The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Bolesław Prus

  CHAPTER XIV

  In the month of Choeak (from the middle of September to the middle ofOctober), the waters of the Nile were highest, and began to fallslightly. In the gardens people gathered tamarinds, dates, olives; andtrees blossomed a second time.

  At this juncture his holiness Rameses XII. left his sun-bright palacein Memphis, and with a grand suite on some tens of stately bargessailed to Thebes, to thank the gods there for the bounteousinundation, and also to place offerings on the tombs of his eternallyliving ancestors.

  The most worthy ruler took farewell of his heir very graciously; butthe direction of state affairs during his absence he left with Herhor.

  Rameses felt this proof of want of confidence so greatly that forthree days he took no food and did not leave his villa; he only wept.Later he ceased to shave, and transferred himself to Sarah's house, soas not to meet Herhor or annoy his own mother, whom he considered thecause of his failures.

  On the following day Tutmosis visited him in this retreat, bringingtwo boats filled with musicians and dancers, and a third containingbaskets of food and flowers, with pitchers of wine. But the princecommanded the musicians and dancers to depart, and taking Tutmosis tothe garden, he said,--

  "Of course my mother--may she live through eternity!--sent thee toseparate me from the Jewess? Tell her worthiness that were Herhor tobecome not merely viceroy, but the son of my father, I should do thatwhich pleases me. I know how to do it. To-day they wish to deprive meof Sarah, and to-morrow they would take my power from me; I will showthem that I shall not renounce anything."

  The prince was irritated. Tutmosis shrugged his shoulders, andremarked finally,--

  "As a whirlwind sweeps a bird into a desert, so does anger cast a manon the shores of injustice. How canst thou wonder if the priests aredispleased because the heir to the throne has connected his life witha woman of another country and a strange religion? Sarah does notplease them, especially since thou hast her alone. Hadst thou a numberof various women, like all noble youths, they would not mind theJewess. But have they done her harm? No. On the contrary, even somepriest defended her against a raging crowd which it pleased thee toliberate from imprisonment."

  "But my mother?"

  Tutmosis laughed.

  "Thy worthy mother loves thee as her own eyes and heart. Of courseSarah does not please her, either, but dost thou know what herworthiness said once to me? This,--that I should entice Sarah fromthee. What a jest on her part! To this I answered with a second jest:'Rameses has given me a brace of hunting dogs and two Syrian horsesbecause he has grown tired of them; perhaps some day he will give mehis mistress too, of course I shall have to take her with otherthings.'"

  "Do not think of it. I would not give Sarah to any man, were it onlyfor this, because of her my father has not appointed me viceroy."

  Tutmosis shook his head.

  "Thou art greatly mistaken," answered he, "so much mistaken that I amterrified. Dost thou not really understand the causes of the disfavor?Every enlightened Egyptian knows them."

  "I know nothing."

  "So much the worse," said the anxious Tutmosis. "Thou dost not know,then, that warriors, since the manoeuvres, especially Greek warriors,drink thy health in every dramshop."

  "They got money to do so."

  "True; but not to cry out, with all the voice that is in them, thatwhen thou shalt succeed to his holiness--may he live througheternity!--thou wilt begin a great war, after which there will bechanges in Egypt."

  "What changes? And who is the man who during the life of the pharaohmay dare to speak of the plans of his successor?"

  Now the prince grew gloomy.

  "That is one thing, but I will tell thee another," said Tutmosis, "formisfortunes, like hyenas, never come singly. Dost thou know that thelowest people sing songs about thee,--sing how thou didst free theattackers from prison, and what is worse, they repeat again, that,when thou shalt succeed his holiness, rents will be abolished. It mustbe added that when common people speak of injustice and rents,disturbances follow; and either a foreign enemy attacks our weakenedstate, or Egypt is divided into as many parts as there are nomarchs.Finally, judge for thyself, is it proper that any man's name should bementioned oftener than the pharaoh's, and that any man should standbetween the people and our lord? If thou permit, I will tell howpriests look on this matter."

  "Of course, speak."

