Till We Have Faces_ A Myth Retold - C. S. Lewis [41]
"You see?" she said. "It's all true. And that — no, listen, Maia — that's why all will come right. We'll make — he will make you able to see, and then — "
"I don't want it!" I cried, putting my face close to hers, threatening her almost, till she drew back before my fierceness. "I don't want it. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Do you understand?"
"But, Orual, why? What do you hate?"
"Oh, the whole — what can I call it? You know very well. Or you used to. This, this — " and then something she had said about him (hardly noticed till now) began to work horribly in my mind. "This thing that comes to you in the darkness . . . and you're forbidden to see it. Holy darkness, you call it. What sort of thing? Faugh! it's like living in the house of Ungit. Everything's dark about the gods . . . I think I can smell the very — " The steadiness of her gaze, the beauty of her, so full of pity yet in a way so pitiless, made me dumb for a moment. Then my tears broke out again. "Oh, Psyche," I sobbed, "you're so far away. Do you even hear me? I can't reach you. Oh, Psyche, Psyche! You loved me once . . . come back. What have we to do with gods and wonders and all these cruel, dark things? We're women, aren't we? Mortals. Oh, come back to the real world. Leave all that alone. Come back where we were happy."
"But, Orual — think. How can I go back? This is my home. I am a wife."
"Wife! Of what?" said I, shuddering.
"If you only knew him," she said.
"You like it! Oh, Psyche!"
She would not answer me. Her face flushed. Her face, and her whole body, were the answer.
"Oh, you ought to have been one of Ungit's girls," said I savagely. "You ought to have lived in there — in the dark — all blood and incense and muttering and the reek of burnt fat. To like it — living among things you can't see — dark and holy and horrible. Is it nothing to you at all that you are leaving me, going into all that . . . turning your back on all our love?"
"No, no, Maia. I can't go back to you. How could I? But you must come to me."
"Oh, it's madness," said I.
Was it madness or not? Which was true? Which would be worse? I was at that very moment when, if they meant us well, the gods would speak. Mark what they did instead.
It began to rain. It was only a light rain, but it changed everything for me.
"Here, child," said I, "come under my cloak. Your poor rags! Quick. You'll be wet through."
She gazed at me wonderingly. "How should I get wet, Maia," she said, "when we are sitting in-doors with a roof above us? And 'rags'? — but I forgot. You can't see my robes either." The rain shone on her cheeks as she spoke.
If that wise Greek who is to read this book doubts that this turned my mind right round, let him ask his mother or wife. The moment I saw her, my child whom I had cared for all her life, sitting there in the rain as if it meant no more to her than it does to cattle, the notion that her palace and her god could be anything but madness was at once unbelievable. All those wilder misgivings, all the fluttering to and fro between two opinions, was (for that time) quite over. I saw in a flash that I must choose one opinion or the other; and in the same flash knew which I had chosen.
"Psyche," I said (and my voice had changed). "This is sheer raving. You can't stay here. Winter'll be on us soon. It'll kill you."
"I cannot leave my home, Maia."
"Home! There's no home here. Get up. Here — under my cloak."
She shook her head, a little wearily.
"It's no use, Maia," she said. "I see it and you don't. Who's to judge between us?"
"I'll call Bardia."
"I'm not allowed to let him in. And he wouldn't come."
That, I knew, was true.
"Get up, girl,"