The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 31

The procession of those men rendering homage had not finished when an army of pet.i.tioners approached the viceroy. Invalids, widows, and orphans of officers requested pensions; n.o.ble lords required court offices for their sons. Engineers presented new methods of irrigating Egypt; physicians offered means against diseases of all sorts; soothsayers offered horoscopes. Relatives of prisoners pet.i.tioned to lessen punishments; those condemned to death begged for life; the sick implored the heir to touch them, or to bestow on them his spittle.

Finally, beautiful women announced themselves, the mothers of stately daughters begging the heir humbly but insistently to receive them into his mansion. Some indicated the amount of the pension demanded, praising their virginity and their talents.

After ten days of looking every moment at new persons and faces, and hearing pet.i.tions which only the possession of a world and divine power to dispense it could satisfy, Prince Rameses was exhausted. He could not sleep; he was so excited that the buzz of a fly pained his nerves, and at moments he did not understand what people said when they talked to him.

In this position Herhor came again to a.s.sist the viceroy. He commanded to inform the wealthy that the prince would not receive any more persons on questions of interest; and against common people, who, in spite of repeated invitations to disperse, were still waiting, he sent a company of Numidians with clubs. These succeeded with incomparably more ease than Rameses in meeting popular wishes, for before an hour had pa.s.sed the pet.i.tioners had vanished from the square, like mist, while one and another of them for a couple of succeeding days poured water on their heads, or other bruised parts of their bodies.

After this trial of supreme power the prince felt profound contempt for men and became apathetic. He lay two days on a couch with his hands beneath his head gazing vacantly at the ceiling. He did not wonder that his sacred father pa.s.sed his time at the altars of the G.o.ds, but he could not understand how Herhor was able to manage the avalanche of business, which, like a storm, not only surpa.s.sed the strength of a man, but might even crush him.

"How carry out plans in this case when a throng of pet.i.tions fetter our will, devour our thoughts, drink our blood? At the end of ten days I am sick, at the end of a year I should be an idiot. In this office it is impossible to carry out any plan; a man can just defend himself from madness."

He was so alarmed by his weakness in the position of ruler that he summoned Herhor, and with a complaining voice told of his suffering.

The statesman listened with a smile to the complaints of the young steersman of the ship of state, and at last said in answer,--

"Knowest thou, lord, that this immense palace in which we dwell was reared by one architect, named Senebi, who moreover died before it was finished? And to a certainty thou wilt understand how this famous architect could carry out his plan without weariness and be always in a cheerful temper."

"I am curious."

"Well, he did not do everything himself; he did not hew the beams or cut the stones, he did not make the bricks, he did not carry them to the scaffolding. He did not lay them into the wall and fasten them together. He only drew the plan, and moreover he had a.s.sistants. But thou, prince, hadst the wish to do all things thyself, to listen in person and transact every business. That goes beyond human strength."

"How should I do otherwise if among pet.i.tioners there are some who have suffered without cause, or if there is unrewarded service? Of course the foundation of the state is justice."

"How many canst thou hear in a day without weariness?" asked Herhor.

"Well, twenty."

"Thou art happy. I hear at the most six or ten, but they are not interested in the pet.i.tions,--they are chief secretaries, overseers, and ministers. These men report to me no details, only the most important things that are done in the army, on the estates of the pharaoh, in questions of religion, in the courts, in the provinces, and touching movements of the Nile. Therefore they report no trivial matter, because each man before he comes to me must hear ten inferior secretaries. Each inferior secretary and overseer collected information from ten sub-secretaries and sub-inspectors, and they in their turn have heard reports from ten officials who are under them.

In this manner I and his holiness speaking with only ten people daily know all that is most important in a hundred thousand points of Egypt and the world beyond it.

"The watchman in charge of one part of a street in Memphis sees only a few houses. A decurion of ten policemen knows the whole street, a centurion a division of the city, the chief knows all the city. The pharaoh stands above them all, as if he were standing on the highest pylon of the temple of Ptah, and sees not only Memphis, but the cities, Sochem, On, Cherau, Turra, Tetani, with their suburbs, and a portion of the western desert.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Step Pyramid]

"From that height his holiness is unable, it is true, to see the people who are wronged, or those who are unrewarded, but he is able to see the crowd of laborers who have collected without work. He cannot see warriors in the dramshops, but he can know what regiment is exercising. He cannot see what a given earth-tiller or citizen is preparing for dinner, but he can see a fire beginning in a given quarter of the city.

"This order in the state," continued Herhor, with growing animation, "is our strength and glory. Snofru, a pharaoh of the first dynasty, asked a certain priest what monument he should rear to himself.

"'Draw on the earth, O lord,' replied the priest, 'a square, and put on it six million unhewn stones; they will represent the people. On that foundation place sixty thousand hewn stones; they will be the lower officials. On them place six thousand polished stones; they will be thy higher officials. On these put sixty covered with carvings; those will be thy most intimate counsellors and chief leaders, and on the summit place one monolith with its pedestal and the golden image of the sun; that will be thyself.'

"The Pharaoh Snofru followed that advice. Thus rose the oldest pyramid, the step pyramid, a tangible image of our state; from that pyramid all others had their origin. Those are immovable buildings, from the summits of which the rim of the world is visible, and they will be a marvel to the remotest generations.

"In this system resides our superiority over all neighbors. The Ethiopians were as numerous as we, but their king himself took care of his own cattle, and beat his own subjects with a club; he knew not how many subjects he had, nor was he able to collect them when our troops invaded his country. There was not a united Ethiopia, but a great crowd of unorganized people. For that reason they are our va.s.sals at present.

