Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/358
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THE BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUARTER.
“True,” said Marcel, “but no matter. Later on the remembrance of you will be to him like those flowers that we place fresh and full of perfume between the leaves of a book, and which long afterwards we find dead, discolored, and faded, but still always preserving a vague perfume of their first freshness.”
*****
One evening, when she was humming in a low tone to herself, Vicomte Paul said to Mimi:
“What are you singing, dear?”
“The funeral chant of our loves, that my lover Rodolphe has lately composed.”
And she began to sing:
“I have not a sou now, my dear, and the rule
In such a case surely is soon to forget,
So tearless, for she who would weep is a fool,
You’ll blot out all mem’ry of me, eh, my pet?
In such a case surely is soon to forget,
So tearless, for she who would weep is a fool,
You’ll blot out all mem’ry of me, eh, my pet?
“Well, still all the same we have spent as you know
Some days that were happy—and each with its night;
They did not last long, but, alas, here below,
The shortest are ever those we deem most bright.”
Some days that were happy—and each with its night;
They did not last long, but, alas, here below,
The shortest are ever those we deem most bright.”