he
who has the babies."
Nothing could be more heart-breaking than the
unhappy girl's dying efforts at gaiety. All the
Bohemians made painful attempts to hide their tears
and maintain the cheerful tone taken up by the poor
girl, for whom fate was so fast weaving her last
raiment.
The day following the morning she was taken
into the hospital Rodolphe received the bulletin of
her condition. Mimi was no longer able to stand;
they had to carry her into the ward. During the
journey she had suffered terribly from the joltings
of the cab. In the midst of all her pain the last
thing that survives in a woman-vanity-still lived
in her. Two or three times she had the cab stopped
before the drapers' shops to see the smart things.
On entering the ward indicated on her paper
Mimi's heart was near to bursting. Something told
her that it was within those bare and ghastly walls
her life would end. She summoned up all the will
left in her to hide the mournful impressions freezing
her soul.
When she was laid in her bed she embraced
Rodolphe once more and bade him adieu, telling
him to come and see her the following Sunday,
which was visiting day.
"The air here doesn't smell nice," she said to him ;
"bring me flowers-violets. There are still some.'
"Yes," said Rodolphe. "Adieu, till Sunday."
And he drew the curtains about her bed.
As she heard the departing steps of her lover on
the floor Mimi was seized with an almost delirious
access of fever. She tore aside the curtains, and
2 C
385
The Latin Quarter
leaning forward from the bed, she cried in a voice
broken with tears and sobs-
"Rodolphe, take me away! I want to go away!"
The Sister hurried to her, and tried to soothe her.
"Oh!" said Mimi, "I shall die here!"
On the Sunday morning, the day when he was to
go and see Mimi, Rodolphe remembered that he had
promised to take her some violets. Prompted by
his poetical and amorous fancy, he went on foot
through the fearful weather to seek for the flowers
his little friend had asked for-in the woods of
d'Aulnay and Fontenay, where so many a time he
had been with her. The scene that in the fair,
sunny June and August days was so gay and de-
lightful he found melancholy and frozen. For two
hours he ransacked the snow-shrouded banks, lifting
aside the brambles and the sods with a little stick
and succeeding in getting a few poor little treasures
just in a part of the wood neighbouring the pond of
Plessis, which had been their favourite spot when
they had gone to the woods.
As he passed through the village of Châtillon on
his way back to Paris Rodolphe met near the
church a christening party, one among the number
being a friend who stood godfather, with a member
of the opera.
"What the deuce are you doing here?" asked the
friend, amazed at seeing Rodolphe in the country.
The poet told him what had happened. The
young man, who knew Mimi, was very much dis-
tressed by the story, and feeling in his pocket, he
took out a bag of the christening bonbons and
gave them to Rodolphe.
386
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
"Poor little Mimi!" he said. "Give her these
from me, and tell her I shall come and see her."
"You must go soon, then, if you want to be in
time," said Rodolphe as they parted.
When Rodolphe reached the hospital, Mimi's eyes
leapt to his. She could not move.
"Ah!" she cried, with the smile of eager desire
gratified; "there are my flowers."
Rodolphe told her of his journey to the place
which had been the paradise of their love.
"Dear flowers!" murmured the poor girl, kissing
the violets. The bonbons also pleased her very
much. "I am not quite forgotten, then; you are
good, you young people. Ah, I love them all-all
your friends!" she said to Rodolphe.
The interview was almost cheerful. Schaunard
and Colline joined Rodolphe while he was with her.
The attendants had to turn them out at last, for
visiting time was up.
"Adieu," said Mimi, "till Thursday, without fail,
and come early."
The next day, when he came in in the evening,
Rodolphe found a letter from one of the resident
medical students of the hospital, the one to whose
care he had commended the invalid. The letter
contained only these words :-
"MY FRIEND,-I have bad news to send you. Number 8
is dead. This morning on passing through the ward I found
the bed empty."
Rodolphe sank upon a chair, and he did not shed
a tear. When Marcel came in he found his friend
in the same place, sitting as if stupefied. Silently
he showed Marcel the letter.
"Poor girl!" said Marcel.
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The Latin Quarter
"It is strange," cried Rodolphe. "I feel nothing
of it. Did my love die when I learned that Mimi
must die?"
"Who can tell?" murmured the painter.
Mimi's death caused great grief in the Bohemian
circle. A week later Rodolphe met in the street the
young doctor who had announced Mimi's death to
him.
