But I had seen the refugees in the courtyard of the palace. I had seen their broken mouths and their empty eye sockets and the stumps of their arms. I felt strongly disinclined for the journey and went home with the intention of taking to my bed and feigning sickness until Pharaoh should have forgotten this whim of his. But on the way I met my servant, who said to me in some astonishment:
“It is well that you have come, my lord Sinuhe, for a ship has just arrived from Thebes bringing a woman whose name is Mehunefer, and she says she is your friend. She awaits you in your house, arrayed like a bride, and the whole house is fragrant with her ointments.”
Then I turned swiftly about and ran to the golden house and said to Pharaoh, “Be it as you say, Pharaoh. I will go to Syria, but may my blood be upon your head. But if I am to go, let me depart at once and your scribes prepare the necessary clay tablets, certifying my rank and authority, for Aziru has great respect for clay tablets.”
While the scribes were busy with these, I escaped to the workshop of Thutmose; he was my friend and did not spurn me in my plight. He had just completed a statue of Horemheb which he had sculpted in brown sandstone after taking a plaster of Horemheb’s face during his visit to Akhetaten, like I have told earlier. The status was fashioned according to the ways of the new art style, and it was very lifelike and made justice to Horemheb, although to my mind Thutmose had exaggerated the bulk of the arm muscles and the breadth of the chest so that Horemheb appeared more like a wrestler than the commander of the royal guard and a government official. But it was the custom in this new art to exaggerate all things that eyes see even to ugliness — for according to the new art it was the truth, and the old art had hidden the ugliness of man and seen only the good side of man and softened his weaknesses, whereas the new art saw the man from his ugliest side so that the truth would not be forgotten. I don’t know if it is especially truthful to exaggerate the ugliness of man but Thutmose thought he knew it, and I did not want to argue with him since he was my friend. He wiped the statue with a wet rag to show me how beautiful was the sandstone’s sheen on Horemheb’s muscles and how well the colour of the stone matched that of his skin, and said to me:
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“I think I will travel with you as far as Nen-nesu and take the statue with me, to insure that it is set up in the temple there in a position befitting Horemheb’s rank and my own as the sculptor. Yes, I will come with you, Sinuhe, and let the river wind blow the wine fumes of Akhetaten from my head for my hands tremble under the weight of hammer and chisel, and fever frets at my heart.”
The scribes brought the clay tablets and gold for my journey, with Pharaoh’s blessing, to Thutmose’s workshop, and we let Horemheb’s statue be carried to Pharaoh’s ship and sailed without delay down the river. But I told my servant to say to Mehunefer that I had gone to the war in Syria and died there, and I felt there was but little falsehood in this for I feared that I should indeed die a cruel death on this journey. I had further bidden my servant convey Mehunefer aboard some vessel bound for Thebes, with all due honour and if need be by force. For, said I, should I, against all expectations, return and find Mehunefer in my house, I will have all my slaves and servants flogged and their ears and noses cut off and sent to the mines for the rest of their lives. My servant looked me in the eye and seeing that I was in earnest, was duly frightened and promised to obey my orders. So with a mind relieved, I set sailing down the river in Pharaoh’s ship together with Thutmose, and being convinced that I was bound for certain death at the hands of the men of Amurru and of the Hittites, we did not spare the wine during our journey. Also Thutmose said that it was not the custom to be sparing of wine when going to war, and he could speak with authority having been born in the soldiers’ barracks.
But to tell about my journey down the river and to Syria and everything that took place afterwards, I need to start a new book.
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