As she stood gazing in rapt delight, a disembodied voice suddenly spoke: “Do these treasures astonish you, lady? They are all yours. Why not go to your bedroom now and rest your tired body. When you feel inclined for your bath, we, your maids, will be there to help you, and after you have refreshed yourself you will find a royal banquet ready for you.”
Psyche was grateful to the unknown Providence that was taking such good care of her and did as the disembodied voice suggested. First she relieved her weariness by a sleep and a bath, then straight away she noticed a semi-circular table, all laid for dinner, just for her. She sat down happily—and at once nectarous wines and appetizing dishes appeared by magic, not brought in by anyone but floating up to her of their own accord. She saw nobody at all but only heard words uttered on every side; the waiters were mere voices, and when someone came in and sang and someone else accompanied him on the lyre, she once again saw nothing. Then the music of a whole invisible choir came to her ears and she seemed to be in its midst, though none of the singers were to be seen.
When these pleasures came to an end, and darkness called, Psyche went to bed; and at a late hour of the night she heard a gentle whispering near her. Being all alone, she feared for her virginity and trembled and quaked, and was all the more frightened by the prospect of something bad happening to her because she did not know what it might be. Then came her unknown husband and climbed into her bed, and made Psyche his wife.
He left her hastily before daybreak, and at once voices were heard in the bedroom comforting her for the loss of her virginity.
That is how things went on for quite a time until, as one might expect, the novelty of having invisible servants wore off and she settled down to what was a very enjoyable routine; despite her uncertain situation she could not feel lonely with so many voices about her.
Meanwhile, her father and mother, as they grew old together, did nothing but weep and lament, and the news of what had happened spread far and wide until both her sisters heard all the details. In grief and sorrow they left their homes and hurried back earnestly to see and speak to their parents.
On the night of their arrival Psyche’s husband, whom she still knew only by touch and hearing and not by sight, warned her: “Lovely Psyche, darling wife, cruel fate menaces you with deadly danger. Guard against it vigilantly. Your elder sisters are alarmed at the report of your death. They will soon be visiting that same rock you came to, in order to see if they can find any trace of you. If you happen to hear them mourning for you up there, you must not answer them, nor even look up to them; for that would cause me great unhappiness and bring utter ruin on yourself.”
Psyche promised to do as her husband asked; but when the darkness had vanished, and so had he, she spent the whole day in tears, complaining over and over again that not only was she a prisoner in this wonderful palace without a single human being to chat with, but her husband had now forbidden her to relieve the minds of her mourning sisters, or even to look at them. She spent the whole day weeping, and that night she went to bed without supper or bath or anything else to comfort her. Her husband came in earlier than usual, drew her to him, still weeping and expostulated with her: “O Psyche, what did you promise me? What may I—I who am your husband—expect you to do next? You have cried all day and all night, and even now when I hold you close to me, you go on crying. Very well, then, do as you like, follow your own disastrous fancies; but when you begin to wish you had listened to me, the harm will have been done.”
She pleaded earnestly with him, swearing that she would die unless she were allowed to see her sisters and comfort them and have a talk with them. In the end he consented. He even said that she might give them as much gold and as many necklaces as she pleased; but he warned her with terrifying insistence not to be moved by her sisters’ ruinous advice to try to discover what he looked like. If she did, her impious curiosity would mean the end of all her present happiness and she would never lie in his arms again.
She thanked him for his kindness and was quite herself again. “No, no,” she protested, “I’d rather die a hundred times over than lose my lovely marriage with you. I love you, I adore you desperately, whoever you are; even Cupid himself can’t compare with you. So please, I beg you, grant me one more favour! Tell your servant, the West Wind, to carry my sisters down here in the same way that he carried me.” She kissed him coaxingly, whispered love-words in his ear, wound her limbs closely around him and called him: “My honey, my own husband, soul of my soul!” Overcome by the power of her love he was forced to yield, however reluctantly, and promised to give her what she asked, but he vanished again before daybreak.
II
MEANWHILE Psyche’s sisters inquired their way to the rock where she had been abandoned. Hurrying there they wept and beat their breasts until the cliffs re-echoed. “Psyche! Psyche!” they screamed. The shrill cry reached the valley far below and Psyche ran out of her palace in feverish anxiety, crying: “Why are you mourning for me? There’s no need for that at all, here am I, Psyche herself! Please, please stop that terrible noise and dry all those tears. In a moment you’ll be able to embrace me, after all those lamentations for my fate.” Then she called up the West Wind and gave him her husband’s orders. He at once obliged with one of his gentle puffs and wafted them safely down to her. The three sisters embraced and kissed rapturously. Soon they were shedding tears of joy, not of sorrow. “Come in now,” said Psyche, “come in with me to see my new home and relieve your sorrows with your sister Psyche.” Then she showed them her treasure chambers and let them hear the voices of the big retinue of invisible slaves. She ordered a wonderful bath for them and feasted them splendidly at her magical table. But after they had filled themselves with all these divine delicacies they both felt miserably jealous—particularly the younger one, who was very inquisitive. She never stopped asking who owned all this fabulous wealth; and she pressed Psyche to tell her who and what sort of a man her husband was.
