On she went....
She went on along the path that unfolded before her.
How confidently she went on, how calmly! Why was she not afraid? Oh! she knew too much to be afraid and not to go on in confidence. Was the answer not always more distinct and unchangeable? Psyche’s soul breathed freely, and in the fire around her her own fire seemed to diminish. For when the fire round her became yellower, sulphur-yellow, pure yellow, the pure golden yellow of the sun, then she uttered a cry of joy, as though she knew the answer:
“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:
“That is vanity, Psyche; that is vanity....”