Au jardin des amours ta place est réservée, Parmi des feux de joie et des lilas en fleurs. Viens réveiller en nous de nouvelles ardeurs-- Descends avec la nuit, ainsi que la rosée-- Tant que l'astre d'argent sourit à la vallée, Toi, bel astre d'amour, viens sourire à nos coeurs! Réponds à nos accords par tes accents plus doux, Au jardin des amours, Berthe, viens avec nous.
Viens avec ta couronne, et viens avec ta lyre, Tes chants pour nos amis, tes doux regards pour moi! Déjà j'entends les jeux de la foule en émoi Sur des gazons fleuris ... oh le joyeux délire! Si tu ne descends pas, helas! on pourra dire: 'Berthe aux grands yeux d'azur, on a chanté sans toi!' Réponds à nos accords par tes accents plus doux, Berthe aux grands yeux d'azur, viens ô viens avec nous!
"You see I have indulged in poetic license; for instance, the first tenor says he hears the folks doing the light fantastic toe. One might suppose they danced in sabots--mere poetic license, and besides, a first tenor ought to have very good ears.... So now, my lad, inspire yourself."
What the result of his appeal to my inspiration may have been, I do not remember, but I find this is what he writes on the subject--
"CARISSIMO,--In vain have I taxed Rag's inventive powers to alter the last stanza; we must e'en stick to 'Ce baiser-la.' The lines I have underlined mean that I don't quite approve the part of the music that comes just there, as in the musical phrase you have set to it I fancy there is a want of tenderness. All the rest is stunning; the more I hums it the more I likes it, but I can't exactly come your accompaniment."
[Illustration: Moscheles, or Mephistopheles? which]
No wonder, for my accompaniments were usually rather indefinite quantities, subject to the mood of the moment. "Moscheles or Mephistopheles, which?" he asks, as he depicts me at the piano, perhaps evolving some such accompaniment from the depths of "untrained inner consciousness." "Eureka" he might have put under that other sketch, where his own hands have at last found some long-sought harmony or chord on the piano. Another drawing there is of a somewhat later period which he calls "Inspiration papillotique." Again I am at the piano, my eyes raised to the "She" in papillottes, who floats as a vision in the clouds, issuing from my ever-puffing cigar, whilst at my feet is stretched the meditative form of my friend, and under them is crushed some work of our immortal colleague Beethoven.