Читать книгу Joseph in Egypt (Vol. 1) - Thomas Mann - Страница 10

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Seventeen days? No, it was a journey of seven times seventeen—not in actual numbers, but in the sense of a very long time indeed; and at the end of it nobody knew how much of its length was due to the Midianites’ tarrying progress and how much to the extent of the ground they covered. They went through a populous, busy, fruitful land, crowned with olive orchards and palms, set thick with walnut and fig trees, planted with corn, watered from deep springs where camels and oxen gathered. Little royal fortresses lay sometimes in the open fields, called stations, with walls and battle-towers; bowmen stood on their battlements and charioteers drove snorting steeds forth from their gates. The Ishmaelites did not hesitate to enter into trade, even with the soldiers of the kings. Villages, farms, and Migdal settlements everywhere invited them to stop, and they lingered for weeks without a thought. Before they reached the spot where the low land along the coast rose to the abruptly towering rocky wall on whose top lay Ascalon, summer was already waning.

Sacred and strong was Ascalon. The four-square stones of its ring walls, which ran down to the sea in a half-circle and included the harbour, seemed borne up by giants, its temple of Dagon was square and full of courts, very lovely its grove and the pond of its grove, abounding in fish, and its dwelling of Ashtaroth was renowned as older than any shrine of Baalat. A spicy sort of little onion grew wild in the sand here under the palms. Derketo vouchsafed them, the lady of Ascalon, and one could sell them abroad. The old man had them gathered into sacks and wrote thereon in Egyptian characters: “Finest Ascalon onions.”

Thence they went on among gnarled olive groves in whose shadow flocks were pastured, and by the time they had reached Gaza, called Khadati, they were certainly come very far. Almost within the Egyptian sphere of influence. For in times past Pharaoh had come up from Egypt with wagons and foot-soldiers, to thrust through the barren lands of Zahi, Amor, and the Retenu to the ends of the earth that his gigantic image might be graven deep above the temple walls, holding clutched in his left hand the topknots of five barbarians at once and with his right swinging his club over their dazzled heads. And in such enterprises Gaza had always been the first stage. Nowadays in its reeking streets one saw many Egyptians. Joseph observed them attentively. They were broad-shouldered, white-clad, and high-nosed. Excellent wine grew here very cheap on the coast and far inland on the way to Beersheba. The old man traded for numerous jugs, two camel-loads of them, and labelled the jugs: “Thrice-excellent wine from Khadati.”

But however much ground they had covered to reach the strong-walled city of Gaza, the worst part of the journey still lay before them, compared to which the leisurely progress through the land of Philistia had been but child’s play. For beyond Gaza to the south, where a sandy road ran along the coast toward the Brook of Egypt, the world, as the Ishmaelites well knew, having covered the ground several times, was inhospitable in the extreme. Between them and the rich plains where flowed the branches of the Nile there extended a melancholy underworld, a frightful expanse, nine days in breadth, accursed and perilous, the dreaded desert, where could be no loitering, rather it was imperative to cross it as fast as possible and get it behind one. Gaza therefore was the last halting-place before Mizraim, and the old man, Joseph’s master, was in no hurry to leave it. There would be far too much time hereafter to hurry, he said. He lingered at Gaza for several days, partly to make careful preparations for the desert journey; provision for water, the engaging of a special guide and opener of the way. Actually, weapons were needed to protect the train against roving bands and robber dwellers in the desert. Our old man, however, made no such provision. Firstly because he in his wisdom thought it useless. Either, he said, one had luck and escaped the marauders—then one needed no weapons—or else one did not; and then however many of them one killed, enough were left to steal one bare. The merchant, he said, must trust to luck, not to spears and crossbows, they were not for him.

But in the second place the guide whom he had engaged, at the gateway, where they congregated for engagements, expressly reassured him about the roving bands and said he would need no arms under his conveyance, he was a perfect guide and opened the safest way through the dreaded region, so that it would be quite absurd to secure his services and then carry arms to boot. How Joseph started, pleased and incredulous at once, when he recognized in the man who came in the dawning to the little caravan and put himself at its head the officious and annoying youth who had guided him from Shechem to Dothan, so short and so crowded a time before!

He it was beyond a doubt, although he was changed by the burnous he wore. The small head and swelling throat, the red mouth and round fruity chin, and especially the weariness of his gaze and the peculiarly affected posture were unmistakable. Joseph was amazed to see or think to see the guide wink at him, shutting one eye with an otherwise wholly immovable face. It seemed at once to recall their former acquaintance and to suggest discretion on the score of it. That reassured Joseph a good deal; for this meeting led further back into his former existence than he wanted the eye of the Ishmaelite to penetrate, and he interpreted the wink as a sign that the man understood.

