In the month of Choeak (from the middle of September to the middle of
October), the waters of the Nile were highest, and began to fall
slightly. In the gardens people gathered tamarinds, dates, olives; and
trees blossomed a second time.
At this juncture his holiness Rameses XII. left his sun-bright palace
in Memphis, and with a grand suite on some tens of stately barges
sailed to Thebes, to thank the gods there for the bounteous
inundation, and also to place offerings on the tombs of his eternally
living ancestors.
The most worthy ruler took farewell of his heir very graciously; but
the direction of state affairs during his absence he left with Herhor.
Rameses felt this proof of want of confidence so greatly that for
three days he took no food and did not leave his villa; he only wept.
Later he ceased to shave, and transferred himself to Sarah's house, so
as not to meet Herhor or annoy his own mother, whom he considered the
cause of his failures.
On the following day Tutmosis visited him in this retreat, bringing
two boats filled with musicians and dancers, and a third containing
baskets of food and flowers, with pitchers of wine. But the prince
commanded the musicians and dancers to depart, and taking Tutmosis to
the garden, he said,--
"Of course my mother--may she live through eternity!--sent thee to
separate me from the Jewess? Tell her worthiness that were Herhor to
become not merely viceroy, but the son of my father, I should do that
which pleases me. I know how to do it. To-day they wish to deprive me
of Sarah, and to-morrow they would take my power from me; I will show
them that I shall not renounce anything."
The prince was irritated. Tutmosis shrugged his shoulders, and
remarked finally,--
"As a whirlwind sweeps a bird into a desert, so does anger cast a man
on the shores of injustice. How canst thou wonder if the priests are
displeased because the heir to the throne has connected his life with
a woman of another country and a strange religion? Sarah does not
please them, especially since thou hast her alone. Hadst thou a number
of various women, like all noble youths, they would not mind the
Jewess. But have they done her harm? No. On the contrary, even some
priest defended her against a raging crowd which it pleased thee to
liberate from imprisonment."
"But my mother?"
Tutmosis laughed.
"Thy worthy mother loves thee as her own eyes and heart. Of course
Sarah does not please her, either, but dost thou know what her
worthiness said once to me? This,--that I should entice Sarah from
thee. What a jest on her part! To this I answered with a second jest:
'Rameses has given me a brace of hunting dogs and two Syrian horses
because he has grown tired of them; perhaps some day he will give me
his mistress too, of course I shall have to take her with other
things.'"
"Do not think of it. I would not give Sarah to any man, were it only
for this, because of her my father has not appointed me viceroy."
Tutmosis shook his head.
"Thou art greatly mistaken," answered he, "so much mistaken that I am
terrified. Dost thou not really understand the causes of the disfavor?
Every enlightened Egyptian knows them."
"I know nothing."
"So much the worse," said the anxious Tutmosis. "Thou dost not know,
then, that warriors, since the manoeuvres, especially Greek warriors,
drink thy health in every dramshop."
"They got money to do so."
"True; but not to cry out, with all the voice that is in them, that
when thou shalt succeed to his holiness--may he live through
eternity!--thou wilt begin a great war, after which there will be
changes in Egypt."
"What changes? And who is the man who during the life of the pharaoh
may dare to speak of the plans of his successor?"
Now the prince grew gloomy.
"That is one thing, but I will tell thee another," said Tutmosis, "for
misfortunes, like hyenas, never come singly. Dost thou know that the
lowest people sing songs about thee,--sing how thou didst free the
attackers from prison, and what is worse, they repeat again, that,
when thou shalt succeed his holiness, rents will be abolished. It must
be added that when common people speak of injustice and rents,
disturbances follow; and either a foreign enemy attacks our weakened
state, or Egypt is divided into as many parts as there are nomarchs.
Finally, judge for thyself, is it proper that any man's name should be
mentioned oftener than the pharaoh's, and that any man should stand
between the people and our lord? If thou permit, I will tell how
priests look on this matter."
"Of course, speak."
