The jealousy which consumes him disturbs the reason of our friend Marcel; the great artist is beside himself." "Order!" cried Marcel.
"So much so, that, able designer as he is, he has just introduced into his speech a figure the incorrectness of which has been ably pointed out by the talented orator who preceded me." "Colline is an ass!" shouted Marcel, with a bang of his fist on the table that caused a lively sensation among the plates.

"Colline knows nothing in an affair of sentiment; he is incompetent to judge of such matters; he has an old book in place of a heart." Prolonged laughter from Schaunard.

During the row, Colline kept gravely adjusting the folds of his white cravat as if to make way for the torrents of eloquence contained beneath them.

When silence was reestablished, he thus continued: "Gentlemen, I intend with one word to banish from your minds the chimerical apprehensions which the suspicions of Marcel may have engendered in them respecting Carolus." "Oh, yes!" said Marcel ironically.
"It will be as easy as that," continued Colline, blowing the match with which he had lighted his pipe.
"Go on! Go on!" cried Schaunard, Rodolphe, and the women together.
"Gentlemen! Although I have been personally and violently attacked in this meeting, although I have been accused of selling for base liquors the influence which I possess; secure in a good conscience I shall not deign to reply to those assaults on my probity, my loyalty, my morality.
[Sensation.] But there is one thing which I will have respected.

[Here the orator, endeavoring to lay his hand on his heart, gave himself a rap in the stomach.] My well tried and well known prudence has been called in question.