A Scene from Bohemian Life

The music room of a fashionable apartment/townhouse; Shaunard is giving Aloys a singing lesson; a parrot looks on; there are two entrances/exits represented, one to bedrooms/private quarters (E1) and one to entrance/parlor (E2).

PARROT
Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
D-d-damn...d-d-damn...d-d-damn...d-d-damn that d-d-damned parrot!
If I that parrot I could kill, I would.
Allowed is not to laugh away at me. No!

SCHAUNARD
Once more, once more, good sir, we try...and try again,
and step by step, by phrase by phrase, we learn --
some little more at least, and bettered reach day's end,
more humble but more able than when it began.

ALOYS
I not do want for learn more humbug for more better.
I want for learn singing -- for cure my stutter!
That is all -- and that is what you are for -- no more!

PARROT
You are for! No more! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Argh!

SCHAUNARD
But singing, sir, will cure much more --
a stutter is but a stumbling, and quick
we catch ourselves and walk upright -- a trifle.
But singing, sir, will cure the the deepest ills
of desolation in our human soul --
all melancholy, oh, even despair,
the joyful peal of song a-sounding out, and in
within you thrumming strong behind your brow
in spacious cloisters of the mind does make
what just before was dark and troubled night
new morning alight, carefree in the risen sun.

ALOYS
D-d-damn all that too. I need for cure -- stutter.
I am rich. I am powerful. And I am laughingstock!

PARROT
Laughingstock! Laughingstock! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Argharghargh!

SCHAUNARD singing, playing, etc.
(Those most on whom fortune smiles,
to their blessings blinds their eyes.)
And again, sir, we will try. First, listen.

ALOYS
Not want for lesson I listen -- I want for lesson I sing!

PARROT
I sing! I sing! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
I need for find a way to make you die. Now we sing!

SCHAUNARD
Like this, sir; we try again.
Manca sollecita
piu dell' usato
ancor che s'agiti
con lieve fiato...

ALOYS
Mawonka souleechitaw
peeoo dale usayaytoh

PARROT
Mawonkah souleechitaw
peeoo dale usayaytoh
Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

SCHAUNARD
(Sghcaaaaw, haaw, haaw, haaw, haaw...aah, aah, ah-aah...)

ALOYS
Argh! Musetta! Musetta! Bring me tea! No! Vodka!

SCHAUNARD
Musetta!?

PARROT
Musetta! Musetta! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

Musetta comes on from E1, evidently just having gotten out of bed.

MUSETTA
Yes! What! Ah yes, what, my sweetest love? to Aloys Arh! surprised to see Schaunard immediately goes off E1

SCHAUNARD
(You... So that is why.)

ALOYS
You say!? What!?

SCHAUNARD
Ahh...you...what? What is more sir, is to also have
the great good fortune of a house well-heated
such as this that so bespeaks your august standing
ah so! that frees the body to loll and sultriate
as if in the blossom-wafted paradise
of alhambric summer while all others' freeze
in this huddled city's grey desolation
cracking in the vise of Siberian cold.
Russia's rulers are intent these days it's said
to build a Paris of their own at Saint Petersburg --
and in exchange have gifted us their winter.

ALOYS
What!?

SCHAUNARD
Nothing, sir -- merely musing to your question.

ALOYS
And Musetta is my niece. You hear? My niece! Musetta!

PARROT
My niece! Musetta! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

SCHAUNARD as Musetta comes on E1, now in dressing gown or similar
Indeed, how nice it must be to receive relatives from home when visiting abroad?

MUSETTA
Oh Aloys my dear, you're singing so beautifully, so beautifully my dear.

PARROT
Beautifully! Beautifully, my dear! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Arghargh! Vodka! Vodka!

PARROT
Vodka! Vodka! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

MUSETTA
Oh Aloys, Aloys -- calm yourself. And nothing calms better than a mid-morning vodka, and I'm sure with such a fine teacher as this, your stutter will soon be gone.

ALOYS
You know..met..have him?

MUSETTA
Why would we ever have met? Of course not.

PARROT
Of course not. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Uhahoh! ... And yes, yes -- I have must calm myself.
And if this parrot you find way to die
a natural death, so just...it happens
I will give you more reward than, than...

