The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

reputation of other doctors as well. When the wealthy call for another doctor and yet for a third doctor after already having called for one to inspect a difficult case, it is not uncommon that the doctors rather stay quiet on the first doctor’s mistake than reveal it to the shame of the entire profession. So it is said that doctors bury their patients together.

I did not know all that then but entered the House of Life full of respect and hoping to find all earthly wisdom and goodness there. The first weeks were heavy, since the last-enrolled student is the servant of the rest; and the lowest of the staff is still higher than him and can give him orders. At first, a student must learn about cleanliness, and there is no task too filthy that would not be assigned to him, so that he is sick from repulsion until he finally hardens himself. But finally he knows even in his sleep that a knife is not clean before it is cleansed in fire and a cloth is not clean before cleansed in boiling lye and water.

However, the skills of a physician are written in other books, and I have nothing more to say about them. Instead, I would rather speak about things that involve me and that I have seen, and that others have not written about.

The long period of probation was followed by the day when, after ceremonial purification, I was clothed in a white gown and started work in the reception hall, where I learned to draw teeth from the jaws of strong men, to bandage wounds, lance boils and set broken limbs. None of this was new to me, for thanks to my father’s teaching, I made good progress and was promoted to the charge and instruction of my companions. Sometimes I received gifts such as are given to doctors, and I had my name engraved on the green stone that Nefernefernefer had given me so that I could set my seal below my prescriptions.

I was put to ever more exacting tasks and went on duty in the rooms where the incurably sick lay and I attended renowned physicians at their treatments and operations, in which for every patient that was cured ten died. I learned that death holds no terrors for a doctor; for the sick come as often as a merciful friend, so that their faces after release are apt to be more serene than during the poor days of their lives.

Yet I was blind and deaf until the day of awakening came as it had come before in my childhood when pictures, words and letters sprang to life. Once more my eyes were opened, and I woke as from a dream, and my spirit welled up in joy because I asked myself, why? The dreaded key to all true knowledge is the question, why? It is mightier than the reed of Thoth and more potent than inscriptions in stone.

It happened thus: A wife came to me who had had no children and who believed herself to be barren, for she was already forty years of age. Her monthly flow had ceased, and she was frightened and came to the House of Life because she feared that an evil spirit had taken possession of her and had poisoned her body. As was prescribed in such cases, I planted grains of barley in some earth. I watered half of them with Nile water and the rest with the woman’s urine. I then exposed the soil to the warmth of the sun and bade the woman return in two days. When she came again, the seeds had sprouted, those which had been watered with Nile water being small and the other shoots green and strong. What had been written of old was true, and I said to the woman, being astonished myself too, “Rejoice, for holy Amun in his grace has blessed your womb, and you shall bring forth a child like other favoured women.”

The poor woman wept for joy and gave me a silver bangle from her wrist weighing two deben, for she had long ago given up hope. And as soon as she could believe me, she asked, “Is it a son?” thinking me omniscient. I plucked up courage, looked her in the eye and said, “It is a son.” For the chances were even and at that time my gambling luck was good. The woman rejoiced still more and gave me another bracelet from her wrist, of two deben weight.

But when she had gone, I asked myself how it was possible for a grain of barley to know what no doctor could discover and know it before the eye could detect the signs of pregnancy? Summoning up my courage, I asked my teacher, but he merely looked at me as if I were half-witted and said, “It is so written.” But this was no answer when I asked, why? I took courage again and asked the royal obstetrician in the maternity house. He said, “Amun is the King of all the gods. His eye sees the woman’s womb that receives the seed. If he permits germination, why should he not also allow the grain of barley to grow when moistened with water from the pregnant woman’s body?” He, too, stared at me as if I were half-witted, but his was no answer when I asked, why?