"Well, a very wise priest who from the summit of the temple of Amon
examines celestial movements, has thought out this statement: 'The
pharaoh is the sun, the heir to the throne the moon. When the moon
follows the god of light from afar, we have brightness in the daytime
and clearness at night. When the moon wishes to be too near the sun,
it disappears itself and the nights are dark. But if the moon stands
before the sun there is an eclipse, and in the world great terror--'"
"And all this babble," interrupted Rameses, "goes to the ears of his
holiness. Misfortune on my head! Would that I had never been the son
of a pharaoh!"
"The pharaoh, as a god upon earth, knows everything; but he is too
mighty to care for the drunken shouts of soldiers or the whispers of
earth-tillers. He understands that every Egyptian would die for him,
and thou first of all."
"Thou hast spoken truth!" answered the anxious prince. "But in all
this I see new vileness and deceit of the priests," added he, rousing
himself. "It is I, then, who hide the majesty of our lord, because I
free the innocent from prison, or do not let my tenant torture
earth-workers with unjust tribute. But when his worthiness Herhor
manages the army, appoints leaders, negotiates with foreign princes,
and directs my father to spend his time in prayers--"
Tutmosis covered his ears, and, stamping, cried,--
"Be silent! be silent! every word of thine is blasphemy. His holiness
alone directs the state, and whatever is done on earth proceeds from
his will. Herhor is a servant of the pharaoh and does what his lord
enjoins on him. If thou wilt convince thyself--oh, that my words be
not ill understood--"
The prince grew so gloomy that Tutmosis broke off the conversation and
took farewell of his friend at the earliest. When he sat down in his
boat, which was furnished with a baldachin and curtains, he drew a
deep breath and draining a large goblet of wine, thought,--
"Brr! I thank the gods for not giving me such a character as that
which Rameses has. He is a most unhappy man in the happiest
conditions. He might have the most beautiful women in Memphis, but he
sticks to one to annoy his mother. Meanwhile it is not his mother that
he annoys, but all the virtuous virgins and faithful wives who are
withering from sadness that the heir to the throne, and moreover a
youth of great comeliness, does not snatch from them virtue or force
them to unfaithfulness. He might not only drink but even swim in the
best wine; meanwhile he prefers the wretched camp beer, and bread
rubbed with garlic. Whence came these low inclinations? I cannot
imagine. Or was it that the worthy Nikotris in her critical period
looked at workmen while they were eating?
"He might do nothing from daylight till darkness. If he wished, the
most famous lords, with their wives, sisters, and daughters, would
serve food to him. He not only stretches forth his own hands to take
food, but, to the torment of our noble youths, he washes himself,
dresses himself, and his barber spends whole days in snaring birds and
thus wastes his abilities.
"O Rameses, Rameses!" sighed the exquisite. "Is it possible that
fashion should be developed in the time of such a prince? We wear the
same aprons from one year to another, and we retain wigs, only thanks
to court dignitaries, for Rameses will not wear any wig. This is a
great offence to the whole order of nobles. And all brought about by
cursed politics, brr! Oh, how happy I am that I need not divine what
they are thinking of in Tyre or Nineveh; break my head over wages for
the army; calculate how many people have been added to Egypt or taken
from it, and what rents must be collected. It is a terrible thing to
say to one's self, 'My tenant does not pay what I need and expend, but
what the increase of the Nile permits.'"
Thus meditated the exquisite Tutmosis, while he strengthened his
anxious soul with golden wine. Before the boat had sailed up to
Memphis, heavy sleep had mastered him in such wise that his slaves had
to carry their lord to the litter.
After the departure of Tutmosis, which resembled a flight, the heir
fell to thinking deeply; he even felt fear.
Rameses was a sceptic. As a pupil of the priests, and a member of the
highest aristocracy, he knew that when certain priests had fasted many
months and mortified their senses they summoned spirits, while others
spoke of spirits as a fancy, a deception. He had seen, too, that Apis,
the sacred bull before which all Egypt fell prostrate, received at
times heavy blows of a cane from inferior priests, who gave the beast
food and brought cows to him.
