“I cannot, O little Psyche. I too love you, sweet burden which lay between my wings—little butterfly with weak wings, that lent strength to my flight; but now....”
“But now—O Chimera, but now...?”
“But now I must go, continue my lonely journey to and fro, without knowing why.... Farewell, little Psyche, hope in life, hope in the morrow....”
He spread his wings, his limbs quivered, he ascended into the air.
She wrung her arms, her hands. She sobbed, she sobbed....
“Have pity!!” she implored. “Pity, pity! What have I done? Why do you punish me so? My God, what have I done? I have trusted, hoped, given my soul in happiness.... Is happiness then punished? Is it not good to hope, to trust, and to love? Ought I then to have mistrusted and hated? What do I ask? He no longer hears me! What do I care for the problems of life! Him I love, and in me is nothing but my love and despair, and round me is the desert and the night, and now ... now I must die!”
She sobbed, and her tears flowed. She was alone. Around her loomed the night, around her stretched the sands as far as the perceptible horizon. And above her glistened the stars.
And she wept. Her grief was too great for her little soul. She wept.
“Alone!” she sobbed. “Alone...! I will not quench my thirst, I will not refresh myself, nor will I sleep. I am tired, but I will go on....”
On she went, and wept. In the night she walked on through the sand, and she wept. She wept from fear and despair. And she wept so, her tears flowed so many down her cheeks that they fell, her tears, like drops, great and warm, deep into the sand. Her tears flowed down into the sand. And she wept, she kept weeping, and as she went along ... her tears did not stop. Then in the sand, her tears so warm and so great, formed little lakes. And as she went and kept going on and weeping, the little lakes flowed into one another, and behind her flowed a stream of tears. Meandering after her flowed her tears. And on she went in the night and wept.... After her, meandered faithfully the stream of her tears.... And she thought of her lost happiness.... He had forsaken her.... Why...? She had loved him so, still loved him so.... Oh, she would always love him so—always, always!