Tahoser, encouraged by the friendly words of Poeri, abandoned her
supplicating attitude and rose. A rich glow flushed her cheek but now so
pale; shame came back to her with hope; she blushed at the strange
action to which love had driven her; she hesitated to pass the threshold
which she had crossed so often in her dreams. Her maidenly scruples,
stifled for a time by passion, resumed their power in the presence of
reality.
The young man, thinking that timidity, the companion of misfortune,
alone prevented Tahoser from entering the house, said to her in a soft,
musical voice marked by a foreign accent,--
"Enter, maiden, and do not tremble so. My home is large enough to
shelter you. If you are weary, rest; if you are thirsty, my servants
will bring you pure water cooled in porous clay-jars; if you are hungry,
they will set before you wheaten bread, dates, and dried figs."
Petamounoph's daughter, encouraged by these hospitable words, entered
the house, which justified the hieroglyph of welcome inscribed upon the
gate.
Poeri took her to a room on the ground-floor, the walls of which were
painted with green vertical bands ending in lotus flowers, making the
apartment pleasant to the eye. A fine mat of reeds woven in symmetrical
designs covered the floor. At each corner of the room great sheaves of
flowers filled tall vases, held in place by pedestals, and scattered
their perfume through the cool shade of the hall. At the back a low
sofa, the wood-work of which was ornamented with foliage and chimerical
animals, tempted with its broad bed the fatigued or idle guest. Two
chairs, the seats made of Nile reeds, with sloping back, strengthened by
stays, a wooden foot-stool cut in the shape of a shell and resting upon
three legs, an oblong table, also three-legged, bordered with inlaid
work and ornamented in the centre with uraeus snakes, wreaths, and
agricultural symbols, and on which was placed a vase of rose and blue
lotus,--completed the furniture of the room, which was pastoral in its
simplicity and gracefulness.
Poeri sat down on the sofa. Tahoser, bending one leg under her thigh
and raising one knee, knelt before the young man who fixed upon her a
glance full of kindly questioning. She was most lovely in that attitude.
The gauze veil in which she was enveloped exhibited, as it fell back,
the rich mass of her hair bound with a narrow white ribbon, and revealed
her gentle, sweet, sad face. Her sleeveless tunic showed her lovely arms
bare to the shoulder and left them free.
"I am called Poeri," said the young man; "I am steward of the royal
estates, and have the right to wear the gilded ram's-horns on my state
head-dress."
"And I am called Hora," replied Tahoser, who had arranged her little
story beforehand. "My parents are dead, their goods were sold by their
creditors, leaving me just enough to pay for their burial; so I have
been left alone and without means. But since you are kind enough to
receive me, I shall repay you for your hospitality. I have been taught
the work of women, although my condition did not oblige me to perform
it. I can spin and weave linen with thread of various colours; I can
imitate flowers and embroider ornaments on stuffs; I can even, when you
are tired by your work and overcome by the heat of the day, delight you
with song, harp, or lute."
"Hora, you are welcome to my dwelling," said the young man. "You will
find here, without taxing your strength,--for you seem to me to be
delicate,--occupation suitable for a maiden who has known better days;
among my maids are gentle and good girls who will be pleasant companions
for you, and who will show you how we live in this pastoral home. So the
days will pass, and perhaps brighter ones will dawn for you. If not, you
can quietly grow old in my home in the midst of abundance and peace. The
guest whom the gods send is sacred."
Having said these words, Poeri arose, as if to avoid the thanks of the
supposed Hora, who had prostrated herself at his feet and was kissing
them, as do wretches who have just been granted a favour; but the lover
in her had taken the place of the suppliant, and her ripe, rosy lips
found it hard to leave those beautiful, clean, white feet that resembled
the jasper feet of the gods.
Before going out to superintend the work of the farm, Poeri turned
around on the threshold of the room and said,--
"Hora, remain here until I have appointed a room for you. I shall send
you some food by one of my servants."
