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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Psyche, by Louis Couperus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Psyche
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+Illustrator: Dion Clayton Calthrop
+
+Translator: B. S. Berrington
+
+Release Date: November 13, 2011 [EBook #38005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PSYCHE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PSYCHE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             LOUIS COUPERUS
+
+                       Translated from the Dutch,
+                     with the author's permission,
+
+                                   By
+
+                         B. S. Berrington, B.A.
+
+           With Twelve Illustrations by Dion Clayton Calthrop
+
+
+
+                      London: Alston Rivers, Ltd.
+                   Brooke Street, Holborn Bars, E.C.
+                                  1908
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+              "Cry no more now and go to sleep, and if you cannot sleep,
+               I will tell you a story, a pretty story of flowers and
+               gems and birds, of a young prince and a little princess.
+               ... For in the world there is nothing more than a story."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PSYCHE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Gigantically massive, with three hundred towers, on the summit of a
+rocky mountain, rose the king's castle high into the clouds.
+
+But the summit was broad, and flat as a plateau, and the castle spread
+far out, for miles and miles, with ramparts and walls and pinnacles.
+
+And everywhere rose up the towers, lost in the clouds, and the castle
+was like a city, built upon a lofty rock of basalt.
+
+Round the castle and far away lay the valleys of the kingdom, receding
+into the horizon, one after the other, and ever and ever.
+
+Ever changing was the horizon: now pink, then silver; now blue, then
+golden; now grey, then white and misty, and gradually fading away,
+and never could the last be seen.
+
+In clear weather there loomed behind the horizon always another
+horizon. They circled one another endlessly, they were lost in the
+dissolving mists, and suddenly their silhouette became more sharply
+defined.
+
+Over the lofty towers stretched away at times an expanse of variegated
+clouds, but below rushed a torrent, which fell like a cataract into
+a fathomless abyss, that made one dizzy to look at.
+
+So it seemed as if the castle rose up to the highest stars and went
+down to the central nave of the earth.
+
+Along the battlements, higher than a man, Psyche often wandered,
+wandered round the castle from tower to tower, from wall to wall,
+with a dreamy smile on her face, then she looked up and stretched out
+her hands to the stars, or gazed below at the dashing water, with
+all the colours of the rainbow, till her head grew dizzy, and she
+drew back and placed her little hands before her eyes. And long she
+would sit in the corner of an embrasure, her eyes looking far away,
+a smile on her face, her knees drawn up and her arms entwining them,
+and her tiny wings spread out against the mossy stone-work, like a
+butterfly that sat motionless.
+
+And she gazed at the horizon, and however much she gazed, she always
+saw more.
+
+Close by were the green valleys, dotted with grazing sheep, soft
+meadows with fat cattle, waving corn-fields, canals covered with ships,
+and the cottage roofs of a village. Farther away were lines of woods,
+hill-tops, mountain-ridges, or a mass of angular, rough-hewn basalt.
+
+Still farther off, misty towers with minarets and domes, cupolas and
+spires, smoking chimneys, and the outline of a broad river. Beyond,
+the horizon became milk-white, or like an opal, but not a line more
+was there, only tint, the reflection of the last glow of the sun,
+as if lakes were mirrored there; islands rose, low, in the air,
+aerial paradises, watery streaks of blue sea, oceans of ether and
+light quivering nothingness!...
+
+And Psyche gazed and mused.... She was the third princess, the
+youngest daughter of the old king, monarch of the Kingdom of the
+Past.... She was always very lonely. Her sisters she seldom saw,
+her father only for a moment in the evening, before she went to bed;
+and when she had the chance she fled from the mumbling old nurse, and
+wandered along the battlements and dreamed, with her eyes far away,
+gazing at the vast kingdom, beyond which was nothingness....
+
+Oh, how she longed to go farther than the castle, to the meadows,
+the woods, the towns--to go to the shining lakes, the opal islands,
+the oceans of ether, and then to that far, far-off nothingness, that
+quivered so, like a pale, pale light!... Would she ever be able to pass
+out of the gates?--Oh, how she longed to wander, to seek, to fly!... To
+fly, oh! to fly, to fly as the sparrows, the doves, the eagles!
+
+And she flapped her weak, little wings.
+
+On her tender shoulders there were two wings, like those of a very
+large butterfly, transparent membranes, covered with crimson and soft,
+yellow dust, streaked with azure and pink, where they were joined to
+her back. And on each wing glowed two eyes, like those on a peacock's
+tail, but more beautiful in colour and glistening like jewels, fine
+sapphires and emeralds on velvet, and the velvet eye set four times
+in the glittering texture of the wings.
+
+Her wings she flapped, but with them she could not fly.
+
+That, that was her great grief--that, that made her think, what were
+they for, those wings on her shoulders? And she shook them and flapped
+them, but could not rise above the ground; her delicate form did not
+ascend into the air, her naked foot remained firm on the ground, and
+only her thin, fine veil, that trailed a little round her snow-white
+limbs, was slightly raised by the gentle fluttering of her wings.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+To fly! oh, to fly!
+
+She was so fond of birds. How she envied them! She enticed them with
+crumbs of bread, with grains of corn, and once she had rescued a dove
+from an eagle. The dove she had hidden under her veil, pressed close
+to her bosom, and the eagle she had courageously driven off with her
+hand, when in his flight he overshadowed her with his broad wings,
+calling out to him to go away and leave her dove unhurt.
+
+Oh, to seek! to seek!
+
+For she was so fond of flowers, and gladly in the woods and meadows,
+or farther away still, would she have sought for those that were
+unknown. But she cultivated them within the walls, on the rocky ground,
+and she had made herself a garden; the buds opened when she looked
+at them, the stems grew when she stroked them, and when she kissed
+a faded flower it became as fresh again as ever.
+
+
+
+To wander, oh, to wander!
+
+Then she wandered along the battlements, down the steps, over the
+court-yards and the ramparts, but at the gates stood the guards,
+rough and bearded and clad in mail, with loud-sounding horns round
+their shoulders.
+
+Then she could go no farther and wandered back into the vaults
+and crypts, where sacred spiders wove their webs; and then, if she
+became frightened, she hurried away, farther, farther, farther, along
+endless galleries, between rows of motionless knights in armour,
+till she came again to her nurse, who sat ever at her spinning-wheel.
+
+Oh! to glide through the air!
+
+To glide in a steady wind, to the farthest horizon, to the milk-white
+and opal region, which she saw in her dreams, to the uttermost parts
+of the earth!
+
+To glide to the seas, and the islands, which yonder, so far, far
+away and so unsubstantial, changed every moment, as if a breeze
+could alter their form, their tint; so unfirm, that no foot could
+tread them, but only a winged being like herself, a bird, a fairy,
+could gently hover over them, to see all that beautiful landscape,
+to enjoy that atmosphere, that dream of Paradise....
+
+Oh! to fly, to seek, to wander, to soar!...
+
+And for hours together she sat dreaming in an embrasure, her eyes
+far off, her arms round her knees, and her wings spread out, like a
+little butterfly that sat motionless.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Emeralda, that was the name of her eldest sister. Surpassingly
+beautiful was Emeralda, dazzling fair as no woman in the kingdom, no
+princess in other kingdoms. Exceedingly tall she was, and majestic in
+stature; erect she walked, stately and proudly; she was very proud,
+for after the death of the king she was to reign on the throne of the
+Kingdom of the Past. Jealous of all the power which would be hers,
+she rejected all the princes who sued for her hand. She never spoke
+but to command, and only to her father did she bow. She always wore
+heavy brocade, silver or gold, studded with jewels, and long mantles
+of rustling silk, fringed with broad ermine; a diadem of the finest
+jewels always glittered on her red golden hair and her eyes also were
+jewels; two magnificent green emeralds, in which a black carbuncle
+was the pupil; and people whispered secretly that her heart was cut
+out of one single, gigantic ruby.
+
+Oh, Psyche was so afraid of her!
+
+When Psyche wandered through the castle and suddenly saw
+Emeralda coming, preceded by pages, torches, shield-bearers, and
+maids-in-waiting, who bore her train, and a score of halberdiers,
+then she was struck with fear, and hastily concealed herself behind a
+door, a curtain, no matter where, and then Emeralda rustled by with a
+great noise of satin and gold and all the trampling of her retinue, and
+Psyche's heart beat loudly like a clock, tick! tick! tick! tick! till
+she thought she would faint....
+
+Then she shut her eyes so as not to see the cold, proud look of
+Emeralda's green emeralds, which pierced through the curtains, and
+saw Psyche well enough, though she pretended not to see her. And
+when Emeralda was gone, then Psyche fled upstairs, high up on to the
+battlements, fetched a deep breath, pressed her hands to her bosom,
+and long afterwards her little wings trembled from fear.
+
+Astra, that was the name of the second princess. She wore a living
+star upon her head; she was very wise and learned; she knew much more
+than all the philosophers and learned men in the kingdom, who came
+to her for counsel.
+
+She lived in the highest tower of the castle, and sometimes, along
+the bars of her window, she saw clouds pass by, like spirits of
+the mist. She never left the tower. She sat, surrounded by rolls of
+parchment, gigantic globes, which she turned with a pressure of her
+finger; and after hours of contemplation she described, with great
+compasses, on a slab of black marble, circle after circle, or reckoned
+out long sums, with numbers so great that no one could pronounce them.
+
+Sometimes she sat surrounded by the sages of the land, and the king
+himself came and listened to his daughter, as in a low, firm voice
+she explained things. But because she possessed all the wisdom of
+the earth, she despised all the world, and she had had constructed on
+the terrace of her tower a telescope, miles long, through which she
+could look to every part of the illimitable firmament. And when the
+sages were gone, and she was alone, then she went on to the terrace
+and peered through the giant, which she turned to all the points of
+the compass. Through the diamond lenses, cut without facets, she saw
+new stars, unknown to men, and gave them names.
+
+Through the diamond lenses she saw sun systems, spirals of fire,
+shrivel up through the illimitableness of the universe.... But she
+kept gazing, for behind those sun systems, she knew, were other
+spheres, other heavens, and there farther still, illimitably far,
+was the Mystic Rose, which she could never see....
+
+Sometimes, when Psyche wandered round the castle, she knocked
+nervously, inquisitively at Astra's door, who graciously allowed her to
+enter. When Astra stood before the board and reckoned out long sums,
+Psyche looked very earnestly at her sister's star, which glistened
+on her head, in her coal-black hair. Or she went on to the terrace
+and peeped through the telescope, but she saw nothing but very bright
+light, which made her eyes ache....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+In the evening, before she went to sleep, Psyche sought the king.
+
+A good hundred years old he was, his beard hung down to his girdle,
+and generally he sat reading the historical scrolls of the kingdom,
+which his ministers brought him every day.
+
+But in the evening Psyche climbed on to his knees and nestled in
+his beard, or sat at his feet in the folds of his tabard, and the
+scroll fell to the ground, and crumpled up, and the withered hand of
+the mighty monarch stroked the head of his third child, the princess
+with the little wings.
+
+"Father, dear," asked Psyche once; "why have I wings, and cannot fly?"
+
+"You need not fly, child; you are much safer with me than if you were
+a little bird in the air."
+
+"But why then have I wings?"
+
+"I don't quite know, my child...."
+
+"Why have I wings, and Astra a living star upon her head, and Emeralda
+eyes of jewels?"
+
+"Because you are princesses; they are different from other girls."
+
+"And why, dear father," whispered Psyche, secretly, "has Emeralda a
+heart of ruby?..."
+
+"No child, that she has not. She has, it is true, eyes of emerald,
+because she is a princess--as Astra has a star and you two pretty
+wings--but she has a human heart."
+
+"No, father, dear, she has a heart of stone."
+
+"But who says so, my child?"
+
+"The nurse does, father, her own pages, the guards at the gates,
+and the wise men who come to Astra."
+
+The king was very sad. He and his daughter looked deep into each
+other's eyes, and embraced each other, for the king was sad, on
+account of what he saw in the future, and Psyche was frightened:
+she always trembled when she thought of Emeralda.
+
+"Little Psyche," said her old father, "will you now promise me
+something?"
+
+"Yes, father, dear."
+
+"Will you always stay with me, little Psyche? You are safe here,
+are you not? and the world is so great, the world is so wicked. The
+world is full of temptation and mystery. Winged horses soar through
+the air; gigantic sphinxes lurk in the deserts; devilish fauns roam
+through the forests.... In the world, tears are shed, which form
+brooks, and in the world people give away their noblest right for the
+lowest pleasure.... Stay with me, Psyche, never wander too far away,
+for under our castle glows the Nether-world!... And life is like a
+princess, a cruel princess with a heart of stone...."
+
+Of precious stone, like Emeralda, thought Psyche to herself. Who rides
+in triumph with her victorious chariot over the tenderest and dearest,
+and presses them stone-dead into the deepest furrows of the earth....
+
+"Oh, Psyche, little Psyche, promise me always to stay here in this
+high and safe castle: always to stay with your father!"
+
+She did not understand him.
+
+His eyes, very large and animated, looked over her into space, with
+inexpressible sadness. Then she longed to console him, and threw her
+white arms round his neck; she hid herself, as it were, in his beard,
+and she whispered playfully:
+
+"I will always stay with you, father dear...."
+
+Then he pressed her to his heart, and thought that he would soon
+die....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Psyche was often very lonely, but yet she had much: she had the
+flowers, the birds; she had the butterflies, which thought that she
+was a bigger sister; she had the lizards, with which she played,
+and which, like little things of emerald, she held against her veil;
+she had the swans in the deep castle moats, which followed her when
+she walked on the ramparts; she had the clouds, which came floating
+from distant islands and paradises beyond; she had the wind, which
+sang her ballads; the rain, which fell down wet upon her and covered
+her wings with pearls. She would gladly have played with the pages in
+the halls, have laughed with the shield-bearers in the armoury, have
+listened to the martial tales of the bearded halberdiers at the gates,
+but she was a princess and knew she could not do that, and she always
+walked past them with great dignity, maidenly modest in her fine, thin
+veil, which left her tender limbs half exposed. That was the noble
+Nakedness, which was her privilege as a princess, a privilege given
+her at her cradle, together with her wings by the Fairy of Births,
+as to Emeralda was given the Jewel and to Astra the Star. For never
+might Psyche wear Jewel or Star, and never might Emeralda or Astra go
+naked. Each princess had her own privilege, her birthright. Adorable
+was Psyche as, unconscious of her maidenly, tender purity, she was seen
+with her crimson glittering wings, naked in the folds of her veil,
+walking past the armour-bearers and soldiers, who presented their
+swords or halberds as the princess, nymph-white, stepped past them.
+
+Psyche was often very lonely, for her nurse was old and mumbled
+over her spinning-wheel; playmates Psyche had not, because she was
+a princess, and she would not get court-ladies till she was older
+and more dignified. But with the birds and the clouds and the wind
+Psyche could speak and laugh, and she was seldom dull, although she
+sometimes wished she were no longer Princess of Nakedness with the
+wings, but one of those very ordinary peasant-girls whom she had
+seen milking the cows, or plucking the thick bunches of grapes in
+the vineyard at harvest-time, whilst the pressers, handsome brown
+lads with sturdy arms, encircled the girls and danced.
+
+But Psyche wandered along the ramparts; she looked at the clouds
+and spoke with the wind, and she asked the wind to give flight to
+her wings, so that she could fly far off to the opal landscapes that
+kept shifting and changing. But the wind rushed away with a flapping
+noise of wings that Psyche envied, and her own wings flapped a little,
+but in vain.
+
+Psyche looked at the clouds. They floated along so stately in all
+kinds of forms--in the forms of sheep, swans, horses--and the form
+never remained: the seeming forms, thick-white in the blue ether,
+were constantly changing. Now she saw three swans which were drawing
+a boat, in which stood three women, who guided the swans; then she
+saw the women become a tower, the swans a dragon; and from far,
+far away came a knight, sitting on a winged horse. But now slowly
+the scene changed into a flock of little silver-fleeced, downy sheep,
+which were browsing far off in the sunshine as in a golden meadow. The
+knight disappeared, but the horse glided nearer and flew on his wings,
+high over the castle, towards the sheep.
+
+Then Psyche dreamed at night of the swans, the tower, the dragon,
+the knight, the horse; but the horse she liked best, because it had
+strong wings. And next morning she gazed from the battlements to see
+if the horse would come again.
+
+But then the sky was either gloomy from the rain or blue from the
+absence of clouds, or covered with white peacock's feathers, splendid
+plumes, but motionless, far, far away in the air. The wind changed,
+when she said: "Away! blow now from the East again! Begone, North
+wind, with your dark perils, begone! Begone, West wind, with your
+rain-urns! Begone, South wind, with your peacock's feathers! Come
+now, wind from the East, with your treasures of luxurious visions,
+ye dragons, ye horses, ye girls with swans!..." Then the clouds began
+to shift, the winds to blow, and play an opera high up in the air,
+and Psyche, enchanted, sat and gazed.
+
+Then after weeks, after she had missed it for weeks, came again the
+winged horse.
+
+And she beckoned to it to approach, to descend to her; but it flew past
+over the castle. Then she missed it again for many days, and, angry,
+she looked at the sky and scolded the wind. But then the horse came
+again, and, laughing, she beckoned to it. The horse ascended high,
+its wings expanded in the air, and oh, wonder! it beckoned to her
+to come up, up to it. She gave a sign that she could not, shook her
+little shoulders helplessly, and, trembling, flapped her wings and
+spread her arms wide out to say that she could not. And the horse
+sped away on the breath of the wind from the East.
+
+Then Psyche wept, and, sad at heart, sat looking at the far, far-off
+landscapes which she would never reach.
+
+But weeks afterwards the treasure-bringing wind blew again, and again
+appeared the horse in the horizon, and it flew near and beckoned to
+Psyche, her heart heavy with hope and fear.... The horse mounted up;
+it beckoned to her.... She gave a sign that she could not; and oh! she
+feared that it would speed away again, the horse with the strong wings.
+
+No ... no ... the horse descended! Then Psyche uttered a joyful cry,
+sprang up, danced with delight and clapped her little hands. From the
+lofty, lofty sky the horse came down, gliding on its broad wings. It
+came down.
+
+And Psyche, the little, joyful, excited Psyche, saw it coming, coming
+down to her. It descended--it approached. Oh, what a beautiful horse
+it was! Greater than the greatest horses, and then with wings! Fair it
+was, fair as the sun, with a long curly mane and long flowing tail,
+like a streamer of sunny gold. The noble head on its arched neck
+proudly raised and its eyes shone like fire, and a stream of breath
+came from its expanded nostrils, cloud after cloud. Big, powerful,
+muscular, its wings were stretched out like silvery quills, as
+Psyche had never seen in a bird before. And its golden hoofs struck
+the clouds and made them thunder; and sparks of fire shot forth in
+the pure, clear daylight. Enraptured Psyche had never seen such a
+beautiful horse before, never a bird so beautiful; and breathless,
+with her head raised, she waited till it should descend, descend on the
+terrace.... At last there it stood before her. Its nostrils steamed,
+and its hoofs struck sparks from the basalt rock, and it waved its
+mane and switched its tail.
+
+"Splendid, beautiful horse," said Psyche, "who are you?"
+
+"I am the Chimera," answered the horse, and his voice sounded deep
+as the clang of a brazen clock.
+
+"Can you really speak?" asked Psyche, astonished. "And fly? Oh,
+how happy you must be!!"
+
+"Why have you called me, little princess?" said the Chimera.
+
+"I wanted to see you quite near," replied Psyche. "I only saw you dart
+like winged lightning through the air, so soon were you away again;
+and I was always sorry when I could not see you any more. Then I
+became, oh, so sad!"
+
+"And why did you want to see me quite near, little princess with
+the wings?"
+
+"I find you so beautiful. I have never seen anything so beautiful;
+I did not know that anything so beautiful existed. What are you? A
+horse you are not. Nor a dragon either, nor a man. What are you?"
+
+"I am the Chimera."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From far away. From the lands which are beyond the lands, from the
+worlds beyond the worlds, from the heavens beyond the heavens."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Very far. Do you see those distant regions yonder, of silver
+and opal? Well, thousands of times so far I am going.... I go from
+illimitableness to illimitableness; I come from nothingness and I am
+going to nothingness."
+
+"What is nothingness?"
+
+"Everything. Nothingness is as far as your brains can think, my little
+princess; and then still farther, and nothingness is more than all
+that you see from this high tower...."
+
+"Are you never tired?"
+
+"No, my wings are strong; I can bear all mankind on my back, and I
+could carry them away to the stars behind the stars."
+
+"If Astra knew that!"
+
+"Astra knows it. But she does not want me. She reckons out the stars
+with figures."
+
+"Why do you fly from one end to the other, O splendid Chimera? What
+is your object? What are you for?"
+
+"What is your own object, little Psyche? What are you yourself for? For
+what are flowers, men, the stars? Who knows?"
+
+"Astra...."
+
+"No, Astra knows nothing. Her knowledge is founded on a fundamental
+error. All her knowledge is like a tower, which will fall down."
+
+"I should like to know much. I should like to know more. I should
+like to seek far through the universe. I long for what is most
+beautiful.... But I do not know what it is. Perhaps you yourself are
+what is most beautiful, Chimera.... But why are you now spreading
+out your wings?"
+
+"I must go."
+
+"So soon? Whence? Oh, why are you going so soon, splendid Chimera?"
+
+"I must. I must traverse illimitableness. I have already stayed here
+too long."
+
+"Stay a little longer...."
+
+"I cannot. I may not."
+
+"Who compels you, O powerful horse, quick as lightning?..."
+
+"Power."
+
+"What is power?"
+
+"God...."
