Читать книгу Joseph in Egypt (Vol. 1) - Thomas Mann - Страница 7

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“Thou’rt to come to the master,” a boy named Ba’almahar said one evening to Joseph as the latter was busy baking pancakes on hot stones. They were now some days distant from Mount Kirmil, having come along the sandy shore close to the open sea. Joseph had asserted that he made uncommonly good pancakes. And actually by God’s help he succeeded in making excellent ones, though he had never made or been asked to make them before. They had camped at sunset at the foot of the rushy and grassy line of dunes which had for days monotonously accompanied their course on the land side. It had been very hot; now mildness descended from a paling sky. The beach extended, violet-hued. The retreating sea rustled silkily, sending broad, shallow waves to the wet margin of the shore, where they were gilded with red-gold splendour by the scarlet rays of the parting sun. The camels rested beside their pegs. Not far from the shore a clumsy freight boat, worked by two men and seemingly laden with wood, was being towed southwards by a sailing-ship propelled by oars. The sail-boat had a short mast and a long yard, many cables, and an animal’s head on the prow high above the water.

“To the master,” repeated the camel-boy. “He summons thee through my mouth. He is sitting on the mat in his tent and he says thou art to come before him. I was passing and he called me by my name, Ba’almahar, and spake: ‘Send to me him lately bought, that son of the swamps, that “Come-hither” out of the depths, I would question him.’ ”

“Aha!” thought Joseph, “Kedema hath told him about the universes, that is very well.” “Yes,” said he, “he expressed himself thus because he knew not how otherwise to make thee comprehend whom he meant. He must speak to thee, my good fellow, according to thy understanding.”

“Indeed,” retorted the other, “what else should he have said? For wanting to see me, he would say: ‘Send to me Ba’almahar.’ For that is my name. But with thee it is harder, for to thee one can but whistle.”

“I suppose he would see thee always,” said Joseph, “though thou art but a scaldhead! Go now. Thanks for thy message.”

“What thinkest thou?” cried Ba’almahar. “Thou must come straightway with me, that I bring thee before him, for if thou comest not I shall suffer.”

“But first,” answered Joseph, “I must just finish this pancake before I go. I will take it with me, that the master may try my excellent baking. Be quiet and wait.” And with the slave emitting cries of impatience he baked the pancake brown, then rose from his squatting posture and said: “I come.”

Ba’almahar accompanied him to the old man, who sat contemplatively on his mat in the low entrance of his travelling tent.

“To hear is to obey,” said Joseph, saluting. The old man, gazing into the fading glow of eve, nodded and then lifted one of his hands from his lap with a sidewise wave in sign that Ba’almahar should disappear.

“I hear,” he began, “that thou hast said thou art the navel of the world.”

Joseph shook his head with a smile.

“What could that mean,” answered he, “and what may I have chanced to utter and turn-a-phrase that they have so bungled it to my lord’s ears? Let me see. Yea, truly, I said that it hath many centres, the world, as many as there are men on earth to say ‘I say.’ For each a centre.”

“That is the same in the end,” said the old man. “It is true, then, that thou didst give tongue to such a folly. Never have I heard the like, in all my wanderings and I see too well thou art a blasphemer and ill-doer, just as thy former masters said. What should we be coming to if every gawk and gaby in all the tribes were to consider himself the centre of the world wherever he standeth? And what should we do with so many centres? When thou wast in the well, whither thou camest, as I now see, only too justifiably, was then this well the sacred centre of the world?”

“God hallowed it,” answered Joseph, “in that He kept an eye on it and let me not be destroyed therein but sent you by that way that you might save me.”

“ ‘So that’?” questioned the merchant, “or ‘in order that’?”

“ ‘So that,’ and ‘in order that,’ ” responded Joseph, “both, or as one will.”

“Thou art a prattler. Up to now there was at least question whether Babel was the centre of the world and its tower or perhaps the city of Abdu on the river Hapi, where he lieth buried, the First of the West. Thou multipliest the question. To what god belongest thou?”

“God the Lord.”

“Adon, then, and thou lamentest the going down of the sun. To that I agree, it is at least a statement worthy of a hearing, and better than if one were to say: ‘I am a centre,’ as though he were gone mad. What hast thou there in thy hand?”

“A pancake, which I baked for my lord. I can make uncommonly good pancakes.”

“Uncommon? Let me see.”

And the old man took the cake out of Joseph’s hand, turned it about, and then bit a piece off with his side teeth, for he had none in front. The pancake was as good as could be and not better; but the old man gave judgment:

“It is very good. I will not say uncommonly, since thou hast said it first; thou shouldst have left it to me. But good it is. Capital, indeed,” he added, as he chewed. “I commission thee to bake them often.”

“It shall be done.”

“Is it true or not, that thou canst write and keep a record of stocks?”

“With ease,” answered Joseph. “I can write human and divine writing, with reed or graver, at will.”

“Who taught thee?”

“He did who was set over the house. A wise steward.”

