, 'I drink, on the contrary, to its very good health,'
and she gave me a look, enough, as they say, to awake the dead. It was
indeed the occasion to say so, for she had scarcely finished her toast
than I heard my heart singing the _O Filii_ of the Resurrection. What
would you have done in my place?"

"A pretty question--what is her name?"

"I do not know yet, I shall only ask her at the moment we sign our
lease. I know very well that in the opinion of some people I have
overstepped the legal delays, but you see I plead in my own court, and I
have granted a dispensation. What I do know is that she brings me as a
dowry cheerfulness, which is the health of the soul, and health which
is the cheerfulness of the body."

"Is she pretty?"

"Very pretty, especially as regards her complexion; one would say that
she made up every morning with Watteau's palate, 'She is fair, and her
conquering glances kindle love in every heart.' As witness mine."

"A blonde? You astonish me."

"Yes. I have had enough of ivory and ebony; I am going in for a
blonde," and Rodolphe began to skip about as he sang:

"Praises sing unto my sweet,
She is fair,
Yellow as the ripening wheat
Is her hair."

"Poor Mimi," said his friend, "so soon forgotten."

This name cast into Rodolphe's mirthsomeness, suddenly gave another turn
to the conversation. Rodolphe took his friend by the arm, and related to
him at length the causes of his rupture with Mademoiselle Mimi, the
terrors that had awaited him when she had left; how he was in despair
because he thought that she had carried off with her all that remained
to him of youth and passion, and how two days later he had recognized
his mistake on feeling the gunpowder in his heart, though swamped with
so many sobs and tears, dry, kindle, and explode at the first look of
love cast at him by the first woman he met. He narrated the sudden and
imperious invasion of forgetfulness, without his even having summoned it
in aid of his grief, and how this grief was dead and buried in the said
forgetfulness.

"Is it not a miracle?" said he to the poet, who, knowing by heart and
from experience all the painful chapters of shattered loves, replied:

"No, no, my friend, there is no more of a miracle for you than for the
rest of us. What has happened to you has happened to myself. The women
we love, when they become our mistresses, cease to be for us what they
really are. We do not see them only wit