Читать книгу The Pharaoh and the Priest - Bolesław Prus - Страница 21

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IN the month of Choeak (from the middle of September to the middle of October), the waters of the Nile were highest, and began to fall slightly. In the gardens people gathered tamarinds, dates, olives; and trees blossomed a second time.

At this juncture his holiness Rameses XII. left his sun-bright palace in Memphis, and with a grand suite on some tens of stately barges sailed to Thebes, to thank the gods there for the bounteous inundation, and also to place offerings on the tombs of his eternally living ancestors.

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

Rameses felt this proof of want of confidence so greatly that for three 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, so as not to meet Herhor or annoy his own mother, whom he considered the cause of his failures.

On the following day Tutmosis visited him in this retreat, bringing two boats filled with musicians and dancers, and a third containing baskets of food and flowers, with pitchers of wine. But the prince commanded the musicians and dancers to depart, and taking Tutmosis to the garden, he said,—

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

The prince was irritated. Tutmosis shrugged his shoulders, and remarked finally,—

“As a whirlwind sweeps a bird into a desert, so does anger cast a man on the shores of injustice. How canst thou wonder if the priests are displeased because the heir to the throne has connected his life with a woman of another country and a strange religion? Sarah does not please them, especially since thou hast her alone. Hadst thou a number of various women, like all noble youths, they would not mind the Jewess. But have they done her harm? No. On the contrary, even some priest defended her against a raging crowd which it pleased thee to liberate from imprisonment.”

“But my mother?”

Tutmosis laughed.

“Thy worthy mother loves thee as her own eyes and heart. Of course Sarah does not please her, either, but dost thou know what her worthiness said once to me? This,—that I should entice Sarah from thee. 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 horses because he has grown tired of them; perhaps some day he will give me his mistress too, of course I shall have to take her with other things.’”

“Do not think of it. I would not give Sarah to any man, were it only for 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 am terrified. 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 manœuvres, 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, that when thou shalt succeed to his holiness—may he live through eternity!—thou wilt begin a great war, after which there will be changes in Egypt.”

“What changes? And who is the man who during the life of the pharaoh may 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, “for misfortunes, like hyenas, never come singly. Dost thou know that the lowest people sing songs about thee,—sing how thou didst free the attackers from prison, and what is worse, they repeat again, that, when thou shalt succeed his holiness, rents will be abolished. It must be added that when common people speak of injustice and rents, disturbances follow; and either a foreign enemy attacks our weakened state, 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 be mentioned oftener than the pharaoh’s, and that any man should stand between the people and our lord? If thou permit, I will tell how priests look on this matter.”

“Of course, speak.”

“Well, a very wise priest who from the summit of the temple of Amon examines celestial movements, has thought out this statement: ‘The pharaoh is the sun, the heir to the throne the moon. When the moon follows the god of light from afar, we have brightness in the daytime and 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 stands before the sun there is an eclipse, and in the world great terror—’”

“And all this babble,” interrupted Rameses, “goes to the ears of his holiness. Misfortune on my head! Would that I had never been the son of a pharaoh!”

“The pharaoh, as a god upon earth, knows everything; but he is too mighty to care for the drunken shouts of soldiers or the whispers of earth-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 all this I see new vileness and deceit of the priests,” added he, rousing himself. “It is I, then, who hide the majesty of our lord, because I free the innocent from prison, or do not let my tenant torture earth-workers with unjust tribute. But when his worthiness Herhor manages 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 holiness alone directs the state, and whatever is done on earth proceeds from his will. Herhor is a servant of the pharaoh and does what his lord enjoins on him. If thou wilt convince thyself—oh, that my words be not ill understood—”

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

“Brr! I thank the gods for not giving me such a character as that which Rameses has. He is a most unhappy man in the happiest conditions. He might have the most beautiful women in Memphis, but he sticks to one to annoy his mother. Meanwhile it is not his mother that he annoys, but all the virtuous virgins and faithful wives who are withering from sadness that the heir to the throne, and moreover a youth of great comeliness, does not snatch from them virtue or force them to unfaithfulness. He might not only drink but even swim in the best wine; meanwhile he prefers the wretched camp beer, and bread rubbed with garlic. Whence came these low inclinations? I cannot imagine. Or was it that the worthy Nikotris in her critical period looked at workmen while they were eating?

