And in her love she did not scold him. For she loved him and scolded not. She longed for no revenge, for she loved him....
“That was fate,” she thought, weeping. “He could not do anything else. He was obliged....”
She wept. And oh! she was so tired, so tired of the wide sky, so tired of the wide sand! Then she thought she could go no farther, and should fall into the stream of her tears.... But before her a lofty shadow fell with gloomy darkness on the violet night. She looked up, and had to strain her neck to see to the top of the shadow. The shadow was round above, and then tapered off behind.... But she wept so, that she did not see.... Then with her hand she wiped away the tears from her eyes, and gazed.... The shadow was awful, like that of an awfully great beast. And she kept wiping away her tears, which formed a pool around her, and gazed....
Then she saw. She saw, squatting in the sand, a terribly great beast like a lion, immovable. The beast was as great as a castle, high as a tower; its head reached to the stars. But its head was the head of a woman, slender, enveloped in a basalt veil, which fell down, right and left, along her shoulders. And the woman’s head stood on the breast of a woman, two breasts of a gigantic woman, of basalt. But the body, that squatted down in the sand, was a lion, and the forepaws protruded like walls.
The night shone. The sultry night shone with diamonds over the horizonless desert. And in the starlight night the beast, terrible, rested there, half-woman, half-lion, squatting in the sand, its paws extended and its breasts and woman’s head protruding, gigantic, reaching to the stars. Her basalt eyes stared straight before her. Her mouth was shut and so were the basalt lips, which would never speak.
Psyche stood before the beast. Around her was the night; around her was the sand; above her the diamond, shining stars. Silently shuddering and full of awe, stood Psyche. Then she thought: “It must be she, the Sphinx....”
She wept. Her tears flowed; she stood in the stream of her tears, which, winding along, followed her. And weeping, she lifted up her voice, small in the night—the voice of a child that speaks in the illimitable.
“Awful Sphinx,” she said, “make me wise. You know the problem of life. I pray you solve it to me, and let me no longer weep....”
The Sphinx was silent.
“Sphinx,” continued Psyche, “open your stony lips. Speak! Tell me the riddle of life. I was born a princess, naked, with wings; I cannot fly. The light-gold Chimera, the splendid horse with the silver wings, came down to me, took me away with him in wanderings through the air, and I loved him. He has left me—me, a child—alone in the desert, alone in the night. Tell me why? If I know, I shall—perhaps—weep no more. Sphinx, I am tired. I am tired of the air, tired of the sand, tired from crying. And I cannot stop; I keep on crying. If you do not speak to me, Sphinx, then I will drown you, gigantic as you are, in my tears. Look at them flowing around me; look at them rippling at your feet like a sea. Sphinx, they will rise above your head. Sphinx, speak!”