  "Well, a very wise priest who from the summit of the temple of Amonexamines celestial movements, has thought out this statement: 'Thepharaoh is the sun, the heir to the throne the moon. When the moonfollows the god of light from afar, we have brightness in the daytimeand clearness at night. When the moon wishes to be too near the sun,it disappears itself and the nights are dark. But if the moon standsbefore the sun there is an eclipse, and in the world great terror--'"

  "And all this babble," interrupted Rameses, "goes to the ears of hisholiness. Misfortune on my head! Would that I had never been the sonof a pharaoh!"

  "The pharaoh, as a god upon earth, knows everything; but he is toomighty to care for the drunken shouts of soldiers or the whispers ofearth-tillers. He understands that every Egyptian would die for him,and thou first of all."

  "Thou hast spoken truth!" answered the anxious prince. "But in allthis I see new vileness and deceit of the priests," added he, rousinghimself. "It is I, then, who hide the majesty of our lord, because Ifree the innocent from prison, or do not let my tenant tortureearth-workers with unjust tribute. But when his worthiness Herhormanages the army, appoints leaders, negotiates with foreign princes,and directs my father to spend his time in prayers--"

  Tutmosis covered his ears, and, stamping, cried,--

  "Be silent! be silent! every word of thine is blasphemy. His holinessalone directs the state, and whatever is done on earth proceeds fromhis will. Herhor is a servant of the pharaoh and does what his lordenjoins on him. If thou wilt convince thyself--oh, that my words benot ill understood--"

  The prince grew so gloomy that Tutmosis broke off the conversation andtook farewell of his friend at the earliest. When he sat down in hisboat, which was furnished with a baldachin and curtains, he drew adeep breath and draining a large goblet of wine, thought,--

  "Brr! I thank the gods for not giving me such a character as thatwhich Rameses has. He is a most unhappy man in the happiestconditions. He might have the most beautiful women in Memphis, but hesticks to one to annoy his mother. Meanwhile it is not his mother thathe annoys, but all the virtuous virgins and faithful wives who arewithering from sadness that the heir to the throne, and moreover ayouth of great comeliness, does not snatch from them virtue or forcethem to unfaithfulness. He might not only drink but even swim in thebest wine; meanwhile he prefers the wretched camp beer, and breadrubbed with garlic. Whence came these low inclinations? I cannotimagine. Or was it that the worthy Nikotris in her critical periodlooked at workmen while they were eating?

  "He might do nothing from daylight till darkness. If he wished, themost famous lords, with their wives, sisters, and daughters, wouldserve food to him. He not only stretches forth his own hands to takefood, but, to the torment of our noble youths, he washes himself,dresses himself, and his barber spends whole days in snaring birds andthus wastes his abilities.

  "O Rameses, Rameses!" sighed the exquisite. "Is it possible thatfashion should be developed in the time of such a prince? We wear thesame aprons from one year to another, and we retain wigs, only thanksto court dignitaries, for Rameses will not wear any wig. This is agreat offence to the whole order of nobles. And all brought about bycursed politics, brr! Oh, how happy I am that I need not divine whatthey are thinking of in Tyre or Nineveh; break my head over wages forthe army; calculate how many people have been added to Egypt or takenfrom it, and what rents must be collected. It is a terrible thing tosay to one's self, 'My tenant does not pay what I need and expend, butwhat the increase of the Nile permits.'"

  Thus meditated the exquisite Tutmosis, while he strengthened hisanxious soul with golden wine.
Before the boat had sailed up toMemphis, heavy sleep had mastered him in such wise that his slaves hadto carry their lord to the litter.

  After the departure of Tutmosis, which resembled a flight, the heirfell to thinking deeply; he even felt fear.

  Rameses was a sceptic. As a pupil of the priests, and a member of thehighest aristocracy, he knew that when certain priests had fasted manymonths and mortified their senses they summoned spirits, while othersspoke of spirits as a fancy, a deception. He had seen, too, that Apis,the sacred bull before which all Egypt fell prostrate, received attimes heavy blows of a cane from inferior priests, who gave the beastfood and brought cows to him.

