THE GODS OF EGYPT
It was Kenkenes' first love and so was most rapturous, but it did not
cast a glamour over the stern perplexities that it entailed. He knew
the suspense that is immemorial among lovers, and further to trouble
him he had the harsh obstacle of different society. Rachel was a
quarry-slave, a member of the lowest rank in the Egyptian scale of
classes. She was an Israelite, an infidel and a reviler of the gods.
He was a descendant of kings, a devout Osirian and welcomed in Egypt's
high places.
Never could extremes have been greater. But Kenkenes would not have
given any of these obstacles a moment's consideration had not the
weight of their neglect fallen on the shoulders of Rachel. If he had
been a sovereign he could have taken her freely, and purple-wearing
Egypt would have kissed her sandal; but he occupied a place that could
provide with honor only him who was born to it.
To lift Rachel to that position would be to expose her to the affronts
of an undemocratic society. On the other hand he might sacrifice name
and station and go down to her; but he was not to be judged harshly
because he hesitated at this step.
Rachel had given him no sign of preference beyond a pretty fellowship.
In the beginning this realization had hurt him, but as he tossed night
after night, troubled beyond expression, he remembered this thing with
some melancholy comfort. It was a sorry solution of his problem to
feel that he was unloved, and even while he recognized its efficacy, he
prayed that it might not be so.
His heavy heart did not retard the progress of his statue or make its
beauty indifferent. The more he suffered the greater the passion in
the face. He labored daily and tirelessly.
But day by day he looked, unseen, on his love in the valley, and the
oftener he looked the more irresolute he grew. The conflict between
his heart and his reason was gradually shifting in favor of his love.
His longing, as it continued to crave, grew from hunger to starving,
and though his reason pointed to disastrous results, his heart
justified itself in the blind cry, "Rachel, Rachel!"
He had endured a month before his fortitude succumbed entirely. Once
near sunset, as Rachel was proceeding toward the camp from some helpful
mission to the quarries, she caught the fragments of a song, so
distantly and absently sung that she could not locate it. There were
singers among the Israelites, but they sang with wild exultation and
more care for the sense than the melody. They had cultivated the chant
and forgotten the lyric, because they had more heart for prophecy than
passion. Rachel had revered her people's song, but there was something
in this half-heard music that touched her youth and her love of life.
She stopped to hear it well.
It had all the power and profundity of the male voice, but it was as
subdued, as flawless and sympathetic as a distant, deep-toned bell.
There was not even a breath of effort in it, nor an insincere
expression, and it pursued a theme of little range and much simplicity.
The singer sang as spontaneously as a bird sings. She did not catch
the words, but something in the fervor of the music told her it was a
song of love--and a song of love unsatisfied. There was a pathos in it
that touched the fountain of her tears and awoke to willingness that
impulse in her womanhood that longs to comfort.
As she stood in an attitude of rapt attention. Kenkenes rounded a
curve in the valley just ahead of her. The song died suddenly on his
lips and the color deepened in his cheeks.
"Fie!" he exclaimed. "Here thou art, O Athor, catching me in the
imperfection of my practice. Now will the keen edge of their perfect
beauty be dulled upon thine ear when I come to lift my tuneful
devotions to thee."
"And it was thou singing?" she asked.
"It was I--and Pentaur; mine the voice; Pentaur's the song."
"Together ye have wrought an eloquent harmony, but such a voice as
thine would gild the pale effort of the poorest words," she said
earnestly. "What dost thou with thy voice?"
"Once I won me a pretty compliment with it," he said softly, bending
his head to look at her. She flushed and her eyes fell.
"Nay, it is but my pastime and at the command of my friends," he
continued. "See. This is what has made me sing."
He unslung his wallet and took out of it a statuette of creamy chalk.
"Thus far has the Athor of the hills progressed." He put it into her
hands for examination. The face was complete, the minute features as
perfect as life, the plaits of long hair and all the figure exquisitely
copied and shaped. The pedestal was yet in rough block. Rachel
inspected it, wondering. Finally she looked up at him with praise in
her eyes.
"Dost thou forgive me?" he asked.
"It is for me to ask thy forgiveness," she answered. "So we be equally
indebted and therefore not in debt."
"Not so. I know the joy of creating uncramped, and the joy of copying
such a model far outweighs any small delight thy little vanity may have
experienced. Thy vanity? Hast thou any vanity?"
"Nay, I trust not," she replied laughingly. "Vanity is self-esteem run
to seed."
"Sage! Let me make haste to carve the pedestal that I may know how low
to do obeisance to wisdom. Hold it so, I pray thee."
He took the statue and set it on a flat cornice jutting from the stone
wall. Rachel obediently steadied it. He selected from his tools a
knife with a rounded point of wonderful keenness and smoothed away the
chalk in bulk. They stood close together, the sculptor bending from
his commanding height to work. From time to time he shifted his
position, touching her hand often and saying little.
The pedestal given shape, he began its elaboration. Pattern after
pattern of graceful foliation emerged till the design assumed the
intricate complexity of the Egyptic style.
Rachel watched with absorbed interest, her head unconsciously settling
to one side in critical contemplation. Kenkenes, pressing the blade
firmly upon the chalk, felt her cheek touch his shoulder for a fraction
of a second; his fingers lost their steadiness and direction, but not
their strength; the blade slipped, and the fierce edge struck the white
hand that held the statuette.
With a cry he dropped the knife, flung one arm about her and drew her
very close to him. The image toppled down and was broken on the rock
below, but he saw only the fine scarlet thread on the soft flesh.
Again and again he pressed the wounded hand to his lips, his eyes
dimmed with tears of compunction.
"O, Rachel, Rachel!" he exclaimed in a sudden burst of passionate
contrition. "Must even the most loving hand in Egypt be lifted against
thee?"
The great content on the glorified face against his breast was all the
expression of pardon that he asked.
"My love! My Rachel!" he whispered. "Ah, ye generous gods! indulge me
still further. Let this, your richest gift, be mine."
The gods!
Stunned and only realizing that she must undo his clasp, she freed
herself and retreated a little space from him.
And then she remembered.
Slowly and relentlessly it came home to her that this was one of the
abominable idolaters, and she had forsworn such for ever. These very
arms that had held her so shelteringly had been lifted in supplication
to the idols, and the lips, whose kiss she had awaited, would swear to
love her, by an image. The pitiless truth, once admitted, smote her
cruelly. She covered her face with her hands.
Kenkenes, amazed and deeply moved, went to her immediately.
"What have I said?" he begged. "What have I done?"
What had he done, indeed? But to have spoken, though to explain, would
have meant capitulation. She wavered a moment, and then turning away,
fled up the valley toward the camp--not from him, but from herself.