Psyche was loyal to the promise she had made her husband and gave away nothing; but she made up a story for the occasion. He was a handsome young man, she said, a little downy beard just beginning to shadow his cheeks, and spent his time hunting in the neighbouring hills and valleys. But then, fearing that all the garrulity should make her contradict herself or cause her to make a slip and thus give away her secret, she loaded them both with goldwork and jewelled necklaces, then summoned the West Wind and asked him to fetch them away at once. He carried them up to the rock but on their way back to the city the poison of envy began working again in these worthy sisters’ hearts, and they exchanged animated comments.
One of them said: “How blindly and cruelly and unjustly Fortune has treated us! Do you think it fair that we three sisters should be given such different destinies? You and I are the two eldest, yet we get exiled from our home and friends and married off to foreigners who treat us like slaves; while Psyche, the result of Mother’s last feeble effort at child-bearing, is given all these riches and a god for a husband, and doesn’t even know how to make proper use of her tremendous wealth. Sister, did you ever see such masses of glittering jewels? Why, the very floors were made of gems set in solid gold! If her husband is really as good-looking as she says, she is quite the luckiest woman in the whole world. The chances are that as he grows even fonder of her he will make her a goddess. And, my goodness, wasn’t she behaving as if she were one already, with her proud looks and condescending airs? She’s only a woman after all, yet she orders the winds about and is waited upon by invisible attendants. Whereas it’s my wretched fate that my husband’s older than Father, balder than a pumpkin and more puny than a little boy; and he locks up everything in the house with bolts and chains.”
“My husband,” said the other sister, “is doubled up with sciatica, which prevents him from making love to me except on the rarest occasions, and his fingers are so crooked and knobbly with gout that I have to spend half my time massaging them. Look what a state my beautiful white hands are
in from messing about with his stinking fomentations and disgusting salves and filthy plasters! I’m treated more like a surgeon’s assistant than a wife. You’re altogether too patient, my dear; in fact, to speak frankly, you’re positively servile, the way you accept this state of affairs. Personally, I simply can’t stand seeing her living in such undeserved style. Remember how haughtily she treated us, how she bragged of her wealth and how stingy with her presents she was. Then, the moment she got bored with our visit, she whistled up the wind and had us blown off the premises. But I’ll be ashamed to call myself a woman, if I don’t see that she gets toppled down from this lavish life she’s leading. And if you feel as bitter as you ought to feel at the way she’s insulted us both, what about joining forces and working out some plan for humbling her? Now, in the first place, I suggest that we show nobody, not even Father and Mother, these presents of hers, and let nobody know that she’s still alive. It’s bad enough to have seen her luck, and a lamentable sight it was, without having to bring the news home to our parents, and have it spread all over the place; and there’s no pleasure in being rich unless people hear about it. Psyche must be made to realise that we’re not her servants, but her elder sisters. We’ll go back to our husbands and our shabby (but at least respectable) homes, and when we can finally think of an effective scheme let’s see each other again here and humble her pride.”
The two evil sisters approved of this evil plan. They hid the valuable presents that Psyche had given them and each began scratching her face and tearing out her hair in pretended grief at having found no trace of their sister; which made the king and queen sadder than ever. Then they separated; each went back full of malicious rage to her own home, thinking of ways of ruining her innocent sister, even if it meant killing her.
Meanwhile, Psyche’s unseen husband gave her another warning. He asked her one night: “Do you realize that a storm is brewing? It will soon be on you and, unless you take the most careful precautions, it will sweep you away. These treacherous hags are scheming for your destruction; they will urge you to look at my face, though as I have often told you, once you see it, you lose me for ever. So if these hateful vampires, with their harmful designs, come to visit you again—and I know very well that they will—you must refuse to speak to them. Or, if this is too difficult for a girl as open-hearted and simple as yourself, you must at least take care not to answer any questions about your husband. For we have a family on the way: though you are still only a child, you will soon have a child of your own, which shall be born a god if you keep my secret, but a mortal if you divulge it.”
Psyche was exultant when she heard that she might have a god for a baby, and proud of this fine pledge of her love that was on the way, and of her exalted status as a mother. She began excitedly counting the months and days that must pass before it was born. But having never been pregnant before she was surprised that her belly should swell so large from such a diminutive beginning.
The wicked sisters were now hurrying to Psyche’s palace again, ruthless Furies breathing out the venom of snakes, and once more her husband, stopping briefly, gave her this warning: “Today is the fatal day. Your enemies are near. They have taken up their arms, struck camp, marshalled their forces and sounded the ‘Charge’. They are enemies of your own sex and blood. They are your wicked sisters, rushing at you with drawn swords aimed at your throat. O darling Psyche, what dangers surround us! Have pity on yourself and on me. Keep my secret safe and so guard your husband and yourself and our unborn child from the destruction that threatens us. Refuse to see or hear those wicked women. They have forfeited the right to be called your sisters because of the deadly hate they bear you, which has shattered the blood-tie; they will come like Sirens and lean over the cliff, and make the rocks echo with their murderous voices.”