+
+"Who is God? Oh, tell me more! Tell me more! Don't go away yet! I want
+to ask you so much, to hear so much. I am so stupid. I have longed
+so for you. Now you have come, and now you want to go away again."
+
+"Do not ask me for wisdom; I have none. Ask the Sphinx for wisdom;
+ask me for flight."
+
+"Oh, stay a little longer! Don't flap so with your flaming wings! Who
+is the Sphinx? O Chimera, do not give me wisdom, but flight!"
+
+"Not now...."
+
+"When, then?"
+
+"Later...."
+
+"When is that?"
+
+"Farewell."
+
+"O Chimera, Chimera...!"
+
+The horse had already spread out his wings broad. He was ascending. But
+Psyche suddenly threw both her arms round his neck and hung on to
+his mane.
+
+"Let me go, little princess!" cried the horse. "I ascend quickly,
+and you will fall, to be dashed to pieces on the rock! Loose me!"
+
+And slowly he ascended....
+
+Psyche was afraid; she let go her arms; she became dizzy, fell against
+the pinnacle, and bruised one of her wings. That pained her ... but
+she heeded it not; the horse was already high in the air, and she
+followed his track with her eyes....
+
+"He is gone," thought she. "Will he come again? Or have I seen him
+for the first and last time?"
+
+"As a dream he came from far-off regions, and to still farther
+regions he has gone.... Oh, how dull the world seems! How dead is
+the horizon! And how dizzy I feel.... My wing pains me...."
+
+With her hand she smoothed the wrinkle out of her wing; she stroked
+it till it was smooth again, and tears ran down her cheeks.
+
+"Horrid wings! They cannot fly, they cannot follow the strong
+Chimera! I'm in such trouble, such trouble!! But ... no.... Is that
+trouble? Is that happiness? I know not.... I am very happy...! I am
+so sorrowful.... How beautiful he was! how strong, how sleek, how
+splendid, how quick, how wise, how noble, how broad his wings! how
+broad his wings!! How weak I am compared to him.... A child, a weak
+child; a weak, naked child with little wings.... O Chimera, my Chimera,
+O Chimera of my desire, come back! Come back!! Come back!! I cannot
+live without you; and if you do not come again, Chimera, then I will
+not live any longer lonely in this high castle. I will throw myself
+into the cataract...."
+
+She stood up, her eyes looking eagerly into the empty air. She
+pressed her hands to her bosom, she wept, and her wings trembled as
+if from fever.
+
+Then suddenly she saw the king, her father, sitting at the bow-window
+of his room. He did not see her, he was reading a scroll. But anxious
+lest he should see her trouble, her despair, and longing desire,
+she fled, along the battlements, the ramparts, through the passages
+and halls of the castle, till she came to the tower, where her nurse
+sat at her spinning-wheel, and then she fell down at the feet of the
+old woman and sobbed aloud.
+
+"What is it, darling?" asked the old crone, frightened. "Princess,
+what is it?"
+
+"I have hurt my wing!" sobbed Psyche.
+
+And she showed the nurse the wrinkle in her wing, which was not yet
+quite gone.
+
+Then, with soothing voice and wrinkled hand, the old nurse slowly
+stroked the painful wing till it became smooth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The old king, assisted by pages, sat down slowly on his throne;
+his ministers and courtiers gathered round him. Then there was a
+great rustling of satin and gold, and in came Emeralda, the Princess
+Royal, the Princess of the Jewel, as her title ran: first pages,
+life-guards, and then she herself, glittering with splendour, in
+her dress of silver-coloured silk; her bosom blazed with emeralds,
+a tiara of emeralds adorned her temples; her red-golden tresses,
+intertwined with emeralds, fell in three-fold plaits down each side
+of her face, from which the eyes of emerald looked proud, soulless,
+ice-cold, and arrogant. Court-ladies bore her train. A great retinue of
+halberdiers surrounded her jewelled majesty, and as she passed along,
+the trembling courtiers bowed lower to her than they did to the king,
+because they were in deadly fear of her.
+
+Astra, with dragging step, followed her. She wore a dress of azure
+covered with stars, a white mantle full of stars, and her living star
+sparkled in her coal-black hair.
+
+The sages of the country surrounded her: grey-haired men in
+velvet tabards, with very long silver beards, dim eyes, and wise,
+close-pressed lips.
+
+The two princesses sat down on either side of the throne.
+
+And for a moment the middle space of the hall between the waiting
+crowd remained empty. But then appeared Psyche, the third daughter,
+the Princess of Nakedness with the wings! Shyly she approached, looking
+right and left, with the laugh of a child. She was naked: only a golden
+veil was tied in a fold round her hips. Her wings were spread out
+like a butterfly's. She had no retinue: only her old nurse followed
+her; and she was so pretty and charming that people forgot to bow as
+she passed along, that the courtiers smiled and whispered, full of
+admiration, because she was so beautiful in her pure chastity. Slowly
+she walked along, shy and laughing a little; then close to the throne,
+where her father saw her approaching hesitatingly, her bare foot got
+entangled in her trailing golden veil, and to ascend the steps she
+lifted it up, knelt down, and kissed the king's hand.
+
+Then calmly she sat down on a cushion at his feet, and was no longer
+shy. She looked round inquisitively and nodded a greeting here and
+there, child as she was, till all at once, to the right of the throne,
+she met the emerald look of Emeralda, and started and shivered;
+a cold thrill shot through her limbs, and she hid herself in the
+ermine of her father's mantle to be safe and warm.
+
+Then there was a flourish of trumpets, and at the door of the Hall
+heralds announced Prince Eros, the youthful monarch of the Present. He
+came in all alone. He was as beautiful as a god, with light-brown
+hair and light-brown eyes. He wore a white suit of armour over a
+silver shirt of mail, and his whole presence portrayed simplicity
+and intelligence.
+
+The courtiers were astonished at his coming without a suite; Emeralda
+laughed scornfully aside with one of her court-ladies. She did not
+find him a king, that plain youth in his plain dress. But Eros had
+now approached and bowed low before the mighty monarch, and the latter
+bade him welcome with fatherly condescension.
+
+Then spoke the prince:
+
+"Mighty Majesty of the Past, accept my respectful thanks for your
+welcome. Diffident I come to your throne, for I am young in years,
+have little wisdom, little power. You reign over an extensive kingdom,
+the horizon of which is lost in illimitableness. I reign over a
+country that is not larger than a garden. From my humble palace,
+that is like a country-house, I can survey all my territory. Your
+Majesty possesses lands and deserts, which you do not know. I know
+every flower in my beds. And that your Majesty, in spite of my poverty
+and insignificance, receives me with much honour and acknowledges me
+as sovereign in my kingdom, fills my heart with joy. Will your Majesty
+permit me to kneel and pay my homage to you as an obedient vassal?"
+
+Then the old king nodded to Psyche, and the princess rose, because
+Eros was about to kneel.
+
+Then said the king: "Amiable Eros, I love you as a son. Tell me,
+have you any wish that I can satisfy? If so, then it is granted you."
+
+Then said Eros: "Your Majesty makes my heart rejoice by saying that you
+love me as a son. Well, then, my greatest joy would be to marry one
+of the noble princesses, who are your Majesty's daughters. But I am
+a poor prince, and whilst confessing to your Majesty my bold desire,
+I fear that you may think me too arrogant in presuming to cherish a
+wish that aims so high...."
+
+"Noble prince," said the king, "you are poor, but of high birth and
+divine origin, higher and more divine than we. You are descended from
+the god Eros; we from his beloved Psyche. The history of the gods is
+to be read in the historical rolls of our kingdom. It would make my
+heart rejoice if you found a spouse in one of my princesses. But they
+are free in their choice, and you will have to win their love. Permit
+me, therefore, first of all to present to you my eldest daughter,
+the Princess Royal, Princess of the Jewel: Emeralda...."
+
+Emeralda rose, and bowed with a scornful sneer.
+
+"And," continued the monarch, "in the second place, to my wise Astra,
+Princess of the Star...."
+
+Astra rose and bowed, her look far away, as if lost in contemplation.
+
+"And would Emeralda permit me to sue for her love and her hand?" asked
+the prince.
+
+"Majesty of the Present," replied Emeralda, "my father says that you
+are of more divine origin than we. I, your humble slave, consider
+it therefore too great an honour that you should be willing to
+raise me to your side upon your throne. And I accept your homage,
+but on one condition. That condition is: That you seek for me the
+All-Sacred Jewel, Jewel of Mystery, the name of which may not be
+uttered, the noble stone of Supremacy. The legends respecting this
+jewel are innumerable, inexplicable and contradictory. But the Jewel
+exists. Tell me, ye wise men of the land--tell me, Astra, my sister,
+does the Jewel exist?"
+
+"It exists!" said Astra.
+
+"It exists!" said all the wise men after her.
+
+"It exists!" repeated Emeralda. "Prince, I dare ask much of you, but I
+ask you the greatest thing that our soul and ambition can think of. If
+you find me beautiful and love me, then seek, and bring me the Jewel,
+and I will be your wife, and together we shall be the most powerful
+monarchs in the world."
+
+The prince bowed, and with imperceptible irony said:
+
+"Royal Highness of the Jewel, your words breathe the splendour of
+yourself, and I will weigh them in my mind. Your beauty is dazzling,
+and to reign with you over the united kingdoms of the Past and the
+Present, appears to me indeed a divine happiness...."
+
+"For other kingdoms exist not," added Astra, and the wise men repeated
+her words.
+
+"Yes," murmured the king. "There is another kingdom...."
+
+"What kingdom?" asked all.
+
+"The kingdom of the Future," said the king, in a low tone.
+
+Emeralda laughed scornfully. Astra looked compassionately. The wise
+men glanced at each other; the courtiers shook their heads.
+
+"The king is getting old," they whispered. "The mind of His Majesty
+often wanders," muttered the ministers.
+
+"Our monarch has always had much imagination," said the wise men. "He
+is a poet...."
+
+But then spoke the prince.
+
+"And you, wise Astra, Royal Highness of the Star, will you, like
+Emeralda, allow me to sue for your hand and heart?"
+
+"Most willingly, Prince Eros!" said Astra, with a far-off look and
+in a vague tone. "But I have conditions to make as well as Emeralda,
+the Princess Royal. Will you hear them? Then listen. If you see any
+chance of lengthening my telescope, of strengthening the lenses, that
+I can see through them to the confines of the universe, to the last
+sun-system, to the Mystic Rose, to the Godhead Himself, then I will
+be your wife, and together we shall be the most powerful beings of the
+world, because then we are omniscient. For the universe is limited...."
+
+"The universe is limited!" said the wise men, after her.
+
+"Endless is the universe!" said the king, in a subdued voice.
+
+The people laughed and shook their heads. "The king is getting very
+old," was repeated everywhere.
+
+"The king will soon die," prophesied the wise men, in a low tone. "He
+speaks like an old man, without reason; he will soon die...."
+
+"Royal Highness of the Star," said the prince, "your words, pregnant
+with wisdom, I will also consider. For to be omniscient must indeed
+be the greatest power. But your Majesty has a third princess," he
+continued, addressing the king. "Where is she?"
+
+"She is here," said the king. "She is the Princess of Nakedness with
+the wings. But she is still a child, Prince...."
+
+Psyche blushed and bowed.
+
+The prince looked long at her. Then he said to her, gently: "Your
+Highness is called Psyche? You have the name of the ancestress of your
+race, as I have the name of the god who begot mine. Is it not true?"
+
+"I believe so," murmured Psyche, embarrassed.
+
+"She is still a child, prince--forgive her!" repeated the king.
+
+"Will your Majesty not permit me to ask for the hand and heart of
+your third daughter, the princess?"
+
+"Certainly, prince; but she is still so young.... If she leaves me I
+shall be very sad. But if she loves you, then I will give her up to
+you, for then she will be happy...."
+
+"Tell me, Psyche, will you be my wife?"
+
+Psyche blushed exceedingly. Her naked limbs blushed, her wings blushed.
+
+"Prince," said she hesitatingly and looked bashfully at her father,
+"you do me much honour. But my sisters are more beautiful and wiser
+than I. And my father would miss me if I went with you to the kingdom
+of the Present."
+
+"But tell me, Psyche, what conditions do you impose upon me?"
+
+Psyche hesitated. She was about to exclaim joyfully: "Catch me the
+Chimera, bind him in a meadow to graze, and give me power over him,
+that I may mount his back and fly through the air as I like."
+
+But she durst not before the whole court and her father. And so she
+only stammered: "None, prince...."
+
+"Could you love me?"
+
+"I don't know, prince...."
+
+Psyche was shy. She kept blushing, and all at once began to tremble
+and weep.
+
+And she looked round to the king, fled to his arms, hid her face in
+his beard and sobbed.
+
+"Prince Eros," said the king, "forgive her. You see she is a
+child. Seek for Emeralda's Jewel, or seek for Astra the Glass which
+will bring to view the confines of the universe; but leave me my
+youngest child."
+
+Then the prince bowed. An indescribable sadness rose in his soul,
+like a sea. And pale he stammered, "I obey your Majesty."
+
+Then the king descended from his throne and embraced the prince. And
+whilst the fanfares sounded, he put his arm through the arm of Eros,
+took Psyche by the hand, and conducted his guest to the banquet,
+the princesses following, surrounded by the whole court.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+For days had Psyche watched in vain, and all hope died out of her
+heart.
+
+But one windy morning--the thick white clouds were speeding through
+the air--she saw the desire of her heart again. Far away appeared a
+cloud, but as it drew nearer it became a horse: it was the Chimera.
+
+She beckoned to it, and the Chimera came down.
+
+"What do you want, little Psyche?"
+
+She clasped her hands imploringly. "Take me with you...."
+
+"You will become dizzy...."
+
+"No, no...."
+
+He descended, stamping on the basalt rock; the terrace shook, sparks
+flew up, and the steam of his breath shot out in clouds.
+
+"Take me with you," she implored.
+
+"Where do you wish to go?"
+
+"To the islands of opal and silver."
+
+"They are too far away."
+
+"Take me, then, nearer to them; take me with you where you will."
+
+"Are you not afraid?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you hold fast to my neck?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes!"
+
+"Come, then...."
+
+She uttered a cry of joy. He bent his knees, and she got up with a
+beating, thumping heart. Between his flaming wings, on his broad,
+broad back, she sat almost as safe as in a nest of silver feathers.
+
+"Trust not to my wings," he warned her; "I move them at every
+stroke. They open and shut, open and shut. Hold fast on to my
+neck. Clasp my mane. If you are not frightened and do not become giddy
+and sick, you will not fall, however high I go. Do you dare, Psyche?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She fastened his mane round her waist, as if it were strong rope of
+golden flax. She put her arms round his neck.
+
+"I am ready," she said courageously.
+
+He ascended, very slowly, with his broad wings. Under him, under her,
+the terrace sank away.
+
+She shut her eyes, she held her breath, and the blood left her
+heart. Under her the castle sank away.
+
+"Stop!" she implored. "I am dying...."
+
+"I thought so, Psyche. You are much too weak. You cannot go up
+with me...."
+
+She opened her eyes slightly. She sat on his back in the silver
+down, where his quills clave to his light-gold loins. And round her,
+circles of light revolved, one after the other, and made her dizzy.
+
+"Descend!" she implored. "Oh, descend! I cannot endure it. I have no
+breath; I am dying."
+
+He descended.... He stood on the terrace. She slid along his wing to
+the ground. She put her hands before her face, and when she opened
+her eyes she was alone.
+
+Then she was very, very sad. But next day, he appeared again. And,
+more courageous, she wished to mount him again. He let her do as she
+desired, and she got on his back. She shut her eyes, but smiled. He
+went higher and higher with her, without her saying "Descend." She
+travelled for a time high up in the air, she opened her eyes and kept
+smiling; she got accustomed to the rarefied air. The third time he
+soared away with her; she saw, far below, the royal castle, small
+as a toy, towers, ramparts; and then she realised for the first time
+that she had left the castle.
+
+She thought of the king.
+
+"Take me back!" she said to the horse commandingly.
+
+He obeyed her. He took her back. But as soon as he was gone, she
+longed again for him and the lofty air. And she had but one thought,
+the Chimera. She no longer cared for the flowers which she had planted
+between the walls, and the flowers withered. She no longer cared for
+the swans, and the swans, neglected, followed her in vain, in the
+green moats; she forgot to crumble bread for them. And she looked
+at the clouds and she gazed at the wind, thinking only of him, the
+light-gold horse with the silver wings, because he came on the wind,
+on the clouds, which thundered when he struck with his hoofs.
+
+On the day that he did not come, her fair Chimera, she sat pale and
+lonely, gazing from the battlements, her eyes far away, her arms round
+her knees. In the evening she nestled in the king's beard, in the
+folds of his tabard, but she durst not tell him that she had ridden
+a wondrous winged horse and flown with him through the air. But on
+the days that her beloved horse had come and taken her away with him,
+carefully flapping his wings, her face shone with golden happiness in
+the apotheosis of her soul, and through the gloomy halls, where sacred
+spiders, which were never disturbed, wove their webs, rang Psyche's
+high voice, and from the faded gobelin the low vault and the motionless
+iron knights strangely re-echoed the words of her joyous song.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+"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?"
+
+"Behind us...."
+
+"But I do not see them.... Have we passed them without my seeing
+them? O naughty Chimera, you did not tell me!"
+
+"And where are the luminous streaks of the far-off land?"
+
+"We are going through them...."
+
+"I see nothing.... Below, land; around, clouds, as everywhere. But
+no lands of light.... And yet there, in the distance, very far
+away--what is that, Chimera? I see, as it were, a purple desert on
+a sea of golden water, with winding borders of soft mother-of-pearl;
+in the desert are oases like pale emerald, palms with silvery waving
+tops, azure bananas; and over the purple desert trills ether of light
+crimson, with streaks of topaz.... Chimera, Chimera, what is that
+country? What is that beautiful country? The golden sea with its foam
+forms a pearly fringe along the shore; the palms wave their tops to
+a rhythm of aerial music, and the bananas, blue, pink, glow in the
+ether till all is light there...! Chimera, is that the rainbow?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"Chimera, is that the land of happiness? Is that the kingdom of
+happiness? Chimera, are you king there?"
+
+"Yes, that is my country. And I am king there."
+
+"Are we going thither?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you remain there, Chimera? Do we remain there together?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"As soon as I have reached my purple land, I must go farther ... and
+then back again."
+
+"O Chimera, I will not go back! I will forget everything--my father,
+my country. I will remain there with you!"
+
+"I cannot.... But now pay great attention; we are approaching my
+kingdom, little Psyche. Look! now we are going over the sea, now we
+are approaching the shore, lined with soft mother-of-pearl."
+
+"The sea is a dirty green, like an ordinary sea; the borders are
+sand.... You are deceiving me, Chimera! As soon as we approach,
+then you charm away everything that I saw beautiful."
+
+"Now, under us is the purple desert; under us are the oases of pale
+emerald."
+
+"You are deceiving me, Chimera! The desert glows in the strong sun,
+the oases fade away to nothing, like a meteor.... Chimera!"
+
+"What, Psyche?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the land, as far off as you can see...."
+
+"I care not about it! You always deceive me! You carry me away through
+endless space, and everything beautiful that I see disappears from
+my view. But yet ... there, behind the horizon, behind the sand of
+the desert, is a dazzling scene.... Are those silver grottos on a
+sea of light? Does the light there wave like water? Are those groves
+of light, cities of light, in a land of light? Tell me, Chimera,
+do people of light live there? Is that Paradise?"
+
+"Yes, will you go thither?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes, Chimera. There is happiness, the highest happiness,
+and there I will remain with you...!"
+
+"We are now approaching it...."
+
+"Let that land of light now stay, the paradise of glowing sunshine;
+do not charm away the land of happiness, O naughty Chimera: go to it
+now with me, and descend with me...."
+
+"We are there...."
+
+"Descend...."
+
+He descended.
+
+"Have we not yet reached the ground of light?"
+
+"Look below: can you see nothing...?"
+
+She looked along his wing.
+
+"I see nothing...! It is night.... It is dark.... Chimera!!!"
+
+"What, little Psyche?"
+
+"Where is the land of silver light, the land of the people of
+light? Where is it gone?"
+
+"Do you not see it?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"Then it is gone...."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"Behind us, under us...."
+
+"Why did you not descend sooner?"
+
+"My flight was too quick, and I could not, Psyche...."
+
+"You are deceiving me! You could have done so. You would not.... Now
+... now it is night, pitch dark, starless night.... There is an icy
+coldness in the air.... O Chimera, take me back...!!"
+
+He turned with a swing of his powerful wings. And as he turned,
+the lightning broke forth and darted zigzag through the air, like
+smooth-bright electric swords; the black clouds parted asunder with
+a violent peal of thunder like the clapping of cymbals, a storm of
+wind arose, the rain fell down in torrents...!
+
+"O Chimera, take me back!"
+
+She threw herself on to his neck; she hid her face in his mane,
+and through the bursting storm, whilst at every blow of his hoofs it
+lightened round them, he winged his way, back with her to her country:
+the Kingdom of the Past, inky there, in the inky night....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The old king was dead.
+
+Black flags hung from the three hundred towers, and cast their dark
+shadows below.
+
+A dim light fell through the bow-windows into the castle, for the
+three hundred flags obscured the sun.
+
+With funeral music, that made the heart feel sad, the procession,
+with long flickering torches, followed the king's coffin down the
+steps to the deep vaults below.
+
+The priests, in black, prayed in Latin; the court, in black, sang
+the litany; and the princesses, in black, sang alternately a long
+Latin sentence....
+
+Behind the coffin walked, first, Emeralda; behind her, Astra her
+sister; and then little Psyche, wrapped in her black veil. Emeralda
+sang with a voice of crystal; Astra, distracted, was too late in
+answering; and Psyche's voice trembled when she had to sing alone
+the long monotonous sentence....
+
+There, in the deepest vault, they placed the coffin, next to the coffin
+of the king's father, and kneeling round it, they prayed. The low Roman
+vaults receded in impenetrable darkness. They sang and prayed the whole
+live-long day, and Psyche was very tired; and whilst she was kneeling,
+her little knees quite stiff, she fell asleep against the coffin of
+her father. Her last thought had been to kiss the dear old face for the
+last time, but she felt nothing but the goldsmith's work, and the great
+round jewels that were in it hurt her head.... Then she fell asleep....
+
+And when the court had prayed, and all went up the steps again, there
+above, to do homage to Emeralda, as queen of the Kingdom of the Past,
+they all forgot Psyche.
+
+Long, long she slept....
+
+And when she awoke, she did not know at first where she was.
+
+Then by the light of the long torches she espied the coffin.
+
+And through the crystal of the sarcophagus she saw the dead face of
+the king, and pressed a kiss upon the glass.
+
+"Dear father!" she whispered, trembling, "why have you gone? I am
+now quite alone! Of Emeralda I am afraid, and Astra does not think
+of me; she only thinks of the stars. Father, dear, forgive me! I
+have deceived you. I have travelled through the air on the back
+of the flying horse. But father, dear, the horse is beautiful,
+and I love the Chimera! O father dear, I have deceived you, and
+now I am alone, and I have nobody who cares for me! You are dead,
+father, and embalmed, and shut up in gold and crystal and jewels,
+and do not hear your little Psyche. You do not think of your little
+daughter. Alone! alone! Awe-inspiring is the castle; three hundred
+towers rise high up in the air. I have never been in all the three
+hundred, however much I have wandered. O father, father, why have
+you left me? Who is there to love me now? who to protect me now in
+the world? Father, farewell! I will not stay here; I will go away! I
+will leave the castle. Great is the world and wicked, but Emeralda
+is powerful and I am afraid of her. If I remain, she will drive me
+away with her look and shut me up all my life, and my wings I shall
+break against the unbreakable lattice.
+
+"Father, farewell! I will not remain here. I will
+flee! Whither? Whither shall I flee? I do not know. O father, dear,
+alone your child remains in the great, unsafe world! Alone! alone! O
+father, farewell, farewell! and forever!"
+
+She rose, she shivered. The dark vaults receded more and more. By the
+light of the long torches she saw the sacred spiders, which wove web
+after web; they were never disturbed.
+
+"Sacred spider!" said Psyche to a big fat one, with a cross on its
+back, "tell me where I must go."
+
+"You cannot flee," replied the spider, high up in the dark vault, in
+the middle of its web. "Everything is as it is; everything becomes as
+it was; happens as it happens; all goes to dust. Every day sinks into
+the deep vaults of the dark pits under us; under us everything becomes
+the Past, and everything comes into the power of Emeralda. As soon as
+anything is, it has been, and is in the power of Emeralda. Seek not
+to flee--that is vanity; submit to your lot. The best thing is that
+you become one of us, a sacred spider, and weave your web. For our
+web is sacred; our web is indisturbable; and with all our webs, one
+for the other, we serve the princess and protect her treasures--the
+treasures of the Past, which behind our weaving go to dust."
+
+"But if they go to dust, of what value are they?"
+
+"Foolish child, dust is everything. The Past is dust; remembrance
+is dust. Everything becomes dust; love, jewels--all becomes dust,
+and the sacred dust we watch over behind our webs. Become a spider
+like us, weave your web, and be wise."
+
+"But I live. I am young, I desire, I love, and I cannot bury myself
+in dust.... Oh, tell me whither I must flee!"
+
+The spider laughed scornfully, and moved its eight legs with great
+impatience.
+
+"Ask me not about the places of the world--the regions of the
+wind. I sit here and spin. I am holy. I watch over the treasure of
+the throne. Disturb me no more with your frivolity, and let not your
+wings get entangled in the rays of my web, although you are not a moth,
+but princess of the Kingdom of the Past...."
+
+Psyche was frightened. The spider reverenced her because she was
+a princess, but coveted with his wicked instinct.... And she drew
+back. She cast a last look at the dead face of her father, and fled up
+the hundred steps. In every corner sat the sacred spiders and moved
+their legs. Shuddering, she fled on. Whither? She thought of her
+love, the light-gold Chimera, but nowhere could he be with her for
+ever. She glided with him through the air, and he brought her back
+to the castle. His lot was to fly restlessly through the air. Oh,
+were she but a Chimera like him, had she but two strong wings instead
+of princesses' wings, she would have gone with him everywhere...!
+
+Whither? Above, from the enthronement-hall, came the sounds of joyful
+music. There Emeralda was being crowned. Whither?? She fled to the
+terrace.... Oh, if Emeralda missed her, how angry she would be! She
+would think that Psyche refused to do her homage. She could never
+return. Farewell, flowers, swans, doves!
+
+The three hundred flags obscured the light. She would never be able to
+see the Chimera coming. Oh, if he came and she did not see him, and
+did not beckon to him, and he flew past! He was her only safety! If
+needs be, she would wait for days together on the battlements. But
+if Emeralda sent to search for her! Oh, if she did, then there was
+the cataract; then she would throw herself headlong down, for ever,
+for ever, into the rushing water with its rainbow colours!
+
+A wind arose. That was the wind that brought her beloved. The flags
+flapped and impeded her view. And although she saw nothing, she
+beckoned as in despair, and called out:
+
+"Chimera, Chimera!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It lightened. It thundered. Suddenly between the black flags the
+horse descended.
+
+"What is it, little Psyche?"
+
+"Take me with you."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Where you like. Take me somewhere. My father is dead. Emeralda
+reigns. I dare not stay here any longer."
+
+"Get up...."
+
+She got up. He flew away with her. He flew with her the whole day. The
+sun set; the stars glistened in the dark firmament; and he flew
+back. Again they approached the castle. The day began to dawn.
+
+"Fly past!" she entreated.
+
+He flew on. Under her she could just see the castle, small as a toy;
+the three hundred towers, where green flags now fluttered because
+Emeralda reigned. He flew on.
+
+"Chimera!" she cried. "I love you; you are the most beautiful, most
+glorious creature that I have ever beheld. Safe I lie upon your back,
+tied to your mane, my arms round your neck. But I am tired. I am
+dizzy. I am cold. Put me down somewhere.... Can you not rest with
+me in a beautiful valley, amongst flowers, near a brook? Are you
+not thirsty? Are you not tired, and never dizzy and cold? Will you
+not graze and lie in a meadow? Do you never, never rest? Chimera,
+I love you so! But why this restless flying from East to West, from
+West to East?"
+
+"I must do it, little Psyche."
+
+"Chimera, descend somewhere. Stay somewhere with me. I am tired,
+I am cold. I want to go to sleep on a bed of moss, under the shade
+of trees; sleep there with me."
+
+"I cannot. My lot is to fly through the air, apparently without an
+object, but yet with an object; and what that is, I do not know."
+
+"But what then does the Power want? You fly through the air; the spider
+spins its web; Emeralda reigns over dust; everything is as it is. Oh,
+life is comfortless! Chimera, I can hold out no longer! I love you
+with all my soul, but if you do not descend, then I will loose the
+knots of your mane, I will let go my arms that are so tired, and then
+I shall fall down into nothingness...."
+
+"Hold out a little longer. Yonder is the purple desert...."
+
+"Oh, that is beautiful!" she exclaimed. "But you fly past it, always
+past it...!"
+
+"Do you want to rest, Psyche?"
+
+"Oh, yes...."
+
+"Then I will descend.... Hold out a little longer." She held him tight,
+and looked about. He plied his wings with a rapidity that made her
+dizzy; they blew a wind round Psyche....
+
+In the air there loomed the purple sands on the golden sea, with a
+pearly border of foam; the azure bananas, which waved their tops in
+the light-pink ether....
+
+Psyche held her breath.... "Would he descend there...?"
+
+Yes, indeed, he was descending ... he was descending. The purple,
+she thought, grew pale as soon as he descended; the sea was no longer
+golden, the foliage no longer blue.... But yet, yet it was beautiful,
+a dream-conceit, an enchanted land, and he was descending. With his
+broad wings he glided down. Now he stood still, snorting his breath
+in a cloud of steam. She glided gently down his back on to the sand,
+and laughed, and gave a sigh of relief!
+
+"Rest now, here, Psyche!" said he dejectedly, and the quiver in his
+bronze-sounding voice startled her; she laughed no more.
+
+"Rest now. Look! here are dates, and there is a spring. The soft
+violet night is rapidly spreading over the sky and cooling the too warm
+air. A few pale stars are already glistening. Now quench your thirst;
+now refresh yourself and rest.... This is a pleasant oasis. Now sleep,
+little Psyche. To-morrow will soon be here.... Farewell!"
+
+She looked at him with wondering eyes. She threw herself on his broad,
+powerful, heaving breast, and round his arched neck she threw her
+trembling arms.
+
+"What...? What do you say, Chimera?" she asked, pale with fear. "What
+are you going to do? What do you mean? Surely you will rest here with
+me in the soft violet night and amongst the blue flowers? With me you
+will refresh yourself with dates and water? You will let me sleep in
+the shadow of your wings, and watch over me during the dreadful night?"
+
+"No, little Psyche. I am going farther and farther, and then I will
+return. Then after weeks ... after months, perhaps, you will see me
+again in the air...."
+
+"You will forsake me? Here in the desert?"
+
+"Take courage, little Psyche: you are now too tired to fly farther
+with me through the air. You would slip from my back and fall into
+nothingness. Here is a pleasant oasis; here are dates and a murmuring
+stream...."
+
+She uttered a cry; her sobs choked her. She uttered a second, which
+frightened the hyenas far away in the desert and made them prick up
+their ears. She uttered a third, which rent the night-air, and the
+stars quivered from sympathy.
+
+"Alone!" she cried, and wrung her hands. "Alone! O Chimera, you will
+leave me alone with dates and brook! and I thought ... and still hoped,
+that you would stay with me, king in your country of the rainbow!
+
+"Alone! you will leave me alone in a sandy desert, in nothing but sand,
+sand in the night, with a single tree and a handful of water! Alone! O
+Chimera, you cannot do that...! For I love you; I adore you with all
+my soul, and shall die of grief and tears, Chimera, if you fly away
+from me! I love you; I worship your golden eyes, your voice of bronze,
+your steaming breath, your panting flanks, your mane, to which I bound
+myself, your flaming wings, which carried me far, farther and farther
+... to this place...! O Chimera, lay down your smoking limbs in the
+shadow of the night; lay your noble head in my arms and my bosom, and
+together we will rest, and to-morrow fly away farther, united forever!"
+
+"I cannot, O little Psyche. I too love you, sweet burden which lay
+between my wings--little butterfly with weak wings, that lent strength
+to my flight; but now...."
+
+"But now--O Chimera, but now...?"
+
+"But now I must go, continue my lonely journey to and fro, without
+knowing why.... Farewell, little Psyche, hope in life, hope in the
+morrow...."
+
+He spread his wings, his limbs quivered, he ascended into the air.
+
+She wrung her arms, her hands. She sobbed, she sobbed....
+
+"Have pity!!" she implored. "Pity, pity! What have I done? Why do you
+punish me so? My God, what have I done? I have trusted, hoped, given
+my soul in happiness.... Is happiness then punished? Is it not good
+to hope, to trust, and to love? Ought I then to have mistrusted and
+hated? What do I ask? He no longer hears me! What do I care for the
+problems of life! Him I love, and in me is nothing but my love and
+despair, and round me is the desert and the night, and now ... now
+I must die!"
+
+She sobbed, and her tears flowed. She was alone. Around her loomed
+the night, around her stretched the sands as far as the perceptible
+horizon. And above her glistened the stars.
+
+And she wept. Her grief was too great for her little soul. She wept.
+
+"Alone!" she sobbed. "Alone...! I will not quench my thirst, I will
+not refresh myself, nor will I sleep. I am tired, but I will go on...."
+
+On she went, and wept. In the night she walked on through the sand,
+and she wept. She wept from fear and despair. And she wept so, her
+tears flowed so many down her cheeks that they fell, her tears, like
+drops, great and warm, deep into the sand. Her tears flowed down into
+the sand. And she wept, she kept weeping, and as she went along ... her
+tears did not stop. Then in the sand, her tears so warm and so great,
+formed little lakes. And as she went and kept going on and weeping,
+the little lakes flowed into one another, and behind her flowed a
+stream of tears. Meandering after her flowed her tears. And on she
+went in the night and wept.... After her, meandered faithfully the
+stream of her tears.... And she thought of her lost happiness.... He
+had forsaken her.... Why...? She had loved him so, still loved him
+so.... Oh, she would always love him so--always, always!
+
+And in her love she did not scold him. For she loved him and scolded
+not. She longed for no revenge, for she loved him....
+
+"That was fate," she thought, weeping. "He could not do anything
+else. He was obliged...."
+
+She wept. And oh! she was so tired, so tired of the wide sky, so tired
+of the wide sand! Then she thought she could go no farther, and should
+fall into the stream of her tears.... But before her a lofty shadow
+fell with gloomy darkness on the violet night. She looked up, and
+had to strain her neck to see to the top of the shadow. The shadow
+was round above, and then tapered off behind.... But she wept so,
+that she did not see.... Then with her hand she wiped away the tears
+from her eyes, and gazed.... The shadow was awful, like that of an
+awfully great beast. And she kept wiping away her tears, which formed
+a pool around her, and gazed....
+
+Then she saw. She saw, squatting in the sand, a terribly great beast
+like a lion, immovable. The beast was as great as a castle, high as a
+tower; its head reached to the stars. But its head was the head of a
+woman, slender, enveloped in a basalt veil, which fell down, right and
+left, along her shoulders. And the woman's head stood on the breast
+of a woman, two breasts of a gigantic woman, of basalt. But the body,
+that squatted down in the sand, was a lion, and the forepaws protruded
+like walls.
+
+The night shone. The sultry night shone with diamonds over the
+horizonless desert. And in the starlight night the beast, terrible,
+rested there, half-woman, half-lion, squatting in the sand, its
+paws extended and its breasts and woman's head protruding, gigantic,
+reaching to the stars. Her basalt eyes stared straight before her. Her
+mouth was shut and so were the basalt lips, which would never speak.
+
+Psyche stood before the beast. Around her was the night; around her was
+the sand; above her the diamond, shining stars. Silently shuddering
+and full of awe, stood Psyche. Then she thought: "It must be she,
+the Sphinx...."
+
+She wept. Her tears flowed; she stood in the stream of her tears,
+which, winding along, followed her. And weeping, she lifted up her
+voice, small in the night--the voice of a child that speaks in the
+illimitable.
+
+"Awful Sphinx," she said, "make me wise. You know the problem of
+life. I pray you solve it to me, and let me no longer weep...."
+
+The Sphinx was silent.
+
+"Sphinx," continued Psyche, "open your stony lips. Speak! Tell me the
+riddle of life. I was born a princess, naked, with wings; I cannot
+fly. The light-gold Chimera, the splendid horse with the silver wings,
+came down to me, took me away with him in wanderings through the air,
+and I loved him. He has left me--me, a child--alone in the desert,
+alone in the night. Tell me why? If I know, I shall--perhaps--weep no
+more. Sphinx, I am tired. I am tired of the air, tired of the sand,
+tired from crying. And I cannot stop; I keep on crying. If you do
+not speak to me, Sphinx, then I will drown you, gigantic as you are,
+in my tears. Look at them flowing around me; look at them rippling at
+your feet like a sea. Sphinx, they will rise above your head. Sphinx,
+speak!"
+
+The Sphinx was silent.
+
+The Sphinx, with stony eyes, looked away into the night of diamond
+stars. Her basalt lips remained closed.
+
+And Psyche wept. Then she cast a look at the stars.
+
+"Sacred Stars," she murmured, "I am alone. My father is dead. The
+Chimera has gone. The Sphinx is silent. I am alone, and afraid and
+tired. Sacred Stars, watch over me. See my tears no longer flow;
+for this night they are exhausted.... I can cry no more. I will go
+to sleep, here, between the feet of the Sphinx. She speaks not, it
+is true; but--perhaps she is not angry, and if she wants to crush me
+with her foot, I care not. But yet I will go to sleep between her
+powerful feet. In your looks of living diamond, I feel compassion
+thrill.... Sacred Stars, I will go to sleep; watch over me...."
+
+She lay down between the feet of the Sphinx, against the breast of
+the Sphinx. And she was so little and the Sphinx so great, that she
+was like a butterfly sitting near a tower.
+
+Then she fell asleep.
+
+The night was very still. Far, far away in the boundless desert, a mist
+drifted horizonlessly along, and lit up the darkness. The stream of
+Psyche's tears meandered, like a silver thread, far away from whence
+she had come. She herself slept. The Sphinx, with staring eyes and
+closed mouth, looked out high into the night. The stars twinkled
+and watched.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Without a cloud arose on the horizon the first dawn of day, the round,
+rosy-coloured morning glimmer. And in the dawn appeared the horizon,
+and bordered the sandy plain.
+
+In the rosy light, gigantic, towered the gloomy Sphinx. Psyche
+slept. But through her weary eyelids, the light softly sent its
+rays, coral-red, and suddenly she awoke. She opened her eyes, but
+did not move.
+
+She remained in her slumbering attitude, but her eyes looked about. She
+saw the desert, without an oasis, only the brooklet of tears that
+meandered far away from whence she had come. It was like a silver
+thread in the rosy light of the dawn, and she followed its windings
+with her eye as long as she could. And when she thus looked, she
+began to weep again. The tears fell on the feet of the Sphinx, and
+Psyche wept, in her slumbering position. There was a mist before her
+eyes, and through the mist glimmered the rosy desert and the little
+glistening stream.
+
+But now she wiped away her tears, which trickled through her fingers,
+for she thought she saw ... and that was so improbable. She wiped
+her eyes again, and saw. She thought she saw ... and it was so
+improbable.... But yet it was so: she saw. She saw someone coming;
+along every winding of the brook, she saw someone approaching.... Who
+was it coming there? She knew not.... He came nearer and nearer. Was
+she dreaming? No, she was awake. He came, whoever he was. He was
+approaching....
+
+She remained sitting in the same attitude. And he came nearer
+and nearer, following the briny track, till he stood before the
+Sphinx. The Sphinx was so great and Psyche so little, that at first
+he did not see her. But because she was so white, with crimson wings,
+he saw her, a little thing red and white!
+
+He approached between the feet of the Sphinx till he stood right
+before her.
+
+He approached reverentially, because she had wept so much. When he
+was quite close, he knelt down and folded his hands.
+
+Through her tears she did not recognise him.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked in a faint voice.
+
+He stood up and approached still closer, and then she recognised
+him. He was Prince Eros, the King of the Present.
+
+"I know who you are," said Psyche. "You are Prince Eros, who was to
+have married Emeralda, or Astra."
+
+He smiled, and she said:
+
+"Why do you come here in the desert? Are you seeking here for the
+Jewel, or the Glass that magnifies?"
+
+He smiled and shook his head.
+
+"No, Psyche," he said gently. "I have never sought for the Jewel nor
+for the Glass.
+
+"But first tell me: why are you here and sleeping by the Sphinx?"
+
+She told him. She spoke of her father who was dead, of the light-gold
+Chimera, of the purple desert and the sorrowful night. She told him
+of her tears.
+
+"I have followed them, O Psyche!" he replied. "I have come ever since
+I saw you before your father's throne--a day never to be forgotten!
+
+"I have come here every day. Every day I leave my garden of the
+Present, to ask the awful Sphinx for the solution of my problem."
+
+"What problem, Prince Eros?"
+
+"The problem of my grief. For I am grieved about you, Psyche, because
+you would not follow me and stayed with your father.... Now I know
+why. You loved the Chimera...."
+
+She blushed, and hid her face in her hands.
+
+"Who could see the Chimera and not love him more than me?" said Eros
+gently. "Who could love him, and not weep over him?" he whispered
+still more gently; but she did not hear him.
+
+Then he spoke louder.
+
+"Every morning, Psyche, I come to ask the Sphinx how long I must
+still suffer, and why I must suffer. And still much more, O Psyche,
+I ask the Sphinx, that I will not tell you now, because...."
+
+"Because...?"
+
+"Because it would perhaps pain you to hear the question of my heart. So
+I came now, O Psyche, and then I espied a brooklet meandering through
+the sand. I did not know it; I was thirsty, for I am always thirsty. I
+stooped down and scooped up the clear water in my hand. It tasted salt,
+Psyche: they were tears."
+
+"My tears ..." she said, and wept.
+
+"Psyche, I drank them. Tell me, do you forgive me for that?"
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"I followed the brook, and now I have found you here."
+
+She was silent; she looked at him. He knelt down by her.
+
+"Psyche," said he gently, "I love you. Because I saw you little and
+naked and winged, standing amongst your proud sisters--Psyche, I love
+you. I love you so much, that I would weep all your tears for you,
+and would give you ... the Chimera."
+
+"You can't do that," she said sadly.
+
+"No, Psyche," answered he, "that cannot, alas! be done. I can only
+weep for myself; and the Chimera ... nobody can catch him."
+
+"He flies too fast," she said, "and he is much too strong; but it is
+very kind of you, Prince Eros...."
+
+She stretched out her hand, and he kissed it reverentially.
+
+Then he looked at her for a long time.
+
+"Psyche," said he, gently, "will the Sphinx give me an answer to my
+question this morning?"
+
+She cast down her eyes.
