Psyche Part 20

The plaintive viol kept trembling, and the same sound sounded ever, the unchangeable answer. The hurricane was no longer chill, but warm, sultry, strangely sultry; more and more sultry blew the everlasting cyclone.

The sea-monsters kept back; they dived again below; the sea sank with them, the shades swayed to and fro in storm-flood, waterfall--storm-flood, waterfall, and many-headed hydras came sinuously up. The sea no longer shone with phosph.o.r.escent glow, but was quite black, pitch black, black as boiling pitch, without foam and without light, and kept sending up a discharge of miry, vaporous matter. In the boiling pitch, the hydras, with their thousand snaky heads, kept diving up, tortoise-scaled; swayed to and fro, to and fro the pale faces of the shades, but ever sounded the plaintive viol, and ever rang forth the same note, the unchangeable answer to Psyche's shrill question:

"Hydras of the sea of pain, spirits in the sea of pain, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda...??"

"Vanity, vanity...!"

The pitch seethed and hissed and steamed.

It was no longer a sea of water, no longer a sea of pitch;

It was a sea of nothing but flame, pitch-black flame, a sea of jet-black fire, fire and flame, that waved from the horizon, where a single streak of pale light appeared. In the black flames burned the shades, in the black flames wound the hydras in and out; the thick smoke shot up into the clouds, and the clouds sent it back again....

"Spirits in the pitch-black flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda...???"

"Vanity, vanity...!"

The hurricane kept blowing, the plaintive viol kept trembling, and ever sounded the same note, the unchangeable answer. But scorchingly, more scorchingly blew the wind, like a tempest from a sun for ever doomed. The black night now a.s.sumed a dark-purple aspect, like purple steam; the clouds drove a b.l.o.o.d.y vapour into the heavens.

And on either side of Psyche's path suddenly shot out the flaming hurricane of the sun, gigantic purple tongues of fire, scarlet and orange. The lower clouds drove them back, and when Psyche looked round, she stood in a flaming fire. The flaming hurricane seethed round her; behind her feet the path was on fire. The air was fire. But Psyche, whose own soul was on fire, in her own scorching fire of remorse, felt not the glowing heat, and she saw,

Out of the living scarlet craters, the orange caves, the h.e.l.lish chimeras working up their sinuous way like glowing spirals: half arabesque, half beast; half dragon, half tail; flaming sea-horses. They spat and fanned the glowing fire, and, riding aloft on the burning hurricane, the shades swept past Psyche.

"Spirits in the scarlet flames...."

"Vanity, vanity!"

This was the only answer, that sounded afar off in her ears, the answer of the tortured, angry spirits, which in the strength of their sin and pa.s.sion came flying up from the craters.

On she went....

She went on along the path that unfolded before her.

How confidently she went on, how calmly! Why was she not afraid? Oh! she knew too much to be afraid and not to go on in confidence. Was the answer not always more distinct and unchangeable? Psyche's soul breathed freely, and in the fire around her her own fire seemed to diminish. For when the fire round her became yellower, sulphur-yellow, pure yellow, the pure golden yellow of the sun, then she uttered a cry of joy, as though she knew the answer:

"Spirits in the sulphur flames, spirits in the sun's flames...!"

She smiled.... Smiling, she hastened on, with joyful voice, with winged step; and so rapidly did she flee along the path smoothed out small for her foot, that behind her the answer could scarcely reach her.

"Vanity, vanity!"

Oh! it was always the plaintive viol, but the too poignant grief was tempered with melancholy; the plaintive sea became like a sea of melancholy; the thousands of voices were full of melancholy. And when the flames became less dense and lighter, when they changed from sulphur yellow to soft azure, a flaming sea of azure, in the silent dawning moonlight scenery, high, broad, blue flaming tongues that shot from the moon--when the h.e.l.lish hurricane no longer raged, but gave away to a more benign breeze--then Psyche asked no more in so shrill a key, but knowing all, her voice murmured dejectedly:

"Spirits in the azure flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?"

The melancholy viol vibrated more gently; the spirits rocking to and fro in the thin blue fire sang more softly:

"That is vanity, Psyche; that is vanity...."

She uttered her jubilant cry, and hastened on with uplifted arms through the azure moon-flames. 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 a.s.suring, 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 rea.s.suring, 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 sea-sh.o.r.e with its many bays, the sh.o.r.e of the Kingdom of the Past. There, on the opal-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.