Cupid's Decision

As the god of love stood on the balcony trying to understand what was happening to him, there was the sound of soft knocking on the door to Psyche's room.

"Psyche?"

"Father?"

The door opened and in came a tall, thin man with a dark beard threaded with gray.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from you at such an hour of the night?"

The king sighed. "I have been unable to sleep. I fear your mother and I have done you a disservice by allowing you out only one day a month. Yet, when you went out every day, your beauty paralyzed the kingdom. I want to apologize for my inept handling of a complex situation."

"Thank you, Father. I am sorry for the attention I attract. My beauty is a burden for all of us. I wish I knew what it is people see and feel when they look at me. I know only loneliness since my sisters married and moved away. You and Mother are the only ones I have for company now. Everyone else is afraid to speak to me, to ask me even how I am. You have no idea, Father, how cruel beauty can be."

The king nodded. "Your mother and I wonder if we have angered Venus by permitting you to be an object of worship."

"Oh, Father! Mere moments ago I prayed to the goddess and asked her to forgive me if my beauty offended her."

"What would you think if I went to the shrine of the god Apollo and asked him to tell me what your future is to be?"

"Is that the wisest course?" Psyche asked, after a long pause. "Would it not be better to go to the shrine of Venus and beg her forgiveness?"

Outside, on the balcony, Cupid was shaking his head violently, and perhaps would have intervened if he had not heard the king say, "The goddess is a being of great passion, and anger is, perhaps, a greater passion even than love. When she is angry, the goddess can be more vicious than the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the way to the underworld. But the god Apollo is not ruled by passion. And he is incapable of lying."

"What if he reveals my fate to be something I cannot bear?" The king put his arms around his daughter and hugged her tightly. "Is it not better to know the truth, regardless?"

Psyche laid her head against her father's chest. "I suppose that is so," she whispered, "but that does not make me any less afraid."

Though she spoke softly, Cupid heard every word. His ears were keenly attuned to the words of the heart, and Psyche's heart was so sad he thought he could hear its tears. He wanted to take away her sadness and protect her from anyone and everything that could ever hurt her. But what would his mother say? She would ... would—. He didn't want to imagine what she would do to him or Psyche. But what if Venus didn't know? When she found out, which she eventually would, what could she do then? She might be angry for a while, but that would not last long. His mother wanted him to be happy, and if Psyche was the one who made him happy, Venus would be grateful.

Inside Psyche's chambers the king and his daughter had said good night. Psyche blew out the candles and went to bed.

Cupid remained on the balcony, helpless to leave. He had never been concerned about anyone's well-being, but he cared about what happened to the one lying within. Not until Sun began pushing darkness beneath the western horizon did Cupid, reluctantly, take his leave from the sleeping and beautiful Psyche.

As he flew slowly toward Olympus, he was elated and confused, excited and afraid, awed and angry. Never had so many emotions held him enthralled. He, who had the power to control the lives of mortals and deities, had lost control of his own life. How could that be? How could hearing a voice and seeing a face transform his life so completely? All meaning resided now in a person to whom he had never addressed a word. That was ridiculous! Yet, it was also as true and real as birds' songs welcoming Sun to another day.

I know it's true, and so do you. I remember the first time I fell in love. It was my sophomore year in college. But wait! Did you hear what I said? I fell in love. We fall down, fall off a ladder, fall behind in doing something, but why do we fall in love? And from where do we fall when we fall in love? When we use this verb, are we trying to describe the accidental nature of the experience?

That day I fell in love for the first time, I did not wake up thinking, "I'm going to fall in love today." Love is not intentional. My intent that day was to go to the school library and get a book. I was going through the card catalog to see if the library had the book I wanted. I sensed a presence and looked around, and there she was! That was all it took. I saw her and my soul passed from me to her with all the certainty and finality of night changing to day. She had not yet seen me, but my life now had a meaning it had lacked in all the minutes leading to the one when I looked up and saw her. And all the moments before seemed like ones in which I had been scarcely awake. Now I was fully alive for the first time in my then-nineteen years. (And Sylvia fell in love with me. Whether it was in that instant when she, feeling my eyes on her, looked over at me, or days or weeks later, I donot know. Nor does it matter. It only matters that we held each other's souls for almost three years, but she wanted to marry and I did not. I still had a lot of falling in love to do.)

Like me and like you, Cupid accepted that it was not only possible but rational to love someone to whom he had not spoken—to love someone whose voice he had heard, whose face he had seen for, what? Five minutes? Ten? Certainly no more than that. Yet, this was all it took for him to feel as if he could lift mountains, polish stars, and hold the sun in his hands.

I'm going to get philosophical for a moment since this is a philosophical novel. In love, and perhaps only in love, are the finite limitations of self dissolved and we merge, not only with the beloved other, but with wonder itself. In love, whether it is love of another, of music, art, or whatever, we belong to someone or something and are no longer alone.

Cupid had not known he was alone and lonely. But now that he had joined his aloneness with that of another, though she did not know it yet, he was hers as surely as a smile on her lips was hers.

In joy and gratitude, Cupid laughed. His laughter rolled from one end of the dawning sky to the other, and mortals smiled in their sleep.

Chapter end