delighted, and said, “Your generosity is great, Sinuhe, may people say what they want about you. And even if people say you robbed your father and mother and drove them to death naked, I will defend you. But I cannot get your shoulder cloth, for it is expensive fabric and without it your back will burn red in the sun, like the back of slaves, and raise swellings that hurt badly.”
But I said, “Take it and may all the gods of Egypt bless you, and may your body be preserved forever, for even you do not know the merit of the deed you have done.”
He took the shoulder cloth and went, waving it above his head and laughing for joy. But I went to the House of Death clad only in a loincloth, like a slave or an ox driver, to serve the corpse washers for thirty days and nights.
4
As a physician, I fancied I had seen all there was to see of death and suffering and had hardened myself to foul smells and the handling of boils and festering wounds, but on beginning my service in the House of Death, I found I was a child and knew nothing. The poor, indeed, gave us but little trouble for they lay peacefully in their baths in the sharp smell of salt and lye, and I soon learned to handle the hook with which they were moved. But the bodies of those of the better class required more elaborate treatment; and to rinse out the entrails and put them in jars called for a hardened mind. Still more hardened must it be to witness Amun’s plundering of the dead, exceeding that of the living. The price of embalming varied according to means, and the embalmers lied to the kindred of the dead, charging for many costly oils, salves, and preservatives that they vowed they used, though all was but one and the same sesame oil. Only the bodies of the illustrious were prepared with the full measure of skill. The others were filled with a corrosive oil that consumed the viscera, the cavity being then stuffed with reeds steeped in resin. For the poor not even this was done; after their removal from the basin on the thirtieth day they were allowed to dry and were then handed over to their relatives.
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The House of Death was supervised by the priests. Nevertheless, the body washers and embalmers stole all that they could lay their hands on and looked upon this as their right. They stole herbs and expensive oils and balms and linens to resell them again and to steal them again — and the priests could not stop them, for they knew their profession well when they wanted to, and it was not easy to get workers to the House of Death. Only those accursed of the gods or criminals fleeing from authority took service as corpse washers, and they could be recognised far off by the smell of salt and lye and cadavers inseparable from their trade so that people avoided them and would not admit them to wine shops or pleasure houses.
Since I had volunteered to work among them, the corpse washers supposed me to be like one of themselves, and they hid none of their actions from me. Had I not already witnessed worse things, I should have fled, appalled at the way in which they defiled the bodies of even the most distinguished — mutilating them in order to sell the organs to sorceresses who had need of them. If there is a Western Land — which for my parent’s sake I hope there may be — I believe many of the dead would marvel at their own dismembered condition when they start upon their journey, despite the sums paid to the Temple for burial.
But the greatest rejoicing in the House of Death occurred when a body of a young woman was brought in, no matter whether she was beautiful or plain. She was not immediately thrown into the bath, but for one night was kept as the corpse washers’ bedfellow, and they squabbled and cast lots as to who should have her first. For these men were so abhorred that not even the most wretched prostitute would submit to them, though they offered her gold; not even black women would have them, but held them in great dread. Earlier, they had collected funds and bought slave girls as their common joy, when slaves were cheap to purchase following great campaigns, but so horrible was the life in the House of Death, that women who were brought there, even if slaves, soon lost their minds and made noises and offences, until priests had no choice but to forbade the selling of women to the House of Death. Then the corpse washers cooked their own meals and washed their own clothes and settled for rejoicing with corpses. But they defended this by saying that sometime during the reign of the Great King, a woman once brought to the House of Death was revived at the
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