The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

world that will come after me. In that world is neither hatred nor fear, but men share their toil and their bread with one another like brothers, and there are neither rich nor poor amongst them but all are equal and all can write and read what I write to them. And no man says to another, ‘dirty Syrian,’ or ‘miserable black,’ but every man is every man’s brother, and never will there be war in the world. My eyes see all this, and I feel my strength and joy increase so that my heart is near to bursting.”

Once more, I was persuaded of his madness and led him to his sleeping mat and gave him soothing medicine. Yet his words troubled me, and my heart felt the sting of them, for there was something in me that had matured to receive his message. I had seen many nations, and all nations are basically the same; and I had seen many cities and all cities are basically the same; and a real physician could not make a difference between a poor man and a rich man, an Egyptian or a Syrian, but it was a physician’s duty to help everyone. So I said to my heart:

“His madness is great and undoubtedly due to his sickness, but, nevertheless, his madness is sweet and infectious, and I could wish that his visions might come true although my reason tells me that such a world could exist nowhere but in the Western Land. Still my heart cries out that his truth is higher than all other truths that have been spoken before him; and my heart tells me that no greater truth will ever be spoken after him, though I know that bloodshed and ruin will grow from his footprints, and if he lives long enough, he will drown a great kingdom.”

In the darkness of the night, I gazed upon stars and thought, “I, Sinuhe, am a stranger in the world and do not even know who brought me into it. Of my own will, I became a physician to the poor in Thebes, and gold means little to me, though I prefer a fat goose to dry bread and wine to water. But none of that is so important to me that I could not abstain from it. Having no more than my life to lose, why should I not be a prop for his weakness and stand at his side and encourage him without misgivings, for he is Pharaoh, and the power is in his hands, and there is no more wealthy nor more fertile land in the whole world than in Egypt — and who knows, but Egypt might survive this trial alive. If such a thing could be, then indeed the world would be renewed and a new era would begin, and men would be brothers, and there

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would be neither rich nor poor. Never before has a man been offered such an opportunity to bring his truth into being than him, for he is born Pharaoh, and the chance will never come again, but here is the one moment in all ages of the world when his truth may be made reality.”

Such were my waking dreams aboard the King’s rocking ship, while the night wind carried into my nostrils the fragrance of ripe grain and of the threshing floors from the shore. But the night wind chilled my limbs, and the dream died out in my mind, and I said to my heart ruefully, “If only Kaptah were here to hear his words. For although as a physician I am skilled and can heal many maladies, yet the world’s sickness and misery is so great that not all the doctors in the world could have time to cure them even if they knew how to, and there are ills before which physicians are powerless. Thus Akhenaten may be a physician for the human heart, but he cannot be everywhere, and while he brings up others to be physicians for the human heart, they understand only half of his words and twist his thoughts according to their own hearts and desires, and he cannot bring up enough physicians for the human heart during his lifetime so that they could cure the whole world. There are also hearts so hardened and blackened that not even his truth can avail them anything. And Kaptah would say, “Even were the time to come when there would be neither poor nor rich, yet there will always be wise and stupid, sly and simple. So there have ever been and ever will be. The strong man sets his foot on the neck of the weak, and the cunning man runs off with the dumb one’s purse and sets the simpleton to work for him — for a man is a treacherous animal, and even his virtue is imperfect so that only when he lies down never to rise again is he wholly good. Already you may see the fruits of his goodness. Those who have most reason to bless it are the crocodiles of the river and the gorged crows on the Temple roof.”

This way Pharaoh Akhenaten spoke to me, and I spoke to my heart, and my heart was weak and powerless, until on the fifteenth day we reached land that belonged neither to a god nor to any eminent man. From the shore, the mountains shaded from golden yellow into blue, and the soil lay uncultivated, and only a few herdsmen guarded their flocks there and lived in reed huts along the bank. Here Pharaoh went ashore and dedicated the land to Aten in order to found on it the new capital, and this future city he named Akhetaten, the City of the Heavens.

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