Читать книгу The Pharaoh and the Priest - Bolesław Prus - Страница 17

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THE month Thoth has ended and the month Paofi (the second half of July) has begun. The water of the Nile, from being greenish and then white, has become ruddy and is rising continually. The royal indicator in Memphis is filled to the height of two men almost, and the Nile rises two hands daily. The lowest land is inundated; from higher ground people are removing hastily flax, grapes, and cotton of a certain species. Over places which were dry in the early morning, waves plash as evening approaches. A mighty, unseen whirlwind seems to blow in the depth of the Nile. This wind ploughs up broad spaces on the river, tills the furrows with foam, then smooths for a moment the surface, and after a time twists it into deep eddies. Again the hidden wind ploughs, again it smooths out, whirls, pushes forward new hills of water, new rows of foam, and raises the rustling river, wins without ceasing new platforms of land. Sometimes the water, after reaching a certain boundary, leaps across in a twinkle, pours into a low place, and makes a shining pond where a moment earlier withered grass was breaking up into dust heaps.

Though the rise of the river has reached barely one third of its height, the whole region near the banks is under water. Every hour some little height takes on the semblance of an island, divided from others by a narrow channel, which widens gradually and cuts off the house more and more from its neighbors. Very often he who walked out to work comes home in a boat from his labor.

Boats and rafts appear more and more frequently on the river. From some of them men are catching fish in nets; on others they bring the harvest to granaries, or bellowing cattle to their stables. With other boats visits are made to acquaintances to inform them amid shouts and laughter that the river is rising. Sometimes boats gather in one place, like a flock of daws, and then shoot apart on all sides before a broad raft bearing down from Upper Egypt immense blocks of stone hewn out in quarries near the river.

In the air, as far as the ear can hear, extend the roar of the rising water, the cries of frightened birds, and the gladsome songs of people. The Nile is rising, there will be bread in abundance.

During a whole month investigation continued in the affair of the attack on the house of Rameses. Each morning a boat with officials and warriors came to some small estate. People were snatched from their labor, overwhelmed with treacherous questions, beaten with sticks. Toward evening two boats returned to Memphis: one brought officials, the other brought prisoners.

In this way some hundreds of men were caught, of whom one half knew nothing, the other half were threatened by imprisonment or toil for a number of years in the quarries. But nothing was learned of those who led the attack, or of that priest who had persuaded the people to leave the place. Prince Rameses had qualities which were uncommonly contradictory. He was as impetuous as a lion and as stubborn as a bullock, but he had a keen understanding and a deep sense of justice.

Seeing that this investigation by officials gave no result whatever, he sailed on a certain day to Memphis and commanded to open the prison.

The prison was built on an eminence surrounded by a lofty wall, and was composed of a great number of stone, brick, and wooden buildings. These buildings for the main part were merely the dwellings of overseers. Prisoners were placed in subterranean dens hewn out in a cliff of limestone.

When Prince Rameses passed the gate, he saw a crowd of women washing and feeding some prisoner. This naked man, who resembled a skeleton, was sitting on the ground, having his hands and feet in four openings of a square plank which took the place of fetters.

“Has this man suffered long in this way?” asked Rameses.

“Two months,” said the overseer.

“And must he sit here much longer?”

“A month.”

“What did he do?”

“He was insolent to a tax gatherer.”

The prince turned and saw another crowd, composed of women and children. Among them was an old man.

“Are these prisoners?”

“No, most worthy lord. That is a family waiting for the body of a criminal who is to be strangled—oh, they are taking him already to the chamber,” said the overseer.

Then, turning to the crowd, he said,—

“Be patient a short time, dear people. Ye will get the body soon.”

“We thank thee greatly, worthy lord,” answered an old man, doubtless the father of the delinquent. “We left home yesterday evening, our flax is in the field, and the river is rising.”

The prince grew pale, and halted.

“Dost thou know,” asked he of the overseer, “that I have the right of pardon?”

“Erpatr, thou hast that right,” answered the overseer, bowing; and then he added: “The law declares, O child of the sun, that in memory of thy presence men condemned for offences against the state and religion, but who conduct themselves properly, should receive some abatement. A list of such persons will be placed at thy feet within a month.”

“But he who is to be strangled this moment, has he not the right to my grace?”

The overseer opened his arms, and bent forward in silence.

They moved from place to place, and passed a number of courts. In wooden cases on the bare ground were crowded men sentenced to imprisonment. In one building were heard awful screams; they were clubbing prisoners to force confession.

“I wish to see those accused of attacking my house,” said the heir, deeply moved.

“Of those there are more than three hundred,” said the overseer.

“Select according to thy own judgment the most guilty, and question them in my presence. I do not wish, though, to be known to them.”

