During the events we have described the house of the charioteer Mena had
not remained free from visitors.
It resembled the neighboring estate of Paaker, though the buildings
were less new, the gay paint on the pillars and walls was faded, and
the large garden lacked careful attention. In the vicinity of the house
only, a few well-kept beds blazed with splendid flowers, and the open
colonnade, which was occupied by Katuti and her daughter, was furnished
with royal magnificence.
The elegantly carved seats were made of ivory, the tables of ebony, and
they, as well as the couches, had gilt feet. The artistically worked
Syrian drinking vessels on the sideboard, tables, and consoles were
of many forms; beautiful vases full of flowers stood everywhere; rare
perfumes rose from alabaster cups, and the foot sank in the thick pile
of the carpets which covered the floor.
And over the apparently careless arrangement of these various objects
there reigned a peculiar charm, an indescribably fascinating something.
Stretched at full-length on a couch, and playing with a
silky-haired white cat, lay the fair Nefert--fanned to coolness by a
negro-girl--while her mother Katuti nodded a last farewell to her sister
Setchem and to Paaker.
Both had crossed this threshold for the first time for four years, that
is since the marriage of Mena with Nefert, and the old enmity seemed now
to have given way to heartfelt reconciliation and mutual understanding.
After the pioneer and his mother had disappeared behind the pomegranate
shrubs at the entrance of the garden, Katuti turned to her daughter and
said:
“Who would have thought it yesterday? I believe Paaker loves you still.”
Nefert colored, and exclaimed softly, while she hit the kitten gently
with her fan--
“Mother!”
Katuti smiled.
She was a tall woman of noble demeanor, whose sharp but delicately-cut
features and sparkling eyes could still assert some pretensions to
feminine beauty. She wore a long robe, which reached below her
ankles; it was of costly material, but dark in color, and of a studied
simplicity. Instead of the ornaments in bracelets, anklets, ear and
finger-rings, in necklaces and clasps, which most of the Egyptian
ladies--and indeed her own sister and daughter--were accustomed to wear,
she had only fresh flowers, which were never wanting in the garden
of her son-in-law. Only a plain gold diadem, the badge of her royal
descent, always rested, from early morning till late at night, on her
high brow--for a woman too high, though nobly formed--and confined the
long blue-black hair, which fell unbraided down her back, as if its
owner contemned the vain labor of arranging it artistically. But nothing
in her exterior was unpremeditated, and the unbejewelled wearer of the
diadem, in her plain dress, and with her royal figure, was everywhere
sure of being observed, and of finding imitators of her dress, and
indeed of her demeanor.
And yet Katuti had long lived in need; aye at the very hour when we
first make her acquaintance, she had little of her own, but lived on the
estate of her son-in-law as his guest, and as the administrator of his
possessions; and before the marriage of her daughter she had lived with
her children in a house belonging to her sister Setchem.
She had been the wife of her own brother,
[Marriages between brothers and sisters were allowed in ancient
Egypt. The Ptolemaic princes adopted this, which was contrary to
the Macedonian customs. When Ptolemy II. Philadelphus married his
sister Arsinoe, it seems to have been thought necessary to excuse it
by the relative positions of Venus and Saturn at that period, and
the constraining influences of these planets.]
who had died young, and who had squandered the greatest part of the
possessions which had been left to him by the new royal family, in an
extravagant love of display.
When she became a widow, she was received as a sister with her children
by her brother-in-law, Paaker’s father. She lived in a house of her own,
enjoyed the income of an estate assigned to her by the old Mohar, and
left to her son-in-law the care of educating her son, a handsome and
overbearing lad, with all the claims and pretensions of a youth of
distinction.
Such great benefits would have oppressed and disgraced the proud Katuti,
if she had been content with them and in every way agreed with the
giver. But this was by no means the case; rather, she believed that she
might pretend to a more brilliant outward position, felt herself hurt
when her heedless son, while he attended school, was warned to work more
seriously, as he would by and by have to rely on his own skill and
his own strength. And it had wounded her when occasionally her
brother-in-law had suggested economy, and had reminded her, in his
straightforward way, of her narrow means, and the uncertain future of
her children.
