Клайв Стейплз Льюис: Till we have Faces

“Can she heal them?” said I to the Fox. “Did she heal you?”

“It is possible,” said the Fox. “It might be in accordance with nature that some hands can heal. Who knows?”

“Let me go out,” said Psyche. “They are our people.”

“Our rump!” said my father. “They shall smart for this day’s work if ever I get the whip hand of them again. But quick. Dress the girl. She has beauty enough, that’s one thing. And spirit.”

They put a queen’s dress on her and a chaplet on her head and opened the door. You know how it is when you shed few tears or none, but there is a weight and pressure of weeping through your whole head. It is like that with me even now when I remember her going out, slim and straight as a sceptre, out of the darkness and cool of the hall into the hot, pestilential glare of that day. The people drew back, thrusting one another, the moment the doors opened. I think they expected a rush of spearmen. But a minute later the wailing and shouting died utterly away. Every man (and many a woman too) in that crowd was kneeling. Her beauty, which most of them had never seen, worked on them as a terror might work. Then a low murmur, almost a sob, began; swelled, broke into the gasping cry, “A goddess, a goddess.” One woman’s voice rang out clear. “It is Ungit herself in mortal shape.”

Psyche went on, walking slowly and gravely, like a child going to say a lesson, right in among all the foulness. She touched and she touched. They fell at her feet and kissed her feet and the edge of her robe and her shadow and the ground where she had trodden. And still she touched and touched. There seemed to be no end of it; the crowd increased instead of diminishing. For hours she touched. The air was stifling even for us who stood in the shadow of the porch. The whole earth and air ached for the thunderstorm which (we knew now) would not come. I saw her growing paler and paler. Her walk had become a stagger.

“King,” said I, “it will kill her.”

“Then more’s the pity,” said the King. “They’ll kill us all if she stops.”

It was over in the end, somewhere about sunset. We carried her to her bed, and next day the fever was on her. But she won through it. In her wanderings she talked most of her gold and amber castle on the ridge of the Grey Mountain. At her worst, there was no look of death upon her face. It was as if he dared not came near her. And when her strength came back she was more beautiful than before. The childishness had gone. There was a new and severer radiance. “Ah, no wonder,” sang the Fox, “if the Trojans and the Achaeans suffer long woes for such a woman. Terribly does she resemble an undying spirit.”

Some of the sick in the town died and some recovered. Only the gods know if those who recovered were those whom Psyche had touched, and gods do not tell. But the people had, at first, no doubts. Every morning there were offerings left for her outside the palace; myrtle branches and garlands and soon honey–cakes and then pigeons, which are specially sacred to Ungit. “Can this be well?” I said to the Fox.

“I should be greatly afraid,” said he, “but for one thing. The Priest of Ungit lies sick with the fever himself. I do not think he can do us much mischief at present.”

About this time Redival became very pious and went often to the house of Ungit to make offerings. The Fox and I saw to it that she always had with her a trusty old slave who would let her get into no mischief. I thought she was praying for a husband (she wanted one badly since the King had, in a manner, chained her to the Fox and me) and also that she was as glad to be out of our sight for an hour as we were to be out of hers. Yet I warned her to speak to no one on the way.

“Oh, make your mind easy, Sister,” says Redival. “It’s not me they worship, you know. I’m not the goddess. The men are as likely to look at you as at me, now they’ve seen Istra.”

Up till now I had not known what the common people are like. That was why their adorings of Psyche, which in one way made me afraid, comforted me in another. For I was confused in my mind, sometimes thinking of what Ungit by her own divine power might do to any mortal who thus stole her honour, and sometimes of what the Priest and our enemies in the city (my father had many now) might do with their tongues, or stones, or spears. Against the latter the people’s love for Psyche seemed to me a protection.

It did not last long. For one thing, the mob had now learned that a palace door can be opened by banging on it. Before Psyche was out of her fever they were back at our gates crying, “Corn, corn! We are starving. Open the royal granaries.” That time the King gave them a dole. “But don’t come again,” he said. “I’ve no more to give you. Name of Ungit! d’you think I can make corn if the fields don’t bear it?”

“And why don’t they?” said a voice from the back of the crowd.

“Where are your sons, King?” said another. “Where’s the prince?”

“The King of Phars has thirteen sons,” said another.

“Barren king makes barren land,” said a fourth. This time the King saw who had spoken and nodded to one of the bowmen who stood beside him. Before you’d wink the arrow went through the speaker’s throat and the mob took to its heels. But it was foolishly done; my father ought to have killed either none of them or nearly all. He was right enough, though, in saying we could give them no more doles. This was the second of the bad harvests and there was little in the granary but our own seedcorn. Even in the palace we were already living for the most part on leeks and bean–bread and small beer. It took me endless contrivance to get anything good for Psyche when she was mending from the fever.

The next thing was this. Shortly after Psyche was well, I left the Pillar Room where I had been working for the King (and he still kept the Fox with him after he let me go) and set out to look for Redival, that care being always on my mind. The King would have thought nothing of keeping me away from her at his own business all the day and then blaming me for not having my eyes on her. But as it happened I met her at once, just coming in from one of her visits to the house of Ungit, and Batta with her. Batta and she were as thick as thieves these days.

“You needn’t come looking for me, sister–jailer,” said Redival. “I’m safe enough. It isn’t here the danger lies. When did you last see the little goddess? Where’s your darling stepsister?”

“In the gardens most likely,” said I. “And as for little , she’s half a head taller than yourself.”

“Oh mercy! Have I blasphemed? Will she smite me with thunder? Yes, she’s tall enough. Tall enough to see her a long way off—half an hour ago—in a little lane near the market place. A king’s daughter doesn’t usually walk the back streets alone; but I suppose a goddess can.”

“Istra out in the town and alone?” said I.

“Indeed she was then,” chattered Batta. “Scuttling along with her robe caught up. Like this … like this.” (Batta was a bad mimic but always mimicking; I remembered that from my earliest years.) “I’d have followed her, the young boldface, but she went in at a doorway, so she did.”

“Well, well,” said I. “The child ought to have known better. But she’ll do no harm and come to none.”

“Come to no harm!” said Batta. “That’s more than any of us know.”

“You are mad, Nurse,” said I. “The people were worshipping her not six days ago.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Batta (who knew perfectly well). “But she’ll get little worship today. I knew what would come of all that touching and blessing. Fine goings on indeed! The plague’s worse than ever it was. There were a hundred died yesterday, the smith’s wife’s brother–in–law tells me. They say the touchings didn’t heal the fever but gave it. I’ve spoken to a woman whose old father was touched by the Princess, and he was dead before they had carried him home. And he wasn’t the only one. If anyone had listened to old Batta——”