It was a step the originality of which obtained an incredible success, and that has been celebrated under the title of "regrets and sighs." It was all very well for the three thousand jets of gas to blink at him, Rodolphe went on at it all the same, and continued to pour out a flood of novel madrigals to his partner.
"Well," said Marcel, "this is incredible.

Rodolphe reminds me of a drunken man rolling amongst broken glass." "At any rate he has got hold of a deuced fine woman," said another, seeing Rodolphe about to leave with his partner.
"Won't you say good night ?" cried Marcel after him.
Rodolphe came back to the artist and held out his hand, it was cold and damp as a wet stone.
Rodolphe's companion was a strapping Normandy wench, whose native rusticity had promptly acquired an aristocratic tinge amidst the elegancies of Parisian luxury and an idle life.

She was styled Madame Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but hard knocks.

Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think of giving her anything, and took him off home with her.
"Lucille," said she to her waiting maid, "I am not at home to anyone." And passing into her bedroom, she came out ten minutes later, in a special costume.

She found Rodolphe dumb and motionless, for since he had come in he had been plunged, despite himself, into a gloom full of silent sobs.
"Why you no longer look at me or speak to me!" said the astonished Seraphine.
"Come," said Rodolphe to himself, lifting his head.