At this she was deeply offended, for she ventured to say that her
relatives could never, with all their gifts, compensate for the insults
they heaped upon her; and thus taught them by experience that we quarrel
with no one more readily than with the benefactor whom we can never
repay for all the good he bestows on us.
Nevertheless, when her brother-in-law asked the hand of her daughter for
his son, she willingly gave her consent.
Nefert and Paaker had grown up together, and by this union she foresaw
that she could secure her own future and that of her children.
Shortly after the death of the Mohar, the charioteer Mena had proposed
for Nefert’s hand, but would have been refused if the king himself had
not supported the suit of his favorite officer. After the wedding, she
retired with Nefert to Mena’s house, and undertook, while he was at
the war, to manage his great estates, which however had been greatly
burthened with debt by his father.
Fate put the means into her hands of indemnifying herself and her
children for many past privations, and she availed herself of them
to gratify her innate desire to be esteemed and admired; to obtain
admission for her son, splendidly equipped, into a company of
chariot-warriors of the highest class; and to surround her daughter with
princely magnificence.
When the Regent, who had been a friend of her late husband, removed into
the palace of the Pharaohs, he made her advances, and the clever and
decided woman knew how to make herself at first agreeable, and finally
indispensable, to the vacillating man.
She availed herself of the circumstance that she, as well as he, was
descended from the old royal house to pique his ambition, and to open to
him a view, which even to think of, he would have considered forbidden
as a crime, before he became intimate with her.
Ani’s suit for the hand of the princess Bent-Anat was Katuti’s work. She
hoped that the Pharoah would refuse, and personally offend the Regent,
and so make him more inclined to tread the dangerous road which she was
endeavoring to smooth for him. The dwarf Nemu was her pliant tool.
She had not initiated him into her projects by any words; he however
gave utterance to every impulse of her mind in free language, which was
punished only with blows from a fan, and, only the day before, had been
so audacious as to say that if the Pharoah were called Ani instead of
Rameses, Katuti would be not a queen but a goddess for she would then
have not to obey, but rather to guide, the Pharaoh, who indeed himself
was related to the Immortals.
Katuti did not observe her daughter’s blush, for she was looking
anxiously out at the garden gate, and said:
“Where can Nemu be! There must be some news arrived for us from the
army.”
“Mena has not written for so long,” Nefert said softly. “Ah! here is the
steward!”
Katuti turned to the officer, who had entered the veranda through a side
door:
“What do you bring,” she asked.
“The dealer Abscha,” was the answer, “presses for payment. The new
Syrian chariot and the purple cloth--”
“Sell some corn,” ordered Katuti.
“Impossible, for the tribute to the temples is not yet paid, and already
so much has been delivered to the dealers that scarcely enough remains
over for the maintenance of the household and for sowing.”
“Then pay with beasts.”
“But, madam,” said the steward sorrowfully, “only yesterday, we again
sold a herd to the Mohar; and the water-wheels must be turned, and
the corn must be thrashed, and we need beasts for sacrifice, and milk,
butter, and cheese, for the use of the house, and dung for firing.”
[In Egypt, where there is so little wood, to this day the dried dung
of beasts is the commonest kind of fuel.]
Katuti looked thoughtfully at the ground.
“It must be,” she said presently. “Ride to Hermonthis, and say to the
keeper of the stud that he must have ten of Mena’s golden bays driven
over here.”
“I have already spoken to him,” said the steward, “but he maintains that
Mena strictly forbade him to part with even one of the horses, for he is
proud of the stock. Only for the chariot of the lady Nefert.”
“I require obedience,” said Katuti decidedly and cutting short the
steward’s words, “and I expect the horses to-morrow.”
“But the stud-master is a daring man, whom Mena looks upon as
indispensable, and he--”
“I command here, and not the absent,” cried Katuti enraged, “and I
require the horses in spite of the former orders of my son-in-law.”
