IV

The Pharaoh reached his palace, situated a short distance from the

parade ground on the left bank of the Nile. In the bluish transparency

of the night the mighty edifice loomed more colossal still, and its huge

outlines stood out with terrifying and sombre vigour against the purple

background of the Libyan chain. The feeling of absolute power was

conveyed by that mighty, immovable mass, upon which eternity itself

could make no more impression than a drop of water on marble. A vast

court surrounded by thick walls, adorned at their summits with deeply

cut mouldings, lay in front of the palace. At the end of the court rose

two high columns with palm-leaf capitals, marking the entrance to a

second court. Behind these columns rose a giant pylon, consisting of two

huge masses enclosing a monumental gate, intended rather for colossi of

granite than for mere flesh and blood. Beyond these propylaea, and

filling the end of a third court, the palace proper appeared in its

formidable majesty. Two buildings projected squarely forward, like the

bastions of a fortress, exhibiting on their faces low _bassi-relievi_

of vast size, which represented, in the consecrated manner, the

victorious Pharaoh scourging his enemies and trampling them under foot;

immense pages of history carved with a chisel on colossal stone books

which the most distant posterity was yet to read. These buildings rose

much higher than the pylons. The cornices, curving outwards and topped

with great stones so arranged as to form battlements, showed superbly

against the crest of the Libyan Mountains, which formed the background

of the picture.

The facade of the palace connected these buildings and filled up the

whole of the intervening space. Above its giant gateway, flanked with

sphinxes, showed three rows of square windows, through which streamed

the light from the interior and which formed upon the dark wall a sort

of luminous checker-board. From the first story projected balconies,

supported by statues of crouching prisoners.

The officers of the king's household, the eunuchs, the servants, and the

slaves, informed of the approach of His Majesty by the blare of the

trumpets and the roll of the drums, had proceeded to meet him, and

waited, kneeling and prostrate, in the court paved with great stone

slabs. Captives, of the despised race of Scheto, bore urns filled with

salt and olive oil, in which was dipped a wick, the flame of which

crackled bright and clear. These men stood ranged in line from the

basalt gate to the entrance of the first court, motionless like bronze

lamp-bearers.

Soon the head of the procession entered the pylon and the bugles and the

drums sounded with a din which, repeated by the echoes, drove the

sleeping ibises from the entablatures. The bearers stopped at the gate

in the facade between the two pavilions; slaves brought a footstool with

several steps and placed it by the side of the litter. The Pharaoh rose

with majestic slowness and stood for a few moments perfectly motionless.

Thus standing on a pedestal of shoulders, he soared above all heads and

appeared to be twelve cubits high. Strangely lighted, half by the rising

moon, half by the light of the lamps, in a costume in which gold and

enamels sparkled intermittently, he resembled Osiris, or Typhon rather.

He descended the steps as if he were a statue, and at last entered the

palace.

A first inner court, framed in by a row of huge pillars covered with

hieroglyphs, that bore a frieze ending in volutes, was slowly crossed

by the Pharaoh in the midst of a crowd of prostrate slaves and maids.

Then appeared another court surrounded by a covered cloister, and short

columns, the capitals of which were formed of a cube of hard sandstone,

on which rested the massive architrave. The imprint of indestructibility

marked the straight lines and the geometric forms of this architecture

built with pieces of mountains. The pillars and the columns seemed to

strike firmly into the ground in order to upbear the weight of the

mighty stones placed on the cubes of their capitals, the walls to slope

inwards so as to have a firmer foundation, and the stones to join

together so as to form but one block; but polychromous decorations and

_bassi-relievi_ hollowed out and enriched with more brilliant tints

added, in the daytime, lightness and richness to these vast masses,

which when night had fallen, recovered all their imposing effect.

Under the cornice, in the Egyptian style, the unchanging lines of which

formed against the sky a vast parallelogram of deep azure, quivered, in

the intermittent breath of the breeze, lighted lamps placed at short

distances apart. The fish-pond in the centre of the court mingled, as

it reflected them, their red flashes with the blue gleams of the moon.

Rows of shrubs planted around the basin gave out a faint, sweet perfume.

