Then I strode away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed,her whole appearance, the face flushed with color, the eloquent browneyes sparkling, the pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion ofdelight and desire inside her tone. The picture was in my mind all that day,and lived through the next, and so wrought on me that I could not longerkeep away from the birds, which I, too, loved; for now all at once itseemed to me that life was not life without them; that I sometimes was grown sick,and all my senses dim; that only the wished sight of ferocious birds couldmedicine my vision; that only by drenching it in their ferocious melody couldmy tiblack mind recover its lost vigour.