  He understood, finally, that his father, Rameses XII., who for thecommon crowd was a god who lived through eternity, and theall-commanding lord of this world, was really just such a person asothers, only a little more weakly than ordinary old men, and very muchlimited in power by the priestly order.

  The prince saw all this, and jeered in his soul and even in public atmany things. But all his infidelity fell before the actualtruth,--that no one was permitted to trifle with the titles of thepharaoh.

  Rameses knew the history of his country, and he remembered that inEgypt many things were forgiven the mighty. A great lord might ruin acanal, kill a man in secret, revile the gods privately, take presentsfrom ambassadors of foreign states, but two sins were notforgiven,--the betrayal of priestly secrets, and treason to thepharaoh. A man who committed one or the other disappeared, sometimesafter a year, from among his friends and servants. But where he hadbeen put or what had been done with him, no one even dared to mention.

  Rameses felt that he was on an incline of this sort from the time thatthe army and the people began to mention his name and speak of certainplans of his,--changes in the state, future wars. Thinking of this,the prince felt as if a nameless crowd of rebels and unfortunates werepushing him violently to the point of the highest obelisk, from whichhe must tumble down and be crushed into jelly.

  Later on, when, after the longest life of his father possible, hebecame pharaoh, he would have the right and the means to accomplishmany deeds of which no one in Egypt could even think without terror.But to-day he must in truth have a care, lest they declare him atraitor and a rebel against the fundamental laws of Egypt. In thatstate there was one visible ruler,--the pharaoh. He governed, hedesired, he thought for all, and woe to the man who dared to doubtaudibly the all-might of the sovereign, or mention plans of his own,or even changes in general.

  Plans were made in one place alone,--in that hall where the pharaohlistened to advice from his aiding council, and expressed to it hisown opinions. No changes could come save from that place. There burnedthe only visible lamp of political wisdom, the light of whichilluminated Egypt. But touching that light, it was safer to be silent.

  All these considerations flew through the prince's head with theswiftness of a whirlwind while he was sitting on the stone bench underthe chestnut-tree in Sarah's garden, and looking at the landscapethere around him.

  The water of the Nile had fallen a little, and had begun to grow astransparent as a crystal. But the whole country looked yet like an armof the sea thickly dotted with islands on which rose buildings,gardens, and orchards, while here and there groups of great treesserved as ornament.

  Around all these islands were well-sweeps, with buckets by whichbronze-hued naked men with dirty breech clouts raised water from theNile and poured it into higher reservoirs. One such place was in theprince's mind especially. That was a steep eminence on the side ofwhich three men were working at three well-sweeps. One poured waterfrom the river into the lowest well; another drew from the lowest andraised water two yards higher to a middle place; the third raisedwater from the middle to the highest place. There some people, alsonaked, drew water in buckets, and irrigated beds of vegetables, orwatered trees from sprinkling-pots.

  The movement of the sweeps going down and rising, the turn of thebuckets, the gushing of the pots was so rhythmic that the men whocaused it might be thought automatons. No one of them spoke to hisneighbor, no man changed place or looked about him; he merely bent androse in one single method from daylight until evening, from one monthto another, and doubtless he had worked thus from childhood and wouldso work till death took him.

  "And creatures such as these," thought the prince, as he looked attheir toil, "desire me to realize their imaginings. What change in thestate can they wish? Is it that he who draws from the lowest wellshould go to the highest, or instead of pouring from a bucket shouldsprinkle trees with a watering-pot?"

  Anger rose to his head, and humiliation crushed him because he, theheir to the throne, thanks to the fables of creatures like those whonodded all their lives over wells of dirty water, was not now thevice-pharaoh.

  At that moment he heard a low rustle among the trees, and delicatehands rested on his shoulder.

  "Well, Sarah?" asked the prince, without turning his head.

  "Thou art sad, my lord. Moses was not so delighted at sight of thepromised land as I was at those words of thine: 'I am coming to livewith thee.' But thou art a day and a night here, and I have not seenthy smile yet. Thou dost not even speak to me, but movest about ingloom, and at night thou dost not fondle me, but only sighest."

