Pharaoh's Wife

by Félicien Champsaur

  “Brr!” whispered Shakespeare in the Duke’s ear. “It’s not very clear, but it gives one a terrible thirst. I regret not having a bottle in my pocket.”

  “But you’re very young to have arrived at that psychic perfection.”

  “If I’d only had the time of my present life to study, it would be impossible—but the knowledge of my anterior existences augments it with the knowledge accumulated during those other lives.”

  “A few days ago, you recounted an episode of an anterior life at Countess Olivani-Sforza’s house. Can you give us a few details about the Pharaoh whose tomb the English mission is researching?”

  Antal Fodor smiled. “In one of my previous existences, I was the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.”

  “So psychic transmigration isn’t a myth!” said the Duchess.

  “I’m the living proof of it. It would be the same for you, if you had a less ephemeral memory. It’s simply a faculty to consolidate. It requires a gift, and practice—the gift first.”

  “Easy to say, but not so easy to do. How?”

  Shakespeare replied: “By drinking enough to see double, or triple. That happens to me sometimes—I lose my personality. It’s only a matter of disentangling in myself the different persons confused in my brain. It’s then that the numerous heroes of my namesake’s plays mingle in my personality, and I’m Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello all at the same time. The Bacchic vapors give an appearance of reality to those illustrious illusions. Now that I have a conductive wire, thanks to the Mage Ormus, I’ll only have to drink until I recover one of my personalities of past times.”

  “You’ll certainly find yourself,” said Lord Rutland, “in the skin of Sir John Falstaff.”

  “I repeat,” Antal Fodor continued, without paying any heed to Shakespeare’s digression, “that one acquires the faulty in question by the detachment and elevation of the mind over matter. There are individuals that your civilization considers as akin to madmen, the Yogis and Fakirs of India, who succeed in exteriorizing themselves to the point of reducing their material parts almost to nothing.

  “I’ve seen a Yogi have himself buried at a depth of two meters; barley was sown on the place—and three weeks later, when the barley had begun to sprout, he was disinterred and came back to life. Others remain suspended by the feet for days on end and, having regained their feet, pick up the money that passers-by have thrown under the tree, and then repeat the same prodigy. These men have no scientific education; they’re unaware of our applications of electricity and magnetism—but those ignorant men, more expert than we are in matters of fluidic force, know how to make use of them from the viewpoint of autosuggestion, and obtain amazing phenomena therefrom.

  “It’s by studying with brahmins and fakirs that I’ve learned the little that I know, but it required my preceding incarnations. The main thing is to obtain the perpetuity of the memory, and not all our existences are worth the trouble of recalling. Only a few thousand men and women have an intellectual life worthy of being used in another individuality, and only a few hundred have a heredity worthy of being followed through the centuries

  “Great intelligences are rare, and the men of genius of our century are the sum of defunct geniuses; the fluidic immortality of the mind is not for everyone. It’s necessary to have a terrestrial soul like a marvelous diamond among negligible pebbles.”

  “You told us that you were the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Would you be kind enough to tell us about him…I beg your pardon, about yourself, in that epoch?”

  “Gladly,” said the Mage.

  He began immediately, in a voice that was assured, but as if internal. He seemed to be groping in the darkness of centuries in order to find the light. Then his voice was gradually raised, and soon resumed its normal timbre.

  “I can see myself after the death of my father, Pharaoh Shaakera-Amun.10 I was fourteen then. I had been married two years before to the daughter of the high priest of Amon, That-ni-Hilla. At dawn, Aphi-Omra invited me to go down into the subterranean parts of the temple of Amon-Ra, to witness the initial preparations for the embalming of the deceased Pharaoh. In accordance with the custom, I would only be the sacred Pharaoh—which is to say, emperor and god—when Shaakera was at rest in his hypogeum, where I, his successor, had to preside over his funeral rites.

  “Embalming takes two moons, and that time would be employed in my education as a Pharaoh. Until then, I had lived like all the nobles of the Empire; now my royal and divine life was about to begin.

