The Egyptian (38 page)

The woman stepped back hastily, spitting on the ground and making the holy sign of Ammon, and she cried, “It was you who said that and not I. May the curse fall on you.”

She hurried away, and with her went others, who glanced over their shoulders at the priests in dismay. But these laughed loudly and called after the people with one voice, “Go then, ye of little faith—but Ammon is a false god! Ammon is an idol, and his dominion shall fall like grass beneath the sickle.”

Then one of those who retreated took a stone and threw it, and it struck one of the priests in the face so that blood flowed. He covered his face with his hands, lamenting bitterly, while the other priests began to call for the guards. But the aggressor had already taken to his heels and mingled with the throng before the pylons of Ammon’s temple.

All this gave me much to think about. Going up to the priests, I said to them, “I am indeed an Egyptian, but I have long dwelt in Syria and do not know this new god whom you call Aton. Will you not in charity enlighten my ignorance and explain to me who he is, what he requires, and how he is to be worshiped?”

They hesitated and studied my face, suspecting mockery, but at length they answered, “Aton is the one god. He has created the land and the river, mankind and the beasts, and all that is upon earth. He is eternal and was worshiped as Ra in his earlier manifestations, but in our own time he has revealed himself as Aton to his son Pharaoh, who lives by truth. He is the only god, and all others are idols. He spurns no one who turns to him. Rich and poor are equal in his sight, and every morning we greet him in the disk of the sun. He blesses the earth with his rays; he shines upon good and evil alike and offers to everyone the cross of life. If you receive it, you are his servant, for his being is love. He is deathless and eternal and everywhere present; nothing can come to pass without his will. By the power of Aton Pharaoh can look into the hearts of all men and see even their most secret thoughts.”

But I protested, “Then he is not human, for it lies in the power of no man to see into the heart of another.”

They conferred with one another, and replied, “Though Pharaoh himself may desire to be no more than human, yet we do not doubt that in essence he is divine, and this is shown by his visions during which he can live many lives in a short space of time. But this can be known only by those whom he loves, for which reason the artist has portrayed him on these pillars as both man and woman since Aton is the living force that quickens the seed of man and brings forth the child from the womb.”

Then I raised my hands in mock despair, and clutching my head exclaimed, “I am but a simple man, as simple as that woman just now, and I cannot altogether grasp this wisdom of yours. Moreover it appears obscure even to yourselves since you must take counsel with one another before you can reply to me.”

They rejoined eagerly, “Aton is perfect even as the disk of the sun is perfect, and all that is and lives and breathes in him is perfect. Human thought is imperfect and like a mist, and therefore we cannot perfectly enlighten you since we ourselves do not know all but must learn his will day by day. To Pharaoh alone is his will wholly revealed—to Pharaoh his son, who lives by truth.”

The words struck home, for they showed me that these priests were steadfast in their hearts even though they dressed in fine linen and oiled their hair and delighted in the admiration of women and made fun of the simple. The element in me that had come to maturity, independently of my will or learning, responded to these words. For the first time I reflected that human thought might indeed be imperfect and that beyond it there might exist such things as the eye could not see, nor the ear hear, nor the hand grasp. Could it be that Pharaoh and his priests had found this ultimate truth and named it Aton?

It was dusk when I returned to my house. Above my door hung a simple signboard, and in the courtyard squatted a few grimy folk patiently awaiting me. Kaptah, looking discontented, was sitting in the porch fanning the flies away from his face and legs with a palm leaf. The flies had come with the patients, but to console him he had a newly broached jar of ale.

I bade him first send in to me a mother who held an emaciated baby in her arms. The remedy for her was a few copper pieces with which to buy herself proper food so that she might suckle her child. Next I tended a slave who had crushed some fingers in a mill, setting the bones and joints in place and administering a soothing draught that he might forget his pain. Then came an old scribe with a growth as big as a child’s head upon his neck, so that he was pop eyed and held his head awry and found difficulty in breathing. I gave him an extract of seaweed that I had learned of in Smyrna, although I did not think it could do much for him now. He brought out two copper pieces from a clean rag and offered them to me with pleading eyes, ashamed of his poverty. I did not take them, telling him that I should call upon his services when next I needed any writing done. He departed rejoicing because he had saved his money.