He understood, finally, that his father, Rameses XII., who for the
common crowd was a god who lived through eternity, and the
all-commanding lord of this world, was really just such a person as
others, only a little more weakly than ordinary old men, and very much
limited in power by the priestly order.
The prince saw all this, and jeered in his soul and even in public at
many things. But all his infidelity fell before the actual
truth,--that no one was permitted to trifle with the titles of the
pharaoh.
Rameses knew the history of his country, and he remembered that in
Egypt many things were forgiven the mighty. A great lord might ruin a
canal, kill a man in secret, revile the gods privately, take presents
from ambassadors of foreign states, but two sins were not
forgiven,--the betrayal of priestly secrets, and treason to the
pharaoh. A man who committed one or the other disappeared, sometimes
after a year, from among his friends and servants. But where he had
been put or what had been done with him, no one even dared to mention.
Rameses felt that he was on an incline of this sort from the time that
the army and the people began to mention his name and speak of certain
plans of his,--changes in the state, future wars. Thinking of this,
the prince felt as if a nameless crowd of rebels and unfortunates were
pushing him violently to the point of the highest obelisk, from which
he must tumble down and be crushed into jelly.
Later on, when, after the longest life of his father possible, he
became pharaoh, he would have the right and the means to accomplish
many deeds of which no one in Egypt could even think without terror.
But to-day he must in truth have a care, lest they declare him a
traitor and a rebel against the fundamental laws of Egypt. In that
state there was one visible ruler,--the pharaoh. He governed, he
desired, he thought for all, and woe to the man who dared to doubt
audibly the all-might of the sovereign, or mention plans of his own,
or even changes in general.
Plans were made in one place alone,--in that hall where the pharaoh
listened to advice from his aiding council, and expressed to it his
own opinions. No changes could come save from that place. There burned
the only visible lamp of political wisdom, the light of which
illuminated Egypt. But touching that light, it was safer to be silent.
All these considerations flew through the prince's head with the
swiftness of a whirlwind while he was sitting on the stone bench under
the chestnut-tree in Sarah's garden, and looking at the landscape
there around him.
The water of the Nile had fallen a little, and had begun to grow as
transparent as a crystal. But the whole country looked yet like an arm
of the sea thickly dotted with islands on which rose buildings,
gardens, and orchards, while here and there groups of great trees
served as ornament.
Around all these islands were well-sweeps, with buckets by which
bronze-hued naked men with dirty breech clouts raised water from the
Nile and poured it into higher reservoirs. One such place was in the
prince's mind especially. That was a steep eminence on the side of
which three men were working at three well-sweeps. One poured water
from the river into the lowest well; another drew from the lowest and
raised water two yards higher to a middle place; the third raised
water from the middle to the highest place. There some people, also
naked, drew water in buckets, and irrigated beds of vegetables, or
watered trees from sprinkling-pots.
The movement of the sweeps going down and rising, the turn of the
buckets, the gushing of the pots was so rhythmic that the men who
caused it might be thought automatons. No one of them spoke to his
neighbor, no man changed place or looked about him; he merely bent and
rose in one single method from daylight until evening, from one month
to another, and doubtless he had worked thus from childhood and would
so work till death took him.
"And creatures such as these," thought the prince, as he looked at
their toil, "desire me to realize their imaginings. What change in the
state can they wish? Is it that he who draws from the lowest well
should go to the highest, or instead of pouring from a bucket should
sprinkle trees with a watering-pot?"
Anger rose to his head, and humiliation crushed him because he, the
heir to the throne, thanks to the fables of creatures like those who
nodded all their lives over wells of dirty water, was not now the
vice-pharaoh.
At that moment he heard a low rustle among the trees, and delicate
hands rested on his shoulder.
"Well, Sarah?" asked the prince, without turning his head.
"Thou art sad, my lord. Moses was not so delighted at sight of the
promised land as I was at those words of thine: 'I am coming to live
with thee.' But thou art a day and a night here, and I have not seen
thy smile yet. Thou dost not even speak to me, but movest about in
gloom, and at night thou dost not fondle me, but only sighest."