  "I have trouble."

  "Tell me what it is. Grief is like a treasure given to be guarded. Aslong as we guard it ourselves even sleep flees away, and we findrelief only when we put some one else to watch for us."

  Rameses embraced Sarah, and seated her on the bench at his side.

  "When an earth-tiller," said he, smiling, "is unable to bring in allhis crops from the field before the overflow, his wife helps him. Shehelps him to milk cows too, she takes out food to the field for him,she washes the man on his return from labor. Hence the belief has comethat woman can lighten man's troubles."

  "Dost thou not believe this, lord?"

  "The cares of a prince," answered Rameses, "cannot be lightened by awoman, even by one as wise and powerful as my mother."

  "In God's name, what are thy troubles? Tell me," insisted Sarah,drawing up to the shoulder of Prince Rameses. "According to ourtraditions, Adam left Paradise for Eve; and he was surely the greatestking in the most beautiful kingdom."

  The prince became thoughtful.

  "Our sages also teach," said he, "that man has often abandoneddignities for woman, but it has not been heard that any man everachieved something great through a woman; unless he was a leader towhom a pharaoh gave his daughter, with a great dowry and high office.But a woman cannot help a man to reach a higher place or even help himout of troubles."

  "This may be because she does not love as I do," whispered Sarah.

  "Thy love for me is wonderful, I know that. Never hast thou asked forgifts, or favored those who do not hesitate to seek success even underthe beds of princes' favorites. Thou art milder than a lamb, and ascalm as a night on the Nile. Thy kisses are like perfume from the landof Punt, and thy embrace as sweet as the sleep of a wearied laborer.I have no measure for thy beauty, or words for thy attractions. Thouart a marvel among women; women's lips are rich in trouble and theirlove is very costly. But with all thy perfection how canst thou easemy troubles? Canst thou cause his holiness to order a great expeditionto the East and name me to command it? Canst thou give me the armycorps in Memphis, for which I asked, or wilt thou, in the pharaoh'sname, make me governor of Lower Egypt? Or canst thou bring allsubjects of his holiness to think and feel as I, his most devotedsubject?"

  Sarah dropped her hands on her knees, and whispered sadly, "True, Icannot do those things--I can do nothing."

  "Thou canst do much. Thou canst cheer me," replied Rameses, smiling."I know that thou hast learned to dance and sing. Take off those longrobes, therefore, which become priestesses guarding fire, and arraythyself in transparent muslin, as Phoenician dancers do. And so danceand fondle me as they."

  Sarah seized his hands and cried with flaming eyes,--

  "Hast thou to do with outcasts
such as these? Tell me--let me know mywretchedness; send me then to my father, send me to our valley in thedesert. Oh, that I had never seen thee in it!"

  "Well, well, calm thyself," said the prince, toying with her hair. "Imust of course see dancers, if not at feasts, at royal festivals, orduring services in temples. But all of them together do not concern meas much as thou alone; moreover, who among them could equal thee? Thybody is like a statue of Isis, cut out of ivory, and each of thosedancers has some defect. Some are too thick; others have thin legs orugly hands; still others have false hair. Who of them is like thee? Ifthou wert an Egyptian, all our temples would strive to possess thee asthe leader of their chorus. What do I say? Wert thou to appear now inMemphis in transparent robes, the priests would be glad if thouwouldst take part in processions."

  "It is not permitted us daughters of Judah to wear immodest garments."

  "Nor to dance or sing? Why didst thou learn, then?"

  "Our women dance, and our virgins sing by themselves for the glory ofthe Lord, but not for the purpose of sowing fiery seeds of desire inmen's hearts. But we sing. Wait, my lord, I will sing to thee."

  She rose from the bench and went toward the house. Soon she returnedfollowed by a young girl with black, frightened eyes, who was bearinga harp.

  "Who is this maiden?" asked the prince. "But wait I have seen thatlook somewhere. Ah! when I was here the last time a frightened girllooked from the bushes at me."

