As I feared that to follow this advice I would have to waste the better part of my life and all my conscience, I chose a last and desperate method and went to a magician.
If Manfred had forced Astarte back into being, though only for a fleeting moment, why could I not do the same with the dear ruler of my higher will?
I found a dignified man with the eyes of an enthusiast and filthy locks. He was badly in need of a change of linen. And so I had every reason to consider him an idealist.
He talked a good real of "Karma," of "materialisations" and of the "plurality of spheres." He used many other strange words by means of which he made it clear to me that my faery would reveal herself to me only by his help.
With beating heart I entered a dark room at the appointed hour. The magician led me in.
A soft, mysterious music floated toward me. I was left alone, pressed to the door, awaiting the things that were to come in breathless fear.
Suddenly, as I was waiting in the darkness, a gleaming, bluish needle protruded from the floor. It grew to rings and became a snake which breathed forth flames and dissolved into flame … And the tongues of these flames played on all sides and finally parted in curves like the leaves of an opening lotus flower, out of whose calix white veils arose slowly, very slowly, and became as they glided upward the garments of a woman who looked at me, who was lashed by fear, with sightless eyes.
"Are you Thea?" I asked trembling.
The veils inclined in affirmation.
"Where do you dwell?"