prevailed in the Land of Mitanni, and indeed, the people of Mitanni themselves appealed to us for help, and so we marched into their country as liberators and not as conquerors. In Mitanni, there is enough room for ourselves and our children and our cattle, and we do not even dream of any further annexations, for we are a peace -loving people and only want enough space for our people, and after getting it, we are totally satisfied.”
They raised their goblets with arms held straight and spoke in great praise of Egypt, while the women gazed with desire at their sinewy necks and wild eyes, and they said, “Egypt is a glorious land, and we love it. In our country, also there may be something for Egyptians to learn, and we believe that our King is happy to sponsor a trip and a stay in our country to those Egyptian nobles who like us and are willing to learn our customs. Maybe he would even give them gifts for he is very fond of Egyptians and loves children. Speaking of children, our King wants our wives to give birth to many children, but the beautiful women of Egypt do not need to fear us as we can certainly rejoice with them like civilised people and not impregnate them, but we rejoice in the Egyptian manner just as we also eat here in the Egyptian manner.”
They spoke many fair words to the eminent people of Akhetaten, and no one held any secrets from them, but to my mind, these strangers brought to Akhetaten the smell of death with them, and I remembered their bleak land and the sorcerers speared on stakes by the roadside. So I did not mourn when they left Akhetaten.
Akhetaten was no more like its past self, but frenzy had inflicted its inhabitants, and never before had people eaten, drank, rejoiced and played in Akhetaten so feverishly as at this time. From dusk till dawn torches burned in front of the nobles’ houses and from dawn till dusk songs and laughter echoed from the nobles’ houses — and the frenzy spread to servants and slaves so that servants and slaves might in the middle of the day teeter in intoxication on the streets, showing no respect to anything, and not even hits from sticks cured them. But all this joy was a sick joy and did not satisfy people but burned them like a consuming fever, for they revelled only to forget the future. Often amidst joy and laughter and wine drinking a deadly stillness would fall over Akhetaten so that laughter froze in men’s throats, and they looked
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at one another in fear, forgetting what they had been about to say. Also a strange, sugary, repulsive reek spread over Akhetaten, whose cause could not be located and which could not be removed from one’s nostrils by fragrances and incense. This reek was felt strongest early in the morning and in the evenings at sunset, and it did not come from the river, nor from fish pools nor Aten’s sacred lake — and it did not vanish even if sewer pipes were teared open and cleaned, and many said it was the reek of curse and Amun.
Artists were also gripped by strange frenzy, and they drew and painted and carved more diligently than ever as if they felt that time was slipping through their hands, and they wanted to empty all their skill before their time was due. They fiercely exaggerated their truth so that the truth of their chisels and stylus became mockery, and they vied with one another to produce ever more strange and extravagant forms for their truth — until they vowed they could represent a feature or a movement by a few lines and spots. The expression of a dreaming human eye they settled to display with a single curved line, and they drew pictures of Pharaoh Akhenaten that horrified elderly people, exaggerating the thinness of his neck and his swollen thighs though there was no need to exaggerate them any further. They drew such pictures of Pharaoh Akhenaten that in my opinion only someone who hated him bitterly could draw them. But they were very proud of their achievements and their sculptures and pictures and they said, “Truly, anything like this has never been drawn or sculpted before. This is the truth.”
But I said to my friend Thutmose, “Pharaoh Akhenaten raised you from the dust and made you his friend. Why do you carve his likeness as if you bitterly hated him, and why have you spat on his bed and disgraced his friendship?
Thutmose said, “Do not meddle with things you fail to understand, Sinuhe. Perhaps I hate him, but I hate myself more. The fire of creation burns within me, and my hands have never been so skilful as now, and perhaps it is when the artist is unsatisfied and hates himself that he creates greater than when he is content and full of love. I create all colours and shapes from within myself; and the diversity I create from within myself, and in every piece of sculpture, I hew myself in stone to
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