Читать книгу The Pharaoh and the Priest - Bolesław Prus - Страница 22

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THE next day Rameses sent his black men with commands to Memphis, and about midday came a great boat toward Sarah’s house from the direction of the city. The boat was filled with Greek soldiers in lofty helmets and gleaming breastplates.

At command sixteen men armed with shields and short darts landed and stood in two ranks. They were ready to march to the house, when a second messenger from the prince detained them. He commanded the soldiers to remain at the shore, and summoned only their leader, Patrokles.

They halted and stood without movement, like two rows of columns covered with glittering armor. After the messenger went Patrokles in a helmet with plumes, wearing a purple tunic over which he had gilded armor ornamented on the breast with the picture of a woman’s head bristling with serpents instead of hair.

The prince received the famous general at the garden gate. He did not smile as usual, did not even answer the low bow of Patrokles, but said coldly,—

“Worthiness, tell the Greek warriors that I will not review them until their lord, his holiness, appoints me leader a second time. They have lost that honor by uttering in dramshops shouts worthy of drunkards. These shouts offend me. I call attention also to this, worthiness, that the Greek regiments do not show sufficient discipline. In public places the soldiers of this corps discuss politics and a certain possible war. This looks like treason to the state. Only the pharaoh and members of his supreme council may speak of such matters. But we, soldiers and servants of our lord, whatever position we occupy, may only execute the commands of our most gracious ruler, and be silent at all times. I beg thee to communicate these considerations to my regiments, and I wish all success to thee, worthiness.”

“It will be as commanded, worthiness,” answered the Greek.

He turned on his heel, and standing erect moved with a rattle toward the boat. He knew about these discussions of the soldiers in the dramshops, and understood straightway that something disagreeable had happened to the heir, whom the troops worshipped. Therefore, when he had reached the handful of armed men on the bank, he assumed a very angry mien, and, waving his hands with rage, cried,—

“Valiant Greek soldiers! mangy dogs, may the leprosy consume you! If, from this time on, any Greek mentions the name of the heir to the throne in a dramshop, I will break a pitcher on his head, cram the pieces down his throat, and then drive him out of the regiment! One and another of you will herd swine for Egyptian earth-workers, and hens will lay eggs in your helmets. Such is the fate waiting for stupid soldiers who know not how to keep their tongues quiet. And now—to the left! to the rear! turn! and march to the boat, may the plague strike you! A soldier of his holiness should drink first of all to the health of the pharaoh and the prosperity of the worthy minister of war, Herhor,—may they live through eternity!”

“May they live through eternity!” repeated the soldiers.

All took their places in the boat, looking gloomy. But when near Memphis Patrokles smoothed out his wrinkled forehead and commanded them to sing the song of that priest’s daughter who so loved soldiers that she put a doll in her bed and passed the whole night in the booth of the sentries. Keeping time to this song, they always marched best, and moved the oars with most nimbleness.

In the evening another boat approached Sarah’s dwelling, out of which came the chief steward of the prince’s property.

Rameses received this official at the garden gate also. Perhaps he did this through sternness, or perhaps not to constrain the man to enter the house of his mistress and a Jewess.

“I wished,” said the heir, “to see thee and to say that among my people certain improper conversations circulate concerning decrease of rent, or something of that kind. I wish those people to know that I will not decrease rents. But should any man in spite of warnings persist in his folly and talk about rents, he will receive blows of canes.”

“Perhaps it would be better if he paid a line,—an uten or a drachma, whatever is commanded, worthiness,” said the chief steward.

“Yes; but the worst offender might be beaten.”

“I make bold to offer a remark, worthiness,” said the steward in a low tone, inclining continually, “that the earth-workers, roused by some unknown person, really did talk for a time about decrease of rent. But some days ago they ceased on a sudden.”

“In that case we might withhold the blows of canes,” said Rameses.

“Unless as preventive means,” put in the steward.

“Would it not be too bad to spoil the canes?”

“We shall never lack articles of that sort.”

“But with moderation in every case. I do not wish it to go to his holiness that I torture men without need. For rebellious conversation we must beat and take fines in money, but when there is no cause for punishment we may be magnanimous.”

“I understand,” answered the steward, looking into the eyes of Rameses.

“Let them cry out as much as they like if they do not whisper blasphemy.”

These talks with Patrokles and the steward were reported throughout Egypt.

After the steward’s departure, the prince yawned and looking around with a tired glance, he said to himself,—

“I have done all I could, but now, if I can, I will do nothing.”

At that moment, from the direction of the outhouses, low groans and the sound of frequent blows reached the prince. Rameses turned his head, and saw that the overseer of the workmen, Ezechiel, son of Reuben, was beating some subordinate with a cane, pacifying him meanwhile,—

“Be quiet! be silent, low beast!”

The beaten workman, lying on the ground, closed his mouth with his hand so as not to cry.