At the back opened the gate of the harem and of the private apartments,

which were decorated with peculiar magnificence.

Below the ceiling ran a frieze of uraeus snakes, standing on their tails

and swelling their hoods. On the entablature of the door, in the hollow

of the cornice, the mystic globe outspread its vast, imbricated wings;

pillars ranged in symmetrical lines supported heavy sandstone blocks

forming soffits, the blue ground of which was studded with golden stars.

On the walls vast pictures, carved in low, flat relief and coloured with

the most brilliant tints, represented the usual scenes of the harem and

of home life. The Pharaoh was seen on his throne, gravely playing at

draughts with one of his women who stood nude before him, her head bound

with a broad band from which rose a mass of lotus flowers. In another

the Pharaoh, without parting with any of his sovereign and sacerdotal

impassibility, stretched out his hand and touched the chin of a young

maid dressed in a collar and bracelet, who held out to him a bouquet of

flowers. Elsewhere he was seen undecided and smiling, as if he had

slyly put off making a choice, in the midst of the young queens, who

strove to overcome his gravity by all sorts of caressing and graceful

coquetries.

Other panels represented female musicians and dancers, women bathing,

flooded with perfumes and massaged by slaves,--the poses so elegant, the

forms so youthfully suave, and the outlines so pure, that no art has

ever surpassed them.

Rich and complicated ornamental designs, admirably carried out in

harmonious green, blue, red, yellow, and white, covered the spaces left

empty. On cartouches and bands in the shape of stelae were inscribed the

titles of the Pharaoh and inscriptions in his honour.

On the shafts of the huge columns were decorative or symbolical figures

wearing the pschent, armed with the tau, following each other in

procession, and whose eyes, showing full upon a side face, seemed to

look inquisitively into the hall. Lines of perpendicular hieroglyphs

separated the zones of personages. Among the green leaves carved on the

drum of the capital, buds and lotus flowers stood out in their natural

colours, imitating baskets of bloom.

Between each pair of columns an elegant table of cedar bore on its

platform a bronze cup filled with scented oil, from which the cotton

wicks drew an odoriferous light. Groups of tall vases, bound together

with wreaths, alternated with the lamps and held at the foot of each

pillar sheaves of golden grain mingled with field grasses and balsamic

plants.

In the centre of the hall a round porphyry table, the disc of which was

supported by the statue of a captive, disappeared under heaped-up urns,

vases, flagons, and pots, whence rose a forest of gigantic artificial

flowers; for real flowers would have appeared mean in the centre of that

vast hall, and nature had to be proportioned to the mighty work of man.

These enormous calyxes were of the most brilliant golden yellow, azure,

and purple.

At the back rose the throne, or chair, of the Pharaoh, the feet of

which, curiously crossed and bound by encircling ribbing, had in their

re-entering angles four statuettes of barbaric Asiatic or African

prisoners recognisable by their beards and their dress. These figures,

their elbows tied behind their backs, and kneeling in constrained

attitudes, their bodies bowed, bore upon their humbled heads the

cushion, checkered with gold, red, and black, on which sat their

conqueror. Faces of chimerical animals from whose mouths fell, instead

of a tongue, a long red tuft, adorned the crossbars of the throne.

On either side of it were ranged, for the princes, less splendid, though

still extremely elegant and charmingly fanciful chairs; for the

Egyptians are no less clever at carving cedar, cypress, and sycamore

wood, in gilding, colouring, and inlaying it with enamels, than in

cutting in the Philoe or Syene quarries monstrous granite blocks for the

palaces of the Pharaohs and the sanctuaries of the gods.

The King crossed the hall with a slow, majestic step, without his

painted eyelids having once moved; nothing indicated that he heard the

cries of love that welcomed him, or that he perceived the human beings

kneeling or prostrate, whose brows were touched by the folds of the

calasiris that fell around his feet. He sat down, placing his ankles

close together and his hands on his knees in the solemn attitude of the

gods.

