Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/347

“At last, overcome by fatigue, I sank into a half-sleep. I could still hear Rodolphe sobbing, and I can swear to you, Marcel, that this sobbing went on all night long, and that when day broke and I saw in the bed, in which I had slept for the last time, the lover whom I was going to leave for another’s arms, I was terribly frightened to see the havoc wrought by this grief on Rodolphe’s face. He got up, like myself, without saying a word and almost fell flat at the first steps he took, he was so weak and downcast. However, he dressed himself very quickly, and only asked me how matters stood and when I was going to leave. I told him that I did not know. He went off without bidding good-bye or shaking hands. That is how we separated. What a blow it must have been to his heart no longer to find me there on coming home, eh?”

“I was there when Rodolphe came in,” said Marcel to Mimi, who was out of breath from speaking so long. “As he was taking his key from the landlady, she said, ‘The little one has left.’ ‘Ah!’ replied Rodolphe; ‘I am not astonished, I expected it.’ And he went up to his room, whither I followed him, fearing some crisis, but nothing occurred. ‘As it is too late to go and hire another room this evening we will do so to-morrow morning,’ said he, ‘we will go together. Now let us see after some dinner.’ I thought that he wanted to get drunk, but I was wrong. We dined very quietly at a restaurant where you have sometimes been with him. I had ordered some Beaune to stupefy Rodolphe a bit. ‘This was Mimi’s favorite wine,’ said he, ‘we have often drunk it together at this very table. I remember one day she said to me, holding out her glass, which she had already emptied several times, “Fill up again, it is good for one’s bones.” A poor pun, eh? worthy, at the most, of the mistress of a farce-writer. Ah! she could drink pretty fairly.’