The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter. Henri Murger

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 Alexandre; “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.”

      “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.

      “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?”

      Just then his eyes fell on his desk. The pen 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 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 lookout 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 sonorous clang of bell metal, it seemed to him that he saw the alabaster Cupid and Psyche above his 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 slenderness 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 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 СКАЧАТЬ