A girl from a nearby pleasure house also begged my help, for her eyes were so scabby that they handicapped her in her profession. I cleansed her eyes and mixed her a lotion with which to bathe them and rid them of the evil. Shyly she stood naked before me to offer me the only gift she had. Being unwilling to wound her by a rebuff, I told her that I must abstain from women on account of an important treatment I was about to give. She this believed and admired me for my self-discipline. Moreover, so that her willingness might not be altogether in vain, I removed a few disfiguring warts from her flank and belly, having first rubbed in a numbing salve to render the operation almost painless, and she went her way rejoicing.

Thus my first day’s work brought me less than enough to buy salt for my bread, and Kaptah sneered as he served me with a fat goose prepared in the Theban manner, a dish unmatched in any other part of the world. He had brought it from a superior wine shop in the city and kept it hot in the roasting pit. He poured into a colored glass goblet the best wine from Ammon’s vineyard, mocking me meanwhile for my profitable day’s work. But I was light of heart and happier because of the work than if I had treated a wealthy merchant and been rewarded with a gold chain. And I should add that the mill slave returned in a few days to show me his fingers, which were healing well, and to give me a whole crock of meal he had stolen for me, whereby my first day’s work did not go wholly unrewarded.

But Kaptah said, “I believe that from today your fame will spread throughout the quarter, and by dawn your courtyard will be full of patients. I seem to hear the beggars babbling to one another, ‘Hasten to the copperfounder’s house at the corner, for a physician has come there who heals the sick without payment, painlessly and with great skill, who gives copper to penniless mothers and performs beautifying operations on poor girls from the pleasure houses, requiring no gifts. Hasten thither! The firstcomer gets most, for the man will soon be obliged to sell his house and go elsewhere.’

“But the blockheads are wrong. By good fortune you are the possessor of gold, which I shall cunningly set to work for you. Never in your life need you suffer want but may eat goose every day if you wish and drink the best wine and still prosper, provided you are content to remain in this modest house. But since you never conduct yourself as others do, I shall not be surprised to wake one morning with ashes in my hair because you have sold the house and me with it—such is the fatal restlessness of your heart. Truly, it would not astonish me; therefore, lord, it would be as well to record on paper that I am free to come and go as I please, and to dispatch this paper to the royal archives. The spoken word is forgotten and vanishes, but paper endures forever if it bear your seal in clay and if you offer suitable gifts to the King’s scribes. I have a special reason for this request of mine, but I shall not at this time trouble your head and waste your time with it.”

It was a mild evening in spring; the fires of dung crackled before the mud huts, and from the harbor the wind bore the scent of cedarwood and of the perfumed waters of Syria. The fragrance of the acacias blended sweetly with the reek of fried fish. I had eaten goose prepared in the Theban manner and drunk wine, and I was full of contentment.

I bade Kaptah pour wine for himself also in an earthenware cup, and I said, “You are free, Kaptah, and have long been so as you know, for notwithstanding your impudence you have been my friend rather than my slave since the day when you lent me silver and copper, believing that you would never see it again. Be free, Kaptah, and be happy! Tomorrow the King’s scribe shall make out the legal papers upon which I will affix both my Egyptian and my Syrian seals. But tell me now in what manner you have invested my fortune so that it works for me though I earn nothing. Did you take the gold to the temple coffers as I bade you?”

“No, lord!” answered Kaptah, looking me straight in the face with his one eye. “I did not do your bidding as it was foolish, and I have never obeyed your foolish orders but have acted according to my own good sense. I can safely tell you this now that I am free and you have drunk wine in moderation and will not be wroth. Moreover, knowing your hasty and impulsive nature, which age has not yet mellowed, I have taken the precaution of hiding your stick. I tell you this so that you may not attempt to find it when I have begun to relate what I have done. Only simpletons send their gold to the temple for safekeeping, for the temple pays them nothing for it but rather exacts gifts for hiding it in cellars and setting a guard on it. It is stupid for this reason also: The taxation department then knows the amount of your gold, with the result that it dwindles rapidly away where it lies until there is none left. The only reasonable purpose in amassing gold is to put it out to work so that one may sit with folded hands and chew lotus seeds roasted in salt to induce a pleasurable thirst. I have run about the city all day on my stiff legs to inquire as to the best manner of placing your funds, while you took your walks abroad. Thanks to my thirst I learned a great deal, among other things that Ammon is selling land.”

