The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

thrown to the crocodiles. Furthermore, I made a big loss when The Crocodile’s Tail burned, since in its dungeons and backrooms I had stored all the loot which I had in reasonable prices bought from the plundering slaves and porters and exchanged for wine. I made an even bigger loss when the slaves persecuted me for no reason, burning the mills and houses which I owned in Thebes — and they even burned my grain storage though at that time peace already prevailed in Thebes. Truly, Sinuhe, these merciless slaves blamed me for their defeat. They persecuted me so that my life was not safe in Thebes any more, even with guards, and when the word came to the slaves and porters in Memphis through the sailors, I was not safe there either, even if Horemheb’s hand protected me. Therefore I had to flee to Syria, but this escape turned out to be fortunate, for I am again a rich man and maybe richer than any Egyptian man, assuming of course that Horemheb wins, and I no longer suspect his victory, and I’ll diligently pray for our scarab, anoint it and sacrifice a white cow’s fresh dung to it every day so that Horemheb will win. I am greatly weary with the Hittites for they are cheap men and have strict accounting for all their deals so that stealing from them is hard. But more about the thankless slaves of Thebes: you saw with your own eyes, Sinuhe, how I was totally on their side as long as they held the power in Thebes and as long as they were useful to me — and I cannot be blamed for giving Amun’s priests information about their deeds nor for giving Amun’s priests the names and descriptions of their leaders, since if the slaves had won, this would not have been harmful at all; but since the slaves did not win, at least I saved my life and Amun’s favour — and I would have greatly benefited from Amun’s favour if I had been able to stay in Thebes. I am well aware that maybe my actions cannot be regarded as honourable and that not even you, my lord Sinuhe, don’t regard them as honourable, but you have always been a man of stupid and simple nature, and I am but a former slave and born in a mud hut, and no one will pick me up if I fall. Therefore I alone need to take care of myself and of my interests, and I simply don’t understand what man benefits from his honour if he lays down when his throat is cut. No, Sinuhe, a wise man is always on the winner’s side, and this should not be regarded as shameful but it should be praised as wisdom as it makes life easy and simple and brings many benefits.”

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Thus spoke Kaptah to me, but his wisdom made the wine acrid in my mouth, and while I contemplated his words, everything under the sun felt vain to me, for I had to admit in my bitterness that his wisdom was the basic juice in all earthly wisdom, and whatever there was outside his wisdom was but a fantasy. Sitting in the Gaza fortress and feeling the reek of human skins rotting on the walls in my nostrils, everything became vanity in my mind. Heroism was vanity, and cunning was vanity, honour was vanity; and good deeds were no different from bad deeds, and there was no difference between the deeds of men in my eyes as all deeds of men were vanity. But Kaptah was listening to the noise of drunken soldiers down in the city’s sooty alleys and the screams of women in merchants’ tents, and he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, saying:

“Isn’t my wisdom the true wisdom, Sinuhe, and you are a proof of that by sitting before me as a poor man due to your own stupidity and weakness even if you were a rich man, and one of the richest in Egypt, before you ordered me to share your wealth to the starving as the bread of Aten, for the sake of your weakness and stupidity. You indeed had everything that man can desire in his heart, and you even had a wife, though not one whom you had broken a jar with, and you even had a son, but you sacrificed them to death for the sake of your madness. Indeed, Sinuhe, you are before me a poor and bitter man, and your face has wrinkles as if you constantly bit a sour fruit, but on the other hand I am doing fine, gaining fat again with the smell of good oils on my skin, and wine warms my body; and every sip of beer which a soldier drinks down there brings copper into my purse, and every scream of a prostitute in the pleasure tents jangles into my purse as copper. Give up your madness now, Sinuhe, and live like a man amongst men and see life as it really is and don’t try changing life to be like your fantasies, for the laws of life cannot be changed, and man is incurable.”

I did not answer him, but left him and lay down on my bed, trying to sleep — but I could not sleep, for my sleep was disturbed by slaves who pounded the walls with copper-ferruled logs and rattled the shields in front of commander Roju’s door so that he would think Gaza was still being besieged and could fall to sleep peacefully. Perhaps he slept, but I did not sleep and stayed awake, until Merit came to my dreams alive, and little Thoth played in my dreams, and when I woke up in the morning, my heart was heavy and my mouth bitter, like I had eaten bile.

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