66
"Ah, my dear Rodolphe," he said as he came up,
forgive me the suffering my stupidity must have
caused you."
"What do you mean?" said Rodolphe, surprised.
"What," said the doctor, "you don't know?
You have not seen her again?"
"Whom?" cried Rodolphe.
"Her-Mimi."
"What?" said the poet, turning deadly pale.
"I was mistaken when I wrote you the sad in-
telligence. I was the victim of an error, and this is
how. I was away from the hospital for two days.
When I returned, in making my round I found your
wife's bed empty. I asked the Sister where the sick
girl was, and she told me that she had died in the
night. This is what had occurred. During my
absence Mimi had been removed from that bed and
from the ward. Into number 8 bed, from which
she had been taken, another woman had been put,
who died the same day. This will explain to you
my mistake. On the morning of the day I wrote to
you
I found Mimi in a neighbouring ward. Your
absence had put her into a terrible state.
She gave
me a letter for you. I have taken it to your house."
"Ah, my God!" cried Rodolphe. "Since I be-
lieved Mimi to be dead I have not been home. I
388
Rodolphe and Mlle. Mimi
have slept here, there and anywhere among my
friends. Mimi is alive! Oh, my God! What can
she have thought of my absence? Poor girl! poor
When did you last see her?"
yesterday morning.
girl! How is she?
"The day before
She was
neither better nor worse. She is terribly disturbed
about you, thinking you must be ill."
"Take me with you at once to la Pitié," said
Rodolphe, "that I may see her."
"Wait for me an instant," said the doctor, when
they reached the door of the hospital. "I must ask
the director for leave for you to go in."
Rodolphe waited for a quarter of an hour in the
vestibule. When the doctor returned he took
Rodolphe by the hand, and said-
"My friend, suppose the letter I wrote to you a
week ago was true?"
"What?" said Rodolphe, supporting himself by
an iron rail. "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 doctor, as he
pointed to a great vehicle standing in the courtyard,
drawn up before the door of a pavilion above which
was written "Amphitheatre." He added, "She is
there."
It was, in fact, the van in which the bodies of the
unclaimed dead were transported to the paupers'
graveyard.
66
'Adieu," said Rodolphe to the doctor.
"Shall I come with you?" he asked.
"No," said Rodolphe, turning away; "I would
rather be alone."
389
A
XXIII
YOUTH COMES BUT ONCE
YEAR after Mimi's death Rodolphe and Marcel,
who did not part from each other, inaugurated
their entry into the official world with a banquet.
Marcel, who had at last found his way into the
Salon, had exhibited two pictures, one of which had
been bought by a rich Englishman, who had formerly
been one of Musette's admirers. With the fruits of
this sale, and of that of a Government commission,
Marcel had partly liquidated his old debts. He had
furnished decent apartments for himself and set up a
proper studio.
Almost at the same time Schaunard
and Rodolphe had appeared before the public which
makes fame and fortune, the one with an album of
melodies which were sung at all the concerts and
laid the foundation of his renown, the other with a
book which occupied the attention of the critics for
some months. As to Barbemuche, he had long re-
nounced Bohemianism; Gustave Colline had come
into an inheritance and made an advantageous
marriage. He gave musical soirées, with light re-
freshments.
One evening to Rodolphe, seated in an easy chair,
with his feet on his own carpet, came Marcel in a
state of great excitement.
"You don't know what has happened to me," he
said.
390
Youth comes but once
"No," replied the poet; "I know I have been to
your rooms, that you were there, and I was not
admitted."
"I heard you.
Guess who was with me."
"How should I know?"
"Musette, who tumbled up against me last night."
"Musette! You have found Musette?" said
Rodolphe in tones of regret.
"Don't upset yourself; there has been no resump-
tion of hostilities. Musette had been spending her
last night in Bohemia with me."
"How?"
"She is going to be married."
"Ah, bah!" said Rodolphe. "To whom, my lord?"
"Her riding-master, who was tutor to her last
admirer. A queer fish apparently. Musette said to
him, 'My dear sir, before I definitely and certainly
give you my hand, and enter the mairie with you, I
want a week's liberty. I have business to settle,
and I want to drink my last glass of champagne,
dance my last quadrille and embrace my lover
Marcel, who is a gentleman of importance, you
know.' And for a week the dear creature has
There
been seeking me. She found me last night, just at
the very moment I was thinking of her.
