"The sensation of a hand!" she exclaimed; "what can this mean? You must have been learning some juggling arts, by which you make your voice seem so near to me. But pray come into the room."
"My dearest wife, cannot you believe me? I am now in the room with you. My soul, my intellect, all the faculties of my mind are by your side at this moment; as for the body, arms, and legs, which you have been accustomed to call Aristus, I know not what is become of them."
Aristus, perceiving that this explanation of his circumstances was not quite intelligible to Cleopatra, at length relieved her astonishment by relating to her his conversation with the image, and the change which it had so kindly effected in him. His wife would have believed this wonderful tale to be merely a pleasantry of her husband's, had she not been convinced of its truth by his being invisible. She looked all round, and could see nothing; the voice was certainly close to her; and when she heard the air telling her this story she could not refuse to believe that something unusual had occurred.
She did not at first understand that her husband was to pass all his life in this condition, but imagined that he had merely gained a privilege of making himself invisible at pleasure; and in this belief she said to him, "The Image has certainly taught you an excellent trick; but as I have now had a proof of it, pray let me see you come to yourself again."
"What do you mean by coming to myself?"
"Why, making visible the body that you now contrive to hide?"
"Do you believe, then, that my body is here in concealment?"
"I do not understand how you can be here without it."
"Have I not already explained to you that my body is no longer a part of me? Though it is away I am present; that is to say, my judgment, my imagination, my memory, are here in person."
"Where are they? I cannot see them."