Читать книгу There was a King in Egypt - Norma Lorimer - Страница 14

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They were back in the valley again and splendid work was going on at the camp. Another two weeks' hard digging had done wonders, and Margaret and Michael had found each other again.

In the dawn, two mornings after the dance, when the mysterious figures, heralding the light, were abandoning themselves to their God on the desert sands, Mike had seen Margaret standing at her hut-door, watching, as he himself so often watched, for the glory which was of Aton to flood the desert with light. Meg's eyes the day before had told Michael that she was unhappy; he knew now that she had not slept.

While the white figures were still bent earthwards and the little streak of light was scarcely more than visible, Michael went to her and asked her forgiveness.

"Forgive me," he said. "I need forgiveness."

Meg took his hand. "I hate not being friends. Thank you."

"It made me miserable," he said.

"Then let's forget. I was stupid. This is all too big and great for such smallness." She indicated the coming of the unearthly light.

"Thy dawning, O Aton," Michael said.

Margaret smiled. "He was very far from us at Assuan."

"He was there. I stifled my consciousness of him, Meg."

"Don't," she said. "Let's go forward."

"I know what you mean," he said. "Regrets are weak, foolish."

"I don't want to bring the hotel at Assuan into this valley. Let's just watch the sun transform its infinite mystery into our waking, working, everyday world—if Egypt can be an everyday world."

"May I say Akhnaton's beautiful hymn to you? It is about the sunrise.

He must often have seen it just as we are seeing it now."

"Akhnaton's? Yes, do. How wonderful to think that he wrote hymns!"

Michael began the famous hymn. "'The world is in darkness, like the dead. Every lion cometh forth from his den; all serpents sting. Darkness reigns.'"

"We might substitute jackals," Margaret said gently.

"'When thou risest in the horizon … the darkness is banished. Then in all the world they do their work.

"'All trees and plants flourish, the birds flutter in their marshes, all sheep dance upon their feet.'"

"Oh," Margaret said delightedly, "how like it is to the hundred and fourth Psalm! Do you remember how David said: 'The trees of the Lord are full of sap. … Where the birds make their nests. … The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats'? I think that's how it goes. I love that Psalm."

"Yes," Michael said, "verse for verse, the idea is absolutely similar and the similes are strikingly alike. The next verse is just as much alike. Listen. … I am so glad you like it."

"First look," Margaret said, "at that light. Yes, now go on—I love hearing it."

"'The ships sail up stream and down stream alike. The fish in the river leap up before Thee and Thy rays are in the midst of the great sea. How manifold are Thy works. Thou didst create the earth according to Thy desire, men, all cattle, all that are upon the earth.'"

"How extraordinarily like!" Margaret said. "How do you account for it? I suppose it is still allowed that David wrote the Psalms? Did he live before Akhnaton or after him?" She laughed softly. "Don't scorn my ignorance. You see, I have kept my promise—I have read nothing at all on the subject."

"Akhnaton, you mean? Oh, before David, by about three hundred years. There are all sorts of theories on the subject. The commonest is that Akhnaton, having come of Syrian stock, on his mother's side, may have got his inspiration from some Syrian hymn, as David also may have done. I reject that theory. The whole of Akhnaton's beliefs and teachings prove the extraordinary originality of his ideas. He borrowed nothing; God was his inspiration."

"You are going to tell me about him, about his work?"

"Yes, soon, some day. Have you thought about him since?" Michael referred to the God of Whom Akhnaton was the manifestation, the interpreter. He always spoke of Akhnaton as a divine messenger.

His voice betrayed a sense of regret, of unworthiness. Yet in his heart he knew that, weak as he had been, he had not sinned against the spirit of Akhnaton, that he realized even more fully his watchword, "Living in Truth." Akhnaton's love for every created being because of their creator filled Michael's heart even more fully than it had done before. He had learned his own moral weakness, his own forgetfulness. Blame and criticism of even the natives' shortcomings seemed to him reserved for someone more worthy than himself. They had simply not yet seen the Light; their evolution was more tardy; they were less fortunate. Some day all men would be "Living in Truth." Akhnaton's dream would be realized. How impossible it is for our material selves to do without the help which is outside ourselves, that help which is our divine consciousness, Michael had learned over and over again. His lapses had not affected his beliefs. They were only parts of the struggle, the oldest struggle known to mankind, the struggle between Light and Darkness. Just as the Egyptians from the earliest days believed in the triumph of Osiris over Set, he knew that no thinking man could doubt the eventual triumph of all those who fight for the spiritual man.

