“Do as I command if you wish to stay with me,” I said. “If this simple house is not to your mind and if the reek of the poor offends your nose that has become delicate in Syria, then you are free to come and go as you choose. I fancy you have stolen enough from me to be able to buy your own house and to take a wife if you so desire. I shall not prevent you.”
“A wife?” exclaimed Kaptah in still greater dismay. “Truly, my lord, you are sick and feverish in the head. Why should I take a wife, who would oppress me and smell my breath when I returned from the city and who, when I awake in the morning with an aching head, would be standing beside me with a stick in her hand and a mouth full of evil words? Why take a wife when the commonest slave girl will do my business, but I have already debated this matter with you. No doubt the gods have punished you with sickness, and that is nothing to wonder about since I know what you think of gods, but you are my lord, your way is my way and your punishment mine — although I had thought to reach peace and quiet at last after all the terrible hardships you have forced on me, not to even mention sea travels which I do not want to think about. If rushes are good enough for you to sleep on, then they suffice me also, and the wretchedness about us has this advantage that there are taverns and pleasure houses within reach, and the tavern called The Crocodile’s Tail, of which I have spoken, lies not far away. I hope you will excuse me if I take myself there today and get drunk, for all this has shaken me severely, and I need to recover somehow. Although always when looking at you I anticipate bad things and I can never know beforehand what you say or do because you do everything contrary to normal people, but this I could not have believed. Only a madman hides a jewel in a dung heap, yet in the same manner you bury your skill and your science in trash.”
“Kaptah,” I said. “Everyone is born naked into the world, and in disease there is no difference between poor and rich, Egyptians and Syrians.”
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“That may be, but there is a great difference in the gifts they bring their doctor,” said Kaptah sententiously. “Yours is a beautiful thought, and I should have nothing against it, were some other man but you to put it into effect, now that at last after all our miseries we are able to swing on the golden bough. This notion of yours better suits one born into slavery, and I myself had such thoughts when I was younger, until the stick drove sense into me.”
“That you may know my full purpose,” I said still, “I will tell you that should I ever come on an abandoned child, I shall adopt it and bring it up as mine.”
“And for what reason?” asked Kaptah bewildered. “There is a home for abandoned children in the Temple, and some of them are brought up to be low-grade priests, while others, being made eunuchs, lead a more brilliant life in the women’s houses of Pharaoh and of the nobles than their mothers could ever have dreamt of. On the other hand, if you desire a son, which is understandable, nothing is easier to achieve if you just don’t in your foolishness go and break a jar with some unknown woman who would bring nothing but harm on us. Should you not wish to buy a female slave, you can always seduce some poor girl who would be happy and thankful to you for caring for her child and so freeing her from shame. But children are troublesome and a nuisance and the joy of them is certainly exaggerated, although I cannot say much about this since I have never seen any of mine, of whom I have all the reasons to assume there are many in various directions of the wind. You would be wiser to buy a young slave girl this very day for she would also be of help to me, for my limbs are stiff, and my hands shake as a result of all our hardships, especially in the mornings, and to look after your house and prepare your food is too much for me to do when I also have to supervise investing your assets.”
“I had not thought of that, Kaptah,” I said. “Yet I shall not buy a slave, but you may hire a servant if you wish, for you have deserved it. If you remain in my house, you are free to come and go as you please because of your fidelity, and I believe that with the help of your thirst, you can obtain much valuable information for me. Therefore, do as I have said and ask me no more questions, for my resolve has been formed by something within me that is stronger than myself, and I cannot revoke it.”
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