Psyche

by Louis Couperus

“That is vanity, Psyche; that is vanity …”

  She uttered her jubilant cry, and hastened on with uplifted arms through the azure moonflames. The firmament spread out in higher circles and formed wider spheres;

  The flames became clearer and clearer; more benignly blew the breeze;

  And pale, the spirits flitted to and fro: pale shades with melancholy eyes, singing their song of painful remembrances …

  And the spirits looked at Psyche—the spirits smiled benignly on her, astonished that she was still alive.

  They pointed for her to go on farther and farther; they nodded to her, “On! on!”

  And she gave a loud cry of joy and hastened on …

  She sped through the flames and shades;

  Till the flames were still, and high and white;

  High, still, white flames, like sacrificial flames, like altar flames, high in the sky, the lofty sky, the wide sky; the wide expanse full of white flame—still, white, ascending, purifying flames, refined and clear, over the whole wide expanse, the wide refining expanse.

  Once more she asked the pale shades, who swarmed about between the flames, hand in hand, who swayed continually to and fro between the flames:

  “Spirits in the white flames, pure white, in the white flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?”

  “Vanity, vanity!” sang the shades softly and quietly, and in the answer, calm and assuring, of the expectant penitents, vibrated the great viol with a sound like a soft jubilant trill.

  Psyche asked no more. She slackened her speed and began to walk, her arms raised, her head erect, through the silvery flames. Oh, the dear, tender flames, the adorable purifying flames! how they cooled, in their snow-white glow, the burning remorse of her soul!

  How freely Psyche breathed, in the innocently white glowing fire! Like lilies were the tongues of flame, fragrant and soothing as balsam, cool and fresh as snow … cold as water, as foam. The white flames foamed and rippled like a sea, lower and smoother, quieter and more serene; they rippled like a sea of lilies, like a sea of silver snow … They became moisture and water and foaming ocean, the tender element of gentle compulsion, carrying along as an irresistible dream, white as paradise, and as slightly rippling waves of foam, they bore Psyche away.

  On the foaming waves Psyche drifted along, all white in the golden boat of her fair hair. So gently did they rock her, the foaming, rippling waves, that Psyche shut her eyes. Sleep was stealing over her. Her lips smiled with inward peace.

  The waves bore her away, the sea washed her ashore. She awoke from her slumber; pearl-white she rose from the foam, amidst the joyful dolphins.

  She stepped out of the sea on to the land. She felt quite cool, and her soul was calm and peaceful, full of reassuring, holy knowledge. But within her was a great desire.

  Smiling, she stretched out her arms. She yearned for the desire of her heart …

  “Not yet … not yet,” was whispered tenderly to her cool and peaceful soul. “Wait, wait …” sounded the echo.

  In the silent joy of her soul, she wept. She lifted her hand to her eyes; wet were her tears, and in her hand … lay a pearl! …

  Then she looked round. She recognised the seashore with its many bays, the shore of the Kingdom of the Past. There, on the pool-blue horizon, loomed a town of minarets and pinnacles, of cupolas and obelisks, surrounded with golden walls.

  That was the capital of the kingdom. Thither she would repair.

  There, proud and peaceful, still and cool, she would say to Emeralda, her powerful sister,

  That her Jewel was vanity. That the gem did not exist.

  XXIV

  WHEN PSYCHE approached the capital, she heard at the gates the excited cries of festive merry-makers. Outside the gates flocked the noisy crowd, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and bedecked with flowers, singing and dancing, but not knowing why. Everywhere was bustle and commotion; on the roadside sat hundreds of hucksters, and women extolling their wares—glasses with jewels and fruit, cooling drinks, dresses and flowers. In a shrill key they praised their wares; they spread out their stuffs with much ado, and offered the people flowers, and poured them out wine, and held up strings of glass pearls and cheap necklaces of coins.

