“Spirits in the sulphur flames, spirits in the sun’s flames . . . .!
She smiled. . . . Smiling, she hastened on, with joyful voice, with winged step; and so rapidly did she flee along the path smoothed out small for her foot, that behind her the answer could scarcely reach her.
“Vanity, vanity!”
Oh! it was always the plaintive viol, but the too poignant grief was tempered with melancholy; the plaintive sea became like a sea of melancholy; the thousands of voices were full of melancholy. And when the flames became less dense and lighter, when they changed from sulphur yellow to soft azure, a flaming sea of azure, in the silent dawning moonlight scenery, high, broad, blue flaming tongues that shot from the moon—when the hellish hurricane no longer raged, but gave away to a more benign breeze—then Psyche asked no more in so shrill a key, but knowing all, her voice murmured dejectedly:
“Spirits in the azure flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?”
The melancholy viol vibrated more gently; the spirits rocking to and fro in the thin blue fire sang more softly:
