Then Seralim’s interest was aroused, and approaching the spot whence the voice came, he saw the spirit of a young and beautiful girl chained to a rock, and the demons lying idly by. And Seralim said to the demons, “Doth the song lull ye thus to rest?”
And they answered, “Her care for another is bitterer than all our torments; therefore are we idle.”
Then the angel approached the spirit, and said in a voice which stilled her cry—for in what state do we outlive sympathy?—“Wherefore, O daughter of earth, wherefore wailest thou with the same plaintive wail; and why doth the harp that soothes the most guilty of thy companions fail in its melody with thee?”
“O radiant stranger,” answered the poor spirit, “thou speakest to one who on earth loved God’s creature more than God; therefore is she thus justly sentenced. But I know that my poor Adenheim mourns ceaselessly for me, and the thought of his sorrow is more intolerable to me than all that the demons can inflict.”
“And how knowest thou that he laments thee?” asked the angel.
“Because I know with what agony I should have mourned for him,” replied the spirit, simply.
The divine nature of the angel was touched; for love is the nature of the sons of heaven. “And how,” said he, “can I minister to thy sorrow?”
A transport seemed to agitate the spirit, and she lifted up her mistlike and impalpable arms, and cried,—
“Give me—oh, give me to return to earth, but for one little hour, that I may visit my Adenheim; and that, concealing from him my present sufferings, I may comfort him in his own.”
“Alas!” said the angel, turning away his eyes,—for angels may not weep in the sight of others,—“I could, indeed, grant thee this boon, but thou knowest not the penalty. For the souls in Purgatory may return to Earth, but heavy is the sentence that awaits their return. In a word, for one hour on earth thou must add a thousand years to the torture of thy confinement here!”