  Psyche was naked, and she veiled herself in her hair; she spread over the marks on her shoulders her golden mantle of hair, and as many of the dancing girls, some half naked and others quite naked, danced round, hand in hand, people thought that she was naked, only because she was so fair—Psyche, so pearl-white in her golden hair. She was not wont to be ashamed of nakedness, which was once her right, her privilege as a princess; but now under the eyes of the people she blushed, and walked with downcast eyes. Then she turned to a saleswoman and asked:

  “What is the feast for?”

  “Where do you come from? ‘What is the feast for!’ Don’t you know anything about it?”

  “I come from the other side of the sea …”

  “‘What is the feast for!’ It is the great Festival, the Jubilee-festival, of Emeralda. It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”

  “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!” resounded on all sides. They danced and sang:

  “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”

  They were drunk with joy, dizzy from strange joy; but Psyche suddenly saw that they were deadly pale and frightened, deadly pale under paint and flowers, and frightened whilst they danced round in a ring.

  “I have no dress for the occasion; give me that veil of golden gauze!” said Psyche to the saleswoman.

  “That is very dear!”

  “I will pay you for it with this pearl.”

  “With that pearl! Are you a princess, then!”

  Psyche then took the veil and she bound it round her loins, just as she used to do before.

  “I will give you a wreath of fresh roses as well!” said the woman, pleased, and put the flowers on her head.

  She smiled, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was decked out with those flowers as a victim for the altar; that all the people who were making merry and dancing were bedecked as victims. She went on. Through the round gold gate she entered the city; the squares were seen in the distance, connected with very broad streets; square palaces of marble and bronze, of jasper and malachite, round cupolas and finely pointed minarets, glistened in the sun as if conjured up by magic. They stretched far away, and right behind the blue mountains rose the royal castle, a Babel of pinnacles and towers innumerable, almost indiscernible in the distance, with square ramparts and walls, and lofty summits lost in the rising mist. And along the squares, over palaces, and on the minarets, hung the thick festoons of flowers, as though the towns were decked out for an offering. Close up to the castle, Babel of pinnacles, the festoons of flowers seemed to reach. And in the squares the dancers threw flowers into the air, and it seemed as if white roses were raining down from heaven. To the sound of tabour and cymbals, the people danced madly round, and ever was heard the same cry:

  “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”

  Then Psyche, in the secret depths of her heart, saw clearly and indubitably what it all meant. As she went along with the dense crowds of noisy, shouting merrymakers, she saw all the people in the town trembling with fear, which made the blood congeal in their veins.

  Their eyes, through fear, were ready to start out of their sockets; their teeth chattered; their limbs, bedecked with flowers, trembled; the sun was shining, but everyone was shivering with cold.

  But no one spoke of his trembling, and they danced, madly drunk with foolish joy, and they kept shouting the same thing:

  “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”

  XXV

  A GREAT COMMOTION was going on in the direction of the castle. In that direction all eyes were turned, and the dancing girls forgot to dance. From fear, the crowd stood still, as if petrified, and forgot to conceal the anxiety of their minds. The palaces seemed to tremble; the air quivered audibl
y. Something dreadful was about to happen.

  The royal castle shone with a strange lustre; a sun seemed to send forth a halo; an ominous aureola appeared in the distance. The fearful rays of the Sun of Consternation outshone the day, outshone the sun: from their centre, they penetrated through houses and people.

  And everything shone, softened by the glow of piercing sunbeams. The rays quivered everywhere in the air, and the aureola filled the world.

  The cause of consternation came rattling on with the rapidity of an arrow.

  All hearts stood still, all breath was taken away, all dancing was stopped, all rejoicing ceased.

  From the castle, over the triumphal wall a triumphal chariot rattled along with the speed of an arrow. On the top, a living jewel, stood Emeralda, and guided the four and twenty steeds. It was her splendour and her aureola which appeared in the air. It was her rays which caused the houses to shine with splendour and pierced the people with flashes. She stood immovable, clad in the strength of precious stones, in a tunic of sapphires, in a robe of brilliants, with deep flounces of gems and white cameos; her mantle was like a bell, with folds of purple carbuncle, lined with enamelled ermine. From her crown of beryl, from her heart of ruby, the rays shot forth, shone out her fear-inspiring aureola and streamed over the town and in the air, eclipsing the sun, which turned pale. Her eyes of emerald, stars in her opal face, chalcedonic, looked inexorable and her bosom of precious stones heaved not. Only her heart of ruby beat regularly, and then her lustre grew alternately dim and bright …

  She stood immovable and guided her horses, her four-and-twenty foaming stallions, rearing greys, which drew her triumphal chariot, like a broad enamelled shell on innumerable wheels, on cutting wheels so numerous, that they seemed to run into one another—a turning confusion of spokes.