Yet he sorely wanted to exchange a word with him, and when the little troop, amid the ringing of camel-bells and the songs of the drivers, had left the green country behind them and faced the parching desert before, Joseph asked the old man, behind whom he rode, if he might once and for all make certain from the guide that he was quite sure of his task.

“Art thou afeard?” asked the merchant.

“For all of us,” responded Joseph. “But I now ride for the first time into the accursed land and I am near to tears.”

“Ask him, then.”

So Joseph guided his beast abreast of the foremost animal and said to the guide:

“I am the mouthpiece of our master. He would know if thou art certain of thy road.”

The youth looked at him in his old way over his shoulder with half-opened eyes.

“Thou shouldest be able from thy experience to reassure him,” he answered.

“Hush!” whispered Joseph. “How comest thou here?”

“And thou?” was the answer.

“Yes, of course. Not a word to the Ishmaelites that I went to my brethren,” whispered Joseph.

“Have no fear,” the other answered as softly; and therewith the matter was closed for the time.

But as they pressed farther into the desert, a day and then another day—the sun had set sombrely behind dead mountain chains, and hosts of cloud, grey in the centre and with a sunset glow at the rim, covered the sky above a waxen-yellow sandy plain, while far and wide in front of them were visible scattered hummocks with tufts of withered grass—there was a chance to speak again unobserved with the man. Some of the troop were camped about one of the tussocks of grass on which they had kindled a brushwood fire against the sudden cold; among them the guide, who for the most part associated little either with masters or servants, scorned exchange of talk, and only spoke briefly with the old man from day to day about the route. Joseph finished his tasks, wished the old man a good night’s rest, and then mingled with the group by the fire. He lay down near the guide and waited till the monosyllabic exchange among them died down and they were falling visibly into a doze. Then he gave his neighbour a little nudge and said:

“Hearken: I am sorry that I could not keep my word that time and had to leave thee in the lurch as thou waitedst for me.”

The man only looked at him idly over his shoulder and stared again into the embers.

“So, thou couldst not?” he answered. “Well, let me tell thee, so faithless a chap as thou I have never seen in all the world. I might have sat guarding thy ass seven jubilees long, if it had depended on thee, who came not again as thou hadst promised. I am surprised that I will speak with thee again at all, I am surprised at myself.”

“But I am explaining, as thou hearest,” murmured Joseph, “and I have truly an excuse, that knowest thou not. Things turned out other than I had thought, and went as I could not have guessed. I could not return to thee, however much I wished.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Idle talk. Seven jubilee years might I have sat and waited for thee....”

“But thou hast not sat seven jubilee years for me, but hast gone thy way when thou sawest I was not coming. Exaggerate not the trouble which I unwillingly made for thee; tell me rather what became of Hulda after I left.”

“Hulda? Who is Hulda?”

“ ‘Who’ is a little too much,” said Joseph. “I am asking thee news of Hulda, the ass that carried us, my white ass out of my father’s stall.”

“Ass, ass, white ass for a journey!” mocked the guide in a murmur. “Thou hast a way of speaking of thine own, so tenderly that one may guess at thy self-love. Such people behave then so faithlessly—”

“Not so,” Joseph contradicted him. “I speak not tenderly of Hulda on my own account, but on hers, she was so friendly and careful a beast, entrusted to me by my father; when I think of her mane on her forehead, and the way it hung down in curls to her eyes, my heart melteth within me. I have not ceased to feel troubled about her since I lost her, and even asked after her fate in moments and long hours which for my own fate were not lacking in perils. Thou must know that since I came to Shechem ill luck hath not ceased to follow me and heavy oppression hath been my lot.”

“Impossible,” said the man, “and unbelievable. Oppression? My understanding standeth still and I am stoutly convinced I have not heard aright. But thou wentest after all to thy brethren? And with all the folk thou hast passed thou hast not ceased to exchange smiles, for thou art beautiful and well favoured as a carven image and hast dear life to boot! Whence came then thy ill luck? I ask myself and am not answered.”

“None the less it is so,” replied Joseph. “And through it all, I tell thee, not a moment have I ceased to think of the fate of poor Hulda.”

“Good,” said the guide, “very good.” And Joseph recognized that curious movement of the eyeballs which he had noted before: a rapid squinting and rolling right round. “Good, then, young slave Usarsiph, thou speakest and I hear. One might think indeed that it were idle to waste so many words on an ass, for what sort of rôle doth an ass play in these things and of what importance could it be in them? Yet I think it possible that thy care shall be reckoned to thee for a virtue, that thou thoughtest of the little creature in thine own need.”

