“No, dear, it must be a story,” said Clio firmly.
“And perhaps a song will come into it,” added Erato sweetly.
Then Euterpe told this story. And all the time that she was telling it Erato sat gazing upward into Euterpe’s eyes.
The child came through the forest. The big trees grew close together, and creeping plants hung like heavy serpents from their boughs. The sun found its way through, here and there, among the broad, smooth leaves, and made splashes of light on the red gold of the child’s hair. One bird called to another; every now and then there was a flutter among the leaves, or the quick rustle of some small live thing in the tall grasses and brushwood below, and a scented wind kept singing of a land of rest where the good winds go when they die. From far away one could hear the low roar of a lion, as he stood by the margin of the distant morass, looking over stretches of sand and spaces of still water to the line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world.
The child was very fair. Her hair was glorious; her eyes were blue; her young limbs were white, and strong, and graceful. Yet one might see a fierce look in the blue eyes, and splashes of crimson here and there on the white limbs, and her breath came quickly; for it was in her nature to torture and to kill, and she knew no better thing. In one hand she dragged along the body of a young wild cat, scarcely more than a kitten. She lived ever in the open air, and she was fleet and fearless. All the morning she had chased it, until it was weary; yet, although it was young, it had fought long and fiercely. On the hand that dragged it along were the marks of its claws and teeth; thick drops of blood fell slowly on to its body, and its fur was wet and stained. The child wore a living, tortured, fluttering necklace. She had caught the butterflies one by one, choosing those which were brightest in colour, and had threaded a spiked tendril through the soft bodies to make herself the necklace. She liked the tickling fuss and flutter that the butterflies made against her smooth skin, as they hung there and died slowly.
A great purple flower, that grew low down on the ground, lifted its brightness towards her as she passed: “And, oh!” sighed the flower, “she is fair, and sweet would it be if she would take me and wear me gently at her breast.” The child did not know the voice of flowers; but she stooped down and tore off the purple petals one by one. From the cup of the flower rolled a big golden bee: he had been sleeping there. For one second he buzzed on the ground, trying to remember where he was and to understand what had happened. In that second the child had swiftly seized a stone, and so she crushed most of the bee, leaving it enough life to let it feel the agony of death. She flung down the body of the wild cat, and ran on for a few steps, with a laugh on her red mouth. Then she stopped again where a nest was built in a bush with very dark leaves and little white globes of flowers. In the nest were three young birds: two of these she cast to the ground and killed at once: she held the third in her small hot hands for a second, and a kind of frenzy came on her, and she made her firm teeth meet in its neck. For a little while she stood shuddering, and then she passed onwards, but more slowly. Slowly she came through the forest in her fairness and cruelty, caring nothing for her own beauty, and knowing nothing better than her cruelty.
And it chanced that she came to the place where the minstrel sat in pleasant shade on a mossy curve of a tree’s root. In his hands was his lyre, and music came from it like falling water. The child crept into the brushwood, and hid herself, and listened. And the minstrel sang:
Far away is the land where all things go,
The rest of the winds that have ceased to blow,