Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/399

suffered horribly from the jolts of the vehicle. Amidst all her sufferings the last thing that dies in woman, coquetry, still survived; two or three times she had the cab stop before the dry goods shops to look at the display in the windows.

On entering the ward indicated in the letter of admission Mimi felt a terrible pang at her heart, something within her told her that it was between these bare and leprous walls that her life was to end. She exerted the whole of the will left her to hide the mournful impression that had chilled her.

When she was put to bed she gave Rodolphe a final kiss and bid him good-bye, bidding him come and see her the next Sunday which was a visitors’ day.

“It does not smell very nice here,” said she to him, “bring me some flowers, some violets, there are still some about.”

“Yes,” said Rodolphe, “good-bye till Sunday.”

And he drew together the curtains of her bed. On hearing the departing steps of her lover, Mimi was suddenly seized with an almost delirious attack of fever. She suddenly opened the curtains, and, leaning half out of bed, cried in a voice broken with tears:

“Rodolphe, take me home, I want to go away.”

The sister of charity hastened to her and tried to calm her.

“Oh!” said Mimi, “I am going to die here.”

On Sunday morning, the day he was to go and see Mimi, Rodolphe remembered that he had promised her some violets. With poetic and loving superstition he went on foot in horrible weather to look for the flowers his sweetheart had asked him for, in the woods of Aulnay and Fontenay, where he had so often been with her. The country, so lively and joyful in the sunshine of the bright