Tanglewood Tales (18 page)

Not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to be
built of iron. Pluto stopped the chariot, and bade Proserpina look at
the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. Never in her life had
she beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy-looking a stream; its waters
reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it moved as
sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and
had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other.

"This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. "Is it not a very
pleasant stream?"

"I think it a very dismal one," answered Proserpina.

"It suits my taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen
when anybody disagreed with him. "At all events, its water has one
excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every
care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. Only sip a little of
it, my dear Proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your
mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being
perfectly happy in my palace. I will send for some, in a golden goblet,
the moment we arrive."

"O, no, no, no!" cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. "I had a thousand
times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in
forgetting her. That dear, dear mother! I never, never will forget her."

"We shall see," said King Pluto. "You do not know what fine times we
will have in my palace. Here we are just at the portal. These pillars
are solid gold, I assure you."

He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proserpina in his arms, carried
her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace. It
was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones, of
various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and glowed with a
hundred-fold radiance all through the vast apartment. And yet there was
a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor was there a
single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except
the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower
which she had not let fall from her hand. It is my opinion that even
King Pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the
true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina, in order that he might
have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with
this tiresome magnificence. And, though he pretended to dislike the
sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence,
bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam
had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted hall.

Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in
preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail of
setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina's plate.

"I will neither drink that nor anything else," said Proserpina. "Nor
will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your
palace."

"I should be sorry for that," replied King Pluto, patting her cheek;
for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "You are a
spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see the
nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly
come again."

Then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts
of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be
set before Proserpina. He had a secret motive in this; for, you are to
understand, it is a fixed law, that when persons are carried off to the
land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never get
back to their friends. Now, if King Pluto had been cunning enough to
offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple
fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable
that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. But he left the matter
entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered nothing fit
to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly-seasoned meat, or spiced
sweet cakes—things which Proserpina's mother had never given her, and
the smell of which quite took away her appetite, instead of sharpening
it.

But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see
what Mother Ceres had been about, since she was bereft of her daughter.
We had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving
grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the
chariot, in which her beloved Proserpina was so unwillingly borne away.
You recollect, too, the loud scream which Proserpina gave, just when the
chariot was out of sight.

Of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one that
reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the rumbling of the
chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was
coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. But, at
the sound of Proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in every
direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain that
it was her daughter's voice. It seemed so unaccountable, however, that
the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas (which she
herself could not have traversed without the aid of her winged dragons),
that the good Ceres tried to believe that it must be the child of some
other parent, and not her own darling Proserpina, who had uttered this
lamentable cry. Nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender
fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every mother's heart,
when she finds it necessary to go away from her dear children without
leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt, or other such faithful
guardian. So she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy;
and, as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day, as if it
needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear, and had
something the matter with its roots.

The pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less than
an hour, Mother Ceres had alighted at the door of her home, and found
it empty. Knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on the
sea-shore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld
the wet faces of the poor sea nymphs peeping over a wave. All this
while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and
once, every half minute or so, had popped up their four heads above
water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back. When they saw
Mother Ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it
toss them ashore at her feet.

"Where is Proserpina?" cried Ceres. "Where is my child? Tell me, you
naughty sea nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?"

"O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back
their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "We never should
dream of such a thing. Proserpina has been at play with us, it is true;
but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to run a little way upon
the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath. This was early in
the day, and we have seen nothing of her since."

Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she
hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. But nobody
told her anything that would enable the poor mother to guess what had
become of Proserpina. A fisherman, it is true, had noticed her little
footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a
basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers;
several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot wheels, or the
rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain
and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish
nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. The stupid
people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they
knew, that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that she
must seek her daughter elsewhere. So she lighted a torch, and set forth,
resolving never to come back until Proserpina was discovered.

In her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the
winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up the
search more thoroughly on foot. At all events, this was the way in
which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before her, and
looking carefully at every object along the path. And as it happened,
she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers
which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up.

"Ha!" thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight. "Here is
mischief in this flower! The earth did not produce it by any help of
mine, nor of its own accord. It is the work of enchantment, and is
therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child."

But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she
might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina.

All night long, at the door of every cottage and farm-house, Ceres
knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen
her child; and they stood, gaping and half-asleep, at the threshold,
and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest. At the
portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that the menials
hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be some great king
or queen, who would demand a banquet for supper and a stately chamber to
repose in. And when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch
in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke
rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her. But nobody
had seen Proserpina, nor could give Mother Ceres the least hint which
way to seek her. Thus passed the night; and still she continued her
search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even
remembering to put out the torch although first the rosy dawn, and then
the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin and
pale. But I wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for it
burned dimly through the day, and, at night, was as bright as ever, and
never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary days and
nights while Ceres was seeking for Proserpina.

It was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her
daughter. In the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another
nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and solitary
places, and were very sociable with persons who understood their
language and customs, as Mother Ceres did. Sometimes, for instance, she
tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of a majestic oak; and
immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and forth would step a
beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak, dwelling inside
of it, and sharing its long life, and rejoicing when its green leaves
sported with the breeze. But not one of these leafy damsels had seen
Proserpina. Then, going a little farther, Ceres would, perhaps, come
to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would
dabble with her hand in the water. Behold, up through its sandy and
pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman with dripping
hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out of the
water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. But
when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to
drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these
water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief), would answer
"No!" in a murmuring voice, which was just like the murmur of the
stream.

Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt country
people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns upon their
foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they gamboled merrily
about the woods and fields. They were a frolicsome kind of creature
but grew as sad as their cheerful dispositions would allow, when Ceres
inquired for her daughter, and they had no good news to tell. But
sometimes she same suddenly upon a rude gang of satyrs, who had faces
like monkeys, and horses' tails behind them, and who were generally
dancing in a very boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy laughter. When
she stopped to question them, they would only laugh the louder, and make
new merriment out of the lone woman's distress. How unkind of those ugly
satyrs! And once, while crossing a solitary sheep pasture, she saw a
personage named Pan, seated at the foot of a tall rock, and making music
on a shepherd's flute. He, too, had horns, and hairy ears, and goats'
feet; but, being acquainted with Mother Ceres, he answered her question
as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to taste some milk and honey
out of a wooden bowl. But neither could Pan tell her what had become of
Proserpina, any better than the rest of these wild people.

And thus Mother Ceres went wandering about for nine long days and
nights, finding no trace of Proserpina, unless it were now and then a
withered flower; and these she picked up and put in her bosom, because
she fancied that they might have fallen from her poor child's hand. All
day she traveled onward through the hot sun; and, at night again, the
flame of the torch would redden and gleam along the pathway, and she
continued her search by its light, without ever sitting down to rest.

On the tenth day, she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern within which
(though it was bright noon everywhere else) there would have been only
a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a torch was burning there. It
flickered, and struggled with the duskiness, but could not half light up
the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy glimmer. Ceres was resolved to
leave no spot without a search; so she peeped into the entrance of the
cave, and lighted it up a little more, by holding her own torch before
her. In so doing, she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a woman,
sitting on the brown leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which
had been swept into the cave by the wind. This woman (if woman it were)
was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her head, they tell
me, was shaped very much like a dog's, and, by way of ornament, she wore
a wreath of snakes around it. But Mother Ceres, the moment she saw her,
knew that this was an odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment
in being miserable, and never would have a word to say to other people,
unless they were as melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to
be.