And he walked away quietly, the whip which marked his rank hanging from
his wrist. The workmen saluted him, placing one hand on their head and
the other to the ground, but by the cordiality of their salute it was
easily seen that he was a kind master. Sometimes he stopped to give an
order or a piece of advice, for he was greatly skilled in matters of
agriculture and gardening. Then he resumed his walk, looking to the
right and left and carefully inspecting everything. Tahoser, who had
humbly accompanied him to the door, and had crouched on the threshold,
her elbow on her knee and her chin on the palm of her hand, followed him
with her glance until he disappeared under the leafy arches. She kept on
looking long after he had passed out by the gate into the fields.
A servant, in accordance with an order which Poeri had given when he
went out, brought on a tray a goose-leg, onions baked in the ashes,
wheaten bread and figs, and a jar of water closed with myrtle flowers.
"The master sends you this. Eat, maiden, and regain your strength."
Tahoser was not very hungry, but her part required that she should
exhibit some appetite; the poor must necessarily devour the food which
pity throws them. So she ate, and drank a long draught of the cool
water. The servant having gone, she resumed her contemplative attitude.
Innumerable contradictory thoughts filled her mind: sometimes with
maidenly shame she repented the step she had taken; at others, carried
away by her passion, she exulted in her own audacity. Then she said to
herself: "Here I am, it is true, under Poeri's roof; I shall see him
freely every day; I shall silently drink in his beauty, which is more
that of a god than of a man; I shall hear his lovely voice, which is
like the music of the soul. But will he, who never paid any attention to
me when I passed by his home dressed in my most brilliant garments,
adorned with my richest gems, perfumed with scents and flowers, mounted
on my painted and gilded car surmounted by a sunshade, and surrounded
like a queen with a retinue of servants,--will he pay more attention to
the poor suppliant maiden whom he has received through pity and who is
dressed in mean stuff? Will my wretchedness accomplish what my wealth
could not do? It may be, after all, that I am ugly, and that Nofre
flatters me when she maintains that from the unknown sources of the Nile
to the place where it casts itself into the sea there is no lovelier
maid than her mistress. Yet no,--I am beautiful; the blazing eyes of men
have told me so a thousand times, and especially have the annoyed airs
and the disdainful pouts of the women who passed by me confirmed it.
Will Poeri, who has inspired me with such mad passion, never love me? He
would have received just as kindly an old, wrinkled woman with withered
breasts, clothed in hideous rags, and with feet grimy with dust. Any one
but he would at once have recognised, under the disguise of Hora,
Tahoser the daughter of the high-priest Petamounoph; but he never cast
his eyes upon me any more than does the basalt statue of a god upon the
devotees who offer up to it quarters of antelope and baskets of lotus."
These thoughts cast down the courage of Tahoser. Then she regained
confidence, and said to herself that her beauty, her youth, her love
would surely at last move that insensible heart. She would be so sweet,
so attentive, so devoted, she would use so much art and coquetry in
dressing herself, that certainly Poeri would not be able to resist. Then
she promised herself to reveal to him that the humble servant-maid was a
girl of high rank, possessing slaves, estates, and palaces, and she
foresaw, in her imagination, a life of splendid and radiant happiness
following upon a period of obscure felicity.
"First and foremost, let me make myself beautiful," she said, as she
rose and walked towards one of the pools.
On reaching it, she knelt upon the stone margin, washed her face, her
neck, and her shoulders. The disturbed water showed her in its mirror,
broken by innumerable ripples, her vague, trembling image which smiled
up to her as through green gauze; and the little fishes, seeing her
shadow and thinking that crumbs of bread were about to be thrown to
them, drew near the edge in shoals. She gathered two or three lotus
flowers which bloomed on the surface of the pool, twisted their stems
around the band that held in her hair, and made thus a head-dress which
all the skill of Nofre could never have equalled, even had she emptied
her mistress's jewel-caskets.