  The dazzling, fear-inspiring chariot rattled on with the rapidity of an arrow. And suddenly, awaking from their stupefaction, the people madly danced again and shouted the same jubilant cry. The tabours sounded, the white roses rained clown, and before the queen the people prostrated themselves and paved her path with their bodies. The grey stallions foamed and reared; they came on, they came on, they trampled over the first bodies—men and women, girls and children, dressed for a festival and bedecked with flowers … Over her people rode Emeralda; the innumerable wheels rattled, a confusion of spokes, revolving, cutting furrows in flesh and blood, reducing blood and human flesh to a muddy mass. But farther up they danced, farther up they sang, before casting themselves down for her Triumph …

  Then Emeralda, looking over her triumphal way, saw with the keen glance of her black carbuncle pupil, a little form, naked and fair, who lifted up her small child’s hand.

  And fiercer and fiercer gleamed her heart of ruby, for she had recognised the form.

  And the desire flamed up in her: the thirst for more power and to become like a god.

  Emeralda recognised Psyche. And she reined in her twelve pairs of horses, she drove them more slowly, and under the less quickly revolving wheels she heard the jubilant cry of the dying people. The blood dropped from the wheels, but the roses rained down and covered the horrible sight. On the bloody, muddy mass, the roses rained down, white, from the balconies of the palaces.

  Emeralda stopped.

  Under her, death was silent.

  Around, the town was silent. She alone reigned and shot out her terrible fan of rays, which scorched the houses and pierced the air.

  And before her, at a little distance, stood Psyche, proud, pearl-white, crowned with roses, in a veil of gold.

  And the silent crowd recognised in her the third princess of the kingdom.

  “Psyche!” said Emeralda, and her voice sounded loud through the town from the focus of her rays, “have you come to bring me the unutterable Jewel, the Gem of Power, the Bestower of Universal Power, the sacred Stone of Mysticism? Have you found the Mystery of the Godhead, and,

  “—Do you rule with me the Universe and God?”

  The town shuddered and quivered. The people were stupefied.

  The surrounding air trembled audibly.

  Then Psyche’s voice sounded clearly, limpidly, from the consciousness of the wisdom and sacred knowledge which she possessed.

  “Emeralda, for you I have gone through Hell along the black seas, oceans of pitch, along the horrible sloughs of flaming hurricanes, along the craters and caverns scarlet and yellow, along the azure fires and through the white and lilac glow. Give heed to what I say. Hell answered ‘Vanity!’; the chimeras hissed ‘Vanity!’; the spirits cried ‘Vanity!’; and the whole plaintive viol trilled:

  ‘Vanity!’

  “Do you understand me, Emeralda? Your wish was Vanity, for the mystic Jewel that bestows godlike power is Vanity, and … Does not Exist.”

  Then it was terrible. The queen, a living idol, burned with rage, blazed with rage; her heart was inflamed with rage.

  Around her, decked out for sacrifice, in festive garb, in the sunshine and her own dazzling splendour, her people trembled with fear. And cruelty gleamed in her fixed face; her emerald eyes started so revengefully from their sockets as though blinded by their own splendour, and she pulled at the numerous reins …

  The horses reared, the white roses fell down, the people screamed with joy and the fear of death, and the triumphal chariot rattled on.

