Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/296

of a single hair of Mademoiselle Francine’s muff; and, as to the young woman herself, I do not know any better what she is like, whether she is fair or dark.

Patience, readers, patience. I have promised you a muff, and I will give you one later on, as my friend Jacques did to his poor love Francine, who had become his mistress, as I have explained in the line left blank above.

She was fair, was Francine, fair and lively, which is not usual. She had remained ignorant of love till she was twenty, but a vague presentiment of her approaching end counselled her not to delay if she would become acquainted with it.

She met Jacques and loved him. Their connection lasted six months. They had taken one another in the spring; they were parted in the autumn. Francine was consumptive. She knew it and her lover Jacques knew it too; a fortnight after he had taken up with her he had learned it from one of his friends, who was a doctor.

“She will go with the autumn leaves,” said the latter. Francine heard this confidence, and perceived the grief it caused her lover.

“What matters the autumn leaves?” said she, putting the whole of her love into a smile. “What matters the autumn? It is summer, and the leaves are green; let us profit by that, love. When you see me ready to depart from this life, you shall take me in your arms and kiss me, and forbid me to go. I am obedient, you know, and I will stay.”

And for five months this charming creature passed through the miseries of Bohemian life, a smile and a song on her lips. As to Jacques, he let himself be deluded. His friend often said to him: “Francine is worse, she must be attended to.” Then Jacques went all over Paris to obtain the wherewithal for the doctor’s prescription, but Francine