Donec Gratus
We have told how the painter Marcel made the acquaintance of
Mademoiselle Musette. United one morning by the ministry of caprice, the
registrar of the district, they had fancied, as often happens, that
their union did not extend to their hearts. But one evening when, after
a violent quarrel, they resolved to leave one another on the spot, they
perceived that their hands, which they had joined in a farewell clasp,
would no longer quit one another. Almost in spite of themselves fancy
had become love. Both, half laughingly, acknowledged it.
"This is very serious. What has happened to us?" said Marcel. "What the
deuce have we been up to?"
"Oh!" replied Musette. "We must have been clumsy over it. We did not
take enough precautions."
"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe, who had become Marcel's neighbor,
entering the room.
"The matter is," replied Marcel, "that this lady and myself have just
made a pretty discovery. We are in love with one another. We must have
been attacked by the complaint whilst asleep."
"Oh oh! I don't think that it was whilst you were asleep," observed
Rodolphe. "But what proves that you are in love with one another?
Possibly you exaggerate the danger."
"We cannot bear one another," said Marcel.
"And we cannot leave one another," added Musette.
"There, my children, your business is plain. Each has tried to play
cunning, and both have lost. It is the story of Mimi and myself. We
shall soon have run through two almanacs quarrelling day and night. It
is by that system that marriages are rendered eternal. Wed a 'yes' to a
'no,' and you obtain the union of Philemon and Baucis. Your domestic
interior will soon match mine, and if Schaunard and Phemie come and live
in the house, as they have threatened, our trio of establishments will
render it a very pleasant place of residence."
At that moment Gustave Colline came in. He was informed of the accident
that had befallen Musette and Marcel.
"Well, philosopher," said the latter, "what do you think of this?"
Colline rubbed the hat that served him for a roof, and murmured, "I felt
sure of it beforehand. Love is a game of chance. He who plays at bowls
may expect rubbers. It is not good for man to live alone."
That evening, on returning home, Rodolphe said to Mimi--
"There is something new. Musette dotes on Marcel, and will not leave
him."
"Poor girl!" replied Mimi. "She who has such a good appetite, too."
"And on his side, Marcel is hard and fast in love with Musette."
"Poor fellow!" said Mimi. "He who is so jealous."
"That is true," observed Rodolphe. "He and I are pupils of Othello."
Shortly afterwards the households of Rodolphe and Marcel were reinforced
by the household of Schaunard, the musician, moving into the house with
Phemie Teinturiere.
From that day all the other inhabitants slept upon a volcano, and at
quarter day sent in a unanimous notice of their intention to move to the
landlord.
Indeed, hardly a day passed without a storm breaking out in one of these
households. Now it was Mimi and Rodolphe who, no longer having strength
to speak, continued their conversation with the aid of such missiles as
came under their hands. But more frequently it was Schaunard addressing
a few observations to the melancholy Phemie with the end of a walking
stick. As to Marcel and Musette, their arguments were carried on in
private sittings; they took at least the precaution to close their
doors and windows.
If by chance peace reigned in the three households, the other lodgers
were not the less victims of this temporary concord. The indiscretion of
partition walls allowed all the secrets of Bohemian family life to
transpire, and initiated them, in spite of themselves, into all its
mysteries. Thus more than one neighbor preferred the _casus belli_ to
the ratification of treaties of peace.
It was, in truth, a singular life that was led for six months. The most
loyal fraternity was practiced without any fuss in this circle, in
which everything was for all, and good or evil fortune shared.
There were in the month certain days of splendor, when no one would have
gone out without gloves--days of enjoyment, when dinner lasted all day
long. There were others when one would have almost gone to Court without
boots; Lenten days, when, after going without breakfast in common, they
failed to dine together, or managed by economic combination to furnish
forth one of those repasts at which plates and knives were "resting," as
Mademoiselle Mimi put it, in theatrical parlance.
But the wonderful thing is that this partnership, in which there were
three young and pretty women, no shadow of discord was found amongst
the men. They often yielded to the most futile fancies of their
mistresses, but not one of them would have hesitated for a moment
between the mistress and the friend.
