The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

He travelled incessantly and endlessly around the country from province to province and from village to village, examining wrongdoings — and his journeys could be traced by the cut ears and bleeding noses of false tax gatherers, and the splashes and moans from whip lashes were heard far and wide from the places where he dispensed justice. Even the poorest could present their cases directly to him, and his officials didn’t dare prevent the poor from approaching him, as he dealt out incorruptible justice. He sent ships again to Punt, and the wives and children of seamen wept on the quays and gashed their faces with stones as good custom required, and Egypt prospered exceedingly — for of every ten ships that sailed, three returned every year laden with great treasures. He also built new temples and gave gods what belonged to gods, according to their rank and rights; he favoured no one god, save Horus, and no one temple, save that in Nen-nesu, where his own image was worshiped as a god to whom the people made sacrifices of oxen. For all these things, the people blessed his name and greatly praised him and told fabulous tales of him already during his lifetime.

Also Kaptah prospered mightily and got richer every passing year until no other man in Egypt could vie with him in wealth. He had neither wife nor children, and so he named Horemheb as his heir, that he might live in peace for the remainder of his life and gather ever greater riches. For this reason, Horemheb squeezed him less than other wealthy men and didn’t allow the tax gatherers to harass him too much.

Kaptah invited me often to his house which was situated in the quarter of the eminent and filled an entire block between streets with its gardens so that he didn’t have a single neighbour to disturb his peace. He ate from golden dishes, his house water ran from silver taps in the Cretan manner, his bathtub was of silver, the seat of his privy was of black wood, and its walls were inlaid with rare stones, fitted together to form pleasant pictures. He offered me amazing foods and had me drink the wine of the pyramids, and while he ate, he was entertained by singers and players — the fairest and most highly-skilled dancing girls in Thebes performed elaborate dances for his enjoyment. He didn’t take much pleasure of women since his belly was now in the way of lovemaking, but he preferred the joys of the stomach because he thought they were greater than the joys given by women.

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He also organised great banquets, and the distinguished and wealthy visited his house willingly, even if he was born a slave and maintained several slave-like manners, like blowing his nose to his fingers and burping noisily while he ate. He was a generous host and distributed expensive gifts to his guests, and his counsels on trade affairs were cunning so that everyone benefited from his friendship. His speech and stories were comical, and he often amused his guests by dressing up as a slave and told them all kinds of lies like slaves do — for he was too rich to fear mockery of his past and took pride in being a former slave before the eminent of Egypt. He said to me:

“My lord Sinuhe, when a man attains a certain wealth, he cannot become impoverished but grows richer all the time, even if he didn’t want to be any richer, so strangely is the world ordered. But my wealth originates with you, Sinuhe, so I shall ever acknowledge you as my lord, and you shall lack nothing all the days of your life, though for your own sake it is well that you are not rich, for you would never use your means to the best advantage but would sow unrest and bring about great calamities. Therefore it was better that you wasted your wealth during the evil days of the false Pharaoh, for I will protect your interests and see that you won’t lack anything sensible that you ask for.”

Kaptah also favoured artists, as sculptors hewed his image in stone, giving him a fine and noble appearance and making his limbs slender and his hands and feet small with his cheekbones high; in the sculptures both of his eyes had their sight, and he sat plunged in thought with a scroll on his knee and a pen in his hand — although he had never even tried to learn to read and write, as his scribes read, wrote and counted large numbers on his behalf. These statues greatly amused Kaptah, and the priests of Amun, to whom he had already given immense presents after his return from Syria to live in amity with the gods, set up his image in the great Temple, and he bore the cost of the image himself.

He also had a magnificent tomb built for himself in the City of the Dead, where artists painted numerous pictures of his everyday life and diversions on its walls, and they painted him with both eyes, eminent and without the belly, for he wanted to deceive the gods and enter the Western Land as he wanted and not the way he was — although he preferring living his days out the way he was, since that was less trouble than being distinguished. For this purpose, he had a Book of the Dead

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