SCHAUNARD
Perchance, if you should sing to it, for some
brief length of time -- so beautifully, oh,
(so beautifully, my dear) -- as only you...
Aye, as even sweetest things -- oh, love itself --
can cloy it's said to exhaustion and disgust.
But you sir, are a counselor of your state --
a man of power in your home and here --
who knows, when death cannot be naturally arranged
an artificial one can serve, and quite as well.
And I know cooks could strip the plumes, and mince
and sauce that leathery bird and make
a stew that you would swear was made
of sweetest turtledoves and quails, the way
that simmering in riches only can
make of feathery slatterns of the street
fine lace-decked ladies of an envied house.

MUSETTA
(And oh if you my damned Schaunard do not shut up,
I swear it is not just the parrot that must also die.)

ALOYS
What? No. I have for live here now from mightly friend
of my father's merchant house. The parrot...argh!
is the juice and apple of his eyes and pride

SCHAUNARD
(And oh my dear Musetta, you do as well I see,
teaching him French as I do teach him singing.)

ALOYS
and so I must for care for it so must be
a death I can explain -- in this I was
for nothing -- and so for all believe.

PARROT
And so for all believe! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Argharghargh! I cannot! I cannot! I must have now! Where is my apothecary? He was to come this morning, and it is door knock/bell heard Ah-hah! And perfect for in time he comes. I will receive him in the entranceway and speakingroom. goes off E2 Monsieur Parpinvol, Monsieur Parpinvol, I am upon my way!

MUSETTA
No. Oh God. He cannot know I'm here.

SCHAUNARD
Now an apothecary? Parpagnol?
Tell me, in what deep reverie
might I have been of late -- of broken heartedness --
that I, distracted, did not see, so many
of my acquaintance so come up in the world,
as I, a fool, remain a penniless musician?

MUSETTA
Schaunard, I beg you. I am trembling and not jesting.
He cannot know I'm here. I defied him --
and he will take his vengeance -- he must.
You know that. His is the world of men where all
respect is lost if loyal silence is not kept
and where no defiance of their fearsome dignity
can be brooked -- and so must always be avenged.
I shamed him in the street in front of all --
taunting him with the truth of how quick he is
to make of poor girls whores who need his wares
and pay their debts to him -- because my friend
Mimi I lived with spends all her money there --
and in the street the crowd they laughed and laughed at him,
and he will more than disfigure me, so all can see
that none dare brave manly hoodlum majesty.

SCHAUNARD
So you sent her, Mimi -- she took the lodgings --
the garret, past the stairs above our own?

MUSETTA
Yes. When I came live here

SCHAUNARD
with him.

MUSETTA
I never thought he could even know Parpagnol.

SCHAUNARD
And that is why I couldn't find you -- I
who lorn and desp'rate-eyed these weeks
have ranged the streets where you went to live,
I thought -- every alley near Our Lady of Loreto and
fearing for you so, even I inside the church
did stop to pray and weep in anxiousness for you,
as all who knew you said they had no news of you.

MUSETTA
Keep it that way. Don't you see how fear

SCHAUNARD
he's not coming in here and if he does

MUSETTA
and anyway, why'd I want them to see me now?

SCHAUNARD
And the worst that has befallen then,
is not on you, but me? What can a man
in my sad penury in truth expect
more than to be left, without a word,
by the faithless whore he can't forget?

MUSETTA
Faithless? Whore? Schaunard...

SCHAUNARD
Musetta!

MUSETTA
Schaunard, no -- our tragic comedy of singing and starving is finished for me now. ... Do you see Mimi? How is she? I thought the four of you might be an influence for better.

SCHAUNARD
Just past the door, this morning, coming in, from somewhere in some raucous darkness in this city of the night.

MUSETTA
No one I know has such a reckless stamina, and energy to laugh, to dance, and tempt debauchery.

SCHAUNARD
We hardly know her yet. All else remains the same --

ALOYS heard from off in direction of E2
Ah, Monsieur Parpinvol, how glad I am for seeing you.

PARPAGNOL heard from off in direction of E2
Ah, Monsieur Aloys, how glad I am for being here.

SCHAUNARD
he's not gone -- and now's our landlord's strongman too --
and days ago I saw him from the stairs and he
was shouting at her door above -- now I know why --
in the old neighborhood -- yes, why would you
or anyone want to now go back to that?

