Psyche (Couperus)/Chapter 19

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.