[21]. “La Vie de Bohème,” act i., scene 8.
[22]. Ibid.
[23]. In this slight historic sketch of Bohemianism, we simply follow, without comment or criticism, Murger’s original preface to the “Scènes de la Vie de Bohème.”
[24]. A story to the point is worth repeating here. When the playwright, Barrière, went to him one afternoon to propose the dramatization of the “Scenes of Bohemian Life,” he found Murger in his attic in the Latin Quarter, in bed. It subsequently came out that a Bohemian friend, having occasion to pay a business visit to some important functionary, had borrowed his only pair of trousers, which had the advantage of being a trifle better than his own; and Murger had to remain in bed, with such patience as he could command, until they should be restored.
[25]. The passage in which reference is made to the meeting with Victor Hugo will be found at the close of chapter xiv. of the “Scenes.” “After lunching together, they started for the country. In crossing the Luxembourg, Rodolphe met a great poet, who had always behaved to him with charming kindness. For propriety’s sake, he was going to pretend not to see him. But the poet did not allow him time; in passing, he gave him a friendly recognition, and bowed to his young companion with a gracious smile. ‘Who is that gentleman?’ asked Mimi. Rodolphe replied by mentioning a name which made her blush with pleasure and pride. ‘Oh,’ said Rodolphe, ‘this meeting with a poet who has sung so well of love, is a good omen, and will bring luck to our reconciliation.’” Banville’s statement of the way in which Murger fed his fiction day by day upon the happenings of his own life, reminds us somewhat of Mr. Robert S. Hichens’ grim and powerful story, “The Collaborators.”
[26]. This passage, like sundry others already cited, is taken from the dramatization of the “Scenes of Bohemian Life,” which was, as we have seen, made by Murger in collaboration with Théodore Barrière, and was extremely successful. It differs in many particulars from the book, the scattered scenes of which are reduced to coherence and unity, but the male characters preserve their general traits.
[27]. The “Norman uncle” very possibly stands for Schaune’s father, the toy-manufacturer, to whose business he presently succeeded.
[28]. This incident of Marcel’s picture is said to have had its prototype in a composition of Tabar’s, originally sketched as “The Passage of the Red Sea,” and afterwards exhibited in the Salon as “Niobe and Her Children Slain by the Arrows of Apollo and Diana.”
[29]. This famous volume appears in an “édition princeps,” with “notes in modern Syriac,” in the very amusing story, “Son Excellence Gustave Colline,” which really forms an episode of the “Scènes de la Vie de Bohème,” though it is published in the collection of miscellanies entitled “Dona Sirène.”
[30]. See “Les Derniers Buveurs d’Eau,” in “Dona Sirène”; “Les Buveurs d’Eau”; “Scènes de la Vie de Jeunesse”; and the “Scènes de la Vie de Bohème,” preface, and the story of “Le Manchon de Francine.”