by Stephen Fry
‘Imagine what sort of creature it was that took her away,’ said Zona.
‘Winged like a Fury …’ suggested Calanthe.
‘With iron claws …’
‘And fiery breath …’
‘Great yellow fangs …’
‘Snakes for hair …’
‘A great tail that – What was that?’
A sudden gust of wind made them turn round. What they saw made them shout in fright.
Their sister Psyche was standing before them, radiant in a shimmering white gown edged with gold. She looked appallingly beautiful.
‘But …’ began Calanthe
‘We thought …’ stammered Zona.
And then both together: ‘Sister!’
Psyche came towards them, her hands held out and the sweetest smile of tender sisterly love lighting up her face. Calanthe and Zona each took a hand to kiss.
‘You are alive!’
‘And so … so …’
‘This dress – it must have cost, that is to say it looks …’
‘And you look …’ said Zona, ‘so … so … Calanthe, whatever is the word?’
‘Happy?’ suggested Psyche.
‘Something,’ her sisters agreed. ‘You definitely look something.’
‘But tell us, Psyche, dearest …’
‘What happened to you?’
‘Here we are mourning, sobbing our hearts out for you.’
‘Who gave you that dress?’
‘How did you get off the rock?’
‘Is it real gold?’
‘Did a monster come for you? A beast? An ogre?’
‘And that material.’
‘A dragon perhaps?’
‘How do you keep it from creasing?’
‘Did it take you to its den?’
‘Who does your hair?’
‘Did it try to chew your bones?’
‘That can’t be a real emerald can it?’
Laughing, Psyche held up a hand. ‘Dear sisters! I will tell you everything. Better, I will show you everything. Come, wind, take us there!’
Before the sisters knew what was happening the three of them were lifted from their feet and were travelling swiftly through the air, safe in the arms of the West Wind.
‘Don’t fight it. Relax into it,’ said Psyche as Zephyrus swept them up over the mountain. Zona’s howls began to subside and Calanthe’s muffled sobs softened to a whimper. Before long they were even able to open their eyes for a few seconds without screaming.
When the wind finally set them down on the grass in front of the enchanted palace Calanthe had decided that this was the only way to travel.
‘Who needs a stupid horse pulling a rickety rackety old chariot?’ she said. ‘From now on I catch the wind …’
But Zona wasn’t listening. She was staring transfixed at the walls, the turrets and the silver studded door of the palace, all glittering in the morning sun.
‘Come in,’ said Psyche. What an exciting feeling, to show her dear sisters around her new home. It was a pity they couldn’t meet her darling husband.
To say that the girls were impressed would be criminally to understate the matter. Naturally therefore they sniffed, yawned, tittered, shook their heads and generally tut-tutted their way from golden apartment to golden apartment by silver-panelled corridors and jewel-encrusted passageways. Their tilted, wrinkled noses seemed to suggest that they were used to better.
‘Just a little vulgar, don’t we feel, darling?’ Zona suggested. Inside she said to herself, ‘This is the home of a god!’
Calanthe was thinking, ‘If I just stop and pretend to fix the laces of my sandals I could break off one of the rubies encrusting that chair …’
When the invisible staff of stewards, footmen and handmaidens began serving lunch the sisters found it harder to mask their wonder and astonishment. Afterwards they each took turns to be oiled, bathed and massaged.
Pressed for details of the castle’s lord, Psyche remembered her promise and hastily made something up.
‘He’s a handsome huntsman and local landowner.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘The kindest eyes.’
‘And his name is …?’
‘He’s so sorry to miss you. I’m afraid he always takes to the field with his hounds by day. He wanted so much to greet you personally. Perhaps another time.’
‘Yes, but what’s he called?’
‘He – he doesn’t really have a name.’
‘What?’
‘Well, he has a name. Obviously he has a name, everyone has a name, Zona, I mean really! But he doesn’t use it.’
‘But what is it?’
