"Ces jolies filles moitié abeilles, moitié cigales, qui travaillaient en chantant toute la semaine, ne demandaient à Dieu qu'un peu de soleil le dimanche, faisaient vulgairement l'amour avec le cœur, et se jetaient quelquefois par la fenêtre. Race disparue maintenant, grâce à la génération actuelle des jeunes gens: génération corrompue et corruptrice, mais par-dessus tout vaniteuse, sotte et brutale. Pour le plaisir de faire de méchants paradoxes, ils ont raillé ces pauvres filles à propos de leurs mains mutilées par les saintes cicatrices du travail, et elles n'ont bientôt plus gagné assez pour s'acheter de la pâte d'amandes. Peu à peu ils sont parvenus à leur inoculer leur vanité et leur sottise, et c'est alors que la grisette a disparu. C'est alors que naquit la lorette."
The grisette made love for love: like a wild rose, she had to be plucked, and when men came to prefer buying bouquets in shops, she naturally died away. Money already tainted Bohemia, even here, in its heart. The opportunity of luxury tempted both Mimi and Musette to be unfaithful, but since caprice was ever stronger with them than self-interest they were not undeserving to be called the last of the grisettes. They were necessary adjuncts to Bohemia, and satisfactory adjuncts, in spite of their caprices, for the last thing which Bohemian man required was the Bohemian or—to use an obsolete phrase—the "emancipated" woman. Too ignorant to meet their lovers, even had they wished, upon their own ground, they held their place by keeping to their natural advantage, the woman's desire to please. So they passed through life, making the feast more festive and the fast less desolate, filling a void and mending a sorrow as light-heartedly as they darned a sock or patched a ragged coat. Mimi and Musette were the true counterparts of Rodolphe and Marcel, and it is with regret that we see them disappear into an epilogue of prosperity and propriety. Yet it was all they could do, for what I have called the Bohemia of common mortality became dangerous long before the age of thirty years. Rodolphe could not have written in middle age to Marcel as Bouchardy did to Théophile Gautier; only hypocritically could he have said "nous étions ivres du beau." Murger escapes any false effect of that kind in his conclusion:
"'We are done for, old fellow,' says Marcel, 'we are dead and buried. Youth only comes once! Where are you dining to-night?'
"'If you like,' answered Rodolphe, 'we will go and dine for twelve sous at our old restaurant in the Rue du Four, where the plates are of village earthenware, and where we were always so hungry when we had finished eating.'
"'Good heavens, no. I don't mind looking back at the past, but it shall be across a bottle of decent wine and seated in a good arm-chair. It is no use, I'm corrupted. I only care now for what is good!'"
X
MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS
Si on excepte quelques natures fortement trempées qui se tirèrent des impasses de la Bohème, le reste fut condamné à vivre difficilement en face d'un idéal borné et sans avenir. Ni études, ni loisirs, ni aisances ne permettaient à ces aspirants à l'art de s'élever et de conquérir un nom.
CHAMPFLEURY:
"Souvenirs et Portraits de Jeunesse"