The draught of cold air, due to the speed of the chariot, soon made
Tahoser recover from her faint. Pressed and crushed against the breast
of the Pharaoh, by his two stony arms, her heart had scarce room to
beat, and the hard enamelled collars were making their mark on her
heaving bosom. The horses, whose reins the King slackened by bending
towards the front of the car, rushed furiously forward, the wheels went
round like whirlwinds, the brazen plates justled, the heated axles
smoked. Tahoser, terrified, saw vaguely, as in a dream, flash to the
right and left vast masses of buildings, clumps of trees, palaces,
temples, pylons, obelisks, colossi, which the night made more fantastic
and terrible. What were the thoughts that filled her mind during that
mad rush? She thought as little as thinks a dove, fluttering in the
talons of a hawk which is carrying it away to its eyrie. Mute terror
stupefied her, made her blood run cold and dulled her feelings. Her
limbs hung limp; her will was relaxed like her muscles, and, had she not
been held firmly in the arms of the Pharaoh, she would have slipped and
fallen in a heap on the bottom of the chariot like a piece of stuff
which is let drop. Twice she thought she felt upon her cheek a burning
breath and two lips of fire; she did not attempt to turn away her head,
terror had killed modesty in her. When the chariot struck violently
against a stone, a dim instinct of self-preservation made her cling with
her hands to the shoulder of the King and press closer to him; then she
let herself go again and leaned with her whole weight, light though it
was, upon those arms which held her.
The chariot entered the avenue of sphinxes, at the end of which rose a
giant pylon crowned with a cornice on which the symbolic globe displayed
its wings; the lessening darkness allowed the priest's daughter to
recognise the King's palace. Then despair filled her heart; she
struggled, she strove to free herself from the embrace which held her
close; she pressed her frail hands against the stony breast of the
Pharaoh, stiffened out her arms, throwing herself back over the edge of
the chariot. Her efforts were useless, her struggles were vain. Her
ravisher brought her back to his breast with an irresistible, slow
pressure, as if he would have driven her into it. She tried to scream;
her lips were closed with a kiss.
Meanwhile the horses in three or four strides reached the pylon, under
which they passed at full gallop, glad to return to the stable, and the
chariot rolled into the vast court. The servants hastened up and sprang
to the heads of the horses, whose bits were white with foam.
Tahoser cast a terrified glance around her. High brick walls formed a
vast square enclosure in which rose on the east a palace, on the west a
temple, between two great pools, the piscinae of the sacred crocodiles.
The first rays of the sun, the orb of which was already rising behind
the Arabian mountains, flushed with rosy light the top of the buildings,
the lower portions of which were still plunged in bluish shadows.
There was no hope of flight. The buildings, though in no wise gloomy,
had a look of irresistible strength, of absolute will, of eternal
persistence: a world catastrophe alone could have opened an issue
through these thick walls, through these piles of hard sandstone. To
overthrow the pylons built of fragments of mountains, the earth itself
would have had to quake; even a conflagration could only have licked
with its fiery tongues those indestructible blocks.
Poor Tahoser did not have at her command such violent means, and she was
compelled to allow herself to be carried like a child by the Pharaoh,
who had sprung from his chariot.
Four high columns with palm-leaf capitals formed the propylaeum of the
palace into which the king entered, still pressing to his breast the
daughter of Petamounoph. When he had passed through the door, he gently
placed his burden on the ground, and seeing Tahoser stagger, he said to
her: "Be reassured. You rule the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh rules the
world."
These were the first words he had spoken to her.
If love followed the dictates of reason, Tahoser would certainly have
preferred the Pharaoh to Poeri. The King was endowed with supreme
beauty. His great, clean, regular features seemed to be chiselled, and
not the slightest imperfection could be detected in them. The habit of
command had given to his glance that penetrating gleam which makes
divinities and kings so easily recognisable. His lips, one word from
which would have changed the face of the world and the fate of nations,
were of a purple red, like fresh blood upon the blade of a sword, and
when he smiled, they possessed that grace of terrible things which
nothing can resist. His tall, well proportioned, majestic figure
presented the nobility of form admired in the temple statues; and when
he appeared solemn and radiant, covered with gold, enamels, and gems, in
the midst of the bluish vapour of the censers, he did not seem to belong
to that frail race which from generation to generation falls like
leaves, and is stretched, sticky with bitumen, in the dark depths of the
mummy pits.
What was poor Poeri by the side of this demigod? Nevertheless, Tahoser
loved him.
