Uarda, Volume 5.

G >> Georg Ebers >> Uarda, Volume 5.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4

This eBook was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

UARDA

Volume 5.

By Georg Ebers

CHAPTER XX.

As Nemu, on his way back from his visit to Ani, approached his mistress's
house, he was detained by a boy, who desired him to follow him to the
stranger's quarter. Seeing him hesitate, the messenger showed him the
ring of his mother Hekt, who had come into the town on business, and
wanted to speak with him.

Nemu was tired, for he was not accustomed to walking; his ass was dead,
and Katuti could not afford to give him another. Half of Mena's beasts
had been sold, and the remainder barely sufficed for the field-labor.

At the corners of the busiest streets, and on the market-places, stood
boys with asses which they hired out for a small sum;

[In the streets of modern Egyptian towns asses stand saddled for
hire. On the monuments only foreigners are represented as riding on
asses, but these beasts are mentioned in almost every list of the
possessions of the nobles, even in very early times, and the number
is often considerable. There is a picture extant of a rich old man
who rides on a seat supported on the backs of two donkeys. Lepsius,
Denkmaler, part ii. 126.]

but Nemu had parted with his last money for a garment and a new wig, so
that he might appear worthily attired before the Regent. In former times
his pocket had never been empty, for Mena had thrown him many a ring of
silver, or even of gold, but his restless and ambitious spirit wasted no
regrets on lost luxuries. He remembered those years of superfluity with
contempt, and as he puffed and panted on his way through the dust, he
felt himself swell with satisfaction.

The Regent had admitted him to a private interview, and the little man
had soon succeeded in riveting his attention; Ani had laughed till the
tears rolled down his cheeks at Nemu's description of Paaker's wild
passion, and he had proved himself in earnest over the dwarf's further
communications, and had met his demands half-way. Nemu felt like a duck
hatched on dry land, and put for the first time into water; like a bird
hatched in a cage, and that for the first time is allowed to spread its
wings and fly. He would have swum or have flown willingly to death if
circumstances had not set a limit to his zeal and energy.

Bathed in sweat and coated with dust, he at last reached the gay tent in
the stranger's quarter, where the sorceress Hekt was accustomed to alight
when she came over to Thebes.

He was considering far-reaching projects, dreaming of possibilities,
devising subtle plans--rejecting them as too subtle, and supplying their
place with others more feasible and less dangerous; altogether the little
diplomatist had no mind for the motley tribes which here surrounded him.
He had passed the temple in which the people of Kaft adored their goddess
Astarte, and the sanctuary of Seth, where they sacrificed to Baal,
without letting himself be disturbed by the dancing devotees or the noise
of cymbals and music which issued from their enclosures. The tents and
slightly-built wooden houses of the dancing girls did not tempt him.
Besides their inhabitants, who in the evening tricked themselves out in
tinsel finery to lure the youth of Thebes into extravagance and folly,
and spent their days in sleeping till sun-down, only the gambling booths
drove a brisk business; and the guard of police had much trouble to
restrain the soldier, who had staked and lost all his prize money, or the
sailor, who thought himself cheated, from such outbreaks of rage and
despair as must end in bloodshed. Drunken men lay in front of the
taverns, and others were doing their utmost, by repeatedly draining their
beakers, to follow their example.

Nothing was yet to be seen of the various musicians, jugglers, fire-
eaters, serpent-charmers, and conjurers, who in the evening displayed
their skill in this part of the town, which at all times had the aspect
of a never ceasing fair. But these delights, which Nemu had passed a
thousand times, had never had any temptation for him. Women and gambling
were not to his taste; that which could be had simply for the taking,
without trouble or exertion, offered no charms to his fancy, he had no
fear of the ridicule of the dancing-women, and their associates--indeed,
he occasionally sought them, for he enjoyed a war of words, and he was of
opinion that no one in Thebes could beat him at having the last word.
Other people, indeed, shared this opinion, and not long before Paaker's
steward had said of Nemu:

"Our tongues are cudgels, but the little one's is a dagger."

The destination of the dwarf was a very large and gaudy tent, not in any
way distinguished from a dozen others in its neighborhood. The opening
which led into it was wide, but at present closed by a hanging of coarse
stuff.

Nemu squeezed himself in between the edge of the tent and the yielding
door, and found himself in an almost circular tent with many angles, and
with its cone-shaped roof supported on a pole by way of a pillar.

