CHAPTER VIII

The moon was risen over the city of the living that lay opposite the Necropolis of Thebes.

The evening song had died away in the temples, that stood about a mile from the Nile, connected with each other by avenues of sphinxes and pylons; but in the streets of the city life seemed only just really awake.

The coolness, which had succeeded the heat of the summer day, tempted the citizens out into the air, in front of their doors or on the roofs and turrets of their houses; or at the tavern-tables, where they listened to the tales of the story-tellers while they refreshed them selves with beer, wine, and the sweet juice of fruits. Many simple folks squatted in circular groups on the ground, and joined in the burden of songs which were led by an appointed singer, to the sound of a tabor and flute.

To the south of the temple of Amon stood the king’s palace, and near it, in more or less extensive gardens, rose the houses of the magnates of the kingdom, among which, one was distinguished by it splendor and extent.

Paaker, the king’s pioneer, had caused it to be erected after the death of his father, in the place of the more homely dwelling of his ancestors, when he hoped to bring home his cousin, and install her as its mistress. A few yards further to the east was another stately though older and less splendid house, which Mena, the king’s charioteer, had inherited from his father, and which was inhabited by his wife Nefert and her mother Isatuti, while he himself, in the distant Syrian land, shared the tent of the king, as being his body-guard. Before the door of each house stood servants bearing torches, and awaiting the long deferred return home of their masters.

The gate, which gave admission to Paaker’s plot of ground through the wall which surrounded it, was disproportionately, almost ostentatiously, high and decorated with various paintings. On the right hand and on the left, two cedar-trunks were erected as masts to carry standards; he had had them felled for the purpose on Lebanon, and forwarded by ship to Pelusium on the north-east coast of Egypt. Thence they were conveyed by the Nile to Thebes.

On passing through the gate one entered a wide, paved court-yard, at the sides of which walks extended, closed in at the back, and with roofs supported on slender painted wooden columns. Here stood the pioneer’s horses and chariots, here dwelt his slaves, and here the necessary store of produce for the month’s requirements was kept.

In the farther wall of this store-court was a very high doorway, that led into a large garden with rows of well-tended trees and trellised vines, clumps of shrubs, flowers, and beds of vegetables. Palms, sycamores, and acacia-trees, figs, pomegranates, and jasmine throve here particularly well—for Paaker’s mother, Setchem, superintended the labors of the gardeners; and in the large tank in the midst there was never any lack of water for watering the beds and the roots of the trees, as it was always supplied by two canals, into which wheels turned by oxen poured water day and night from the Nile-stream.

On the right side of this plot of ground rose the one-storied dwelling house, its length stretching into distant perspective, as it consisted of a single row of living and bedrooms. Almost every room had its own door, that opened into a veranda supported by colored wooden columns, and which extended the whole length of the garden side of the house. This building was joined at a right angle by a row of store-rooms, in which the garden-produce in fruits and vegetables, the wine-jars, and the possessions of the house in woven stuffs, skins, leather, and other property were kept.

In a chamber of strong masonry lay safely locked up the vast riches accumulated by Paaker’s father and by himself, in gold and silver rings, vessels and figures of beasts. Nor was there lack of bars of copper and of precious stones, particularly of lapis-lazuli and malachite.

In the middle of the garden stood a handsomely decorated kiosk, and a chapel with images of the Gods; in the background stood the statues of Paaker’s ancestors in the form of Osiris wrapped in mummy-cloths.

[The justified dead became Osiris; that is to say, attained to the fullest union (Henosis) with the divinity.]

The faces, which were likenesses, alone distinguished these statues from each other.

The left side of the store-yard was veiled in gloom, yet the moonlight revealed numerous dark figures clothed only with aprons, the slaves of the king’s pioneer, who squatted on the ground in groups of five or six, or lay near each other on thin mats of palm-bast, their hard beds.

