‘A young musician of morbid sensitiveness and ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in an excess of amorous despair. The narcotic dose, too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep, accompanied by the strangest visions, while his sensations, sentiments and memories translate themselves in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images. The loved one herself has become for him a melody, like a fixed idea which he rediscovers and hears everywhere. ‘First Part: Reveries, Passions. He first recalls that uneasiness of the soul, that wave of passions, those melancholies, those reasonless joys, which he experienced before having seen her whom he loves; then the volcanic love with which she suddenly inspired him, his frenzied heart-rendings, his jealous fury, his reawakening tenderness, his religious consolations. ‘Second Part: A Ball. He finds the loved one at a ball, in the midst of tumult and a brilliant fête. ‘Third Part: In the Country. A summer evening in the country: he hears two shepherds conversing with their horns; this pastoral duet, the natural scene, the soft whispering of the winds in the trees, a few sentiments of hope which he has recently conceived, all combine to give his soul an unwonted calm, to give a happier color to his thoughts; but _she_ appears anew, his heart stops beating, painful misapprehensions stir him--if she should deceive him! One of the shepherds repeats his naïve melody; the other does not respond. The sun sets--distant rolls of thunder--solitude--silence---- ‘Fourth Part: March to the Gallows. He dreams that he has killed his loved one, that he is condemned to death, led to the gallows. The cortège advances, to the sounds of a march now sombre and wild, now brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy steps follows immediately upon the noisiest shouts. Finally, the fixed idea reappears for an instant like a last thought of love, to be interrupted by the fatal blow. ‘Fifth Part: Dream of the Witches’ Festival. He fancies he is present at a witches’ dance, in the midst of a gruesome company of shades, sorcerers, and monsters of all sorts gathered for his funeral. Strange sounds, sighs, bursts of laughter, distant cries and answers. The loved melody reappears again; but it has lost its character of nobility and timidity; it is nothing but an ignoble dance, trivial and grotesque; it is she who comes to the witches’ festival. Sounds of joy at her arrival. She mingles with the hellish orgy; uncanny noises--burlesque of the _Dies Irae_; dance of the witches. The witches’ dance and the _Dies Irae_ follow.’