  Swift as an arrow it thundered on over the people, who paved the way in ecstacy, and Psyche saw the maddened horses approaching, snorting, foaming, panting, trampling, pulling, their eyes round and mad …

  For a moment she stood firm, proud, tall, pearl-white in the sacred knowledge she possessed; then the angry hoofs struck her down, and the horses trampled her as a flower. Emeralda’s chariot rattled over her, with its many cutting wheels, and whilst she died like a crushed lily, trampled in her own lily-whiteness, she thought of her old father, and how she had crept to his breast and hidden her face in his beard, before she went to sleep at night …

  She died—But while she lay trampled to death in the mud of human flesh and blood, and the sacrificial roses kept falling down over her corpse unrecognisable,

  She returned to life, hovering through the air, and felt so light and unencumbered, and was whiter than ever and naked.

  And on her tender shoulders she felt two new wings quivering! …

  She hovered over her own body into a drifting cloud, a mist of fragrance, which farther on she lost sight of; and light, white, and rarefied, she looked wonderingly at her trampled body and laughed. Strange, clear, and childlike sounded her laugh in the cloud and vapour fragrance …

  XXVI

  THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT rattled on madly. Emeralda stretched out her sceptre, on the top of which glowed a star of destroying rays. When she stretched out the sceptre and directed the rays, she scorched monuments, palaces, and parks to a white ash, and, for her cruel jubilant procession, she cut down everything that came her way. The thick white ashes flew up like dust; the jubilant multitude were scorched; the palaces of jasper and malachite shrivelled up like burnt paper; the breath of the horses blew away, like ash, the white burnt gardens. And right over everything went Emeralda, scorching as she went. Powerful, foolish, arrogant, and proud she was, and more unfeeling than ever, spiteful and cruel, hurt in her pride; and she scorched, and made the way smooth before her. Behind her lay all the town, and she drove through her kingdom, filling the air with her rays. She drove through valleys and burnt up the harvest; she reduced villages to dust; she dried up rivers; and before her, the mountains split asunder.

  Her sceptre made a way for her, and no law of nature resisted her power. The air was grey with the clouds of ash which rained down upon the earth.

  She went along as swiftly as an arrow, swiftly as light, swiftly as thought. She went so swiftly, that in a single hour she had gone all round her wide kingdom intoxicated with the pride of annihilation, and she drove her maddened horses through endless plains of sand.

  Desert after desert she consumed; th
e lions fled before her; she overtook them in a moment; clouds of sand she sent up into the air …

  But then she relaxed her speed. She stopped.

  Before her, grey and high through the clouds of sand and falling ash, there loomed a most dreadful shadow.

  The shadow was like a gigantic beast, squatting in the sand, with a woman’s head in a stiff basalt veil. The woman’s head had a woman’s breast, two basalt breasts of a gigantic woman. But the body that squatted in the sand was a lion, and the paws stuck out like walls. And so great was the shadow, so monstrous the beast, that even the triumphal chariot of Emeralda appeared small.

  “Sphinx!” said Emeralda, “I will know. I am powerful, but there is power above me. There are spheres above mine, and there are gods above my divinity. There are laws of nature which my sceptre cannot alter. Sphinx, tell me the riddle. Reveal to me the place where the Jewel lies hidden, which gives almighty power over the world and God, so that I may find it and become the mightiest of all gods. Sphinx, answer me, I say! Open your stony lips and let your voice once more be heard, that shall make the world tremble with wonder. For centuries you have not spoken. Sphinx, speak now! For if you do not speak, Sphinx, and reveal to me where the Jewel lies hidden, then great and terrible as you are, I will scorch you to a white ash and go over you in triumph. Sphinx, speak!”

  The Sphinx was silent. The Sphinx looked with stony eyes at the clouds of sand and raining ash. Her basalt lips remained shut.

  “Sphinx, speak!” said Emeralda, threateningly and red with rage.

  The Sphinx spoke not and looked.

  Emeralda stretched out her sceptre and directed the destroying rays.

  The rays split on the basalt with crackling sparks like flashes of forked lightning. Emeralda uttered a cry, hoarse and terrible. She threw away her broken sceptre. But of her greater power she did not doubt, and for the last time she threatened.

  “Terrible Sphinx, tremble! I am more terrible than you! Speak, Sphinx!”