The young princes, handsome as women, took their seats to the right and

left of their father. The servants took off their enamelled necklaces,

their belts, and their swords, poured flagons of scent upon their hair,

rubbed their arms with aromatic oils, and presented them with wreaths of

flowers, cool, perfumed collars, odorous luxuries better suited to the

festival than the heavy richness of gold, of precious stones and pearls,

which, for the matter of that, harmonise admirably with flowers.

Lovely nude slaves, whose slender forms showed the graceful transition

from childhood to youth, their hips circled with a narrow belt that

concealed none of their charms, lotus flowers in their hair, flagons of

wavy alabaster in their hands, timidly pressed around the Pharaoh and

poured palm oil over his shoulders, his arms, and his torso, polished

like jasper. Other maids waved around his head broad fans of painted

ostrich-feathers on long ivory or sandal-wood handles, that, as they

were warmed by their small hands, gave forth a delightful odour. Others

placed before the Pharaoh stalks of nymphoea that bloomed like the cup

of the censers. All these attentions were rendered with a deep devotion,

and a sort of respectful awe, as if to a divine, immortal personage,

called down by pity from the superior zones to the vile tribe of men;

for the king is the Son of the gods, the favoured of Phre, the protege

of Ammon Ra.

The women of the harem had risen from their prostrate attitude, and

seated themselves on superb, carved and gilded chairs, with red-leather

cushions filled with thistle-down. Thus ranged, they formed a line of

graceful, smiling heads which a painter would have loved to reproduce.

Some were dressed in tunics of white gauze with stripes alternately

opaque and transparent, the narrow sleeves of which left bare the

delicate, round arms covered with bracelets from the wrist to the elbow:

others, bare to the waist, wore a skirt of pale lilac rayed with darker

stripes, and covered with a fillet of little rose beads which showed in

the diaper the cartouche of the Pharaoh traced on the stuff; others wore

red skirts with black-pearl fillets; others again, draped in a tissue as

light as woven air, as transparent as glass, wound the folds around

them, and managed to show off coquettishly the shape of their lovely

bosoms; others were enclosed in a sheath covered with blue, green, or

red scales which moulded their forms accurately; and others again had

their shoulders covered with a sort of pleated cape, and their fringed

skirts were fastened below the breast with a scarf with long, floating

ends.

The head-dresses were no less varied. Sometimes the plaited hair was

spun out into curls; sometimes it was divided into three parts, one of

which fell down the back and the other two on either side of the cheeks.

Huge periwigs, closely curled, with numberless cords maintained

transversely by golden threads, rows of enamels, or pearls, were put on

like helmets over young and lovely faces, which sought of art an aid

which their beauty did not need.

All these women held in their hands a flower of the blue or white lotus,

and breathed amorously, with a fluttering of their nostrils, the

penetrating odour which the broad calyx exhaled. A stalk of the same

flower, springing from the back of their necks, bowed over their heads

and showed its bud between their eyebrows darkened with antimony.

In front of them black or white slaves, with no other garment than a

waist girdle, held out to them necklaces of flowers made of crocuses,

the blooms of which, white outside, are yellow inside, purple

safflowers, golden-yellow chrysanthemums, red-berried nightshade,

myosotis whose flowers seemed made of blue enamel of the statues of

Isis, and nepenthes whose intoxicating odour makes one forget

everything, even the far-distant home.

These slaves were followed by others, who on the upturned palm of their

right hands bore cups of silver or bronze full of wine, and in the left

held napkins with which the guests wiped their lips.

The wines were drawn from amphorae of clay, glass, or metal held in

elegant woven baskets placed on four-footed pedestals made of a light,

supple wood interlaced in ingenious fashion. The baskets contained seven

sorts of wines: date wine, palm wine, and wine of the grape, white, red,

and green wines, new wine, Phoenician and Greek wines, and white

Mareotis wine with a bouquet of violets.

The Pharaoh also took a cup from the hands of his cup-bearer standing

near his throne, and put to his royal lips the strengthening drink.

Then sounded the harps, the lyres, the double flutes, the lutes,

accompanying a song of triumph which choristers, ranged opposite the

throne, one knee on the ground, accentuated as they beat time with the

palms of their hands.

The repast began. The dishes, brought by Ethiopians from the vast

kitchens of the palace, where a thousand slaves were busy preparing the

feast in a fiery atmosphere, were placed on tables close by the guests.