MUSETTA
Help me. Parpagnol cannot know I'm here.

SCHAUNARD
You know I will. And they now won't come here.
For they are far too fastened on their bartering --
when soporifics mix with money, changing hands
across a table, not fire nor war nor judgement day
distract from the obsession of the task at hand.

MUSETTA
Alright. And as for Aloys

SCHAUNARD
"My sweetest love," who sings -- or better, pays -- so beautifully?

MUSETTA
Provides. And better you, with your music
and your poverty, could protect from feral press
of sly helps and barterings lost in the streets
the likes of me -- a girl alone,
penniless and propertyless save for this --
I've looked hard in others what becomes of us --
that for one brief blossoming in season of fair youth
now stands here in my shoes?

SCHAUNARD
I know -- too well I know, but still love can

MUSETTA
love cannot and never will.

PARROT
Love cannot, and never will! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS from off then coming on from E1 and going off through E2
Very well, Monsieur Parpinvol, in an instant I will return. Argh! Shut that parrot! I must get for pay my apothecary and put away my medicine. Then we sing! Ah-ha!

PARROT
Then we sing. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

SCHAUNARD
He seems to have provided himself with a fine supply.

MUSETTA
And will soon enough be back much improved in mood.

SCHAUNARD
As Benoit our ferret landlord and Parpagnol his wolf
will soon enough be back to see us four at home --
and far from improved in mood with every month
that passes with the rent unpaid. Your Aloys,
so how much might he pay should this most
unfortunate raucous rooster find that death
can come most sweetly lethally -- naturally --
perhaps, under the influence of...of?

MUSETTA
Ouf, for some there is more money than ever you could imagine. And please Schaunard, as for Aloys, you do not know me, and you have never seen me in your life.

SCHAUNARD
I do not know you, oh Musetta -- no, I
have never seen you -- or sung with you --
in my life. So how are you, singing now --
with him so beautifully here?

MUSETTA
Schaunard, don't hurt me more than now
it may already, to vent your angered pride --
if I told you, "you can't afford to sing with me"?
I left you, Schaunard -- I left that life, not you --
and I don't regret it. Oh! Aloys will be in here now
at any instant and that Parpagnol is there
aprowl I'll wager for bric-a-brac to steal.
Make sure he does not come in and know I'm here.

SCHAUNARD
He's quietly sitting there -- on his best behavior, at least until he gets paid.

MUSETTA
And how is your music, and your life? I should ask

SCHAUNARD
if only from politeness

MUSETTA
or some regret?

SCHAUNARD
Oh Musetta, my most beloved Musetta,
the time we lived at work and play, and love
together, now I see was all my happiness.

MUSETTA
Oh...

SCHAUNARD
And here is a song I wrote for you
in hope someday you'd sing again with me --
and oh my love, I will sing it for you now:
Oh sweet lost love
come back to me

PARPAGNOL from off then coming in E2
Ahah! Oh yes, that trumpet nose resounding voice -- I'd know it anywhere! Schaunard! You? Here?

MUSETTA
No!

SCHAUNARD
Throw yourself into my arms, turning your back
and I'll embrace and hide your face this way.
Out! to Parpagnol

PARROT
Out! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

PARPAGNOL going off E2
Ah! Ah, Schaunard -- ah that other trumpet resounding nose! I should have known. (And Aloys, should he know too? But all secrets are safe with me, until they are of use.)

MUSETTA
Schaunard, enough -- he's gone thank God.

SCHAUNARD
Why should we stop now -- we can so quick --
so practised at playing this that we are --
who made love morning, noon and night

MUSETTA
more often than we could afford to eat -- and that is the life I left.

SCHAUNARD
I know, but I had hoped that singing together we

MUSETTA
could climb away from shivering subsistence and
breath unworried, in warmth, free from want?
And I believed it for too long. And now I'm anxious
the money, nourishment and comfort end
replacing fear their lack would be the end of me?

SCHAUNARD
Just one more kiss from your sweet lips, oh my
Musetta, now that you are here, again
brimming within breathing reach of me,
my soul assailed by dark enchantment
as if drawn to the deep center of the world
beckoned by the chant of Orpheus' lyre.

MUSETTA
Only fools accord such power to lyres.

SCHAUNARD
That when untuned, discordant put to lying use,
sing so false for having sung so true?
But by an honest player, well-tempered,
would once again sing so richly and so true?

