Psyche (Couperus)/Chapter 24
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 the rainbow, and bedecked with flowers, singing and dancing, but not knowing why. Everywhere was bustle and commotion; on the roadside sat hundreds of hucksters, and women extolling their wares—glasses with jewels and fruit, cooling drinks, dresses and flowers. In a shrill key they praised their wares; they spread out their stuffs with much ado, and offered the people flowers, and poured them out wine, and held up strings of glass pearls and cheap necklaces of coins.
Psyche was naked, and she veiled herself in her hair; she spread over the marks on her shoulders her golden mantle of hair, and as many of the dancing girls, some half naked and others quite, danced round, hand in hand, people thought that she was naked, only because she was so fair—Psyche, so pearl-white in her golden hair. She was not wont to be ashamed of nakedness, which was once her right, her privilege as a princess; but now under the eyes of the people she blushed, and walked with downcast eyes. Then she turned to a saleswoman and asked:
“What is the feast for?”
“Where do you come from? ‘What is the feast for!’ Don’t you know anything about it?”
“I come from the other side of the sea. . . .”
“‘What is the feast for!’ It is the great festival: it is the Festival, the Jubilee-festival, of Emeralda. It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!!”
. . . . “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!” resounded on all sides. They danced and sang:
. . . . “It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”
They were drunk with joy, dizzy from strange joy; but Psyche suddenly saw that they were deadly pale and frightened, deadly pale under paint and flowers, and frightened whilst they danced round in a ring. “I have no dress for the occasion; give me that veil of golden gauze!” said Psyche to the saleswoman.
“That is very dear!”
“I will pay you for it with this pearl.”
. . . . “With that pearl! Are you a princess, then!”
Psyche then took the veil, and she bound it round her loins, just as she used to do before.
“I will give you a wreath of fresh roses as well!” said the woman, pleased, and put the flowers on her head.
She smiled, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was decked out with those flowers as a victim for the altar; that all the people who were making merry and dancing were bedecked as victims. She went on. Through the round gold gate she entered the city; the squares were seen in the distance, connected with very broad streets; square palaces of marble and bronze, of jasper and malachite, round cupolas and finely pointed minarets, glistered in the sun as if conjured up by magic. They stretched far away, and right behind the blue mountains rose the royal castle, a Babel of pinnacles and towers innumerable, almost indiscernible in the distance, with square ramparts and walls, and lofty summits lost in the rising mist. And along the squares, over palaces, and on the minarets, hung the thick festoons of flowers, as though the towns were decked out for an offering. Close up to the castle, Babel of pinnacles, the festoons of flowers seemed to reach. And in the squares the dancers threw flowers into the air, and it seemed as if white roses were raining down from heaven. To the sound of tabour and cymbals, the people danced madly round, and ever was heard the same cry:
“It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!”
Then Psyche, in the secret depths of her heart, saw clearly and indubitably what it all meant. As she went along with the dense crowds of noisy, shouting merry-makers, she saw all the people in the town trembling with fear, which made the blood congeal in their veins.
Their eyes, through fear, were ready to start out of their sockets; their teeth chattered; their limbs, bedecked with flowers, trembled; the sun was shining, but everyone was shivering with cold. But no one spoke of his trembling, and they danced, madly drunk with foolish joy, and they kept shouting the same thing:
“It is the Triumphal Procession of the Queen!!!”