The dishes, of scented wood admirably carved, of bronze, of earthenware

or porcelain enamelled in brilliant colours, held large pieces of beef,

antelope legs, trussed geese, siluras from the Nile, dough drawn out

into long tubes and rolled, cakes of sesamum and honey, green

watermelons with rosy meat, pomegranates full of rubies, grapes the

colour of amber or of amethyst. Wreaths of papyrus crowned these dishes

with their green foliage. The cups were also wreathed in flowers, and in

the centre of the table, amid a vast heap of golden-coloured bread

stamped with designs and marked with hieroglyphs, rose a tall vase

whence emerged, spraying as it fell, a vast sheaf of persolutas,

myrtles, pomegranates, convolvulus, chrysanthemums, heliotropes,

seriphiums, and periplocas, a mingling of colours and of scents. Under

the tables, around the supporting pillar, were arranged pots of lotus.

Flowers, flowers everywhere, even under the seats of the guests! The

women wore them on their arms, round their necks, on their heads in the

shape of bracelets, necklaces, and crowns; the lamps burned amid huge

bouquets, the dishes disappeared under leaves, the wines sparkled amid

violets and roses. It was a most characteristic, gigantic debauch of

flowers, a colossal orgy of scents, unknown to other nations.

Slaves constantly brought from the gardens, which they plundered without

diminishing their wealth, armfuls of rose laurel, of pomegranate, of

lotus, to renew the flowers which had faded, while servants cast grains

of nard and cinnamon upon the red-hot coals of the censers.

When the dishes and the boxes carved in the shape of birds, fishes, and

chimeras, which held the sauces and condiments, had been cleared away,

as well as the ivory, bronze, or wooden spatulae, and the bronze and

flint knives, the guests washed their hands, and cups of wine and

fermented drinks kept on passing around.

The cup-bearer drew with a long-handled ladle the dark wine and the

transparent wine from two great, golden vases adorned with figures of

horses and rams, which were held in equilibrium in front of the Pharaoh

by means of tripods on which they were set.

Female musicians appeared--for the orchestra of male musicians had

withdrawn. A wide gauze tunic covered their slender, youthful bodies,

veiling them no more than the pure water of a pool conceals the form of

the bather who plunges into it. Papyrus wreaths bound their thick hair

and fell to the ground in long tendrils; lotus flowers bloomed on top of

their heads; great golden rings sparkled in their ears, necklaces of

enamel and pearl encircled their necks, and bracelets clanked and

rattled on their wrists. One played on the harp, another on the lute, a

third on the double flute, crossing her arms and using the right for the

left flute and the left for the right flute; a fourth placed

horizontally against her breast a five-stringed lyre; a fifth struck the

onager-skin of a square drum; and a little girl seven or eight years of

age, with flowers in her hair and a belt drawn tight around her, beat

time by clapping her hands.

The dancers came in. They were slight, slender, and as lithe as

serpents; their great eyes shone between the black lines of their lids,

their pearly teeth between the red bars of their lips. Long curls

floated down on their cheeks. Some wore full tunics striped white and

blue, which floated around them like a mist; others wore mere pleated

short skirts falling over the hips to the knees, which allowed their

beautiful, slender legs and round muscular thighs to be easily seen.

They first assumed poses of languid voluptuousness and indolent grace,

then, waving branches of bloom and clinking castanets, shaped like the

head of Hathor, striking tambourines with their little closed hands, or

making the tanned skin of drums resound under their thumbs, they gave

themselves up to swifter steps and to bolder postures; they pirouetted,

they whirled with ever-increasing ardour. But the Pharaoh, thoughtful

and dreamy, did not condescend to bestow a glance of satisfaction upon

them; his fixed gaze did not even fall upon them.

They withdrew, blushing and confused, pressing their palpitating breasts

with their hands.

Dwarfs with twisted feet, with swollen and deformed bodies, whose

grimaces were fortunate enough at times to bring a smile to the

majestic, stony face of the Pharaoh, were no more successful; their

contortions did not bring a single smile to his lips, the corners of

which remained obstinately fixed.