MUSETTA
Oh God, in listening to you, unthinking,
quick as throats can change from sound to song
I could give in to hope and with you

SCHAUNARD
sing again?

MUSETTA
No, stop -- and he'll be here again this instant, and then?

SCHAUNARD
He's giving himself a double dose I'll wager --
to make sure he's getting what he's paying for.

MUSETTA
He doesn't care or even notice what
he pays -- you have no idea how much
some have of money, and so how little they
concieve how much it is for likes of you.

SCHAUNARD
Or you? So he would pay in fact if the parrot died?

MUSETTA
Or me. And caught in a careless mood, if the parrot died
a natural death, or so it seemed to him,
he'd pay more than all you four would need
to pay your rent for a year or more, but

SCHAUNARD
first, we'd spend it all on wine, women and song?

MUSETTA
No -- you like to think you would. But most
you'd spend on food and rent and paint and instruments --
and buying time to work -- that soon runs out,
just like the money -- oh and back to desperate
like you are now. And I have seen that life with you,
and see how those who choose to live that way
cannot sustain it for that long.

SCHAUNARD
It is the life we have, and even if employed,
we have no money. Rodolfo works now at the Opera,
and what they pay is almost nothing.

MUSETTA
How is Rodolfo? I miss his presence,
the sunny happiness of his making
even most drudgeous work amusing play --
almost as much as I miss your love for me,
my jealous, prideful, disgruntled one, aey?
Keep on espying -- make sure he's not about
to stand up and to come this way.

SCHAUNARD
Musetta, now that you so coldly left me, why
you can at least stop always seducing me.
And Roldofo, Rodolfo is always better.
Every day, he becomes it seems more exited
by his work -- he feels so lucky -- sings
the praises of the master dancer he
is so proud to be learning from -- Jules...Parrot? --
could that be his name? -- and so volubly delights
in debating with himself his endless quand'ry
of what prima ballerina and ideal for art
he most adores. He praises to the skies
the apparitionly enchantment of Taglioni
and as quick returns his loyalty and heart
to Essler and her embodiment of rapture --
then just as quick jumps back again
ablath'ring and apuzzling on and on
like this: hmm, why oh! the one's so humbly studied
and flawless execution, oh so noble
in moral purpose; but hmm, well yes, but oh!
the other's so vibrant an abandon, so
accomplished in performance, oh so proud
and earthily disturbing.
And like a beamish jumping jackanape
keeps his questioning volleying back and forth
as if that itself where the game's delight --
hm-hmm, so? mutually exclusive are they?
and yet can't both be fully true at once?

MUSETTA
Give him my love, and fondest best --
though I for one, don't understand him.
And you, Schaunard, though I should know but

SCHAUNARD
I am a simple workman, without much inspiration,
and sometimes that can sadden me --
but not as much as does losing you.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, please

SCHAUNARD
just a little kiss -- on the cheek -- and loose
embrace so I can breath here by your hair and neck
and faint from longing and desire.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, enough!

PARROT
Schaunard, enough! Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

MUSETTA
Oh! Sit over there and...and tell me more about Rodolfo,
and his loves.

SCHAUNARD
Or lack thereof.
He's lucky; he's in love with work and art,
and otherworldly Wallises and Sylphs,
and not a worldly woman, the way she is.

MUSETTA
Even now? Your faithless whore?

SCHAUNARD
Yes, Musetta, even now.

MUSETTA
Oh, Schaunard ... Schaunard, just tell me of you now.

SCHAUNARD
Like tired old friends now -- once tireless lovers --
now trying to listen through the memories --
each to the other's latest narration of their life?
I teach like this -- and sometimes would prefer
that parrot for a student, for at least he tries --
and now you know I also work accompanying
at the chapel of the Celestines.

MUSETTA
You? They risk to let you in a nunnery?
Schaunard, I love you because you make me laugh.

SCHAUNARD
But no, not in the nunnery -- they let me in
the chapel's sacristy and lock me in the loft to play.
I never see or speak to them I only hear
them lift their hearts in prayer and sing --
and that thrilling trembling at the center of my hearing
sustains me more than any fortune they might pay.

MUSETTA
And this you do now every day?

SCHAUNARD
Three times -- matins, lauds and vespers -- every day.

