Bohemia Village Voice

(2 of 24)

How the Bohemian Club was Founded 

 “’Tis the dawn, no less,” Schaunard muttered, “Astonishing. But,” he added, consulting a calendar on his wall, “it’s wrong, all the same. Science affirms that at this time of year the sun should not rise before half-past five. It’s now only five, yet he’s up already.

Excessive zeal, the star’s at fault. I shall complain to the Office of Longitudes. All the same, it’s time for me to start to worry a little. This is certainly today, the day after yesterday; and, since yesterday was the seventh, today, unless Saturn is traveling backwards, must be April the eighth. And if I am to believe what this paper announces” – Schaunard re-read a bailiff’s notice-to-quit fastened to the wall – “it is today, at noon precisely, that I am due to have vacated these premises, and to have paid, cash down, to M. Bernard, my landlord, the sum of seventy-five francs for three months’ rent in arrears – for which he duns me in an abominable handwriting. I had hoped, as usual, that Fortune would take it upon herself to liquidate the affair; but apparently Fortune hasn’t had the time. Well, anyway – I still have six hours. If I employ them well, perhaps …Come, to work!”

     He was putting on a greatcoat whose material, long-haired in its primitive days, had since become very bald, when suddenly – as if bitten by a tarantula – he started performing in his room a dance whose choreography he had composed himself, and which in public dance-halls had often incurred the interested attention of the police.

      “Well, well,” he said, “it’s remarkable how the morning air fills you with ideas! I think I’m on the track of my tune. Let’s see.”

      Half naked, Schaunard sat down before his piano. After waking up the sleepy instrument with a stormy series of chords, he began – still talking to himself – to hunt across the keys the melodic phrase that he had so long been seeking.

      “Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, re – pom, pom. Fa, re, mi, re. Ugh! That re is as false as Judas.” Schaunard hammered on the doubtful note.

To be continued …

[Vie de Bohème by Henry Mürger, a vivid portrait of the ‘Bohemian’ life of the artistic quarter of Paris in the nineteenth century was originally published (by Michel Lévy) in 1851. The extract above is taken from a translation by Norman Cameron, published by Hamish Hamilton. The illustration is by Dodi Masterman.]