Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/286

ness of avalanches on hearing the news that bonnets and dresses had been brought for them. Seeing this poor wealth spread out before them, the three women went almost mad with joy. Mimi was seized with a fit of hysterical laughter, and skipped about like a kid, waving a little barege scarf. Musette threw her arms round Marcel’s neck, with a little green boot in each hand, which she smote together like cymbals. Phémie looked at Schaunard and sobbed; she could only say:

“Oh! Alexander, Alexander.”

“There is no danger of her refusing the presents of Artaxerxes,” murmured Colline the philosopher.

After the first outbursts of joy were over, when the choices had been made and the bills settled, Rodolphe announced to the three girls that they would have to make arrangements to try on their new things the next morning.

“We will go into the country,” said he.

“A fine thing to make a fuss of,” exclaimed Musette. “It is not the first time that I have bought, cut out, sewn together, and worn a dress the same day. Besides, we have the night before us, too. We shall be ready, shall we not, ladies?”

“Oh, yes! we shall be ready,” exclaimed Mimi and Phémie together.

They at once set to work, and for sixteen hours did not lay aside scissors or needle.

The next day was the first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young lover who is going to plant a maypole before the window of his betrothed. She painted the sky blue, the trees green, and all things in bright colors. She aroused the torpid sun, who was sleeping in his bed of mists, his head resting on the snow-laden