At first the prince rushed like a panther toward the outhouses. Suddenly he halted.

“What am I to do?” whispered he. “This is Sarah’s place, and the Jew is her relative.”

He bit his lips, and disappeared among the trees, the more readily since the flogging was finished.

“Is this the management of the humble Jews?” thought Rameses. “Is this the way? That man looks at me as a frightened dog might, but he beats the workmen. Are the Hebrews all like him?”

And for the first time the thought was roused in the prince’s soul, that under the guise of kindness Sarah, too, might conceal falsehood.

Certain changes had indeed taken place in Sarah; above all, moral changes.

From the moment when she met Rameses in the valley of the desert he had pleased her, but that feeling grew silent immediately beneath the influence of the stunning news that the shapely youth was a son of the pharaoh and heir to the throne of Egypt. When Tutmosis bargained with Gideon to take her to the prince’s house, Sarah fell into a state of bewilderment.

She would not renounce Rameses for any treasure, nor at the cost of life, but one could not say that she loved him at that time. Love demands freedom and time to give forth its most beautiful blossoms; neither freedom nor time had been left to her. She made the acquaintance of the prince on a certain day; the following day they took her away almost without consulting her wishes, and bore her to that villa opposite Memphis. In a couple of days she became the prince’s favorite, astonished, frightened, not understanding what had taken place with her.

Moreover, before she could make herself used to the new impressions, the Jewess was disturbed by ill-will from surrounding people; then the visit of unknown ladies; finally, that attack on the villa.

Then, because Rameses took her part and wished to rush on the rioters, she was still more terrified. She lost presence of mind at the thought that she was in the hands of a man of such power and so violent, who, if it suited him, had the right to shed blood, to slay people.

Sarah fell into despair for the moment: it seemed to her that she would go mad. She heard the terrible commands of the prince who summoned the servants to arms. But at that very moment a slight thing took place, one little word was heard which sobered Sarah, and gave a new turn to her feelings.

The prince, thinking that she was wounded, drew the bandage from her head; but when he saw the bruise, he cried,—

“That is only a blue spot! How that blue spot changes the face!”

At these words Sarah forgot pain and fear. New alarm seized her: so she had changed to such a degree that it astonished the prince, but he was only astonished.

The blue spot disappeared in a couple of days, but feelings unknown up to that time remained in Sarah’s soul and increased there. She began to be jealous of the prince, and to fear that he would reject her.

And still another anxiety tortured the Jewess. She felt herself a servant, a slave in respect to Rameses. She was and wished to be his faithful servant, his devoted slave, as inseparable as his shadow, but at the same time she desired that he, at least when he fondled her, should not treat her as though he were lord and master.

She was his indeed, but he was hers also. Why does he not show, then, that he belonged to her, even in some degree? But with every word and motion he makes her understand that a certain gulf is between them. What kind of gulf? Has she not held him in her embraces? Has he not kissed her lips and bosom?

A certain day the prince came to her with a dog. He stayed only a couple of hours; but during that entire interval the dog lay at his feet in Sarah’s place, and when she wished to sit there the dog growled. And the prince laughed and thrust his fingers into the hair of that unclean creature, as he had into her hair. And the dog looked into the prince’s eyes just as she had,—with this difference, perhaps, that he looked with more confidence.

She could not pacify herself, and she hated the clever beast which was taking a part of the tenderness due to her, paying no attention whatever to her, and bearing itself with an intimacy towards its lord that she did not dare to claim. She would have been unable to have such an indifferent mien, or to look in another direction if the prince’s hand had rested on her head.

Not long before this incident the prince mentioned dancers a second time. Then Sarah burst out angrily,—

“How did he permit himself to be familiar with those naked, shameless women? And Jehovah looking down from high heaven did not hurl His thunders at those monstrous creatures!”

It is true that Rameses told her that she was dearer than all else to him, but these words did not pacify Sarah; they only produced this effect,—that she determined not to think of aught beyond her love.

What would come on the morrow? Never mind. And when at the feet of the prince she sang that hymn about those sufferings which pursue mankind from the cradle to the grave, she described in it the state of her own soul, and her last hope, which was Jehovah.

That day Rameses was with her; hence she had enough, she had all the happiness which life could give. But just there began for Sarah the greatest bitterness.

The prince lived under one roof with her, he walked with her in the garden, and sometimes went out on the Nile in a boat with her. But he was not more accessible by the width of one hair than when he was on the other side of the river, within the limits of the pharaoh’s palace.

He was with her, but his mind was in some other place, Sarah could not even divine where. He embraced her, or toyed with her hair, but he looked toward the city, at those immense many-colored pylons of the pharaoh’s palace, or at some unknown object.

At times he did not even answer her questions, or he looked at her suddenly as if roused from sleep, or as if he wondered that he saw her there beside him.