Well, for an entire month, Paul was as sad, as lovesick, as pale as a pierrot. She was a blonde ... in a cottage... as sweet and fresh as a rose... as modest as the violet... as innocent as a child... who got up with the lark and retired with the sun. And Paul rose equally early, to peep over the hedge of her garden and to hear her sing, as she fed greedy, speckled poultry; and, from a lane, watched her window—then wandered sentimentally and wistfully abroad—at night. Suddenly, she vanished. And when Paul learnt that she had departed for Normandy to become the bride of a cousin, Paul of the Faculty of Medicine—Paul, the gayest character in the Latin Quarter and the hero of many an affair of the heart—Paul, lost his appetite, Paul, experienced the agonies of insomnia, Paul, aged at least a hundred years all at once.
Thus Paul. No less reminiscent Pierre and Gaston. So that their lady friends, Mesdemoiselles Mimi and Musette—at once jealous and impatient—proceed to relate their own experiences; which, by the way, are but flights of imagination, conceived with the idea of infuriating the students.
He also was blonde—and wore an incomparable suit of “le boating.” How he swam—far more magnificently than Paul! How he bicycled—far more swiftly than Pierre! How he gardened: producing infinitely choicer flowers than Gaston’s!
“Enough! You have never left Paris. All those wonderful friends of yours do not exist,” cry the students. And the sacré waiter François (who has been toying all this time with his napkin) at last is permitted to relate what has been happening in the Latin Quarter during the summer holidays.
As a rule, however, he has little to say. Of course, the Boul’ Mich’ has been dull. Tourists from “sinister” Germany and from la vieille Angleterre have “looked” for students and amusements—naturally in vain. Mademoiselle Mimi owes nine francs for refreshments. And Mademoiselle Musette two francs eighty centimes for a cab fare. That is all.
But when the students “ushered” in the present autumn season, François the waiter had important, solemn news to impart. And it was with sincere sorrow that they learnt that death, in their absence, had claimed the queer little old woman who carried a match-tray in her trembling, bony hands; who performed feeble, vague dances; who piped old-time airs, and related old-time anecdotes; and who had lived amongst Mürger’s sons, ever since they could remember, under the name of Mère Casimir....
No city but Paris could have produced the little old woman: and no other community would have put up with her. Were there a Mère Casimir in London, she would be living in a work-house, strictly superintended, constantly reprimanded, and constantly, too, she would appear in the dock of the police court, and the magistrate would say: “I don’t know what to do with you. You are perfectly incorrigible.” Then this headline amidst the evening newspaper police reports: “Her Seventy-Seventh Appearance. Magistrate Doesn’t Know What To Do With Her. But She Gets One Month All the Same.”
In Paris, however, Mère Casimir was free. A shabby old creature, bent over her tray of matches, no taller than your walking-stick. Like her amazing friend, Bibi la Purée, she rarely strayed from the Latin Quarter. Just as he spoke of himself as “Bibi,” so she invariably referred to herself as “la Mère Casimir.” But whereas “Bibi” had ever led a vagabond life, Mère Casimir had known luxurious times, triumphant times: times when worldlings ogled and worshipped her, as she posed on the stage of the Opera and drove out in semi-state to the Bois.
And she laughed in a feeble, cracked voice, when she described those brilliant days; and rubbed her withered, trembling old hands; and nodded and nodded her bowed, white head; and piped the first line of that haunting, melancholy refrain:
“Il était une fois.”