The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

once longed for was apparent here, in sinister perversion. All deformities in Pharaoh’s body had been unnaturally emphasised — the swollen thighs, the slender ankles, and the thin, fanatical neck — as if they possessed some secret, divine significance. Most terrifying of all was Pharaoh’s face — that queerly long face with the slanting eyebrows and prominent cheekbones; with the secret, mysterious smile of the dreamer and blasphemer hovering about the thick lips. In Amun’s Temple the stone Pharaohs sat on either side of the pylons: majestic, godlike giants. Here, this swollen, gangling man stared down from forty pillars on to the altars of Aten. As a man, he saw from the pillars further than other men, and the whole of his stone-imprisoned form was tense with fanaticism and fascinated taunt.

I trembled to the depths of my being when I beheld these pillars, because for the first time I was seeing the fourth Amenhotep as he may have seen himself. I had met him once when he was a youth, sick, frail, puny, racked by the holy sickness, and surveying him in my too callow wisdom with the cold-blooded eye of a researcher and a physician I had taken his words for the sick ravings of delirium. Now I saw him as the artist had seen him, perhaps simultaneously loving and hating him, an artist unrivalled in Egypt for his courage for if any forerunner of his had dared to create such a likeness of Pharaoh, he would have been mutilated and hung head downward on the wall as a blasphemer.

There were not many people in this temple either. Some of the men and women, to judge by the royal linen — heavy collars and jewels they wore — were members of the royal household and nobles. The common folk listened to the chanting of the priests with a clear mindless expression on their faces, for the priests sang new texts, and it would have been altogether tiresome to think what they meant. They differed from the ancient texts that had been handed down for several thousand years since the building of the pyramids, and the ears of the faithful were accustomed to their words since childhood so that they recognised and understood them with their hearts though they might not often reflect upon their content — that is, if they still had any content, for I think to such an extent their original purpose has been changed and mixed up after generations of false repetitions and hard-working copy errors of the scribe priests.

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Yet when the hymn was over, an old man, who from his dress seemed to be a countryman, stepped reverently forward to speak with the priests in order to buy an appropriate talisman or a protecting eye or a strip of paper inscribed with some magic text if these were to be had at a moderate price. The priests told him that such objects were not sold in this temple since Aten needed no spells nor papers but approached anyone who believed in him without asking for sacrifices or gifts. Hearing this, the old man became greatly displeased and went his way muttering defaming words about deceitful foolery, and I saw him enter the old familiar pylon gate of Amun.

Next, an elderly fisherwoman approached the priests and looked at them with devout benevolence in her eyes and asked, “Does no one offer rams or oxen to Aten, so that you poor, skinny lads can get a little meat now and then? If your god is as strong and powerful as he is said to be, stronger even than Amun though this I cannot quite believe, his priests should be fat and gleam with oil. I am but a simple woman and know no better, but from my heart I could wish you much meat and fat.”

The priests laughed and whispered amongst themselves like mischievous boys until the eldest of them regained his gravity and said to the woman, “Aten desires no blood sacrifices, and it is not fitting that in his temple you should speak of Amun, for Amun is a false god whose throne is soon to fall and whose Temple will crumble in ruins.”

The woman stepped back hastily, spitting on the ground and making the holy sign of Amun, and said hastily, “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 priests laughed loudly and called after the people with one voice, “Go then, you of little faith, but Amun is a false god! Amun 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 Amun’s Temple.

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

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