MUSETTA
When otherwise a man would be sustained
by breakfast, lunch and dinner

SCHAUNARD
or making love with you? Musetta

MUSETTA
Schaunard...Schaunard, no...please...
I have changed life, and it was not so easy.
And if I should change again, now that you -- you!
pray every day with the chaste and cloistered Celestines
why I -- someday -- do you think, among
the sweet-voiced sisters that you never see
and well up your eyes with tears
at the plea for mercy of their song
there's not a faithless whore now begging God
for pity with her sweetest song that He
forgive what once, to she herself, she found,
unfortunate, was best to do?

SCHAUNARD
More than one I hope -- there are ways much worse to end.
But my Musetta, no, not you. You were
not ever one given to self-pitying and regret.

MUSETTA
No, not me. I'll say you're right.

SCHAUNARD
The more I see this parrot, the more he seems to me
sadly destined for ministrations of an apothecary.

MUSETTA
I'd have to get the preciously held key
to his special medicine chest. But what
could be the other cause of death, naturally?

SCHAUNARD
Even sweetest things can cloy, it's said,
and if we sang to sleep this parrot, never to wake?

ALOYS comes on E1
Ahahahow...looleeoo oooo...

PARROT
Looleeoo oooo. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Ahrgh! Ahrgh!

MUSETTA
Ahi! Ahi! Aloys! Aloys! Ahi! Oh! Help me!

ALOYS
What, what my lovey-dove? But I have to pay

MUSETTA
Ahi! I have a cramp, a terrible burning pain! Ahi!
Oh, oh please! Aloys! Aloys! Ahi! Oh! Help me!

ALOYS
Yes -- but my apothecary I must pay.

MUSETTA
That can wait! The pain I have it kills me now.
Can't you see? It makes me useless for love.
Ahi! Oh! Oh, please! You must have some elixir --
a wee dram of laudanum, something in this house

ALOYS
Where?

MUSETTA
Here! Deep under my side, crumpling me. Oh!
Give me the key to your medicine chest
and maybe there I can find a solace for this pain
and return at once myself again, and yours.

ALOYS giving her the key and she goes off E1
Yes, oh yes, and return to me again, and mine for love...ahahooo...

PARROT
And mine for love, ahahahooo... Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

PARPAGNOL coming on from E2
Ah! Oh, Monsieur Aloys I heard you here and thought I heard a woman too, cry in pain extreme (or was it pleasure?) how could that be and I took my liberty of come to help in case.

ALOYS
Ah, Monsieur Parpinvol, thank you for your solicitation for me yes. But here it was nothing, nothing -- my singing master here was with my niece a moment and singing with this parrot who

SCHAUNARD
sings too.

PARPAGNOL
Also with a trumpet nose? I wish my parrot could sing with her too.

ALOYS
What? No, Monsieur Parpinvol there was no woman singing here -- my niece only, a meek girl now finished in finishing school, visiting for culture from my capital at home. Maybe I can bring for you glass of vodka, no?

PARPAGNOL
(And likely underage! Ah Schaunard, I am shocked -- and when even I am surprised at the habits I find where none would think expect them, oh Schaunard, such moral reprobation! But your secret is safe from him with me -- for you, for a small fee of protection for it.) Ah, Monsieur Aloys -- I should not drink so early in the day, I have important business to attend and an apothecary

SCHAUNARD
(teetering under the influence of his wares would be a reprobation to respectability -- a travesty, Parpagnol -- I am shocked -- and here in this city most of all where not a single house harbors habits and hypocrisy. I saw your wife not long ago -- so devout and admirable a woman, so devoted to your daughters who so adore their father now -- in the Church of Our Lady of Loreto -- and I joined my prayers to hers, which I'm sure were all -- much needed -- all for you.)

PARPAGNOL
(Watch yourself, Schaunard. I know where you live. And never mock me for no one fears a laughingstock, and that I can't afford. And I am glad to let you know, I will come tonight to collect -- with your disappointed friend Benoit -- oh, speak of hypocrisy -- I am shocked -- when he rented you and your mates his precious rooms, who made him believe you could pay the rent?) Ah yes, but for you Monsieur Aloys, I will drink to your health and our relations -- and the happiness of your niece during her visit to Paris and her adventures in our artistic culture, no? (I wager you made her believe you loved her? At least I am honest in my deceptions.)

