Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/312

“Oh!” said Jacques, “if I could only meet a girl who resembled her.”

And he left Rodolphe deep in thought.

*****

Six weeks later Jacques had recovered all his energy, rekindled by the tender glances of a young girl whose name was Marie, and whose somewhat sickly beauty recalled that of poor Francine. Nothing, indeed, could be prettier than this pretty Marie, who was within six weeks of being eighteen years of age, as she never failed to mention. Her love affair with Jacques had its birth by moonlight in the garden of an open-air ball, to the strains of a shrill violin, a grunting double bass, and a clarionet that trilled like a blackbird. Jacques met her one evening when gravely walking round the space reserved for the dancers. Seeing him pass stiffly in his eternal black coat buttoned to the throat, the pretty and noisy frequenters of the place, who knew him by sight, used to say amongst themselves,

“What is that undertaker doing here? Is there any one who wants to be buried?”

And Jacques walked on always alone, his heart bleeding within him from the thorns of a remembrance which the orchestra rendered keener by playing a lively quadrille which sounded to his ears as mournful as a De Profoundis. It was in the midst of this reverie that he noticed Marie, who was watching him from a corner, and laughing like a wild thing at his gloomy bearing. Jacques raised his eyes and saw this burst of laughter in a pink bonnet within three paces of him. He went up to her and made a few remarks, to which she replied. He offered her his arm for a stroll round the garden which she accepted. He told her that he thought her as beautiful as an angel, and she made him repeat it twice over; he stole some green apples hanging from the trees of the garden for her, and she devoured