Although none may have witnessed your actions, great Queen Mother, yet the night has seen you, and the night wind has whispered of your deed in many ears, and though you could silence the tongues of men, yet you could not prevent the night wind from gossiping. Nevertheless, the carpet beneath your fingers is an exceedingly cute witch carpet, and I should be grateful for it as a gift and set great value on it — certainly a higher value than anyone else to whom you might give it.”
As I spoke, she grew calmer and continued to work with trembling fingers and drank more beer. When I had stopped, she gave me a cunning look and said, “Perhaps I will give you this mat, Sinuhe, once I have finished it. It is a cute and precious mat since I have made it with my own hands, and therefore it is a royal mat. One gift deserves another. What will you offer me in return, Sinuhe?”
I laughed and answered indifferently, “As a gift in return I will give you my tongue, Queen Mother. Although I would be glad if you would let it stay in my mouth until I die. It will not profit my tongue to speak against you. Therefore, it is yours.”
She muttered to herself and shot me a sidelong glance and said, “Why should I accept as a gift that which is already in my power? No one would stop me from taking your tongue. I might take your hands also so that you could not write what you were prevented from uttering. Furthermore, I could take you to my cellars to greet my dear blacks. You might never return from them since they like to use humans for their sacrifices.”
But I said to her, “Clearly you have drunk too much beer, Queen Mother. Drink no more tonight lest you encounter hippopotamuses in your dreams. My tongue is yours, and I hope to receive your mat when it is finished.” I rose to go, and she did not stop me but giggled as old women do when tipsy, and said, “You divert me greatly, Sinuhe, you divert me greatly.”
I left her and returned unmolested to the city, and Merit shared her mat with me. However, my happiness was not complete any more. My thoughts ran on the soot-blackened reed boat that hung above my mother’s bed and on the dark fingers that fashioned rushes into a mat with fowler’s knots and on the night winds that carried the light boats
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without oarsmen downstream from the walls of the golden house across the river to the Theban shore. I thought about all this, and my happiness was not complete any more, for what increases knowledge, increases vexations, and this was a vexation I could well have dispensed with, being no longer young.
5
The official pretext for my journey to Thebes was a visit to the House of Life for it was years since I had entered the House of Life although my position as royal skull opener entailed this obligation, and I also feared that I might have lost something of my skill, since during the whole of my stay in Akhetaten I had not opened a single skull. So I went to the House of Life, where I discoursed and instructed those pupils who had chosen to specialise in human skull. However, House of Life was not what it used to be, and its importance had greatly diminished since people, even the poor, were not anxious to visit it — and the best physicians had resigned and moved to the city to practice their professions. As students were no longer required to qualify for the lowest grade of priesthood before entering the House of Life, I fancied that knowledge also would have been freed and advanced, because the pupils were no longer forbidden to ask why. But in this I was greatly disappointed for pupils were young and immature and lacking in any desire to ask why, and their highest ambition was to obtain knowledge ready-made from their teachers and have their names entered into the Book of Life so that they might start to practice and earn silver and gold without delay.
There were now so few patients that weeks passed before I had the opportunity to open the three skulls I had set myself as a test for my skill. These operations won me high regard, and both physicians and students flattered me and praised the steadiness and speed of my hands. However, I was oppressed by the suspicion that my hands were less skilful than they had once been. My eyes had dimmed so that I was unable to see and detect disease with my former ease and assurance and was obligated to ask numerous questions and perform lengthy examinations in order to arrive at my conclusions. For this reason, I received patients daily at my house and treated them for nothing, with the sole purpose of regaining my former proficiency.
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