SCHAUNARD
(And in your self-deceptions? Where mine,
are dumpling sweet as baby's skin -- and playful,
your self-justifying tales of why it must be so...
after all...are hard-hided, blunt ignorance,
so deadly serious, indifferent to affliction.)

ALOYS
Yes. To our rulers -- may they rule us firmly and forever!

PARPAGNOL
And here's to you Monsieur Aloys. (And to you -- firmly and forever -- as debts must be paid and money owed must be collected

SCHAUNARD
firmly and forever -- or else the world would end?)

ALOYS
Ach! Now we go!

PARPAGNOL
And your niece -- so charming -- I caught
only a glimpse, her name you say it's

SCHAUNARD
Mongolia -- geographic names -- indeed, so charming --
so in fashion in your country now, not so
Monsieur Aloys?

ALOYS
Oh...oh yes -- an our ancestral practice culture.

PARPAGNOL
I see.

SCHAUNARD
Yes, Mongolia.

ALOYS
This way now please.

Aloys and Parpagnol go off E2, and Musetta comes on E1.

SCHAUNARD
And I too am trembling and not jesting.
And you, my feathered friend, far from deserve
this end, but then, nor did the hapless hen
I dined on last -- I can't remember when.
As now necessity -- mine, not yours --
laces up the cat's cradle of deception
whereon you will fall to sleep beyond awaking.

PARROT
Fall to sleep. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

SCHAUNARD
Aye, and if that vial of life-leathing elixir
that now she brings were a hollow ring
among her playful fingers, as if dancing,
beckoning with the courtesan jewels on her hands,
I too would drink Lucretia's poison,
to all abandon in the vortex of her kiss
that at a banquet of sumptuous corruption
she would lean to give for my distraction
while she poured her ring into my cup.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, we are killing a parrot not a pope.

SCHAUNARD
And oh, this scheme must work and well; I fear
that even you don't see how much I need the money.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, I lived with you for years --
the best years of my now fading youth --
love so blissful, life so unbearable -- and oh,
I know how much you need this money.

SCHAUNARD
And all that time, I believed you loved me.

MUSETTA
I still love you. But that's useless. Look at us --
and the world we live in -- now killing this
poor parrot in a trick of mountbank theater
to gull some torpid sot to spill open up his wallet.

SCHAUNARD
You're speaking of your lover.

MUSETTA
I'm speaking of my protector, and a life now free
of your hardscrabble misery's fear and want.

SCHAUNARD
I have my music and my songs, and...
to choose what we would live for, to be free,
is to choose the fastening chains that anchor us,
drowning, to that that makes us free.

MUSETTA
And we have chosen. ... So what will we sing, to bring
this poor parrot's comedy to its tragic end?

SCHAUNARD
This song I wrote for you from down within
the lightless well of desperation fearing
all hope was gone of seeing you, not just
not living by your side again in love.

MUSETTA
Let me see it and let me hear the melody.

SCHAUNARD
Here -- and listen -- you don't read music
nor play because you're so lazy, but none
that I have ever heard can sing so freely
with such artful reaching to the human heart,
and I'll just start and with your genius
you will just go.

MUSETTA
I do too read music. A little bit. You taught me.

SCHAUNARD
Musetta, oh my love, why are you crying?

MUSETTA
I am not crying.

ALOYS comes in E2
Looleeoo-oooo Ah, yes. And now we sing!

PARROT
Ah yes, and now we sing. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Argharghargh! That p-p-p-p-ararargh! Only there is one wish left to me! Where is my key?

MUSETTA
Oh Aloys, my love, I feel so well and wonderful now -- oh thank you, oh thank you -- you are such a kind and noble man -- and here is your key.

ALOYS
Ready again, for love I see.

PARROT
Ready again for love I see. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Argharghargh! What I would pay, what I would pay
And if this parrot you find way to die
a natural death, so just...it happens
and I for nothing am in this.

