“Dear father!” she whispered, trembling, “why have you gone? I am now quite alone! Of Emeralda I am afraid, and Astra does not think of me; she only thinks of the stars. Father, dear, forgive me! I have deceived you. I have travelled through the air on the back of the flying horse. But father, dear, the horse is beautiful, and I love the Chimera! O father dear, I have deceived you, and now I am alone, and I have nobody who cares for me! You are dead, father, and embalmed, and shut up in gold and crystal and jewels, and do not hear your little Psyche. You do not think of your little daughter. Alone! alone! Awe-inspiring is the castle; three hundred towers rise high up in the air. I have never been in all the three hundred, however much I have wandered. O father, father, why have you left me? Who is there to love me now? who to protect me now in the world? Father, farewell! I will not stay here; I will go away! I will leave the castle. Great is the world and wicked, but Emeralda is powerful and I am afraid of her. If I remain, she will drive me away with her look and shut me up all my life, and my wings I shall break against the unbreakable lattice.
