the big beard nodded to one another.
"You know the gentleman?" said he to the philosopher.
"Not exactly," replied the latter, "but I meet him sometimes at the National Library. I believe that he is a literary man."
"He wears the garb of one, at any rate," said Schaunard.
The individual with whom this young fellow was arguing was a man of forty, foredoomed, by a big head wedged between his shoulders without any break in the shape of a neck, to the thunderstroke of apoplexy. Idiocy was written in capital letters on his low forehead, surmounted by a little black skull-cap. His name was Monsieur Mouton, and he was a clerk at the town hall of the 4th Arrondissement, where he acted as registrar of deaths.
"Monsieur Rodolphe," exclaimed he, in the squeaky tones of a eunuch, shaking the young fellow by a button of his coat which he had laid hold of. "Do you want to know my opinion? Well, all your newspapers are of no use whatsoever. Come now, let us put a supposititious case. I am the father of a family, am I not? Good. I go to the cafe for a game at dominoes? Follow my argument now."
"Go on," said Rodolphe.
"Well," continued Daddy Mouton, punctuating each of his sentences by a blow with his fist which made the jugs and glasses on the table rattle again. "Well, I come across the papers. What do I see? One which says black when the other says white, and so on and so on. What is all that to me? I am the father of a family who goes to the cafe—"
"For a game at dominoes," said Rodolphe.
"Every evening," continued Monsieur Mouton. "Well, to put a case—you understand?"
"Exactly," observed Rodolphe.
"I read an article which is not according to my views. That puts me in a rage, and I fret my heart out, because you see, Monsieur Rodolphe, newspapers are all lies. Yes, lies," he screeched in his shrillest falsetto, "and the journalists are robbers."
"But, Monsieur Mouton—"
"Yes, brigands," continued the clerk. "They are the cause of all our misfortunes; they brought about the Revolution and its paper money, witness Murat."
"Excuse me," said Rodolphe, "you mean Marat."
"No, no," resumed Monsieur Mouton, "Murat, for I saw his funeral when I was quite a child—"
"But I assure you—"
"They even brought you a piece at the Circus about him, so there."
"Exactly," said Rodolphe, "that was Murat."
"Well what else have I been saying for an hour past?" exclaimed the obstinate Mouton. "Murat, who used to work in a cellar, eh? Well, to put a case. Were not the Bourbons right to guillotine him, since he had played the traitor?"
"Guillotine who? Play the traitor to whom?" cried Rodolphe, button-holing Monsieur Mouton in turn.
"Why Marat."
"No, no, Monsieur Mouton. Murat, let us understand one another, hang it all!"
"Precisely, Marat, a scoundrel. He betrayed the Emperor in 1815. That is why I say all the papers are alike," continued Monsieur Mouton, returning to the original theme of what he called an explanation. "Do you know what I should like, Monsieur Rodolphe? Well, to put a case. I should like a good paper. Ah! not too large and not stuffed with phrases."
"You are exacting," interrupted Rodolphe, "a newspaper without phrases."
"Yes, certainly. Follow my idea?"
"I am trying to."
"A paper which should simply give the state of the King's health and of the crops. For after all, what is the use of all your papers that no one can understand? To put a case. I am at the town hall, am I not? I keep my books; very good. Well, it is just as if someone came to me and said, 'Monsieur Mouton, you enter the deaths—well, do this, do that.' What do you mean by this and that? Well, it is the same thing with newspapers," he wound up with.
"Evidently," said a neighbor who had understood.
And Monsieur Mouton having received the congratulations of some of the other frequenters of the cafe who shared his opinion, resumed his game at dominoes.
"I have taught him his place," said he, indicating Rodolphe, who had returned to the same table at which Schaunard and Colline were seated.
"What a blockhead!" said Rodolphe to the two young fellows.
"He has a fine head, with his eyelids like the hood of a cabriolet, and his eyes like glass marbles," said Schaunard, pulling out a wonderfully coloured pipe.
"By Jupiter, sir," said Rodolphe, "that is a very pretty pipe of yours."
"Oh! I have a much finer one I wear in society," replied Schaunard, carelessly, "pass me some tobacco, Colline."
"Hullo!" said the philosopher, "I have none left."
"Allow me to offer you some," observed Rodolphe, pulling a packet of tobacco out of his pocket and placing it on the table.
To this civility Colline thought it his duty to respond by an offer of glasses round.
Rodolphe accepted. The conversation turned on literature. Rodolphe, questioned as to the profession already revealed by his garb, confessed his relation with the Muses, and stood a second round of drinks. As the waiter was going off with the bottle Schaunard requested him to be good enough to forget it. He had heard the silvery tinkle of a couple of five-franc pieces in one of Colline's pockets. Rodolphe had soon reached the same level of expansiveness as the two friends, and poured out his confidences in turn.
They would no doubt have passed the night at the cafe if they had not been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the other at Montmartre.
Schaunard, who had wholly forgotten that he was without a residence, offered them hospitality.
"Come to my place," said he, "I live close by, we will pass the night in discussing literature and art."
"You shall play and Rodolphe will recite some of his verses to us," said Colline.
"Right you are," said Schaunard, "life is short, and we must enjoy ourselves whilst we can."
Arriving at the house, which Schaunard had some difficulty in recognizing, he sat down for a moment on a corner-post waiting for Rodolphe and Colline, who had gone into a wine-shop that was still open to obtain the primary element of a supper. When they came back, Schaunard rapped several times at the door, for he vaguely recollected that the porter had a habit of keeping him waiting. The door at length opened, and old Durand, half aroused from his first sleep, and no longer recalling that Schaunard had ceased to be his tenant, did not disturb himself when the latter called out his name to him.
When they had all three gained the top of the stairs, the ascent of which had been as lengthy as it was difficult, Schaunard, who was the foremost, uttered a cry of astonishment at finding the key in the keyhole of his door.
"What is the matter?" asked Rodolphe.
"I cannot make it out," muttered the other. "I find the key in the door, though I took it away with me this morning. Ah! we shall see. I put it in my pocket. Why, confound it, here it is still!" he exclaimed, displaying a key. "This is witchcraft."
"Phantasmagoria," said Colline.
"Fancy," added Rodolphe.
"But," resumed Schaunard, whose voice betrayed a commencement of alarm, "do you hear that?"
"What?"
"What?"
"My piano, which is playing of its own accord do la mi re do, la si sol re. Scoundrel of a re, it is still false."
"But it cannot be in your room," said Rodolphe, and he added in a whisper to Colline, against whom he was leaning heavily, "he is tight."