Chapter 14 - Mademoiselle Mimi

Summary

Oh Rodolphe, my friend, what's happened to you? What could have changed you this way? Should I believe all the rumors I’ve been hearing? Love of life has always been your guiding principle but now you seem overwhelmed by sadness. Can this really be true? And how can I, the faithful chronicler of your bohemian epic, a story so full of laughter, how can I find a melancholy tone sad enough to recount the painful events that have left you in a kind of mourning and brought the cheerful sounds of your witty banter to a sudden stop?

Oh Rodolphe, my friend! I know you’ve been through something awful, but still, it's really no reason to give up on everything. My advice is just to lay the past to rest as soon as you can. Above all, avoid solitude: it's crowded with phantoms who will feed on your grief and prolong it. Avoid silence, where your echoing memories will resound with the joys and sorrows of the past. Be brave—take the name you loved and toss it to the four winds of forgetfulness. And along with it, rid yourself of everything of hers you still carry with you. Those curls of her hair you tasted, your lips inflamed with desire. That Venetian flagon with just a few drops of perfume still slumbering inside, but more dangerous for you to inhale right now than all the world's most deadly poisons. Into the fire with the flowers, flowers made of cloth, silk and velvet. The white jasmine flowers, the anemones turned crimson with the blood of Adonis,1 the blue forget-me-nots, and all the bouquets she arranged during those days of love, days so brief and so long ago. I loved her too, your Mimi, and I didn't foresee the danger that loving her would bring. But take my advice: into the flames with those ribbons, those pretty ribbons, pink and blue and yellow, that she wore around her neck to hold your gaze. Into the flames with the lace and the bonnets, the veils, and all the seductive clothes she dressed herself in to make calculating love with M. César, M. Jérôme, M. Charles, or whatever other admirer she had scheduled, while you waited at the window for her, shivering from the icy wind and winter frost.