“With you goes all joy from the feast; Psyche, stay!”
“I will not always sing, dance, drink. No, no, let me alone!”
She pushed him away from her; she pushed the satyrs away from her; she broke the round dance of the Bacchantes, who, drunken, shouted with drunken eyes and wide-open, screaming mouths.
“Psyche! Psyche!” screamed all.
She laughed loudly and coquettishly, like a spoilt child.
“I will come back to-morrow, when you are sober!” she said with a mocking laugh. “Your voices are hoarse, your song is out of tune, your last grapes were sour! I will only have the sweet of your feast, and the bitter I will leave to you. Spread out your panther skins; go and sleep off your drunkenness. If your feast has to last till winter, you need rest—rest for your hoarse throats, rest for your drunken legs, rest for your heads, muddled with wine.... I will come back to-morrow, when you are sober!”
She gave a loud, mocking laugh, and rushed into the wood. It was a moonlight night; in the pale moonbeams she left the wild feast behind. The jealous Bacchantes danced round Bacchus, and embraced him.
Psyche hastened on. Her temples throbbed, her heart beat, and her bosom heaved. When she was far enough away, she stopped, pressed both her hands to her bosom, and gave a deep sigh. More slowly she went on to the stream. Fresh was the autumn night, but burning were her naked limbs!
The wood was still, save that in the top-most branches the wind moaned. Like a silvery ship the moon sailed forth from the luminous, ethereal sea, and the rushing mountain-stream foamed like snow on the rocks. With a longing desire for coolness and water, Psyche stepped down to the flags on the bank; with her hands she put aside the irises, and made her way through the ferns and plunged her foot into the water.
Then the nymphs dived up.