La Boheme | Page 7

girl of twenty.
"Very coquettish, rather ambitious, but without any pretensions to spelling.
"Oh! those delightful suppers in the Quartier Latin!
"A perpetual alternative between a blue brougham and an omnibus; between the Rue Breda and the Quartier Latin.
"...Well! what of that? From time to time I feel the need of breathing the atmosphere of such a life as this. My madcap existence is like a song; each of my love-episodes forms a verse of it, but Marcel is its refrain!"

ACT II
IN THE LATIN QUARTER
CHRISTMAS EVE
A conflux of streets; where they meet, a square, flanked by shops of all sorts; on one side the Caf�� Momus.
Aloof from the crowd, RUDOLPH and MIMI; COLLINE is near a rag-shop, SCHAUNARD stands outside a tinker's, buying a pipe and a horn, MARCEL is being hustled hither and thither.
A vast, motley crowd; soldiers, serving maids, boys, girls, children, students, work girls, gendarmes, etc. It is evening. The shops are decked with tiny lamps; a huge lantern lights up the entrance to the Caf�� Momus. The caf�� is so crowded that some of the customers are obliged to seat themselves outside.
HAWKERS. (outside their shops)
Come, buy my oranges! Hot roasted chestnuts! Trinkets and crosses! Fine hardbake! Excellent toffee! Flowers for the ladies! Try our candy! Cream for the babies! Fat larks and ortolans! Look at them! Fine salmon! Look at our chestnuts! Who'll buy my carrots?
THE CROWD.
CITIZENS. What a racket!
WOMEN. What uproar!
STUDENTS and WORK GIRLS. Hold fast to me; come along!
A MOTHER. (calling her children) Lisa! Emma!
CITIZENS. Ho! make way there!
THE MOTHER. Emma, don't you hear me?
STUDENTS and WORK GIRLS. Rue Mazarin's the nearest.
WOMEN. Let's get away, I'm choking!
CITIZENS. See! the caf�� is near!
(At the Caf��)
CITIZENS. Come here, waiter! Come along! Come along! Come here! To me! Some beer! A glass! Vanilla! Come along! Come along! Some beer! Some coffee! Hurry up!
SCH. (_blowing the horn_) D! D! D! what a dreadful D!
(_Haggling with the tinker._)
What's the price of the lot?
COL. (_to the clothes dealer, who has been mending a jacket for him_) It's rather shabby, but sound and not expensive.
(_He pays, and then carefully consigns the books to the various pockets of his long coat._)
(_MARCEL alone in the midst of the crowd, with a parcel under his arm, making eyes at the girls who jostle against him in the crowd._)
MAR. I feel somehow as if I fain must shout: Ho! laughing lassies, will you play at love? Let's play together, let's play the game of buy and sell: Who'll give a penny for my guileless heart?
(_Pushing through the crowd, RUDOLPH and MIMI, arm in arm, approach a bonnet shop._)
RUD. Let's go!
MIMI. To buy the bonnet?
RUD. Hold tightly to my arm, love!
(_They enter the bonnet shop._)
(SCHAUNARD _strolls about in front of the Caf�� Momus, waiting for his friends, and, armed with his huge pipe and hunting horn, he watches the crowd curiously._)
SCH. Surging onward--eager, breathless-- Moves the madding crowd, As they frolic ever In their wild, insane endeavor.
COL. (_comes up, waving an old book in triumph_) Such a rare copy! well-nigh unique, A grammar of Runic!
SCH. (who arrives at that moment behind COLLINE, _compassionately_) Honest fellow!
MAR. (_arriving at the Caf�� Momus, and finding_ SCHAUNARD and COLLINE) To supper!
SCH. and COL. Ho! Rudolph!
MAR. He's gone to buy a bonnet.
(MARCEL, SCHAUNARD and COLLINE _try to find an empty table outside the caf��, but there is only one, which is occupied by townsfolk. At these latter the three friends glare furiously, and then enter the caf��. The crowd disperses among the adjacent streets. The shops are crowded and the square becomes densely thronged with buyers who come and go. In the caf�� there is much animation._ RUDOLPH and MIMI _come out of the shop._)
RUD. (to MIMI) Come along! my friends are waiting.
MIMI. Do you think this rose-trimmed bonnet suits me?
RUD. The color suits your dark complexion.
MIMI. (_looking into the window of a bonnet shop_) O what a pretty necklace!
RUD. I have an aunt a millionaire. If the good God wills to take her, Then shall you have a necklace far more fine. (suddenly seeing MIMI _look round suspiciously_) What is it?
MIMI. Are you jealous?
RUD. The man in love is always jealous, darling.
MIMI. Are you then in love?
RUD. (_squeezing her arm in his_)
Yes, so much in love! Are you?
MIMI. Yes, deeply.
(_Enter from the caf��,_ COLLINE, SCHAUNARD and MARCEL _carrying a table. A waiter follows with chairs. The townsfolks seated near seem vexed at the noise which the three friends are making, for they soon get up and walk away._)
COL. The vulgar herd I hate, just as I did Horace.
SCH. And I, when I am eating, I can't stand being crowded.
MAR. (to the waiter) Smartly!
SCH. For many!
MAR. We want a supper of the choicest!
(MIMI and RUDOLPH joining their friends.)
RUD. (_accompanied by MIMI_) Two places.
COL. Let's have supper.
RUD. So we have come. (_introducing Mimi_) This is