The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

my sister, following the zeal and disappointment of my youth; Merit’s friendship was to me like bread and wine, satisfying hunger and quenching thirst — and the touch of her mouth intoxicated me more that all the wines of mountains and harbour. But after I had satisfied my hunger of her and quenched my thirst from her, she held my hands in the darkness of the night, and her breath was on my neck, and we talked with each other — and my heart had no secrets from her, but I spoke to her without falsehood and deceit. However, her heart preserved its secret from me though I did not see it, but it must have been written in the stars before I was born, and therefore I do not want to be bitter to her memory.

This was how my love intoxicated me, and I felt my manhood was stronger than my youth, for youth is wandering, and its love is filled with pain from ignorance, and youth does not know its own strength but thinks its strength is natural and self-evident — not realising that year by year the power flows away from man’s limbs as he ages. Regardless of this, I still praise my youth over my manhood during the days of my old age — since perhaps hunger is better than a full stomach and perhaps thirst ignites a man’s thoughts better than satisfaction from wine. During those days when I stayed in Thebes, I nevertheless imagined my manhood stronger than my youth, but maybe it was only a fantasy, wrapped around man’s eyes by life. For the sake of this fantasy, everything was beautiful in my eyes, and I wanted no harm to anyone but only good things to all people. Lying by Merit’s side, I did not feel like a stranger in the world, for her body was to me a home, and her mouth kissed away my loneliness — and yet this was but a fleeting illusion, as I was about to see through to have my cup full.

At The Crocodile’s Tail, I again saw little Thoth, and the sight of him warmed my heart, and he laid his arms about my neck and called me Father, so that I could not but be touched by his good memory. Merit told me that his mother had died, and that she had taken him to live with her since, in carrying him to be circumcised, according to good custom, she engaged to bring him up should his own parents be unable to do so. Thoth was quite at home in The Crocodile’s Tail, where the wine tavern’s customers made much of him and brought him presents and playthings to please Merit. I was greatly charmed with him, and

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during my stay in Thebes, I took him back to the old copper founder’s house, to the great delight of Muti, and as I watched him play at the foot of the sycamore and heard him romping and arguing with the other children in the street, I remembered my own childhood in Thebes and envied little Thoth. He felt so at home in my house that he spent his nights there also, and for my own enjoyment, I began to teach him although he was not yet of an age to go to school. When I found that he was intelligent and quickly learned the signs and characters of writing, I was determined to pay for him to be educated at the best school in Thebes, which children of high rank attended, and my decision made Merit very happy. Muti never wearied of baking honey cakes for him and telling him stories — for Muti had had her way so that there was a son in my house but no wife to worry her or throw hot water over her feet, as is the way of wives when they have quarrelled with their husbands.

I might have been happy, but frenzy was heightened at that time in Thebes, and I could not close my eyes from seeing it. Not a day passed without fighting in the streets or in squares, and men struck wounds into one another and broke each other’s heads in endless disputes over Amun and Aten. Pharaoh’s guards had plenty to do, and magistrates had plenty to do, and every week men and women, old men and children were bound with ropes and taken to the wharf, and they had been dragged from their homes and sent into forced labor in Pharaoh’s fields and stone quarries — and some were sent even to the mines on Amun’s account. But their departure was not that of slaves and criminals, for people gathered on the quays to escort them and crowded the piers and greeted them with shouts and sprinkled them with flowers regardless of the guards. They raised their bound hands and shouted, “We will soon return.” And some shook violently their bound hands and shouted bitterly, “Indeed we will soon return and taste the blood of Aten!” So they shouted, and because of the crowd of people, the guards dared not silence the prisoners and did not beat them until the ships had carried them from the shore.

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