+
+"Psyche," he went on, "I have drunk your tears; I respect your
+grief, too great for your little heart. But may I suffer it with
+you? O Psyche, little Psyche, little, in the great desert, now your
+father is dead, now the Chimera is away, now you are all alone.... O
+Psyche, now come with me! Oh, let me now love you! O Psyche, come now
+with me! Psyche, alone in the desert, a little butterfly in a sandy
+plain--Psyche, oh, come with me! I will give you a summer-house to
+live in, a garden to play in, and all my love to comfort you. Don't
+despise them. All that I have will I give! Small is my palace and
+small my garden round it, but greater than the desert and the sky
+is my great love. O Psyche, come with me now! Then you will suffer
+cold and hunger and thirst no more, and the grief that your heart
+now suffers, Psyche, ... we will bear together."
+
+He stretched out his arms. She smiled, tired and pale from weeping,
+slid from the foot of the Sphinx, and nestled to his heart.
+
+"Eros," she murmured, "I suffer. I pine. I weep. I gave away all that
+I had. I have nothing more than my grief. Can grief ... be happiness
+in the Present?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"From grief ... comes happiness," he answered. "From grief will come
+happiness, not in the Present, but ... in the Future!"
+
+She looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"What is that?" she asked. "Future...! It is a very sweet word.... I do
+not know what it is, but I have heard it before.... Father sometimes
+spoke of it with an affected voice.... It seems to be something
+far away, far, far away.... From grief will come ... in the Future
+... happiness!
+
+"Far behind me lies the Past.... Then I was a child. Now I am a
+woman.... A woman.... Now I am, Eros, a woman, a woman, who has wept
+and suffered, and asked of the silent Sphinx.... Now I am no longer
+a princess, but a woman, a queen ... of the Present....!"
+
+She fell against his shoulder and fainted. He gave a sign, and out
+of the air flew a glittering golden chariot, drawn by two panting
+griffons. He lifted her into the chariot. He held her tight in his
+arm, and pressed her to his heart. With his other hand he guided his
+two dragon-winged lions through the glowing air of the desert.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+When Psyche opened her eyes, she heard the soft music of two pipes. And
+she awoke from her swoon with a smile. She lay still and did not move,
+but looked about her. She was reclining upon a soft bed of purple,
+on a couch of ivory. She lay in a crystal palace; round the palace
+were pillars of crystal and a round crystal gallery. The pillars were
+entwined with roses, yellow, white, and pink, and they perfumed the
+sunny spring morning. Through the gallery of pillars, through the walls
+of crystal, she saw round her a pleasant meadow, like a round valley,
+a valley like a garden, through which ran a murmuring brook between
+beds of flowers. Quite near appeared the horizon of a low hill-slope,
+and the cloudless sky was like a chalice of turquoise.
+
+The pipes changed their music. Psyche raised herself a little higher,
+leaning on her arm; she laughed and looked about. In the middle of the
+crystal palace was a basin of white marble, full of water, and doves
+were hopping about it or drinking. Sitting at the gate of crystal
+pillars, Psyche saw two girls; with their fingers they raised the
+flutes to their mouth and played. Psyche laughed and listened. Then
+she fell back on the bed again, happy, but tired, full of rest and
+contentment, and she raised her head and looked up!...
+
+Through a crocus-coloured curtain fell the tempered spring sunshine,
+quiet and soft, joyous and still.
+
+Psyche breathed more freely, and a sigh escaped from her heart. She put
+her arms under her head; her wings lay stretched out right and left
+on either side of her, and when she heard the music of the flutes,
+her thoughts drifted away like an aimless dream, like rose-leaves
+upon water.
+
+She dreamed and she listened.... She no longer felt tired, and her
+eyes, which had shed a brook of tears, felt moist and fresh, cooled
+by an invisible hand, with invisible care. Her breathing was regular,
+and her soul felt safe.... And she smiled continually....
+
+The pipes ceased playing....
+
+The two girls, seeing that the queen had awaked, rose up and approached
+her bed with a basket of red-blushing fruit, which they set down
+near her. Then they made a deep reverence, but spoke not, and sat
+down again by the pillars and blew their pipes anew; but to another
+tune, somewhat louder, like a voice calling, and both in unison. The
+pipes sounded jubilant in the morning, and outside, high in the air,
+the lark answered joyously....
+
+Psyche smiled, stretched out her hand and took a peach, a pear,
+a bunch of blue grapes.... The pipes played merrily together, and
+higher and higher and higher soared the lark and sang. Then Psyche
+heard the brook babbling gently; the doves answered one another,
+and round her the morning sang her welcome.
+
+Then footsteps light approached her softly; the pipes ceased playing;
+the girls rose and made a deep reverence. And between the pillars of
+crystal appeared Prince Eros, the King of the Present.
+
+The girls withdrew, and Eros approached and knelt before Psyche.
+
+He said nothing, but looked at her.
+
+"Eros," said Psyche, "I thank you.... I have rested; my eyes cease
+to burn; my hunger is appeased.... I have heard sweet music, and
+everything appeared kind and to love me."
+
+"Everything in my kingdom is glad that the queen has come. Everything
+is glad that the queen has awaked."
+
+"The Queen of the Present," murmured Psyche.
+
+Then she put her arm round his neck, and leant her head against his
+shoulder. "Eros," said she gently, "I love you.... How shall I express
+my love to you! You have walked in the track of my tears, my salt
+tears you have drunk; out of the desert, from the breast of the awful
+Sphinx, you lifted me in your chariot, drawn by swift griffons.... In
+my swoon I felt myself going through the air, not with the speed of
+the fair Chimera, whose hoofs struck lightning and made the thunder
+roll high in the ether ... but smoothly and evenly on wheels, over
+the clouds delicately tinted with the glowing dawn. How long did we
+travel...? How long have I slept? Eros, how shall I express my love
+to you! My love is deep gratitude, inexpressible, because you rescued
+me. My love is heart-felt thankfulness, because you have cared for
+and refreshed me. My love is...."
+
+She paused for a moment, and rose from the bed.
+
+"What, Psyche?" said he gently, and stood up.
+
+"My love is deep, submissive respect, O Eros, because you wanted to
+weep my tears and give me the wish of my heart, which, had it been
+fulfilled, would have caused you the most poignant grief."
+
+She sank upon her knees and took his hand in hers and kissed it
+long. He lifted her up and pressed her to his breast.
+
+"My gentle Psyche!" said he. "My child and my wife and my tender
+princess! Kneel not to me. In love it is sweet to give and to
+suffer. Love gives, and love suffers...."
+
+"I have only suffered, but not given," said Psyche, in a low tone.
+
+"To suffer is to give most. To give to one we love the suffering of his
+suffering soul, is the greatest gift that can be given, my child and
+my princess! Try, with the remembrance sacred to Suffering and Love,
+endured and loved, to be happy in the Present. Oh, let the Past be
+a remembrance, a sacred remembrance, a golden remembrance; but now
+look to the Present. Oh, let the Present comfort you--the Present,
+little, humble, and poor. Look! this is all. This cupola is my palace,
+this garden is my kingdom; these flowers and these birds, they are all
+my treasures--roses and doves and the singing lark. More I have not;
+but I have still my love--my love, great as the heaven and wide as the
+universe. But he who lives in love so great, needs no greater palace
+and no greater kingdom to rule over. For the treasures of Emeralda I
+would not exchange my kingdom and my love.... Psyche, my queen, yet
+I have ornaments for you. The Princess of Nakedness with the wings
+may never wear jewels of precious stones, and jewels I have not. But
+pearls, Psyche, I have pearls which Emeralda despises. Pearls, Psyche,
+I found in your tears of yesterday. See! I strung them together,
+they were a crown for you. Pearls may adorn you, tears may adorn
+you, my child of suffering, my wife of love, queen of my soul and of
+my kingdom...."
+
+Then he took a little crown of twelve great pearls and put it on her
+head. Then he hung a necklace of pearls round her neck. And as she
+stood before him naked, so immaculately delicate in her princessly
+nakedness, he threw around her loins a light, thin veil, richly
+adorned with pearls, and which she fastened in a knot. Then he gave
+her a mirror, and she beheld herself very beautiful, crowned like a
+queen, and smiled with contentment.
+
+"Am I a queen?" she said softly. "Am I happy? Eros, do you love me? Is
+this the happiness of the Present? Eros, do I love you out of gratitude
+and respect, my husband and my king...?"
+
+He led her gently away, through the porticos, down the crystal
+steps. Cupids hovered about them, the lark sang high in the heavens,
+the roses perfumed the air, the brook murmured gently. The spring
+rejoiced to welcome them, and behind the shrubs the pipes played
+a duet. The hill-slope of the horizon was peaceful, and above, the
+heaven, arched like a turquoise chalice.
+
+Everything sang, everything was fragrant; in the grass buzzed thousands
+of insects; about the flowers fluttered butterflies; and where Psyche,
+on her husband's arm, walked along the flower-beds, all the flowers
+bowed to her in homage--the white slender lilies, the violets with
+laughing eyes, tall flowers and short flowers, on long and short
+stems--and all gave forth their fragrance.
+
+Eros pointed around.
+
+"This is the Present, Psyche," said he, and pressed her to his heart.
+
+"And this is happiness, that is as a lily and a violet ..." she
+whispered, with her lips to his.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The pleasant days followed each other like a row of laughing
+houris.... Eros and Psyche tended the flowers, which did not fade when
+Psyche stroked the stems or gently kissed the calyces. They wandered
+along the brook, and, if the days were warm, sought coolness under
+the crocus-coloured awning, in the crystal palace, where the doves
+cooed round the basin. The flutes played, or Eros himself took a lyre
+and sang, at Psyche's feet, the stories of days gone by.
+
+It was one of the pleasures of the flower-laughing Present.
+
+Between the shrubs, where May strewed fragrant snow-blossom, naked,
+chubby cupids with tender wings played or romped, hovering like little
+clouds in the air.
+
+The sweet nights followed the pleasant days; the diamond stars, the
+same which Psyche had entreated to watch over her in the desert,
+glittered in the heavens. Under the roses, close to one another,
+slumbered the fair-winged children, tired out with play, their little
+mouths open and their chubby legs all folds. The air was heavy with
+the breath of lilac and jasmine; it was spring, it was the Present,
+it was night...!
+
+And while Psyche lay with her head against Eros' shoulder and he wound
+his arm round her waist, while Psyche looked up at the stars, sacred
+in the violet night, the nightingale broke out into melody. The bird
+sang, and sang alone; everything was still. The bird sang, and let
+her notes fall in the air like drops of sprinkled sound, like the
+harmonious falling of water from a playing fountain. The bird sang,
+and Psyche closed her eyes, and felt on her lips Eros' kiss.
+
+The days followed the nights. It was always the sweet pleasure of
+flowers and birds, of spring and love, cupids and roses, music and
+dance. The flowers were more beautiful, and did not fade; the fruits
+were sweeter and of richer colour; the spring air was lighter, and
+life was happier than a golden day. It was day which lasted days and
+nights; it was the Present.
+
+If Psyche were alone she longed for Eros, and when she saw him again
+she spread out her arms, and they loved each other. If Psyche were
+alone, she wandered about in the rosy spring morning; the flowers
+bowed down to her; the brook flowed cool over her feet; she played
+with the winged cherubs, who flew about her head like butterflies; she
+sat down in the moss full of violets; she bade the children take off
+her crown, loosen the plaits of her long hair, untie the knots of the
+drapery round her loins, and she lay down on the bank of the brook;
+her hand played with the clear cold water, and, naked in the shade
+of flowery shrubs, she fell asleep and the cupids round her. Then
+the step of the king awoke her; the children awoke; they dressed her,
+and she went to meet her husband, and received him with open arms. It
+was the sweet delight of the Present.
+
+One day she was sleeping naked under the shrubs, the boys round about
+her; on the moss lay her crown and her veil, and the brooklet flowed
+on, gently murmuring. The day was very still, heavy with warmth. A
+storm was brewing, but the sky was still blue. In the far-off distance,
+where the horizon was like waves of the sea, clouds pregnant with
+storm curled up gloomily like ostrich feathers. And once there was
+lightning, but no thunder.
+
+Then above the ridge of the hill something dark appeared to rise
+against the stormy clouds. It was round like a head, like a black
+head. From the black head leered two eyes, black as jet, and nothing
+more appeared. Long leered the eyes; then from the palace a voice
+cried.
+
+"Psyche, Psyche!"
+
+Psyche awoke, and the cupids with her. Eros approached and led her
+away. The air grew dark, and the next moment the summer storm burst
+forth, dark sky, lightning, rain, and thunder rapidly rolling on. It
+lasted only for a time; then the sky became blue again, the flowers
+recovered their breath and raised their drooping heads, shaking with
+fresh rain.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Next day, when Psyche was sleeping again by the brook, the dark head
+with the leering eyes of jet appeared again on the horizon. For a long
+time the eyes leered, full of lust. Then the head rose up higher like
+a dark sun, behind the hill-slope in the sky.
+
+It was a face tanned by the sun, with coal-black hair; round the
+temples a wreath of vine leaves, and from the wreath protruded two
+horns like those of a young goat.
+
+The eyes looked lustful and young, as though they were jet and
+gold. The lips laughed in the curly beard, and the sharp teeth were
+dazzling white; the pointed ears stood up.
+
+Then the dark face became perfectly visible in the light; the shoulders
+rose brown and naked, and two brown hands with long fingers lifted to
+the lips a pipe of short and long reeds. The pipe played a fanfare,
+a march of very quick notes. Then it stopped, and the gold-jet eyes
+leered. Psyche moved in her sleep. Then the pipe sounded again,
+and Psyche opened her eyes. Astonished, she listened to the notes
+of the pipe, as they rose and fell so as she had never heard before,
+lively and wanton, quick and playful. She sat up, leant on her arm,
+and looked....
+
+She started. There, on the horizon, like a dark sun, she saw the brown
+face and the lips in the curly beard blowing the reeds, short and
+long. Psyche started and looked on trembling. Then the pipe stopped
+again, and roguishly the head nodded to her. Psyche was frightened; she
+woke the boys. She fled away. From the palace Eros came to meet her.
+
+At first she meant to speak, but he kissed her; and why, she did
+not know, but she spoke not. Then she made up her mind to tell Eros
+that night, but in her husband's arms she lacked the courage to
+speak. She did not tell him. The next morning she resolved not to
+repose again in the moss by the brook. But that afternoon she played
+with the cupids, and tired, fell asleep in the same place. The pipe
+awoke her; on the horizon, the brown face stood out against the sun,
+and roguishly nodded to her.
+
+Psyche, indignant, looked up.
+
+The head rose, the shoulders rose, and the whole form then rose up:
+a sunburnt youth, with the legs of a goat, rough-haired and cloven
+hoofs. There he stood, his dark shadow reflected in the golden rays
+of the setting sun. He blew his reeds; he piped lustily and merrily,
+roguishly and joyously and as well as he could, to please Psyche. She
+listened--about her the boys were sleeping--and she smiled. He saw
+her smile and smiled too. Then proudly she pointed with her finger
+for him to go. He went, but the next day he was there again. Then she
+saw him every day. He stood in the sun, which was going down, and blew
+his reeds, laughed and nodded to her roguishly. Sometimes Psyche bade
+him be gone; sometimes she pretended not to see who was playing there;
+sometimes she listened graciously. When she heard the king call:
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!" she woke the cupids, who dressed her in a moment,
+and went to meet her husband. She kissed him, and wished to tell him
+that every day a young man with goats' legs stood on the hill and
+played upon his pipe. But because she had kept silence so long, she
+was silent again, and could not open her lips. It made her sad, and
+Eros saw her sadness, and often asked her what it was that disturbed
+the equanimity of her soul. She said "Nothing," and embraced him
+and declared that she was happy. But when the lark warbled and the
+nightingale's sweet notes were heard, when Eros sang to the lyre and
+the brook murmured gently, Psyche always heard, between the pleasant
+sounds, the impudent tunes of the reeds, short and long. She tried not
+to hear, but she always heard them. They sounded saucily and merrily,
+like the sounds of a little bird in a wood calling something to her
+from afar; she heard, but did not yet understand what.
+
+One day, when he stood in the same place blowing lustily with
+puffed-out cheeks, Psyche, indignant, rose with her lips closely
+pressed together. She put her veil on and wound it tightly round
+her loins, without waking the boys. Then, with a firm step and
+innocently, she crossed a little slope, and came into a valley, a
+valley of grass; there the brook flowed away between multitudes of
+irises and narcissi. The goat, leering and laughing, tripped nimbly
+down the hill on his hoofs to meet her.
+
+"Who are you?" said Psyche haughtily.
+
+"I am the Satyr," said he deferentially. "And now will you just see
+me dance?"
+
+He piped a waltz, and danced for her to the measure of his tripping
+music. He turned out his feet, spun round and round, and underneath,
+on his back, she saw his tiny tail wagging. She laughed, and found
+him amusing, with his tail, and feet, and horns. Then he turned a
+somersault, and finished his dance with a bow.
+
+"You may not come here," said Psyche severely. "This is the Kingdom
+of the Present, and I am the queen, and my husband is Eros, the
+king of this kingdom. You dance indeed nicely, and you play rather
+pretty tunes, but you may not come here. We have here the lark and
+the nightingale, and my husband sings to the lyre."
+
+"That is classical music," said the Satyr.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by classical music. But you may not come
+here and pipe, and disturb me in my afternoon slumber. If my husband
+knew it, he would be very angry, and have you torn to pieces by two
+raging griffons."
+
+"I am not afraid of that," said the Satyr. "Why, I tame panthers,
+and they are much more dangerous."
+
+"I had pity on you," continued Psyche severely, raising her head in
+queenly dignity, "and have not yet said anything to the king. But if
+you come again to-morrow, I will tell him."
+
+"No, you won't!" said the Satyr saucily.
+
+"You are an ill-mannered boy!" said Psyche, angry and offended. "You
+must not speak so to a princess. I ought not to condescend to speak
+to you. I can see very well that you don't know how people behave
+at court, and that you come from the wood. And you are ugly, too,
+with your hairy feet and your tail."
+
+The Satyr looked at her astonished.
+
+"I think you very pretty!" he whispered admiringly. "Oh, I think you
+so pretty! You have such pretty eyes, and such golden hair, and such
+a white skin! Only, I don't like your wings. The nymphs haven't any."
+
+"You may not speak to me like that!" said Psyche vexed. "I am the
+queen. How dare you? Go away now, else I will call the wild beasts
+here."
+
+"Well, don't be angry!" said the Satyr in a low, imploring
+tone. "That is my way of speaking. We all speak like that in the
+wood. The Bacchantes, too, are not particular what they say. We are
+unacquainted with your court language. And we don't know anything of
+classical music. But we are always very merry and sociable together;
+but you must come once...."
+
+"Are you going?" said Psyche imperiously, and red with passion,
+and with her finger she pointed to him to be gone. He crouched down
+suddenly in the reeds of the brook among the irises and narcissi,
+and she saw him stealing away through the high grass. When she turned
+round she beheld the cupids; they were bringing her her crown.
+
+"The king is looking for you, Psyche!" they cried out in the distance,
+and like a cloud they hovered round her.
+
+She went back with them and threw herself into the arms of her husband.
+
+"Don't roam so far away, my little Psyche!" said Eros. "In the wood
+behind the hills are wild beasts...."
+
+Night came on; Eros sang, the nightingale filled the air with her
+sweet notes.
+
+"Classical music!" thought Psyche.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Psyche had a secret. Why did she not tell it? She did not know. She
+could not, after having once kept silent. She knew that she was not
+doing right by being silent, and yet she did not speak. But she was
+very sad about it, and felt dissatisfied. Then she wanted to speak with
+Eros; but because she had said nothing at first, she was afraid. And
+then she said to herself: "The Satyr does nothing wrong by standing
+there and piping a little, and it is not worth while thinking much
+about it...."
+
+And yet she did think about it, and in her ears she always heard his
+saucy voice, his coarse words, countrified and funny.
+
+Then she laughed about it all.
+
+"But what does he do--what is he? a Satyr? What is a Satyr? What are
+Bacchantes? And what are nymphs? Panthers, too, I have never seen. I
+should like to see them. What is their life there in the wood? There
+are many lives in the world, and most of them are a secret. I only
+know the courtiers of the Kingdom of the Past.... Here there are the
+two girls that play on the pipe and the winged children. I should
+like to see all that there is in the world, and experience all that
+is in life. There must be strange things, which I never see.... The
+Chimera was glorious, and deep in my soul I always long for him; but
+in other respects everything is the same.... No wonders take place
+in this garden.... Eros is a young prince; then there are the doves,
+the griffons, the cupids.... That is all so commonplace.... Oh,
+to seek, to wander! The world is so great! the universe is awful,
+although it has limits. My father said it had no limits.... Oh, if it
+had no limits...! Oh, to seek, to wander, to soar in the air!... I
+shall never see the Chimera again. Never shall I soar in the air
+again.... He conjured up visions for me, and then let them pass
+away.... Oh, to soar through the air! When shall I see him again,
+and when shall I soar again...? Eros I love--he is my husband; but he
+has no wings. The Chimera had powerful wings of silver feathers. He
+has left me for ever...."
+
+So, alone with her thought, she wandered in the garden. The cupids she
+drove away, and, crying, they hid themselves among the roses. When
+the Satyr appeared, she went to meet him in the valley, where the
+irises were blooming.
+
+"So, you are there again!"
+
+"Yes! won't you just see me dance again?"
+
+He danced and frisked his tail.
+
+"I have already told you more than once that you may not come here,"
+said Psyche severely.
+
+He winked roguishly; he knew very well that his presence was not
+disagreeable to her.
+
+"You are so beautiful!" he said, in his most flattering tone; "much
+more beautiful than any of the nymphs."
+
+"And the Bacchantes, then?" said Psyche.
+
+"Much more beautiful than the Bacchantes!" he answered. "But they
+are also very nice. Tell me, wouldn't you like to see them?"
