"
"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.
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