  “Aphi-Omra initiates me, cuts me and severs my facial muscles, in order that my face will remain as motionless as a bronze mask; my mouth will no longer be able to smile, or my eyelids to descend. It is necessary that my human face become a divine mask.

  “The people do not know me. I have never appeared in public, for no one must know that I have been a child, that I have passed through all the phases of adolescence. The son of a god must have nothing in common with humankind. Until my marriage, I never emerged from the gynaeceum, and marriage was required as soon as I reached the age of puberty, for it is necessary that there should be an heir to the throne as soon as possible. Aphi-Omra is ambitious; he wants to reign over me as he reigned over my father.

  “The day when I descended into the embalming room was a revelation, thanks to the cerebral tension I experienced before the Pharaoh’s cadaver. Until then, I had not seen any corpses except those of slaves that I had killed in anger or disappointment—but my father was a Pharaoh! It was a god that was in front of me, a horrible rag, emptied of entrails and brain, and the operators were getting ready to put him in a vat of salt for thirty days.

  “Suddenly, then, I had a memory of another funeral ceremony; I saw another cadaver, and I was conscious that it had been me. Then that image was effaced—but it had made its impression. The child, the puppet, king and god who had to act in accordance with the hand of the high priest, no longer existed; there was a thought within me, a will. The new Pharaoh wanted to be something other than an effigy, and a struggle began between Aphi-Omra and his college.

  “The contest was not easy. I was alone. Not one chief, not one soldier, could be useful to me, not knowing me. I could only count on one aide, That-ni-Hilla—but my wife was the high priest’s daughter. What could I do? By chance, I overheard a conversation between Aphi-Omra and the Levite Yacoub, an Israelite he had converted. It was about an ancient cult whose vigor the priests of Heliopolis were renewing, with a few variations. For the priests of Amon, that was a danger; they feared that the new cult might spread through Egypt and reach Thebes. I understood that if I could enter into communication with the priests of Heliopolis, I would have allies there. But how? Finally, I had an idea...

  “After completing the sacred rite among the dead, Aphi-Omra takes me home. The part of the gynaeceum reserved for me is a palace situated beside the sacred lake. I have never been to the city, but thanks to That-ni-Hilla I know the layout of the temples and palaces. To carry out my plan, I need to get out of the sacred enclosure. This is what I have to do: put a letter to the high priest of Heliopolis into a small wooden box, and confide my precious message to a boatman—or, if I can’t find one, to the Nile. Osiris will protect me and guide the box to its destination.

  “I wrote my letter and leave the palace furtively. Fortunately, the night is moonless. I slip alongside the temple of Aminothis, and get over the wall by climbing up the angle of a colonnade. In front of me, three or four hundred paces away, is the temple of the divine Korsou, then that of the goddess Apelt, and finally the avenue of the sphinxes, by which I can reach the Nile.11

  “My hopes are thwarted; the temple of Apelt blocks my way; the gateway set at the extremity of the avenue of the sphinxes is closed by a bronze door, and on my right is the wall of the enclosure, manned by armed sentinels. So I, the king and god, am a prisoner in my own city, my own palace; it’s necessary for me to turn round and go back, still hiding, for the patrols are circulating. A terrible anger rises within me against those
priests who are in possession of absolute power. Oh, how I hate that Aphi-Omra, and also That-ni-Hilla, his daughter and my wife!

  “I understand now all the desire and ambition of those people. I’ve been married for two years, and my wife is still sterile. The priest doesn’t want me to have a heir, and with me dead, the throne will belong to That-ni-Hilla—to his daughter, who shares her father’s ideas and cupidity. The small details of my conjugal life surge forth in my thoughts, confirming my suspicions...”

  In the course of this long story, related in a voice whose inflections were cleverly calculated to act on the nerves of the women who were attached, above all, to the physical plane, the narrator had succeeded in creating a collective illusion.

  The Mage Ormus disappeared, to give way to the Pharaoh, of whom he was seen to have taken on the face. The ambience had now become filled with mysterious fluids and invisible presences, and everyone felt transported to an epoch whose evocation appeared to be a ludicrous anachronism in that ultra-modern décor.