“Therein you lie!” I exclaimed, for the mere notion was absurd. “Ammon never sells—he buys. Ammon has always bought and now ownS one fourth of all the land in the country. And what he has once held he will never relinquish.”

“Of course, of course,” said Kaptah soothingly, pouring more wine into my glass beaker and—with less ostentation—into his own earthenware one. “Every sensible man knows that land is the only property that endures and maintains its value, provided one remains on good terms with the surveyors and has the wit to reward them after each floodtime. Nevertheless it is true that Ammon is selling land hastily and in secret to any of the faithful who have money. I also was greatly dismayed to hear of this and inquired into it more closely. Ammon is indeed selling land, and cheaply. You know that he owns the most fertile tracts, and if matters stood as they did formerly, nothing would be more tempting than such a purchase, for profit is sure and speedy. Ammon has sold very extensive areas of land and amassed in his vaults all the ready gold in Egypt, so that the price of real estate has dropped to a marked degree. But all these matters are secret, and I should have heard nothing of them had not my most serviceable thirst brought me among the very men who know.”

“Do not tell me you have bought land, Kaptah?” I cried in dismay, but he reassured me.

“I am not so foolish, lord, for you should know that I was not born with dung between the toes, slave though I am, but in a stone-paved street among tall houses. I know nothing of land. Ammon’s offer is so strangely tempting that a jackal must be lurking in it somewhere, and this is borne out by wealthy men’s suspicions of the temple safes. I believe that the whole affair is the result of Pharaoh’s new god. But I, seeking only your advantage, have bought for you a number of profitable buildings in the city: shops and dwelling houses, for these pay a substantial yearly rent. The purchases await only your seal and signature to be complete. Believe me, I have bought them cheap, and should the sellers make me presents afterward, that is none of your affair but a matter between myself and them arising out of their stupidity. In these dealings I steal nothing whatever from you. But I would not protest if you were to offer me a present or so since I have arranged the business so favorably.”

I reflected a little and replied, “No, Kaptah, I shall make you no presents because you plainly intend to divert to yourself a portion of the rents and also to make your own arrangements with the builders when they estimate their yearly repairs.”

Kaptah, unabashed, assented readily to my words. “That is exactly how I saw the matter, for as your wealth is my wealth, so your advantage must be mine. Yet I will admit that when I heard of Ammon’s transactions I began to take an intense interest in agriculture. I went to the corn exchange and there wandered from tavern to tavern listening and learning. With your gold and by your permission, lord, I mean to purchase stocks of grain—of next summer’s harvest—that is the most profitable way and the prices are still very reasonable. I propose to keep it in store and carefully secured, for something tells me that the price of corn will rise as time goes on. Now that Ammon is selling and every fool becomes a farmer, the harvest cannot continue to be so abundant as formerly. Therefore I have bought storehouses for the grain, dry and soundly built; when we no longer have need of them we can lease them to corn merchants on advantageous terms.”

To my mind Kaptah was giving himself unnecessary trouble and vexation, but the plans amused him and I had nothing against the investments so long as I had not to concern myself with their management. And I told him so.

Studiously concealing his satisfaction, he went on with an air of irritation, “There was a further most profitable enterprise that I desired to engage in on your behalf. One of the largest slave-trading houses is for sale, and I think I may say that I know all that is to be known about slaves, having been one my whole life; I should certainly make you rich in a very short time. I know how to conceal faults and failings in a slave and can use a stick to the best advantage—something you cannot do, lord, if you will allow me to mention it now that your stick is hidden. Yet I am oppressed by misgivings that this excellent opportunity will be wasted and that you will not agree to the scheme. Am I right?”