+
+Psyche was very inquisitive, and he noticed it.
+
+"Won't you just see them?" he repeated temptingly.
+
+"Where?" said Psyche.
+
+"Look ... there!" He pointed in the distance with his finger.
+
+On the hill Psyche saw forms madly whirling round in a dance.
+
+"Those are the Bacchantes!" said the Satyr. Psyche laughed.
+
+"How madly they whirl round!" she exclaimed. "Are they always so
+merry?"
+
+"Oh, we are always dancing," said the Satyr. "In the wood it is always
+pleasure. We play at tag with one another, we drink the juice of the
+grapes, and we dance till nightfall."
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!" called a voice.
+
+It was her husband. The Satyr fled through the flags, and Psyche
+hastened back.
+
+She threw herself into Eros' arms, who asked her where she had
+been. And without answering him, she began to cry and hid her face
+in his breast.
+
+"What is it, little Psyche?" asked Eros. "Are you in trouble? Amongst
+the roses the boys cry, and by the brook the queen cries. Is there
+then sadness in my kingdom? Does not Psyche feel happy?"
+
+She wept and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say that she did not
+know. And she hid her face in his breast.
+
+"Tell me, Psyche, what is the matter?"
+
+She would have liked to tell him, but she could not; a stronger power
+kept her back.
+
+"Does not Psyche feel happy? Does she long for the Chimera?"
+
+She laid her little hand upon his lips.
+
+"Don't speak about him. I am not worthy of him. I am not worthy of
+you, Eros."
+
+He kissed her very gently.
+
+"What does my Psyche think about? May I not leave her any more,
+alone by the brook?"
+
+"No, no!" said she hastily, and drew his arms round her.... "No,"
+she continued quickly. "Don't leave me alone any more. Always stay
+by me. Protect me from myself, O Eros...!"
+
+"Is little Psyche ill?"
+
+She nodded in the affirmative, and laid her burning head upon his
+breast; she nestled against him and shut her feverish eyes.
+
+He stayed by her, and all around was still, and the cupids appeared
+fluttering in the air. That night she slept in Eros' arms. She awoke
+for a moment out of her sleep; far away in the distance through the
+crystal of the palace she heard the sound of pipes. She raised her
+head and listened. But she would not hear any more, and hid herself
+in Eros' arms and fell asleep on his heart.
+
+The next day he stayed by her, and they wandered to the brook. Sadness
+hung over the garden, the flowers drooped. In the afternoon Psyche
+became uneasy; she heard the pipe, and in the distance caught a
+glimpse of vague forms dancing.
+
+"Do you see nothing?" she asked Eros.
+
+"No...."
+
+"Do you hear nothing?" she said again.
+
+"No," he answered. "Poor Psyche is ill. And the flowers are ill too,
+because she is. Oh, let Eros cure you...!"
+
+The following night, in the arms of her husband, she heard the pipe. It
+played saucy, short, lively tunes. "Come, come, now dance with us;
+we are drinking the grapes. Come ... come...!"
+
+She could resist no longer. Trembling, she loosed herself from her
+husband's arms, who was asleep. She got up, stole out of the palace,
+fled through the garden to the alluring voice.
+
+The flowers in the brook seemed to entreat her: "Oh, go not away! Oh,
+go not away!" The nightingale uttered a cry, and she thought it was
+an owl.
+
+She hurried on to the valley, where the irises were in blossom. There,
+near the brook, in the light of the moon, stood the Satyr, tripping
+to the sound of his pipe, and round him, hand in hand, madly danced
+the Bacchantes, naked, a panther's skin cast about them, their wild
+streaming hair encircled with vine-leaves. They danced like drunken
+spectres in the pale moonlight night; they waved their thyrsus, and
+pelted each other with grapes, which smashed to juice upon their faces.
+
+"Come, come!" they cried triumphantly.
+
+Psyche was startled by their voices, rough and hoarse. But they opened
+their circle, two stretched their hand out to Psyche, and they danced
+round with her. The wild dance excited her; she had never known till
+then what dancing was, and she danced with sparkling eyes. She waved
+a thyrsus, and pressed the grapes to her mouth.... Then suddenly the
+Satyr caught hold of her and kissed her passionately, pressing the
+grapes to her lips....
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!"
+
+She started and stood still. The Bacchantes, the Satyr, fled.
+
+Psyche hastened back; with her hand she wiped her contaminated,
+burning lips.
+
+"... Psyche!"
+
+She ran to meet Eros, but when she saw him, godlike and beautiful as an
+image, spotlessly pure in the moonlight, with his noble countenance,
+his deep brown eyes full of love, she was so disgusted with herself
+that she fell at his feet in a swoon.
+
+He lifted her up and laid her on the bed.
+
+He watched while she slumbered.
+
+The whole night he watched by her....
+
+And it seemed as if she were wandering in her mind....
+
+Her face glowed with fever, and ever and anon she wiped her lips.
+
+Outside in the garden the flowers drooped in sorrow. The lark was
+silent, and the little angels sat together with their wings drawn
+in. The sky was ash-coloured and gloomy.
+
+That night Psyche slept in Eros' arms, and afar off the pipe allured
+her....
+
+She extracted herself from Eros' embrace and got up....
+
+She wanted to kiss him for the last time, but durst not, for fear of
+waking him.
+
+"Farewell!" she whispered very gently. "Noble Eros, beloved
+husband, farewell! I am unworthy of you. The Satyr's kiss is still
+burning on my lips; my mouth is on fire from the juice of the
+grapes. Farewell...! And if you can, forgive me!"
+
+She went.
+
+The night was sultry and heavy with thunder; the flowers, exhausted,
+hung their heads; the nightingale uttered a cry, and she thought it
+was an owl. Bats flitted about with flapping wings.
+
+She walked with a firm step. She followed the brook to where it
+flowed into the valley. Yonder ... with the Satyr in their midst,
+danced the Bacchantes.
+
+"Hurrah! Hurrah!" they cried out, rough and hoarse, and threw at her
+a bunch of grapes.
+
+She hesitated a moment.... She raised her eyes. Through the gloomy
+night a single star glistened like a cold, proud eye.
+
+"Sacred star!" said Psyche, "you who watched over me before, and now
+leave me for ever ... tell him that I am unworthy of him and beg him
+to forgive me!"
+
+The star hid itself in the darkness.
+
+"Come!" cried the Bacchantes.
+
+Psyche took a step forward....
+
+"Brook!" she then cried, "little stream of the land of the Present,
+babbling pure and peacefully, in which I never more may cool myself
+... oh, tell him that I am unworthy of him and beg him to forgive me!"
+
+The brook went murmuring over the stones, and muttered: "No, no...."
+
+"Come, come!" cried the Bacchantes.
+
+Then Psyche plucked a single violet, white as a maiden's face.
+
+"Sweet violet!" said she, "humble flower, don't be proud. Your queen,
+who is forsaking her kingdom, entreats the star and brook in vain. She
+is no longer a queen. She is no longer obeyed. Sweet violet, hear
+the prayer of Psyche, who, unworthy, is forsaking the Present...."
+
+"Stay, Psyche!" implored the flower in her hand.
+
+"Dear little flower!" said Psyche, "born in the moss, withering when
+you are plucked, what do you know of gods and mortals? What do you
+know of soul and life and power? Psyche can no longer stay. But beg
+Love to forgive her...! Oh, give him my last message!"
+
+She kissed the flower and laid it in the moss.
+
+"Psyche! Psyche! Come!" cried the Bacchantes.
+
+She sprang forward into the midst of the dance.
+
+"Here I am!" she cried wildly. And they dragged her away with them
+to the wood.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Eros awoke that morning, he found not Psyche by his side. He
+got up, thinking that she was in the garden, and went out.
+
+The sky was dull and lowering, a mist hung over the hills. The lark
+had not sung, the cupids were not fluttering about.
+
+"Psyche!" cried he, "Psyche!"
+
+No answer was returned. No sigh rustled in the leaves of the trees;
+no insect hummed in the grass; the flowers hung down withered on
+their limp stems. A deathly chilliness reigned around. A fearful
+presentiment took possession of Eros. He walked along the flower-beds,
+along the brook.
+
+"Oh! where is Psyche?" he cried. "Oh, tell me, water, flowers, birds,
+where is Psyche!!"
+
+No answer was returned. The brook flowed on murkily and noiselessly,
+the flowers lay across the path; no bird sang among the leaves. He
+wrung his hands and hastened on. Then he came to the spot where Psyche
+was wont to rest in the moss by the brook, in the shade of the shrubs.
+
+"Who will tell me where Psyche is?" he exclaimed in despair, and
+threw himself on the moss and sobbed.
+
+"Eros!" cried a weak voice.
+
+"Who speaks there?"
+
+"I, a white violet, which Psyche plucked.... Hear me quickly, for
+I feel I am dying, and my elfin voice is scarcely audible to your
+ear. Listen to me ... I am lying close to you. Take me in your
+hand...."
+
+Eros took the flower.
+
+"Psyche has been enticed by the Satyr into the wood. The Bacchantes
+have taken her away. This was her last word: that she was unworthy of
+you, and went away praying for forgiveness.... She could not remain,
+she said; she went...! Eros, forgive her!"
+
+The flower shrivelled up in his hand. Eros rose and tottered; he too
+felt that he was dying.
+
+Sad at heart walked Eros, and all along his path the flowers now lay
+shrivelled. The brook was dry. The lark lay dead before his feet. The
+cupids lay dead in the withered roses.
+
+Eros went into the castle and fell upon the purple bed.
+
+A single dove was expiring at the marble basin.
+
+The strings of the lyre were all broken....
+
+Eros too felt that his life was leaving his body.
+
+He raised his eyes, over which the film of death was stealing, and
+looked about the castle; the crystal crumbled off and split from the
+top to the bottom.
+
+"Sacred powers!" prayed he, "forgive her as I forgive her, and love
+her till the End, as I shall and for ever. Let her find what she seeks;
+let her wanderings once come to an end; let her soar through the air,
+if she must, till she comes to the purest sphere...." This sphere was
+the earth, the sweet Present, the little resting-point on which she
+could not wander, and thus felt within her the irresistible desire....
+
+"Sacred powers, let her one day find what her happiness is. Then,
+if it is not I.... Let her find...."
+
+His voice failed, his eyes opened as in a vision, and he whispered
+and finished his prayer: "... find ... in the Future...!"
+
+That sacred word was his last. He died.
+
+In the Kingdom of the Present, that once had been as a smiling garden,
+everything was now dead....
+
+
+
+Then ... in the mist, which hung over the ridge of the mountains,
+something seemed to be creeping near, something with feet that could
+only move slowly. From many sides, over the hill-top, the strange
+creeping came nearer.... Gigantic, hairy feet of monstrous spiders
+were walking over it; they came nearer and nearer; they were spiders
+with big, swollen bodies and feet always in motion....
+
+They were the sacred spiders of Emeralda, Princess of the Past. Eagerly
+they ran to the dead garden of the Present....
+
+They surrounded the garden and threw out their filaments to the crystal
+roof of the palace. Then they wove over the Present, that lay dead,
+one single gigantic web....
+
+And whilst they wove, the dead Present went to dust.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+In the wood, in the autumn sun, Autumn was keeping festival.
+
+The foliage shone resplendent in yellow, bronze, purple, golden-red,
+and pink; the sulphur-coloured moss looked like antique velvet. With
+gusts of wind, the branches, madly arrogant, shook off their exuberance
+of sere and yellow leaves, as if they were strewing the paths with
+silver and gold and rustling notes.
+
+Loudly laughing danced the dryads through the whirling leaves.
+
+Out of the foaming stream between moss-covered rocks, rose the white,
+naked nymphs.
+
+"Where is she? Where is she?" cried they inquisitively.
+
+"There she comes! there she comes!" shouted the mad dryads, and in
+handfuls they cast the leaves into the air, which whirled over the
+nymphs and fell down on the water.
+
+The dryads danced past, and the nymphs looked out inquisitively. They
+stood, a naked group, in their rocky bath; their arms were
+clasped round one another; green was their hair and white as
+pearls were their bosoms. The sere and yellow leaves kept whirling
+about. Trampling feet were approaching and were heard amongst the
+rustling leaves. Merry-makers were drawing near; the golden foliage
+quivered like a curtain of thin, fine, gold lace....
+
+"There she comes! there she comes!" exclaimed the nymphs with joy.
+
+The branches cracked, the leaves whirled about, the tender sprays
+recoiled from the noisy merry-makers, who were advancing.
+
+Nearer they came with the sound of pipe and cymbal. Drunken Bacchantes
+danced before them, waving the thyrsus, hand in hand with fauns and
+satyrs; they encircled a triumphal car, drawn by spotted lynxes.
+
+High on the car sat a youth, beardless, with a wreath of vine-leaves
+round his forehead, full of laughter and animal spirits, with blue
+eyes that showed his love of pleasure. Naked were his godlike limbs,
+chubbily formed like the tender flesh of a boy, and his legs were
+long and slender, his arms rounded like those of a woman. He was the
+prince of the wood, of divine origin: Prince Bacchus was his name.
+
+And next to him on the triumphal car, sat little Psyche enthroned. She
+too was naked, with nothing on but her veil, and her wings were
+so strikingly beautiful, crimson and soft yellow and with four
+peacock's-feather eyes. Round the car, close together as a bunch of
+grapes, sported madly a number of wine-gods, tumbling over one another,
+grape-drunken children.
+
+In triumph the procession rushed on through the golden wood. The
+Bacchantes and satyrs sang and danced; two satyrs drove the lynxes,
+which, spiteful as cats, spat at them; the wine-gods entwined the
+vine and bore great heavy bunches of grapes.
+
+High up, like a butterfly, which was a goddess, sat Psyche, and
+laughed with glistening eyes and glowing cheeks, waving to the nymphs.
+
+"Live! long live Psyche--Psyche with the splendid wings!" shouted
+the nymphs.
+
+The wind blew, the leaves whirled about; the procession swept past as
+though hurried along by the gale. A little wine-god had fallen and lay
+in the yellow leaves, playing with his chubby legs, purple-red from
+the juice of grapes; he was crying because he had been left behind;
+then he succeeded in getting on to his feet, and tottered after the
+procession....
+
+The nymphs laughed loudly at the little wine-god; they dived under
+and beneath the rocks.
+
+The wind blew, the yellow leaves whirled about.
+
+And the wood became still and lonely.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+"Psyche, stay!" said Bacchus entreatingly.
+
+"No, no, let me alone!"
+
+"With you goes all joy from the feast; Psyche, stay!"
+
+"I will not always sing, dance, drink. No, no, let me alone!"
+
+She pushed him away from her; she pushed the satyrs away from her;
+she broke the round dance of the Bacchantes, who, drunken, shouted
+with drunken eyes and wide-open, screaming mouths.
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!" screamed all.
+
+She laughed loudly and coquettishly, like a spoilt child.
+
+"I will come back to-morrow, when you are sober!" she said with a
+mocking laugh. "Your voices are hoarse, your song is out of tune,
+your last grapes were sour! I will only have the sweet of your feast,
+and the bitter I will leave to you. Spread out your panther skins;
+go and sleep off your drunkenness. If your feast has to last till
+winter, you need rest--rest for your hoarse throats, rest for your
+drunken legs, rest for your heads, muddled with wine.... I will come
+back to-morrow, when you are sober!"
+
+She gave a loud, mocking laugh, and rushed into the wood. It was
+a moonlight night; in the pale moonbeams she left the wild feast
+behind. The jealous Bacchantes danced round Bacchus, and embraced him.
+
+Psyche hastened on. Her temples throbbed, her heart beat, and her
+bosom heaved. When she was far enough away, she stopped, pressed both
+her hands to her bosom, and gave a deep sigh. More slowly she went
+on to the stream. Fresh was the autumn night, but burning were her
+naked limbs!
+
+The wood was still, save that in the top-most branches the wind
+moaned. Like a silvery ship the moon sailed forth from the luminous,
+ethereal sea, and the rushing mountain-stream foamed like snow on the
+rocks. With a longing desire for coolness and water, Psyche stepped
+down to the flags on the bank; with her hands she put aside the irises,
+and made her way through the ferns and plunged her foot into the water.
+
+Then the nymphs dived up.
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!" cried they joyously, "Psyche with the splendid
+wings!"
+
+Psyche smiled. She threw herself into the water, and the snow-white
+foam dashed up.
+
+"Let me be with you a moment," entreated Psyche. "Let me cool myself
+in your stream."
+
+The nymphs pressed round her and carried her on their arms. She lay
+down at full length.
+
+"Cool my forehead, cool my cheeks, cool my heart!" she cried
+imploringly. "Dear nymphs, oh, cool my soul! Everything burns on me
+and in me; fire scorches my lips, fire scorches my brain.... O dear
+nymphs, cool me!"
+
+The nymphs sprinkled water on her; Psyche put her arm round the neck
+of one of them.
+
+"Your water-drops hiss on my forehead as on burning metal. Your
+flakes of foam evaporate on the fire in my breast. And on my soul,
+O dear nymphs, you cannot sprinkle your coolness!"
+
+The nymphs filled their stream-urns and poured them over Psyche.
+
+"Pour them all out! Pour them all out!" cried Psyche entreatingly. "But
+although my hair is dripping, and my wings and my limbs too,
+my lips are scorched, my poor forehead burns, and within me, O
+nymphs...! within me, my soul is consumed as in hell-fire...!"
+
+The nymphs took her gently in their arms; they dived with her below,
+they came up again; they kept diving up and down.
+
+"Oh, bathe me, bathe me!" cried Psyche imploringly. "Benevolent nymphs,
+bathe me! Some coolness still hangs about my body ... but my soul,
+oh, my soul you can never cool!" She wept, and the nymphs caught up
+her tears in mother-of-pearl shells.
+
+"Are you collecting my tears? Oh, no, they are not worth it. Once
+I wept a brook full; once they were drunk, drunk by Love; once they
+were pearls, and Love crowned me with them! Now, now they are like
+drops of wine, drops of fire, and though they should congeal and
+become rubies or topazes, they may never crown me more. Henceforth
+my tears I shall always shed ... for Emeralda!"
+
+In the shells the nymphs saw glistening pearls, and they understood
+not.... But all their urns they poured out upon Psyche's eyes.
+
+"My eyes are getting cool, O beloved nymphs; many tears I shall never
+shed again; never again shall I weep a brook full.... But cool my soul,
+extinguish deep within me the burning flames!"
+
+"We cannot, Psyche...."
+
+"No, no, you cannot, O nymphs! Let me lie still, then, still in your
+arms. Let me rock quietly to and fro on your white-foaming water, then
+let me sleep quietly.... But in my sleep my soul keeps burning; in
+my dreams I see it flame up, high up as out of a hole in hell.... Oh!"
+
+She uttered a cry, as of pain.... The nymphs rocked her in their
+entwined arms, as in a cradle of lilies, and softly sang a song....
+
+"Nymphs, nymphs....! This is the fire that nothing can extinguish--no,
+never.... This is remorse...."
+
+The nymphs understood her not; they rocked her and sang in a low,
+soft voice.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+That morning she wandered about in the rosy autumn dawn--a mist between
+the trees stripped of leaves. Along the path she trod; on a skin she
+found a satyr and a Bacchante lying in a drunken sleep, tight in each
+other's arms; a cup lay on the ground, a broken thyrsus, pressed-out
+grapes. She hastened on and sought the most lonely spots. The foliage
+became scantier, the trees grew farther apart, the wood ended in a
+plain and, violet misty, a perspective of very low hills.
+
+Psyche walked on over the plain and climbed the hills.
+
+The autumn wind blew and howled between shrubs and bushes, and sang
+the approach of winter. But Psyche felt not the cold, for her naked
+limbs glowed: her soul was all on fire.
+
+On the highest hill-top she looked out, her hand above her eyes,
+gazing into the violet mist.... Unconscious to herself, she hoped
+for something vague and impossible: that she might see Eros, that
+he would come to her, that she would fall at his feet, that he would
+forgive her tenderly, and take her away with him. Impossible. "What
+was impossible? Could not everything be possible? Had he not followed
+the track of her tears? had he not found her in the arms of the
+Sphinx?" Oh, she hoped, she hoped, she hoped more definitely! Her
+remorse-burned soul longed for the balsam of his love in the palace
+of crystal, for the sounds of his lyre, for the tender words in the
+garden of the Present.
+
+She hoped, she gazed....
+
+In the pale glow of the morning sun, the violet mist cleared up,
+and parted like violet curtains....
+
+She gazed: there was the Present....
+
+There Eros would be, mourning for his naughty Psyche!
+
+There he would presently forgive her....
+
+Oh, how she hoped, how she longed!.... She longed; she stretched out
+her arms and dared cry in a plaintive voice:
+
+"Eros!"
+
+The wind blew through bush and shrub and sang the approach of
+winter. The violet curtains of mist were drawn aside. The sad autumn
+morning appeared. There, now visible, lay the Present....
+
+And Psyche gazed, screening her eyes with her hand....
+
+There she saw her happiness of days gone by, destroyed. In a dead,
+withered garden, a ruin: crystal pillars crumbling to pieces. And
+between the pillars, spiders' webs; all over the garden spiders'
+webs, web upon web, and in them spiders with bloated bodies and
+lazy-moving feet....
+
+Then she saw that Emeralda was reigning!
+
+Then she felt that Eros was dead!
+
+She had murdered him!
+
+Oh, how her limbs glowed, how her soul burned! Oh, the burning pain
+within her, deep within--a pain which no grape-juice could allay,
+which no mad dance could deaden and the nymphs could not cool, though
+they poured over her all their urns! Oh, that hell in her soul, for
+the irretrievable desolation, for the murdered one, past recall! Oh,
+that suffering, not for herself, but for him--for another! that
+repentance, that burning remorse!....
