Read Online Angels and Insects by A. S. Byatt - Free Book Online Page B

husband warned her that this could only continue if she obeyed instructions, which were above all
never to try to see him
.
    So she stayed there, in bliss, until she thought she wished to see her family, and expressed this wish to her gentle husband. This made him sad, for he knew harm would come of it, but he could refuse her nothing. So her family were quite suddenly whisked into her presence by the West Wind, and very marvellous they found it. Only her sisters were a little jealous, my dears—as sisters are—and though they were glad she had not been devoured they did not quite like to see her so blissful. So they asked her how she knew her husband was
not
a monstrous serpent—one had been seen, they said, swimming in the river—and they suggested she should take a candle in the night, when her beloved was sleeping, and look to see what he was. So she did as they said, which was foolish of her, and the candle flame illuminated not a serpent but the most beautiful golden-haired young man she had ever seen. And some drops of wax from the candle fell on his skin and woke him, and he said sadly, “Now you will never seen me again,” and spread his wings—for he was winged Cupid, the God of Love—and flew away.
    Now Psyche was a resourceful girl, as well as unhappy, so sheset off to wander the world in search of Love. And Venus heard of her wanderings, and put it about that she was a runaway servant-girl of her own, and Psyche was captured, and dragged into the presence of the angry goddess. And the goddess set her to perform various impossible tasks, and if she failed, she would be cast out, and never see her husband or her friends again, but become a mere slave and work for her living.
    And one of these tasks was the sorting of seeds. The goddess threw together a whole heap, a
mountain
of mixed seeds—wheat, barley, millet, lentils, beans, and the seeds of poppy and vetch—and told the poor girl she must sort the different kinds by the evening. And Psyche sat and wept, for she did not know where to begin. And then she heard a very small, scratchy, whispering voice from the floor, asking what was the matter. And the speaker was one little ant—a tiny mite, quite insignificant.
    “Maybe I can help you,” it said. “I do not see how you can,” Psyche replied, “but I thank you for your kind intentions.” But the ant would not be denied, and summoned its friends, and relations, and neighbours, thousands and thousands of ants, in great waves—’
    ‘My skin pricks,’ said Matty Crompton to William, ‘at the idea of these benevolent armies.’
    ‘And
I
am made nervous by the idea of sorting a mountain of mixed seeds or anything else. I am reminded that I am neglecting my work—’
    ‘It is odd, is it not, how
sorting
so often makes a part of the impossible tasks of the prince or princesses in the tales. There are a great many frustrated lovers who are set to sorting seeds. Do you think there is a good anthropological explanation?’
    ‘No doubt. But I do not know it. I have always supposed those tales to be about the sagacity and usefulness of the creatures, of the ants. I may be biased by my interest in ants. Tropical ants are
not
easy to live with. I have tried it—I lived for some time in a room with an earthen floor where there were two huge mounds of earthreared up by the Saüba ants. That was where I also found a
modus vivendi
with several nests of large brown house-wasps. They make the most ingenious houses, like inverted goblets that hang from the rafters. I flattered myself that they knew I was the owner of the house in which their houses hung—certainly they never stung me, though they did attack roaming strangers. I felt we
co-operated—
though this may have been an illusion—they were very fierce in keeping down large flies and cockroaches, which they slaughtered with terrible precision. I came to admire them for their beauty, ingenuity and heroic ferocity. I made quite a study of their work,