To the sound of strange music produced by triangular harps, sistra,

castanets, cymbals, and bugles, Egyptian clowns wearing high, white

mitres of ridiculous shape advanced, closing two fingers of their hand

and stretching out the other three, repeating their grotesque gestures

with automatic accuracy, and singing extravagant songs full of

dissonances. His Majesty never changed countenance.

Women wearing a small helmet from which depended three long cords ending

in a tassel, their wrists and ankles bound with black leather bands, and

wearing close fitting drawers suspended by a single brace passed over

their shoulders, performed tricks of strength and contortions each more

surprising than another; posturing, throwing themselves back, bending

their supple bodies like willow branches, and touching the ground with

their necks without displacing their heels, supporting in that

impossible attitude the weight of their companions; others juggled with

a ball, two balls, three balls, before, behind, their arms crossed,

astride of or standing upon the loins of one of the women of the

company. One, indeed, the cleverest, put on blinkers like Tmei, the

goddess of justice, and caught the globes in her hands without letting a

single one fall. The Pharaoh was not moved by these marvels.

He cared no more either for the prowess of two combatants who, wearing a

cestus on the left arm, fought with sticks. Men throwing at a block of

wood knives which struck with miraculous accuracy the spot indicated did

not interest him either. He even refused the draught-board which the

lovely Twea, whom he looked upon usually with favour, presented to him

as she offered herself as an adversary. In vain Amense, Taia, Hont-Reche

ventured upon timid caresses. He rose and withdrew to his apartments

without having uttered a word.

Motionless on the threshold stood the servant who, during the triumphal

procession, had noticed the imperceptible gesture of His Majesty.

He said: "O King, loved of the gods! I left the procession, crossed the

Nile on a light papyrus-bark and followed the vessel of the woman on

whom your hawk glance deigned to fall. She is Tahoser, the daughter of

the priest Petamounoph."

The Pharaoh smiled and said: "It is well. I give thee a chariot and its

horses, a pectoral ornament of beads of lapis-lazuli and cornelian, with

a golden circle weighing as much as the green basalt weight."

Meanwhile the sorrowing women pulled the flowers from their hair, tore

their gauze robes, and sobbed, stretched out upon the polished stone

floors which reflected, mirror-like, the image of their beautiful

bodies, saying, "One of these accursed barbaric captives must have

stolen our master's heart."

V

On the left bank of the Nile stood the villa of Poeri, the young man who

had filled Tahoser with such emotion when, proceeding to view the

triumphal return of the Pharaoh, she had passed in her ox-drawn car

under the balcony whereon leaned carelessly the handsome dreamer.

It was a vast estate, having something of the farm and something of the

house of pleasaunce, which stretched between the banks of the river and

the foothills of the Libyan chain, over an immense extent of ground,

covered during the inundation by the reddish waters laden with

fertilising mud, and which during the rest of the year was irrigated by

skilfully planned canals.

A wall, built of limestone drawn from the neighbouring mountains,

enclosed the garden, the store-houses, the cellars, and the dwelling.

The walls sloped slightly inwards and were surmounted by an acroter with

metal spikes, capable of stopping whosoever might attempt to climb over.

Three doors, the leaves of which were hung on massive pillars, each

adorned with a giant lotus-flower planted on top of the capital, were

cut in the wall on three of the sides. In place of the fourth door rose

a building which looked out into the garden from one of its facades, and

on the road from the other.

The building in no respect resembled the houses in Thebes. The architect

had not sought to reproduce either the heavy foundations, the great

monumental lines, or the rich materials of city buildings, but had

striven to attain elegant lightness, refreshing simplicity, and pastoral

gracefulness in harmony with the verdure and the peacefulness of the

country.

The lower courses of the building, which the Nile reached in times of

high flood, were of sandstone, and the rest of the building of sycamore

wood. Tall, fluted columns, extremely slender and resembling the staffs

of the standards before the king's palace, sprang from the ground and

rose unbroken to the palm-leaved cornice, where swelled out, under a

simple cube, their lotus-flowered capitals.

