Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/319

“Bah! a fashionable cider! an epileptic licorice-water. I would give all the cellars of Épernay and Aï for a single Burgundian cask. Besides, we have neither grisettes to seduce, nor a vaudeville to write. I vote against Champagne.”

The programme once agreed upon, Schaunard and Colline went to the neighboring restaurant to order the repast.

“Suppose we have some fire,” said Marcel.

“As a matter of fact,” said Rodolphe, “we should not be doing wrong, the thermometer has been inviting us to it for some time past. Let us have some fire and astonish the fireplace.”

“He ran out on the landing and called to Colline to have some wood sent in. A few minutes later Schaunard and Colline came up again, followed by a charcoal dealer, bearing a heavy bundle of firewood.

As Marcel was looking in a drawer for some spare paper to light the fire, he came by chance across a letter, the handwriting of which made him start, and which he began to read unseen by his friends.

It was a letter in pencil, written by Musette when she was living with Marcel, and dated day for day a year ago. It only contained these words:—

“My dear love,

“Do not be uneasy about me, I shall be in shortly. I have gone out to warm myself a bit by walking, it is freezing indoors and the woodseller has cut off credit. I broke up the two last rungs of the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at