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