“How many times goeth seven into seventy-seven?”

“But twice, as written. But in sense I must take the seven first once, then twice, then eight times to reach seventy-seven, for seven, fourteen, and fifty-six make it up. One, two, and eight are, however, eleven and thus I have it: eleven times doth seven go into seventy-seven.”

“So quickly findest thou a hidden number?”

“Quickly or not at all.”

“Thou hast probably learned from practice. But suppose I have a piece of meadow that is three times as large as the field of my neighbour Dagantakala, but he buyeth a yoke of land in addition and now mine is only twice as large as his. How many yoke have both fields?”

“Together?” asked Joseph and reckoned.

“No, each one.”

“Hast thou a neighbour named Dagantakala?”

“I only call so the owner of the second field in my sum.”

“I see and understand. Dagantakala—that must be a man from the country of Pelesheth to judge by the name, from the land of the Philistines, whither we seem to be going down according to the decree of thy mind. There is no such person; but he is named Dagantakala and he tills in contentment his little ploughland, now increased to three yoke, incapable of envy of my lord and his six yoke, since after all he hath increased from two to three yoke and besides, because he doth not exist at all nor yet the ploughland which all together maketh up nine yoke—that is the joke of it. There is only my lord and his busy brain.”

The old man blinked uncertainly, for he did not quite see that Joseph had already solved the problem.

“Well?” asked he.... “Ah, yes, yes. Thou hast said already and I scarce marked it, so hast thou woven and fabled it into thy prattle that I almost failed to hear it. It is right, six, two, and three, those are the figures. They were concealed and hidden—how then hast thou so quickly brought them out while prattling?”

“One must fix the unknown quantity clearly in one’s eye, then the concealments fall away and it becometh known.”

“I must laugh,” the old man said, “because thou madest the answer run all in together so and made nothing of it when thou gavest it. I really must laugh heartily at that.” And so he did, with his toothless mouth, his head on one side, and shaking it to boot. Then he grew serious again and blinked with eyes yet moist.

“Now hearken, Come-hither,” said he, “and answer honestly and in accordance with the truth. Tell me, art thou really a slave and a nobody’s son, a rascal and under-servant of the basest sort, heavily punished for heaped-up crimes and moral transgressions as the shepherds said?”

Joseph veiled his eyes and rounded his lips in a way he had, making the under one protrude.

“My lord,” said he, “hath given me unknown problems to try me, and not given me the answer at once, for then there would be no trial. Since now God trieth thee with riddles—wilt thou have the answer at once and shall the questioner answer for the asked? So doth it not go in the world. Hast thou not drawn me out of the grave where I had fouled myself like a sheep with its own filth? What sort of under-servant must I then be and how gross my moral breach! I have moved the double and triple to and fro in my brain and weighed their relations until I saw the solution. Reckon thou too, if thou wilt, to and fro between punishment, guilt and baseness and of a certainty thou wilt come from the two to the three.”

“My example was in words and bore the answer in itself. Figures are clear and final. But who giveth me warrant that life too can be solved like them, not deceiving the known about the unknown? For many things speak here against a clear conclusion.”

“Then one must take that into consideration: if life cannot be solved like figures, on the other hand it is spread before thee so that thou seest it with thine eyes.”

“Whence hast thou the precious stone on thy finger?”

“Perhaps the base servant stole it,” suggested Joseph.

“Perhaps. But thou must know whence thou hadst it.”

“I have had it so long that I no longer remember when I did not have it.”

“So then thou hast brought it with thee out of the swamps and reeds where thou wast conceived? For thou art truly a son of the swamps and child of the rushes?”

“I am the child of the well, out of which my lord drew me and brought me up with milk.”

“Hast thou known no mother but the well?”

“Yes,” said Joseph. “I did know a sweeter mother. Her cheek smelt like the rose-leaf.”

“Thou seest. And hath she not named thee with a name?”

“I have lost it, my lord, for I have lost my life. I may not know my name as I may not know my life, which they thrust into the grave.”

“Tell me thy transgression, which brought thy life down to the grave.”

“It was culpable,” answered Joseph, “and is named confidence. Criminal confidence and blind, unreasoning presumption, that is its name. For it is blind and deadly to test men beyond their strength and require of them what they neither will hear nor can. Before such love and respect their gall runneth over and they become like ravening beasts. Not to know this, or not to want to know it, is fatal. But I did not know or I flung it to the winds, so that I did not hold my tongue and told them my dreams, in order that they might marvel at me. But ‘in order that’ and ‘so that’ are sometimes two different things and go not together. The ‘In order that’ did not come to pass and the ‘So that’ was called the grave.”

