Kaptah laughed delightedly, and the laugh rumbled from his belly as from under soft cushions, and Merit also laughed, for she had drunk wine with me and was now leaning back with her hands behind her head so that I might observe how beautiful still were the curves of her breasts beneath her dress. Kaptah laughed and said, “Oh, my lord and master, Sinuhe, I rejoice to see that you have kept your childish disposition and understand no more of everyday things than a swine does of pearls — though it is far from my intention to liken you to a pig but rather I render praise and thanks to all the gods of Egypt on your behalf since they might well have given you as a servant some thief or good-for-nothing who would have beggared you, while I have made you rich.”
I pointed out that he had no need to thank the gods for this but rather my good judgment since I had bought him myself in the slave market with silver and cheaply, because he had lost one eye in a tavern brawl. At the recollection of these things, I was moved and said, “Truly I shall never forget my first sight of you, bound by the ankle to the slave stake and shouting shameless words to the women who passed by or begging beer from the men. Yet I was wise to buy you although I was doubtful of this at first. Nevertheless, I had no more silver back then since I was a young doctor, and you lacked one eye which suited my purposes.”
Kaptah’s face darkened and twisted itself into many folds as he said, “I do not care to be reminded of such old and tedious matters, which are unbecoming to my dignity.” He went on to praise our scarab very highly, saying, “You were wise to leave the scarab with me to watch over your affairs, for it has made you rich and richer than you could ever have dreamed despite the tax gatherers who swarm over me like flies, and I have had to hire two Syrian bookkeepers to keep various books for the sake of taxation, for not even Seth and his devils could make heads or tails of Syrian bookkeeping — and talking of Seth, my thoughts turn to our old friend Horemheb to whom I have lent money in your name as you know. But I didn’t intend to speak of him now but my
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thoughts sprint free like birds in the air from joy upon seeing your innocent face again, my lord, and maybe they sprint because of the wine, too, which I will charge to the expense account; so drink, my lord, as much as your stomach can take, for wine like this even Pharaoh’s cellar doesn’t have often, and I do not steal much from you in its price. Exactly, I intended to speak of your wealth, little though you may grasp of such matters, but I also say that thanks to me, you are richer than many Egyptian nobles and you are rich in the same way as the nobles, for wealth means possession not of gold but of houses and storages and ships and quays, cattle and land and orchards, cows and slaves. You own all these although you may be unaware of it since I have been compelled to enter many items in the names of our servants and our scribes and our slaves to evade taxation. Pharaoh’s taxes bear hardly upon the well-to-do who must pay more than the poor, so while a poor man hands over one fifth of his grain, a rich man is compelled to give a third or even half, and still the tax gatherers are on his back like vultures. This is wrong and the most godless thing that the false Pharaoh has ever done, and nothing like this has ever happened, and his taxation and the loss of Syria has the made the country poor, but what is the most amazing is that — and this must be in gods’ will — when the country becomes poorer, the poor become poorer as well but the most rich become richer than ever, and not even Pharaoh can help that. Rejoice, Sinuhe, for you are extremely rich, and if I share a secret with you, and it is your secret, after all, the reason behind your wealth is grain.”
Having said this, Kaptah drank wine so that wine leaked from the corners of his mouth and stained his clothes, but it did not bother him for he said he would charge the clothes to the expense account or as a gift to a grain trader and so earn more than the clothes cost. He started boasting about his grain deals and said:
“Our scarab is amazing, my lord, in that on the first day of our return from our long travels, it brought me to the wine shop patronised by corn merchants where they get drunk after making large deals. I began at once to purchase grain on your behalf and already in the first year was able to make a great profit since Am—, I mean certain large pieces of land lay fallow and unsown as you know. But grain is a
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