MADEMOISELLE MIMI Oh! my friend Rodolphe, what has happened to change you thus?
Am I to believe the rumors that are current, and that this misfortune has broken down to such a degree your robust philosophy?
How can I, the historian in ordinary of your Bohemian epic, so full of joyous bursts of laughter, narrate in a sufficiently melancholy tone the painful adventure which casts a veil over your constant gaiety, and suddenly checks the ringing flow of your paradoxes?
Oh! Rodolphe, my friend, I admit that the evil is serious, but there, really it is not worthwhile throwing oneself into the water about it.

So I invite you to bury the past as soon as possible.

Shun above all the solitude peopled with phantoms who would help to render your regrets eternal.

Shun the silence where the echoes of recollection would still be full of your past joys and sorrows.

Cast boldly to all the winds of forgetfulness the name you have so fondly cherished, and with it all that still remains to you of her who bore it.