The wise have long since given up attempting to explain the heart of
woman. They are masters of astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic; they
know the origin of the world, and can tell where were the planets at the
very moment of creation; they are sure that the moon was then in the
constellation of Cancer, the sun in that of the Lion, Mercury in that of
the Virgin, Venus in the Balance, Mars in the Scorpion, Jupiter in
Sagittarius, Saturn in Capricorn; they trace on papyrus or granite the
direction of the celestial ocean, which goes from the east to the west;
they have summed up the number of stars strewn over the blue robe of
the Goddess Neith, and make the sun travel in the lower or the superior
hemisphere with the twelve diurnal and the twelve nocturnal baris under
the conduct of the hawk-headed pilot and of Neb Wa, the Lady of the
Bark; they know that in the second half of the month of Tobi, Orion
influences the left ear, and Sirius the heart; but they are absolutely
ignorant why a woman prefers one man to another, a wretched Israelite to
an illustrious Pharaoh.
After having traversed several halls with Tahoser, whom he led by the
hand, the King sat down on a seat in the shape of a throne in a superbly
decorated room.
Golden stars gleamed in the blue ceiling, and against the pillars which
supported the cornice were placed the statues of kings wearing the
pschent, their legs merging into the block of stone and their arms
crossed on their chest, looking into the room with frightful intensity
out of their black-lined eyes. Between every two pillars burned a lamp
placed upon a pedestal, and on the base of the walls was represented a
sort of ethnographic procession: the nations of the four quarters of the
world were represented there with their particular faces and their
particular dress.
At the head of the series, guided by Horus the shepherd of the nations,
walked the man of men, the Egyptian, the Rot'en'no with a gentle face,
slightly aquiline nose, plaited hair, and his dark red skin brought out
by the whiteness of the loin-cloth; next came the negro or Nahasi, with
his black skin, thick lips, protruding cheekbones and woolly hair; then
the Asiatic or Namou, with yellow flesh-colour, strongly aquiline nose,
thick black beard cut to a point, wearing a striped skirt fringed with
tufts; then the European or Tamhou, the least civilised of all,
differing from the others by his white complexion, his red beard and
hair, his blue eyes, an undressed ox-skin cast over his shoulder, and
his arms and legs tattooed. The other panels were filled with various
subjects, scenes of war and triumph and hieroglyphic inscriptions.
In the centre of the room, on a table supported by prisoners bound by
the elbows, so skilfully carved that they seemed to live and suffer,
bloomed a vast bouquet of flowers whose sweet scent perfumed the
atmosphere.
So in this vast hall, surrounded by the effigies of his ancestors, all
things spoke and sang of the glory of the Pharaoh. The nations of the
world walked behind Egypt and acknowledged her supremacy, and he
governed Egypt. Yet the daughter of Petamounoph, far from being dazzled
by this splendour, thought of the rustic villa, of Poeri, and especially
of the mean hut of mud and straw in the Hebrew quarter, where she had
left Ra'hel,--Ra'hel, from henceforward the happy and only spouse of the
young Hebrew.
The Pharaoh held the tips of the fingers of Tahoser, who stood before
him, and he fixed upon her his hawk eyes, the eyelids of which never
moved. The young girl had no other garment than the drapery substituted
by Ra'hel for the dress which had been soaked during the swim across the
Nile, but her beauty was in no wise impaired. She remained thus, half
nude, holding with one hand the coarse stuff which slipped, and the
whole upper portion of her beautiful body appeared in its golden
fairness. When she was adorned with her jewels, one was tempted to
regret that any part of her form should be concealed by her necklaces,
her bracelets, and her belts of gold or of gems; but on seeing her thus
devoid of all ornament, admiration was satisfied, or rather exalted.
Certainly many very beautiful women had entered the Pharaoh's harem, but
not one of them comparable to Tahoser; and the eyes of the King flashed
such burning glances that, unable to bear their brilliancy, she was
obliged to cast down her eyes.
In her heart, Tahoser was proud of having excited love in the Pharaoh;
for who is the woman, however perfect she may be, who has not some
vanity. Yet she would have preferred to follow the young Hebrew into the
desert. The King terrified her, she felt herself dazzled by the
splendour of his face, and her limbs gave way under her.
The Pharaoh noticed her emotion, and made her sit down at his feet on a
red cushion adorned with tufts.