Love is born above all from spontaneity--it is an improvisation.
Friendship, on the contrary, is, so to say, built up. It is a sentiment
that progresses with circumspection. It is the egoism of the mind,
whilst love is the egoism of the heart.
The Bohemians had known one another for six years. This long period of
time spent in a daily intimacy had, without altering the well-defined
individuality of each, brought about between them a concord of ideas--a
unity which they would not have found elsewhere. They had manners that
were their own, a tongue amongst themselves to which strangers would not
have been able to find the key. Those who did not know them very well
called their freedom of manner cynicism. It was however, only frankness.
With minds impatient of imposed control, they all hated what was false,
and despised what was low. Accused of exaggerated vanity, they replied
by proudly unfurling the program of their ambition, and, conscious of
their worth, held no false estimate of themselves.
During the number of years that they had followed the same life
together, though often placed in rivalry by the necessities of their
profession, they had never let go one another's hands, and had passed
without heeding them over personal questions of self-esteem whenever an
attempt had been made to raise these between them in order to disunite
them. Besides, they each esteemed one another at their right worth, and
pride, which is the counter poison of envy, preserved them from all
petty professional jealousy.
However, after six months of life in common, an epidemic of divorce
suddenly seized on the various households.
Schaunard opened the ball. One day he perceived that Phemie Teinturiere
had one knee better shaped than the other, and as his was an austere
purism as regards plastics, he sent Phemie about her business, giving
her as a souvenir the cane with which he had addressed such frequent
remarks to her. Then he went back to live with a relative who offered
him free quarters.
A fortnight later Mimi left Rodolphe to step into the carriage of the
young Vicomte Paul, the ex-pupil of Carolus Barbemuche, who had promised
her dresses to her heart's desire.
After Mimi it was Musette who went off, and returned with a grand
flourish of trumpets amongst the aristocracy of the world of gallantry
which she had left to follow Marcel.
This separation took place without quarrel, shock or premeditation. Born
of a fancy that had become love, this union was broken off by another
fancy.
One evening during the carnival, at the masked ball at the Opera,
whither she had gone with Marcel, Mimi, Musette had for her _vis-a-vis_
in a quadrille a young man who had formerly courted her. They recognized
one another, and, whilst dancing exchanged a few words.
Unintentionally, perhaps, whilst informing the young man of her present
condition in life, she may have dropped a word of regret as to her past
one. At any rate, at the end of the quadrille Musette made a mistake,
and instead of giving her hand to Marcel, who was her partner, give it
to her _vis-a-vis_, who led her off, and disappeared with her in the
crowd.
Marcel looked for her, feeling somewhat uneasy. In an hour's time he
found her on the young man's arm; she was coming out of the Cafe de
l'Opera, humming a tune. On catching sight of Marcel, who had stationed
himself in a corner with folded arms, she made him a sign of farewell,
saying--"I shall be back."
"That is to say, 'Do not expect me,'" translated Marcel.
He was jealous but logical, and knew Musette, hence he did not wait for
her, but went home with a full heart and an empty stomach. He looked
into the cupboard to see whether there were not a few scraps to eat, and
perceived a bit of stale bread as hard as granite and a skeleton-like
red herring.
"I cannot fight against truffles," he thought. "At any rate, Musette
will have some supper."
And after passing his handkerchief over his eyes under pretext of wiping
his nose, he went to bed.
Two days later Musette woke up in a boudoir with rose-covered hangings.