‘Oh my goodness, quick! It’ll be dark soon. Zephyrus won’t fly you at night … Come, dear sisters, help yourselves to some little things to take home. Here’s a handful of amethysts. These are sapphires. There’s gold, silver … Be sure to take gifts for mother and father too.’
Loaded with precious treasures the sisters allowed themselves to be transported back to the rock. Psyche, who had stood and waved them off, was both relieved and sorry to see them go. While she welcomed their company and the chance to show them round and give them presents, her determination to keep the promise she had made to her husband had made the evasion of all their questions an exhausting business.
Back home the sisters – despite the fabulous treasures they now possessed – were eaten up with envy, resentment and fury. How could their younger sister, the stupid, selfish Psyche, now find herself in the position more or less of a goddess? It was so appallingly unfair. Spoiled, vain, ugly creature! Well, not ugly, perhaps. Possessed of a certain obvious and rather vulgar prettiness, but scarcely a match for their queenly beauty. It was all too monstrously unjust: there was almost certainly witchcraft and wickedness at the bottom of it. How could she not even know the name of her lord and master?
‘My husband Sato’s rheumatism,’ said Calanthe, ‘is getting so bad that every night I have to rub his fingers one by one, then apply plasters and poultices. It’s disgusting and demeaning.’
‘You think your life is hell?’ said Zona. ‘My Charion is as bald as an onion, his breath stinks and he has all the sex drive of a dead pig. While Psyche …’
‘That selfish slut …’
The sisters clung to each other and sobbed their hearts out.
That night Psyche’s lover Eros had momentous news for her. She was pouring out all her gratitude to him, and explaining how well she had managed to avoid describing him to her sisters, when he placed his finger on her lips.
‘Sweet, trusting child. I fear those sisters and what they may do to you. But I am glad you are happy. Let me make you happier still.’ She felt his warm hand slide down her front and gently stroke her belly. ‘Our child is growing there.’
Psyche gasped and hugged him close, stunned with joy.
‘If you keep this secret,’ he said, ‘the child will be a god. If you tell a living soul, it will be mortal.’
‘I will keep the secret,’ said Psyche. ‘But before my condition becomes obvious let me at least see Calanthe and Zona one more time and say goodbye to them.’
Eros was troubled but could not see how he might deny so decent and sisterly a request, and so he assented.
‘Zephyrus will send them a sign and they will come,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her. ‘But remember, not a word about me or about our baby.’
A Drop of Oil
The next morning Calanthe and Zona awoke to feel the breath of Zephyrus ruffling at them like a hungry pet dog panting and pawing at the bedclothes. When they opened their eyes and sat up the wind departed, but their instinct, greed and inborn cunning told them what the signal meant, and they hurried to the rock to await their transport. This time they were determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of their sister’s lover.
Psyche was there to welcome them when they were set down in front of the palace. Embracing her fondly the sisters hid the furious env
y they felt at Psyche’s good fortune, presenting instead a flurry of solicitous clucking and tutting, accompanied by much head-shaking.
‘Whatever is the matter, Calanthe?’ a puzzled Psyche asked as she sat them down to a great breakfast of fruit, cakes and honey-wine. ‘Why so sorrowful, Zona? Are you not happy to see me?’
‘Happy?’ groaned Calanthe.
‘If only,’ Zona sighed.
‘What can be worrying you?’
‘Ah, child, child,’ said Calanthe with a moan. ‘You are so young. So sweet. So guileless.’
‘So easy to take advantage of.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The sisters looked at each other as if weighing up whether to reveal harsh truths.
‘How well – if at all – do you know this … this thing that comes nightly to visit you?’
‘He’s not a thing!’ protested Psyche.
‘Of course he’s a thing. He’s the monster foretold by the oracle.’
‘Scaly, I’ll bet,’ said Zona. ‘Or, if not scaly, hairy.’
‘He’s nothing of the sort,’ said Psyche indignantly. ‘He’s young and beautiful and kind. Soft skin, firm muscles –’
‘What colour are his eyes?’
‘Well …’
‘Is he blond or dark?’
