"I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a little filtered water in eclectic pottery."
"This time," said another, "it is really serious. Marcel has shown me the program of the fete, and the effect will be magical."
"Will there be any ladies?"
"Yes. Phemie Teinturiere has asked to be queen of the fete and Schaunard is to bring some ladies of position."
This is in brief the origin of this fete which caused such stupefaction in the Bohemian world across the water. For about a year past, Marcel and Rodolphe had announced this sumptuous gala which was always to take place "next Saturday," but painful circumstances had obliged their promise to extend over fifty-two weeks, so that they had come to pass of not being able to take a step without encountering some ironical remark from one of their friends, amongst whom there were some indiscreet enough to put forward energetic demand for its fulfillment. The matter beginning to assume the character of a plague, the two friends resolved to put an end to it by liquidating the undertaking into which they had entered. It was thus that they sent out the invitation given above.
"Now," said Rodolphe, "there is no drawing back. We have burnt our ships, and we have before us just a week to find the hundred francs that are indispensable to do the thing properly."
"Since we must have them, we shall," replied Marcel.
And with the insolent confidence which they had in luck, the two friends went to sleep, convinced that their hundred francs were already on the way, the way of impossibility.
However, as on the day before that appointed for the party, nothing as of yet had turned up, Rodolphe thought perhaps, be safer to give luck a helping hand, unless he were to be discredited forever, when the time came to light up. To facilitate matters the two friends progressively modified the sumptuosity of the program they had imposed upon themselves.
And proceeding from modification to modification, after having seriously reduced the item "cakes," and carefully revised and pruned down the item "liquors," the total cost was reduced to fifteen francs.