Pieces of shabby carpet lay on the dusty soil that was the floor of the
tent, and on these squatted some gaily-clad girls, whom an old woman was
busily engaged in dressing. She painted the finger and toenails of the
fair ones with orange-colored Hennah, blackened their brows and eye-
lashes with Mestem--[Antimony.]--to give brilliancy to their glance,
painted their cheeks with white and red, and anointed their hair with
scented oil.

It was very hot in the tent, and not one of the girls spoke a word; they
sat perfectly still before the old woman, and did not stir a finger,
excepting now and then to take up one of the porous clay pitchers, which
stood on the ground, for a draught of water, or to put a pill of Kyphi
between their painted lips.

Various musical instruments leaned against the walls of the tent, hand-
drums, pipes and lutes and four tambourines lay on the ground; on the
vellum of one slept a cat, whose graceful kittens played with the bells
in the hoop of another.

An old negro-woman went in and out of the little back-door of the tent,
pursued by flies and gnats, while she cleared away a variety of earthen
dishes with the remains of food--pomegranate-peelings, breadcrumbs, and
garlic-tops--which had been lying on one of the carpets for some hours
since the girls had finished their dinner.

Old Hekt sat apart from the girls on a painted trunk, and she was saying,
as she took a parcel from her wallet:

"Here, take this incense, and burn six seeds of it, and the vermin will
all disappear--" she pointed to the flies that swarmed round the platter
in her hand. "If you like I will drive away the mice too and draw the
snakes out of their holes better than the priests."

[Recipes for exterminating noxious creatures are found in the
papyrus in my possession.]

"Keep your magic to yourself," said a girl in a husky voice. "Since you
muttered your words over me, and gave me that drink to make me grow
slight and lissom again, I have been shaken to pieces with a cough at
night, and turn faint when I am dancing."

"But look how slender you have grown," answered Hekt, "and your cough
will soon be well."

"When I am dead," whispered the girl to the old woman. "I know that most
of us end so."

The witch shrugged her shoulders, and perceiving the dwarf she rose from
her seat.

The girls too noticed the little man, and set up the indescribable cry,
something like the cackle of hens, which is peculiar to Eastern women
when something tickles their fancy. Nemu was well known to them, for his
mother always stayed in their tent whenever she came to Thebes, and the
gayest of them cried out:

"You are grown, little man, since the last time you were here."

"So are you," said the dwarf sharply; "but only as far as big words are
concerned."

"And you are as wicked as you are small," retorted the girl.

"Then my wickedness is small too," said the dwarf laughing, "for I am
little enough! Good morning, girls--may Besa help your beauty. Good
day, mother--you sent for me?"

The old woman nodded; the dwarf perched himself on the chest beside her,
and they began to whisper together.

How dusty and tired you are," said Hekt. I do believe you have come on
foot in the burning sun."

"My ass is dead," replied Nemu, "and I have no money to hire a steed."

"A foretaste of future splendor," said the old woman with a sneer.
"What have you succeeded in doing?"

"Paaker has saved us," replied Nemu, "and I have just come from a long
interview with the Regent."

"Well?"

"He will renew your letter of freedom, if you will put Paaker into his
power."

"Good-good. I wish he would make up his mind to come and seek me--in
disguise, of course--I would--"

"He is very timid, and it would not suggest to him anything so
unpracticable."

"Hm--" said Hekt, "perhaps you are right, for when we have to demand a
good deal it is best only to ask for what is feasible. One rash request
often altogether spoils the patron's inclination for granting favors."

"What else has occurred?"

"The Regent's army has conquered the Ethiopians, and is coming home with
rich spoils."

"People may be bought with treasure," muttered the old woman, "I good--
good!"

"Paaker's sword is sharpened; I would give no more for my master's life,
than I have in my pocket--and you know why I came on foot through the
dust."

"Well, you can ride home again," replied his mother, giving the little
man a small silver ring. "Has the pioneer seen Nefert again?"

"Strange things have happened," said the dwarf, and he told his mother
what had taken place between Katuti and Nefert. Nemu was a good
listener, and had not forgotten a word of what he had heard.

The old woman listened to his story with the most eager attention.