Ah, my
friend, the night has been a melancholy one.
was to be no more of it all-no more. We looked
like the bad copy of a masterpiece. I even made,
apropos of this last parting, a little ballad of regrets,
with which I am going to make you cry, if you will
allow me." And Marcel began to hum the couplets
he had written.*
* See Appendix.
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The Latin Quarter
"Well, now," said Marcel when he had finished,
"you are reassured; my love for Musette is quite
dead since poetry has come into it," ironically
added he, showing the manuscript of his song.
"Poor friend!" said Rodolphe, "your spirit is
wrestling with your heart. Be careful it does not
kill it."
"That is done," replied the painter. "We have
closed up, old man; we are dead and buried. Youth
has but one time. Where do you dine to-night?"
"If you like,” said Rodolphe, "we will go and
dine for twelve sous in our old restaurant of the
Rue du Four, where they had Delft plates and
where we used to be so hungry when we had done
eating."
"Not I. No," replied Marcel. "I willingly
consent to look back upon the past, but it must
be through a good bottle of wine and seated in
a comfortable easy chair. Ah, what do you want
to say? That I am corrupted? I no longer care
for anything but what is good and comfortable."
THE END
392
APPENDIX
A similar render-
RODOLPHE'S poem, referred to on page 365, is given here in the
original, followed by a literal prose translation.
ing of Marcel's couplets (p. 391) follows. It has seemed well
to give the French verses in both cases, that their peculiar charm
might not be missed.
A. R. W.
RODOLPHE'S POEM
Alors que je voulais choisir une maîtresse
Et qu'un jour le hasard fit rencontrer nos pas,
J'ai mis entre tes mains mon cœur et ma jeunesse
Et je t'ai dit: Fais-en tout ce que tu voudras.
Hélas! ta volonté fut cruelle, ma chère :
Dans tes mains ma jeunesse est restée en lambeaux,
Mon cœur s'est en éclats brisé comme du verre,
Et ma chambre est le cimetière
Où sont enterrés les morceaux
De ce qui t'aima tant naguère.
Entre nous maintenant, n—i, ni-c'est fini,
Je ne suis plus qu'un spectre et tu n'es qu'un fantôme,
Et sur notre amour mort et bien enseveli,
Nous allons, si tu veux, chanter le dernier psaume.
Pourtant ne prenons point un air écrit trop haut,
Nous pourrions tous les deux n'avoir pas la voix sûre;
Choisissons un mineur grave et sans fioriture;
Moi je ferai la basse et toi le soprano.
2 C2
393
Appendix
Mi, re, mi, do, ré, la.-Pas cet air, ma petite !
S'il entendait cet air que tu chantais jadis,
Mon cœur, tout mort qu'il est, tressaillirait bien vite,
Et ressusciterait à ce De profondis.
Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do.-Celui-ci me rapelle
Une valse à deux temps qui me fit bien du mal,
Le fifre au rire aigu raillait le violoncelle,
Qui pleurait sous l'archet ses notes de cristal.
Sol, do, do, si, si, la.-Point cet air, je t'en prie,
Nous l'avons, l'an dernier, ensemble répété
Avec des Allemands qui chantaient leur patrie
Dans les bois de Meudon, par une nuit d'été.
Eh bien! ne chantons pas, restons-en là, ma chère ;
Et pour n'y plus penser, pour n'y plus revenir,
Sur nos amours défunts, sans haine et sans colère,
Jetons en souriant un dernier souvenir.
Nous étions bien heureux dans ta petite chambre
Quand ruisselait la pluie et que soufflait le vent;
Assis dans le fauteuil, près de l'âtre, en décembre,
Aux lueurs de tes yeux j'ai rêvé bien souvent.
La houille petillait; en chauffant sur les cendres,
La bouilloire chantait son refrain régulier,
Et faisait un orchestre au bal des salamandres
Qui voltigeaient dans le foyer.
Feuilletant un roman, paresseuse et frileuse,
Tandis que tu fermais tes yeux ensommeillés,
Moi je rajeunissais ma jeunesse amoureuse,
Mes lèvres sur tes mains et mon cœur à tes pieds.
Aussi, quand on entrait, la porte ouverte à peine,
On sentait le parfum d'amour et de gaîté
Dont notre chambre était du matin au soir pleine,
Car le bonheur aimait notre hospitalité.
