Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/16

a writer, was careful and exact. Writing was indeed a difficult task to him, he felt his lack of education. He used to work, by preference, at night, stimulating his mind by copious draughts of coffee and surrounding himself with a number of lighted candles. He would put ten sheets of paper before him, write the same idea down in ten different fashions, and then choose the one that pleased him best, or if he could not make a choice would toss up a coin and settle it that way. He would strive to polish a phrase as a lapidary polishes a stone, for the poet of Bohemia was the most conscientious of artists. It was this excessive care that led to his published works being fewer than might have been anticipated, since he devoted so much time to each. The works written in his second manner differ widely from those of his early days, and he is reported to have said of The Bohemians, “That devil of a book will hinder me from ever crossing the Pont des Arts”—and becoming an Academician, which was one of his dreams. The coffee drinking had a very injurious effect on Murger. It led to constantly recurring attacks of purpura, which as early as 1840 made him the inmate of a hospital and was also, no doubt, the cause of that terrible restlessness which would never suffer him to remain in the same place for more than an hour or so, and caused him to be spoken of as the Wandering Christian.

Murger’s wit is best shown in his works, though one or two of his sayings deserve quotation. His furniture was once seized. “Already,” said he to the bailiff, “see what it is not to have a clock, one never knows the hour one’s bills fall due.” When his first success was achieved he did his best to clear off his old debts, but this only made his creditors keener. “I have watered my creditors and they are sprouting afresh,” was his comment. During his sojourn at Marlotte he became a most enthusiastic sportsman,