his workmen to the eastern hills within the consecrated land, to hew out eternal resting places. They found work enough to last their whole lives through and were never able to return to their birthplace. They did not greatly desire to do so but accustomed themselves to dwelling in their own town and in Pharaoh’s shadow, for grain was measured to them abundantly, their oil jars were never empty, and their wives bore them healthy children.
When Pharaoh had decided to build tombs for himself and his nobles and to present one to each of his distinguished followers who would live in the City of the Heavens with him and who believed in Aton, he built also a House of Death outside the city so that the bodies of those who died in Akhetaton should be preserved forever. To this end he summoned from Thebes those embalmers and washers who held the foremost place in their craft. They came down the river in a black ship, and their smell was borne before them on the wind so that the people hid in their houses with bowed heads, reciting prayers to Aton. Many also prayed to the old gods and made the holy sign of Ammon, for when they smelled the body washers’ smell Aton seemed far away and their thoughts turned to their earlier dieties.
The embalmers stepped ashore from the vessel with all their materials, blinking with eyes that were accustomed to the dark and swearing bitterly at the light, which hurt them. They entered swiftly into the new House of Death, taking their smell with them so that the place became a home for them, which they never left again. Among them was old Ramose, the expert of the pincers, whose task was to extract the brain. I met him in the House of Death, for the priests of Aton held the House of Death in horror, and Pharaoh had placed it under my charge. When he had gazed at me for some time he knew me again, and marveled. I made myself known to him to gain his confidence, for uncertainty gnawed like a worm at my heart and I desired to know how my revenge had prospered at the House of Death in Thebes.
When we had spoken a little of his work, I asked, “Ramose my friend, did you ever have under your hands a beautiful woman who was brought to the House of Death during the Terror and whose name I believe was Nefernefernefer?”
He regarded me, bent backed and blinking like a tortoise, and said, “In truth, Sinuhe, you are the first distinguished man who has ever called a corpse washer his friend. My heart is greatly moved, and the information you require is doubtless of great import since you so address me. Surely it was not you who brought her one dark night, swathed in the black robe of death? For if you were that man you are the friend of no corpse washer, and if they come to hear of it, they will stab you with poisoned knives and so inflict upon you a most hideous death.”
His words caused me to tremble, and I said, “Whoever may have brought her, she deserved her fate. Yet from your words I suspect that she was not dead but came to life under the hands of the washers.”
Ramose answered, “Most certainly that frightful woman was restored to life, though how you know of this I prefer not to guess. She awoke, for such women never die-and if they die, they should be burned so that they can never return. When we came to know her we gave her the name of Setnefer: the devil’s beauty.”
A dreadful suspicion seized me and I asked, “Why do you speak of her as of something that has been? Is she not still in the House of Death? The washers vowed that they would keep her there for seventy times seventy days.”
Ramose rattled his knives and pincers angrily, and I believe he would have struck me if I had not brought him a jar of the best wine in Pharaoh’s cellar. He merely felt its dusty seal with his thumb and said, “We bore you no ill will, Sinuhe; you were to me as my own son, and I would have kept you all your life in the House of Death and taught you my art. We embalmed the bodies of your parents as only those of the eminent are embalmed and did not spare the finest oils and balsams. Why then did you wish us so ill as to bring that terrible woman to us alive? Know that before her coming we led a simple, hard -working life, rejoicing our hearts with beer and greatly enriching ourselves by thefts of jewelry from the dead, without regard to sex or standing, and also by selling to sorcerers such organs as they require for their spells. But after the coming of that woman the House of Death became like some abyss of the underworld. The men knifed one another and fought together like mad dogs. She stole all our wealth from us-all the gold and silver we had amassed in the course of years and hidden in the House of Death-nor did she scorn copper. Even our clothes she took from us, for having robbed the young men of all they possessed she set them on to steal from the old ones such as I, whose lust could no longer be kindled. No more than thirty times thirty days had passed before she had stripped us naked of possessions. Then she left, taking all her wealth with her, and we could not prevent her, for if one placed himself in her path he was opposed by another-for the sake of a smile or a touch of her fingers. Thus she took from us our property and our peace. She had by then no less than three hundred deben of gold, to say nothing of silver, copper, linen bands, and salves that for years we had stolen from the dead, as the custom is. She vowed to return to us in a year to see how much we had been able to save by then. There is more theft in the House of Life than there has ever been before; moreover the washers have learned to pilfer from each other and not only from the bodies, so that our peace has altogether departed. By this you may understand why we gave her the name of Setnefer, for she is exceedingly fair though her beauty is of Set.”
It was now I learned how childish my revenge had been since Nefernefernefer returned unharmed from the House of Death richer than before and, as I believe, suffered no ill effects from her stay save the smell, which soaked into her body and for some time prevented her from plying her trade. My revenge had eaten at my own heart and left her unharmed. When I knew this, I knew also that revenge brings no satisfaction. Its sweetness is brief and it turns against the avenger, to eat at his heart like fire.
BOOK 11
Merit
1
Everyone has seen water running from a water clock. So also does human life trickle away, though it is measured not by water but by events. This is a profound truth, to be grasped only in old age when a man’s time runs away to nothing, in monotony. A single day in an eventful period leaves its mark upon him and can seem longer than a year or so of monotonous labor that leaves his heart unchanged. I learned this truth in the city of Akhetaton, where my time flowed smoothly by like the current of the Nile and my life was a brief dream-a lovely, fading song. The ten years I spent in the shadow of Pharaoh Akhnaton in the golden palace of the new city were shorter than any one of the years of my youth: those years of travel and of change.
At Akhetaton I added nothing either to my wisdom or to my science; rather I drew on what I had gathered in so many countries, as a bee survives the winter on the honey it has stored up in the comb. Yet, as running water alters the shape of a stone, so time may have changed my heart; though of this I remained unaware. I was less lonely than before. I may have grown quieter, less puffed up over myself and my talents, though I can claim no credit for this; it was because Kaptah no longer lived with me, but was far away in Thebes, where he managed my property and the Crocodile’s Tail.
The city of Akhetaton shut itself away within the dreams and visions of Pharaoh and was unconcerned with the outside world. All that happened beyond Aton’s boundary stones was as remote and unreal as moonlight upon water. The only reality was what took place within the city of Akhetaton. Yet in looking back upon it now one sees that the opposite may have been true: Akhetaton and its doings were but shadow and illusion, while reality lay in the hunger, suffering, and death beyond its borders. For all that was unpleasing to Akhnaton was hidden from him, and when any matter arose in which a decision from him was necessary, it was presented to him as it were, veiled and sweetened, and with gentleness, lest the sickness in his head return.
During this time Eie the priest ruled in Thebes as bearer of the crook on the King’s right hand. Pharaoh had left behind him all such administrative duties as were tedious or unpleasant, placing full trust in Eie, who was his father-in-law-and a man of great ambitions. Eie was the true ruler of the Two Kingdoms, since all that touched on the life of the common people, whether farmers or townsmen, lay in his hands. Once Ammon had been overthrown, no power was left to rival that of Pharaoh-which was Eie’s-and Eie hoped that the disturbances would soon subside. Nothing could have been more to his mind than the city of Akhetaton, which kept Pharaoh far away from Thebes. He did what he could to collect funds for the building of it and for its adornment and was continually sending lavish gifts to render Akhetaton still more acceptable to Pharaoh. Peace might have come again and all have been as before- save for Ammon only-but for the fact that Pharaoh was a stumbling block to Eie.