  “But who’s that? A white form has emerged from the temple of Korsou; it quits the shadows of the high columns and comes toward me. The night is bright now. The fog that rises from the Nile at nightfall has dissipated. The sky is swarming with stars. The woman is carrying a basket, which seems to be very heavy.

  “Hidden behind a pillar, I watch. Ten paces away from me, she stops, puts down her burden and rests for a moment. How beautiful she is! I’ve forgotten the objective of my escapade. Dazzled by admiration, I advance toward her. She utters a cry of fright, tries to flee—but I already have her in my arms.

  “‘The Pharaoh!’ she cries.

  “‘You know me?’

  “‘I’ve seen you from the terraces of the temple, strolling around the sacred lake,’

  “‘Where are you going with that basket?’

  “‘To take kitchen debris to the sacred crocodiles.’

  “‘What’s your name?’

  “‘Am-Phaoli.’

  “‘I love you, Am-Phaoli.’

  “‘O Pharaoh, I am your servant.’

  “And, abandoning everything, I draw her into the shadow of the temple. When we come back, Am-Phaoli picks up her basket.

  “‘It’s heavy,’ I say. ‘I want to help you.’

  “She laughs. ‘Oh! Pharaoh!’

  “A thought occurs to me. ‘Can you go out into the city?’

  “‘Once a month. I’m not a slave but a hireling. My family lives in Pheliap and works among the hypogea.’

  “‘Can you get this box to Heliopolis?’

  “‘Nothing simpler. My brother Hit-Mouth is a boatman on the Nile and can take it.’

  “‘And when are you going out?’

  “‘In seven days.’

  “‘That’s good—but I want to see you again. Do you carry out this task every night?’

  “‘Only every second night. Tomorrow it will be Respah.’

  “‘Well then, I’ll wait for you the day after tomorrow.’

  “I pick up the basket and I go to empty it into the sacred lake. Then Am-Phaoli goes away, taking the box with her…and my heart...

  “For the first time, I’m in love...”

  Momentarily, Ormus’ handsome face was illuminated by a flame of love, which transfigured it. His eyes, drowned by ecstasy, brushed all he female gazes extended toward him like a kiss, lingering slightly on the Duchess. Then he resumed.

  “Days have followed one another; I’m a king and god; truly, by virtue of love and power, I’m the Master. The military chiefs obey me; I have devoted and faithful friends. I’ve had Aphi-Omra assassinated and I’ve repudiated That-ni-Hilla, in order to raise Am-Phaoli, whom I love and who loves me, to my level. I’m a father; I can actively occupy myself with my Double. My wife’s relatives have general responsibility for the Theban hypogea. I shall have a well-constructed and well-hidden sepulcher...

  “Days follow one another. I’m feared; the priests and Amon tremble before me. I’m thinking of reestablishing the old cult of the Sun, of Osiris, but it’s necessary for me to reformulate my genealogy; my theologians are busy with that. I’m twenty-six years old. In spite of my precautions, the priests of Amon succeed in poisoning me, but I’m dying in peace even so. Am-Phaoli has three daughters; the eldest is seven; she’s energetic and clever; she’ll be able to defend her rank and mine...”

  The Mage Ormus stopped. Everyone in the library was hanging on to his lips. His eyes scanned the audience members in turn, bathing them, so to speak, with their magnetic effluvia, imposing absolute belief upon them.

  The Duchess of Rutland felt that it was to her, most of all, that the strange theosophist was speaking, his gaze hammering her mind, already disposed to mysticism, with its suggestive power. At the evocation of ancient life, it seemed to her that she had lived in that era. She had thought at first that she was the daughter of the high priest Aphi-Omra; then, when Am-Phaoli appeared, she had sensed, and the eyes of the Mage Ormus had told her, speaking to her once again, that this time, it really was her.

  So, she had been a Pharaoh’s wife—and her submissive eyes had fixed themselves on the Mage, on the Pharaoh.

  And everyone else, regardless of what they believed, was impressed by that evocation of ancient Egyptian life. Kate Souvermann was triumphant. It was in her house that such a success had been won.

