"Flowers, everywhere flowers,
My lover comes! The hope of happiness enervates and destroys.
Soften the light of day—pleasure seeks a lucid darkness.
To the fresh perfume of flowers my love prefers my warm breath,
The glare of day shall not wound his eyes, for I will keep them closed
by my kisses.
My angel, come! My heart beats; my blood burns!
Come, come, come!"
These words, chanted with as much ardor as if she had addressed an invisible lover, were, thus to speak, translated by the Creole into a theme of enchanting melody; her charming fingers drew from her guitar sounds full of delicious harmony.
The animated face of Cecily, her veiled and moistened eyes constantly fixed on those of Jacques Ferrand, expressed all the languor of the song. Words of love; intoxicating music; inflamed looks; silence; night! all conspired at this moment to disturb the reason of the notary. He cried, bewildered:
"Mercy! Cecily! mercy I I shall go wild. Hush! I die. Oh! that I were mad!"
"Listen, then, to the second couplet," said the Creole, preluding anew.
And she continued her passionate recitative:
"If my lover were there, and with his hand touched my soft neck, I should
shudder and die.
If he were there, and his hair touched my cheek, my cheek so pale would
become red.
My cheek so pale would be as fire.
Life of my soul, if you were there, my parched lips could not speak.
Life of my life, if you were there—expiring—I would ask no mercy.
Those whom I love as I love you, I kill.
My angel, come. Oh! come! My heart beats: my blood burns I
Come, come, come!"
If the Creole had accented the first stanza with a voluptuous languor, she poured into these last words all the transports of Eros of old. As if the music had been powerless to express her wild delirium, she threw the guitar aside, and half rising from the couch and extending her arms toward the door, she repeated, in an expiring, languishing voice,
"Oh! come, come, come!"
To paint the electric look with which she accompanied these words would he impossible.