"Eros!" cried a weak voice.

"Who speaks there?"

"I, a white violet, which Psyche plucked.... Hear me quickly, for I feel I am dying, and my elfin voice is scarcely audible to your ear. Listen to me ... I am lying close to you. Take me in your hand...."

Eros took the flower.

"Psyche has been enticed by the Satyr into the wood. The Bacchantes have taken her away. This was her last word: that she was unworthy of you, and went away praying for forgiveness.... She could not remain, she said; she went...! Eros, forgive her!"

The flower shrivelled up in his hand. Eros rose and tottered; he too felt that he was dying.

Sad at heart walked Eros, and all along his path the flowers now lay shrivelled. The brook was dry. The lark lay dead before his feet. The cupids lay dead in the withered roses.

Eros went into the castle and fell upon the purple bed.

A single dove was expiring at the marble basin.

The strings of the lyre were all broken....

Eros too felt that his life was leaving his body.

He raised his eyes, over which the film of death was stealing, and looked about the castle; the crystal crumbled off and split from the top to the bottom.

"Sacred powers!" prayed he, "forgive her as I forgive her, and love her till the End, as I shall and for ever. Let her find what she seeks; let her wanderings once come to an end; let her soar through the air, if she must, till she comes to the purest sphere...." This sphere was the earth, the sweet Present, the little resting-point on which she could not wander, and thus felt within her the irresistible desire....

"Sacred powers, let her one day find what her happiness is. Then, if it is not I.... Let her find...."

His voice failed, his eyes opened as in a vision, and he whispered and finished his prayer: "... find ... in the Future...!"

That sacred word was his last. He died.

In the Kingdom of the Present, that once had been as a smiling garden, everything was now dead....

Then ... in the mist, which hung over the ridge of the mountains, something seemed to be creeping near, something with feet that could only move slowly. From many sides, over the hill-top, the strange creeping came nearer.... Gigantic, hairy feet of monstrous spiders were walking over it; they came nearer and nearer; they were spiders with big, swollen bodies and feet always in motion....

They were the sacred spiders of Emeralda, Princess of the Past. Eagerly they ran to the dead garden of the Present....

They surrounded the garden and threw out their filaments to the crystal roof of the palace. Then they wove over the Present, that lay dead, one single gigantic web....

And whilst they wove, the dead Present went to dust.

CHAPTER XVII

In the wood, in the autumn sun, Autumn was keeping festival.

The foliage shone resplendent in yellow, bronze, purple, golden-red, and pink; the sulphur-coloured moss looked like antique velvet. With gusts of wind, the branches, madly arrogant, shook off their exuberance of sere and yellow leaves, as if they were strewing the paths with silver and gold and rustling notes.

Loudly laughing danced the dryads through the whirling leaves.

Out of the foaming stream between moss-covered rocks, rose the white, naked nymphs.

"Where is she? Where is she?" cried they inquisitively.

"There she comes! there she comes!" shouted the mad dryads, and in handfuls they cast the leaves into the air, which whirled over the nymphs and fell down on the water.

The dryads danced past, and the nymphs looked out inquisitively. They stood, a naked group, in their rocky bath; their arms were clasped round one another; green was their hair and white as pearls were their bosoms. The sere and yellow leaves kept whirling about. Trampling feet were approaching and were heard amongst the rustling leaves. Merry-makers were drawing near; the golden foliage quivered like a curtain of thin, fine, gold lace....

"There she comes! there she comes!" exclaimed the nymphs with joy.

The branches cracked, the leaves whirled about, the tender sprays recoiled from the noisy merry-makers, who were advancing.

Nearer they came with the sound of pipe and cymbal. Drunken Bacchantes danced before them, waving the thyrsus, hand in hand with fauns and satyrs; they encircled a triumphal car, drawn by spotted lynxes.

High on the car sat a youth, beardless, with a wreath of vine-leaves round his forehead, full of laughter and animal spirits, with blue eyes that showed his love of pleasure. Naked were his G.o.dlike limbs, chubbily formed like the tender flesh of a boy, and his legs were long and slender, his arms rounded like those of a woman. He was the prince of the wood, of divine origin: Prince Bacchus was his name.

And next to him on the triumphal car, sat little Psyche enthroned. She too was naked, with nothing on but her veil, and her wings were so strikingly beautiful, crimson and soft yellow and with four peac.o.c.k's-feather eyes. Round the car, close together as a bunch of grapes, sported madly a number of wine-G.o.ds, tumbling over one another, grape-drunken children.

In triumph the procession rushed on through the golden wood. The Bacchantes and satyrs sang and danced; two satyrs drove the lynxes, which, spiteful as cats, spat at them; the wine-G.o.ds entwined the vine and bore great heavy bunches of grapes.

High up, like a b.u.t.terfly, which was a G.o.ddess, sat Psyche, and laughed with glistening eyes and glowing cheeks, waving to the nymphs.

"Live! long live Psyche--Psyche with the splendid wings!" shouted the nymphs.

The wind blew, the leaves whirled about; the procession swept past as though hurried along by the gale. A little wine-G.o.d had fallen and lay in the yellow leaves, playing with his chubby legs, purple-red from the juice of grapes; he was crying because he had been left behind; then he succeeded in getting on to his feet, and tottered after the procession....

The nymphs laughed loudly at the little wine-G.o.d; they dived under and beneath the rocks.

The wind blew, the yellow leaves whirled about.

And the wood became still and lonely.

CHAPTER XVIII