On Xmas Eve, in Paris, a girl with an Italian name -Lucia- enters a freezing bohème -home to a poet- carrying what in French is a bougie: il lume, a candle (bouger is sort of "to move and change place rapidly, in a deceitful way" - just like a flame does).

She sounds Italian, too:

Scusi. Di grazia...

Mi s'è spento il lume.

Can you smell a Tuscan breeze, in that mi s'è spento?

It drifts through the poet's door the very minute the feminine protagonist of La Bohème sets foot on stage and it'll be more clearly felt later on: "sola mi fo il pranzo da me stessa"; "noi s'è provato più volte, ma invano...".

Also, can you smell a LIE, in that lume?
For bugia in Italian is both menzogna -"lie"- and lume, precisely: a small chandelier holding just one candle.

Such crossing of semantic paths, such encounter of meanings in one and the same verbal as well as visual object -such as this mandatory stage prop is- could have been overlooked or even ignored everywhere else - except in the house of a poet.

Had it been a dream, it'd be clearer.

Let's pretend that this whole scene we're discussing, portrayed in La Bohéme's Primo Quadro ("quadro" in Italian is "painting" - we're in the house of a painter, too),

that this whole situation was just some vivid dream that we had - il sogno ch'io vorrei sempre sognar, to quote Rodolfo- and that we were reporting it to our (Freudian) psychoanalyst of the collective subconscious:

"Doctor, we dreamt of a French girl with an Italian accent entering the house of a poet holding a candle..."

«Fascinating... A candle, you said... in French that'd be... bougie... with an Italian accent... bugia... Well, isn't that obvious?»

«I'm sorry, what is obvious?»

«She is carrying a French bougie, an Italian bugia: a lie. She's lying.»

«Well... All we recall is... While introducing herself, she just mentioned that her name was Mimì.»

«Mimì, was it? Sounds like a can-can dancer's name... likely a prostitute's name.»

«Actually -and she repeated it twice- she said that others call her so, but she had no idea why that was, being her real name Lucia.»

«Why did she excuse herself about her name? Was she asked why people call her that way?»

«Not that I recall, no...»

«Excusatio non petita est accusatio manifesta.»

«You mean...»

«HOW could one possibly not know why they go by a sex worker's name... especially when their given one is that of a catholic martyr... Voilà, la bugia! I told you she was lying.»

«As in... she's trying to hide her real identity?»

«Her professional identity, implied in her name, most certainly... or at least trying to pass the information in a milder way. Due to censorship... or mere shame.»

«She said she was an embroiderer!"

"Does any other part of the dream confirm that? Was she ever seen with a needle in her hands?"

"Not really."

«Many prostitutes in public will declare that they do massages... nails... It is a mutually understood euphemism for their living, in order not to embarrass the interlocutor, or themselves. Also, the shape of that candle... asking to be lit... don't make me say it.»

«She truly didn't look like a prostitute, though. She had an innocent, childlike je ne sais quoi. And she looked so lonely, and sick...»

«If you are a prostitute and the job doesn't suit you, it may likely kill you.»

«She just said that she was upset because her candle had gone off, that is all..."

«Likely an excuse, a bugia within the bugia... Sorry, time's up.»

I believe you guys got my drift.

I am not going to even touch, here, the more Jungian aspects of this Italian seasonal myth: the whole Lucia/luce, reborn sunlight, Xmas/Winter Solstice thing. (Trivia: Puccini happened to be born on a winter solstice.) Because I already have, and extensively, elsewhere, included in my book.

My point is just that Mimì is lying, unaware that Rodolfo is endowed with the professional and human tools to see through her lie.

Rodolfo incarnates the trovatore: finder of poetry, master of words:

"conosco il mestier" .

