The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

outside the harbour, the men shipped their oars, and the captain made sacrifice to the sea god and other gods in his cabin and gave orders for the hoisting of the sail. The vessel heeled over, and waves thundered against its sides. We sailed towards the Syrian coast until Crete vanished behind us like a blue cloud or a shadow or a dream — and we were alone on the rolling expanse of the ocean.

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Book 9: The Crocodile’s Tail

So I ripened to manhood, and when I returned to Zemar, I was no longer young for I had been absent from that city for three years, during which I had acquired knowledge, both good and evil, of many countries. The ocean winds blew the wine fumes from my head, cleared my eyes and restored strength to my limbs so that I ate and drank and behaved like other people, save that I spoke less than they and was even more solitary than before. Solitude is part of manhood — if that is decided — but I had been lonely from childhood, a stranger in the world since the reed boat had carried me to the Theban shore so that I had no need to adapt myself to loneliness as many must, since from the beginning it was home to me and a bed in the dark.

But as I stood by the ship’s figurehead amidst the green, rolling waters and the wind blew folly from my mind, I still saw two green eyes like moonlight on the sea, and from very far I heard Minea’s spontaneous laughter and watched her dance on a threshing floor beside the roads of Babylon in her flimsy dress, young and slight as a tender reed. And her image was not grievous and painful to me but rather a sweet torment such as a man feels on waking from a dream that is lovelier than life. When I thought of her, I rejoiced at having known her and would not have renounced one moment of her company, knowing that without her there I would have been less of myself. The ship’s figurehead was of cold, painted wood, but the face was a woman’s, and as I stood beside it with my face to the wind, I felt my manhood strong within me and was aware that I would yet rejoice with many women in my life since for a solitary man it is comfortless to lie every night alone. Yet I believed that to me all these women would be but painted wooden figures and that, when in the darkness I embraced them, I should seek in them only Minea, only the glint of moonlight, the warmth of a slender body, the fragrance of cypress, which would remind me of Minea. Thus, by the figurehead of the ship, I bade farewell to Minea.

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