Georg Ebers - Ultimate Collection: 20+ Historical Novels & Short Stories. Georg Ebers
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a superior position!
He could hope to advance more quickly along the new stony path than on the old beaten track. The impulse to communicate his acquired knowledge to others he did not feel. Knowledge in itself amply satisfied him, and he thought no more of his ties to the House of Seti. For three whole days he had not changed his garments, no razor had touched his chin or his scalp, not a drop of water had wetted his hands or his feet. He felt half bewildered and almost as if he had already become an embalmer, nay even a paraschites, one of the most despised of human beings. This self-degradation had an infinite charm, for it brought him down to the level of Uarda, and she, lying near him, sick and anxious, with her dishevelled hair, exactly suited the future which he painted to himself.
“Do you hear nothing?” Uarda asked suddenly. He listened. In the valley there was a barking of dogs, and soon the paraschites and his wife appeared, and, at the door of their hut, took leave of old Hekt, who had met them on her return from Thebes.
“You have been gone a long time,” cried Uarda, when her grandmother once more stood before her. “I have been so frightened.”
“The doctor was with you,” said the old woman going into the house to prepare their simple meal, while the paraschites knelt down by his granddaughter, and caressed her tenderly, but yet with respect, as if he were her faithful servant rather than her blood-relation.
Then he rose, and gave to Nebsecht, who was trembling with excitement, the bag of coarse linen which he was in the habit of carrying tied to him by a narrow belt.
“The heart is in that,” he whispered to the leech; “take it out, and give me back the bag, for my knife is in it, and I want it.”
Nebsecht took the heart out of the covering with trembling hands and laid it carefully down. Then he felt in the breast of his dress, and going up to the paraschites he whispered:
“Here, take the writing, hang it round your neck, and when you die I will have the book of scripture wrapped up in your mummy cloths like a great man. But that is not enough. The property that I inherited is in the hands of my brother, who is a good man of business, and I have not touched the interest for ten years. I will send it to you, and you and your wife shall enjoy an old age free from care.”
The paraschites had taken the little bag with the strip of papyrus, and heard the leech to the end. Then he turned from him saying: “Keep thy money; we are quits. That is if the child gets well,” he added humbly.
“She is already half cured,” stammered Nebsecht. “But why will you—why won’t you accept—”
“Because till to day I have never begged nor borrowed,” said the paraschites, “and I will not begin in my old age. Life for life. But what I have done this day not Rameses with all his treasure could repay.”
Nebsecht looked down, and knew not how to answer the old man.
His wife now came out; she set a bowl of lentils that she had hastily warmed before the two men, with radishes and onions,87 then she helped Uarda, who did not need to be carried, into the house, and invited Nebsecht to share their meal. He accepted her invitation, for he had eaten nothing since the previous evening.
When the old woman had once more disappeared indoors, he asked the paraschites:
“Whose heart is it that you have brought me, and how did it come into your hands?”
“Tell me first,” said the other, “why thou hast laid such a heavy sin upon my soul?”
“Because I want to investigate the structure of the human heart,” said Nebsecht, “so that, when I meet with diseased hearts, I may be able to cure them.”
The paraschites looked for a long time at the ground in silence; then he said:
“Art thou speaking the truth?”
“Yes,” replied the leech with convincing emphasis. “I am glad,” said the old man, “for thou givest help to the poor.”
“As willingly as to the rich!” exclaimed Nebsecht. “But tell me now where you got the heart.”
“I went into the house of the embalmer,” said the old man, after he had selected a few large flints, to which, with crafty blows, he gave the shape of knives, “and there I found three bodies in which I had to make the eight prescribed incisions with my flint-knife. When the dead lie there undressed on the wooden bench they all look alike, and the begger lies as still as the favorite son of a king. But I knew very well who lay before me. The strong old body in the middle of the table was the corpse of the Superior of the temple of Hatasu, and beyond, close by each other, were laid a stone-mason of the Necropolis, and a poor girl from the strangers’ quarter, who had died of consumption—two miserable wasted figures. I had known the Prophet well, for I had met him a hundred times in his gilt litter, and we always called him Rui, the rich. I did my duty by all three, I was driven away with the usual stoning, and then I arranged the inward parts of the bodies with my mates. Those of the Prophet are to be preserved later in an alabaster canopus,88 those of the mason and the girl were put back in their bodies.
“Then I went up to the three bodies, and I asked myself, to which I should do such a wrong as to rob him of his heart. I turned to the two poor ones, and I hastily went up to the sinning girl. Then I heard the voice of the demon that cried out in my heart ‘The girl was poor and despised like you while she walked on Seb,89 perhaps she may find compensation and peace in the other world if you do not mutilate her; and when I turned to the mason’s lean corpse, and looked at his hands, which were harder and rougher than my own, the demon whispered the same. Then I stood before the strong, stout corpse of the prophet Rui, who died of apoplexy, and I remembered the honor and the riches that he had enjoyed on earth, and that he at least for a time had known happiness and ease. And as soon as I was alone, I slipped my hand into the bag, and changed the sheep’s heart for his.
“Perhaps I am doubly guilty for playing such an accursed trick with the heart of a high-priest; but Rui’s body will be hung round with a hundred amulets, Scarabaei90 will be placed over his heart, and holy oil and sacred sentences will preserve him from all the fiends on his road to Amenti—[Underworld]—while no one will devote helping talismans to the poor. And then! thou hast sworn, in that world, in the hall of judgment, to take my guilt on thyself.”
Nebsecht gave the old man his hand.
“That I will,” said he, “and I should have chosen as you did. Now take this draught, divide it in four parts, and give it to Uarda for four evenings following. Begin this evening, and by the day after to-morrow I think she will be quite well. I will come again and look after her. Now go to rest, and let me stay a while out here; before the star of Isis is extinguished I will be gone, for they have long been expecting me at the temple.”
When the paraschites came out of his but the next morning, Nebsecht had vanished; but a blood-stained cloth that lay by the remains of the fire showed the old man that the impatient investigator had examined the heart of the high-priest during the night, and perhaps cut it up.
Terror fell upon him, and in agony of mind he threw himself on his knees as the golden bark of the Sun-God appeared on the horizon, and he prayed fervently, first for Uarda, and then for the salvation of his imperilled soul.
He rose encouraged, convinced himself that his granddaughter was progressing towards recovery, bid farewell to his wife, took his flint knife and his bronze hook,91 and went to the house of the embalmer to follow his dismal calling.
The group of buildings in which the greater number of the corpses from Thebes went through the processes of mummifying, lay on the bare desert-land at some distance from his hovel, southwards from the House of Seti at the foot of the mountain. They occupied by themselves a fairly large space, enclosed by a rough wall of dried mud-bricks.
The bodies were brought in through the great gate towards the Nile, and delivered to the kolchytes—[The whole guild of embalmers]—while the priests, paraschites, and tariclleutes—[Salter of the bodies]—bearers and assistants, who here did their daily work, as well as innumerable water-carriers who came up from the Nile,