A blue brougham was at her door, and all the fairies of fashion had been
summoned to lay their wonders at her feet. Musette was charming, and her
youth seemed yet further rejuvenated in this elegant setting. Then she
began her old life again, was present at every festivity, and
re-conquered her celebrity. She was spoken of everywhere--in the lobbies
of the Bourse, and even at the parliamentary refreshment bars. As to her
new lover, Monsieur Alexis, he was a charming young fellow. He often
complained to Musette of her being somewhat frivolous and inattentive
when he spoke to her of his love. Then Musette would look at him
laughingly, and say--
"What would you have, my dear fellow? I stayed six months with a man who
fed me on salad and soup without butter, who dressed me in a cotton
gown, and usually took me to the Odeon because he was not well off. As
love costs nothing, and as I was wildly in love with this monster, we
expended a great deal of it together. I have scarcely anything but its
crumbs left. Pick them up, I do no hinder you. Besides, I have not
deceived you about it; if ribbons were not so dear I should still be
with my painter. As to my heart, since I have worn an eighty franc
corset I do not hear it, and I am very much afraid that I have left it
in one of Marcel's drawers."
The disappearance of the three Bohemian households was the occasion of a
festival in the house they had inhabited. As a token of rejoicing the
landlord gave a grand dinner, and the lodgers lit up their windows.
Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol
whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened
that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a
whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the
songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep,
idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they
hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they
usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find
themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December
log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation
between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that
they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with
them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still.
One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few
paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed
the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver
himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of
his fare.
"By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it
my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it--it is
a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the
fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full
view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?"
"Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in
Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own.
The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment.
But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to
himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love.
It was Mademoiselle Musette.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures.
What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun."
"I think it endurable," replied Marcel.
"Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette.
"I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little
theater where he was on the free list.
"For the sake of art?"
"No, for the sake of Laura."
"Who is Laura?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of
interrogation.
Marcel kept up the tone.
"She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here."
And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill.
"You are very witty this evening," said Musette.
"And you very curious," observed Marcel.
"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for
two lovers quarrelling."
"It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel.
Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it
will not perhaps be the last, eh?"
Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet.
"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are
witness that it is not I who opened fire. Quick, my armor."
From that moment the firing began.
It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring
about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again
so lively.
As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept
looking at Musette. They did not speak, but their eyes, those
plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met. After a quarter of an hour's
diplomacy this congress of glances had tacitly settled the matter. There
was nothing to be done save to ratify it.
The interrupted conversation was renewed.
"Candidly now," said Musette to Marcel, "where were you going just now?"
"I told you, to see Laura."
"Is she pretty?"
"Her mouth is a nest of smiles."
"Oh! I know all that sort of thing."
"But you yourself," said Marcel, "whence came you on the wings of this
four-wheeler?"
"I came back from the railway station where I had been to see off
Alexis, who is going on a visit to his family."
"What sort of man is Alexis?"
In turn Musette sketched a charming portrait of her present lover.
Whilst walking along Marcel and Musette continued thus on the open
Boulevard the comedy of reawakening love. With the same simplicity, in
turn tender and jesting, they went verse by verse through that immortal
ode in which Horace and Lydia extol with such grace the charms of their
new loves, and end by adding a postscript to their old ones. As they
reached the corner of the street a rather strong picket of soldiers
suddenly issued from it.
Musette struck an attitude of alarm, and clutching hold of Marcel's arm
said, "Ah! Good heavens! Look there, soldiers; there is going to be
another revolution. Let us bolt off, I am awfully afraid. See me
indoors."
"But where shall we go?" asked Marcel.
"To my place," said Musette. "You shall see how nice it is. I invite you
to supper. We will talk politics."
"No," replied Marcel, who thought of Monsieur Alexis. "I will not go to
your place, despite your offer of a supper. I do not like to drink my
wine out of another's glass."
Musette was silent in face of this refusal. Then through the mist of her
recollections she saw the poor home of the artist, for Marcel had not
become a millionaire. She had an idea, and profiting by meeting another
picket she manifested fresh alarm.
"They are going to fight," she exclaimed. "I shall never dare go home.
Marcel, my dear fellow, take me to one of my lady friends, who must be
living in your neighborhood."
As they were crossing the Pont Neuf Musette broke into a laugh.
"What is it?" asked Marcel.
"Nothing," replied Musette, "only I remember that my friend has moved.
She is living at Batignolles."
On seeing Marcel and Musette arrive arm in arm Rodolphe was not
astonished.
"It is always so," said he, "with these badly buried loves."