“Thy presumption,” said the old man, “with which thou madest men mad, that was of course arrogance and pride, I can well believe it, and it doth not surprise me in one who sayeth: ‘I am navel and centre of the world.’ But I am much travelled between the rivers that take different courses, the one from south to north, the other the other way, and I know that many a mystery obtaineth in the apparently so manifest world, and behind loud rumour the hidden things pursue their silent way. Yea, often it hath seemed to me as though the world is full of such loud rumours to the end that it may better hide the hidden beneath them and out-talk the secrets that lie behind men and things. Much I came on without looking, much thrust itself on me unsought. Yet I heeded not, for I am not so curious that I must get to the bottom of everything, rather it sufficeth me to know that mystery encompasseth the garrulous world. I am a doubter as I sit here; not because I believed nothing, rather because I hold everything for possible. Such am I, an old man. I know of fables and happenings which count not as probable and yet come to pass. I know of one, come from the nobility and of lofty rank, wherein he clothed himself with royal linen and anointed himself with the oil of gladness, who was driven into desert and misery—”

Here the merchant interrupted himself and blinked, for the necessary and given conclusion of his speech, the continuation which was now due, without his having thought in advance that it would be due, put him in thoughtful mood. There are deeply chamferred trains of thought out of which one does not escape, once in them; associations cut and dried from old time, which fit into each other like rings in a chain, so that he who has said A cannot help saying B or at least thinking it; and like links in a chain they are, too, in that in them the earthly and heavenly are so interlocked one into the other that one passes willy-nilly, and whether speaking or silent, from one to the other. True it is that man for the most part thinks in set phrases and fixed formulas; not such as he himself searches out but as he remembers the traditional. Even as the old man spoke of one driven from high estate into darkness and misery, he had fallen into a pattern. And to continue with the pattern was inevitably to arrive at the resurrection of the abased to be the saviour of man and bringer of the new time; and thus the old man paused, in silent perplexity.

But more than mild perplexity it was not—only the decent and reverent restraint of the self-respecting practical man before the metaphysical or the sacred. If it became more—a sort of disquiet, a deeper dismay, yes, an alarm, if only passing and half unconscious—that could only be due to the encounter between the old man’s blinking gaze and the eyes of the youth standing before him. Hardly did it even deserve the name of encounter—not so much; for Joseph’s eyes did not “encounter” the other’s gaze, did not actually respond to it or return it. They only received it, only offered themselves, in silence and candour, to be looked at: a mystery, equivocal, intriguing, obscure. Others before now had blinked and been startled as they tried to pierce this mute provocation to its depths, as now the old Ishmaelite tried, in face of the question: what had he done, what not quite canny business had he been about when he bargained with the shepherds for his possession?

But after all, that and nothing else had been the subject of the whole conversation; and when it suddenly showed signs of shifting into the unearthly and fabulous, the old man had to tell himself that many things on this earth could be regarded in the same uncanny light; it was for a sensible man to make distinctions and to shift back again as soon as possible to the practical side.

He cleared his throat to facilitate the process.

“H’m,” said he. “All in all, thy master is travelled and full of experience between the rivers and hath knowledge of affairs. He needeth not to be instructed therein by thee, child of the swamps and son of the well. I have bought thy body and what thou displayest of dexterity, but not thy heart, that I could force it to reveal thy thoughts. Not only is it unnecessary that I should urge thee, it is not even advisable and might be to my harm. I have found thee and given thee again the breath of life; but to buy thee was not my purpose; for I did not even know thou wast for sale. I thought of no advantage save perhaps a finder’s reward or a ransom, as might be. However, it came to a bargain for thy person, and I made a test. I said: ‘Sell him to me,’ and the test seemed decisive to me and it was so decided, for the shepherd men entered into it. I have won thee by hard and prolonged bargaining, for they were stubborn. Twenty shekels of silver according to weight, as is customary, have I weighed out for thee and have not remained in their debt. How is it with the price and how do I stand? It is a medium price, not too good, not too bad. I could lower it, on account of the errors which, as they said, brought thee to the pit. According to thy parts I could sell thee higher than I bought thee and enrich myself at will. What should I gain from prying into thy antecedents and perhaps learning that it standeth with thee the gods know how, so that thou wast not at all for sale and art not, so that I have lost mine own, or if I sell thee again it is a wrong and a trade with stolen goods? Go to, I will know naught of thy affairs nor their details, that I may remain innocent and in the right. It is enough that I suspect that they are something out of the common and belong to things which I am doubter enough to consider possible. Go, I have already talked longer with thee than needful and it is time for sleep. But bake such pancakes often, they are right good, if yet not so out of the common. Further I command thee that thou procure from Mibsam, my son-in-law, writing tools, sheets, reed, and ink, and make for me in common writing a list of the wares we are carrying, each after its kind: the balsams, salves, knives, spoons, canes, and lamps, as well as the footgear, the burning-oils, and the glass-paste, according to count and weight; the items in black, the weight and quantity in red, without blunder or blot, and shalt bring me the list within three days. Is it understood?”

“Commanded is as good as done,” said Joseph.

“Then go.”

“Peace and sweetness to thy slumbers,” spoke Joseph. “May blithe and easy dreams be woven from time to time among them.”

The Minoan smiled. And he followed Joseph with his thoughts.