Part 5 (1/2)

”By Jupiter, sir,” said Rodolphe, ”that is a very pretty pipe of yours.”

”Oh! I have a much finer one I wear in society,” replied Schaunard, carelessly, ”pa.s.s me some tobacco, Colline.”

”Hullo!” said the philosopher, ”I have none left.”

”Allow me to offer you some,” observed Rodolphe, pulling a packet of tobacco out of his pocket and placing it on the table.

To this civility Colline thought it his duty to respond by an offer of gla.s.ses round.

Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned on literature. Rodolphe, questioned as to the profession already revealed by his garb, confessed his relation with the Muses, and stood a second round of drinks. As the waiter was going off with the bottle Schaunard requested him to be good enough to forget it. He had heard the silvery tinkle of a couple of five-franc pieces in one of Colline's pockets. Rodolphe had soon reached the same level of expansiveness as the two friends, and poured out his confidences in turn.

They would no doubt have pa.s.sed the night at the cafe if they had not been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the other at Montmartre.

Schaunard, who had wholly forgotten that he was without a residence, offered them hospitality.

”Come to my place,” said he, ”I live close by, we will pa.s.s the night in discussing literature and art.”

”You shall play and Rodolphe will recite some of his verses to us,” said Colline.

”Right you are,” said Schaunard, ”life is short, and we must enjoy ourselves whilst we can.”

Arriving at the house, which Schaunard had some difficulty in recognizing, he sat down for a moment on a corner-post waiting for Rodolphe and Colline, who had gone into a wine-shop that was still open to obtain the primary element of a supper. When they came back, Schaunard rapped several times at the door, for he vaguely recollected that the porter had a habit of keeping him waiting. The door at length opened, and old Durand, half aroused from his first sleep, and no longer recalling that Schaunard had ceased to be his tenant, did not disturb himself when the latter called out his name to him.

When they had all three gained the top of the stairs, the ascent of which had been as lengthy as it was difficult, Schaunard, who was the foremost, uttered a cry of astonishment at finding the key in the keyhole of his door.

”What is the matter?” asked Rodolphe.

”I cannot make it out,” muttered the other. ”I find the key in the door, though I took it away with me this morning. Ah! we shall see. I put it in my pocket. Why, confound it, here it is still!” he exclaimed, displaying a key. ”This is witchcraft.”

”Phantasmagoria,” said Colline.

”Fancy,” added Rodolphe.

”But,” resumed Schaunard, whose voice betrayed a commencement of alarm, ”do you hear that?”

”What?”

”What?”

”My piano, which is playing of its own accord _do la mi re do, la si sol re._ Scoundrel of a re, it is still false.”

”But it cannot be in your room,” said Rodolphe, and he added in a whisper to Colline, against whom he was leaning heavily, ”he is tight.”

”So I think. In the first place, it is not a piano at all, it is a flute.”

”But you are screwed too, my dear fellow,” observed the poet to the philosopher, who had sat down on the landing, ”it is a violin.”

”A vio--, pooh! I say, Schaunard,” hiccupped Colline, pulling his friend by the legs, ”here is a joke, this gentleman makes out that it is a vio--”

”Hang it all,” exclaimed Schaunard in the height of terror, ”it is magic.”