+
+She fell to the ground and sobbed.
+
+The pale sunbeams faded away, thick grey clouds came sweeping along,
+a shower of hail rattled down, flinging handfuls of icy-cold stones....
+
+She felt a touch on her shoulder. She looked up.
+
+It was the Satyr who had allured her with his pipe, there, on that
+very spot.
+
+"Psyche!" said he, "what are you doing here, so far away from all
+of us? Winter is coming, Psyche; listen to the whistling winds, feel
+the rattling hail; the last leaves are being blown away. We are going
+to the South, and Prince Bacchus is seeking for you.... What are you
+doing here, and why are you crouching down and weeping?
+
+"We are having a feast and are fleeing the winter; come!"
+
+"I feel no cold; I am burning.... Let me stay here, and weep,
+and die...."
+
+"Why should you die, O Psyche, Psyche, so pretty and so gay--Psyche,
+the prettiest and gayest, who can dance the maddest, who can dance
+out all the Bacchantes? Come!...."
+
+She laughed through her tears, a laugh like a piercing shriek.
+
+"But Psyche, do you know what it is?" said the Satyr, whispering
+confidentially. "Do you know what it is that prevents you from being
+happy, and why you are not like all of us? I told you before, Psyche:
+it is on account of your wings. Your wings prevent you from putting
+a beast's skin round you, and entwining your hair with vine. The
+nymphs find your wings pretty, but what do you want with things
+that are pretty, yet of no use whatever? If you could only fly with
+those wings!"
+
+... "If I could only fly with those wings!" said Psyche, sighing. "No,
+I have never been able to fly with them, my poor, weak wings!"
+
+"The nymphs think your wings pretty, but the nymphs are
+sentimental. The Bacchantes think them ugly, and laugh at you in
+secret. Prince Bacchus does not like wings either; he cannot embrace
+you well with those things on your back. Psyche, dear Psyche, listen:
+shall I tell you something....? You must let me cut those wings off
+with a pair of grape-scissors. For when you have got rid of your wings,
+then you can throw a panther's skin round you, and put a vine-wreath
+round your hair, and you will be altogether one of us...."
+
+The wind blew, the hail rattled down: winter was coming on.
+
+... "Eros is dead!" murmured Psyche, "Spring is past, the Present is
+withered, Emeralda reigns.... 'What are you doing with things that
+are pretty, and have no use at all...?'
+
+"If I cannot possibly get cool, if I keep burning deep within me
+... it is better, perhaps, to renounce my princess's rights, to go
+naked no longer, to have no wings...."
+
+"Tell me, Psyche, may I cut them off?"
+
+"Yes, clip them! Cut them right off, my wings, which are only
+pretty!" she cried fiercely. "Cut them off!!"
+
+His eyes glowed jet and gold, his breath came quickly from joy. He
+produced his sharp scissors....
+
+And whilst she knelt, he cut off both her wings.
+
+They fell on the ground and shrivelled up.
+
+"Oh, that pains, that pains!... Oh, that pains!" cried Psyche.
+
+"It is a little wound, it will soon heal," said the Satyr soothingly,
+but grinning with pleasure.
+
+Then he threw a panther's skin round her, put a wreath of vine-leaves
+on her head, and she was like a fair Bacchante still very young and
+tender, with her white skin, with her tender eyes of soul-innocence,
+in which, deep down, dejection reigned.
+
+"Psyche!" cried he delighted, "Psyche! How pretty you are!"
+
+She uttered her shrill laugh, her laugh of bitter irony. He led
+her away down the hills. She looked about: yonder lay the Present,
+reduced to dust and spider-webs. She looked about: in the wind,
+which was blowing, her wings whirled away, shrivelled up, whirled
+away like dry leaves.
+
+She laughed and put her arm round his neck, and they hastened back
+to the wood.
+
+The wind blew; the first snowflakes fell.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Slowly followed the seasons--winter, spring, summer, autumn....
+
+Winter, spring, summer, autumn, fell in turn, like dust, into the
+caves of Emeralda.
+
+Winter, spring, summer, autumn, were the Present for a moment, and
+sank into the Past.
+
+And again it was spring....
+
+In the grassy plains, the shepherds drove out their flocks, and they
+sang because the sky was blue, because the world trilled with hope,
+in the new and tempered sunshine.
+
+What did the shepherds know of Emeralda? They had never seen her. They
+sang, they sang; they filled the air with their song. As a reed,
+their song remained quivering and hanging in the air. In the wood
+and in the mountains, over the meadows and in the air, Echo sang with
+them their song. They sang because the sky was blue....
+
+Emeralda they did not know....
+
+Blue, blue ... blue was the air! Hope quivered in the sunshine,
+and love in their hearts....
+
+Into the grassy plains the shepherds drove their flocks, and they
+sang because the sky was blue.
+
+
+
+On the border of the wood, where endless plains extended, there lived
+in a grotto between rocks, a holy hermit who was a hundred years old.
+
+How many seasons had he seen sink into the pits of the Past...!
+
+How many times had he heard the Lenten song of the shepherds! Wrapped
+in contemplation, he heard them singing. They sang because the sky was
+blue. The lark was soaring because the world trilled with hope.... They
+sang because fleecy lambs were sporting again in the meadows. They
+sang because they were young and loved the shepherdesses. They sang
+of blue sky, of hope, of lambs, and love....
+
+The hermit continued deep in thought....
+
+Every spring it was the same song, and he had never sung with
+them. Never had he known the Present, the spring Present of the
+shepherds.
+
+The hermit continued deep in thought; he dreamed that Satan was
+tempting him, but his pious mind resisted. He dreamed that he had
+died in prayer, and his soul, purified, ascended into heaven.
+
+Far off in the grassy plains was heard the bleating of the lambs,
+the voices of the shepherds.
+
+The hermit heard a step. He looked up.
+
+He saw a little form, as of a naked girl with no covering but her
+hair. And he thought it was really Satan, and he muttered an exorcism;
+he knit his brow, he crossed his arms.
+
+The little form approached and knelt down.
+
+"Holy father!" said she, in a low, trembling voice, "don't drive
+me away. I am poor and unhappy. I am a sinner, and come to you for
+help. I am not shameless, holy father, and I am ashamed that I appear
+before you naked. I asked the shepherdesses for something to cover me,
+but they laughed at me, drove me away and threw stones at me. Father,
+O father, men are merciless, they all drive me away.... I come from
+the wood, and the wild beasts are not so cruel as men. In the wood the
+beasts spared me. A lion licked the wounds on my feet, and a tigress
+let me rest in the lair of her whelps. Holy father, the wild beasts
+had pity!"
+
+"Then why don't you remain in the wood, devil, she-devil?"
+
+"Because I must fulfill a duty among men."
+
+"Who lays the task upon you, witch, devil?"
+
+"In my dream, soft voices have spoken to me, the voice of my
+father, and of him whom I loved, and they said: 'Go among men, do
+penance.'... But naked I cannot go among men, for they throw stones at
+me. And therefore, O father, I come to you, and entreat you: give me
+something to cover me! I have only my hair to hide me, and under my
+hair I am naked. O father, give me something to cover me! O father,
+give me your oldest mantle for my penance garb!"
+
+The hermit looked up at her, as she knelt in her fair hair, and he
+saw that she was weeping. Her tears were blood-red rubies.
+
+"He who weeps rubies has committed great sin; he who weeps rubies
+has a soul crimson with sin!"
+
+The penitent sobbed and bowed her head to the ground.
+
+"Here," said the hermit sternly, but compassionately. "Here is a
+mantle. Here is a cord for your loins. And here is a mat to sleep
+on. And here is bread, here is the water-pitcher. Eat, drink, cover
+yourself, and rest."
+
+"Thanks, holy father. But I am not tired, I am not hungry and
+thirsty. I am only naked, and I thank you for your mantle and your
+cord."
+
+She put on the mantle as a penance-garb, and whilst, red with shame,
+she covered herself, the hermit saw on her shoulder-blades two
+blood-red scar-stripes.
+
+"Are you wounded?"
+
+"I was, long ago...."
+
+"Your eyes glow: have you a fever?"
+
+"I do not know men's fever, but my soul is always burning like a cave
+in hell."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"One heavy burdened with sin."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"I have no name now, holy father.... Oh! ask no more.... And let
+me go."
+
+"Whither are you going?"
+
+"Far, along the way of thistles, to the royal castle. To the Princess
+Emeralda."
+
+"She is proud."
+
+"She is the Princess of the Jewel, and I weep jewels. I shed them
+for her. Once there was a time ... that I wept pearls.... O father,
+let me go!"
+
+"Go, then.... And do penance."
+
+"Thanks, father.... Oh, give me your blessing!"
+
+The hermit blessed her. She went then as a pilgrim in her
+penance-garb. The path was steep and covered with thistles.
+
+In the distance was heard the song of the shepherds.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+The path was steep, and covered with cactus and thistles. It was a
+narrow path, hewn out of the rocks, winding up the basalt mountain,
+where, high on the top, stood the castle. The castle had three
+hundred towers, which rose to the sky; along them swept the clouds. In
+the path were many steps hewn out of stone. Heavy masses of cactus
+grew on the side of the precipice, and over the leaves, prickly and
+round, Psyche saw the grassy valleys of the Kingdom of the Past,
+the villages, the towns, the river: a broad silver streak, and there,
+behind it, opal-like views, lakes in the sky, and quivering lines of
+ether. Higher and higher she went up the steps, up the path, in the
+gloomy, chilly shadow, whilst the sun shone over the meadows. She
+climbed up, and below she saw the shepherds with their sheep, and
+their song, quite faint, came up to her.
+
+In the coppice she broke a strong stick for a staff. A lappet of her
+mantle she had drawn over her head as a hood. And with her staff and
+her hood, she looked like a pious pilgrim.
+
+The solitary countryman who was coming down the rocky path, did not
+throw stones at her, but greeted her reverently.
+
+She kept climbing up.
+
+High in the air lay the castle, gloomy and inaccessible, a town of
+towers, a Babel of pinnacles; along it swept the clouds. As an innocent
+child, as a naked princess with wings, Psyche had lived there like
+a butterfly on a rock, had wandered along the dreadful parapets,
+had longed and hoped and dreamed. Oh! her longings of innocence,
+her hope to fly through the air to the opal islands, her dreams,
+pure as the doves that flew round about her...!
+
+She had wandered through clouds, through desert and wood, from the
+North to the South. She had loved the Chimera, had put questions to the
+Sphinx; she had been Queen of the Present and the beloved of Bacchus,
+and now ... now she came back, wingless, with a soul that burned her
+continually, like a scarlet child of hell; now she came back up the
+steep path....
+
+Her penance-garb she had borrowed. But the thistles tore her foot,
+and pale from pain and suffering, from wounded feet, and ever-smarting
+shoulders, and a soul that burned continually, was her face, that
+peeped out from under her wide hood.
+
+Up, up, she went, supporting herself with her staff....
+
+Oh, the voice of her father, of Eros, in her dream, when the
+grape-dance was over! Then repentance had begun. Then she had fled
+through the wood, through the wild beasts. And the lion had licked
+her foot, and the tigress had allowed her to rest in the warm lair
+of her whelps....
+
+Then she went on, climbing higher and higher....
+
+Would she never get to the top? Would the castle, the Babel of
+pinnacles, the town of towers remain ever inaccessibly high in
+the clouds?
+
+Her step left blood behind on the rocky stone.
+
+But she did not rest. Rest did not help her.
+
+She preferred to go on, to climb. If she walked, if she climbed,
+the sooner would she reach the castle.
+
+Step by step she advanced. Oh, she was no longer afraid of
+Emeralda! What could Emeralda do to her to make her afraid? What
+greater suffering could her sister inflict upon her than the pain of
+remorse, that was ever with her wherever she went!
+
+And on she climbed, and the thistles tore her feet, and the solitary
+man who was coming down the rocky path greeted her reverently, when
+he saw the blood of her footstep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+The night was pitch dark, when she stood before the awful gate and
+asked admittance.
+
+And the guards let her in because she wore a holy dress. The
+halberdiers took her to the hall, where they slept or kept watch,
+and invited her to rest.
+
+She sat down on a rude bench, she ate their brown soldier's bread,
+she drank a drop of their wine.
+
+Then she offered them a ruby for their hospitality and evening meal.
+
+And while they wondered that a pilgrim possessed such a beautiful
+jewel, she said in her strange voice, weak, tired, and yet commanding:
+
+"I have still more topazes and rubies and dark purple carbuncles. Tell
+the princess that I have come to do her homage and give her my jewels."
+
+The message was sent to Emeralda, and the queen asked the pilgrim to
+come. She sent pages to conduct her to the throne where she sat.
+
+And Psyche understood that Emeralda was afraid of treachery, afraid
+of the approach of soul, and therefore was so surrounded by armed men.
+
+She passed between the pages, up the steps, over passages; then iron
+gates were opened, and a curtain was drawn aside.
+
+And Psyche stepped into the golden hall of the tower.
+
+There sat Emeralda in the light of a thousand candles, on a throne,
+under a canopy, surrounded by a great retinue.
+
+"Holy pilgrim!" said Emeralda, "be welcome! You have come to bring
+me jewels?"
+
+A cold shiver ran like a serpent over Psyche's limbs, when she heard
+Emeralda's voice. She had not thought that she would be afraid any
+more of her proud sister, but now when she saw her and heard her voice,
+she almost fainted from fear.
+
+For her look was most terrible.
+
+Emeralda had grown older, but she was still beautiful. Yet her beauty
+was horrible. In the hall, lit up with thousands of candles, a hall of
+gold and enamel, sat Emeralda like an idol on her throne of agate, in
+a niche of jasper. There was nothing more human about her; she was like
+a great jewel. She had become petrified, as it were, into a jewel. Her
+eyes of sharp emerald looked out from her face, that was ivory white,
+like chalcedony; from her crown of beryl there hung down her face six
+red plaits of hair, as inflexible as gold-wire, and stiffly interwoven
+with emeralds. Her mouth was a split ruby, her teeth glittered like
+brilliants. Her voice sounded harsh and creaking, like the noise of
+a machine. Her hands and inflexible fingers, stiff with rings, were
+opal-white, with blue veins such as run through the opal. Her bosom,
+opal, chalcedonic, was enclosed in a bodice of violet amethyst--and
+over the bodice she wore a tunic of precious stones. Her dress was no
+longer brocade, but composed of jewels. All the arabesque was jewels;
+her mantle was jewelled so stiffly that the stuff could not bend,
+but hung straight down from her shoulders like a long jewelled clock.
+
+And she was beautiful, but beautiful as a monster, preciously beautiful
+as a work of art--made by one, both jeweller and artist, barbarously
+beautiful, in the incrustations of her crown, the facets of her eyes,
+the lapis lazuli of her stiffly folded under-garments, and all the
+gems and cameos which bordered her mantle and dress.
+
+In the light of thousands of candles she glistened, a barbarous
+idol, and shot forth rays like a rainbow, representing every colour;
+dazzling, fear-inspiring was her look, pitiless and soulless.
+
+Proud she sat and motionless, glistening with lustre, oppressed by
+the weight of her splendour; and covetous, her grating voice said
+again eagerly:
+
+"Holy pilgrim, welcome! You have come to bring me jewels?"
+
+Psyche gained courage.
+
+"Yes," she said in a firm voice. "Powerful Majesty of the Past,
+I come to do you homage and bring you jewels. But I beg that we may
+be left alone."
+
+Emeralda hesitated; but when Psyche remained silent, her cupidity
+got the better of her fear and she gave a sign. She raised her stiff
+hand. And by that single movement she cracked and creaked with grating
+jewels, and shot forth rays like the sun, which, like a nimbus,
+streamed around her.
+
+Her suite disappeared through side-doors. The shield-bearers
+withdrew. Psyche stood alone before her sister. And then Psyche
+unfastened the cord round her waist and took off her mantle; her
+long hair fell about her, and she was naked. Naked she stood before
+Emeralda, and said:
+
+"Emeralda, don't you recognise me? I am Psyche, your sister!"
+
+A cry escaped the princess. She rose up; she creaked; her splendour
+and pomp grated, and she glittered so, that Psyche was dazzled.
+
+"Wretched Psyche!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I know you! I have always
+hated you, hated as I hate everything that is gentle, as I hate doves,
+children, flowers! So you have deceived me, intruder! you bring me
+no jewels!"
+
+Psyche knelt down and showed her open hand.
+
+"Emeralda, I offer you the homage which I once refused you. I present
+you with topazes, rubies, and dark purple carbuncles. I kneel in
+humility before you. I offer you my tears, which have turned into
+stone, and I ask you humbly: punish me and give me a penance to
+do. Look! I have lost my wings. I may not go naked any longer. I
+have committed sin. Emeralda, make me do penance! Inflict on me the
+heaviest that you can think of. If I can do it, I will do it. Lay a
+heavy task upon my wingless shoulders."
+
+Emeralda looked down at kneeling Psyche. The princess approached
+her sister, took the jewels, examined them attentively, held them
+up to the light of the candles, and then dropped them into an open
+casket. Thoughtfully she continued gazing at Psyche. And she seemed to
+Psyche like a gigantic jewel-spider, watching from the midst of her
+glittering web the rays of her own splendour. But whatever she were,
+princess, sun, spider, or jewel, a woman she was not, a human being she
+was not, and through the opal of her bosom gleamed her heart of ruby.
+
+Psyche, kneeling penitent, spoke not, awaiting her fate, and Emeralda
+watched her.
+
+Thoughts, mechanical as wheels, rolled through her brain. She thought
+as a machine. She was inexorable, because she had no feeling; she
+thought inhumanly because she had no soul. Soulless she was and hard
+as stone, but she was powerful, the mightiest ruler of the world. She
+ruled with a movement, she condemned with a look, she could kill
+with a smile; if she spoke a word, it was terrible; if she appeared
+in public there was disaster; and if she rode through her kingdom in
+a triumphal chariot, then everything was scorched by her lustre and
+crushed under her triumph.
+
+At last she spoke, motionless like a spider in her web of glittering
+rays, and her voice sounded like an oracle in a screeching incantation.
+
+"Psyche, fled from her father's house, fallen from all princely
+dignity, dethroned Princess of the Present, immoral Bacchante,
+corrupt and wingless, weeping tears of scarlet sin--listen!
+
+"Psyche, who wandered frivolously to purple streaks of sky, who
+longed for the nothingness of azure and of light, who loved a horse,
+who forsook her husband, who wandered and sought and asked, in desert
+and in wood--wander, seek, and ask!
+
+"Wander, seek, and ask, till you find!
+
+"Wander along the flaming caves, seek in the fire-vomiting mouths of
+monsters, ask of the martyred spirits, who roll upon the inky sea.
+
+"Descend to the Nether-world! Seek the Mystic Jewel, the Philosopher's
+Stone that gives the highest omnipotence; seek the Mystic Jewel,
+the rays of which reach to eternity and penetrate to the Godhead.
+
+"Descend, wander, ask, seek, and find!"
+
+Her voice grew terrible, and, screeching, she stepped nearer, and
+with a look at the casket, said pitilessly:
+
+"Or ... weep for it ... suffer for it. I care not how much."
+
+She paused, and then in a voice of horrible hypocrisy, continued:
+
+"And then, if you bring me the Sacred Jewel, the name of which may
+not be uttered...." She drew still nearer.
+
+... "Then be blessed, Psyche, and share with me, Emeralda, your sister,
+the divine omnipotence!"
+
+Like an oracle sounded her hypocritical voice. She felt in Psyche
+an unknown power; she feared for her soul, and wished to gain that
+power for herself, to make sure of the two-fold omnipotence of the
+world, both soul and body. And in the horrible penance which she laid
+upon Psyche, she feigned tender love. Creaking and cracking, she drew
+nearer, and in her web of rays shed a sunbeam over her kneeling sister,
+and with her stiff opal fingers stroked the bent head with its fair,
+long tresses.
+
+An ice-cold shiver ran through Psyche, as if her burning soul were
+being frozen.
+
+"I obey," she murmured.
+
+And she rose up, intoxicated from splendour, stiff from icy
+coldness. She tottered and shut her eyes. When she opened them,
+she was in a gloomy ante-chamber, clad in her coarse mantle; and the
+shield-bearers approached with torches.
+
+"Conduct me to Astra!" she commanded.
+
+There was something strange in her voice which made them obey,
+the voice of a princess, the soft voice of command, which appealed
+strangely to the men, as if they had heard it when they were pages.
+
+They conducted Psyche through halls, over passages, up steps, to
+another tower. They opened low doors, and, through silent vaults,
+guided the strange pilgrim, rich in rubies.
+
+"Who comes there?" asked a voice, tired, weak, and faint.
+
+Then the men left Psyche alone, and she was with Astra, and she saw her
+sister in the twilight on the terrace, sitting before her telescope,
+surrounded by globes and rolls of heavy parchment spread out. And
+Psyche saw Astra, looking very old, with thin grey hair, which
+hung down her wax-white face, from which two dull eyes stared out;
+her white dress hung down limp on her sunken shoulders, her withered
+breast, and attenuated limbs. Bitter dejection was in her dull eyes;
+her thin hand hung down powerless, tired, and incapable of work,
+and her voice, faint and weak, said:
+
+"Who comes there?"
+
+"I, Psyche, your little sister, come back, O Astra, as a penitent...!"
+
+"As a penitent?"
+
+"Yes, I fled, committed sin, and now I will do penance...."
+
+Astra mused.
+
+"It is true," she murmured. "I remember, little Psyche. Come
+nearer. Take my hand, I cannot see you."
+
+"The night is dark, Astra: there are few stars in the sky, and the
+torches are not yet lit...."
+
+"No? Is it dark about me? That does not matter, Psyche, for I cannot
+see, I am blind...."
