because no courier had arrived in Akhetaten for a few cycles of the moon. And provisions were also running out in the golden house so that their only food was the dry bread and the porridge of the poor as Pharaoh had wanted. The more enterprising speared fish in the river and killed birds with their throwing sticks and ate them in secret.
Priest Ay sent me first before Pharaoh, to tell Pharaoh of all that had happened, because Pharaoh trusted me, being his friend. So I stepped once more before Pharaoh, but all within me was frozen, and I felt neither sorrow nor joy, and my heart was closed to him. He raised his face towards me which had become languished and grey, his inert hand hanging on his knee, and he looked at me with his dim eyes and asked:
“Sinuhe, are you the only one to return to me? Where are all who were faithful to me? Where are those who loved me and whom I loved?”
I said to him, “The old gods rule again in Egypt, and in Thebes the priests make sacrifice to Amun amid the rejoicing of the people. They have cursed you, Pharaoh Akhenaten, and they have cursed your city and they have cursed your name to all eternity and are already chipping your name away from all inscriptions.”
He moved his hand impatiently, and frenzy emerged on his face again, when he said, “I do not ask what has happened in Thebes but I ask where are my faithful ones and all whom I loved?”
I answered to him, “You still have your fair wife Nefertiti with you. Your daughters also are with you. Young Smenkhkare is spearing fish in the river, and Tut is playing funeral with his dolls as before. What do you care for any others?”
He asked, “Where is my friend Thutmose, who is your friend also and whom I loved? Where is he, the artist, by whose hand the very stones were imbued with eternal life?”
“He died for your sake, Pharaoh Akhenaten,” I said. “Black men transfixed him with a spear and cast his body into the river to be devoured by crocodiles because he was faithful to you. Though he spat on your bed, do not think of that now that jackals howl from his abandoned workshop, and his pupils have escaped, leaving his tools and sculptures scattered around that would have been eternal.”
601
Pharaoh Akhenaten raised his hand as if to brush a spider’s web from his face. Then he recited many names of those he had loved. Of some I said, “He died for your sake, Pharaoh Akhenaten.” But of the most I said, “He makes sacrifice to Amun, wearing his best clothes, and curses your name, Pharaoh Akhenaten.” And at length I said, “The kingdom of Aten has been vanquished. The kingdom of Aten on earth is no more, and Amun rules again.”
He stared before him with dim eyes and moved impatiently his bloodless hands, saying, “Yes, yes, I know all that already. My visions have told me of it all. The eternal kingdom cannot be contained within earthly boundaries. All shall be as before, and fear, hatred and wrong shall rule the world. Better would it be if I died, and perhaps best of all if I had never been born on earth to see all the evil that is done on earth.”
Then his blindness so enraged me that I retorted heatedly, “You have not seen so much as the least part of the evil that has come about for your sake, Pharaoh Akhenaten. You have not seen your son’s blood run over your hands, nor has your heart been frozen by the death cry of your beloved woman. Therefore your talk is stupid talk, Pharaoh Akhenaten.”
He said wearily, “Go from me then, Sinuhe, since I am so thoroughly evil. Go from me so that you wouldn’t need to suffer more upon my account. Go from me, for I am weary of seeing your face, and I am weary of seeing all men’s faces, for behind the faces of men I see the face of the beast.”
But I sat on the floor before him and said, “I will not go from you, Pharaoh Akhenaten, for I want to have my cup full, and perhaps I was born into this world to have it, and all this was written in the stars before the day I was born. Know then that priest Ay is coming to you, and at the northern boundary of your city the horns of Horemheb have sounded, and he has severed the copper chains that bar the river so that he may sail to you.”
602
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