Next day, when Psyche was sleeping again by the brook, the dark head
with the leering eyes of jet appeared again on the horizon. For a long
time the eyes leered, full of lust. Then the head rose up higher like
a dark sun, behind the hill-slope in the sky.
It was a face tanned by the sun, with coal-black hair; round the
temples a wreath of vine leaves, and from the wreath protruded two
horns like those of a young goat.
The eyes looked lustful and young, as though they were jet and
gold. The lips laughed in the curly beard, and the sharp teeth were
dazzling white; the pointed ears stood up.
Then the dark face became perfectly visible in the light; the shoulders
rose brown and naked, and two brown hands with long fingers lifted to
the lips a pipe of short and long reeds. The pipe played a fanfare,
a march of very quick notes. Then it stopped, and the gold-jet eyes
leered. Psyche moved in her sleep. Then the pipe sounded again,
and Psyche opened her eyes. Astonished, she listened to the notes
of the pipe, as they rose and fell so as she had never heard before,
lively and wanton, quick and playful. She sat up, leant on her arm,
and looked....
She started. There, on the horizon, like a dark sun, she saw the brown
face and the lips in the curly beard blowing the reeds, short and
long. Psyche started and looked on trembling. Then the pipe stopped
again, and roguishly the head nodded to her. Psyche was frightened; she
woke the boys. She fled away. From the palace Eros came to meet her.
At first she meant to speak, but he kissed her; and why, she did
not know, but she spoke not. Then she made up her mind to tell Eros
that night, but in her husband's arms she lacked the courage to
speak. She did not tell him. The next morning she resolved not to
repose again in the moss by the brook. But that afternoon she played
with the cupids, and tired, fell asleep in the same place. The pipe
awoke her; on the horizon, the brown face stood out against the sun,
and roguishly nodded to her.
Psyche, indignant, looked up.
The head rose, the shoulders rose, and the whole form then rose up:
a sunburnt youth, with the legs of a goat, rough-haired and cloven
hoofs. There he stood, his dark shadow reflected in the golden rays
of the setting sun. He blew his reeds; he piped lustily and merrily,
roguishly and joyously and as well as he could, to please Psyche. She
listened--about her the boys were sleeping--and she smiled. He saw
her smile and smiled too. Then proudly she pointed with her finger
for him to go. He went, but the next day he was there again. Then she
saw him every day. He stood in the sun, which was going down, and blew
his reeds, laughed and nodded to her roguishly. Sometimes Psyche bade
him be gone; sometimes she pretended not to see who was playing there;
sometimes she listened graciously. When she heard the king call:
"Psyche! Psyche!" she woke the cupids, who dressed her in a moment,
and went to meet her husband. She kissed him, and wished to tell him
that every day a young man with goats' legs stood on the hill and
played upon his pipe. But because she had kept silence so long, she
was silent again, and could not open her lips. It made her sad, and
Eros saw her sadness, and often asked her what it was that disturbed
the equanimity of her soul. She said "Nothing," and embraced him
and declared that she was happy. But when the lark warbled and the
nightingale's sweet notes were heard, when Eros sang to the lyre and
the brook murmured gently, Psyche always heard, between the pleasant
sounds, the impudent tunes of the reeds, short and long. She tried not
to hear, but she always heard them. They sounded saucily and merrily,
like the sounds of a little bird in a wood calling something to her
from afar; she heard, but did not yet understand what.
One day, when he stood in the same place blowing lustily with
puffed-out cheeks, Psyche, indignant, rose with her lips closely
pressed together. She put her veil on and wound it tightly round
her loins, without waking the boys. Then, with a firm step and
innocently, she crossed a little slope, and came into a valley, a
valley of grass; there the brook flowed away between multitudes of
irises and narcissi. The goat, leering and laughing, tripped nimbly
down the hill on his hoofs to meet her.
"Who are you?" said Psyche haughtily.
"I am the Satyr," said he deferentially. "And now will you just see
me dance?"
He piped a waltz, and danced for her to the measure of his tripping
music. He turned out his feet, spun round and round, and underneath,
on his back, she saw his tiny tail wagging. She laughed, and found
him amusing, with his tail, and feet, and horns. Then he turned a
somersault, and finished his dance with a bow.
"You may not come here," said Psyche severely. "This is the Kingdom
of the Present, and I am the queen, and my husband is Eros, the
king of this kingdom. You dance indeed nicely, and you play rather
pretty tunes, but you may not come here. We have here the lark and
the nightingale, and my husband sings to the lyre."
"That is classical music," said the Satyr.
"I don't know what you mean by classical music. But you may not come
here and pipe, and disturb me in my afternoon slumber. If my husband
knew it, he would be very angry, and have you torn to pieces by two
raging griffons."
"I am not afraid of that," said the Satyr. "Why, I tame panthers,
and they are much more dangerous."
"I had pity on you," continued Psyche severely, raising her head in
queenly dignity, "and have not yet said anything to the king. But if
you come again to-morrow, I will tell him."
"No, you won't!" said the Satyr saucily.
"You are an ill-mannered boy!" said Psyche, angry and offended. "You
must not speak so to a princess. I ought not to condescend to speak
to you. I can see very well that you don't know how people behave
at court, and that you come from the wood. And you are ugly, too,
with your hairy feet and your tail."
The Satyr looked at her astonished.
"I think you very pretty!" he whispered admiringly. "Oh, I think you
so pretty! You have such pretty eyes, and such golden hair, and such
a white skin! Only, I don't like your wings. The nymphs haven't any."
"You may not speak to me like that!" said Psyche vexed. "I am the
queen. How dare you? Go away now, else I will call the wild beasts
here."
"Well, don't be angry!" said the Satyr in a low, imploring
tone. "That is my way of speaking. We all speak like that in the
wood. The Bacchantes, too, are not particular what they say. We are
unacquainted with your court language. And we don't know anything of
classical music. But we are always very merry and sociable together;
but you must come once...."
"Are you going?" said Psyche imperiously, and red with passion,
and with her finger she pointed to him to be gone. He crouched down
suddenly in the reeds of the brook among the irises and narcissi,
and she saw him stealing away through the high grass. When she turned
round she beheld the cupids; they were bringing her her crown.
"The king is looking for you, Psyche!" they cried out in the distance,
and like a cloud they hovered round her.
She went back with them and threw herself into the arms of her husband.
"Don't roam so far away, my little Psyche!" said Eros. "In the wood
behind the hills are wild beasts...."
Night came on; Eros sang, the nightingale filled the air with her
sweet notes.
"Classical music!" thought Psyche.