The single story built above the ground-floor did not rise as high as

the mouldings which bordered the terraced roof, and thus left an empty

space between the ceiling and the flat roof of the villa. Short, small

pillars, with flowery capitals, divided into groups of four by the tall

columns, formed an open gallery around this aerial apartment open to

every wind.

Windows broader at the base than at the top of the opening, in

accordance with the Egyptian style, and closed with double sashes,

lighted the first story. The ground-floor was lighted by narrower

windows placed closer to each other.

Above the door, which was adorned with deep mouldings, was a cross

planted in a heart and framed in a parallelogram cut in the lower part

to allow the sign of favourable omen to pass; the meaning being, as

every one knows, "A good house."

The whole building was painted in soft, pleasant colours; the lotus of

the capitals showed alternately red and blue in the green capsules; the

gilded palm-leaves of the cornices stood out upon a blue background; the

white walls of the facades set off the painted framework of the windows,

and lines of red and green outlined panels and imitated the joints of

the stone.

Outside the enclosing wall, which was built flush with the dwelling,

stood a row of trees cut to a point, which formed a screen against the

dusty southern wind, always laden with the desert heat.

In front of the building grew a vast vineyard. Stone shafts with lotus

capitals placed at symmetrical distances outlined, through the vineyard,

walks cutting each other at right angles. Boughs of vine leaves joined

one plant to another and formed a succession of leafy arches under which

one could walk erect. The ground, carefully raked and heaped up at the

foot of each plant, contrasted by its brown colour with the bright green

of the leaves, amid which played the sunbeams and the breeze.

On either side of the building two oblong pools bore upon their

transparent surface aquatic birds and flowers. At the corners of these

pools four great palm-trees spread out fanwise their green wreath of

leaves at the top of their scaly trunks.

Compartments, regularly traced by narrow paths, divided the garden

around the vineyard, marking the place of each different crop. Along a

sort of belt walk which ran entirely around the enclosure dom palms

alternated with sycamores, squares of ground were planted with fig,

peach, almond, olive, pomegranate and other fruit trees; others, again,

were planted with ornamental trees only: the tamarisk, the cassia, the

acacia, the myrtle, the mimosa, and some still rarer gum-trees found

beyond the cataracts of the Nile, under the Tropic of Cancer, in the

oases of the Libyan Desert, and upon the shores of the Erythrean Gulf;

for the Egyptians are very fond of cultivating shrubs and flowers, and

they exact new species as a tribute from the peoples they have

conquered.

Flowers of all kinds, and many varieties of watermelons, lupines, and

onions adorned the beds. Two other pools of greater size, fed by the

covered canal leading from the Nile, each bore a small boat to enable

the master of the estate to enjoy the pleasure of fishing. Fishes of

divers forms and brilliant colours played in the limpid waters among the

stalks and the broad leaves of the lotus. Banks of luxuriant vegetation

surrounded these pools and were reflected in their green mirror.

Near each pool rose a kiosk formed of slender columns bearing a light

roof and surrounded by an open balcony whence one could enjoy the sight

of the waters and breathe the coolness of the morning and the evening

while reclining on a rustic seat of wood and reeds.

The garden, lighted by the rising sun, had a bright, happy, restful

look. The green of the trees was so brilliant, the colours of the

flowers so splendid, air and light filled so joyously the vast enclosure

with breeze and sunbeams, the contrast of the rich greenness with the

bare whiteness of the chalky sterility of the Libyan chain, the crest of

which was seen above the walls cutting into the blue sky, was so marked

that one felt the wish to stop and set up one's tent there. It looked

like a nest purposely built for a longed-for happiness.

Along the walks travelled servants bearing on their shoulders a yoke of

bent wood, from the ends of which hung by ropes two clay jars filled at

the reservoirs, the contents of which they poured into small basins dug

at the foot of each plant. Others, handling a jar suspended from a pole

working on a post, filled with water a wooden gutter which carried it to

the parts of the garden that needed irrigating. Gardeners were clipping

the trees to a point or into an elliptical shape. With the help of a hoe

formed of two pieces of hard wood bound by a cord and thus making a

hook, other workmen were preparing the ground for planting.