"The Prince of Libya judges all disputes himself, especially among the wealthy, and gives so much time to them that he cannot attend to his own business. So at his side whole bands of robbers rise up; these we exterminate.

"Were there in Phnicia a single ruler who knew what was happening and who commanded in all parts, that country would not pay us one uten of tribute. But what a happiness for us that the kings of Nineveh and Babylon have each only one minister, and are tormented with the onrush of business as thou art this day. They wish to see, judge, and command everything; hence the affairs of their states are entangled for a century to come. But were some insignificant scribe to go from Egypt to those kings, explain their errors of management, and give them our official system, our pyramid, in a year's time Judaea and Phnicia would fall into the hands of the a.s.syrians, and in a few tens of years powerful armies, coming from the East and the North by land and by sea, would hurl themselves on us, armies which we might not be able to vanquish."

"Therefore let us fall on them to-day and take advantage of their want of order," cried Rameses.

"We are not cured yet of previous victories," answered Herhor, coldly; and he began to take leave of the viceroy.

"Have victories weakened us?" burst out the heir. "Or have we not brought home treasures?"

"But does not the axe with which we cut wood become blunted?" inquired Herhor; and he went out.

The prince understood that the great minister wished peace at all costs, in spite of the fact that he was chief of the armies.

"We shall see," whispered Rameses to himself.

A couple of days before his departure Rameses was summoned to his holiness. The pharaoh was sitting in an armchair in a marble hall; no other person was present, and the four entrances were guarded by Nubian sentries.

At the side of the royal armchair was a stool for the prince, and a small table covered with doc.u.ments written on papyrus. On the walls were colored bas-reliefs showing the occupations of field-workers, and in the corners of the hall were ungraceful statues of Osiris smiling pensively.

When the prince at command of his father sat down, his holiness spoke to him,--

"Here, my son, are thy doc.u.ments as leader and viceroy. Well, have the first days of power wearied thee?"

"In thy service, holiness, I shall find strength."

"Flatterer!" said the pharaoh, smiling. "Remember that I do not require overwork on thy part. Amuse thyself; youth needs recreation.

This does not mean, however, that thou art not to have important affairs to manage."

"I am ready."

"First I will disclose my cares to thee. Our treasury has a bad aspect; the inflow of revenue decreases yearly, especially in Lower Egypt, and expenditures are rising."

The pharaoh fell to thinking.

"Those women--those women, Rameses,--they swallow up the wealth, not of mortal men only, but my wealth. I have some hundreds of them, and each woman wishes to have as many maids as possible, as many dressmakers, barbers, slaves,--slaves for her litter, slaves for her chamber,--horses, oarsmen, even her own favorites and their children-- Little children! When I was returning from Thebes one of those ladies, whom I do not even remember, ran into my road and, showing a st.u.r.dy boy of three years, desired that I should designate for him a property, since he was, as she said, a son of mine. My son, and three years of age. Canst thou understand this? The affair was simple. I could not argue with a woman, besides, in such a delicate question. But for a man of n.o.ble birth it is easier to be polite than find money for every fancy of that sort."

He shook his head and continued,--

"Meanwhile incomes since the beginning of my reign have decreased one-half, especially in Lower Egypt. I ask what this means. They answer: people have grown poor, many citizens have disappeared, the sea has covered a certain extent of land on the north, and the desert on the east, we have had a number of bad harvests; in a word, tale follows tale while the treasury becomes poorer and poorer. Therefore I beg thee to explain this matter. Look about, learn to know well-informed men who are truthful, and form of them an examining commission. When they begin to report, trust not over-much to papyrus, but verify here and there in person. I hear that thou hast the eye of a leader; if that be true, one glance will tell thee how accurate the statements of the commission are. But hasten not in giving thy opinion, and above all, do not herald it. Note down every weighty conclusion which comes to thy head on a given day, and when a few days have pa.s.sed reexamine that question and note it down a second time.

This will teach thee caution in judgment and accuracy in grasping subjects."

"It will be as thou commandest," replied the prince.

"Another mission which thou must accomplish is truly difficult.

Something is happening in a.s.syria which begins to alarm my government.

Our priests declare that beyond the Northern sea stands a pyramidal mountain covered with green at its base and with snow on the summit.

This mountain has marvellous qualities. After many years of quiet it begins all at once to smoke, roar, and tremble, and then it hurls out as much liquid fire as there is water in the Nile. This fire, which flows down its sides in various directions and over an immense stretch of country, ruins the labor of earth-tillers.

"Well, a.s.syria is a mountain of that sort. For whole ages calm and quiet reign in that region, till all on a sudden a tempest bursts out there, great armies pour forth from it and annihilate peaceful neighbors. At present around Nineveh and Babylon seething is audible: the mountain is smoking. Thou must learn therefore how far that smoke indicates an outburst, and think out means of precaution."

"Shall I be able to do so?" asked the prince, in a low voice.

"Thou must learn to observe. If thou hast the wish to learn anything well, be not satisfied with the witness of thy own eyes, but strengthen thyself with the aid of a number of others. Confine not thyself to the judgment of Egyptians alone, for each people, each man has a special way of looking at subjects, and neither one grasps the whole truth in any question. Listen therefore to what the Phnicians, the Hebrews, the Hitt.i.tes, and the Egyptians think of the a.s.syrians, and weigh in thy own heart with care all that agrees in their judgments concerning a.s.syria. If all tell thee that danger is coming from that point, thou wilt know that it is coming; but if different men speak variously, be on thy guard also, for wisdom commands us to look for less good and more evil."