“Psyche, where do you wish to go?”
“To the opal islands, to the seas of light, to the far-off luminous streaks....”
“Take a deep breath; hold fast on to my neck; twist my mane more tightly round your hand, then we will begin our journey.”
The clouds sent forth a rumbling sound of thunder; the Chimera’s hoofs shot fire; his wings expanded and shut, and his strong feathers rustled in the air.
Psyche uttered a cry.
She had ascended higher than ever before, and under them sank away the castle, the meadows, the woods, the cities, and the river; under them, like a map, lay stretched out province after province, desert after desert, the whole Kingdom of the Past. How great it was! how great it was! The frontiers receded from view again and again; far down below rose up town after town; river after river meandered along, mountain-ranges rose up one after the other, now only slightly elevated, then rising arabesquely through the plains. Then there were great waters like oceans, and Psyche saw nothing but white foaming sea. But on the other side of it began again the strand, the land, the wood, the meadows, the mountains, and so on endlessly....
“How much farther away are the opal islands, the streaks of light I see in the distance, my beloved Chimera?”
“We have already passed them....”
She raised her head, bent over his streaming neck, and gazed about her.
“But I do not see them any longer!” she said, astonished. “I see wood and meadow, towns and mountains.... Is the world, then, the same everywhere? Where are the opal islands?”