"Yes, I have thought about him," Margaret said. "And last night I dreamed about him—my … " she paused " … wonderful visitor."

"What did you dream?" Michael said. "Do tell me."

The light was breaking over the valley—not the sun's light, the cold light of dawn. The "heat of Aton" was still withheld.

A blush which was invisible to Michael tinged Meg's clear skin. Her dream had been beautiful, vivid. It had illuminated her world again.

"It was nothing very coherent. I saw no vision, as I did before." Her words were spoken guardedly. "It was the lesson the dream revealed."

"I should like to know, Meg."

"A voice seemed to wake me. It spoke to me of you. I was to help you … you were struggling."

"You can help me," Mike said. "You have."

"It spoke of the oldest of all stories, the battle of light against darkness. It said that Egypt in the early days worshipped light; in the days which followed light was swallowed up in the worship of false gods."

"Osiris and Set—you know the legend—the fundamental ethics of all religions."

"I know a little about it," Margaret said. She paused. "Please go on … tell me everything."

"In dreams we are so vain, so wonderful … you know how it always is! The ego in us has unlimited sway. In my dream I dreamed that my friendship was to be 'light'; if I withdrew it, you would have darkness. What glorious vanity!"

"Oh, Meg, it's quite true! Will you give me back your sympathy?

I … " he hesitated, " … I am trying to be more worthy of it."

"We are friends," she said. "I was foolish and conceited, my dream made me see how foolish. I had no right to … "

He interrupted her. "Yes, you had … you weren't foolish. Your sensibilities told you what was absolutely true. … I would explain more if I could."

"No, don't explain—things are explained. I thought I should find you here; I wanted to begin the new day happily. My dream made me see so very clearly that the world is made up of those who sit in darkness and those who sit in light, that thoughts are things. My thoughts were unjust, unkind, so my world was unkind, unjust. I made it."

"The light which is Aton," Michael said.

"If we wish to enjoy happiness, we must sit in the light. We must make our own happiness."

"In the fullness and glory of Aton."

"God, I suppose you mean," Margaret said.

"The one and only God Whom every human being has striven to worship in his or her odd way ever since the world began. There is God in every man's heart. It doesn't a bit matter what His symbol may be. Some races of mankind have evolved higher forms of worship, some lower; their symbols are appropriate. But they are all striving for the one and same thing—to render worship to the Divine Creator, to sit in the Light of Aton."

"But the sun," Margaret said—she pointed to the fiery ball on the horizon—"I thought your divine Akhnaton was a sun-worshipper?"

"He worshipped our God, the Creator of all things of heaven or earth, even of our precious human sympathy, Meg, for nothing that is could be without Him, and to Akhnaton His symbol was the sun. The earlier Egyptians worshipped Ra, the great sun-god; Akhnaton brought divinity into his worship. He worshipped Aton as the Lord and Giver of Life, the Bestower of Mercy, the Father of the Fatherless. All His attributes were symbolized in the sun. Its rising and setting signified Darkness and Light; its power as the creative force in nature, Resurrection. It evolved mankind from the lower life and implanted the spirit of divinity in him through the Creator of all things created. The sun was God created, His symbol, His manifestation."

"Look," Margaret said, "look at it now—it is God, walking in the desert."

* * * * * *

For a little time they stood together, their material forms side by side.

* * * * * *

Michael's house-boy, with a deferential salaam, suddenly informed him that his bath had been waiting for him and was now cold.

Before Michael hurried off Margaret said, "Thank you for my first lesson in Akhnaton's worship." She held out her hands.

"We all worship as he did, all day long," he said, "when we admire the sun and the stars and the flowers, when we admire all that is beautiful, we are seeing God."

"I adore beauty," Margaret said, "but I forget that beauty is God.

You, like Akhnaton, are conscious of God first, the beauty He has made

afterwards. If there had been the text 'God is Beauty' as there is

'God is Love,' it might have helped us to understand."

"I forget him," Michael said, "you know how easily."

"It is far better to know and love, even if you are human and forget. … " she paused " … than always to sit in darkness, to sit outside the door."

"I don't see how any one can," Michael said. "It is all so exquisitely evident. The desolation must be so terrifying, like living in this lonely spot with no watch-dogs to keep off evil-doers. It takes great courage to live on one's own strength, one's own material self."

They had parted, Margaret going to her room, Michael to his tent. Freddy, who was almost dressed, saw two figures approaching, wrapped up in big coats.

"That's a good job!" he said. "The sunrise has made them friends again." He was out in the desert the next moment, hearing the roll-call of the workmen, who had all ranged themselves up in a line near the hut.