woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if
bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of
his own composition, which at the public balls had often caused him to
be honoured with the particular attention of the police.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is surprising how the morning air gives one
ideas! It strikes me that I am on the scent of my air; Let's see." And,
half-dressed as he was, Schaunard seated himself at his piano. After
having waked the sleeping instrument by a terrific hurly-burly of notes,
he began, talking to himself all the while, to hunt over the keys for
the tune he had long been seeking.

"Do, sol, mi, do la, si, do re. Bah! it's as false as Judas, that re!"
and he struck violently on the doubtful note. "We must represent
adroitly the grief of a young person picking to pieces a white daisy
over a blue lake. There's an idea that's not in its infancy! However,
since it is fashion, and you couldn't find a music publisher who would
dare to publish a ballad without a blue lake in it, we must go with the
fashion. Do, sol, mi, do, la, si, do, re! That's not so bad; it gives a
fair idea of a daisy, especially to people well up in botany. La, si,
do, re. Confound that re! Now to make the blue lake intelligible. We
should have something moist, azure, moonlight--for the moon comes in too;
here it is; don't let's forget the swan. Fa, mi, la, sol," continued
Schaunard, rattling over the keys. "Lastly, an adieu of the young girl,
who determines to throw herself into the blue lake, to rejoin her
beloved who is buried under the snow. The catastrophe is not very
perspicuous, but decidedly interesting. We must have something tender,
melancholy. It's coming, it's coming! Here are a dozen bars crying like
Magdalens, enough to split one's heart--Brr, brr!" and Schaunard shivered
in his spangled petticoat, "if it could only split one's wood! There's a