Puis l'hiver s'en alla; par la fenêtre ouverte,
Le printemps un matin vint nous donner l'éveil,
Et ce jour-la tous deux dans la campagne verte
Nous allâmes courir au-devant du soleil.
394
Appendix
C'était le vendredi de la sainte semaine,
Et, contre l'ordinaire, il faisait un beau temps,
Du val à la colline, et du bois à la plaine,
D'un pied leste et joyeux, nous courûmes longtemps.
Fatigués cependant par ce pèlerinage,
Dans un lieu qui formait un divan naturel
Et d'où l'on pouvait voir au loin le paysage,
Nous nous sommes assis en regardant le ciel.
Les mains pressant les mains, épaule contre épaule,
Et sans savoir pourquoi, l'un et l'autre oppressés,
Notre bouche s'ouvrit sans dire une parole,
Et nous nous sommes embrassés.
Près de nous l'hyacinthe avec la violette
Mariaient leur parfum qui montait dans l'air pur;
Et nous vîmes tous deux, en relevant la tête,
Dieu qui nous souriait à son balcon d'azur.
Aimez-vous, disait-il ; c'est pour rendre plus douce
La route où vous marchez que j'ai fait sous vos pas
Dérouler en tapis le velours de la mousse,
Embrassez-vous encor,-je ne regarde pas.
Aimez-vous, aimez-vous: dans le vent qui murmure,
Dans les limpides eaux, dans les bois reverdis,
Dans l'astre, dans la fleur, dans la chanson des nids,
C'est pour vous que j'ai fait renaître ma nature.
Aimez-vous, aimez-vous; et de mon soleil d'or,
De mon printemps nouveau qui réjouit la terre,
Si vous êtes contents, au lieu d'une prière
Pour me remercier-embrassez-vous encor.
Un mois après ce jour, quand fleurirent les roses,
Dans le petit jardin que nous avions planté,
Quand je t'aimais le mieux, sans m'en dire les causes,
Brusquement ton amour de moi s'est écarté.
Où s'en est-il allé? partout un peu, je pense ;
Car faisant triompher l'une et l'autre couleur,
Ton amour inconstant flotte sans préférence
D'un brun valet de pique au blond valet de cœur.
395
Appendix
Te voilà maintenant heureuse : ton caprice
Règne sur une cour de galants jouvenceaux,
Et tu ne peux marcher sans qu'à tes pieds fleurisse
Un parterre émaillé d'odorants madrigaux.
Dans les jardins de bal, quand tu fais ton entrée,
Autour de toi se forme un cercle langoureux;
Et le frémissement de ta robe moirée,
Pâme en chœur laudatif ta meute d'amoureux.
Élégamment chaussé d'une souple bottine
Qui serait trop étroite au pied de Cendrillon,
Ton pied est si petit qu'à peine on le devine
Quand la valse t'emporte en son gai tourbillon.
Dans les bains onctueux d'une huile de paresse,
Tes mains, brunes jadis, ont retrouvé depuis
La pâleur de l'ivoire ou du lis que caresse
La rayon argenté dont s'éclairent les nuits.
Autour de ton bras blanc une perle choisie
Constelle un bracelet ciselé par Froment,
Et sur tes reins cambrés un grand châle d'Asie
En cascade de plis ondule artistement.
La dentelle de Flandre et le point d'Angleterre,
La guipure gothique à la mate blancheur,
Chef-d'œuvre arachnéen d'un âge séculaire,
De ta riche toilette achève la splendeur.
Pour moi, je t'aimais mieux dans tes robes de toile
Printanière, indienne ou modeste organdi,
Atours frais et coquets, simple chapeau sans voile,
Brodequins gris ou noirs, et col blanc tout uni.
Car ce luxe nouveau qui te rend si jolie
Ne me rappelle pas mes amours disparus,
Et tu n'es que plus morte et mieux ensevelie
Dans ce linceul de soie où ton cœur ne bat plus.
Lorsque je composai ce morceau funéraire,
Qui n'est qu'un long regret de mon bonheur passé,
J'étais vêtu de noir comme un parfait notaire,
Moins les bésicles d'or et le jabot plissé.
396
Appendix
Un crêpe enveloppait le manche de ma plume,
Et des filets de deuil encadraient le papier
Sur lequel j'écrivais ces strophes où j'exhume
Le dernier souvenir de mon amour dernier.
