And the days passed by. As the king had said, the boy was free. But
he stayed on at the palace because he hoped one day to find the room in
which the manuscripts were kept. He often strolled through the town
and the palm-grove down to the river to see his parents. Thousands of
slaves were working at the sluices of the stream which fertilised the
land. The overseer scourged them lustily, so that many of them fell
down exhausted and even dying. Jesus looked on and denounced such
barbarity, until he, too, received a blow. Then he went out to the
Pyramids where the Pharaohs slept, and listened if they were not
weeping. He went into the Temple of Osiris and looked at the monster
idols, fat, soulless, ugly, between the rounded pillars. He searched
the palace untiringly for the hall in which the writings were kept, and
at last he came upon it. But it was closed: its custodians were
hunting jackals and tigers in the desert. They found it dark and
dreary there among the great minds of old; the splendour and luxury of
the court did not penetrate to the hall of writings.
Then nights came again when whispers ran through the halls, "Pharaoh
weeps." And the reason, too, was whispered. He had caused the woman
he loved best to be strangled, and now the astrologers declared that
she was innocent. One day the king lay on his couch and desired that
the boy from the Nile should be summoned to fan him. As the king was
sick, Jesus agreed to go. Pharaoh was ill-humoured and impatient,
neither fan nor fanning was right, and when the boy left off that was
not right either.
Then Jesus said suddenly: "Pharaoh, you are sick."
The king stared at him in astonishment. A page dare to open his mouth
and speak to the Son of Light! When, however, he saw the sad, sincere
expression of sympathy in the boy's countenance ho became calmer, and
said; "Yes, my boy, I am sick."
"King," said Jesus, "I know what is the matter with you."
"You know!"
"You keep shadows within and light without. Reverse it."
Directly the boy had said that Pharaoh got up, thinner and taller than
he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
light in his eyes.
The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.
But his words were not forgotten. In the noise and tumult of the
daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
Bring the light inside!"
Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
Pyramid. He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
goat of the desert which furnished him with milk. And as he kept
always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun. Both
were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah. The
hermit was one who had surely reversed things--shadow without and light
within. When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
cave-dweller in order to find wisdom. At first the old man would not
let him come in. What had young blood to do with wisdom?
"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
writings."
The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying? I want it for
living."
Then the old man let him in.
Jesus now visited the wise man every day and listened to his teachings
about the world and life, and also about eternal life. The hermit
spoke of the transmigration of souls, how in the course of ages souls
must pass through all beings, live through all the circles of
existence, according as their conduct led them upwards to the gods, or
downwards to the worms in the mud. Therefore we should love the
animals which the souls of men may inhabit. He spoke with deep awe of
the serpent Kebados, and of the sublime Apis in the Temple of Memphis.
He lost himself in all the depths and shoals of thought, verified
everything by the hieroglyphics, and declared it to be scientific
truth. So that the man who lived in the dark discoursed to the boy on
light. He spoke of the all-holy sun-god Osiris who created everything
and destroyed everything--the great, the adorable Osiris by whose eye
every creature was absorbed. Then he would again solemnly and
mysteriously murmur incomprehensible formulae, and the eager boy grew
weary. Here, too, something evidently had to be reversed. So
thinking, he went quietly forth and left the little gate open. When
the old man looked up at him, there he was in the open air pasturing
the goat, who, delighted at her liberty, was capering round on the
grass.
"Why do you not show your reverence for truth?" he said, reprovingly.
And Jesus: "Don't you see that I am proving my reverence for your
teaching. You say: We must love animals. Therefore I led the goat out
into the open air, that she may feed on the fragrant grass. You say
that we should kindle our eye at that of the sun-god, therefore I went
out with the goat from the dark vault into the bright sunlight."
"You must learn to understand the writings."
"I want to know living creatures."
The old man looked at the boy with an air of vexation. "Tell me, you
bold son of man, under what sign of the zodiac were you born?"
"Under that of the ox and the ass," answered the boy Jesus.
The man of learning immediately hurried into his cave, lighted his
lamp, and consulted his hieroglyphics. Under the ox and the ass--he
grew afraid. Away with Libra, away with Libra! He investigated yet
again. It stood written on the stone and in the roll. He went out
again, and looked at the boy, but differently from before, uneasily, in
great excitement.
"Listen, boy, I've cast your horoscope."
"What is it?"
"By the ancient and sacred signs I've read your fate. Knowing under
what sign of the zodiac and under which stars you were born, I can
enlighten you as to the fate you go to meet so callously. Do you
desire to know it?"
"If I desire to know it, I will ask my Father."
"Is your father an astrologer?"
"He guides the stars in their courses,"
"He guides the stars in their courses? What do you mean? You are a
fool, a godless fool. You will learn what terrors await you. This
arrogance is the beginning. His Father guides the stars in their
courses indeed!"