Rodolfo, a refugee from Albania and a great painter, Marcel, a great French poet, and Schaunard, a great Irish composer, become acquainted by chance while chasing each on the same battlefield, by every imaginable means, a beast called the fivefranc coin. They cannot take more than ten steps on the boulevards without meeting an acquaintance, or thirty steps, wherever, without encountering a creditor. This melancholy comedy – which, incidentally, is actually a melodrama – tells of their life, especially in relation to Mimi and Musette, two country belles lost in the maelstrom of the big city, and to more commonplace characters, such as the landlord and immigration officers.