Hypolympia Part 12

HERA.

I must beg you to leave me, or to remain perfectly motionless. I am excessively agitated.

EROS.

I followed the being which is hanging downwards from that spray of blossom. Does it recall some one to you?

HERA.

Not in its present position. But I will not pretend, Eros, that it is not the source of my agitation. Look at it now, as it flings itself round the stalk, and opens and waves its fans. Do you still not comprehend?

EROS.

I see nothing in it now. I am disappointed.

HERA.

But those great coloured eyes, waxing and waning! Those moons of pearl! The copper that turns to crimson, the turquoise that turns to violet, the greenish, pointed head that swings and rolls its yoke of slender plumage! Ah! Eros, is it possible that you do not perceive that it is a symbol of my peac.o.c.k, my bird translated into the language of this narrow and suppressed existence of ours?

What a strange and exquisite messenger! My poor peac.o.c.k, with a strident shriek of terror, fled from me on that awful morning, the flames singeing its dishevelled train, its wings helplessly flapping in the torrents of conflagration. It bade me no adieu, its clangour of despair rang forth, an additional note of discord, from the inner courts of my palace. And out of its agony, of its horror, it has contrived to send me this adorable renovation of itself, all its grace and all its splendour reincarnated in this tiny creature.

But alas! how am I to capture, how to communicate with it?

EROS.

I hesitate to disturb your illusion, Hera. But you are singularly mistaken. I have a far greater interest in this messenger than you can have; and if you dream its presence to be a tribute to your pride, I am much more tenderly certain that it is a reproach to my affections. See, those needlessly gaudy wings,--a mere disguise to bring it through the mult.i.tude of its enemies--are closed now, and it resumes its pendulous att.i.tude, as aerial as an evening cloud, as graceful as sorrow itself, sable as the shadow of a leaf in the moonlight.

HERA.

Whom do you suppose it to represent, Eros?

EROS.

"Represent" is an inadequate word. I know it to be, in some transubstantiation, the exact nature of which I shall have to investigate, my adored and injured Psyche. You never appreciated her, Hera.

HERA.

It was necessary in such a society as ours to preserve the hierarchical distinctions. She was a charming little creature, and I never allowed myself to indulge in the violent prejudice of your mother. When you presented her at last, I do not think that you had any reason to reproach me with want of civility.

[_The b.u.t.terfly dances off._]

HERA _and_ EROS _together_.

It is gone.

[_A pause._]

HERA.

We are in a curious dilemma. Unless we are to conceive that two of the lesser Olympians have been able to combine in adopting a symbolic disguise, either you or I have been deceived. That tantalising visitant can scarcely have been at the same time Psyche and my peac.o.c.k.

EROS.

I know not why; and for my part am perfectly willing to recognise its spots and moons to your satisfaction, if you will permit me to recognise my own favourite in the garb of grief.

HERA.

My bird was ever a masquerader--it may be so.

EROS.

Psyche, also, was not unaccustomed to disguises.

HERA.

You take the recollection coolly, Eros.

EROS.

Would you have me shriek and moan? Would you have me throw myself in convulsive ecstasy upon that ambiguous insect? You are not the first, Hera, who has gravely misunderstood my character. I am not, I have never been, a victim of the impulsive pa.s.sions. The only serious misunderstandings which I have ever had with my ill.u.s.trious mother have resulted from her lack of comprehension of this fact. _She_ is impulsive, if you will! Her existence has been a succession of centrifugal adventures, in which her sole idea has been to hurl herself outward from the solitude of her individuality. I, on the other hand, leave very rarely, and with peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch the world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows penetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual armour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have always been graceful and inconspicuous in my att.i.tudes. The image of Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a shaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would shudder to contemplate.

HERA.

Then what was the meaning of your apparent infatuation for Psyche?

EROS.

O do not call it "apparent." It was genuine and it was all-absorbing. But it was absolutely exceptional. Looking back, it seems to me that I must have been gazing at myself in a mirror, and have dismissed an arrow before I realised who was the quarry. It is not necessary to remind you of the circ.u.mstances----

HERA.

You would, I suppose, describe them as exceptional?

EROS.

As wholly exceptional. And could I be expected to prolong an ardour so foreign to my nature? The victim of pa.s.sion cannot be a contemplator at the same moment, and I may frankly admit to you, Hera, that during the period of my infatuation for Psyche, there were complaints from every province of the universe. It was said that unless my attention could be in a measure diverted from that admirable girl, there would be something like a stagnation of general vitality. Phoebus remarked one day, that if the ploughman became the plough the cessation of harvests would be inevitable.

HERA.

It was at that moment, I suppose, that you besought Zeus so pa.s.sionately to confer upon Psyche the rank of a G.o.ddess?

EROS.

You took that, no doubt, for an evidence of my intenser infatuation. An error; it was a proof that the arguments of the family were beginning to produce their effect upon me. I perceived my responsibility, and I recognised that it was not the place of the immortal organiser of languishment to be sighing himself. To deify my lovely Psyche was to recognise her claim, and--and----

HERA.

To give you a convenient excuse for neglecting her?

EROS.