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 b.u.t.terflies; 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 l.u.s.t. 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 l.u.s.tful 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 l.u.s.tily 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 l.u.s.tily 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 gra.s.s; there the brook flowed away between mult.i.tudes 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 cla.s.sical music," said the Satyr.

"I don't know what you mean by cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical music. But we are always very merry and sociable together; but you must come once...."

"Are you going?" said Psyche imperiously, and red with pa.s.sion, 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 gra.s.s. 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.

"Cla.s.sical music!" thought Psyche.