  She took possession of Ormus. “Oh, Master, what a marvelous story! So you have lived that glorious life of an ancient monarch! Oh, how I wish that I had the same gift of retrospective memory!”

  “Master,” asked the Duchess of Rutland, “would you consent to teach me?”

  Ormus bowed. “It would be quite rapid, for we have already encountered one another in the past. But you heard what I said: it requires study and determination.” And the Mage, subjugating her with his gaze, extended an imperious hand toward her.

  All the women surrounded Ormus, soliciting the favor of a similar soirée.

  The Mage spoke again. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “my life is devoted to my work. In Europe I have founded a religion in rapport with the modern mind: a scientific, moral and sane religion, the only logical religion, based on respect for and veneration of out All-Father, the divine Sun: Helios, Osiris. It’s nothing but an old myth that I’m rejuvenating, you see. Respect and veneration, I said, without prayer, which is an insult to the divinity. Perhaps I shall offend a few ideas in that, but reflect. Prayer is not a humility but a vanity. It assumes that the person making use of it, lost among millions of others, will have the power to attract the attention of the divinity to one of his creatures. The real god, the regulator of worlds, has no preferences, and a blade of grass, a centenarian oak, and insect and Poincaré12 are all equal before him.”

  He paused momentarily, and then went on: “The sect that I have founded is called the Flower of Truth. In order for that flower to blossom and produce offspring, in order that it might extend and cover the globe, I need the collaboration of all people of good will. Already, in Europe, writers, artists and scientists—all thinking people—are rallying to my banner. A prophet of that religion of light and progress, I travel the world to sow the good seed. I hope that in New York, the center of light and progress, I shall find both a good welcome and solid collaboration.”

  “What you need, above all, is an organ of propaganda,” said Marc Pytor. “I’ll put my paper, the Daily Mail, at your disposal.”

  “And I,” said the Duchess of Rutland, “am thinking of founding an illustrated magazine with you: Old Life. It won’t be bad business; since the Great War, mystical ideas are revealing dancing in popularity.”

  “I welcome all collaboration, all useful support.”

  “Money,” muttered Shakespeare. “I’m dying of thirst, old chap.” He took Rutland’s arm. “Let’s get out of here, George.”

  III. The Chamber of Stars

  There was a single-story detached house at the extremity of a peaceful suburb, not yet invaded by the hectic lif
e of commerce and finance. The small building affected the form of a Greek temple, with a façade of slender columns supporting an attic on which a sculptor who was far from being a Phidias had grouped gods and goddesses. Antal Fodor had rented it and appropriated its interior to its new purpose. It is necessary that a fakir’s chapel should have an appearance capable of influencing the imagination of the credulous.

  Only the consultation room, or conference room, had an appropriate decoration. It was the largest room in the house. It could hold fifty people, at a stretch. The floor was covered was dark blue, almost black carpet, and the walls were hung with fabric in the same hue, with the principal constellations designed thereon with silvery stars. The whole created an impression of sidereal immensity. Stuck to the star-strewn ceiling, a large dark blue shallow basin of frosted glass provided the only light, the room having no apparent door or windows.

  An old man dressed in an ample white robe was crouched in the oriental manner beneath that luminous opaline medusa, and was plunged in reflection, with his forehead supported by his hand.

  One o’clock sounded in the next room.

  “He’s late,” he murmured,

  As if by way of reply, a sheet of fabric was lifted up and Antal Fodor came into the room—and the gentleman in the suit and top hat made a disconcerting contrast with the man in the white robe, in that celestial décor—a contrast as disconcerting as the one that must exist between their two mentalities.

  “They kept you a long time,” moaned the old man, getting up. He was tall and his face seemed to be majestically crowned by thick white hair; a long beard in a style reminiscent of Michelangelo, flowing over his white robe, gave him a Biblical aspect, or that of Father Mope,13 one of the last disciples of the Swedish thaumaturge Emmanuel Swedenborg, the celebrated illuminator who had astonished the eighteenth century with his revelations.