Pan's Flute

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  He did not reply, confusedly dominated by the slave. Voices rose up in the garden, calling the guests for the banquet.

  “Come,” he said. “If I can, I will talk to Ankhi about it this evening.”

  “Those who are able to decide promptly,” she replied, “are made for great destinies.”

  II

  He was in the banqueting hall, with numerous lights. The delicate art of enamel, and turquoise, ivory and gold scintillated on the sideboards and the tables. Amicable Egypt was incarnate in the paintings on the walls, the contours of the vases, the structure of the seats, the brilliant meanders of the ceiling, the proud boldness of statues and the soft grace of curtains: abundant riches, soft and delicate, such that the ages scarcely knew any more harmonious.

  The fumes of the meats were tempered by the elegant scents of fruits, the vivid soul of wines and the spicy aroma of cervoise.

  Around little circular tables the beautiful naked slaves circulated again, except for those that the ardor of the young men had made impure. Next to Ankhi, with a very long square beard, and his wife, in the place of honor, stood a mummy with a made-up face, which was not intended inform the guests of the vanity of things, but merely that it is necessary to make haste to enjoy ephemeral benefits. At intervals, with contained voices, the choir of adolescents sang hymns to happiness or satires devoid of bitterness.

  “My friends,” cried Ankhi, having emptied his cup, and indicating the mummy, “look at this venerable figure. For seven times ten years, the four natures of my father were confounded therein in the same life. That is why we should all divert ourselves before resembling this dear corpse!”

  A scribe replied: “May the benediction of Ammon be upon the magnificent host. I compare him to the plains that the divine Nile has known; the sacred barley grows there, wheat, and the mysterious bean that turns underground, the traveling fig and the lotus, in which the gaze of the gods delights...”

  Thus spoke the scribe, among the muffled chords of citharas, and the guests raised their full cups.

  Setne had thrown away his flowers, in order that Gaila could linger beside him. She wove herbs over his forehead in which tender asphodels shone. She covered his wig with aromatic powders and oil mixed with the philters of spring. He only wanted to drink wine poured by her, more intoxicated by the contact of the slave than the violet liquor.

  He rejoiced in the charm that the foreign woman emitted, a mixed charm, like a hatred transformed into desire; one that defends beautiful races against their conquerors. He noticed for the first time how much more flexible than Egyptian hair the mane of hair was that she threw over her shoulder. He said so to her.

  “That come to me from my mother’s mother,” she said. “She was born on the plateau of Iran, far beyond Nineveh. The women, there, and even the men, have hair like this.”

  A guest called to the slave: “White girl with sharp eyes, be careful to fill my cup! I am like the pool in the land of Kush into which a river pours without being able to fill. As soon as the river stops, the pool dries up. I languish like a heron amid the sands, a dog amid aromatics, a vine in a cistern!”

  The man who spoke, with a face as bright as a baker’s oven, showed the vast gulf of his fleshy mouth. Gaila filled his cup; he emptied it in a single draught and then held it out again, to the amazement of the others.

  “Praise to you, worthy son of the ancestors, of Shesou-Hor who devoured a ram!” cried Ankhi. “Who honors the wine brings good fortune to the host!”

  Meanwhile, the hostess and her women went into the reception rooms. The guests followed them; a slave with a clear voice announced mimes and dancers. A thin, grave man was summoned, clad in a blue tunic. He imitated the voice of an onager, the bark of a dog, the cry of a camel, the roar of a lion, the rasp of a saw, the song of a flute, the fury of cataracts and the plaintive grace of fountains. He counterfeited a merchant and a warrior, a wrestler and an acrobat, a hierogrammat applied to his slender writing, a drunkard lurching along the road, a hunchback, a cripple, a stutterer, and a blind man.

  The crowd was dying of laughter, but remained insatiable; the mime’s gravity multiplied the laughter.