+
+Psyche gave a cry.
+
+"Astra! Poor sister, are you blind? Oh! you who could see so well! are
+you blind?"
+
+"Yes, I have gazed myself blind!! I have turned my telescope from
+left to right, to all the points of the universe. I thought to become
+the centre, the kernel of science, the focus of brilliant knowledge;
+now I am blind, now I see nothing more, now I know nothing more. The
+colossal numbers have become confused in my brain since the living
+Star on my head faded. Do you still see its faint splendour between
+my grey hair? Ah! now I have your hand.
+
+"What is that, child? What round things are falling over my fingers?"
+
+"My tears, Astra, poor Astra!"
+
+"How hard they are and cold! What hard, cold tears, Psyche!... Sit
+down here at my feet. Is the night dark? Are the torches not yet
+lit? Well, let it be dark, for I see nothing; but I feel you, I feel
+your hair; now I stroke your head, round and small. I feel along
+your shoulders, Psyche, little child with wings.... But your wings
+I do not feel.... Have you none now? Have they been cut off? My star
+has faded, and your wings are cut; Emeralda triumphs alone! Her gift
+from the fairy has brought her prosperity. Her heart of ruby feels
+no pain; she is clad in the majesty of precious jewels. She is hard
+and beautiful, hard as a stone, beautiful as a jewel.... Psyche,
+creep close to me.... We can do nothing against her, child. My star
+is faded, your wings clipt; we have lost our noble rights.... I am
+old, but you--are you still young? You feel so young, indestructibly
+young.... You have suffered so, asked and wandered.... not appreciated
+your happiness, and murdered Eros! Poor child, you a murderess...! You
+weep rubies ... you will do penance. You are strong, Psyche, and
+always young.... You will do penance after all your sins! Emeralda
+has laid penance on you.... To seek the Philosopher's Stone in the
+caverns of flaming hell!! O Psyche, the Stone does not exist. The
+unutterable name is a legend. The Jewel exists only in the pride of
+man. The universe is limited, the Godhead is not limited; no rays from
+precious stones can reach the Godhead and rule over God. No looking
+through lenses of diamond can penetrate the Godhead. It is all pride
+and vanity. Psyche, there is nothing but resignation. Emeralda is
+powerful, but more powerful she cannot become....
+
+"In vain will you seek."
+
+"Yet I will seek, Astra, although it be in vain.... And do you also,
+sister, lay penance on me.... Let me do penance for Astra, as I do
+for Emeralda."
+
+"No, child, I know no penance. There is nothing but resignation. There
+is nothing but to wait. Everything else is vanity and pride. But do
+penance, little Psyche. Penance is illusion, yet illusion is pleasant:
+illusion ennobles. Believe, poor child, in your penance, believe in
+your illusion. I have never known it. I have always calculated. The
+colossal numbers roll through my dull and hazy brain in endless
+series of figures. However you count, you never come to the sum of
+the endless.... The stars cannot be counted. The farthest sun is
+incomputable, the divine is limitless. Even the nearest frontier
+of the Future is beyond computation. There is a sea of unfathomable
+light.... O Psyche, I am tired, I am blind, and I shall soon die. In
+this place, here I will stay. Psyche, look through the telescope. Is
+the night too dark? Do you see anything?"
+
+"The stars give a dim light."
+
+"Look through the telescope. What do you see? Tell me, what do
+you see?"
+
+"In the glass, right at the top, I see a dark spot, which emits a
+few rays. Is that a black star?"
+
+"No, Psyche, that is a spider. Emeralda has sent a spider. The spider
+has crawled to the top, along the smooth diamond; there the spider
+weaves his web. And the diamond ... is crumbling to pieces....["]
+
+"Astra...!!"
+
+"Psyche, creep closer to me.... Let me feel your little round head,
+your wingless shoulders...."
+
+"Astra, everything is black; clouds are drifting past the stars!"
+
+"Sleep thus in my mantle, sleep thus at my feet. Sleep, my little
+child, and cover yourself for the night.... Psyche, your old nurse
+is dead. Psyche, now I am your nurse.... Sleep now by blind Astra...."
+
+Feeling for Psyche, she threw her mantle round her. The night was
+dark. Astra's powerless hand dropped over Psyche. Psyche fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+It was still dark when Psyche awoke. She looked up at Astra, who sat
+sleeping, her grey head on her breast; faintly shone her star. Very
+gently, so as not to wake her, Psyche rose, and left the terrace. She
+knew the way. She went through the halls and passages, down the steps,
+the endless steps. In the corners sat the sacred spiders, and wove....
+
+Psyche went lower down, to the vaults. There burnt the everlasting
+lamps. She went among the royal tombs, crystal sarcophagi, and found
+her father's coffin. By the lamp, which was always kept burning,
+she recognised his embalmed, rigid face. The eyes were closed. He
+knew nothing about her: that she had gone away and come back. Death
+was between them, and severed them forever.
+
+She kissed the glass, and her tears, round, hard, and red, clattered
+on the crystal.
+
+She knelt down and tried to pray. In a corner of the vault a black
+spot moved. It was a big spider with a white cross on its body.
+
+"So, you have come back again.... I knew that you would come. We can
+escape from nothing. Everything happens as it happens. Everything
+is as it is. Everything goes to dust; into the pits of the Past,
+into the power of Emeralda.... Now become a spider like us, weave
+your web, and be wise...."
+
+Psyche got up.
+
+"No...!" she exclaimed, "I will not become a spider, I will weave no
+web. I have sinned, but I will weave no web; I have sinned and will
+do penance. The world is awful--desert and wood and space; life is
+awful--love and pain, joy and despair, sin and punishment. And if fate
+is as it is, it is in vain to weave a web and to heap up treasures of
+dust. Spider, were it not more human to love, to live, and even to sin,
+than to weave web upon web? Spider, I envy you not your sacredness...!"
+
+The spider puffed itself out maliciously.
+
+"You seem to be still proud of your murder and your immorality and
+shamelessness! Your princely name you have dragged through the mire,
+your wings you have given up for a panther's skin and a grape-wreath,
+and know not yet what repentance is. If you had been wise and become
+a spider, you would have served Emeralda, and there would have been
+no need to go down to the Under-world!"
+
+But Psyche was no longer afraid. She had come to kiss her father's
+coffin; she left her jewelled tears in the treasure, which the spiders
+watched over, and ascended the hundreds of steps and came on to the
+terrace of the battlements.
+
+There as a child she had wandered and gazed, a child with wings,
+and innocent, her soul full of dreams. Now she wandered again along
+the ramparts and battlements high as a man; the doves fluttered about
+her, the swans looked up at her ... and full of dejection for former
+innocence and youth, she wept and wept: no longer a brook, but topazes,
+rubies, tears of sin, that, rattling down, frightened the doves and
+the swans, which, indignant, thought that she was pelting them with
+stones. The doves flew away, and the swans, offended, turned their
+backs on her. Then she sat down in an embrasure--no wings now lay
+against the stone-work--and she folded her arms round her knees. She
+looked towards the horizon; behind it loomed other horizons, first
+pink, then silver; blue, then gold; behind the grey, pale and misty,
+and then fading away. Then beyond, the horizon became milk-white, like
+an opal, and in the reflection of the last rays of the setting sun,
+it seemed as if lakes were mirrored there; islands rose in the air,
+aerial paradises, watery streaks of blue sea, oceans of ether and
+light-quivering nothingness.
+
+And Psyche bowed her head, full of sadness, and sobbed.
+
+The world was not changed, but more beautiful than ever; gloriously
+beautiful loomed the ever-changing horizon. Yet Psyche sobbed, full
+of sadness. She knew that the horizons were pure delusions, and that
+behind them was the desert with the Sphinx. Oh! if she could once more
+believe in the aerial paradises, the purple seas, the golden regions
+with people of light, who lived under rosy bananas! Alas! had she not
+trod a paradise, the sweet Present, the adorable garden of a moment,
+so little and so short in duration? It was past, it was past! Oh,
+how her soul scorched, how her shoulders pained, how her eyes burned!
+
+She wept and she sobbed, and hid her face in her hands. She did not
+notice that the wind was rising, that the horizon quivered, that
+clouds were speeding through the air, white colossi like towers and
+dragons, riders and horses. She did not see the changes in the sky;
+she did not see the going up and down of wings, of flaming wings in
+the silver lightning, that flashed from the sky; she did not hear
+the warning thunder, nor did she see the clouds emitting sparks. But
+suddenly she distinctly heard a voice:
+
+"Psyche! Psyche!"
+
+She looked up. Before her, she saw descending on broad wings a steed
+of pure light and flame. And she uttered a cry, that sounded in the
+air like an endless shout of gladness:
+
+"Chimera!"
+
+It was he. He descended. The basalt terrace trembled, as though shaken
+by an earthquake; under his hoofs the stone shot sparks, and he stood
+before her resplendent and beautiful.
+
+"Chimera!" she cried, and folded her hands and sank down before him
+on her knees.
+
+She could say nothing else. She was dazzled, and it seemed as though
+her soul ascended heavenward in the pure delight of love.
+
+"Psyche!" sounded his voice of bronze, "I have come down, for I love
+you. But I may not bear you any more on my back through the delusive
+regions of air, because you have committed sin. Psyche, it is your
+bounden duty to obey Emeralda's command. Go down to Hell and seek
+the Jewel."
+
+"Chimera, adored one, delight of my soul, oh, your splendour fills
+my eyes! Your word gives strength to my weakness! I feel it! You
+may not bear me away; I am unworthy of your wings. But I adore and
+bless you for coming! Chimera, Chimera, your splendour has beamed
+once more upon me! your voice has inspired me, and I will do what you
+say.... You let the light of hope break in upon me; new strength flows
+through my limbs. Chimera, I hope, I hope! I will go down into Hell;
+I will seek.... Shall I find? I know not.... But I hope! The horizon
+is quivering with hope and ether and the Future!
+
+"Psyche!" sounded his voice again like bronze, "be strong! Take
+heart! Descend! Do penance! Seek...! Once more you will see me...."
+
+"Once more!"
+
+"Be strong, take heart, do penance!"
+
+He ascended, whilst Psyche remained kneeling. When he was high
+in the air, there came a peal of thunder, as if the heavens would
+burst asunder. The sky was dark, but lit up by the lightning. In the
+black sky, in the lightning flame, rose fearfully the three hundred
+towers. And the thunder-claps rumbled on, one after the other, as if
+the Past were perishing in the last day....
+
+With a joyful cry, Psyche hastened along the terraces, the battlements,
+ramparts, entered the castle, and went down the steps. Lower and lower
+she descended, lower than the vaults; and as she passed them, she
+threw a kiss in the direction where the old king lay buried.... She
+descended still lower, and yet she heard the thunder pealing above,
+and the castle seemed to tremble to its very foundations.
+
+She descended still lower: she descended very deep pits, built like
+towers reversed to the central nave of the earth. She descended step
+after step, thousands of steps, groping in the darkness. She walked
+with unerring foot, that felt for the next step, that detected the
+slippery stone; she felt and never hesitated. Another step and then
+another; again a pit, pit after pit, all the pits of the Past. Bats
+flew up and flapped their wings, spiders she felt crawling over her,
+an icy dampness fell like a chill wind upon her shoulders.
+
+Deeper down she went, and deeper. It was pitch dark, and above she
+heard nothing more; she heard only the flapping of the gigantic bats,
+the droning of the envious spiders. But she defended herself with
+her little hand; as she descended, she beat about her, beat the bats
+away, seized a vampire, held it tightly by the neck, and strangled
+it. Her foot glided over toads, she slipped over snakes, but she got
+up again and beat the bats and fought with the vampires. The Chimera
+had so inspired her with strength, that she felt strong as a giant,
+young and courageous; he had filled her eyes with such light that
+she saw him in the darkness.
+
+In the pitchy darkness his flaming wings were distinctly visible. And
+on she went descending; thick clouds of dust, the deepest shadows of
+Emeralda's transitoriness, rose up, but she kept breathing, never
+hesitating, and her foot felt instinctively the next step, and she
+struck at the bats and fought with the vampires. When she throttled
+them, a human cry was heard, and the echo sounded a thousand times
+like the anxious cry of a murder. But she was not afraid. She kept
+on descending....
+
+She kept descending. At last she felt no more steps but voidness
+under her feet, and she sank ... like a feather, through heavier air;
+she sank, she sank deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.... A black
+draught of air, an invisible wind, damp and chill, made her feel
+that she had passed all the pits, that she was sinking outside them
+in the open air, invisible and black, thick as ink. Then she began
+to sink more slowly, and ... her feet touched ground.
+
+Sounds soft and low, like the plaintive strains of a viol, rose up
+from afar, like music of the sea, the plaint of a thousand voices
+which never became melody.
+
+The far-off sound continued quivering as an accompaniment of wind, of a
+black wind which blew, and overpowered the music of the sea. Sometimes
+it went a little higher, sometimes a little lower, and always remained
+the vague and distant incomprehensible harmony.
+
+From where the wind came, from where the plaintive murmuring arose,
+thither would Psyche go. And with her foot she kept feeling, and with
+her outstretched hands, and on she went....
+
+Long, long she went in the darkness, till the darkness became less
+opaque and lit up with phosphoric flickerings; and she saw:
+
+That she was ascending a path between two inky seas.
+
+Black as ink were the waves.
+
+Then she heard them roaring; then she saw their crests lit up with
+a blue phosphorescent glow.
+
+Then she heard the soft, low sounds, the plaintive viols swell,
+till they became a dull, continuous soughing.
+
+The black wind rose as with a gigantic sail, and suddenly blew the
+hurricane.
+
+In the pitch-dark air, the lightning flashed blue.
+
+And between the two inky seas, Psyche went slowly on, against the
+gusts of wind.
+
+Then she uttered a cry, as though she were calling....
+
+The hurricane took her cry for help over the endless sea of
+Hell.... And from all sides dived up the gruesome frights--leviathan
+monsters. They opened their jaws at Psyche, and the water streamed
+out. Their scaly tortuous bodies wound along over the black surface
+of the ocean, and on the horizon, lit up with phosphorous blue, their
+tails meandered. They came from the horizon, they dived up and down,
+and the ocean dived with them. Storm-flood, waterfall--storm-flood,
+waterfall.... They spread out their dragon wings, and caught up the
+boisterous wind; they shot up waterspouts like towering fountains,
+of a blue and yellowish hue. Their round squinting eyes stood out
+watchful, like green and yellow signals; they lifted their red-lobed
+jaws, abysses of red-slimy desires, bubbling with foamy slaver.
+
+"Monsters of the sea of pain, where shall I find the Jewel for
+Emeralda?"
+
+Psyche asked the question in a high, musical key, and her voice rang
+out clearly in the hurricane and plaintive moanings of the sea. Her
+high soprano sounded above all the roaring of the elements and
+plaintive cries; and three times she repeated the question:
+
+"Monsters of the sea of pain, where shall I find the Jewel for
+Emeralda?"
+
+The leviathans pressed together along the path that Psyche trod. But
+amidst the noise of their tossing and snorting and spouting, she
+heard the plaintive sea swelling, the sea of plaintive voices; and
+then in the blue phosphorescent glow between the monsters, she saw
+the drowned shades heaving to and fro, always writhing in fear, always
+drowning in the inky sea; the everlasting wailing of the plaintive sea,
+the cry of souls in pain; the gigantic plaintive viol, with strings
+ever playing....
+
+"Vanity, vanity!"
+
+Did she hear aright?
+
+It was one single sound, like a note repeated again and again. "Vanity,
+vanity!" was the inexorable answer, first vague as a dream, mystic as
+a thought, sounding more distinctly as an admonition against worldly
+pride. And so distinct did the sound become, that Psyche, brave Psyche,
+who feared neither vampire nor monster of the deep ... that courageous
+Psyche hesitated and felt all her strength giving way....
+
+"If it were vanity to seek, to ask for the Jewel, how much farther
+should she go?"
+
+"Should she go back?"
+
+She looked round.
+
+But she saw what made her soul sink within her.
+
+She saw that behind her step, the seas immediately closed till they
+became one single sea of ink; she saw that the only path for her
+stretched across the seas, that behind her it immediately sank away.
+
+She could not go back, she must go on.
+
+And she buoyed up her sinking soul; she went on, and in a high soprano
+voice repeated again and again her question:
+
+"Spirits in the sea of pain, where shall I find the Jewel for
+Emeralda?"
+
+"Vanity, vanity!"
+
+The plaintive viol kept trembling, and the same sound sounded ever,
+the unchangeable answer. The hurricane was no longer chill, but warm,
+sultry, strangely sultry; more and more sultry blew the everlasting
+cyclone.
+
+The sea-monsters kept back; they dived again below; the sea
+sank with them, the shades swayed to and fro in storm-flood,
+waterfall--storm-flood, waterfall, and many-headed hydras came
+sinuously up. The sea no longer shone with phosphorescent glow, but
+was quite black, pitch black, black as boiling pitch, without foam
+and without light, and kept sending up a discharge of miry, vaporous
+matter. In the boiling pitch, the hydras, with their thousand snaky
+heads, kept diving up, tortoise-scaled; swayed to and fro, to and fro
+the pale faces of the shades, but ever sounded the plaintive viol,
+and ever rang forth the same note, the unchangeable answer to Psyche's
+shrill question:
+
+"Hydras of the sea of pain, spirits in the sea of pain, where shall
+I find the Jewel for Emeralda...??"
+
+"Vanity, vanity...!"
+
+The pitch seethed and hissed and steamed.
+
+It was no longer a sea of water, no longer a sea of pitch;
+
+It was a sea of nothing but flame, pitch-black flame, a sea of
+jet-black fire, fire and flame, that waved from the horizon, where a
+single streak of pale light appeared. In the black flames burned the
+shades, in the black flames wound the hydras in and out; the thick
+smoke shot up into the clouds, and the clouds sent it back again....
+
+"Spirits in the pitch-black flames, where shall I find the Jewel
+for Emeralda...???"
+
+"Vanity, vanity...!"
+
+The hurricane kept blowing, the plaintive viol kept trembling, and
+ever sounded the same note, the unchangeable answer. But scorchingly,
+more scorchingly blew the wind, like a tempest from a sun for ever
+doomed. The black night now assumed a dark-purple aspect, like purple
+steam; the clouds drove a bloody vapour into the heavens.
+
+And on either side of Psyche's path suddenly shot out the flaming
+hurricane of the sun, gigantic purple tongues of fire, scarlet and
+orange. The lower clouds drove them back, and when Psyche looked round,
+she stood in a flaming fire. The flaming hurricane seethed round her;
+behind her feet the path was on fire. The air was fire. But Psyche,
+whose own soul was on fire, in her own scorching fire of remorse,
+felt not the glowing heat, and she saw,
+
+Out of the living scarlet craters, the orange caves, the hellish
+chimeras working up their sinuous way like glowing spirals: half
+arabesque, half beast; half dragon, half tail; flaming sea-horses. They
+spat and fanned the glowing fire, and, riding aloft on the burning
+hurricane, the shades swept past Psyche.
+
+"Spirits in the scarlet flames...."
+
+"Vanity, vanity!"
+
+This was the only answer, that sounded afar off in her ears, the
+answer of the tortured, angry spirits, which in the strength of their
+sin and passion came flying up from the craters.
+
+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...."
+
+She uttered her jubilant cry, and hastened on with uplifted arms
+through the azure moon-flames. The firmament spread out in higher
+circles and formed wider spheres;
+
+The flames became clearer and clearer; more benignly blew the breeze;
+
+And pale, the spirits flitted to and fro: pale shades with melancholy
+eyes, singing their song of painful remembrances....
+
+And the spirits looked at Psyche--the spirits smiled benignly on her,
+astonished that she was still alive.
+
+They pointed for her to go on farther and farther; they nodded to her,
+"On! on!"
+
+And she gave a loud cry of joy and hastened on....
+
+She sped through the flames and shades;
+
+Till the flames were still, and high and white;
+
+High, still, white flames, like sacrificial flames, like altar flames,
+high in the sky, the lofty sky, the wide sky; the wide expanse full
+of white flame, still, white, ascending, purifying flames, refined
+and clear, over the whole wide expanse, the wide refining expanse....
+
+Once more she asked the pale shades, who swarmed about between the
+flames, hand in hand, who swayed continually to and fro between
+the flames:
+
+"Spirits in the white flames, pure white, in the white flames, where
+shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?"
+
+"Vanity, vanity!" sang the shades softly and quietly, and in the
+answer, calm and assuring, of the expectant penitents, vibrated the
+great viol with a sound like a soft jubilant trill.
+
+Psyche asked no more. She slackened her speed and began to walk,
+her arms raised, her head erect, through the silvery flames. Oh, the
+dear, tender flames, the adorable purifying flames! how they cooled,
+in their snow-white glow, the burning remorse of her soul!
+
+How freely Psyche breathed, in the innocently white glowing fire! Like
+lilies were the tongues of flame, fragrant and soothing as balsam,
+cool and fresh as snow ... cold as water, as foam. The white flames
+foamed and rippled like a sea, lower and smoother, quieter and more
+serene; they rippled like a sea of lilies, like a sea of silver
+snow.... They became moisture and water and foaming ocean, the tender
+element of gentle compulsion, carrying along as an irresistible dream,
+white as paradise, and, as slightly rippling waves of foam, they bore
+Psyche away.
+
+On the foaming waves Psyche drifted along, all white in the golden
+boat of her fair hair. So gently did they rock her, the foaming,
+rippling waves, that Psyche shut her eyes. Sleep was stealing over
+her. Her lips smiled with inward peace.
+
+The waves bore her away, the sea washed her ashore. She awoke from
+her slumber, pearl-white she rose from the foam, amidst the joyful
+dolphins.
