Sidonie, leaning on the piano, objected with a melancholy air, while
Madame Dobson ran her fingers over the keys, shaking her long curls.
"But I don't know anything. What do you wish me to sing?"
She ended, however, by being persuaded. Pale, disenchanted, with her mind upon other things, in the flickering light of the candles which seemed to be burning incense, the air was so heavy with the odor of the hyacinths and lilacs in the garden, she began a Creole ballad very popular in Louisiana, which Madame Dobson herself had arranged for the voice and piano:
"Pauv' pitit Mam'zelle Zizi,
C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete a li."
["Poor little Mam'zelle Zizi,
'Tis love, 'tis love that turns her head.">[
And as she told the story of the ill-fated little Zizi, who was driven mad by passion, Sidonie had the appearance of a love-sick woman. With what heartrending expression, with the cry of a wounded dove, did she repeat that refrain, so melancholy and so sweet, in the childlike patois of the colonies:
"C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete…."
It was enough to drive the unlucky judge mad as well.
But no! The siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his compassionate heart evoked the image of little Desiree Delobelle, who had loved him so long. Until she was fifteen, she never had been called anything but Ziree or Zizi, and she was the pauv' pitit of the Creole ballad to the life, the ever-neglected, ever-faithful lover. In vain now did the other sing. Frantz no longer heard her or saw her. He was in that poor room, beside the great armchair, on the little low chair on which he had sat so often awaiting the father's return. Yes, there, and there only, was his salvation. He must take refuge in that child's love, throw himself at her feet, say to her, "Take me, save me!" And who knows? She loved him so dearly. Perhaps she would save him, would cure him of his guilty passion.
"Where are you going?" asked Risler, seeing that his brother rose hurriedly as soon as the last flourish was at an end.