Till We Have Faces_ A Myth Retold - C. S. Lewis [37]
"But what of? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?"
"No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal — ashamed of being a mortal."
"But how could you help that?"
"Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are the things they can't help?"
I thought of my ugliness and said nothing.
"And he took me," said Psyche, "in his beautiful arms which seemed to burn me (though the burning didn't hurt) and pulled me right out of the iron girdle — and that didn't hurt either and I don't know how he did it — and carried me up into the air, far up above the ground, and whirled me away. Of course he was invisible again almost at once. I had seen him only as one sees a lightning flash. But that didn't matter. Now I knew it was he, not it, I wasn't in the least afraid of sailing along in the sky, even of turning head over heels in it."
"Psyche, are you sure this happened? You must have been dreaming!"
"And if it was a dream, Sister, how do you think I came here? It's more likely everything that had happened to me before this was a dream. Why, Glome and the King and old Batta seem to me very like dreams now. But you hinder my tale, Maia. So he carried me through the air and set me down softly. At first I was all out of breath and too bewildered to see where I was; for West-wind is a merry, rough god. (Sister, do you think young gods have to be taught how to handle us? A hasty touch from hands like theirs and we'd fall to pieces.) But when I came to myself — ah, can you think what a moment that was! — and saw the House before me; I lying at the threshold. And it wasn't, you see, just the gold and amber house I used to imagine. If it had been just that, I might indeed have thought I was dreaming. But I saw it wasn't. And not quite like any house in this land, nor quite like those Greek houses the Fox describes to us. Something new, never conceived of — but, there, you can see for yourself — and I'll show you over every bit of it in a moment. Why need I try to show it in words?
"You could see it was a god's house at once. I don't mean a temple where a god is worshipped. A god's House, where he lives. I would not for any wealth have gone into it. But I had to, Orual. For there came a voice — sweet? oh, sweeter than any music, yet my hair rose at it too — and do you know, Orual, what it said? It said, 'Enter your House' (yes, it called it my House), 'Psyche, the bride of the god.'
"I was ashamed again, ashamed of my mortality, and terribly afraid. But it would have been worse shame and worse fear to disobey. I went, cold, small, and shaking, up the steps and through the porch and into the courtyard. There was no one to be seen. But then the voices came. All round me, bidding me welcome."
"What kind of voices?"
"Like women's voices — at least, as like women's voices as the wind-god was like a man. And they said, 'Enter, Lady, enter, Mistress. Do not be afraid.' And they were moving as the speakers moved, though I could see no one, and leading me by their movements. And so they brought me into a cool parlour with an arched roof, where there was a table set out with fruit and wine. Such fruits as never — but you shall see. They said, 'Refresh yourself, Lady, before the bath; after it comes the feast.' Oh, Orual, how can I tell you what it felt like? I knew they were all spirits and I wanted to fall at their feet. But I daren't; if they made me mistress of that house, mistress I should have to be. Yet all the time I was afraid there might be some bitter mockery in it and that at any moment terrible laughter might break out and — "
"Ah!" said I, with a long breath. How well I understood.
"Oh, but I was wrong, Sister. Utterly wrong. That's part of the mortal shame. They gave me fruit, they gave me wine — "
"The voices gave you?"
"The spirits gave them to me. I