Arrivé cependant à la fin d'un poëme
Où je jette mon cœur dans le fond d'un grand trou,
- Gaîté de croque-mort qui s'enterre lui-même,
Voilà que je me mets à rire comme un fou.
Mais cette gaîté-là n'est qu'une raillerie :
Ma plume en écrivant a tremblé dans ma main,
Et quand je souriais, comme une chaude pluie,
Mes larmes effaçaient les mots sur le vélin.
When, seeking love, fate one day led my steps to thine, I
gave into thy hands my heart and youth and said, "Do with
them as thou wilt."
Ah, thy will was cruel, dear; in thy hands youth bides in
tatters; my heart is shivered like a broken glass, and my room
is but the graveyard wherein lie buried fragments of that
which once so loved thee.
Between us now, not-not-ah, it is over, and thou art but
a phantom, I but a shade. Come, if thou wilt, and sing the
last hymn to our love, dead and fast buried.
Set not too high a note; not mine, nor thine, a voice un-
faltering. We'll sing in sad and sober minor, thy treble with
my bass.
Mi, ré, mi, do, ré, la-not that, my little one. Hearing thy
song of days gone by, my heart, dead though it be, would
thrill at once, and to that De profundis rise to life.
Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do-ah, that recalls a valse which
saddens me — once more laughing fifes mock strings as,
crossed by bow, they sob their liquid note.
Sol, do, do, si, si, la—not that, I pray thee. Last year we
sang that air together, with Germans singing of their land,
one summer night in Meudon woods.
Ah, well, we will not sing, we'll break off there, dear; and
over our dead loves-no more to be thought of, no more to
come back-without ill-will or anger, but in smiles, we'll throw
a last remembrance.
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We were very happy in thy little room when the rain pat-
tered down and the wind blew; how often in December have
I sat in the chair by the fireside and dreamed by the light of
thine eyes!
The coal crackled; warming in the ashes, the kettle sang
its steady refrain, making dance-music for the salamanders
playing about the hearth.
Thou, turning the leaves of a novel, lazy and chilly, now
and then closing eyes full of sleep; I, renewing my young
days of love, my lips on thy hand and my heart at thy feet.
And again, coming in, the door scarcely open, one breathed
the perfume of love and joy that filled our room from morn till
night-for happiness loved to be our guest.
Then winter passed; one morning through the open window
Spring came to call us, and that very day we went together
to the green fields to ramble in the sun.
It was the Friday of Holy Week and, for a wonder, a
beautiful day. From vale to hill, through wood and plain,
we roved with light and happy steps.
Then, tired with our wanderings, we rested on a bank, form-
ing a natural couch, from which we could see far away over
the country, and the expanse of the heavens.
Side by side, hand in hand, sad, without knowing why, our
lips moved but gave forth no word, and we kissed.
Near by, the scent of hyacinth and violet rose mingling into
the pure air, and, as we looked up, God smiled on us from his
azure balcony.
"Love one another," he said; "to make your path more
pleasant I have stretched a carpet of velvet and of moss:
kiss once more.
"Love, love in the murmuring wind, in the limpid pool, in
the verdant wood, in the star, in the flower, in the song of the
nest, for you I make all nature young again.
"Love, love and if you enjoy my golden sunshine, the fresh
spring which gladdens the earth, let your thanks take the
form of a kiss."
A month from that day, while the roses bloomed in the little
garden we had planted, I loved thee still more, but suddenly,
without telling me why, thy love for me flew away.
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Appendix
Where did it go? Everywhere, I think. For as one or
the other colour gained the day thy inconstant love drifted
rudderless from a dark knave of spades to a fair knave of
hearts.
Now thou art happy: thy fancy reigns over a court of
youthful loves, and thy feet tread a flowery bed of scented
madrigals.
At the open-air balls, as soon as thou enterest, around thee
gathers an affected group; and the rustle of thy skirt raises
fripperies of praise from thy crowd of lovers.
Gracefully shod in the lightest of shoes, too small for
Cinderella, thy foot is so tiny that hardly can it be seen when
a valse carries thee along in its gay whirl.
Thy hands, brown of old, are now white as ivory, or as
lilies kissed by the silver ray which lights the night: they
have been steeped in the balm of idleness.
Around thy white arm, from a bracelet of Froment's, gleams
a rare pearl, and a rich shawl from Cashmere falls gracefully
around thee.
Flemish lace and English point, Gothic guipure of ivory
white, the spun masterpiece of a bygone age, all add to the
splendour of thy dress.
