The following events took place after Rodolphe, the poet, and young Mlle. Mimi moved in together. He’d vanished so suddenly that for the next week or so the rest of the bohemian group was filled with concern over his mysterious disappearance. They searched for him in all the places he could usually be found, but everywhere they went they heard the same answer: “We haven't seen him all week.”

Gustave Colline was particularly worried. The reason for his concern was this: several days before he’d given Rodolphe an article on philosophy to be included in the “Miscellaneous” section of The Beaver. This journal was devoted to the fashionable hat trade and Rodolphe was its editor in chief. Had the article appeared yet? Had the eyes of Europe widened in astonishment? Such were the questions that gripped the unfortunate Colline. His anxiety is more understandable if the reader recalls that he had not yet had the honor of having his work published and he was burning with desire to see the effect his prose produced when typeset. To satisfy his pride he’d already spent six francs for reading privileges in literary salons around Paris but he’d never come across a copy of The Beaver. Unable to restrain himself, he vowed not to rest for a minute until he’d come face to face with the publication's elusive editor.

With the help of a few chance events that would take too long to recount, the philosopher fulfilled his vow. Two days later he learned Rodolphe's address and presented himself there at six in the morning.

Rodolphe was then living in a furnished room in a hotel on a deserted street in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Since there was no sixth floor, he was on the fifth. When Colline arrived, he could find no key and he pounded on the door for ten minutes without any response from within. This early morning commotion eventually caught the attention of the porter, who emerged and asked Colline to be quiet.

“Can't you see that the man is sleeping?”

“And that's why I have to wake him up,” replied Colline as he began knocking again.

“But he doesn't want to be disturbed,” the porter said and he placed the two pairs of boots he’d just polished beside Rodolphe's door—one pair of men's boots and one pair of women's boots.