Part 15 (2/2)

”Oh, that pains, that pains!... Oh, that pains!” cried Psyche.

”It is a little wound, it will soon heal,” said the Satyr soothingly, but grinning with pleasure.

Then he threw a panther's skin round her, put a wreath of vine-leaves on her head, and she was like a fair Bacchante still very young and tender, with her white skin, with her tender eyes of soul-innocence, in which, deep down, dejection reigned.

”Psyche!” cried he delighted, ”Psyche! How pretty you are!”

She uttered her shrill laugh, her laugh of bitter irony. He led her away down the hills. She looked about: yonder lay the Present, reduced to dust and spider-webs. She looked about: in the wind, which was blowing, her wings whirled away, shrivelled up, whirled away like dry leaves.

She laughed and put her arm round his neck, and they hastened back to the wood.

The wind blew; the first snowflakes fell.

CHAPTER XX

Slowly followed the seasons--winter, spring, summer, autumn....

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, fell in turn, like dust, into the caves of Emeralda.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, were the Present for a moment, and sank into the Past.

And again it was spring....

In the gra.s.sy plains, the shepherds drove out their flocks, and they sang because the sky was blue, because the world trilled with hope, in the new and tempered suns.h.i.+ne.

What did the shepherds know of Emeralda? They had never seen her. They sang, they sang; they filled the air with their song. As a reed, their song remained quivering and hanging in the air. In the wood and in the mountains, over the meadows and in the air, Echo sang with them their song. They sang because the sky was blue....

Emeralda they did not know....

Blue, blue ... blue was the air! Hope quivered in the suns.h.i.+ne, and love in their hearts....

Into the gra.s.sy plains the shepherds drove their flocks, and they sang because the sky was blue.

On the border of the wood, where endless plains extended, there lived in a grotto between rocks, a holy hermit who was a hundred years old.

How many seasons had he seen sink into the pits of the Past...!

How many times had he heard the Lenten song of the shepherds! Wrapped in contemplation, he heard them singing. They sang because the sky was blue. The lark was soaring because the world trilled with hope.... They sang because fleecy lambs were sporting again in the meadows. They sang because they were young and loved the shepherdesses. They sang of blue sky, of hope, of lambs, and love....

The hermit continued deep in thought....

Every spring it was the same song, and he had never sung with them. Never had he known the Present, the spring Present of the shepherds.

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