ON the island of Pandataria Agrippina and Psyche still lingered in imprisonment. The mother, crushed under her latest affliction, lived a life of savage grief. Her soul trembled with infinite sadness, like the last falling leaf on a solitary tree. Whether in violent storms, in the dashing of the waves against the rocks, in the cries of the sea-gulls, in the fishermen’s songs, or in the Homeric songs of Psyche, she heard but one word, intensified or softened, “Woe!” Each morning was to her a new birth of anguish. But Psyche began to brighten under the sunny skies and the comparative freedom in which she lived. The uncertainty regarding the fate of her family and of her lover still oppressed her soul, but she had regained her natural color and had become more beautiful than ever. Grief had changed the face of youthful beauty to one of patient and womanly loveliness.
Both women suffered under overwhelming afflictions; but the grief of Agrippina was vehement, savage, and tragic, while that of Psyche was calm, quiet, and self-controlled. Agrippina had sustained calamitous sorrows. Her sufferings comprehended inexpressible torments, misfortunes without a name, blind struggles, exhausted tears. Psyche had endured more gentle suffering. Her afflictions were lightened by the hope that exists in youth, by the purer faith of a young heart, by the charity that still saw good in others, and, above all, by the belief in answered prayers. Agrippina was the sad flower of grief; Psyche was the perfume.
One evening when they had gone to their rooms, and Agrippina had thrown herself upon her couch, Psyche leaned against the window and looked out upon the night.
“Canst thou breathe the salt air from where thou sittest, my lady?” asked Psyche.
“Ay, my child; ’tis refreshing.”
“Dost thou hear a solitary voice singing in the darkness?”
“Ay; ’tis a plaintive song.”
“It seems like a musical breath rising from the sea,” said Psyche, softly.
“It rests the mind,” Agrippina replied abstractedly.
“How bright are the stars!” exclaimed Psyche. “Their reflection on the trembling waters looks like happy smiles. What is happiness, my lady?”