Nefert, during this conversation, pulled herself up from her indolent
attitude. On hearing the last words she rose from her couch, and said,
with a decision which surprised even her mother--
“The orders of my husband must be obeyed. The horses that Mena loves
shall stay in their stalls. Take this armlet that the king gave me; it
is worth more than twenty horses.”
The steward examined the trinket, richly set with precious stones,
and looked enquiringly at Katuti. She shrugged her shoulders, nodded
consent, and said--
“Abscha shall hold it as a pledge till Mena’s booty arrives. For a year
your husband has sent nothing of importance.”
When the steward was gone, Nefert stretched herself again on her couch
and said wearily:
“I thought we were rich.”
“We might be,” said Katuti bitterly; but as she perceived that Nefert’s
cheeks again were glowing, she said amiably, “Our high rank imposes
great duties on us. Princely blood flows in our veins, and the eyes
of the people are turned on the wife of the most brilliant hero in the
king’s army. They shall not say that she is neglected by her husband.
How long Mena remains away!”
“I hear a noise in the court,” said Nefert. “The Regent is coming.”
Katuti turned again towards the garden.
A breathless slave rushed in, and announced that Bent-Anat, the daughter
of the king, had dismounted at the gate, and was approaching the garden
with the prince Rameri.
Nefert left her couch, and went with her mother to meet the exalted
visitors.
As the mother and daughter bowed to kiss the robe of the princess,
Bent-Anat signed them back from her. “Keep farther from me,” she said;
“the priests have not yet entirely absolved me from my uncleanness.”
“And in spite of them thou art clean in the sight of Ra!” exclaimed the
boy who accompanied her, her brother of seventeen, who was brought up at
the House of Seti, which however he was to leave in a few weeks--and he
kissed her.
“I shall complain to Ameni of this wild boy,” said Bent-Anat smiling.
“He would positively accompany me. Your husband, Nefert, is his model,
and I had no peace in the house, for we came to bring you good news.”
“From Mena?” asked the young wife, pressing her hand to her heart.
“As you say,” returned Bent-Anat. “My father praises his ability, and
writes that he, before all others, will have his choice at the dividing
of the spoil.”
Nefert threw a triumphant glance at her mother, and Katuti drew a deep
breath.
Bent-Anat stroked Nefert’s cheeks like those of a child. Then she turned
to Katuti, led her into the garden, and begged her to aid her, who had
so early lost her mother, with her advice in a weighty matter.
“My father,” she continued, after a few introductory words, “informs me
that the Regent Ani desires me for his wife, and advises me to reward
the fidelity of the worthy man with my hand. He advises it, you
understand-he does not command.”
“And thou?” asked Katuti.
“And I,” replied Bent-Anat decidedly, “must refuse him.”
“Thou must!”
Bent-Anat made a sign of assent and went on:
“It is quite clear to me. I can do nothing else.”
“Then thou dost not need my counsel, since even thy father, I well know,
will not be able to alter thy decision.”
“Not God even,” said Anat firmly. “But you are Ani’s friend, and as I
esteem him, I would save him from this humiliation. Endeavor to persuade
him to give up his suit. I will meet him as though I knew nothing of his
letter to my father.”
Katuti looked down reflectively. Then she said--“The Regent certainly
likes very well to pass his hours of leisure with me gossiping or
playing draughts, but I do not know that I should dare to speak to him
of so grave a matter.”
“Marriage-projects are women’s affairs,” said Bent-Anat, smiling.
“But the marriage of a princess is a state event,” replied the widow.
“In this case it is true the uncle
[Among the Orientals--and even the Spaniards--it was and is common
to give the name of uncle to a parent’s cousin.]
only courts his niece, who is dear to him, and who he hopes will make
the second half of his life the brightest. Ani is kind and without
severity. Thou would’st win in him a husband, who would wait on thy
looks, and bow willingly to thy strong will.”
