STREET ARABS and HAWKERS. The drum-major, look! what a dandy!
STUDENTS and WORK GIRLS. What swagger! What a figure!
STREET ARABS. There go the sappers!
CITIZENS. What a dandy!
STUDENTS and CITIZENS. Like a general he appears!
He passes by and heeds us not!
WORK GIRLS. Like a general he appears!
Of all our hearts the conqueror!
(MUSETTA being without her shoe, cannot walk, so MARCEL and COLLINE carry her through the crowd, as they endeavor to follow the patrol. The mob, seeing her borne along in this triumphal fashion, give her a regular ovation. MARCEL and COLLINE with MUSETTA follow the patrol; RUDOLPH and MIMI follow arm in arm; SCHAUNARD goes next, blowing his horn; while the students, work-girls, street-lads, women and towns-folk merrily bring up the rear.)
(Marching in time with the music, the whole vast crowd gradually moves off as it follows the patrol. Meanwhile ALCINDORO, with a pair of shoes carefully wrapped up, returns to the café in search of MUSETTA. The waiter by the table takes up the bill left by MUSETTA and ceremoniously hands it to ALCINDORO, who, seeing the amount, and perceiving that they have all left him there alone, falls back into a chair, utterly dumbfounded.)
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.