Part 20

Thamar went off grumbling, and soon returned, followed by a very tall old man, whose majestic aspect inspired reverence. A long white beard fell down over his breast, and on either side of his brow two huge protuberances caught and retained the light. They looked like two horns or two beams. Under his thick eyebrows his eyes shone like fire. He looked, in spite of his simple dress, like a prophet or a god.

Acquainted with the state of things by Poëri, he sat down by Tahoser's couch, and said, as he stretched his hand over her: "In the name of the Mighty One beside whom all other gods are idols and demons,--though you do not belong to the elect of the Lord,--maiden, be cured!"

XII

The tall old man withdrew solemnly, leaving, as it were, a trail of light behind him. Tahoser, surprised at feeling her sickness suddenly leave her, cast her eyes around the room, and soon, wrapping herself in the blanket with which the young Israelite had covered her, she put her feet to the ground and sat up on the edge of the bed. Fatigue and fever had completely left her; she was as fresh as after a long rest, and her beauty shone in all its purity. Pushing back with her little hands the plaited masses of her hair behind her ears, she showed her face lighted up with love, as if she desired Poëri to read it; but seeing that he remained motionless near Ra'hel without encouraging her by a sign or a glance, she rose slowly, drew near the young Israelite girl, and threw her arms around her neck. She remained thus, her head in Ra'hel's bosom, wetting it with her hot tears. Sometimes a sob she could not repress shook her convulsively upon her rival's breast.

The complete yielding up of herself, and her evident misery, touched Ra'hel. Tahoser confessed herself beaten, and implored her pity by mute supplication, appealing to her womanly generosity.

Ra'hel, much moved, kissed her and said,--

"Dry your tears and be not so sorrowful. You love Poëri? Well, love him, and I shall not be jealous. Yacoub, a patriarch of our race, had two wives; one was called Ra'hel as I am, and the other Leah. Yacoub preferred Ra'hel, and yet Leah, who was not beautiful like you, lived happily with him."

Tahoser knelt at Ra'hel's feet and kissed her hand. Ra'hel raised her and put her arm around her waist. They formed a charming group, these two women of different races, exhibiting, as they did, the characteristic beauty of each: Tahoser elegant, graceful, and slender, like a child that has grown too fast; Ra'hel dazzling, blooming, and superb in her precocious maturity.

"Tahoser," said Poëri, "for that is your name, I think,--Tahoser, daughter of the high-priest Petamounoph?"

The young girl nodded assent.

"How is it that you, who live in Thebes in a rich palace, surrounded by slaves, and whom the handsomest among the Egyptians desire,--how is it you have chosen to love me, a son of a race reduced to slavery, a stranger who does not share your religious beliefs and who is separated from you by so great a distance?"

Ra'hel and Tahoser smiled, and the high-priest's daughter replied,--

"That is the very reason."

"Although I enjoy the favour of the Pharaoh, although I am the steward of his domains and wear gilded horns in the festivals of agriculture, I cannot rise to you. In the eyes of the Egyptians I am but a slave, and you belong to the priestly caste, the highest and most venerated. If you love me--and I cannot doubt that you do--you must give up your rank."

"Have I not already become your servant? Hora kept nothing of Tahoser, not even the enamelled collars and the transparent gauze calasiris; that is why you thought me ugly."

"You will have to give up your country and follow me to unknown regions, through the desert where burns the sun, where blows the fire-wind, where the moving sand tangles and effaces the paths, where no tree grows, where no well springs, through the lost valleys of death strewn with whitened bones that mark the way."

"I shall go," said Tahoser, quietly.

"That is not all," continued Poëri. "Your gods are not mine,--your gods of brass, basalt, and granite, fashioned by the hand of man, your monstrous idols with heads of eagle, monkey, ibis, cow, jackal, and lion, which assume the faces of beasts as if they were troubled by the human face on which rests the reflection of Jehovah. It is said, 'Thou shalt worship neither stone nor wood nor metal.' Within these temples cemented with the blood of oppressed races grin and crouch the hideous, foul demons which usurp the libations, the offerings, and the sacrifices. One only God, infinite, eternal, formless, colourless, fills the immensity of the heavens which you people with a multitude of phantoms. Our God has created us; you have created your gods."

Although Tahoser was deeply in love with Poëri, his words affected her strangely, and she drew back in terror. The daughter of the high-priest had been brought up to venerate the gods whom the young Hebrew was boldly blaspheming; she had offered up on their altars bouquets of flowers, and she had burned perfumes before their impassible images; amazed and delighted, she had walked through their temples splendid with brilliant paintings. She had seen her father performing the mysterious rites; she had followed the procession of priests who bore the symbolic bari through the enormous pylons and the endless sphinx avenues; she had admired tremblingly the psychostasis where the trembling soul appears before Osiris armed with the whip and the pedum, and she had noted with a dreamy glance the frescoes representing the emblematic figures travelling towards the regions of the West. She could not thus yield up all her beliefs. She was silent for a few moments, hesitating between religion and love. Love won the day, and she said:

"You shall tell me of your God; I will try to understand him."

"It is well," said Poëri; "you shall be my wife. Meanwhile remain here, for the Pharaoh, no doubt in love with you, is having you sought everywhere by his emissaries. He will never discover you under this humble roof, and in a few days we shall be out of his power. But the night is waning and I must depart."

Poëri went off, and the two young women, lying side by side on the soft bed, soon fell asleep, holding each other's hands like two sisters.

Thamar, who during the foregoing scene had remained crouched in her corner of the room, looking like a bat hanging from a corner by its talons, and had been muttering broken words and frowning, now unfolded her bony limbs, rose to her feet, and bending over the bed, listened to the breathing of the two sleepers. When the regularity of their breathing convinced her that they were sound asleep, she went towards the door, walking with infinite precaution. Once outside, she sprang with swift steps in the direction of the Nile, shaking off the dogs who hung on with their teeth at the edge of her tunic, or dragging them through the dust until they let go; or she glared at them with such fierce eyes that they drew back with frightened yelps and let her pass by.

She had soon passed the dangerous and deserted places inhabited at night by the members of the thieves' association, and entered the wealthy quarter of Thebes. Three or four streets bordered with tall buildings, the shadows of which fell in great angles, led her to the outer wall of the palace, which was the object of her trip. The difficulty was to enter,--no easy matter at that time of the night for an old Hebrew servant with dusty feet and shabby garments.

GILBO & CO.

The Pharaoh slew but a short time ago three messengers with a blow of his sceptre.]

She went to the main pylon, before which watched, stretched at length, fifty ram-headed sphinxes, arranged in two lines like monsters ready to crush between their granite jaws the imprudent ones who should attempt to force a passage. The sentinels stopped her, struck her roughly with the shafts of their javelins, and then asked her what she wished.

"I want to see the Pharaoh," replied the old woman, rubbing her back.