Psyche

It was still dark when Psyche awoke. She looked up at Astra, who sat sleeping, her grey head on her breast; faintly shone her star. Very gently, so as not to wake her, Psyche ro...

And the guards let her in because she wore a holy dress. The halberdiers took her to the hall, where they slept or kept watch, and invited her to rest.

She got up. He flew away with her. He flew with her the whole day. The sun set; the stars glistened in the dark firmament; and he flew back. Again they approached the castle. Th...

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, wit...

The old king, assisted by pages, sat down slowly on his throne; his ministers and courtiers gathered round him. Then there was a great rustling of satin and gold, and in came Em...

Psyche had a secret. Why did she not tell it? She did not know. She could not, after having once kept silent. She knew that she was not doing right by being silent, and yet she...

When Psyche opened her eyes, she heard the soft music of two pipes. And she awoke from her swoon with a smile. She lay still and did not move, but looked about her. She was recl...

Next day, when Psyche was sleeping again by the brook, the dark head with the leering eyes of jet appeared again on the horizon. For a long time the eyes leered, full of lust. T...

In the rosy light, gigantic, towered the gloomy Sphinx. Psyche slept. But through her weary eyelids, the light softly sent its rays, coral-red, and suddenly she awoke. She opene...

Behind the coffin walked, first, Emeralda; behind her, Astra her sister; and then little Psyche, wrapped in her black veil. Emeralda sang with a voice of crystal; Astra, distrac...

A great commotion was going on in the direction of the castle. In that direction all eyes were turned, and the dancing girls forgot to dance. From fear, the crowd stood still, a...

That morning she wandered about in the rosy autumn dawn--a mist between the trees stripped of leaves. Along the path she trod; on a skin she found a satyr and a Bacchante lying...

She hovered away over her own dead body into a drifting cloud, a fragrant mist, which farther on she lost sight of; and light, white, and ethereal, she looked with wonder at her...

She had ascended higher than ever before, and under them sank away the castle, the meadows, the woods, the cities, and the river; under them, like a map, lay stretched out provi...

In the grassy plains, the shepherds drove out their flocks, and they sang because the sky was blue, because the world trilled with hope, in the new and tempered sunshine.

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...

But one windy morning--the thick white clouds were speeding through the air--she saw the desire of her heart again. Far away appeared a cloud, but as it drew nearer it became a...

Ever changing was the horizon: now pink, then silver; now blue, then golden; now grey, then white and misty, and gradually fading away, and never could the last be seen.

The triumphal chariot rattled on madly. Emeralda stretched out her sceptre, on the top of which glowed a star of destroying rays. When she stretched out the sceptre and directed...

When Psyche approached the capital, she heard at the gates the excited cries of festive merry-makers. Outside the gates flocked the noisy crowd, dressed in all the colours of th...

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...

Emeralda, that was the name of her eldest sister. Surpassingly beautiful was Emeralda, dazzling fair as no woman in the kingdom, no princess in other kingdoms. Exceedingly tall...

No answer was returned. No sigh rustled in the leaves of the trees; no insect hummed in the grass; the flowers hung down withered on their limp stems. A deathly chilliness reign...

The path was steep, and covered with cactus and thistles. It was a narrow path, hewn out of the rocks, winding up the basalt mountain, where, high on the top, stood the castle....

The foliage shone resplendent in yellow, bronze, purple, golden-red, and pink; the sulphur-coloured moss looked like antique velvet. With gusts of wind, the branches, madly arro...

A good hundred years old he was, his beard hung down to his girdle, and generally he sat reading the historical scrolls of the kingdom, which his ministers brought him every day.

She was so fond of birds. How she envied them! She enticed them with crumbs of bread, with grains of corn, and once she had rescued a dove from an eagle. The dove she had hidden...