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

“O Rameses, Rameses!” sighed the exquisite. “Is it possible that fashion should be developed in the time of such a prince? We wear the same aprons from one year to another, and we retain wigs, only thanks to court dignitaries, for Rameses will not wear any wig. This is a great offence to the whole order of nobles. And all brought about by cursed politics, brr! Oh, how happy I am that I need not divine what they are thinking of in Tyre or Nineveh; break my head over wages for the army; calculate how many people have been added to Egypt or taken from it, and what rents must be collected. It is a terrible thing to say to one’s self, ‘My tenant does not pay what I need and expend, but what the increase of the Nile permits.’”

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

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

Rameses was a sceptic. As a pupil of the priests, and a member of the highest aristocracy, he knew that when certain priests had fasted many months and mortified their senses they summoned spirits, while others spoke of spirits as a fancy, a deception. He had seen, too, that Apis, the sacred bull before which all Egypt fell prostrate, received at times heavy blows of a cane from inferior priests, who gave the beast food and brought cows to him.

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

The prince saw all this, and jeered in his soul and even in public at many things. But all his infidelity fell before the actual truth,—that no one was permitted to trifle with the titles of the pharaoh.

Rameses knew the history of his country, and he remembered that in Egypt many things were forgiven the mighty. A great lord might ruin a canal, kill a man in secret, revile the gods privately, take presents from ambassadors of foreign states, but two sins were not forgiven,—the betrayal of priestly secrets, and treason to the pharaoh. A man who committed one or the other disappeared, sometimes after a year, from among his friends and servants. But where he had been 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 that the army and the people began to mention his name and speak of certain plans of his,—changes in the state, future wars. Thinking of this, the prince felt as if a nameless crowd of rebels and unfortunates were pushing him violently to the point of the highest obelisk, from which he must tumble down and be crushed into jelly.

Later on, when, after the longest life of his father possible, he became pharaoh, he would have the right and the means to accomplish many 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 a traitor and a rebel against the fundamental laws of Egypt. In that state there was one visible ruler,—the pharaoh. He governed, he desired, he thought for all, and woe to the man who dared to doubt audibly 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 pharaoh listened to advice from his aiding council, and expressed to it his own opinions. No changes could come save from that place. There burned the only visible lamp of political wisdom, the light of which illuminated Egypt. But touching that light, it was safer to be silent.

All these considerations flew through the prince’s head with the swiftness of a whirlwind while he was sitting on the stone bench under the chestnut-tree in Sarah’s garden, and looking at the landscape there around him.

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

Around all these islands were well-sweeps, with buckets by which bronze-hued naked men with dirty breech clouts raised water from the Nile and poured it into higher reservoirs. One such place was in the prince’s mind especially. That was a steep eminence on the side of which three men were working at three well-sweeps. One poured water from the river into the lowest well; another drew from the lowest and raised water two yards higher to a middle place; the third raised water from the middle to the highest place. There some people, also naked, drew water in buckets, and irrigated beds of vegetables, or watered trees from sprinkling-pots.

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

“And creatures such as these,” thought the prince, as he looked at their toil, “desire me to realize their imaginings. What change in the state can they wish? Is it that he who draws from the lowest well should go to the highest, or instead of pouring from a bucket should sprinkle trees with a watering-pot?”

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

At that moment he heard a low rustle among the trees, and delicate hands 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 the promised land as I was at those words of thine: ‘I am coming to live with thee.’ But thou art a day and a night here, and I have not seen thy smile yet. Thou dost not even speak to me, but movest about in gloom, 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. As long as we guard it ourselves even sleep flees away, and we find relief 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 all his crops from the field before the overflow, his wife helps him. She helps 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 come that woman can lighten man’s troubles.”

“Dost thou not believe this, lord?”

“The cares of a prince,” answered Rameses, “cannot be lightened by a woman, 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 our traditions, Adam left Paradise for Eve; and he was surely the greatest king in the most beautiful kingdom.”

The prince became thoughtful.