It was a delightful sight to see these men with their black, woolly

hair, their bodies the colour of brick, dressed only in a pair of white

drawers, going and coming amid the greenery with orderly activity,

singing a rustic song to which their steps kept time. The birds perched

on the trees seemed to know them, and scarcely to fly off when, as they

passed, they rubbed against the branches.

The door of the building opened, and Poeri appeared on the threshold.

Though he was dressed in the Egyptian fashion, his features were not in

accordance with the national type, and it took no long observation to

see that he did not belong to the native race of the valley of the Nile.

He was assuredly not a _Rot'en'no_. His thin aquiline nose, his flat

cheeks, his serious-looking, closed lips, the perfect oval of his face,

were essentially different from the African nose, the projecting

cheek-bones, the thick lips, and broad face characteristic of the

Egyptians. Nor was his complexion the same; the copper tint was replaced

by an olive pallor, which the rich, pure blood flushed slightly; his

eyes, instead of showing black between their lines of antimony, were of

a dark blue like the sky of night; his hair, silkier and softer, curled

in less crisp undulations, and his shoulders did not exhibit that

rigid, transversal line which is the characteristic sign of the race as

represented on the statues of the temples and the frescoes of the tombs.

All these characteristics went to form a remarkable beauty, which

Petamounoph's daughter had been unable to resist. Since the day when

Poeri had by chance appeared to her, leaning upon the gallery of the

building--which was his favourite place when he was not busy with the

farm work--she had returned many times under pretext of driving, and had

made her chariot pass under the balcony of the villa; but although she

had put on her handsomest tunics, fastened around her neck her richest

necklaces and encircled her wrists with her most wondrously chased

bracelets, wreathed her hair with the freshest lotus-flowers, drawn to

the temples the black line of her eyes, and brightened her cheeks with

rouge, Poeri had never seemed to pay the smallest attention to her.

And yet Tahoser was rarely beautiful, and the love which the pensive

tenant of the villa disdained, the Pharaoh would willingly have

purchased at a great price. In exchange for the priest's daughter he

would have given Twea, Taia, Amense, Hont-Reche, his Asiatic captives,

his vases of gold and silver, his necklaces of gems, his war chariots,

his invincible army, his sceptre,--all, in a word, even his tomb, on

which since the beginning of his reign had been working in the darkness

thousands upon thousands of workmen.

Love is not the same in the hot regions swept by a fiery wind as on the

icy shores where calm descends from heaven with the cold; it is not

blood but fire that flows in the veins. So Tahoser languished and

fainted, though she breathed perfumes, surrounded herself with flowers,

and drank draughts that bring forgetfulness. Music wearied her or

overexcited her feelings; she had ceased to take any pleasure in the

dances of her companions; at night, sleep fled from her eyelids, and

breathless, stifling, her breast heaving with sighs, she would leave her

sumptuous couch and stretch herself out upon the broad slabs of the

pavement, pressing her bosom against the hard granite as if she wished

to breathe in its coolness.

On the night which followed the triumphal entry of the Pharaoh, Tahoser

felt so unhappy and life seemed so empty that she determined not to die

without having made at least one last effort.

She wrapped herself up in a piece of common stuff, kept on but a single

bracelet of odoriferous wood, twisted a piece of striped gauze around

her head, and with the first light of the dawn, without being heard by

Nofre, who was dreaming of the handsome Ahmosis, she left her room,

crossed the garden, drew the bolts of the water gate, proceeded to the

quay, waked a waterman asleep in his papyrus boat, and had herself

transported to the other bank of the stream.

Staggering and pressing her little hand to her heart to still its

beating, she drew near Poeri's dwelling.

It was now broad daylight, and the gates were opening to give passage to

the ox teams going to work, and to the flocks going forth to pasture.

Tahoser knelt on the threshold and placed her hand above her head with a

supplicating gesture, more beautiful, perhaps, even in this humble

attitude and in her mean dress. Her bosom rose and fell and tears

streamed down her pale cheeks.

Poeri saw her and took her for what she was, indeed, a most unhappy

woman.

"Enter," said he; "enter without fear. This house is hospitable."