That evening after dinner, in the salon open to the fresh breeze from the
river, Risler begged his wife to sing. He wished her to exhibit all her
newly acquired accomplishments to Frantz.

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...."