For me, I loved thee better in thy modest spring dress, of
print or of muslin, so fresh and naive, thy simple hat veil-
less, grey stockings or black, and thy white neck crown-
ing all.
But all this new-found luxury making thee so fine does not
bring back to me my lost love: thou art but more dead and
deeper buried in this rich shroud wherein thy heart no longer
beats.
As I write this funeral ode, one long sigh for lost happiness,
I am clothed in black just like a lawyer, less his gold spectacles
and his frilled shirt.
Crape wraps the handle of my pen, and mourning bands
surround the paper on which I write these verses, wherein
I enshrine the last memory of my last love.
Come now to the end of a poem in which I toss my heart
to the depths of the pit, I laugh like a fool-but this is the
liveliness of the undertaker who buries himself.
399
Appendix
Ah! this gaiety is but mockery: my pen, as I write, trembles
in my hand, and, when I smile, my tears, like a warm rain,
blot the words on my paper.
-
MARCEL'S COUPLETS
Hier, en voyant une hirondelle
Qui nous ramenait le printemps,
Je me suis rappelé le belle
Qui m'aima quand elle eut le temps.
--
Et pendant toute la journée,
Pensif, je suis resté devant
Le vieil almanach de l'année
Où nous nous sommes aimés tant.
- Non, ma jeunesse n'est pas morte,
Il n'est pas mort ton souvenir;
Et si tu frappais à ma porte,
Mon cœur, Musette, irait t'ouvrir.
Puisqu'a ton nom toujours il tremble,
Muse de l'infidélité,
-
Reviens encor manger ensemble
Le pain bénit de la gaîté.
- Les meubles de notre chambrette,
Ces vieux amis de notre amour,
Déjà prennent un air de fête
Au seul espoir de ton retour.
Viens, tu reconnaîtras, ma chère,
Tous ceux qu'en deuil mit ton départ,
Le petit lit et le grand verre
Où tu buvais souvent ma part.
Tu remettras la robe blanche
Dont tu te parais autrefois,
Et, comme autrefois, le dimanche,
Nous irons courir dans les bois.
Assis le soir sous la tonnelle,
Nous boirons encor ce vin clair
Où ta chanson mouillait son aile
Avant de s'envoler dans l'air.
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Appendix
Musette qui s'est souvenue,
Le carnaval étant fini,
Un beau matin est revenue,
Oiseau volage, à l'ancien nid;
Mais en embrassant l'infidèle,
Mon cœur n'a plus senti d'émoi,
Et Musette, qui n'est plus elle,
Disait que je n'étais plus moi.
Adieu, va-t'en, chère adorée,
Bien morte avec l'amour dernier ;
Notre jeunesse est enterrée
Au fond du vieux calendrier.
Ce n'est plus qu'en fouillant le cendre
Des beaux jours qu'il a contenus,
Qu'un souvenir pourra nous rendre
La clef des paradis perdus.
Yesterday I saw a swallow heralding the spring, and I was
reminded of the spring-like one who loved me while she chose.
For the rest of the day my thoughts turned to that old almanack
of the year during which we loved so well.
My youth is not dead, nor my remembrance of thee. If thou
shouldst knock at the entrance of my heart, Musette, it would
open to thee; even at thy name it trembles, O Muse of in-
fidelity. Come back again that we may feed together on
bread blessed of gaiety.
The old friends of our love-the very furniture of our little
home-already put on a festive air at the mere hope of thy
return. Come, my sweetheart, and thou wilt know once again
all those who mourned when thou left: the little bed, and the
large glass from which so often thou drank to me.
Thou wilt put on again thy white dress, which used to adorn
thee, and, as in the old days, we will go on Sundays into the
woods, we will rest, in the evening, in the green arbour, we
will drink again the sparkling wine that gave wings to thy
song ere it floated on the breeze.
One fine day, when the carnival was over, Musette, that
bird of passage, returned to her nest. But my heart did not
401
Appendix
throb with a welcome for the faithless one, and Musette, who
was no longer as of old, said that I too was not as before.
Good-bye, dear one; we must part. The last love is dead
beyond recall, and our youth lies buried beneath yon old
calendar. We have but been raking over the ashes of the
dear dead days for a memory that might yield us the key of
lost heavens.
402

WILLIAM
BRENDON&SON
ERSPLYMOUTH
H
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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