"I have trouble."
"Tell me what it is. Grief is like a treasure given to be guarded. As
long as we guard it ourselves even sleep flees away, and we find
relief only when we put some one else to watch for us."
Rameses embraced Sarah, and seated her on the bench at his side.
"When an earth-tiller," said he, smiling, "is unable to bring in all
his crops from the field before the overflow, his wife helps him. She
helps him to milk cows too, she takes out food to the field for him,
she washes the man on his return from labor. Hence the belief has come
that woman can lighten man's troubles."
"Dost thou not believe this, lord?"
"The cares of a prince," answered Rameses, "cannot be lightened by a
woman, even by one as wise and powerful as my mother."
"In God's name, what are thy troubles? Tell me," insisted Sarah,
drawing up to the shoulder of Prince Rameses. "According to our
traditions, Adam left Paradise for Eve; and he was surely the greatest
king in the most beautiful kingdom."
The prince became thoughtful.
"Our sages also teach," said he, "that man has often abandoned
dignities for woman, but it has not been heard that any man ever
achieved something great through a woman; unless he was a leader to
whom a pharaoh gave his daughter, with a great dowry and high office.
But a woman cannot help a man to reach a higher place or even help him
out of troubles."
"This may be because she does not love as I do," whispered Sarah.
"Thy love for me is wonderful, I know that. Never hast thou asked for
gifts, or favored those who do not hesitate to seek success even under
the beds of princes' favorites. Thou art milder than a lamb, and as
calm as a night on the Nile. Thy kisses are like perfume from the land
of Punt, and thy embrace as sweet as the sleep of a wearied laborer.
I have no measure for thy beauty, or words for thy attractions. Thou
art a marvel among women; women's lips are rich in trouble and their
love is very costly. But with all thy perfection how canst thou ease
my troubles? Canst thou cause his holiness to order a great expedition
to the East and name me to command it? Canst thou give me the army
corps in Memphis, for which I asked, or wilt thou, in the pharaoh's
name, make me governor of Lower Egypt? Or canst thou bring all
subjects of his holiness to think and feel as I, his most devoted
subject?"
Sarah dropped her hands on her knees, and whispered sadly, "True, I
cannot do those things--I can do nothing."
"Thou canst do much. Thou canst cheer me," replied Rameses, smiling.
"I know that thou hast learned to dance and sing. Take off those long
robes, therefore, which become priestesses guarding fire, and array
thyself in transparent muslin, as Phoenician dancers do. And so dance
and fondle me as they."
Sarah seized his hands and cried with flaming eyes,--
"Hast thou to do with outcasts such as these? Tell me--let me know my
wretchedness; send me then to my father, send me to our valley in the
desert. Oh, that I had never seen thee in it!"
"Well, well, calm thyself," said the prince, toying with her hair. "I
must of course see dancers, if not at feasts, at royal festivals, or
during services in temples. But all of them together do not concern me
as much as thou alone; moreover, who among them could equal thee? Thy
body is like a statue of Isis, cut out of ivory, and each of those
dancers has some defect. Some are too thick; others have thin legs or
ugly hands; still others have false hair. Who of them is like thee? If
thou wert an Egyptian, all our temples would strive to possess thee as
the leader of their chorus. What do I say? Wert thou to appear now in
Memphis in transparent robes, the priests would be glad if thou
wouldst take part in processions."
"It is not permitted us daughters of Judah to wear immodest garments."
"Nor to dance or sing? Why didst thou learn, then?"
"Our women dance, and our virgins sing by themselves for the glory of
the Lord, but not for the purpose of sowing fiery seeds of desire in
men's hearts. But we sing. Wait, my lord, I will sing to thee."
She rose from the bench and went toward the house. Soon she returned
followed by a young girl with black, frightened eyes, who was bearing
a harp.
"Who is this maiden?" asked the prince. "But wait I have seen that
look somewhere. Ah! when I was here the last time a frightened girl
looked from the bushes at me."