SCHAUNARD
And sir, how much exactly might

MUSETTA
(I'll see to that later -- you wouldn't even know how much to ask -- now to the business at hand, and acting with clear, cold dispatch.) Oh Aloys, oh my...my little parrot, let me fill your vodka glass again and sit -- for I think your singing master here -- who has made you sing so well and now even your stutter seems to be going its way -- he helped me think of the perfect way. And here...and I think in this other glass I may a dram for this poor parrot also prepare that from so much squawking must be thirsty too. Here's for you my loud and little feathered friend. And Aloys, Aloys my most amorous demi-god, if this my idea works and well, then you will happily pay all I ask in just reward for jewels and new gowns for presenting me with you to the admiring eyes and envy of all men?

SCHAUNARD
(Pay you? And make of me kept man of the woman I couldn't keep? And I would throw it all in your teeth but for necessity.)

ALOYS
Musetta, oh my Musetta, for you, all mine? Ro all other men to see? Oh anything you ask.

PARROT
Oh anything you ask. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
But how -- with me for nothing here -- the parrot will make die?

MUSETTA
We will sing to it.

PARROT
Sing to it. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Sing? Oh, Musetta you amuse me so -- so most of all when you joke.

SCHAUNARD
(...and act with clear, cold dispatch...)
Oh sir, no jest -- no jest at all, indeed, this death
you will most scientifically understand
and so explain -- you who were in truth
for nothing here -- to your father's mightly friend
to dessicate his tears at the weepful news
of the juice and apple of his eyes' untimely end.

ALOYS
Oh yes?

MUSETTA
Oh yes.

ALOYS
And why?

MUSETTA
Yes? Why?

SCHAUNARD
Oh sir...for France's finest naturalists
that have of late sailed the tropic seas
and traveled deep into the forests where
creatures of beauty beyond our ken
live free in Nature's Eden care, well they
have learned that parrots are of all
the creatures that God made to grace this Earth
the ones of keenest hearing -- that is why
to human language only they, can hear
and they can say.

PARROT
And they can say. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

SCHAUNARD
But this keenest hearing, if overfilled
by the high sweet keening of human song,
why, their bird-like brains are overdosed
and in exquisite apoplexy fall to death.

PARROT
Fall to death. Sghcaaaaw! Haaw! Haaw! Haaw!

ALOYS
Oh yes. Of course. I understand, and can explain. And when it will die?

SCHAUNARD
Now.

Schaunard and Musetta sing; Aloys falls asleep; the parrot dies.

SCHAUNARD & MUSETTA
Oh sweet lost love
come back to me,
or by God above
surely I'll diee.
I let pretend
all's well with me,
but in the end
I know I liee.
Your loss to me
I cannot bear,
return to be
my love ever there.
Oh sweet lost love
come back to me,
or by God above
surely I'll diee.
Return to be
constant to me,
constant to me,
constant to me
as true love can be.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, for a moment I felt asleep,
and in your arms not dreaming,
deep, as if in the dark of dawns in those
first days in faith and hope in love with you.

SCHAUNARD
And with a deepest kiss awake again.

MUSETTA
Yes.

SCHAUNARD
Yes, and all that spectacle mounted for him,
and shameless, he falls into his sleep.
And I feel ashamed to wake him but

MUSETTA
you, need the money.

SCHAUNARD
Yes.

MUSETTA
Oh, let him sleep -- when he wakes, he'll make
his sense of it -- and meet me at Momus at five
this afternoon -- Renata -- your Marcello's Renata --
she works there in the kitchen as you know --
she saw me there last night -- and so I'm found --
I'll see her there when she starts work today --
you'll get the money then I trow.

SCHAUNARD
Momus? Our old haunt? Ah-ah, ah-ah; oh-eh, oh-eh -- venez, venez -- venez tous venez, écouter nous chanter, voyer nous danser -- au Café Momus, dix-sept Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois...

MUSETTA
Shshshsh...you'll wake the dead.

SCHAUNARD
And I'll arrange we'll sing -- again tonight -- and late -- the best of our old repertoire! Oh, Musetta...

MUSETTA
Pay your rent first before they break your fingers
and leave your piano untouched and alone as

SCHAUNARD
Musetta!

MUSETTA
No!

SCHAUNARD
But you will come? To sing with me again?

MUSETTA
If he's awake and takes me, well, why not?

SCHAUNARD
Musetta, oh I love you. I love you so.

MUSETTA
Schaunard, for both our sakes now leave me.

Schaunard goes off, and all dark.

A Scene from Bohemian Life

Will Owen

Introductory Information

A Scene from Bohemian Life