  There was a fearful silence when the actor made voices emerge from the corners of the room—a rare trick, which seemed magical, for which a dispensation from the priests was necessary, and which came from the lands of the Chimera, far beyond Mesopotamia and Iran. Many believed that the mime was making souls speak that had been deflected from their great voyage. The women went pale. It was necessary to create a diversion with the dancers; they depicted the acts of amour, the violent languor that excites the senses of men, and the voluptuous sadness that mingles death with pleasure.

  The music, veiled at first like an underground stream, expanded with human sighs. The effluvia of sweat mingled with the perfumes, the youthful voices, the harmony of flutes and lyres, rendering hearts tumultuous and mouths savage. Setne stood up in order to look for the daughter of the Gulf, but she was no longer in the room. He took a few paces and found her beside Ankhi, face to face with the mummy, the enamel eyes of which seemed to be laughing at the fugitive pleasure of the living.

  “Permit me, divine host, to praise your feast highly,” said the young man. “Its beauty is worthy of your great renown.”

  “The pleasure of the friend is the recompense of the host,” the other replied.

  The hostess, already on the threshold of decrepitude, added: “It is sweeter to please those whose youth shines like a newly-forged blade.”

  Their welcoming smiles encouraged the chief, and, drawn by the bold atmosphere of the dance, he said: “In truth, you have gathered everything pleasant that the nourishing earth and the varied labor of men produces…wines rich in illusions, agile dancing and charming slaves. The one that covered me with flowers and aromatics has spoken to my heart. Hosts similar to the gods, I would give for that girl ten five-year-old oxen fattened on the pastures of Khennai! I would also give two oxen for the infant, her brother.”

  “Chief with the keen eyes,” replied the hostess, “before departing to traffic in the lands beyond the Red Gulf, my brother put Gaila in our care. That was forty days before the solstice, nearly two years ago, when the river was preparing to fertilize the crops. Gaila, like a child, paltry and sad, had a taste for death in her eyes, but her face was gracious and full of promise. My brother confided her to me for two years, after which, if he did not inform me otherwise, I could sell her to whomever offered an equitable price. Ten days separate us from that term; I have not received any message for a long time, but navigators have affirmed that my brother is alive, still trafficking beyond the country of Pah. Undoubtedly, he has forgotten his slave, and I can, if it pleases you, exchange her at the next moon for ten five-year-old oxen.”

  “Your servant,” said Setne, tremulously, “can count on your giving him preference, then?”

  The hostess contemplated him complaisantly, being already at the age when one likes to please handsome young men other than by means of the body.

  “Even if someone offered me six oxen more, I would keep the slave for you.”

  “You can count on her,” he host added, generously. “Her word is as indestructible as diorite stone. Fortunate is the man whose pleasure depends on her promise. Fortunate are all those upon whom she gazes with a favorable eye. I, her spouse, issue of the same father but a different mother, knew that she was the foremost among women, as skillful at governing domains as embroidering fabrics, as ingenious in creating the prosperity of her husband as the strength of his children, adroit in all trade. Blessed be my father for the day he ordered the diversion of our marriage.”

  Thus spoke the host with moist eyes, moved by the benevolent soul of wine and cervoise.

  The woman replied: “It is not arduous to be a good wife to a man who takes pleasure in living with her. His presence is as agreeable as the date-palm on the hill. When Ankhi has gone to his distant pastures, the least of his servants sighs for his re
turn.”

  She spoke in a voice surer than that of the old man, with the phrases of a scribe; one divined that she had held the scepter throughout her life.

  Setne placed his hand on his heart. “As far as the distant nomes, dear hostess, your reputation has spread among the beneficent people of the ibises.”

  The dance finished; there were a few excessively drunken men here and there who had fallen sleep against the wall; others went out lightly through the vomitoria. The atmosphere was becoming intolerable, overcharged with rancid odors, the smoke of lamps and the intemperate breath of the guests. The wisest gave the signal to depart, naming their porters to the slaves, thanking the lord and his wife with an elegant phrase.

  At the limit of the gardens, as Setne was about to go through the pylon, Setne found the priest of Ammon again, who said to him: “Don’t forget that if you come to the temple of Thutmose, you will find hosts glad to see you.”