After Mimì realises she's lost

"la chiave della stanza"

(poetry slang: "chiave" being the central, perfect rhyme in a "stanza" of verses),

he goes:

Cercar che giova:

Al buio non si trova

Ma per fortuna

È una notte di luna

(poetry slang again, trobar clus: he's saying that it is impossible trobar the rima baciata with buio: the word notoriously acknowledges no rhyme, in Italian; luna being, per fortuna, a much easier challenge).

In oher words, the poet (unlike the "embroiderer") PROVES us with hard facts to be such, in the soul and in the trobar technique, that immediately allows him to spot the lie in the bougie, as well as the most soave fanciulla in a prostitute.

Rodolfo is so deeply touched by his moonlit vision of Mimì, that hearing her lie while introducing herself brings tears of compassion to his eyes.

-- Mi piaccion quelle cose che han nome... Poesia! Lei m'intende?

-- (commosso): Sì.

Mimì was just trying to respond to the poet's seduction-aria seducing him back, but the sensitivity of the poet went further than that.

That "commosso" is key (GENIUS DRAMATURGY!).

It's Rodolfo's touched reaction -the pity, the empathy in his interjection- to reveal both to the audience and to Mimì herself that her prostitute's feet are showing from behind the curtain where she's trying to hide like a child.

One simple monosyllable triggers an umistakable reaction: it is in response to Rodolfo's (commosso)"Sì." that, embarrassed, Mimì feels the need to reinforce her inconsistent story: "Mi chiamano Mimì... Il perché non so!".

Can you sense the hesitation of the liar, in that double staccato?

Of course she knows. He knows. They know and by now we should know, too.

But it doesn't matter, for they're both adepts of Poetry, looking a chiave to buio on a dark, cold Solstice night.

Poetry speaks for herself, of herself.

All that matters, in the end, is trobar la Poesia.

MARCELLO
(Molto lontano, ma quasi gridando):

"Trovò la poesia!"

As far as I'm concerned, we may translate Mimì's entrance verse -Mi s'è spento il lume- in at least three different ways - that can cohexist:

1. "My candle went off"

2. "My lie faded, it wore off, I can no longer stick to it."

   
   and, last but not least, since in Italian lume also stands for "mental clarity and mental sanity" (cercare lumi, perdere il lume della ragione), it could also be read as:

    

3. "Sorry, I've lost my mind."

Finally, lumi in archaic Italian are the eyes and we are told that Mimì has beautiful, blue ones from Rodolfo himself, who poetically pictures her with two beautiful chiasmos (in poetry, the technique of swapping places of two parts of the discourse):

"di quegli occhi azzurri <-- allo splendor"

and

"dolce viso, di mite <-- circonfuso alba lunar";

instead of

"allo splendor --> di quegli occhi azzurri "

and

"dolce viso, circonfuso --> di mite alba lunar".

(Can you believe the insane Verismo beauty of the meeting of these two -one speaking the highest Italian, the other nothing more than some Tuscan slang- who become so deeply into each other for they're both deeply into Poetry, although each in their own way?)

I mentioned the eyes because Santa Lucia happens to be considered their protector, together with sight. Today in Italy she is celebrated with all other Saints, so I wish you all a

Felice Ognissanti*

(*spelled like that because doubling is mandatory after ogni).

AND speaking of Saints...

Non vado sempre a messa

is obviously ironic - and sexy! So not to be taken literally!
In the perfectly laic bohemian world, not going to church (at all) is absolutely normal -prostitute or not- nothing to find excuses about. Also, there was no reason whatsoever, in the context, to bring the messa issue up, except to underline that we're not at Violetta's times, anymore. It's just an expression she's using for "Alright... I'm not exactly what you'd call a novice...", once she's been seen through by Rodolfo.

Mimì has definitely an ironic twist in her personality, that is completely overlooked and covered up by those hideous shawls. Look how Puccini makes giggle coyly through that doppia appoggiatura on "vado":

Much Love from a sunny and incredibly warm Milano,

La Maestra

(whom, I'm afraid, just gave you a preview of what may become her second book)

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