Thus I collected my debt from Nefernefernefer who owed me a lot on my father’s and mother’s account. I wondered how she would feel when she awoke in the recesses of the House of Death, robbed of her wealth and might and in the power of corpse washers and embalmers for if I knew anything of them, they would never let her return to the light of day. This was my revenge, for it was through her that I ever came to know the House of Death. But my revenge was childish, as I was later to discover — but it is not yet time to tell about that. All I shall say is that perhaps revenge is intoxicating and has a sweet taste, but of all the flowers of life, its bloom goes by the quickest, and behind the heat of revenge one meets the skull of death. For if my revenge was intoxicating and like heat to me, biting my body from head to toe at the moment of its fulfilment, the intoxication evaporated when I left the House of Death and was replaced by shivering coldness and the feeling of being without a purpose, making my head hollow like an eggshell blown empty. I was not comforted by the thought that perhaps I had saved many silly young men from shame and early death since demise, shame and death followed every step of Nefernefernefer’s bare feet. No, this thought was no comfort to me, for if everything has its purpose, so had also Nefernefernefer’s existence, and women like her were needed in the world to test hearts. But if there was no purpose in anything, then also my deed was empty and meaningless like all other deeds of men are, since my joy from it had evaporated in an instant. And if there was no purpose in anything, then it was better to drown in a river and let the river take the body with it.
I went to The Crocodile’s Tail and saw Merit and said to her, “I have collected my debt, and in a more terrible manner than anyone has ever come up with. But my revenge gives me no joy, and my heart is yet emptier than before, and despite the heat of the night my limbs are cold.”
I drank wine, and the wine was like dust in my mouth, and I said to her, “May my body perish if ever I lay my hand upon a woman again, for the more I think of woman, the more do I fear her since her body is a dry desert and her heart a deadly trap.”
She stroked my hands with hers, and her brown eyes looked into mine as she said, “Sinuhe, you have never known a woman who wished you only well.”
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Then I said, “May all the gods of Egypt save me from a woman who wishes me well for also Pharaoh wishes only well, and the river is full of floating corpses because of his well wishing.” I drank wine and wept and said, “Merit, your cheeks are smooth as glass and your hands are warm. Let me touch your cheeks with my mouth tonight and keep my cold hands in your warm hands so that I may sleep without dreaming, and I will give you whatever you desire.”
She smiled sadly and said, “Although I suspect that the crocodile’s tail speaks through your mouth, I am accustomed to that, and I take no offence. Know therefore, Sinuhe, that I require nothing of you and never in my life have required anything of a man, and from none have I taken a gift of any value; but if I want to give something, then I give it from my own heart, and I gladly give you what you ask, for I am as lonely as you.”
She took the wine cup from my trembling hand, and having spread her mat for me, she lay down beside me, warming my hands in hers. I touched her smooth cheeks with my mouth and breathed in the fragrance of cedar from her skin and took pleasure with her; and she was to me as my father and my mother, and she was to me as a brazier on a winter’s night, and she was as a beacon on the shore that guides the seaman home through a night of tempest. Also she was as Minea when I fell asleep, Minea whom I had lost forever, and I lay against her as if on the floor of the sea with Minea and saw no evil dreams but slept soundly, while she whispered in my ear such words as mothers whisper whose children fear the dark. From that night, she was my friend, for in her arms I could believe once more that there was something greater than myself within me and beyond my knowledge, for which it was worthwhile to live.
Next morning, I said to her, “Merit, I have broken a jar with a woman who is now dead, but I still keep the silver ribbon which once bound her long hair. Yet for the sake of our friendship, Merit, I am ready to break the jar with you if you wish it.”
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