  Their routes were different, and the young man found himself alone with his porters. It was insupportable for him to be seated; his forehead was hot, his limbs avid for movement and his heart full of agitation. He got down from the palanquin and walked.

  On the flesh of Hathor, filling the world from top to bottom, transpierced by the lunar light, the embroidery of the stars seemed more indecisive, of a timid artistry, as if steeped in blue oil. The sighing plain, split like the hide of a rhinoceros, after the violence of the day, was covered then with a cool magic, a fluid light and silence. The river was perceptible between the languid papyrus and the dead grass, and sometimes a hut made of mud and reeds, the nest of some laborer or artisan, on the horizon, the moving eternity of a pyramid or a temple.

  Setne was seized by the force of things. One might have thought that his double, abandoning him at intervals, were bringing back the confidences of the expectant plain, the earth ready for the fecund kiss of the Nile, by which it would soon be penetrated. The young man’s mingled Ankhi’s gardens, the flight of the slaves toward the red furnace, and the daughter of the Gulf bringing her falling mane back over her shoulder. He was astonished by the hazard of days, his existence and that of others, the expanse of Nut, goddess of the sky, and, in a charming vertigo, he sensed himself ephemeral and immortal: a vapor over the grass, a reflection on the water, but also the universe itself, a bizarre and fragile little world without which all the rest would not exist.

  III

  In the fourth year of the reign of Thutmose III,15 in spring, the entire valley of Egypt was under arms, full of camps where soldiers were maneuvering. Since Ahmose had attacked the Hyksos, or the Shous,16 in their immense camp at Avaris, the nations had buckled before the kings of Thebes. Amenhotep subdued the land of Kush; Thutmose went as far as the Euphrates; When Hatsheput put a fleet on the Red Sea to seize odorous Arabia, the beauty and the wealth of the earth flowed into the ten thousand cities of the Nile.

  The day after the feast at Ankhi’s house, in the plain, Setne was exercising one of the admirable phalanges, armed with the long lances that rendered the Pharaohs invincible at that time. They were equally rapid and persistent; their initial impact overturned everything, and, if attacked by an enemy superior in number, they resisted from the shelter of leather and bronze bucklers imbricated like the scales of a fabulous beasts.

  The chief led his troop toward the river three times, at the pace of a charge. Then, diving it in two, he made the halves fight one another. He was full of impetuosity, knew the art of making himself feared without making himself hated, and was skilled in tactics.

  Before sending his soldiers back to barracks, he spoke about the imminent war, describing the riches of Asia, and concluded: “Those who know how to fight will avoid death and come back with a booty of gold, silver and precious cloth. The others will leave their remains to rot far from the Sacred Land, Be patient in your labor!”

  Those words pleased the warriors; the boldest cheered. The chief dispersed the phalanx, remaining on the drill field alone.

  The waters of the Nile would not turn green before June; all the cisterns were dry; on the lugubrious plain, only cacti and aloes grew; all the grass had disappeared; the palm trees extended their suffering little plumes imploringly. But the works of men remained beautiful in the baking atmosphere Thebes of the hundred pylons displayed its magnificent temples, its avenues of fabulous beasts, its little houses of mud and papyrus. All along the river, death showed itself in its harsh and scintillating glory. Old Egypt, drunk on eternity, had heaped up its mummies, hollowed out necropolises, raised the monstrous roofs of pyramids, amorously cleaving, hollowing, sculpting and flowering the savage and divine stone, the indestructible stone...

  Marching along the river, Setne soon reached the child soldiers who were drawing bows. Their application was keen, for it was with arrows that they brought down their meals, perched on the crests of walls, on stakes or in trees. For those whose skill was superior the meager repast was divided in portions, with the result that they launched almost as many shots as the unskillful.

  Setne paused near the little archers. They reminded him of his natal nome, the brilliant land where he had guided troops of children into the desert. His glory had extended to neighboring villages, for he succeeded in his enterprises. His father explained to him ambushes in the solitude, the cunning of beasts and the art of camping on cold nights.

