“That depends on you,” the fairy answered. “As long as you don’t act like Adam, and let yourself be tempted to do what’s forbidden, you can stay here forever.”
“I won’t touch the apples on the Tree of Knowledge,” the prince said. “There are thousands of fruits here just as lovely as they are.”
“Test yourself, and if you aren’t strong enough, then return with the East Wind, who brought you here. He’s flying back now and won’t return for a hundred years. For you that time will pass as if it were only a hundred hours, but it’s a long time for temptation and sin. Every evening when I leave you, I must call you to ‘follow me.’ I’ll wave you to follow, but you must stay behind. Don’t come with me because then every step will increase your longing. You’ll come into the chamber where the Tree of Knowledge grows. I sleep under its fragrant hanging branches. You’ll bend over me, and I’ll smile, but if you kiss my lips, paradise will sink deep into the earth, and it will be lost to you. The sharp winds of the desert will whirl around you, and cold rain will drip from your hair. Sorrow and troubles will be your fate.”
“I’ll stay here!” the prince said, and the East Wind kissed him on the forehead and said, “Be strong, and we’ll meet here again in a hundred years. Farewell! farewell!” The East Wind spread out his enormous wings. They shone like the flash of heat lightning at harvest time, or the northern lights on cold winter nights. “Farewell! farewell!” sounded from the flowers and trees. Storks and pelicans flew along in rows, like a waving ribbon, and followed to the border of the garden.
“Now our dances will begin,” said the fairy. “At the end of our dance, you’ll see me waving at you as the sun sinks, and you’ll hear me call to you: ‘follow along!’ But don’t do it! Every evening for a hundred years I’ll repeat this, and every time it’s over you’ll gain more strength. Finally, you’ll never think about it. Tonight is the first time, and now I have warned you!”
And the fairy led him into a big chamber with white transparent lilies. The yellow stamen in each one was a little gold harp that played like a stringed instrument and with tones of flutes. The most beautiful slender girls floated about, dressed in waving gauze so you could see their lovely limbs. They swayed in the dance and sang about how splendid it was to live—that they would never die, and that the Garden of Eden would blossom forever.
The sun went down. The whole sky turned to gold and gave the lilies the cast of the most beautiful rose, and the prince drank of the frothing wine that the girls gave him. He felt happiness like never before, and then he saw how the back of the chamber opened up, and the Tree of Knowledge was standing in a glow that burned his eyes. The song from there was soft and lovely, like his mother’s voice, and it was as if she sang, “My child! My beloved child!”
Then the fairy waved and called so fondly, “Follow me, follow me!” and he rushed towards her, forgot his promise, forgot it already on the first evening, and she waved and smiled. The fragrant spicy perfume of the air grew stronger; the tones of the harps more beautiful; and it was as if the millions of smiling faces in the chamber where the tree grew nodded and sang, “You should know everything! Man is the master of the earth.” And he thought there was no longer blood dripping from the leaves of the Tree of Knowledge, but red sparkling stars. “Follow me, follow me,” sang the trembling tones, and with every step the prince’s cheeks burned hotter, and his blood pounded harder. “I must,” he said, “it’s not a sin, it can’t be! Why not follow beauty and joy? I want to see her sleeping. Nothing is lost as long as I don’t kiss her, and I won’t do that. I’m strong, and have a firm will.”
And the fairy threw aside her shining fancy dress, bent the branches back, and a second later she was hidden within.
“I haven’t sinned yet,” said the prince, “and I won’t do it either.” He pulled the branches aside. She was already sleeping, lovely as only the fairy in the Garden of Eden can be, and she smiled in her sleep. He leaned down over her and saw tears tremble among her eyelashes.
“Are you crying over me?” he whispered. “Don’t cry, you beautiful woman. Now I finally understand the happiness of paradise. It’s rushing through my blood, through my thoughts. I feel in my earthly body the cherub’s power and eternal life. Let me suffer eternal night—a minute like this is richness enough.” And he kissed the tears on her eyes, and his mouth moved to hers—
Then there was a clap of thunder so deep and terrible as had never been heard before, and everything collapsed. The beautiful fairy and the blooming paradise sank, sank so deeply, so deeply. The prince saw it sink in the black night; it shone like a little shining star far in the distance. A deathly cold shot through his limbs. He closed his eyes and lay a long time as if dead.
Cold rain fell on his face, the sharp wind blew around his head, and he came to himself again. “What have I done?” he sighed. “I’ve sinned like Adam! Sinned so that the Garden of Eden has sunk way down there.” And he opened his eyes. He could still see the star, far away, the star that sparkled like the sunken paradise—It was the morning star in the sky.
He stood up and saw that he was in the big forest close to the Cave of the Winds, and the Winds’ mother sat by his side. She looked angry and lifted her arm in the air.
“Already on the first evening!” she said, “I might have known. If you were my son, I’d put you into the bag right now!”
“He’ll go there,” said Death, who was a strong, old man with a scythe in his hand and with big black wings. “He’ll come to his coffin, but not yet. I’ll just make a note of him, and let him wander around in the world for a while yet. He can atone for his sin, become good and better!-I’ll come one day. When he least expects it, I’ll put him into a black coffin, set it on my head, and fly up towards the star. The Garden of Eden blossoms there too, and if he is good and pious, then he’ll enter there. But if his thoughts are evil and his heart is still full of sin, he’ll sink deeper in his coffin than the Garden of Eden sank, and I’ll only fetch him again every thousand years, either to sink deeper yet or to be taken to the star—that sparkling star up there!”
NOTES
1 The west wind of Greek mythology. Zephyr (or Zephyrus) is the brother of Boreas (the North Wind) and the father of Achilles’ horses Xanthus and Balius.
2 Present-day Zimbabwe and South Africa. The name “Kaffir” (from the Arabic for “non-believer”) was given by the Arabs to the native races of the east coast of Africa.
THE BRONZE PIG
IN THE CITY OF Florence not far from the Piazza del Granduca there is a little cross street. I think it’s called