Bent-Anat’s eyes flashed, and she hastily exclaimed: “That is exactly
what forces the decisive irrevocable ‘No’ to my lips. Do you think that
because I am as proud as my mother, and resolute like my father, that I
wish for a husband whom I could govern and lead as I would? How little
you know me! I will be obeyed by my dogs, my servants, my officers, if
the Gods so will it, by my children. Abject beings, who will kiss my
feet, I meet on every road, and can buy by the hundred, if I wish it,
in the slave market. I may be courted twenty times, and reject twenty
suitors, but not because I fear that they might bend my pride and my
will; on the contrary, because I feel them increased. The man to whom I
could wish to offer my hand must be of a loftier stamp, must be
greater, firmer, and better than I, and I will flutter after the mighty
wing-strokes of his spirit, and smile at my own weakness, and glory in
admiring his superiority.”
Katuti listened to the maiden with the smile by which the experienced
love to signify their superiority over the visionary.
“Ancient times may have produced such men,” she said. “But if in these
days thou thinkest to find one, thou wilt wear the lock of youth,
[The lock of youth was a curl of hair which all the younger members
of princely families wore at the side of the head. The young Horus
is represented with it.]
till thou art grey. Our thinkers are no heroes, and our heroes are no
sages. Here come thy brother and Nefert.”
“Will you persuade Ani to give up his suit!” said the princess urgently.
“I will endeavor to do so, for thy sake,” replied Katuti. Then, turning
half to the young Rameri and half to his sister, she said:
“The chief of the House of Seti, Ameni, was in his youth such a man as
thou paintest, Bent-Anat. Tell us, thou son of Rameses, that art growing
up under the young sycamores, which shall some day over-shadow the
land-whom dost thou esteem the highest among thy companions? Is there
one among them, who is conspicuous above them all for a lofty spirit and
strength of intellect?”
The young Rameri looked gaily at the speaker, and said laughing: “We are
all much alike, and do more or less willingly what we are compelled, and
by preference every thing that we ought not.”
“A mighty soul--a youth, who promises to be a second Snefru, a Thotmes,
or even an Amem? Dost thou know none such in the House of Seti?” asked
the widow. “Oh yes!” cried Rameri with eager certainty.
“And he is--?” asked Katuti.
“Pentaur, the poet,” exclaimed the youth. Bent-Anat’s face glowed with
scarlet color, while her, brother went on to explain.
“He is noble and of a lofty soul, and all the Gods dwell in him when
he speaks. Formerly we used to go to sleep in the lecture-hall; but his
words carry us away, and if we do not take in the full meaning of his
thoughts, yet we feel that they are genuine and noble.”
Bent-Anat breathed quicker at these words, and her eyes hung on the
boy’s lips.
“You know him, Bent-Anat,” continued Rameri. “He was with you at the
paraschites’ house, and in the temple-court when Ameni pronounced you
unclean. He is as tall and handsome as the God Mentli, and I feel that
he is one of those whom we can never forget when once we have seen them.
Yesterday, after you had left the temple, he spoke as he never spoke
before; he poured fire into our souls. Do not laugh, Katuti, I feel it
burning still. This morning we were informed that he had been sent from
the temple, who knows where--and had left us a message of farewell. It
was not thought at all necessary to communicate the reason to us; but
we know more than the masters think. He did not reprove you strongly
enough, Bent-Anat, and therefore he is driven out of the House of
Seti. We have agreed to combine to ask for him to be recalled; Anana is
drawing up a letter to the chief priest, which we shall all subscribe.
It would turn out badly for one alone, but they cannot be at all of us
at once. Very likely they will have the sense to recall him. If not, we
shall all complain to our fathers, and they are not the meanest in the
land.”
“It is a complete rebellion,” cried Katuti. “Take care, you lordlings;
Ameni and the other prophets are not to be trifled with.”
“Nor we either,” said Rameri laughing, “If Pentaur is kept in
banishment, I shall appeal to my father to place me at the school at
Heliopolis or Chennu, and the others will follow me. Come, Bent-Anat,
I must be back in the trap before sunset. Excuse me, Katuti, so we call
the school. Here comes your little Nemu.”
The brother and sister left the garden.
As soon as the ladies, who accompanied them, had turned their backs,
Bent-Anat grasped her brother’s hand with unaccustomed warmth, and said:
“Avoid all imprudence; but your demand is just, and I will help you with
all my heart.”