  The chief saw again the bright morning hours, the grass breathless in the sun, the crepuscular beasts, and the russet predators sleeping on the sand.

  He was astonished that his life had been so pleasant. As he was dreaming, he saw one of the children, the smallest, sit down, arrogant and discouraged. He recognized him; it was Thutmose’s own son, whom the king had condemned to the severe life of soldiers. For the greater part of the day he exercised with the others, and only resumed royal life at the hour when the shadow of the pyramids was double their height.

  Setne approached the prince with a tremulous heart, because he believed in the real divinity of the race that had hunted the Shous. The child’s beauty, fixed and severe, the charming ennui of his long eyes, the precious grain of his skin made him the statue of a young, sad god: thus the immortal guests in the slumber of sculptures dreamed.

  By virtue of an invincible impulse, the chief spoke the child.

  “Why have you abandoned your work, son of the gods?”

  The child contemplated the man with a proud gravity. A certain suffering was transparent in his red mouth and the wrinkle of his forehead. The chief’s gaze, full of a scintillating mildness, acted on the young soul.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Let me try your bow.”

  The royal child handed over his weapon. The chief extended it, evaluated its resistance, and said: “You have to aim a hand’s breadth above the sachet...”

  The child took the bow, took aim, and hit the target. Then his face cleared and a smile appeared in his somber eyes. “With you,” he said, “I’d become skillful.” He added, with grace: “I would also obey you without displeasure.”

  Opening the sachet, he took out a papyrus stem baked in the oven, honey and a barley-cake. He ate swiftly, his eyes cheerful. The officer was about to depart when the child cried: “Wait!”

  Among servants and followers, Princess Aoura,17 Thutmose’s sister, was seen advancing. Setne wanted to withdraw, but the child seized him by the arm, with strength and determination.

  Aoura was already nearby. The young man adopted the pose of a supplicant before the gods, for she too was the daughter of Theban kings and similar to the immortals.

  Grave and mild, she listened to the little prince speak to her about his friend, and then turned to Setne and asked: “Where do you come from and what is your birth?”

  The chief raised his eyes. He sensed his heart beating like a miner’s hammer against the walls of a quarry. He had not seen a more elegant form in the depths of temples and holy necropolises. In the shade of flabella, Aoura’s face, powdered with delicate colors, was delimited
by a pure and proud line; her eyes concealed the magic of the starry Nile; her bearing had the flexibility of young date-palms in flower, and each of her gestures evoked the delicate frissons of antelopes, reeds and tremulous fountains.

  “Divine princess,” the chief replied, “I am Setne, son of Raneferka, who commanded twelve phalanges in the army of Hatsheput. I count among my ancestors Kheren, to whom King Ousortesen gave one of his daughters. My race long possessed the privilege of living near the throne, but the domination of the Shous debased us. I was born in Tanis.”

  They looked at one another; the ardent and generous visage that had pleased the child pleased the young woman. Virginal but impure, she was ignorant of nothing of which beautiful, expert and desirable slaves could inform young woman. Only the respect and dread that her brother Thutmose inspired in her had prevented her from delivering herself to men. She sensed her heart indulgent and her flesh sensual before the warrior with eyes of flamboyant shadow. And Setne’s soul melted; the earth that bore Aoura appeared as magnificent as the flesh of Nut strewn with stars; he breathed in the incense that the byssus robe exhaled as a navigator breathes in the saffron of an inaccessible coast.

  “I will mention your name to the omnipotent lord, your king and that of the Sacred Land” said the princess.

  “For having seen your divine eyes,” he murmured, “I will not have been engendered in vain by my mother.”

  Aoura smiled and passed on. For a long time after she had disappeared, he was still shivering, like a date-palm on the hills of Lydia, in the nurturing season when the trees respond to one another across space.

  Two images, by turns, made his flesh burn: one with imminent sensuality and the other of anguishing sweetness. The slave and the princess embalmed the beauty of the world for him; they filled it with a mystery more desirable and terrible than the arcana by means of which the priests boasted of enchanting the earth, the sky and the waters.