“Our sages also teach,” said he, “that man has often abandoned dignities for woman, but it has not been heard that any man ever achieved something great through a woman; unless he was a leader to whom 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 him out 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 for gifts, or favored those who do not hesitate to seek success even under the beds of princes’ favorites. Thou art milder than a lamb, and as calm as a night on the Nile. Thy kisses are like perfume from the land of 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. Thou art a marvel among women; women’s lips are rich in trouble and their love is very costly. But with all thy perfection how canst thou ease my troubles? Canst thou cause his holiness to order a great expedition to the East and name me to command it? Canst thou give me the army corps in Memphis, for which I asked, or wilt thou, in the pharaoh’s name, make me governor of Lower Egypt? Or canst thou bring all subjects of his holiness to think and feel as I, his most devoted subject?”

Sarah dropped her hands on her knees, and whispered sadly, “True, I cannot 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 long robes, therefore, which become priestesses guarding fire, and array thyself in transparent muslin, as Phœnician dancers do. And so dance and 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 my wretchedness; send me then to my father, send me to our valley in the desert. Oh, that I had never seen thee in it!”

“Well, well, calm thyself,” said the prince, toying with her hair. “I must of course see dancers, if not at feasts, at royal festivals, or during services in temples. But all of them together do not concern me as much as thou alone; moreover, who among them could equal thee? Thy body is like a statue of Isis, cut out of ivory, and each of those dancers has some defect. Some are too thick; others have thin legs or ugly hands; still others have false hair. Who of them is like thee? If thou wert an Egyptian, all our temples would strive to possess thee as the leader of their chorus. What do I say? Wert thou to appear now in Memphis in transparent robes, the priests would be glad if thou wouldst 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 of the Lord, but not for the purpose of sowing fiery seeds of desire in men’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 returned followed by a young girl with black, frightened eyes, who was bearing a harp.

“Who is this maiden?” asked the prince. “But wait I have seen that look somewhere. Ah! when I was here the last time a frightened girl looked from the bushes at me.”

“This is Esther, my relative and servant,” answered Sarah. “She has lived with me a month now, but she fears thee, lord, so she runs away always. Perhaps she looked at thee sometime from out the bushes.”

“Thou mayst go, my child,” said the prince to the maiden, who seemed petrified, 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 as a sheep at a crocodile?”

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

“That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, for he has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which no Egyptian could imitate.”

“That,” answered Sarah, “is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative of my father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy very faithful servants.”

“Does he please me,” said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with his fingers on the bench. “He is not here to please me, but to guard thy property. 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 notes as accompaniment, began,—

“Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumber has 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 has passed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.

“But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, and whose houses are filled with sighing.

“A wail is man’s earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he would like to be.

“Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness of being? Is it the child which death has snatched from its mother, or is it the babe whose mother’s breast was drained by hunger ere the little one could place lips to it?

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

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

“For this reason men’s hearts in all places and at all times are overflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion are his danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonous serpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decrease his land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the door to his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped of strength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whale is surrounded by abysses of water.

“Therefore, O Lord, my Creator, to Thee the tortured human soul turns itself. Thou hast brought it into a world full of ambushes, Thou hast grafted into it the terror of extinction. Thou hast barred before it all roads of peace, save the one road which leads to Thee. And as a child which cannot walk grasps its mother’s skirt lest it fall, so wretched man stretches forth his hands toward Thy tenderness, and struggles 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 song teaches, no one would laugh on the banks of the Nile. The wealthy would hide in underground temples through terror, and the people, instead of working, would flee to caves, look out and wait for mercy which would never come to them.

“Our world is different: in it a man may have everything, but he himself must do everything. Our gods help no idleness. They come to the earth only when a hero dares a deed which is superhuman and when he exhausts every power present. Such was the case with Rameses the Great when he rushed among two thousand five hundred hostile chariots, each of which carried three warriors. Only then did Amon the eternal father reach his hand down and end the battle with victory. But if instead of fighting he had waited for the aid of your God, long ago would the Egyptians have been moving along the Nile, each of them bearing a brick and a bucket, while the vile Hittites would be masters going around with clubs and papyruses.

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

“Above all, I could not be the pharaoh’s heir any more than my brothers, one of whom does not leave his room without leaning on two slaves, while the other climbs along tree trunks.”