Not far from the gate, on the right side of the court, a few lamps lighted up a group of dusky men, the officers of Paaker’s household, who wore short, shirt-shaped, white garments, and who sat on a carpet round a table hardly two feet high. They were eating their evening-meal, consisting of a roasted antelope, and large flat cakes of bread. Slaves waited on them, and filled their earthen beakers with yellow beer. The steward cut up the great roast on the table, offered the intendant of the gardens a piece of antelope-leg, and said:

[The Greeks and Romans report that the Egyptians were so addicted to satire and pungent witticisms that they would hazard property and life to gratify their love of mockery. The scandalous pictures in the so-called kiosk of Medinet Habu, the caricatures in an indescribable papyrus at Turin, confirm these statements. There is a noteworthy passage in Flavius Vopiscus, that compares the Egyptians to the French.]

“My arms ache; the mob of slaves get more and more dirty and refractory.”

“I notice it in the palm-trees,” said the gardener, “you want so many cudgels that their crowns will soon be as bare as a moulting bird.”

“We should do as the master does,” said the head-groom, “and get sticks of ebony—they last a hundred years.”

“At any rate longer than men’s bones,” laughed the chief neat-herd, who had come in to town from the pioneer’s country estate, bringing with him animals for sacrifices, butter and cheese. “If we were all to follow the master’s example, we should soon have none but cripples in the servant’s house.”

“Out there lies the lad whose collar-bone he broke yesterday,” said the steward, “it is a pity, for he was a clever mat-platter. The old lord hit softer.”

“You ought to know!” cried a small voice, that sounded mockingly behind the feasters.

They looked and laughed when they recognized the strange guest, who had approached them unobserved.

The new comer was a deformed little man about as big as a five-year-old boy, with a big head and oldish but uncommonly sharply-cut features.

The noblest Egyptians kept house-dwarfs for sport, and this little wight served the wife of Mena in this capacity. He was called Nemu, or “the dwarf,” and his sharp tongue made him much feared, though he was a favorite, for he passed for a very clever fellow and was a good tale-teller.

“Make room for me, my lords,” said the little man. “I take very little room, and your beer and roast is in little danger from me, for my maw is no bigger than a fly’s head.”

“But your gall is as big as that of a Nile-horse,” cried the cook.

“It grows,” said the dwarf laughing, “when a turn-spit and spoon-wielder like you turns up. There—I will sit here.”

“You are welcome,” said the steward, “what do you bring?”

“Myself.”

“Then you bring nothing great.”

“Else I should not suit you either!” retorted the dwarf. “But seriously, my lady mother, the noble Katuti, and the Regent, who just now is visiting us, sent me here to ask you whether Paaker is not yet returned. He accompanied the princess and Nefert to the City of the Dead, and the ladies are not yet come in. We begin to be anxious, for it is already late.”

The steward looked up at the starry sky and said: “The moon is already tolerably high, and my lord meant to be home before sun-down.”

“The meal was ready,” sighed the cook. “I shall have to go to work again if he does not remain all night.”

“How should he?” asked the steward. “He is with the princess Bent-Anat.”

“And my mistress,” added the dwarf.

“What will they say to each other,” laughed gardener; “your chief litter-bearer declared that yesterday on the way to the City of the Dead they did not speak a word to each other.”

“Can you blame the lord if he is angry with the lady who was betrothed to him, and then was wed to another? When I think of the moment when he learnt Nefert’s breach of faith I turn hot and cold.”

“Care the less for that,” sneered the dwarf, “since you must be hot in summer and cold in winter.”

“It is not evening all day,” cried the head groom. “Paaker never forgets an injury, and we shall live to see him pay Mena—high as he is—for the affront he has offered him.

“My lady Katuti,” interrupted Nemu, “stores up the arrears of her son-in-law.”

“Besides, she has long wished to renew the old friendship with your house, and the Regent too preaches peace. Give me a piece of bread, steward. I am hungry!”

“The sacks, into which Mena’s arrears flow seem to be empty,” laughed the cook.

“Empty! empty! much like your wit!” answered the dwarf. “Give me a bit of roast meat, steward; and you slaves bring me a drink of beer.”

“You just now said your maw was no bigger than a fly’s head,” cried the cook, “and now you devour meat like the crocodiles in the sacred tank of Seeland. You must come from a world of upside-down, where the men are as small as flies, and the flies as big as the giants of the past.”

