Rodolphe

“ On my word of honor, it is the widow's mite."
"I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it as the thirteenth labor of Hercules."
After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot.
"Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I must find the dish itself. ”

“ I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red Sea.'"
All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist:
"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in laboriously acquiring a serious position—such as a virtuous man should occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties—." ”

“ One day he opens a secretary and there finds Rodolphe's picture, his letters and Léon's. Do you think his love is then shattered? No, no! on the contrary, he is excited and extols this woman whom others have possessed, as proved by these souvenirs of voluptuousness which she had left to him; and from that moment he neglects his office, his family, lets go to the winds the last vestige of his patrimony, and is found dead one day in the arbor in his garden, holding in his hand a long lock of black hair. This is the romance. ”

“ Rodolphe sat up in bed, his eyes and mind yet heavy with slumber, and looked about him.
He vaguely perceived standing in the middle of his room a man who had just entered.
This early visitor bore a bag slung at his back and a large pocketbook in his hand. He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of stairs. His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter on the march. ”

“ I am a dramatic author."
"I am an artist," she replied, then added, "My dear sir and neighbor, will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?"
"Alas!" answered Rodolphe, "though your invitation is like opening heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and chimney doctor, whose secretary I am now." ”

“ Well, lend me your forty lines."
"Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart."
"What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there anything new in the world except virtue?" ”

“ I am an Italian, my dear sir!"
Francesca turned away from the parapet, leaving Rodolphe, and went to the further end of the terrace, whence there is a wide prospect of the lake. Watching her as she slowly walked away, Rodolphe suspected that he had wounded her soul, at once so simple and so wise, so proud and so humble. It turned him cold; he followed Francesca, who signed to him to leave her to herself. But he did not heed the warning, and detected her wiping away her tears. Tears! in so strong a nature. ”

“ In a little while you will be cured, and quite ready to rove with another Mimi along the green lanes of Aulnay and Fontenay-aux-Roses."
Rodolphe swore that he had forever done with regrets and despair. ”

“ In order to find them at the bottom of the box, Rodolphe disturbed all the others, and mechanically began rummaging amidst this mass of papers and things, finding pell-mell bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair—hair! dark and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the box, broke when it was opened.
Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the writing and the style of the letters, as varied as their orthography. They were tender or jovial, facetious, melancholy; there were some that asked for love, others that asked for money. ”

“ Poor boy! he could not come by the Saint-Gothard, nor by the Mont-Cenis, nor by the Simplon; he came by sea, by Marseilles, and had to cross France. Well, in three weeks we shall be at Geneva, and living at our ease. Come, Rodolphe," she added, seeing sadness overspread the Parisian's face, "is not the Lake of Geneva quite as good as the Lake of Lucerne?"
"But allow me to bestow a regret on the Bergmanns' delightful house," said Rodolphe, pointing to the little promontory.
"Come and dine with us to add to your associations, povero mio," said she. "This is a great day; we are out of danger. ”

“ thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, "that was what she came for." At last he said with a calm air—
"Dear madame, I have not got them."
He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, have given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such fine things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive. ”

“ Music, painting, and philosophy are thus well represented in the Bohemian cénacle, and in Rodolphe, the last of the group, the sister art of poetry finds a worthy exponent. Rodolphe 219is the real hero of the book, and is indeed an approximately faithful sketch of the author himself. In the fancy-poet of the Latin Quarter, the man who, in the very cut of his clothes, manners, appearance, conversation, “confessed his association with the Muses,” many of Murger’s well-known traits of character and personal idiosyncrasies are frankly reproduced. ”

“ Next day and the following days, in fact, for twenty days after, Rodolphe spent all his time at the Bergmanns', watching Francesca without having determined to watch her. In some souls admiration is not independent of a certain penetration. The young Frenchman discerned in Francesca the imprudence of girlhood, the true nature of a woman as yet unbroken, sometimes struggling against her love, and at other moments yielding and carried away by it. ”

“ His tastes are catholic in the extreme; for he will buy anything and everything that is to be bought, provided only it is rare, out of the way, and for all practical purposes useless. Some idea of the range and versatility of his interests may be given by reference to a single episode in his history. When, in company with Marcel, Rodolphe gave that famous Christmas entertainment, whereof the record is to be found in its proper place in the annals of Bohemia, he insisted on borrowing for the occasion the philosopher’s famous swallowtail coat. ”

“ Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch. ”

“ But Murger takes pains to make it clear that Rodolphe and his friends do not belong to this unfortunate class—the “Buveurs d’Eau,” as they are called, the first tenet of whose creed is that no one of their number, on penalty of expulsion from the society, shall accept any work outside pure art itself. [30] Rodolphe, as we 228know, is working hard upon his great tragedy; Marcel, upon his “Passage of the Red Sea”; Schaunard, upon his symbolic symphony ”