"This is Esther, my relative and servant," answered Sarah. "She has
lived with me a month now, but she fears thee, lord, so she runs away
always. Perhaps she looked at thee sometime from out the bushes."
"Thou mayst go, my child," said the prince to the maiden, who seemed
petrified, and when she had hidden behind the bushes, he asked,--
"Is she a Jewess too? And this guard of thy house, who looks at me as
a sheep at a crocodile?"
"That is Samuel the son of Esdras; he also is a relative. I took him
in place of the black man to whom thou hast given freedom. But hast
thou not permitted me to choose my servants?"
"That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, for
he has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which no
Egyptian could imitate."
"That," answered Sarah, "is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative of
my father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy very
faithful servants."
"Does he please me," said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with his
fingers on the bench. "He is not here to please me, but to guard thy
property. For that matter, these people do not concern me. Sing,
Sarah."
Sarah knelt on the grass at the prince's feet, and playing a few notes
as accompaniment, began,--
"Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumber
has the right to say: This is a day that I have spent without sorrow?
Where is the man who lying down for the grave, can say: My life has
passed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.
"But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, and
whose houses are filled with sighing.
"A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his
farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of
sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he
would like to be.
"Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness of
being? Is it the child which death has snatched from its mother, or is
it the babe whose mother's breast was drained by hunger ere the little
one could place lips to it?
"Where is the man who is sure of his fate, the man who can look with
unfailing eye at the morrow? Does he who toils on the field know that
rain is not under his power, and that not he shows its way to the
locust swarm? Does the merchant who gives his wealth to the winds,
which come he knows not whence, and his life to the waves on that
abyss which swallows all, and returns nothing?
"Where is the man without dread in his spirit? Is it the hunter who
chases the nimble deer and on the road meets a lion which mocks at his
arrows? Is it the warrior who goes forth to gain glory with toiling,
and meets a forest of sharp lances and bronze swords which are
thirsting for his life blood? Is it the great king who under his
purple puts on heavy armor, who spies out with sleepless eye the
treachery of overpowering neighbors, and seizes with his ear the
rustle of the curtain lest treason overturn him in his own tent?
"For this reason men's hearts in all places and at all times are
overflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion are
his danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonous
serpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decrease
his land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the door
to his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped of
strength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whale
is surrounded by abysses of water.
"Therefore, O Lord, my Creator, to Thee the tortured human soul turns
itself. Thou hast brought it into a world full of ambushes, Thou hast
grafted into it the terror of extinction. Thou hast barred before it
all roads of peace, save the one road which leads to Thee. And as a
child which cannot walk grasps its mother's skirt lest it fall, so
wretched man stretches forth his hands toward Thy tenderness, and
struggles out of uncertainty."
Sarah was silent; the prince fell into meditation, and then said,--
"Ye Jews are a gloomy nation. If men in Egypt believed as thy song
teaches, no one would laugh on the banks of the Nile. The wealthy
would hide in underground temples through terror, and the people,
instead of working, would flee to caves, look out and wait for mercy
which would never come to them.
"Our world is different: in it a man may have everything, but he
himself must do everything. Our gods help no idleness. They come to
the earth only when a hero dares a deed which is superhuman and when
he exhausts every power present. Such was the case with Rameses the
Great when he rushed among two thousand five hundred hostile chariots,
each of which carried three warriors. Only then did Amon the eternal
father reach his hand down and end the battle with victory. But if
instead of fighting he had waited for the aid of your God, long ago
would the Egyptians have been moving along the Nile, each of them
bearing a brick and a bucket, while the vile Hittites would be masters
going around with clubs and papyruses.
"Therefore, Sarah, thy charms will scatter my sorrows sooner than thy
song. If I had acted as your Jewish song teaches, and waited for
divine assistance, wine would have flowed away from my lips, and women
would have fled from my household.
"Above all, I could not be the pharaoh's heir any more than my
brothers, one of whom does not leave his room without leaning on two
slaves, while the other climbs along tree trunks."