"Well, well," she muttered, "here is another extraordinary thing. What
is common to all men is generally disgustingly similar in the palace and
in the hovel. Mothers are everywhere she-apes, who with pleasure let
themselves be tormented to death by their children, who repay them badly
enough, and the wives generally open their ears wide if any one can tell
them of some misbehavior of their husbands! But that is not the way with
your mistress."

The old woman looked thoughtful, and then she continued:

"In point of fact this can be easily explained, and is not at all more
extraordinary than it is that those tired girls should sit yawning. You
told me once that it was a pretty sight to see the mother and daughter
side by side in their chariot when they go to a festival or the
Panegyrai; Katuti, you said, took care that the colors of their dresses
and the flowers in their hair should harmonize. For which of them is the
dress first chosen on such occasions?"

"Always for the lady Katuti, who never wears any but certain colors,"
replied Nemu quickly.

"You see," said the witch laughing, "Indeed it must be so. That mother
always thinks of herself first, and of the objects she wishes to gain;
but they hang high, and she treads down everything that is in her way--
even her own child--to reach them. She will contrive that Paaker shall
be the ruin of Mena, as sure as I have ears to hear with, for that woman
is capable of playing any tricks with her daughter, and would marry her
to that lame dog yonder if it would advance her ambitious schemes."

"But Nefert!" said Nemu. "You should have seen her. The dove became a
lioness."

"Because she loves Mena as much as her mother loves herself," answered
Hekt. "As the poets say, 'she is full of him.' It is really true of
her, there is no room for any thing else. She cares for one only, and
woe to those who come between him and her!"

"I have seen other women in love," said Nemu, "but--"

"But," exclaimed the old witch with such a sharp laugh that the girls all
looked up, "they behaved differently to Nefert--I believe you, for there
is not one in a thousand that loves as she does. It is a sickness that
gives raging pain--like a poisoned arrow in an open wound, and devours
all that is near it like a fire-brand, and is harder to cure than the
disease which is killing that coughing wench. To be possessed by that
demon of anguish is to suffer the torture of the damned--or else," and
her voice sank to softness, "to be more blest than the Gods, happy as
they are. I know--I know it all; for I was once one of the possessed,
one of a thousand, and even now--"

"Well?" asked the dwarf.

"Folly!" muttered the witch, stretching herself as if awaking from
sleep. "Madness! He--is long since dead, and if he were not it would
be all the same to me. All men are alike, and Mena will be like the
rest."

"But Paaker surely is governed by the demon you describe?" asked the
dwarf.

"May be," replied his mother; "but he is self-willed to madness. He
would simply give his life for the thing because it is denied him. If
your mistress Nefert were his, perhaps he might be easier; but what is
the use of chattering? I must go over to the gold tent, where everyone
goes now who has any money in their purse, to speak to the mistress--"

"What do you want with her?" interrupted Nemu. "Little Uarda over
there," said the old woman, "will soon be quite well again. You have
seen her lately; is she not grown beautiful, wonderfully beautiful? Now
I shall see what the good woman will offer me if I take Uarda to her?
the girl is as light-footed as a gazelle, and with good training would
learn to dance in a very few weeks."

Nemu turned perfectly white.

"That you shall not do," said he positively.

"And why not?" asked the old woman, "if it pays well."

"Because I forbid it," said the dwarf in a choked voice.

"Bless me," laughed the woman; "you want to play my lady Nefert, and
expect me to take the part of her mother Katuti. But, seriously, having
seen the child again, have you any fancy for her?"

"Yes," replied Nemu. "If we gain our end, Katuti will make me free, and
make me rich. Then I will buy Pinem's grandchild, and take her for my
wife. I will build a house near the hall of justice, and give the
complainants and defendants private advice, like the hunch-back Sent, who
now drives through the streets in his own chariot."

"Hm--" said his mother, "that might have done very well, but perhaps it
is too late. When the child had fever she talked about the young priest
who was sent from the House of Seti by Ameni. He is a fine tall fellow,
and took a great interest in her; he is a gardener's son, named Pentaur."

"Pentaur?" said the dwarf. "Pentaur? He has the haughty air and the
expression of the old Mohar, and would be sure to rise; but they are
going to break his proud neck for him."

"So much the better," said the old woman. "Uarda would be just the wife
for you, she is good and steady, and no one knows--"

"What?" said Nemu.