‘Darling sisters,’ said Psyche, ‘can you keep a secret?’
Calanthe and Zona craned in close and pawed their sister lovingly.
‘Can we keep a secret? What a question!’
‘The thing is,’ said Psyche, ‘well, the thing is I don’t actually know what he looks like. I’ve never seen him, only … well … felt him.’
‘What?’ Calanthe was shocked.
‘You mean you’ve never so much as looked upon his face?’
‘He insists that I must not see him. He comes to me in the blackest black of night, slips between the sheets and we … well, we … you know …’ Psyche blushed. ‘But I can trace his outlines and what I feel is not the body of a monster. It is the body of a splendid and marvellous man. Just, in the morning, he’s gone.’
‘Oh, you silly goose!’ tittered Zona. ‘Don’t you know –’ She broke off here as if afraid to go on.
The sisters exchanged sorrowful and knowing glances.
‘Oh dear …’
‘Psyche doesn’t know!’
Calanthe responded with a sound that was something between a titter and a sigh.
Psyche looked from one to the other in perplexity. ‘Know what?’
Calanthe put her arms around her and explained, with Zona interposing her own observations and affirmations. The worst and most dreadful monsters – indeed the very kind that Apollo’s oracle had predicted would devour her! – possessed powers – always have done, were known for having, were celebrated the world over for having them! – the power, for example, to transform themselves, to take on deceitful shapes – forms that might seem thrilling and attractive to the touch of a young girl – but this was only to win the trust of the innocent – the innocent and foolish! – so as one day to plant their demonic seed inside her – poor girl, she doesn’t understand these things, but men can do this – and cause her to give birth to a new abomination, an even more terrible monster – a mutation – it’s how they breed, how they propagate their vile species.
Psyche held up a hand. ‘Stop! Please! I know you mean well, but you don’t know how tender, how kind, how gentle …’
‘That’s their way! That’s exactly their way!’
‘Don’t you see? If anything proves this monster’s ferocious cruelty it’s this very tenderness and gentleness!’
‘A sure sign that it must be a hideous fiend.’
Psyche thought of the new life growing inside her and of her husband’s insistence that she tell no one of it. And of his refusal ever to show himself. Oh dear. Perhaps her sisters were right.
They saw that she was wavering and they pounced.
‘Here’s what you do, my love. When he comes to you tonight you allow him to have his beastly way with you –’
‘Ugh!’
‘– and then let him fall asleep. But you must stay awake.’
‘On all accounts, stay awake.’
‘When you’re satisfied that he’s absolutely fast asleep you must rise and fetch a lamp.’
‘And that razor that your handmaidens use to cut your hair.’
‘Yes, you’ll need that!’
‘Light the lantern in the corner of the room and cover it so as not to wake him.’
‘Then steal over to the bed …’
‘Lift your lantern …’
‘And slice his scaly dragon’s neck …’
‘Saw away at his knotty veins …’
‘Kill him …’
‘Kill the beast …’
‘Then gather up all the gold and silver …’
‘And the gemstones, that’s most important …’
On and on the sisters talked until Psyche was fully persuaded.
And so that night it came about that, with Eros sleeping peacefully in the bed, Psyche found herself standing over him, a hooded lantern in one hand and a razor in the other. She raised the blinds from the lamp. Light fell on the curled-up naked form of the most beautiful being she had ever beheld. The warm glow danced on smooth, youthful skin – and on the most wonderful pair of feathered wings.
Psyche could not hold back a gasp of amazement. She knew at once whom she was looking at. This was no dragon or monster, no ogre or abomination. This was the young god of love. This was Eros himself. To think that she could have dreamed of harming him. How beautiful he was. His full, rosy lips were slightly parted and the sweetness of his breath came up to her as she leaned down to gaze more deeply. Everything about him was so perfect! The gentle heave and swell of muscles gave his youthful beauty a manly cast, but without that hard, bulging ungainliness she had seen on the bodies of her father’s champion athletes and warriors. His tousled hair gleamed with a warm colour that lay between the gold of Apollo and the mahogany of Hermes. And those wings! Folded beneath his body they had the fullness and whiteness of a swan’s. She reached out a trembling hand and ran her finger down the line of feathers. The soft fluttering whisper they returned hardly made a sound, yet it was enough to cause the sleeping Eros to shift and murmur.
