Psyche

by Louis Couperus

  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!”

  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? 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 shadow of trees; sleep there with me.”

  “I cannot. My lot is to fly through the air, apparently without 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. 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 onto 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. Tomorrow 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 cry, 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 tomorrow 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. 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 for 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.

  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 she suddenly 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 eyes 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 into 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 suffer, and why I must suffer. And still much more, O Psyche, I ask the Sphinx, what 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.”

  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.