The Tales of Ancient Egypt (10 Historical Novels). Georg Ebers
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Scherau had often crept close up to him, and thoughtfully watched him at work, and then tried himself to make animal and human figures out of a bit of clay.
One day the old man had observed him.
The sculptor had silently taken his humble attempt out of his hand, and had returned it to him with a smile of encouragement.
From that time a peculiar tie had sprung up between the two. Scherau would venture to sit down by the sculptor, and try to imitate his finished images. Not a word was exchanged between them, but often the deaf old man would destroy the boy’s works, often on the contrary improve them with a touch of his own hand, and not seldom nod at him to encourage him.
When he staid away the old man missed his pupil, and Scherau’s happiest hours were those which he passed at his side.
He was not forbidden to take some clay home with him. There, when the old woman’s back was turned, he moulded a variety of images which he destroyed as soon as they were finished.
While he lay on his rack his hands were left free, and he tried to reproduce the various forms which lived in his imagination, he forgot the present in his artistic attempts, and his bitter lot acquired a flavor of the sweetest enjoyment.
But to-day it was too late; he must give up his visit to the tomb of Rameses.
Once more he looked back at the hut, and then hurried into the dark cave.
CHAPTER XIV.
Pentauer also soon quitted the but of the paraschites.
Lost in meditation, he went along the hill-path which led to the temple which Ameni had put under his direction.67
He foresaw many disturbed and anxious hours in the immediate future.
The sanctuary of which he was the superior, had been dedicated to her own memory, and to the goddess Hathor, by Hatasu,68 a great queen of the dethroned dynasty.
The priests who served it were endowed with peculiar chartered privileges, which hitherto had been strictly respected. Their dignity was hereditary, going down from father to son, and they had the right of choosing their director from among themselves.
Now their chief priest Rui was ill and dying, and Ameni, under whose jurisdiction they came, had, without consulting them, sent the young poet Pentaur to fill his place.
They had received the intruder most unwillingly, and combined strongly against him when it became evident that he was disposed to establish a severe rule and to abolish many abuses which had become established customs.
They had devolved the greeting of the rising sun on the temple-servants; Pentaur required that the younger ones at least should take part in chanting the morning hymn, and himself led the choir. They had trafficked with the offerings laid on the altar of the Goddess; the new master repressed this abuse, as well as the extortions of which they were guilty towards women in sorrow, who visited the temple of Hathor in greater number than any other sanctuary.
The poet-brought up in the temple of Seti to self-control, order, exactitude, and decent customs, deeply penetrated with a sense of the dignity of his position, and accustomed to struggle with special zeal against indolence of body and spirit—was disgusted with the slothful life and fraudulent dealings of his subordinates; and the deeper insight which yesterday’s experience had given him into the poverty and sorrow of human existence, made him resolve with increased warmth that he would awake them to a new life.
The conviction that the lazy herd whom he commanded was called upon to pour consolation into a thousand sorrowing hearts, to dry innumerable tears, and to clothe the dry sticks of despair with the fresh verdure of hope, urged him to strong measures.
Yesterday he had seen how, with calm indifference, they had listened to the deserted wife, the betrayed maiden, to the woman, who implored the withheld blessing of children, to the anxious mother, the forlorn widow—and sought only to take advantage of sorrow, to extort gifts for the Goddess, or better still for their own pockets or belly.
Now he was nearing the scene of his new labors.
There stood the reverend building, rising stately from the valley on four terraces handsomely and singularly divided, and resting on the western side against the high amphitheatre of yellow cliffs.
On the closely-joined foundation stones gigantic hawks were carved in relief, each with the emblem of life, and symbolized Horus, the son of the Goddess, who brings all that fades to fresh bloom, and all that dies to resurrection.
On each terrace stood a hall open to the east, and supported on two and twenty archaic pillars.69
On their inner walls elegant pictures and inscriptions in the finest sculptured work recorded, for the benefit of posterity, the great things that Hatasu had done with the help of the Gods of Thebes.
There were the ships which she had to send to Punt70 to enrich Egypt with the treasures of the east; there the wonders brought to Thebes from Arabia might be seen; there were delineated the houses of the inhabitants of the land of frankincense, and all the fishes of the Red Sea, in distinct and characteristic outline.
On the third and fourth terraces were the small adjoining rooms of Hatasu and her brothers Thotmes II. and III., which were built against the rock, and entered by granite doorways. In them purifications were accomplished, the images of the Goddess worshipped, and the more distinguished worshippers admitted to confess. The sacred cows of the Goddess were kept in a side-building.
As Pentaur approached the great gate of the terrace-temple, he became the witness of a scene which filled him with resentment.
A woman implored to be admitted into the forecourt, to pray at the altar of the Goddess for her husband, who was very ill, but the sleek gate-keeper drove her back with rough words.
“It is written up,” said he, pointing to the inscription over the gate, “only the purified may set their foot across this threshold, and you cannot be purified but by the smoke of incense.”
“Then swing the censer for me,” said the woman, and take this silver ring—it is all I have.”
“A silver ring!” cried the porter, indignantly. “Shall the goddess be impoverished for your sake! The grains of Anta, that would be used in purifying you, would cost ten times as much.”
“But I have no more,” replied the woman, “my husband, for whom I come to pray, is ill; he cannot work, and my children—”
“You fatten them up and deprive the goddess of her due,” cried the gate-keeper. “Three rings down, or I shut the gate.”
“Be merciful,” said the woman, weeping. “What will become of us if Hathor does not help my husband?”
“Will our goddess fetch the doctor?” asked the porter. “She has something to do besides curing sick starvelings. Besides, that is not her office. Go to Imhotep or to Chunsu the counsellor, or to the great Techuti herself, who helps the sick. There is no quack medicine to be got here.”
“I only want comfort in my trouble,” said the woman.
“Comfort!” laughed the gate-keeper, measuring the comely young woman with his eye. “That you may have cheaper.”
The woman turned pale, and drew back from the hand the man stretched out towards her.
At this moment Pentaur, full of wrath, stepped between them.
He raised his hand in blessing over the woman, who bent low before him, and said, “Whoever calls fervently on the Divinity is near to him. You are pure. Enter.”
As soon as she had disappeared within the temple, the priest turned to the gate-keeper and exclaimed: “Is this how you serve the goddess, is this how you take advantage of a heart-wrung woman? Give