They opened to Rameses a chamber in which the investigating official was occupied. The prince commanded him to take his usual place, but sat himself behind a pillar.

The accused appeared one by one. All were lean; much hair had grown out on them, and their eyes had the expression of settled bewilderment.

“Dutmoses,” said the official, “tell how ye attacked the house of the most worthy erpatr.”

“I will tell truth, as at the judgment seat of Osiris. It was the evening of that day when the Nile was to begin rising. My wife said to me, ‘Come, father, let us go up on the hills, where we can have an earlier sight of the signal in Memphis.’ Then we went up where we could see the signal in Memphis more easily. Some warrior came to my wife and said, ‘Come with me into that garden. We will find grapes there, and something else also.’ Then my wife went into the garden with that warrior. I fell into great rage, and I looked at them through the wall. But whether stones were thrown at the prince’s house or not I cannot tell, for because of the trees and darkness I could not see anything.”

“But how couldst thou let thy wife go with a warrior?” asked the official.

“With permission, worthiness, what was I to do? I am only an earth-worker, and he is a warrior and soldier of his holiness.”

“But didst thou see the priest who spoke to you?”

“That was not a priest,” said the man, with conviction. “That must have been the god Num himself, for he came out of a fig-tree and he had a ram’s head on him.”

“But didst thou see that he had a ram’s head?”

“With permission I do not remember well whether I saw myself or whether people told me. My eyes were affected by anxiety for my wife.”

“Didst thou throw stones at the garden?”

“Why should I throw stones, lord of life and death? If I had hit my wife, I should have made trouble for a week. If I had hit the warrior, I should have got a blow of a fist in the belly that would have made my tongue stick out, for I am nothing but an earth-worker, and he is a warrior of our lord who lives through eternity.”

The heir leaned out from behind the column. They led away Dutmoses, and brought in Anup. He was a short fellow. On his shoulders were scars from club-strokes.

“Tell me, Anup,” began the official again, “how was it about that attack on the garden of the heir to the throne?”

“Eye of the sun,” said the man, “vessel of wisdom, thou knowest best of all that I did not make the attack, only a neighbor comes to me and says he, ‘Anup, come up, for the Nile is rising.’ And I say to him, ‘Is it rising?’ And he says to me, ‘Thou art duller than an ass, for an ass would hear music on a hill, and thou dost not hear it.’ ‘But,’ says I, ‘I am dull, for I did not learn writing; but with permission music is one thing and the rise of the river is another.’ ‘If there were not a rise,’ says he, ‘people would not have anything to be glad about and play and sing.’ So I say to thy justice, we went to the hill, and they had driven away the music there and were throwing stones at the garden.”

“Who threw stones?”

“I could not tell. The men did not look like earth-workers, but more like unclean dissectors who open dead bodies for embalming.”

“And didst thou see the priest?”

“With thy permission, O watchfulness, that was not a priest, but some spirit that guards the house of the erpatr—may he live through eternity!”

“Why a spirit?”

“For at moments I saw him and at moments he went somewhere.”

“Perhaps he was behind the people?”

“Indeed the people sometimes were in front of him. But at one time he was higher and at another time lower—”

“Maybe he went up on the hill and came down from it?”

“He must have gone up and come down, but maybe he stretched and shortened himself, for he was a great wonder-worker. Barely had he said, ‘The Nile will rise,’ and that minute the Nile began to rise.”

“And didst thou throw stones, Anup?”

“How should I dare to throw stones into the garden of the erpatr? I am a simple fellow, my hand would wither to the elbow for such sacrilege.”

The prince gave command to stop the examination, and when they had led away the accused, he asked the official,—

“Are these of the most guilty?”

“Thou hast said it, lord,” answered the official.

“In that case all must be liberated to-day. We should not imprison people because they wished to convince themselves that the holy Nile was rising or for listening to music.”

“The highest wisdom is speaking through thy lips, erpatr,” said the official. “I was commanded to find the most guilty, hence I have summoned those whom I have found so; but it is not in my power to return them liberty.”

“Why?”

“Look, most worthy, on that box. It is full of papyruses on which are written the details of the case. A judge in Memphis receives a report on the progress of the case daily, and reports to his holiness. What would become of the labor of so many learned scribes and great men if the accused were set free?”

“But they are innocent!” cried the prince.

“There was an attack, therefore an offence. Where there is an offence there must be offenders. Whoever has fallen once into the hands of power, and is described in acts, cannot get free without some result. In an inn a man drinks and pays; at a fair he sells something and receives; in a field he sows and harvests; at graves he receives blessings from his deceased ancestors. How, then, could any one after he has come to a court return with nothing, like a traveller stopping half-way on his journey and turning back his steps homeward without attaining his object?”

