Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/68

nard when, disguised as a marquis, he rattled in his pocket a seducingly sonorous dozen of crowns—theatrical money punched out of a lead plate and borrowed of a property-man. Having thus made his home toilette, the artist proceeded to open his blind and window. A solar ray, like an arrow of light, flashed suddenly into the room, and compelled him to open his eyes that were still veiled by the mists of sleep. At the same moment the clock of a neighboring church struck five.

“It is the Morn herself!” muttered Schaunard; “astonishing, but”—and he consulted an almanac nailed to the wall—“not the less a mistake. The results of science affirm that at this season of the year the sun ought not to rise till half-past five: it is only five o’clock, and there he is! A culpable excess of zeal! The luminary is wrong; I shall have to make a complaint at the longitude-office. However, I must begin to be a little anxious. To-day is the day after yesterday, certainly; and since yesterday was the seventh, unless old Saturn goes backward, it must be the eighth of April to-day. And if I may believe this paper,” continued Schaunard, going to read an official notice-to-quit posted on the wall, “to-day, therefore, at twelve precisely, I ought to have evacuated the premises, and paid into the hands of my landlord, Monsieur Bernard, the sum of seventy-five francs for three quarters’ rent due, which he demands of me in very bad handwriting. I had hoped—as I always do—that Providence would take the responsibility of discharging this debt, but it seems it hasn’t had time. Well, T have six hours before me yet. By making good use of them, perhaps—to work! to work!”

He was preparing to put on an overcoat, originally of a long-haired, woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of his own composition,