The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

He protested eagerly and said, “We believed you to be without prejudice, royal Sinuhe, since you have travelled in many countries and have learned much that is unknown in Egypt. Flowing blood can be staunched without the use of forceps or hot irons. Why then may not cures be effected without knives or fire? Your name shall not be linked with the affair, of that we give our word, but we have our reasons for desiring you in particular to see these things and to satisfy yourself that there is no deception. You are alone, Sinuhe, and an impartial witness, and that is why we want you.”

His words astonished me and whetted my curiosity. As a doctor, I was also ever eager to learn new things. Therefore I agreed to his proposal, and when darkness had fallen, he called at my house with a carrying chair, and in the chair he bound my eyes with a cloth so that I might not see the direction we were taking. On our arrival, he led me through passages and up and down many steps until I was weary and told him I had had enough of the foolery. He pacified me, removed the bandage from my eyes and led me to a hall where many lamps were burning and whose walls were of stone. Three sick people lay on litters on the floor, and a priest came to meet me, his head shaven and gleaming with oil. He addressed me by name and invited me to examine the patients thoroughly and satisfy myself that there was no trickery. His voice was steady and gentle and his aspect wise. I did as he asked and examined the patients, and the surgeon from the House of Life assisted me.

I saw that these people were unfeignedly ill and unable to rise from their litters. One was a young woman whose limbs were shrivelled and thin and totally lifeless, and only her dark, frightened eyes moved in her emaciated face. The second was a boy whose whole body was covered with hideous boils and many watery scabs. The third was an old man whose legs were paralysed so that he could not walk, and the affliction was genuine for though I drove a pin into his leg, he felt no pain. At length, I said to the priest, “I have examined these three patients with my utmost skill, and were I their physician, I could do no more than send them to the House of Life. The woman and the old man could hardly be cured even in the House of Life, although the boy’s sufferings might be alleviated by daily sulphur baths.”

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The priest smiled and bade us both sit on seats that were at the end of the room, in semi-darkness, and wait there patiently. Next, he summoned to the hall slaves who lifted up the sick with their litters and set them on the altar and then kindled an intoxicating incense within censers. From the passage came the sound of singing, and a group of priests entered, chanting the sacred hymns of Amun. Having taken up positions about the sick people, they began to pray and jump and shout. They jumped and shouted until the sweat poured down their faces, and they cast off their shoulder cloths and swung bells in their hands, and gashed their breasts with sharp stones so they bled. I had seen similar rites in Syria, and I contemplated their ecstasy with the cold eye of a physician, until their shouts grew louder, and they beat on the stone walls with their fists, and the stone wall opened, and the sacred image of Amun loomed over them in the lamplight, terrifying and magnificent. At that instant, the priests fell silent, and following all the noise the silence was frightening. The countenance of Amun shone out at us from the dark recess, glowing with celestial light, and suddenly the chief one among the priests stepped forward to the sick people, and calling each of them by name, he cried, “Arise and walk, for great Amun has blessed you because of your faith in him.”

With my own eyes I saw the sick, all three of them, rise uncertainly from their beds, staring at the image of Amun. Trembling all over, they rose to their knees and then stood feeling their limbs incredulously until they broke out into weeping, praying and blessing the name of Amun. The stone walls closed again, the priests departed and the slaves bore away the incense and lit many bright lamps, that we might examine the sick people a second time. Now the young woman could move and walk a few steps when we guided her, the old man could walk by himself, and the eruption had vanished from the skin of the young boy so that his skin was now clean and smooth. All this had taken place within a few water measures’ time, and I could never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.

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