<blockquote>The consensus amongst the students and roués of Paris is that Irma is somebody’s mistress, just no one knows whose. The other grisettes don’t know, or perhaps they just won’t say (this is an enduring mystery, what grisettes do and do not tell one another). It seems entirely possible it is someone very rich or very famous, whose reputation could not stand the public knowledge of a mistress– perhaps a priest.
“What kind of woman would sleep with a priest?” Irma asks scornfully.
“All those old Italian popes had children, someone must have helped make them,” Musichetta (who has no reason to revere priests in particular) says.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Irma replies. </blockquote>