+
+She stepped out of the sea on to the land. She felt quite cool, and
+her soul was calm and peaceful, full of reassuring, holy knowledge. But
+within her was a great desire.
+
+Smiling, she stretched out her arms. She yearned for the desire of
+her heart....
+
+"Not yet ... not yet," was whispered tenderly to her cool and peaceful
+soul. "Wait, wait...." sounded the echo.
+
+In the silent joy of her soul, she wept. She lifted her hand to her
+eyes; wet were her tears, and in her hand ... lay a pearl...!
+
+Then she looked round. She recognised the sea-shore with its many bays,
+the shore of the Kingdom of the Past. There, on the opal-blue horizon,
+loomed a town of minarets and pinnacles, of cupolas and obelisks,
+surrounded with golden walls.
+
+That was the capital of the kingdom. Thither she would repair.
+
+There, proud and peaceful, still and cool, she would say to Emeralda,
+her powerful sister,
+
+That her Jewel was vanity. That the gem did not exist.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+When Psyche approached the capital, she heard at the gates the excited
+cries of festive merry-makers. Outside the gates flocked the noisy
+crowd, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and bedecked with
+flowers, singing and dancing, but not knowing why. Everywhere was
+bustle and commotion; on the roadside sat hundreds of hucksters,
+and women extolling their wares--glasses with jewels and fruit,
+cooling drinks, dresses and flowers. In a shrill key they praised
+their wares; they spread out their stuffs with much ado, and offered
+the people flowers, and poured them out wine, and held up strings of
+glass pearls and cheap necklaces of coins.
+
+Psyche was naked, and she veiled herself in her hair; she spread over
+the marks on her shoulders her golden mantle of hair, and as many of
+the dancing girls, some half naked and others quite, danced round,
+hand in hand, people thought that she was naked, only because she was
+so fair--Psyche, so pearl-white in her golden hair. She was not wont
+to be ashamed of nakedness, which was once her right, her privilege
+as a princess; but now under the eyes of the people she blushed, and
+walked with downcast eyes. Then she turned to a saleswoman and asked:
+
+"What is the feast for?"
+
+"Where do you come from? 'What is the feast for!' Don't you know
+anything about it?"
+
+"I come from the other side of the sea...."
+
+"'What is the feast for!' It is the great festival: it is the Festival,
+the Jubilee-festival, of Emeralda. It is the Triumphal Procession of
+the Queen!!"
+
+.... "It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!" resounded on all
+sides. They danced and sang:
+
+.... "It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!"
+
+They were drunk with joy, dizzy from strange joy; but Psyche suddenly
+saw that they were deadly pale and frightened, deadly pale under
+paint and flowers, and frightened whilst they danced round in a ring.
+
+"I have no dress for the occasion; give me that veil of golden
+gauze!" said Psyche to the saleswoman.
+
+"That is very dear!"
+
+"I will pay you for it with this pearl."
+
+.... "With that pearl! Are you a princess, then!"
+
+Psyche then took the veil, and she bound it round her loins, just as
+she used to do before.
+
+"I will give you a wreath of fresh roses as well!" said the woman,
+pleased, and put the flowers on her head.
+
+She smiled, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was decked out
+with those flowers as a victim for the altar; that all the people
+who were making merry and dancing were bedecked as victims. She went
+on. Through the round gold gate she entered the city; the squares
+were seen in the distance, connected with very broad streets; square
+palaces of marble and bronze, of jasper and malachite, round cupolas
+and finely pointed minarets, glistered in the sun as if conjured up by
+magic. They stretched far away, and right behind the blue mountains
+rose the royal castle, a Babel of pinnacles and towers innumerable,
+almost indiscernible in the distance, with square ramparts and walls,
+and lofty summits lost in the rising mist. And along the squares, over
+palaces, and on the minarets, hung the thick festoons of flowers,
+as though the towns were decked out for an offering. Close up to
+the castle, Babel of pinnacles, the festoons of flowers seemed to
+reach. And in the squares the dancers threw flowers into the air,
+and it seemed as if white roses were raining down from heaven. To the
+sound of tabour and cymbals, the people danced madly round, and ever
+was heard the same cry:
+
+"It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!"
+
+Then Psyche, in the secret depths of her heart, saw clearly and
+indubitably what it all meant. As she went along with the dense crowds
+of noisy, shouting merry-makers, she saw all the people in the town
+trembling with fear, which made the blood congeal in their veins.
+
+Their eyes, through fear, were ready to start out of their sockets;
+their teeth chattered; their limbs, bedecked with flowers, trembled;
+the sun was shining, but everyone was shivering with cold.
+
+But no one spoke of his trembling, and they danced, madly drunk with
+foolish joy, and they kept shouting the same thing:
+
+"It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!!!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+A great commotion was going on in the direction of the castle. In
+that direction all eyes were turned, and the dancing girls forgot to
+dance. From fear, the crowd stood still, as if petrified, and forgot
+to conceal the anxiety of their minds. The palaces seemed to tremble;
+the air-atoms quivered audibly. Something dreadful was about to happen.
+
+The royal castle shone with a strange lustre; a sun seemed to send
+forth a halo; an ominous aureola appeared in the distance. The fearful
+rays of the Sun of Consternation outshone the day, outshone the sun:
+from their centre, they penetrated through houses and people.
+
+And everything shone, softened by the glow of piercing sunbeams. The
+rays quivered everywhere in the air, and the aureola filled the world.
+
+The cause of consternation came rattling on with the rapidity of
+an arrow.
+
+All hearts stood still, all breath was taken away, all dancing was
+stopped, all rejoicing ceased.
+
+From the castle, over the triumphal way, a triumphal chariot rattled
+along with the speed of an arrow. On the top, a living jewel, stood
+Emeralda, and guided the four and twenty steeds. It was her splendour
+and her aureola which appeared in the air. It was her rays which
+caused the houses to shine with splendour and pierced the people with
+flashes. She stood immovable, clad in the strength of precious stones,
+in a tunic of sapphire, in a robe of brilliants, with deep flounces
+of gems and white cameos; her mantle was like a bell, with folds of
+purple carbuncle, lined with enamelled ermine. From her crown of
+beryl, from her heart of ruby, the rays shot forth, shone out her
+fear-inspiring aureola and streamed over the town and in the air,
+eclipsing the sun, which turned pale. Her eyes of emerald, stars
+in her opal face, chalcedonic, looked inexorable, and her bosom of
+precious stones heaved not. Only her heart of ruby beat regularly,
+and then her lustre grew alternately dim and bright....
+
+She stood immovable and guided her horses, her four and twenty foaming
+stallions, rearing greys, which drew her triumphal car, like a broad
+enamelled shell on innumerable wheels, on cutting wheels so numerous,
+that they seemed to run into one another--a turning confusion of
+spokes.
+
+The dazzling, fear-inspiring chariot rattled on with the rapidity of
+an arrow. And suddenly, awaking from their stupefaction, the people
+madly danced again and shouted the same jubilant cry. The tabours
+sounded, the white roses rained down, and before the queen the people
+prostrated themselves and paved her path with their bodies. The grey
+stallions foamed and reared; they came on, they came on, they trampled
+over the first bodies--men and women, girls and children, dressed for a
+festival and bedecked with flowers.... Over her people rode Emeralda;
+the innumerable wheels rattled, a confusion of spokes, revolving,
+cutting furrows in flesh and blood, reducing blood and human flesh
+to a muddy mass. But farther up they danced, farther up they sang,
+before casting themselves down for her Triumph....
+
+Then Emeralda, looking over her triumphal way, saw, with the keen
+glance of her black carbuncle pupil, a little form, naked and fair,
+who lifted up her small, child's hand.
+
+And fiercer and fiercer gleamed her heart of ruby, for she had
+recognised the form.
+
+And the desire flamed up in her: the thirst for more power and to
+become like a god.
+
+Emeralda recognised Psyche. And she reined in her twelve pair
+of horses, she drove them more slowly, and under the less quickly
+revolving wheels she heard the jubilant cry of the dying people. The
+blood dropped from the wheels, but the roses rained down and covered
+the horrible sight. On the bloody, muddy mass, the roses rained down,
+white, from the balconies of the palaces.
+
+Emeralda stopped.
+
+Under her, death was silent.
+
+Around, the town was silent. She alone reigned and shot out her
+terrible fan of rays, which scorched the houses and pierced the air.
+
+And before her, at a little distance, stood Psyche, proud, pearl-white,
+crowned with roses, in a veil of gold.
+
+And the silent crowd recognised in her the third princess of the
+kingdom.
+
+"Psyche!" said Emeralda, and her voice sounded loud through the town
+from the focus of her rays, "have you come to bring me the unutterable
+Jewel, the Gem of Power, the Bestower of Universal Power, the sacred
+Stone of Mysticism? Have you found the Mystery of the Godhead, and,
+
+"--Do you rule with me the Universe and God?"
+
+The town shuddered and quivered. The people were stupefied.
+
+The air-atoms trembled audibly.
+
+Then Psyche's voice sounded clearly, silver-clearly, from the
+consciousness of the wisdom and sacred knowledge which she possessed.
+
+"Emeralda, for you I have gone through Hell along the black seas,
+oceans of pitch, along the horrible sloughs of flaming hurricanes,
+along the craters and caverns scarlet and yellow, along the azure fires
+and through the white and lilac glow. Give heed to what I say. Hell
+answered 'Vanity!' when I asked for the Jewel; the leviathans roared
+'Vanity!'; the chimeras hissed 'Vanity!'; the spirits cried 'Vanity!';
+and the whole plaintive viol trilled:
+
+"'Vanity!'
+
+"Do you understand me, Emeralda? Your wish was Vanity, for the mystic
+Jewel that bestows godlike power is Vanity, and.... Does not Exist."
+
+Then it was terrible. The queen, a living idol, burned with rage,
+blazed with rage; her heart was inflamed with rage.
+
+Around her, decked out for sacrifice, in festive garb, in the
+sunshine and her own dazzling splendour, her people trembled with
+fear. And cruelty gleamed in her fixed face; her emerald eyes started
+so revengefully from their sockets as though blinded by their own
+splendour, and she pulled at the numerous reins....
+
+The horses reared, the white roses fell down, the people screamed
+with joy and the fear of death, and the triumphal chariot rattled on.
+
+Swift as an arrow it thundered on over the people, who paved the way
+in ecstacy, and Psyche saw the maddened horses approaching, snorting,
+foaming, panting, trampling, pulling, their eyes round and mad....
+
+For a moment she stood firm, proud, tall, pearl-white in the sacred
+knowledge she possessed; then the angry hoofs struck her down, and the
+horses trampled her as a flower. Emeralda's chariot rattled over her,
+with its many cutting wheels, and whilst she died like a crushed lily,
+trampled in her own lily-whiteness, she thought of her old father,
+and how she had crept to his breast and hidden her face in his beard,
+before she went to sleep at night....
+
+She died.... But while she lay trampled to death in the mud of human
+flesh and blood, and the sacrificial roses kept falling down over
+her corpse unrecognisable----
+
+She returned to life, hovering through the air, and felt so light
+and unencumbered, and was whiter than ever and naked.
+
+And on her tender shoulders she felt two new wings quivering...!
+
+She hovered over her own body into a drifting cloud, a mist of
+fragrance, which farther on she lost sight of; and light, white,
+and rarefied, she looked wonderingly at her trampled body and
+laughed. Strange, clear, and childlike sounded her laugh in the cloud
+and vapoury fragrance....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+The triumphal chariot rattled on madly. Emeralda stretched out her
+sceptre, on the top of which glowed a star of destroying rays. When
+she stretched out the sceptre and directed the rays, she scorched
+monuments, palaces, and parks to a white ash, and, for her cruel
+jubilant procession, she cut down everything that came in her way. The
+thick white ashes flew up like dust; the jubilant multitude were
+scorched; the palaces of jaspar and malachite shrivelled up like
+burnt paper; the breath of the horses blew away, like ash, the white
+burnt gardens. And right over everything went Emeralda, scorching
+as she went. Powerful, foolish, arrogant, and proud she was, and
+more unfeeling than ever, spiteful and cruel, hurt in her pride;
+and she scorched, and made the way smooth before her. Behind her
+lay all the town, and she drove through her kingdom, filling the air
+with her rays. She drove through valleys and burnt up the harvest;
+she reduced villages to dust; she dried up rivers; and before her,
+the mountains split asunder.
+
+Her sceptre made a way for her, and no law of nature resisted her
+power. The air was grey with the clouds of ash, which rained down
+upon the earth.
+
+She went along as swiftly as an arrow, swiftly as lightning, swiftly
+as light, swiftly as thought. She went so swiftly, that in a single
+hour she had gone all round her wide kingdom intoxicated with the
+pride of annihilation, and she drove her maddened horses through
+endless plains of sand.
+
+Desert after desert she consumed; the lions fled before her; she
+overtook them in a moment; clouds of sand she sent up into the air....
+
+But then she relaxed her speed. She stopped.
+
+Before her, grey and high through the clouds of sand and falling ash,
+there loomed a most dreadful shadow.
+
+The shadow was like a gigantic beast, squatting in the sand,
+with a woman's head in a stiff basalt veil. The woman's head had
+a woman's breast, two basalt breasts of a gigantic woman. But the
+body that squatted in the sand was a lion, and the paws stuck out
+like walls. And so great was the shadow, so monstrous the beast,
+that even the triumphal chariot of Emeralda appeared small.
+
+"Sphinx!" said Emeralda, "I will know. I am powerful, but there is
+power above me. There are spheres above mine, and there are gods
+above my divinity. There are laws of nature which my sceptre cannot
+alter. Sphinx, tell me the riddle. Reveal to me the place where the
+Jewel lies hidden, which gives almighty power over the world and God,
+so that I may find it and become the mightiest of all gods. Sphinx,
+answer me, I say! Open your stony lips and let your voice once
+more be heard, that shall make the world tremble with wonder. For
+centuries you have not spoken. Sphinx, speak now! For if you do not
+speak, Sphinx, and reveal to me where the Jewel lies hidden, then,
+great and terrible as you are, I will scorch you to a white ash and
+go over you in triumph. Sphinx, speak!"
+
+The Sphinx was silent. The Sphinx looked with stony eyes at the clouds
+of sand and raining ash. Her basalt lips remained shut.
+
+"Sphinx, speak!!" said Emeralda, threateningly and red with rage.
+
+The Sphinx spoke not and looked.
+
+Emeralda stretched out her sceptre and directed the destroying rays.
+
+The rays split on the basalt with crackling sparks like flashes of
+forked lightning. Emeralda uttered a cry, hoarse and terrible. She
+threw away her broken sceptre. But of her greater power she did not
+doubt, and for the last time she threatened.
+
+"Terrible Sphinx, tremble! I am more terrible than you!! Speak,
+Sphinx!!"
+
+The Sphinx was silent.
+
+Then Emeralda tugged at the reins.
+
+The maddened horses reared, snorting, foaming, panting, trampling,
+pulling, and dashed against the Sphinx.
+
+But the foremost horses were dashed to pieces against the god-like
+basalt.
+
+Then Emeralda uttered cry after cry, one hoarse cry after another,
+which resounded through the desert. She tugged at the reins; the
+horses, despairing of their attack against the immovable, drove
+at the Sphinx, and fell back crushed, falling over one another and
+trampling one another to death; the triumphal chariot split, and the
+splinters of sparkling jewels flew up like cracking fireworks, and
+Emeralda fell between the still revolving wheels. And her heart of
+ruby broke. All her dazzling splendour suddenly faded. The terrifying
+fan-like aureola suddenly grew dim, and the desert was grey and gloomy,
+with a gentle rain of thick white ash falling down.
+
+The Sphinx was silent, and looked on....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+Psyche was alive again, soaring through the air, and felt so light
+and ethereal; pearl-whiter she was than ever, and naked.
+
+And on her tender shoulders she felt two new wings fluttering...!
+
+She hovered away over her own dead body into a drifting cloud,
+a fragrant mist, which farther on she lost sight of; and light,
+white, and ethereal, she looked with wonder at her trampled corpse
+and laughed....
+
+Strange, clear, and childlike sounded her laugh in the cloud and
+vapoury fragrance....
+
+"Psyche!"
+
+She heard her name, but so dazzled and astonished was she, that
+she did not see. Then the wind blew about her; the cloud moved,
+the fragrance ascended like incense, and she saw many like herself,
+restored to life, hovering in the fragrant cloud, and round her she
+distinguished the outlines of well-known faces.
+
+"Psyche!"
+
+She recognised the voice, deep bronze, but yet strange. And the wind
+blew about her and she saw a bright light before her, and recognised
+the Chimera!
+
+"You promised me: once more!" exclaimed Psyche joyfully.
+
+She threw herself on to his back, she clung to his mane, and he
+soared aloft.
+
+"Where am I?" said Psyche. "Who am I? What has happened? And what is
+going on around me? Am I dead, or do I live? Chimera, how rarefied
+is the air! how high you ascend! Are you going to ascend higher,
+higher still? Why is everything so dazzlingly bright about us? Is
+that water, or air, or light? What strange element is this? Who are
+going up with us--ethereal faces, ethereal forms? And what is the
+viol that is playing?
+
+"I heard that once before. Then it sounded plaintively; now it has
+a joyous sound!
+
+"Chimera, why is the air so full of joy here...? Look! below us is
+the Kingdom of the Past.
+
+"It lies in a little circle, and the castle is a black dot. Chimera,
+where are you going so high? We have never been so high
+before. Chimera, what are those circles all round us, the splendour
+of which makes me giddy? Are those spheres? Do they get wider and
+wider? Oh, how wide they get, Chimera, how wide! How high it is here,
+how wide, how rarefied and how light is the air! I feel myself also so
+light, so ethereal! Am I dead...? Chimera, look! I have two new wings,
+and I shine pearl-white all over. Do I not shine like a light? It
+is true I have been very sinful. But I was what I had to be! Is it
+good to be what we have to be? I do not know, Chimera: I have thought
+of neither good nor bad; I was only what I was. But tell me, who am
+I now, and what am I? And where are you taking me to, Chimera? You
+carry me so quietly, so safely; up and down go your wings, up and
+down. The stars are twinkling round us; around us whirl the spheres,
+and wider and wider they become...! How light, how ethereal! What is
+that I see on the horizon? Or is it not the horizon? Opal islands,
+aerial oceans.... O Chimera!!!! I see purple sands wrinkling far, far
+away, and round them foams a golden sea.... We saw that once before,
+but not as it is now! For then it was delusion, and now...! The
+sands are growing more distinct; I see the ripple of the golden
+sea.... Chimera! What land is that? Is that the rainbow? Is that the
+land of happiness, and are you the king?"
+
+"No, Psyche, I am not a king, and that Land...."
+
+"--And that Land...?"
+
+"Is ... the Kingdom of the Future!"
+
+"The Future! the Future!! O Chimera, where are you taking me to? Will
+the Future not prove to be a delusion...?"
+
+"No, here is the Future. Here is the Land. Look at it well
+... well...."
+
+"It is wider than the widest sphere, wider than anything I can think
+of. Where are the limits?"
+
+"Nowhere."
+
+"How far and how wide is the widest sphere?"
+
+"Immeasurably far, indescribably wide...."
+
+"And what stretches away round the widest sphere?"
+
+"The unutterable, and the All, All! The...."
+
+"The...?"
+
+"I know no names! On earth things are called by names; here not...."
+
+"Chimera...! On the purple strand I see a town of light, palaces of
+light, gates of light.... Do beings of light dwell there...? Are these
+the fore-spheres of the farthest sphere...? Is that the way through
+circles to ... the....? Chimera, I see forms, I see the people of
+light!! O Chimera! Chimera!! They are beckoning us, they are waving
+to us! I see two of them: a form of majesty, and another, near him,
+of love! O Chimera! I know them!! That is my father, and that ... O
+joy, O joy! ... that is Eros! Eros! Quicker, Chimera--annihilate
+the space which separates us; speed on, ply your wings faster--away,
+away! Oh, faster, Chimera! Can you not go faster? You fly too slowly
+for me! You fly too slowly!! I can fly faster than you."
+
+She spread out her tender, light, butterfly wings; she rose above
+the breathless, winged horse, and ... she flew...!
+
+She glided over the Chimera's head toward the strand, toward the city,
+toward the blessed spirits. There she saw her father, there she saw
+Eros--Eros, godlike and naked, with shining wings!
+
+Round her the viol of joy played its joyous notes, as if all the
+spheres rejoiced together. In the divine light, the faces of the
+cherubim began to blossom like winged roses....
+
+She glided swiftly through the air to her father and Eros, and embraced
+them. She laughed when she saw the flaming Chimera approaching,
+because she could fly faster than he!
+
+"Come!" cried Eros joyfully. And he wanted to take her to the gate,
+from whence sunbeams issued like a path of sunny gold: a path along
+which enraptured souls were going hand in hand....
+
+But the kingly shade stopped them for a moment, when they, Eros and
+Psyche, intoxicated with love, embraced each other....
+
+"Look!" said the shade. "Look down below...."
+
+
+
+They saw the Kingdom of the Past, with their glorified minds, lying
+visible, deep in the funnel of the spheres. They saw the castle, fallen
+to ruins, with a single tower still standing. They saw Astra, old,
+grey, and blind, sitting before her telescope, and gazing in vain. They
+saw her star flicker up for a moment with a bright and final light.
+
+Then they saw Astra's blind eyes ... see! Astra looked and beheld
+the land of light, and the little band of happy, loving, dear ones
+in their shining raiment. Then they heard Astra murmur: "There! there
+... the Land...! The ... Kingdom ... of ... the ... Future!!!"
+
+And they saw her star extinguish:
+
+She fell back dead....
+
+The viol of gladness trilled.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Psyche, by Louis Couperus
+
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