“Yet, I might be much bigger,” mumbled the dwarf while he munched on unconcernedly, “perhaps as big as your spite which grudges me the third bit of meat, which the steward—may Zefa bless him with great possessions—is cutting out of the back of the antelope.”

“There, take it, you glutton, but let out your girdle,” said the steward laughing, “I had cut the slice for myself, and admire your sharp nose.”

“All noses,” said the dwarf, “they teach the knowing better than any haruspex what is inside a man.”

“How is that?” cried the gardener.

“Only try to display your wisdom,” laughed the steward; “for, if you want to talk, you must at last leave off eating.”

“The two may be combined,” said the dwarf. “Listen then! A hooked nose, which I compare to a vulture’s beak, is never found together with a submissive spirit. Think of the Pharaoh and all his haughty race. The Regent, on the contrary, has a straight, well-shaped, medium-sized nose, like the statue of Amon in the temple, and he is an upright soul, and as good as the Gods. He is neither overbearing nor submissive beyond just what is right; he holds neither with the great nor yet with the mean, but with men of our stamp. There’s the king for us!”

“A king of noses!” exclaimed the cook, “I prefer the eagle Rameses. But what do you say to the nose of your mistress Nefert?”

“It is delicate and slender and moves with every thought like the leaves of flowers in a breath of wind, and her heart is exactly like it.”

“And Paaker?” asked the head groom.

“He has a large short nose with wide open nostrils. When Seth whirls up the sand, and a grain of it flies up his nose, he waxes angry—so it is Paaker’s nose, and that only, which is answerable for all your blue bruises. His mother Setchem, the sister of my lady Katuti, has a little roundish soft—”

“You pigmy,” cried the steward interrupting the speaker, “we have fed you and let you abuse people to your heart’s content, but if you wag your sharp tongue against our mistress, I will take you by the girdle and fling you to the sky, so that the stars may remain sticking to your crooked hump.”

At these words the dwarf rose, turned to go, and said indifferently: “I would pick the stars carefully off my back, and send you the finest of the planets in return for your juicy bit of roast. But here come the chariots. Farewell! my lords, when the vulture’s beak seizes one of you and carries you off to the war in Syria, remember the words of the little Nemu who knows men and noses.”

The pioneer’s chariot rattled through the high gates into the court of his house, the dogs in their leashes howled joyfully, the head groom hastened towards Paaker and took the reins in his charge, the steward accompanied him, and the head cook retired into the kitchen to make ready a fresh meal for his master.

Before Paaker had reached the garden-gate, from the pylon of the enormous temple of Amon, was heard first the far-sounding clang of hard-struck plates of brass, and then the many-voiced chant of a solemn hymn.

The Mohar stood still, looked up to heaven, called to his servants—“The divine star Sothis is risen!” threw himself on the earth, and lifted his wards the star in prayer.

The slaves and officers immediately followed his example.

No circumstance in nature remained unobserved by the priestly guides of the Egyptian people. Every phenomenon on earth or in the starry heavens was greeted by them as the manifestation of a divinity, and they surrounded the life of the inhabitants of the Nile-valley—from morning to evening—from the beginning of the inundation to the days of drought—with a web of chants and sacrifices, of processions and festivals, which inseparably knit the human individual to the Divinity and its earthly representatives the priesthood.

For many minutes the lord and his servants remained on their knees in silence, their eyes fixed on the sacred star, and listening to the pious chant of the priests.

As it died away Paaker rose. All around him still lay on the earth; only one naked figure, strongly lighted by the clear moonlight, stood motionless by a pillar near the slaves’ quarters.

The pioneer gave a sign, the attendants rose; but Paaker went with hasty steps to the man who had disdained the act of devotion, which he had so earnestly performed, and cried:

“Steward, a hundred strokes on the soles of the feet of this scoffer.”

The officer thus addressed bowed and said: “My lord, the surgeon commanded the mat-weaver not to move and he cannot lift his arm. He is suffering great pain. Thou didst break his collar-bone yesterday.

“It served him right!” said Paaker, raising his voice so much that the injured man could not fail to hear it. Then he turned his back upon him, and entered the garden; here he called the chief butler, and said: “Give the slaves beer for their night draught—to all of them, and plenty.”