He led her gently away, through the porticos, down the crystal steps. Cupids hovered about them, the lark sang high in the heavens, the roses perfumed the air, the brook murmured gently. The spring rejoiced to welcome them, and behind the shrubs the pipes played a duet. The hill-slope of the horizon was peaceful, and above, the heaven, arched like a turquoise chalice.
Everything sang, everything was fragrant; in the grass buzzed thousands of insects; about the flowers fluttered butterflies; and where Psyche, on her husband’s arm, walked along the flower-beds, all the flowers bowed to her in homage—the white slender lilies, the violets with laughing eyes, tall flowers and short flowers, on long and short stems—and all gave forth their fragrance.
Eros pointed around.
“This is the Present, Psyche,” said he, and pressed her to his heart.
“And this is happiness, that is as a lily and a violet ...” she whispered, with her lips to his.
Chapter XIII
The pleasant days followed each other like a row of laughing houris.... Eros and Psyche tended the flowers, which did not fade when Psyche stroked the stems or gently kissed the calyces. They wandered along the brook, and, if the days were warm, sought coolness under the crocus-coloured awning, in the crystal palace, where the doves cooed round the basin. The flutes played, or Eros himself took a lyre and sang, at Psyche’s feet, the stories of days gone by.
It was one of the pleasures of the flower-laughing Present.
Between the shrubs, where May strewed fragrant snow-blossom, naked, chubby cupids with tender wings played or romped, hovering like little clouds in the air.