Like a sleepwalker, he made his way downstairs, into the streets, and at last reached his home. Then a fit of wild rage and pain swept over him; he seized his hammer and, raising it on high, was about to smash his beautiful marble image into a thousand pieces. But in his madness he had not noticed that his friend Angelo stood right behind him. With a strong grip he caught his arm, crying, "Are you crazy? What's the matter?" They wrestled, but Angelo was the stronger. Breathing heavily, the young
sculptor flung himself into a chair.
"What has happened?" asked Angelo. "Pull yourself together! Tell me!"
But what could he tell him? What could he say? And since Angelo was unable to make him talk, he gave him one of his usual lectures.
"Why don't you stop your eternal dreaming! Be a man like your friends. Don't be an idealist; if you do you'll have a breakdown. Get a little tipsy; then you'll sleep well. Let a beautiful girl be your doctor. The girl from the Campagna is as beautiful as your princess in the marble castle. They are both daughters of Eve, and you can't tell them apart. You follow your Angelo - your angel and me, your angel of life! The time will come when you're old; your body will crumble, and some sunny day when everyone is laughing and gay, you'll lie like a withered straw. I don't believe what the ministers tell us about life beyond the grave; that's a beautiful imagination, a fairy tale for children, and pleasant enough if you can make yourself believe it. I do not live in imagination; I live in reality. Come along! Be a man!"
And he was able to drag him along, for at that moment the young artist felt a desire to tear himself loose from his old self; there was fire in his blood, a change in his soul. And so he followed Angelo. ¨
In the outskirts of Rome there was a tavern frequented by artists. It was built in the ruins of an old Roman bath chamber. Large yellow lemons hung down among dark, shining leaves, partly covering the old red-yellow walls. The tavern was in the form of a deep vault, almost like a cave in the ruins. A lamp burned inside before a picture of the Madonna. A large fire blazed in the fireplace, and food was being fried, cooked, and roasted. Outside, under the lemon and laurel trees, stood two tables, all prepared.
The two young men were happily, gaily received by their friends. They all had a little to eat but a lot to drink. They sang and played the guitar, and then the dancing started. A couple of young girls from Rome, who worked for the artists as models, joined in the dancing and festivities - two charming girls, not so lovely as Psyche, not fine, beautiful roses, but fresh and colorful carnations.
How warm the weather was, even at sunset! There was fire in the blood, fire in the air, fire in every look! The air was swimming with gold and roses; life was gold and roses!
"Come now, enjoy yourself, now that you have finally joined our company."
"I've never felt so happy!" said the young artist. "You're right - you're all right - I have been a fool, a dreamer. Man belongs to reality, not to fantasy."
To the accompaniment of singing and the playing of guitars, the young artists left the tavern and then walked through the narrow streets in the clear, starlit evening. The two girls, the colorful carnations, were with them.
In Angelo's room, their voices became quieter but no less fiery.
"Apollo! Jupiter! Into your heaven and glory I am carried! The flower of life has blossomed forth in my heart this very moment!"
Yes, it blossomed - broke, withered, and a nauseating fume whirled from it, blinding his sight; his thoughts went blank as the firework of truth burned out, and everything was dark.
He reached home and flung himself down on his cot. "Shame!" This came from his own mouth, right from the bottom of his heart. "Away! Out of my sight!" These, his living Psyche's words, resounded in his heart as they came from his lips. Overcome with fatigue, he buried his face in the pillow and slept.
Next morning when he arose he tried to collect his thoughts. What had happened? Had it all been a dream - her repulse, his visit to the tavern, and the evening spent with his friends and their girls? No, it had all happened; facts hitherto unknown to him were now revealed. The bright morning star shone through the purple-colored air onto the marble Psyche. He felt unworthy to look upon the symbol of immortality and drew a curtain over the statue; he could no longer look at his own work.
He was silent, gloomy, lost in reverie, the entire day. He never knew what might be going on outside, and no one knew what stirred within that human heart.
Days passed and weeks passed, and the nights were endless. At last one morning the twinkling star saw him rise from his bed, pale, and, trembling with fever, go to his marble statue, lift the veiling curtain, gaze on his work with one last, sad, yearning look, and then, staggering under its weight, drag the statue down into the garden. Here was a ruined, dried-up well or hole, and he lowered his Psyche into it, threw dirt over it, then scattered a lot of dry sticks and nettles over the spot, so that no one could tell the earth had been disturbed. "Away! Out of my sight!" The was his brief burial service.
The morning star looked down through the rose-colored sky, and her beams quivered on two big tears on the young man's pale cheeks. Fever-striken, deathly ill, he lay on his bed.