But there were times when mountains, fields, and even the prison seemed to the captive Psyche to vanish in a cloud of oblivion. However, the breaking of the cloud would reveal plaintive and pleasant recollections of the past. Not as sensations are stimulated by the impulsations along the five different roads of the senses did these recollections come to her, but as beautiful and pure thoughts born from the sowing of seeds in solitude.
She would think of her dear brother, the remembrance of whose words and acts became clearer since his death. The bright and happy face she saw, the ringing words of cheer she heard, the laugh that would irresistibly bring smiles to other lips, the quick movements that kept the watching eyes alert,—all these things were in her dreams of her brother. “Poor Gannon!” she would say to herself, “thy life was like the incessant tremble on a summer sea. Ah! poor, poor Gannon!”
Her home-life had been an experience of unbroken peace. Her mother had been her only friend in childhood, maidenhood, and womanhood; and her father had found no pleasures outside of his own family. She recalled the happy evenings together when they would talk of art, beauty, and the glorious country of Greece. The songs that were sung after the evening meals would come floating into Psyche’s memory like sweet exhalations from rivers of melody.
With tearful eyes she would recall the happy days spent with her lover. In imagination she would see his strong, quick, and handsome figure. She would hear whispered words of love that would come to her like distant music from the doors of a temple. So ardent were her recollections, that she seemed to feel again his actual caresses. The last afternoon they had passed together appeared like some sunny day that would never come again. She would take the necklace he had given her and fondle it as if she saw in the gems his eyes, and in the little golden links the visible tokens of the ties which had bound their hearts together during many happy days. She pictured their lives like two votive candles, waiting to be lighted upon the altar in the temple of love.
On the second day of her imprisonment she asked the keeper, “Knowest thou of a Greek man and wife imprisoned in the camp?”
The keeper made no reply.
“Canst thou tell me whether a young man named Gyges has been arrested?”
There was no reply.
“Tell me, O keeper, when shall I be free?”
Still there was no reply. Her words seemed to die in the air before they reached him. Again and again she repeated her questions, but received no satisfaction. Her jailer was deaf and dumb. With gestures she tried to procure a tablet and stylus; but the jailer worked like an automaton and she accomplished nothing. With no words to break the stillness, she became like a daughter of silence surrounded by profound solitude. In her loneliness she would approach the thrones of the gods, with offerings and prayers. The ways were quiet along which her thoughts danced, marched, and fell. Yes, in her world of silence her spirit would hear celestial melodies and human sobs; it would see bright thrones of her hopes and dark beds of her sorrows; it would taste the sweet juices of joy and the bitter acid of torment; it would breathe the perfume of peace and the exhalation of strife; it would gently touch a living form and a dead body. But all these things were the works of imagination. No messages from her loved ones reached her through the impenetrable and silent walls of her cell. She sat as if immersed in oblivion.