"Who her mother was--for she was not one of us. She came here from
foreign parts, and when she died she left a trinket with strange letters
on it. We must show it to one of the prisoners of war, after you have
got her safe; perhaps they could make out the queer inscription. She
comes of a good stock, that I am certain; for Uarda is the very living
image of her mother, and as soon as she was born, she looked like the
child of a great man. You smile, you idiot! Why thousands of infants
have been in my hands, and if one was brought to me wrapped in rags I
could tell if its parents were noble or base-born. The shape of the foot
shows it--and other marks. Uarda may stay where she is, and I will help
you. If anything new occurs let me know."

CHAPTER XXI.

When Nemu, riding on an ass this time, reached home, he found neither his
mistress nor Nefert within.

The former was gone, first to the temple, and then into the town; Nefert,
obeying an irresistible impulse, had gone to her royal friend Bent-Anat.

The king's palace was more like a little town than a house. The wing in
which the Regent resided, and which we have already visited, lay away
from the river; while the part of the building which was used by the
royal family commanded the Nile.

It offered a splendid, and at the same time a pleasing prospect to the
ships which sailed by at its foot, for it stood, not a huge and solitary
mass in the midst of the surrounding gardens, but in picturesque groups
of various outline. On each side of a large structure, which contained
the state rooms and banqueting hall, three rows of pavilions of different
sizes extended in symmetrical order. They were connected with each other
by colonnades, or by little bridges, under which flowed canals, that
watered the gardens and gave the palace-grounds the aspect of a town
built on islands.

The principal part of the castle of the Pharaohs was constructed of light
Nile-mud bricks and elegantly carved woodwork, but the extensive walls
which surrounded it were ornamented and fortified with towers, in front
of which heavily armed soldiers stood on guard.

The walls and pillars, the galleries and colonnades, even the roofs,
blazed in many colored paints, and at every gate stood tall masts, from
which red and blue flags fluttered when the king was residing there. Now
they stood up with only their brass spikes, which were intended to
intercept and conduct the lightning.--[ According to an inscription first
interpreted by Dumichen.]

To the right of the principal building, and entirely surrounded with
thick plantations of trees, stood the houses of the royal ladies, some
mirrored in the lake which they surrounded at a greater or less distance.
In this part of the grounds were the king's storehouses in endless rows,
while behind the centre building, in which the Pharaoh resided, stood the
barracks for his body guard and the treasuries. The left wing was
occupied by the officers of the household, the innumerable servants and
the horses and chariots of the sovereign.

In spite of the absence of the king himself, brisk activity reigned in
the palace of Rameses, for a hundred gardeners watered the turf, the
flower-borders, the shrubs and trees; companies of guards passed hither
and thither; horses were being trained and broken; and the princess's
wing was as full as a beehive of servants and maids, officers and
priests.

Nefert was well known in this part of the palace. The gate-keepers let
her litter pass unchallenged, with low bows; once in the garden, a lord
in waiting received her, and conducted her to the chamberlain, who, after
a short delay, introduced her into the sitting-room of the king's
favorite daughter.

Bent-Anat's apartment was on the first floor of the pavilion, next to the
king's residence. Her dead mother had inhabited these pleasant rooms,
and when the princess was grown up it made the king happy to feel that
she was near him; so the beautiful house of the wife who had too early
departed, was given up to her, and at the same time, as she was his
eldest daughter, many privileges were conceded to her, which hitherto
none but queens had enjoyed.

The large room, in which Nefert found the princess, commanded the river.
A doorway, closed with light curtains, opened on to a long balcony with a
finely-worked balustrade of copper-gilt, to which clung a climbing rose
with pink flowers.

When Nefert entered the room, Bent-Anat was just having the rustling
curtain drawn aside by her waiting-women; for the sun was setting, and at
that hour she loved to sit on the balcony, as it grew cooler, and watch
with devout meditation the departure of Ra, who, as the grey-haired Turn,
vanished behind the western horizon of the Necropolis in the evening to
bestow the blessing of light on the under-world.

Nefert's apartment was far more elegantly appointed than the princess's;
her mother and Mena had surrounded her with a thousand pretty trifles.
Her carpets were made of sky-blue and silver brocade from Damascus, the
seats and couches were covered with stuff embroidered in feathers by the
Ethiopian women, which looked like the breasts of birds. The images of
the Goddess Hathor, which stood on the house-altar, were of an imitation
of emerald, which was called Mafkat, and the other little figures, which
were placed near their patroness, were of lapis-lazuli, malachite, agate
and bronze, overlaid with gold. On her toilet-table stood a collection
of salve-boxes, and cups of ebony and ivory finely carved, and everything
was arranged with the utmost taste, and exactly suited Nefert herself.

