Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/193

Sunday from twelve to two; and above all, that no one should ask for tick.

On this basis everything went well for some time.

It was Christmas eve. The four friends came to the café, accompanied by their friends of the other sex. There was Marcel’s Musette; Rodolphe’s new flame, Mimi, a lovely creature, with a voice like a pair of cymbals; and Schaunard’s idol, Phémie Teinturière. That night, Phémie, according to agreement, had her bonnet on. As to Madame Colline that should have been, no one ever saw her; she was always at home, occupied in punctuating her husband’s manuscripts. After the coffee, which was on this great occasion escorted by a regiment of small glasses of brandy, they called for punch. The waiter was so little accustomed to the order, that they had to repeat it twice. Phémie, who had never been in such a place before, seemed in a state of ecstasy at drinking out of glasses with feet. Marcel was quarrelling with Musette about a new bonnet which he had not given her. Mimi and Rodolphe, who were in their honeymoon, carried on a silent conversation, alternated with suspicious noises. As to Colline, he went about from one to the other distributing among them all the polite and ornamental phrases which he had picked up in the “Muses’ Almanack.”

While this joyous company was thus abandoning itself to sport and laughing, a stranger at the bottom of the room, who occupied a table by himself, was observing with extraordinary attention the animated scene before him. For a fortnight or thereabout, he had come thus every night, being the only customer who could stand the terrible row which the club made. The boldest pleasantries had failed to move him; he would remain all the evening, smoking his pipe with mathematical regularity, his eyes fixed as if watching a treasure, and his ears open to all that was said