The travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin
of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in
the thalamegus terrible tales of desert ghosts and dread visions. The
barge was now gliding up the Nile in the night; the sky was softly
blue, like dark byssus; the water was a pale blue, like rippling silk;
and the waning moon hung above the palm-clusters and country-mansions
on the river-bank like a great, overripe fruit which threatened to
burst in the sky and whose juice was already trickling in thick orange
drops that flowed far over the Nile.
And, while the rowers' monotonous chant resounded with the regular
beat of the oars, Thrasyllus, sitting beside Lucius, gave way to
melancholy and said:
"Egypt is Egypt no longer. Alexandria is a commercial town; Memphis is
a decaying greatness; and the priests are venal and no longer know the
Hermetic wisdom. I have sought for five days among the dusty papyri
of the neglected library in the temple of Ammon; it is as though all
that is worth knowing were hiding itself."
"The priests must be hiding the Hermetic wisdom on purpose," said
Lucius.
"They used to do so in other days for Plato and Pythagoras, when their
souls were lofty and incorruptible. Nowadays they show what they have
and tell what they know for money. But what they have is not more
than we in Rome possess in the temple of Isis; and what they know is
not the key to happiness. And yet ... and yet I believe in a sacred
word, handed down in the wisdom of the Kabbala by word of mouth,
from father to son. But I have not yet received it from any priest,
neither at Memphis nor in the oasis. And yet I have hopes. There is
Thebes; and there are the secrets of Ethiopia ... down to the pillars
of Sesostris."
Lucius smiled gently:
"The word," he said, "the secret of happiness ... Thrasyllus, is
happiness not an illusion of the brain? Does happiness not lie in
resigning one's self piously to one's fate and is the secret word
not the proud 'Be a god unto yourself'?"
The old man started. And he whispered:
"You also? Have you also heard that word, as I heard it at Sais? I
took no account of it, it did not satisfy me."
"It satisfied me in the oasis, because it is a proud, strong word and
I have needed pride and strength ... since I have known, Thrasyllus."
"Known what, Lucius?"
"That Carus stole Ilia from me."
The old man started violently:
"You know?" he exclaimed. "You know? Who told you? Who betrayed
the secret?"
"The voice itself within my own soul, which the oracles caused to
speak to me. My own thoughts, tossing this way and that, which the
oracles guided. From the sibyl of Rhacotis, who merely guessed my own
thoughts, down to the old high-priest of Ammon-Ra, who spoke to me like
a father ... and who said to me the word, 'Be a god unto yourself!'"
"As Nemu-Pha said to me, at Sais. I paid for it in gold."
"I paid for it in gold in the oasis. But what does that matter,
Thrasyllus? The word gave me strength and pride."
"O my son, if you could be cured of your sorrow, of your grief!"
"They are no longer in me. I no longer have any grief, no longer any
sorrow. I am a god unto myself."
"The gods suffer. Isis suffered because of Osiris. All the gods
suffer."
"I suffer no longer. My grief has departed from me. The world and life
are beautiful. See, the colours and the light are beautiful. The sky
is softly blue, like dark byssus; the water ripples like blue silk;
and the moon is like a great, overripe fruit which bursts in the sky
and whose juice trickles over the Nile. To-morrow the day will bring
another beauty. In these successive beauties, Thrasyllus, I will be
a god unto myself."
"O my son, though I did not tell you the word myself, I am so happy
that you yourself found the word!"
In the night there sounded the high, rising tones of a harp, followed
by Cora's crystal-clear voice, which was accompanied by other harps
and other voices.
"The word of pride, the word of strength, Thrasyllus," said Lucius,
calmly; and the old tutor saw a tranquil smile on his young master's
face as he added, "The word that almost makes me happy."