“Then what became of her?”

“Of the beast? Verily, it is somewhat annoying for the likes of us to have to play the part of ass-herd for nothing and be asked to give account of what happened besides. One would like to know why one should. But set thy heart at rest. My impression is that the creature’s pastern was not so bad as we thought in our first dismay. It seems it was sprained, and not broken—that is, apparently broken and actually only sprained, dost thou understand? Waiting for thee I had only too much time to tend it, and when at last I lost my patience thy Hulda too was so far along that she could amble, even though mainly on three legs. I rode on her myself as far as Dothan and put her in a house there where I had often done a good turn to advantage both sides. It is the first in the place, belonging to a farmer, where she will be as well off as in the stall of thy father, the so-called Israel.”

“Is that true?” cried Joseph, low and rejoicingly. “Who would have thought it? So she got up and could walk and thou hast cared for her so that she is well off?”

“Very well,” confirmed the other. “She can count herself lucky that I took her to the farmer’s house and her lot has fallen well for her.”

“In other words,” Joseph said, “thou hast sold her in Dothan. And the price?”

“Thou askest after the price?”

“Yea, herewith.”

“I have paid myself for my guidance and my service as watchman.”

“So. Well, I will not inquire the amount. And all the good eatables that hung round the saddle?”

“Is it really true that thou thinkest of those tidbits in thy difficulties and findest that they have comparative importance?”

“Not so much; but they were there.”

“With them too I have reimbursed myself.”

“Indeed,” Joseph said, “thou hadst early begun to repay thyself behind my back, by which I mean certain quantities of onions and fruit-bread. But never mind, perhaps it was well meant and I will always and everywhere extol the good side thou showest. That thou gottest Hulda once more on her legs and madest her full in the land, for that I reckon my thanks are due, and I thank the good fortune that made me meet thee unexpectedly to learn it.”

“Yea, have I again to guide thee, thou windbag, that thou mayest come to thy goal,” replied the man. “Whether it be so fitting and proper for me, I do ask myself that, in passing; yet in vain, for no one else payeth any heed.”

“Now thou art vexing again,” responded Joseph, “just as in the night on the way to Dothan when thou unasked didst help me to find my brethren and did it with such ill grace. Well, this time I need not reproach myself for molesting thee; for thou hast bargained with the Ishmaelites to guide them through the desert and I am only among them by chance.”

“It mattereth not if I guide thee or thy Ishmaelites.”

“Say not that to the Ishmaelites, for they keep themselves on their dignity and self-independence and do not like to hear that in a way they journey that I may come hither where God will have me.”

The guide was silent and dropped his chin into his mantle. Did his eyes roll round again after their wont? Very like, but the darkness prevented one from telling.

“Who liketh to hear that he is a tool?” said he with a certain effort. “And particularly who would hear it from a brat like thee? Coming from thee, young slave Usarsiph, it is shameless, but on the other hand that is just what I say, that it cometh to the same thing and even so it might be the Ishmaelites who are coming with thee, and it is really thou to whom I must open the way—it is all one. Moreover, I had a well to watch down there, to say nothing of the ass.”

“A well?”

“I always had to reckon with such a job, as far as the well was concerned. It was the emptiest hole I ever saw, could not be emptier; and the more absurd was its emptiness, by that measure may be judged the dignity and fitness of my task. Yet perhaps it was the very emptiness that was the important thing about this well.”

“Was the stone rolled away?”

“Of course. I sat on it; and I remained sitting however much the man wanted me to go.”

“What man?”

“Why, he who in his folly came secretly to the well. A man of towering stature, with legs like the pillars of a temple, and inside this husk a poor thin voice.”

“Reuben!” cried Joseph, almost forgetful of caution.

“Call him as thou wilt, it was a blundering tower of a man. Came back there with his rope and his coat to such a proper empty hole.”

“He wanted to save me!” Joseph affirmed.

“As thou wilt,” said the guide and yawned like a woman, putting his hand affectedly before his mouth and giving a dainty little sigh. “He too played his rôle,” he added. His voice was indistinct, for he had tucked his chin and mouth farther into his mantle and seemed to want to go to sleep. Joseph heard him still muttering disconnectedly and irritably: “Trifling and folly—words of a young brat....”

There was nothing more pertinent to be got out of him. Even in their further journey Joseph did not succeed in getting more speech with his guard and guide.