Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/70
inspiration coming to me through the medium of a cold in the head. So much the worse, but it can’t be helped. Let us continue to drown our young girl;” and while his fingers assailed the trembling keys, Schaunard, with sparkling eyes and straining ears, gave chase to the melody which, like an impalpable sylph, hovered amid the sonorous mist which the vibrations of the instrument seemed to let loose in the room.
“Now let us see,” he continued, “how my music will fit into my poet’s words;” and he hummed, in a voice the reverse of agreeable, this fragment of verse of the patent comic-opera sort:
As she flung her mantle by,
Threw a glance of sorrow laden
Up to the starry sky
And in the azure waters
Of the silver-wavéd lake—
“How is that?” he exclaimed, in transports of just indignation; “the azure waters of a silver lake! I didn’t see that. This poet is an idiot. I’ll bet he never saw a lake, or river either. A stupid ballad too, in every way; the length of the lines cramps the music. For the future I shall compose my verses myself; and without waiting, since I feel in the humor, I shall manufacture some couplets to adapt my melody to.”
So saying, and taking his head between his hands, he assumed the grave attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the composer’s inspiration. Only Schaunard’s were no nonsense-verses, but very good sense, ex-