ACT III
"Mimi's voice seemed to go through Rudolph's heart like a death-knell. His love for her was a jealous, fantastic, weird, hysterical love. Scores of times they were on the point of separating.
"It must be admitted that their existence was a veritable 'hell-up-on-earth.'
"Thus (if life it was) did they live; a few happy days alternating with many wretched ones, while perpetually awaiting a divorce."
"Either as a congenital defect or as a natural instinct, Musetta possessed a positive genius for elegance.
"Even in her cradle this strange creature must surely have asked for a mirror.
"Intelligent, shrewd, and above all, hostile to anything that she considered tyranny, she had but one rule—caprice.
"In truth the only man that she really loved was Marcel; perhaps because he alone could make her suffer. Yet extravagance was for her one of the conditions of well-being."