“ The next morning at eleven o'clock, according to habit, Rodolphe got up. His first thought was for Mademoiselle Laure.
"She is a very well mannered woman," he murmured, "I feel sure that she was brought up at Saint Denis. I shall at length realize the happiness of having a mistress who is not pitted with the small-pox. Decidedly I will make sacrifices for her. I will go and draw my screw at 'The Scarf of Iris.' I will buy some gloves, and I will take Laure to dinner at a restaurant where table napkins are in use. ”

“ He did not like the voice of the brook; for, lo! just as the cricket had chirped and the birds had sung, so did this brook murmur and prattle and sing ever of the king, the king, the king.
So, always after that, wherever Rodolph went, he heard voices that told him of the king; yes, even in their quiet, humble way, the flowers seemed to whisper the king's name, and every breeze that fanned his brow had a tale to tell of the king and his goodness.
"But there is no king!" cried Rodolph. "They all conspire to plague me! There is no king—there is no king!" ”

“ It is so sweet to follow Rodolph's noble advice! It is to love as well as to obey him. Oh, I feel it with rapture! His breath, alone, animates and fertilises the new existence which he has given me in directing me to console those who suffer. I experience an unalloyed delight in acting but as he directs, in having no ideas but his; for I love him,—ah, yes, I love him! And yet [Pg 239] he shall always be in ignorance of this, the lasting passion of my life."
Whilst Madame d'Harville is waiting for La Goualeuse, we will conduct the reader into the presence of the prisoners. ”

“ Between the depth of misery, the degradation in which he had always existed, and the position in which Rodolph now placed him, there was an abyss so wide that the service he had rendered to Rodolph, important as it was, could not fill it up.
"Does what I give you, then, seem beyond your hopes?" inquired Rodolph.
"My lord," said the Chourineur, starting up suddenly, "you offer me this house and a great deal of money,—to tempt me; but I cannot take them; I never robbed in my life. It is, perhaps, to kill; but I have too often dreamed of the sergeant," added he, in a hoarse tone. ”

“ Why, M. Rodolph himself told me I had both heart and honour."
"But who the devil is this M. Rodolph?" exclaimed the Schoolmaster, breaking out fresh at the mention of his name. "He is not a man; he is a monster,—a fiend,—a—"
"Hold, hold!" cried the Chourineur. "Now you are [Pg 205] going to have another fit, which is bad for you and very disagreeable to me, because it makes you abuse my friends. Come, are you ready? Shall we set forth on our journey?"
"We are going to your lodging, are we not, Chourineur?" ”

“ Rodolph read what follows with tender and impatient solicitude:
"Monseigneur:—After all I owe you already, I now owe to you my father's life. I will allow facts to speak for themselves; they will say better than I can what fresh accumulations of gratitude to you I have added to those already amassed in my heart. Understanding all the importance of the advice you sent to me by Sir Walter Murphy, who overtook me on my way to Normandy a short distance from Paris, I travelled as speedily as possible to the Château des Aubiers. ”

“ Thus, then, brother, trust me that the sight of this ornament will awaken in Rodolph not only the recollection of his love, but those of his youth also; and for men these souvenirs are always sweet and precious."
"But these sweet and precious souvenirs will be united with others so terrible: the sinister dénouement of your love, the detestable behaviour of the prince's father to you, your obstinate silence to Rodolph. After your marriage with the Count Macgregor, he demanded his daughter, then an infant,—your child,—of whose death, ten years since, you informed him so coldly in your letter. ”

“ Rodolph held out his hand to this ill-used savage of civilisation, whom misery had been unable wholly to corrupt. The Chourineur looked at his host in astonishment,—almost with respect; he hardly dared to touch the hand tendered to him. He felt impressed with some vague idea that there was a wide abyss between Rodolph and himself.
"'Tis well," said Rodolph to him, "you have heart and honour."
"Heart? honour? what, I? Come, now, don't chaff me," he replied, with surprise.
"To suffer misery and hunger rather than steal, is to have heart and honour," said Rodolph, gravely. ”

“ Rodolph's first sensation upon arriving at this enchanting triumph of art over nature was that of most unfeigned surprise.
"This is, indeed, a wonderfully beautiful carrying out of a poetical idea," said he, almost involuntarily; then, turning to the ambassadress, he exclaimed, "Madame, till now, I had not deemed such wonders practicable. We have not in the scene before us a mere union of unbounded expense with the most exquisite taste, but you give us poetry in action. ”

“ Ah! you are yokels; but comrade Rodolph is an out-and-out pal, he is. Though only a fan-painter, yet he is as 'downy' in 'flash' as I am myself. Well, since you can't speak this very fine language, I tell you, in plain French, that Bras Rouge is a smuggler, and, besides that, has a small tavern in the Champs Elysées. I say, without breaking faith, that he is a smuggler, for he makes no secret of it, but owns it under the very nose of the custom-house officers. Find him out, though, if you can; Bras Rouge is a deep one. ”

“ Rodolph began to be really troubled how to convince the Chourineur, and said in a solemn, impressive, and almost severe tone:
"I never make sport of the gratitude and sympathy with which noble conduct inspires me. ”