Bent-Anat's room also suited the owner.

It was high and airy, and its furniture consisted in costly but simple
necessaries; the lower part of the wall was lined with cool tiles of
white and violet earthen ware, on each of which was pictured a star, and
which, all together, formed a tasteful pattern. Above these the walls
were covered with a beautiful dark green material brought from Sais, and
the same stuff was used to cover the long divans by the wall. Chairs and
stools, made of cane, stood round a very large table in the middle of
this room, out of which several others opened; all handsome, comfortable,
and harmonious in aspect, but all betraying that their mistress took
small pleasure in trifling decorations. But her chief delight was in
finely-grown plants, of which rare and magnificent specimens,
artistically arranged on stands, stood in the corners of many of the
rooms. In others there were tall obelisks of ebony, which bore saucers
for incense, which all the Egyptians loved, and which was prescribed by
their physicians to purify and perfume their dwellings. Her simple
bedroom would have suited a prince who loved floriculture, quite as well
as a princess.

Before all things Bent-Anat loved air and light. The curtains of her
windows and doors were only closed when the position of the sun
absolutely required it; while in Nefert's rooms, from morning till
evening, a dim twilight was maintained.

The princess went affectionately towards the charioteer's wife, who bowed
low before her at the threshold; she took her chin with her right hand,
kissed her delicate narrow forehead, and said:

"Sweet creature! At last you have come uninvited to see lonely me!
It is the first time since our men went away to the war. If Rameses'
daughter commands there is no escape; and you come; but of your own free
will--"

Nefert raised her large eyes, moist with tears, with an imploring look,
and her glance was so pathetic that Bent-Anat interrupted herself, and
taking both her hands, exclaimed:

"Do you know who must have eyes exactly like yours? I mean the Goddess
from whose tears, when they fall on the earth, flowers spring."

Nefert's eyes fell and she blushed deeply.

"I wish," she murmured, "that my eyes might close for ever, for I am very
unhappy." And two large tears rolled down her cheeks.

"What has happened to you, my darling?" asked the princess
sympathetically, and she drew her towards her, putting her arm round
her like a sick child.

Nefert glanced anxiously at the chamberlain, and the ladies in waiting
who had entered the room with her, and Bent-Anat understood the look; she
requested her attendants to withdraw, and when she was alone with her sad
little friend--"Speak now," she said. "What saddens your heart? how
comes this melancholy expression on your dear baby face? Tell me, and I
will comfort you, and you shall be my bright thoughtless plaything once
more."

"Thy plaything!" answered Nefert, and a flash of displeasure sparkled in
her eyes. "Thou art right to call me so, for I deserve no better name.
I have submitted all my life to be nothing but the plaything of others."

"But, Nefert, I do not know you again," cried Bent-Anat. "Is this my
gentle amiable dreamer?"

"That is the word I wanted," said Nefert in a low tone. "I slept, and
dreamed, and dreamed on--till Mena awoke me; and when he left me I went
to sleep again, and for two whole years I have lain dreaming; but to-day
I have been torn from my dreams so suddenly and roughly, that I shall
never find any rest again."

While she spoke, heavy tears fell slowly one after another over her
cheeks.

Bent-Anat felt what she saw and heard as deeply as if Nefert were her own
suffering child. She lovingly drew the young wife down by her side on
the divan, and insisted on Nefert's letting her know all that troubled
her spirit.

Katuti's daughter had in the last few hours felt like one born blind, and
who suddenly receives his sight. He looks at the brightness of the sun,
and the manifold forms of the creation around him, but the beams of the
day-star blind its eyes, and the new forms, which he has sought to guess
at in his mind, and which throng round him in their rude reality, shock
him and pain him. To-day, for the first time, she had asked herself
wherefore her mother, and not she herself, was called upon to control the
house of which she nevertheless was called the mistress, and the answer
had rung in her ears: "Because Mena thinks you incapable of thought and
action." He had often called her his little rose, and she felt now that
she was neither more nor less than a flower that blossoms and fades, and
only charms the eye by its color and beauty.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4