The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

But when I went to the nobles, they mocked me, setting their dogs upon me and having their servants drive me away from their courts with whips so that my shame was great, and I ran before the dogs through the streets of Thebes with a torn robe and blood dripping from my legs. People laughed at me, smiting their knees, and the merchants and judges saw my shame and didn’t listen to my words any longer but drove me away and called the guards to beat me with the shafts of their spears. They said to me, “Should you once more come to us again with false accusations, we will have you condemned as a slanderer and agitator, and ravens will peck your corpse on the wall.”

Then I returned to the old copper founder’s house in the poor quarter, perceiving that all my labour was in vain since my death would have done no one any service except the ravens. Seeing my wretched state, Muti moaned a lot and clapped her hands together over her head, washing me and tending my wounds, and she reproached me fiercely, saying, “Truly, the nature of men is incurable, and you should be ashamed of yourself, Sinuhe, running from the house like that at your age, even if you are bald and your neck is wrinkled. Is it right to trade your fine clothes for wine in taverns and pick fights in pleasure houses so that you have bumps in the head and wounds on your legs. There is no need to run from the house to get wine but from now on, I will let you drink wine as much as you want and cease reproaching you — and be free to invite your drinking friends to your house if you miss their company, for I have been so worried for your sake these days and nights that you have been gone. Also Kaptah has been looking for you since he has returned to Thebes, and you are not alone any more.”

She anointed my wounds and scabs with good balm and dressed me in clean clothes and nagged to me vehemently and said, “Indeed, it would be better if men had that little thing under their loincloths cut off, since all it brings is drunkenness and shame, quarrel and fighting even to an old man. But if you have no way of controlling your manly nature, Sinuhe, then take a wife in your house or buy a young slave girl who satisfies your lust and pacifies you — and who can help me in the daytime with the household, since I am already old, and my hands are shaking, and I often burn the roast while I mix the sauce. Fighting in pleasure houses over dishonourable women does not become your dignity, Sinuhe, and you should know it, and your behaviour amazes me greatly.”

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Her words insulted me deeply, since I didn’t think I was that old yet, though my head was bald. I didn’t dare tell her why I had left the house, but instead let her believe I was drunk and foolish like other men so that she would not have locked me in a dark room, wrapping me in wet clothes in my bed and calling for doctors to put leeches under my knees, which she assuredly would have done, had I told her how I went to the poor and the noble to talk about good and evil, justice and injustice. So I let her mouth nag to me as she pleased, and after the slaves’ bread and fish fried in rotten oil, her grilled goose melted in my mouth delightfully, and her wine was sweet in my mouth after the beer of the poor. My heart calmed down, and I thought about my deeds patiently and thought about my deeds as a physician and knew that maybe in the eyes of a physician I was ill and my skull should be opened to heal me, since I wasn’t content with the world the way it was but held myself accountable for all the evil that happened in the world.

So I sat once more beneath the sycamore in my garden and watched the mute fish in my pool, and watching them gave me some peace, while the donkeys brayed in the street and children played war games and cast donkey dung on one another. Also Kaptah came to visit me, for he had indeed returned to Thebes without fearing the slaves and porters whose minds had now humbled. He arrived to me with much pomp in a finely decorated and painted chair carried by eighteen black slaves, and he sat in his chair on soft cushions, with costly oils trickling from his forehead onto his face to spare him the bad smells of the poor quarter. He had gotten considerably fat again, and a Syrian goldsmith had made him a new eye of gold and precious stones of which he was exceedingly proud although it chafed his eye socket so badly that he took it out as soon as he had sat down beside me under the sycamore, when no one saw us any more.

But at first, he embraced me and wept for joy at seeing me, and his weight was like a mountain as he leaned his broad hands on my shoulders, and the seat Muti brought out broke to sticks under him so that he turned up the skirts of his garment and sat on the ground before me. He told me the war in Syria was nearing its end and that

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