"Oh! As to that, no," said the viscount, vexed.
"Very well," said Mimi coldly. "I will buy it myself with money I will earn. In point of fact, I would rather that it was not with yours."
And for two days Mimi went back to her old flower maker's workrooms, where she earned enough to buy this number. She learned Rodolphe's poetry by heart, and, to annoy Vicomte Paul, repeated it all day long to her friends. The verses were as follows:
WHEN I was seeking where to pledge my truth
Chance brought me face to face with you one day;
once I offered you my heart, my youth,
"Do with them what you will," I dared to say.
But "what you would," was cruel, dear; alas!
The youth I trusted with you is no more:
The heart is shattered like a fallen glass,
And the wind sings a funeral mass
On the deserted chamber floor,
Where he who loved you ne'er may pass.
Between us now, my dear, 'tis all UP,
I am a spectre and a phantom you,
Our love is dead and buried; if you agree,
We'll sing around its tombstone dirges due.
But let us take an air in a low key,
Lest we should strain our voices, more or less;
Some solemn minor, free from flourishes;
I'll take the bass, sing you the melody.
Mi, re, mi, do, re, la,—ah! not that song!
Hearing the song that once you used to sing
My heart would palpitate—though dead so long—
And, at the De Profundis, upward spring.
Do, mi, fa, sol, mi, do,—this other brings
Back to the mind a valse of long ago,
The fife's shrill laughter mocked the sounding strings
That wept their notes of crystal to the bow.
Sol, do, do, si, si, la,—ah! stay your hand!
This is the air we sang last year in chorus,
With Germans shouting for their fatherland
In Meudon woods, while summer's moon stood o'er us.