it was as if I had laid my hand on a snakeskin. I felt her heart beating and knew that she was unharmed, yet I wrapped her in a dark cloth as corpses are wrapped and lifted her into a chair. The watch did not interfere when they saw that I had soldiers with me. These attended me to the gateway of the House of Death, while I sat in the swaying chair with Nefernefernefer’s senseless body in my arms. She was beautiful still but more repulsive to me than a serpent. So we went on through the riotous night to the House of Death, where I gave the soldiers gold and dismissed them, and I also sent away the chair.
With Nefernefernefer in my arms I entered the House and I said to the corpse washers who met me, “I bring you the body of a woman whom I found in the street; I do not know her name or her family, but I fancy the jewels she is wearing will reward you for your trouble if you will preserve her body forever.”
The men swore at me, saying, “Madman, do you think we have not had enough carrion to deal with in these days? And who will reward us for our trouble?”
But when they had unwound the black cloth, they found that the body was yet warm, and when they took off the dress and the jewels, they saw that she was fair-fairer than any woman who had yet been brought to the House of Death. They said no more to me but laid their hands on her breast and felt her heart beating. They swiftly covered her once more in the black cloth, winking and grimacing at one another with delighted laughter.
Then they said to me, “Go your way, stranger, and blessed be this act of yours. We shall do our best to preserve her body forever, and should it depend on us alone, we will keep her with us seventy times seventy days, that her body may be preserved indeed.”
Thus did I exact payment from Nefernefernefer for the debt in which she stood to me on my parents’ account. I wondered how she would feel when she awoke in the recesses of the House of Death, robbed of her wealth and in the power of corpse washers and em- balmers. If I knew anything of them, they would never let her return to the light of day. This was my revenge, for it was through her that I ever came to know the House of Death. But my revenge was childish, as I was later to discover.
At the Crocodile’s Tail I saw Merit and said to her, “I have enforced my demands, and in a more terrible manner than anyone has ever done. But my revenge gives me no relief, my heart is yet emptier than before, and despite the warmth of the night my limbs are cold.”
I drank wine, and it was as dust in my mouth. I said, “May my body perish if ever I lay my hand upon a woman again, for the more I think of woman the more do I fear her; her body is a wilderness and her heart a mortal snare.”
She stroked my hands, and her brown eyes looked into mine as she said, “Sinuhe, you have never known a woman who wished you well.”
And I answered, “May all the gods of Egypt save me from a woman who wishes me well. Pharaoh also wishes only well, and the river is full of bobbing corpses because of his well wishing.”
I drank wine, and I wept, saying, “Merit, your cheeks are smooth as glass and your hands are warm. Let me touch your cheeks with my hps this night and put my cold hands into your warm ones so that I may sleep without dreaming, and I will give you whatever you desire.”
She smiled sadly and said, “The crocodile’s tail speaks through your mouth, but I am accustomed to that and I take no offense. Know therefore, Sinuhe, that I require nothing of you and never in my life have required anything of a man; from none have I taken a gift of any value. What I give I give from my heart, and to you also I give what you ask, for I am as lonely as you.”
She took the wine cup from my trembling hand, and having spread her mat for me, she lay down beside me, warming my hands in hers. I brushed her smooth cheeks with my lips and breathed in the fragrance of cedar from her skin, and I took pleasure with her. She was to me as my father and my mother-she was as a brazier on a winter’s night and a beacon on the shore that guides the seaman home through a night of tempest. When I fell asleep, she was to me Minea-Minea whom I had lost forever-and I lay against her as if on the floor of the sea with Minea. I saw no evil dreams but slept soundly, while she whispered in my ear such words as mothers whisper whose children fear the dark. From that night she was my friend, for in her arms I could believe once more that there was something greater than myself beyond my understanding, for which it was worth while to live.
Next morning I said to her, “Merit, I have broken a jar with a woman who is now dead, and I still have the silver ribbon with which I bound her long hair. Yet for the sake of our friendship, Merit, I am ready to break the jar with you if you wish it.”
Yawning she held the back of her hand across her mouth and said, “You must drink no more crocodiles’ tails, Sinuhe, since they make you talk so foolishly next day. Remember that I grew up in a tavern and am no longer an innocent girl who might take you at your word-and be sorely disappointed!”
“When I look into your eyes, Merit, I can believe that there are good women in the world,” I said, and I brushed her smooth cheeks with my mouth. “That was why I said it, that you might know how much you are to me.”
She smiled.
“You note that I forbade you to drink crocodiles’ tails, for a woman first shows her fondness for a man by forbidding him something, to feel her own power. Let us not talk of jars, Sinuhe. You know that my mat is yours whenever you are thus lonely and sorrowful. But be not offended if you find that there are others lonely and sorrowful besides yourself, for as a human being I too am free to choose my company, and I hold you in no way bound. And so, in spite of all, I will give you a crocodile’s tail with my own hand.”
So strange is the mind of man and so little does he know his own heart that my soul at this moment was as free and light as a bird, and I recalled nothing of the evil which had come to pass during those days. I was content and tasted no more crocodiles’ tails that day.
4
Next morning I came to fetch Merit to watch Pharaoh’s festival procession. Despite her tavern upbringing she looked very lovely in the summer dress that was made in the new fashion, and I was not at all ashamed to stand beside her in places reserved for the favored of Pharaoh.
The Avenue of Rams was brilliant with banners and lined with the vast crowds who had come to see Pharaoh. Boys had climbed the trees in the gardens on either side, and Pepitaton had ordered countless baskets of flowers to be set out along the road so that, according to custom, the spectators could strew them in Pharaoh’s path. My mood was hopeful for I seemed to glimpse freedom and light for the land of Egypt. I had received a golden bowl from Pharaoh’s house and had been nominated skull surgeon to his household. Beside me stood a mature and lovely woman who was my friend, and around us in the reserved places we saw only happy, smiling people. Yet profound silence reigned; the squawking of crows could be heard from the temple roof-for crows and vultures had taken up their abode in Thebes and were so gorged that they could not rise and fly back to their hills.
It was a mistake for Pharaoh to allow painted Negroes to walk behind his chair. The mere sight of them aroused the fury of the people. There were few who had not suffered some injury during the preceding days. Many had lost their homes by fire, the tears of wives had not yet dried, men’s wounds still smarted beneath the bandages, and their bruised and broken mouths could not smile. But Pharaoh Akh- naton appeared, swaying high in his chair above the heads of the people and visible to them all. Upon his head he wore the double crown of the Two Kingdoms-lily and papyrus. His arms were crossed on his breast, and his hands were hard clenched about the crook and whip of royalty. He sat motionless as an image, as the Pharaohs of all ages have sat in the sight of the people, and there was a dread silence as he came, as if the sight of him had struck men dumb. The soldiers guarding the route raised their spears with a shout of greeting, and the more eminent of the onlookers also began to shout and throw flowers in front of the royal chair. But against the menacing hush of the crowd, their cries sounded thin and pitiful, like the buzz of a solitary midge on a winter’s night, so that they soon fell silent and looked at one another in amazement.
Now, against all tradition, Pharaoh moved. He raised the crook and whip in ecstatic greeting. The crowd surged back and suddenly from its manifold throat broke a cry as terrible as the thunder of bursting seas among the rocks.
“Ammon! Ammon! Give us back Ammon, the king of all gods!”
As the mob billowed and swayed and the cry rolled out ever louder, the crows and vultures winged upward
