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 my soul, but if you do not descend, then I will loose the knots of your mane, I will let go my arms that are so tired, and then I shall fall down into nothingness. . . .”

“Hold out a little longer. Yonder is the purple desert. . . .”

“Oh, that is beautiful!” she exclaimed. “But you fly past it, always past it. . . .!”

“Do you want to rest, Psyche?”

“Oh, yes. . . .”

“Then I will descend. . . . Hold out a little longer.” She held him tight, and looked about. He plied his wings with a rapidity that made her dizzy; they blew a wind round Psyche. . ..

In the air there loomed the purple sands on the golden sea, with a pearly border of foam; the azure bananas, which waved their tops in the light-pink ether. . ..

Psyche held her breath. . . . “Would he descend there. . . .?”

Yes, indeed, he was descending. . . . he was descending. The purple, she thought, grew pale as soon as he descended; the sea was no longer golden, the foliage no longer blue. . . . But yet, yet it was beautiful, a dream-conceit, an enchanted land, and he was