“Thou speakest wisely,” answered the heir. “But tell me, has not his holiness the right to free these people?”

The official crossed his arms on his breast and bent his head,—

“He is equal to the gods, he can do what he wishes; liberate accused, nay, condemned men, and destroy even the documents of a case,—things which if done by a common man would be sacrilege.”

The prince took farewell of the official, and said to the overseer, “Give the accused better food at my expense.” Then he sailed, greatly irritated, to the other bank, stretching forth his hands toward the palace continually, as if begging the pharaoh to destroy the case.

But that day his holiness had many religious ceremonies and a counsel with the ministers, hence the heir could not see him. The prince went immediately to the grand secretary, who next to the minister of war had most significance at the court of the pharaoh. That ancient official, a priest at one of the temples in Memphis, received the prince politely but coldly, and when he had heard him he answered,—

“It is a marvel to me that thou wishest, worthiness, to disturb our lord with such questions. It is as if thou wert to beg him not to destroy locusts which devour what is on the fields.”

“But they are innocent people.”

“We, worthy lord, cannot know that, for law and the courts decide as to guilt and innocence. One thing is clear to me, the state cannot suffer an attack on any one’s garden, and especially cannot suffer that hands should be raised against property of the erpatr.”

“Thou speakest justly, but where are the guilty?” answered Rameses.

“Where there are no guilty there must at least be men who are punished. Not the guilt of a man, but the punishment which follows a crime, teaches others that they are not to commit the crime in question.”

“I see,” interrupted the heir, “that your worthiness will not support my prayer.”

“Wisdom flows from thy lips, erpatr,” answered the priest. “Never shall I give my lord a counsel which would expose the dignity of power to a blow.”

The prince returned home pained and astonished. He felt that an injury had been done to some hundreds of people, and he saw that he could not save them any more than he could rescue a man on whom an obelisk or the column of a temple had fallen.

“My hands are too weak to rear this edifice,” thought the prince, with anguish of spirit.

For the first time he felt that there was a power infinitely greater than his will,—the interest of the state, which even the all-powerful pharaoh acknowledges and before which he the erpatr must bend himself.

Night had fallen. Rameses commanded his servants to admit no one, and walked in loneliness on the terrace of his villa, thinking,—

“A wonderful thing! Down there at Pi-Bailos the invincible regiments of Nitager opened before me, while in Memphis an overseer of prisons, an investigating official, and a scribe bar the way to me. What are they? Mere servants of my father,—may he live through eternity!—who can cast them down to the rank of slaves at any moment and send them to the quarries. But why should not my father pardon the innocent? The state does not wish him to do so. And what is the state? Does it eat? where does it sleep? where are its hands and its sword, of which all are in terror?”

He looked into the garden, and among the trees on the summit of an eminence he saw two immense silhouettes of pylons, on which sentry lights were burning. The thought came to him that that watch never slept, those pylons never ate, but still they existed. Those pylons had existed for ages, mighty, like Rameses the Great, that potentate who had reared them.

Could he lift those edifices and hundreds of similar grandeur; could he escape those guards and thousands of others who watch over the safety of Egypt; could he disobey laws established by Rameses the Great and other preceding pharaohs still greater, laws which twenty dynasties had consecrated by their reverence?

In the soul of the prince for the first time in life a certain idea, dim but gigantic, began to fix itself in outline,—the idea of the state. The state is something more magnificent than the temple in Thebes, something grander than the pyramid of Cheops, something more ancient than the subterranean temple of the Sphinx, something more enduring than granite—in that immense though invisible edifice people are like ants in some cranny of a cliff, and the pharaoh a mere travelling architect who is barely able to lay one stone in the wall of the edifice and then go on farther. But the walls increase from generation to generation and the edifice continues.

He, the son of the pharaoh, had never felt yet his littleness as in that moment, when his glance in the midst of the night was wandering beyond the Nile among pylons of the pharaoh’s palace, and the indefinite but imposing outlines of the Memphis temples.

At that moment from among the trees whose branches touched the terrace, he heard a voice.

“I know thy anxiety and I bless thee. The court will not free the prisoners. But the case will drop, and they may return to their houses if the overseer of thy land does not support the complaint of attack.”

“Then did my overseer make the charge?” asked the astonished prince.

“Thou hast spoken truth. He made the charge in thy name. But if he does not go to the court, there will be no injured person; and there is no offence if there is no injured person.”

The thicket rustled.

“Stop!” cried Rameses; “who art thou?”

No one gave answer. But it seemed to the prince that in a streak of light from a torch burning on the lower floor a naked head was visible for an instant, and also a panther skin.

“A priest,” whispered the heir. “Why does he hide himself?”

But at that moment it occurred to him that the priest might answer grievously for giving counsel which stopped the dispensation of justice.