Psyche was often very lonely, but yet she had much: she had the flowers, the birds; she had the butterflies, which thought that she was a bigger sister; she had the lizards, with which she played, and which, like little things of emerald, she held against her veil; she had the swans in the deep castle moats, which followed her when she walked on the ramparts; she had the clouds, which came floating from distant islands and paradises beyond; she had the wind, which sang her ballads; the rain, which fell down wet upon her and covered her wings with pearls. She would gladly have played with the pages in the halls, have laughed with the shield-bearers in the armoury, have listened to the martial tales of the bearded halberdiers at the gates, but she was a princess and knew she could not do that, and she always walked past them with great dignity, maidenly modest in her fine, thin veil, which left her tender limbs half exposed. That was the noble Nakedness, which was her privilege as a princess, a privilege given her at her cradle, together with her wings by the Fairy of Births, as to Emeralda was given the Jewel and to Astra the Star. For never might Psyche wear Jewel or Star, and never might Emeralda or Astra go naked. Each princess had her own privilege, her birthright. Adorable was Psyche as, unconscious of her maidenly, tender purity, she was seen with her crimson glittering wings, naked in the folds of her veil, walking past the armour-bearers and soldiers, who presented their swords or halberds as the princess, nymph-white, stepped past them.
The Ramparts
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Psyche was often very lonely, for her nurse was old and mumbled over her spinning-wheel; playmates Psyche had not, because she was a princess, and she would not get court-ladies till she was older and more dignified. But with the birds and the clouds and the wind Psyche could speak and laugh, and she was seldom dull, although she sometimes wished she were no longer Princess of Nakedness with the wings, but one of those very ordinary peasant-girls whom she had seen milking the cows, or plucking the thick bunches of grapes in the vineyard at harvest-time, whilst the pressers, handsome brown lads with sturdy arms, encircled the girls and danced.
But Psyche wandered along the ramparts; she looked at the clouds and spoke with the wind, and she asked the wind to give flight to her wings, so that she could fly far off to the opal landscapes that kept shifting and changing. But the wind rushed away with a flapping noise of wings that Psyche envied, and her own wings flapped a little, but in vain.
Psyche looked at the clouds. They floated along so stately in all kinds of forms—in the forms of sheep, swans, horses—and the form never remained: the seeming forms, thick-white in the blue ether, were constantly changing. Now she saw three swans which were drawing a boat, in which stood three women, who guided the swans; then she saw the women become a tower, the swans a dragon; and from far, far away came a knight, sitting on a winged horse. But now slowly the scene changed into a flock of little silver-fleeced, downy sheep, which were browsing far off in the sunshine as in a golden meadow. The knight disappeared, but the horse glided nearer and flew on his wings, high over the castle, towards the sheep.
Then Psyche dreamed at night of the swans, the tower, the dragon, the knight, the horse; but the horse she liked best, because it had strong wings. And next morning she gazed from the battlements to see if the horse would come again.
But then the sky was either gloomy from the rain or blue from the absence of clouds, or covered with white peacock’s feathers, splendid plumes, but motionless, far, far away in the air. The wind changed, when she said: “Away! blow now from the East again! Begone, North wind, with your dark perils, begone! Begone, West wind, with your rain-urns! Begone, South wind, with your peacock’s feathers! Come now, wind from the East, with your treasures of luxurious visions, ye dragons, ye horses, ye girls with swans!...” Then the clouds began to shift, the winds to blow, and play an opera high up in the air, and Psyche, enchanted, sat and gazed.
Then after weeks, after she had missed it for weeks, came again the winged horse.