When she had finished and rose refreshed and radiant, a tame ibis, which
had gravely watched her, drew itself up on its two long legs, stretched
out its long neck, and flapped its wings two or three times as if to
applaud her.
Having finished her toilet, Tahoser resumed her place at the door of the
house and waited for Poeri. The heavens were of a deep blue; the light
shimmered in visible waves through the transparent air; intoxicating
perfumes rose from the flowers and the plants; the birds hopped amid the
branches, pecking at the berries; the fluttering butterflies chased one
another. This charming spectacle was rendered yet more bright by human
activity, which enlivened it by the communication of a soul. The
gardeners came and went, the servants returned laden with panniers of
grass or vegetables; others, standing at the foot of the fig trees,
caught in baskets the fruits thrown to them by monkeys trained to pluck
them and perched on the highest branches.
Tahoser contemplated with delight this beautiful landscape, the
peacefulness of which was filling her soul, and she said to herself,
"How sweet it would be to be beloved here, amid the light, the scents,
and the flowers."
Poeri returned. He had finished his tour of inspection, and withdrew to
his room to spend the burning hours of the day. Tahoser followed him
timidly, and stood near the door, ready to leave at the slightest
gesture, but Poeri signed to her to remain.
She came forward timidly and knelt upon the mat.
"You tell me, Hora, that you can play the lute. Take that instrument
hanging upon the wall, strike its cords and sing me some old air, very
sweet, very tender, and very slow. The sleep which comes to one cradled
by music is full of lovely dreams."
The priest's daughter took down the mandore, drew near the couch on
which Poeri was stretched, leaned the head of the lute against the
wooden bed-head hollowed out in the shape of a half-moon, stretched her
arm to the end of the handle of the instrument, the body of which was
pressed against her beating heart, let her hand flutter along the
strings, and struck a few chords. Then she sang in a true, though
somewhat trembling voice, an old Egyptian air, the vague sigh breathed
by the ancestors and transmitted from generation to generation, and in
which recurred constantly one and the same phrase of a sweet and
penetrating monotony.
"In very truth," said Poeri, turning his dark blue eyes upon the maid,
"you know rhythm as does a professional musician, and you might practise
your art in the palaces of kings. But you give to your song a new
expression; the air you are singing, one would think you are inventing
it, and you impart to it a magical charm. Your voice is no longer that
of mourning; another woman seems to shine through you as the light
shines from behind a veil. Who are you?"
"I am Hora," replied Tahoser. "Have I not already told you my story?
Only, I have washed from my face the dust of the road, I have smoothed
out the folds in my crushed gown and put a flower in my hair. If I am
poor, that is no reason why I should be ugly, and the gods sometimes
refuse beauty to the rich. But does it please you that I should go on?"
"Yes. Repeat that air; it fascinates, benumbs me, it takes away my
memory like a cup of nepenthe. Repeat it until sleep and forgetfulness
fall upon my eyelids."
Poeri's eyes, fixed at first upon Tahoser, soon were half-closed, and
then completely so. The maiden continued to strike the strings of the
mandore, and sang more and more softly the refrain of her song. Poeri
slept. She stopped and fanned him with a palm-leaf fan thrown on the
table.
Poeri was handsome, and sleep imparted to his pure features an
indescribable expression of languor and tenderness. His long eyelashes
falling upon his cheeks seemed to conceal from him a celestial vision,
and his beautiful, red, half-open lips trembled as if they were speaking
mute words to an invisible being. After a long contemplation, emboldened
by silence and solitude, Tahoser, forgetting herself, bent over the
sleeper's brow, kept back her breath, pressed her heart with her hand,
and placed a timid, furtive, winged kiss upon it. Then she drew back
ashamed and blushing. The sleeper had faintly felt in his dream
Tahoser's lips; he uttered a sigh and said in Hebrew, "Oh, Ra'hel,
beloved Ra'hel!"
Fortunately these words of an unknown tongue conveyed no meaning to
Tahoser, and she again took up the palm-leaf fan, hoping yet fearing
that Poeri would awake.