When she heard this Psyche, her voice broken with sobs, said: “Surely you can trust me? You have long since had convincing proof of my loyalty and my power of keeping a secret; and in the future you will once again approve of my steadfast behaviour. Only tell the West Wind to do his duty as before, and allow me to have a sight, at least, of my sisters; instead of seeing your own adored body, which you will not allow me to do. These fragrant curls dangling all round your head; these cheeks as tender and smooth as my own; this delightfully warm bosom; that face of yours that I shall only be able to know anything about by looking at our baby! So please be sweet and humour my craving—and make your Psyche happy, who loves you so much. I no longer feel so anxious to look at you, or so frightened of the darkness of the night, when I have you safe in my arms, light of my life!” Her voice and sweet caresses broke down her husband’s resistance. He wiped her eyes dry with his hair, granted what she asked and as usual disappeared again before the day broke.
The two sisters, their plot arranged, landed from their ship and, without even visiting their parents, hurried straight to the rock and with extraordinary daring leaped down from it without waiting for the breeze to belly out their robes. However, the West Wind was bound to obey its master’s order, reluctant though he might be; he caught them in his robe as they fell and brought them to the ground.
At once they rushed into the palace and embraced their victim with what she took for sisterly affection. Then, with cheerful laughter masking their treachery, they cried: “Why, Psyche, you’re not nearly so slim as you used to be. You’ll be a mother before very long. We’re so delighted you’re going to have a baby, and what a joy it’ll be for the whole household. Oh, how we shall love to nurse your golden baby for you! If it takes after its parents, as it ought to, it will be a perfect little Cupid.”
By this pretended love they gradually wormed themselves into her confidence. Seeing that they were tired because of their journey, she invited them to sit down and rest while water was heated for them; and when they had taken their baths, she gave them spiced sausages and other marvellously tasty dishes, while an unseen harpist played for them at her orders, as well as an unseen flautist, and a choir sang the most ravishing songs. But even such honey-sweet music as that failed to soften the hard hearts of those wicked women. They insidiously brought the conversation round to her husband, asking her who he was and from where his family came.
Psyche was very simple-minded and, forgetting what story she had told them before, invented a new one. She said that he was a middle-aged merchant from the next province, very rich, with slightly grizzled hair. Then breaking the conversation off short, she loaded them with valuable presents and sent them away in their windy carriage.
As they returned home, borne aloft by the peaceful breath of Zephyrus, they held a discussion in these terms: “Now, what do you make of the monstrous lies she tells us? First the silly creature says that her husband is a very young man with a downy beard, and then she says that he’s middle-aged with grizzled hair! Quick work, eh? You may depend upon it that the evil woman is either hiding something from us, or else she never sees what her husband looks like.”
“Whatever the truth may be, we must ruin her as soon as possible. But if she really has never seen her husband, then he must be a god, and her baby will be a god too. If that happens, which Heaven forbid, I’ll hang myself at once. So now let us return to our parents and start telling some lies to suit our plans.”
In this state of excitement, they arrived and gave their father and mother an offhand greeting. Their disturbed feelings kept them awake all night, and in the morning the evil women hurried to the rock and floated down into the valley as usual with the help of the West Wind. Rubbing their eyelids hard until they managed to squeeze out a few tears, they went to Psyche and said: “Oh, sister, ignorance is indeed bliss! There you sit quite happily, without the least suspicion of the terrible danger that threatens you, while we are in absolute anguish about it. You see, we watch over your interests indefatigably and are deeply upset by your misfortunes. For we are reliably informed, and since we share your sorrows and fortunes we have to tell you that the husband who comes secretly gliding into
your bed at night is an enormous snake with many twisting coils, its neck bloodily swollen with deadly poison, its jaws gaping wide. Remember what Apollo’s oracle said: that you were destined to marry a savage wild beast. Very many of the farmers who go hunting in the woods around this place have met him coming home at nightfall from his feeding ground and have seen him swimming across the river nearby. They all say that he won’t pamper you with delicate meals much longer, but that when your nine months are nearly up he will eat you alive, when you have a tenderer morsel inside you. So you had better make up your mind whether you will come away and live with us—we are so eager to look after our beloved sister—or whether you prefer to stay here with this fiendish reptile until you finish up in his guts. Perhaps you’re fascinated by living here alone with your voices all day and at night making secret and disgusting love to a poisonous snake. But at all events we have done what we could as dutiful sisters.”
Poor silly Psyche was aghast at the dreadful news. She lost all control of herself, trembled, turned deathly pale and, forgetting all the warnings her husband had given her and all her own promises, plunged headlong into the abyss of misfortune. She gasped out brokenly: “Dearest sisters, thank you for being so kind. I do believe that the people who told you this story were not making it up. The fact is I have never seen my husband’s face and haven’t the least idea where he comes from. I only hear him speaking to me at night in whispers, so that I have to put up with a husband I know nothing about, who evidently hates the light of day. So I have every reason to suppose, as you do, that he must be some animal. Besides, he is always giving me frightful warnings about what will happen if I try to see what he looks like. So please, if you can advise your sister what to do in this dreadful situation, tell me at once; otherwise, all the trouble you have been kind enough to take will be wasted.”
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