"Oh, Tahoser," he said, kissing her hair, "I love you. When I saw you
from the top of my triumphal palanquin, borne higher than the heads of
men by the generals, an unknown feeling entered into my soul. I, whose
every desire is forestalled, desired something; I understood that I was
not everything. Until then I had lived solitary in my almightiness, in
the depths of my vast palaces, surrounded by mere shadows which called
themselves women, and who had no more effect upon me than the painted
figures in the frescoes. I heard in the distance, muttering and
complaining low, the nations upon whose heads I wipe my sandals or
which I lift by their hair, as I am represented doing on the symbolical
_bassi-relievi_ of the palaces, and in my cold breast, as strong as that
of a basalt god, I never heard the beat of my own heart. It seemed to me
that there was nowhere on earth a being like myself, a being who could
move me. In vain I brought back from my expeditions into foreign lands
choice virgins and women famous for their beauty in their own country; I
cast them aside like flowers, after having breathed their scent for a
moment. None inspired me with a desire to see her again. When they were
present, I scarce glanced at them; when they were absent, I immediately
forgot them. Twea, Taia, Amense, Hont-Reche, whom I have kept to avoid
the disgust of having to find others who the next day would have been as
indifferent as themselves, have never been, when in my arms, aught but
vain phantoms, perfumed and graceful forms, beings of another race with
whom my nature could not mingle any more than the leopard can mate with
the gazelle, the dweller in the air with the dweller in the waters. I
had come to think that, placed by the gods apart from and above all
mortals, I was never to share either their pains or their joys. Fearful
weariness, like that which no doubt tires the mummies, who, wrapped up
in their bands, wait in their caves in the depths of the hypogea until
the soul shall have finished the cycle of migrations,--a fearful
weariness had fallen upon me on my throne; for I often remained with my
hands on my knees like a granite colossus, thinking of the impossible,
the infinite, the eternal. How many a time have I thought of raising the
veil of Isis, at the risk of falling blasted at the feet of the goddess.
Perhaps, I said to myself, that mysterious face is the one I have been
dreaming of, the one which is to inspire me with love. If earth refuses
me happiness, I shall climb to heaven. But I saw you; I felt a strange,
unaccustomed sensation; I understood that there existed outside myself a
being necessary, imperious, and fatal to me, whom I could not live
without, and who possessed the power of making me unhappy. I was a king,
almost a god, and you, O Tahoser, have made of me a man."
Never, perhaps, had the Pharaoh uttered so long a speech; usually a
word, a gesture, a motion of the eye sufficed to manifest his will,
which was immediately divined by a thousand attentive, restless eyes;
performance followed his thought, as the lightning follows the
thunder-clap. But with desire he seemed to have given up his granitic
majesty; he spoke and explained himself like a mortal.
Tahoser was a prey to singular emotion. However much she felt the honour
of having inspired love in the man preferred of Phre, in the favoured of
Ammon Ra, the destroyer of nations, in the terrifying, solemn and superb
being upon whom she scarce dared to gaze, she felt no sympathy for him,
and the idea of belonging to him filled her with terror and repulsion.
To the Pharaoh who had carried off her body she could not give her soul,
which had remained with Poeri and Ra'hel; and as the King appeared to
await a reply, she said,--
"How is it, O King, that amid all the maids of Egypt your glance should
have fallen on me,--on me whom so many others surpass in beauty, in
talent, in gifts of all sorts? How is it that in the midst of clumps of
white, blue, and rose lotus, with open corollas, with delicate scent,
you have chosen the modest blade of grass which nothing marks?"
"I know not, but I know that you alone exist in this world for me, and
that I shall make kings' daughters your servants."
"But suppose I do not love you?" said Tahoser, timidly.
"What care I, if I love you," replied the Pharaoh. "Have not the most
beautiful women in the world thrown themselves down upon my threshold
weeping and moaning, tearing their cheeks, beating their breasts,
plucking out their hair, and have they not died imploring a glance of
love which never fell upon them? Never has passion in any one made my
heart of brass beat within my stony breast. Resist me, hate if you
will,--you will only be more charming; for the first time an obstacle
will have come in the way of my will, and I shall know how to overcome
it."
"But suppose I love another?" continued Tahoser, more boldly.
At this suggestion the eyebrows of the Pharaoh were bent; he violently
bit his lower lip, in which his teeth left white marks, and he pressed
to the point of hurting her the fingers of the maid which he still held.
Then he cooled down again, and said in a low, deep voice,--
"When you shall have lived in this palace, in the midst of these
splendours, surrounded by the atmosphere of my love, you will forget
everything as does he who eats nepenthe. Your past life will appear to
you like a dream, your former feelings will vanish as incense upon the
coals of the censer. The woman who is loved by the King no longer
remembers men. Go, come; accustom yourself to Pharaonic magnificence;
help yourself as you please to my treasures; make gold flow, heap up
gems; order, make, unmake, raise, destroy; be my mistress, my wife, my
queen. I give you Egypt with its priests, its armies, its toilers, its
numberless population, its palaces, its temples and cities. Crumple it
up as you would crumple up gauze,--I will win other kingdoms for you,
larger, fairer, and richer. If the world is not sufficient, I will
conquer planets for you, I will dethrone the gods. You are she whom I
love; Tahoser, the daughter of Petamounoph is no more."