Psyche pulled back and shaded the lantern, but within a few moments an even rhythmic breathing reassured her that Eros was still deeply asleep. She unmasked the lantern again and saw that he was now turned away from her. She saw too that his movement had caused a curious object to be brought into view. The lamplight fell on a silver cylinder that lay beneath his wings. His quiver!
Hardly daring to breath Psyche leaned forward and pulled out a single arrow. Turning it in her hand she slowly fingered its shaft of shining ebony. The arrowhead itself was affixed by a band of gold … Holding the lantern high in her left hand she ran her right thumb along the head and then – ouch! So sharp was the tip that it drew blood. The moment it did a feeling washed over her, a feeling of such intense love for the sleeping Eros, such heat, passion and desire, such complete and eternal devotion, that she could not refrain from moving to kiss the curls on the nape of his neck.
Alas! As she did so, hot oil from the lantern dripped onto his right shoulder. He awoke with a yelp of pain which, when he saw Psyche standing over him, grew into a great roar of disappointment and despair. His wings opened and began to beat the air. As he rose Psyche launched herself forward and clung to his right leg, but his strength was too great and he shook her off without a word and flew away into the night.
The moment he left, everything fell apart. The walls of the palace rippled, faded and dissolved into the night air. A despairing Psyche watched the gold columns around her shiver into a dark colonnade of trees and the jewelled mosaic tiles beneath her feet churn into a mess of mud and gravel. Before long, palace, precious metals, precious stones – all had vanished. The sweet singing of the handmaidens turned into t
he howling of wolves and the screeching of owls, and the warm, mysterious perfumes whipped into chill and unrelenting winds.
Alone
A frightened, unhappy girl stood in a cold and desolate wood. She slipped down the trunk of a tree until she sat on the hard roots. The only thought in her mind was to end her life.
She was awoken by a beetle scuttling over her lips. She sat up with a shiver and unpeeled a damp leaf from her brow. She had not dreamed the horrors of the night before. She really was alone in a wood. Perhaps everything before was a dream and this had always been the reality? Or she had awoken inside another episode of a wider dream? It was hardly worth the bother of trying to puzzle it all out. Dream or reality, everything was intolerable to her.
‘Don’t do it, pretty girl.’
Shocked, Psyche looked up to see the god Pan standing before her. The humorous frown, the thick curling hair from which two horns sprouted, the wide hairy flanks tapering down to goats’ feet – it could be no other figure, mortal or immortal.
‘No, no,’ said Pan, stamping the muddy ground with his hoofs. ‘I can read it in your face and it is not to be. I won’t allow it.’
‘You won’t allow what?’ said Psyche.
‘I won’t allow you to dash yourself onto the rocks from off a high cliff. I won’t allow you to court the deadly attentions of a wild animal. I won’t allow you to pick belladonna and drink its poisonous juices. I won’t allow any of that.’
‘But I can’t live!’ cried Psyche. ‘If you knew my story you would understand and you would help me die.’
‘You should ask yourself what brought you here,’ said Pan. ‘If it’s love, then you must pray to Aphrodite and Eros for guidance and relief. If your own wickedness caused your downfall then you must live to repent. If it was caused by others then you must live to revenge.’
Revenge! Psyche suddenly understood what needed to be done. She rose to her feet. ‘Thank you, Pan,’ she said. ‘You’ve shown me the way.’
Pan bared his teeth in a grin and bowed. His lips blew a flourish of farewell across the top of the set of pipes in his hand.
Four days later Psyche knocked on the gates of the grand mansion of her brother-in-law Sato, the husband of Calanthe. A servant ushered her into her sister’s receiving room.