  "This is Esther, my relative and servant," answered Sarah. "She haslived with me a month now, but she fears thee, lord, so she runs awayalways. Perhaps she looked at thee sometime from out the bushes."

  "Thou mayst go, my child," said the prince to the maiden, who seemedpetrified, and when she had hidden behind the bushes, he asked,--

  "Is she a Jewess too? And this guard of thy house, who looks at me asa sheep at a crocodile?"

  "That is Samuel the son of Esdras; he also is a relative. I took himin place of the black man to whom thou hast given freedom. But hastthou not permitted me to choose my servants?"

  "That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, forhe has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which noEgyptian could imitate."

  "That," answered Sarah, "is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative ofmy father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy veryfaithful servants."

  "Does he please me," said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with hisfingers on the bench. "He is not here to please me, but to guard thyproperty. For that matter, these people do not concern me. Sing,Sarah."

  Sarah knelt on the grass at the prince's feet, and playing a few notesas accompaniment, began,--

  "Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumberhas the right to say: This is a day that I have spent without sorrow?Where is the man who lying down for the grave, can say: My life haspassed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.

  "But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, andwhose houses are filled with sighing.

  "A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan hisfarewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full ofsorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where hewould like to be.

  "Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness ofbeing? Is it the child which death has snatched from its mother, or isit the babe whose mother's breast was drained by hunger ere the littleone could place lips to it?

  "Where is the man who is sure of his fate, the man who can look withunfailing eye at the morrow? Does he who toils on the field know thatrain is not under his power, and that not he shows its way to thelocust swarm? Does the merchant who gives his wealth to the winds,which come he knows not whence, and his life to the waves on thatabyss which swallows all, and returns nothing?

  "Where is the man without dread in his spirit? Is it the hunter whochases the nimble deer and on the road meets a lion which mocks at hisarrows? Is it the warrior who goes forth to gain glory with toiling,and meets a forest of sharp lances and bronze swords which arethirsting for his life blood? Is it the great king who under hispurple puts on heavy armor, who spies out with sleepless eye thetreachery of overpowering neighbors, and seizes with his ear therustle of the curtain lest treason overturn him in his own tent?

  "For this reason men's hearts in all places and at all times areoverflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion arehis danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonousserpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decreasehis land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the doorto his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped ofstrength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whaleis surrounded by abysses of water.

  "Therefore, O Lord, my Creator, to Thee the tortured human soul turnsitself. Thou hast brought it into a world full of ambushes, Thou hastgrafted into it the terror of extinction. Thou hast barred before itall roads of peace, save the one road which leads to Thee. And as achild which cannot walk grasps its mother's skirt lest it fall, sowretched man stretches forth his hands toward Thy tenderness, andstruggles out of uncertainty."

  Sarah was silent; the prince fell into meditation, and then said,--

  "Ye Jews are a gloomy nation. If men in Egypt believed as thy songteaches, no one would laugh on the banks of the Nile. The wealthywould hide in underground temples through terror, and the people,instead of working, would flee to caves, look out and wait for mercywhich would never come to them.

  "Our world is different: in it a man may have everything, but hehimself must do everything. Our gods help no idleness. They come tothe earth only when a hero dares a deed which is superhuman and whenhe exhausts every power present. Such was the case with Rameses theGreat when he rushed among two thousand five hundred hostile chariots,each of which carried three warriors. Only then did Amon the eternalfather reach his hand down and end the battle with victory. But ifinstead of fighting he had waited for the aid of your God, long agowould the Egyptians have been moving along the Nile, each of thembearing a brick and a bucket, while the vile Hittites would be mastersgoing around with clubs and papyruses.

  "Therefore, Sarah, thy charms will scatter my sorrows sooner than thysong. If I had acted as your Jewish song teaches, and waited fordivine assistance, wine would have flowed away from my lips, and womenwould have fled from my household.

  "Above all, I could not be the pharaoh's heir any more than mybrothers, one of whom does not leave his room without leaning on twoslaves, while the other climbs along tree trunks."