writing and of all sciences, human and divine, so that the impudence of this woman was even greater. The boy slept peacefully in Merit’s arms without feeling the burden of his name and woke only when we were far down the river and the eternal guardians of Thebes sank below the horizon and the sun shone hot and golden on the river. He was a handsome, plump and brown little boy, and his forelocks were black and smooth as silk, and he had no fear of me but crept into my arms, and I liked to hold him so, for he was a quiet child and didn’t kick and struggle as I held him but looked at me with his dark, thoughtful eyes as if he was already contemplating the mysteries of knowledge in his little head. I grew very fond of him for his peacefulness and I made him little boats from rushes and let him play with my doctor’s tools as well as smell the different drugs — for he loved the smell of them and liked to poke his nose into all the jars.
The boy was no trouble to us aboard the ship and neither fell into the water nor stuck his arm into the jaws of any crocodile, nor did he break my reed pens; but our voyage was bright and fortunate, for I travelled with Merit, and every night she lay on the mat beside me, and the little boy slept peacefully near us. It was a happy journey, and until the day of my death, I shall remember the soughing of the reeds in the wind and the evenings when cattle were driven down to the waters’ edge to drink. There were moments when my heart swelled with happiness as a ripe fruit bursts with the abundance of its juice, and I said to Merit:
“Merit, my beloved, let us break the jar that we may be together forever, and perhaps one day you will bear me a son, like this little Thoth. You if anyone could give me just such a gentle and brown and quiet little fellow as he is. Truly I have never before desired children, but now my youth is past and my blood freed of its passion, and when I look at little Thoth, I long a child with you, Merit.”
But she laid her hand on my mouth and turned away her head, saying softly, “Sinuhe, talk not so foolishly, for you know I grew up in a tavern and am perhaps no longer able to bear children. It is also better if you, who carry your destiny in your heart, remain alone and be able to order your life and actions untrammelled by wife or child for this I read in your eyes when first we met. No, Sinuhe, do not talk thusly to me, for
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your words make me weak, and perhaps I will start to weep, and I would not like to weep when happiness enfolds me. Others build their own destinies and bind themselves with a thousand bonds, but you bear your destiny in your heart, and your destiny is a greater one than mine. I love this little boy and we have many bright and hot days before us on the river. Let us pretend that we have broken the jar together and are man and wife and that Thoth is our own son. I shall teach him to call you father and me mother — for he is still small and will soon forget, and it will do him no harm. This way we steal a scrap of life from the gods for these few days. Let no grief or fear of future dim our happiness.”
So I dismissed all evil thoughts from my mind and shut my eyes to the misery of Egypt and to the starving people in the villages along the banks and lived for each day as it came while we travelled down the river. Little Thoth put his arms about my neck, pressed his cheek to mine and said to me: ‘Father’ — and his slight boy’s body was a delight in my arms. Each night, I felt Merit’s hair against my neck, and she held my hands in hers and breathed on my cheek and was my friend, and I was no longer tormented by nightmares. So slipped these days by like dreams, and swiftly as breaths they passed and were then no more. This is all I want to tell about those days because their memory catches at my throat like chaff, and dew from my eyes blurs my script. Man ought never be too happy, for nothing is more fleeting and elusive than man’s happiness.
7
Thus I returned to Akhetaten, but I did not return the same as I had left, and I saw the City of the Heavens with different eyes than before, so that the city with its delicate houses in all their brilliant colours beneath the golden sun and the deep blue of the sky appeared to me as a fragile bubble or a fleeting mirage. Truth did not dwell in Akhetaten, but the truth dwelled outside of Akhetaten, and the truth was starvation, suffering, misery and crime that hunger had brought to Egypt. Merit and Thoth returned to Thebes, taking with them my heart. So I saw everything with cold eyes again and without protecting shrouds, and everything that I saw was evil in my eyes.
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