a
little moonlight now and then, when I scale my Juliet's balcony. What do
you say to my project, philosopher?"

"It is very fine," said Colline, "but could you also explain to me the
mysteries of this splendid outer covering that rendered you
unrecognizable? You have become rich, then?"

Rodolphe did not reply, but made a sign to one of the waiters, and
carelessly threw down a louis, saying:

"Take for what we have had."

Then he tapped his waistcoat pocket, which gave forth a jingling sound.

"Have you got a bell in your pocket, for it to jingle as loud as that?"

"Only a few louis."

"Louis! In gold?" said Colline, in a voice choked with wonderment. "Let
me see what they are like."

After which the two friends parted, Colline to go and relate the opulent
ways and new loves of Rodolphe, and the latter to return home.

This took place during the week that had followed the second rupture
between Rodolphe and Mademoiselle Mimi. The poet, when he had broken off
with his mistress, felt a need of change of air and surroundings, and
accompanied by his friend Marcel, he left the gloomy lodging house, the
landlord of which saw both him and Marcel depart without overmuch
regret. Both, as we have said, sought quarters elsewhere, and hired two
rooms in the same house and on the same floor. The room chosen by
Rodolphe was incomparably more comfortable than any he had inhabited up
till then. There were articles of furniture almost imposing, above all a
sofa covered with red stuff, that was intended to imitate velvet, and
did not.

There were also on the mantelpiece two china vases, painted with
flowers, between an elaborate clock, with fearful ornamentation.
Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard, and when the landlord came to wind
up the clock, begged him to do nothing of the kind.

"I am willing to leave the clock on the mantel shelf," said he, "but
only as an object of art. It points to midnight--a good hour; let it
stick to it. The day it marks five minutes past I will move. A clock,"
continued Rodolphe, who had never been able to submit to the imperious
tyranny of the dial, "is a domestic foe who implacably reckons up to
your existence hour by hour and minute by minute, and says to you every
moment, 'Here is a fraction of your life gone.' I could not sleep in
peace in a room in which there was one of these instruments of torture,
in the vicinity of which carelessness and reverie are impossible. A
clock, the hands o