Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/384

where than at a card-table, he would very likely have been good for forty francs.

“Well?” inquired Marcel, on seeing Rodolphe return.

“Here are the takings,” said the poet, showing the money.

“A bite and a sup,” said Marcel.

With this small sum they were however able to obtain bread, wine, cold meat, tobacco, fire, and light.

They returned home to the lodging-house in which each had a separate room. Marcel’s, which also served him as a studio, being the larger, was chosen as the banquetting-hall, and the two friends set about the preparations for their feast there.

But to the little table at which they were seated, beside a fireplace in which the damp logs burned away without flame or heat, came a melancholy guest, the phantom of the vanished past.

They remained for an hour at least, silent, and thoughtful, both no doubt preoccupied by the same idea and striving to hide it. It was Marcel who first broke silence.

“Come,” said he to Rodolphe; “this is not what we promised ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” said Rodolphe.

“Oh!” replied Marcel; “do not try to pretend with me now. You are thinking of that which should be forgotten, and I too, by Jove, I do not deny it.”

“Well?”

“Well, it must be for the last time. To the devil with recollections that make wine taste sour and render us miserable when everybody else is amusing himself,” exclaimed Marcel, alluding to the joyful shouts coming from the rooms adjoining theirs. “Come, let us think of something else, and let this be the last time.”