The Works of Theophile Gautier Part 13

And Tahoser proceeded to put to each one that question, and each and all replied: "We are only numbers, laws, forces, attributes, effluvia, and thoughts of G.o.d, but not one of us is the true G.o.d."

Then Poeri appeared on the threshold of the temple, and took Tahoser by the hand and led her to a light so brilliant that in comparison with it the sun would have seemed black, and in the centre of which blazed in a triangle words unknown to her.

Meanwhile Pharaoh's chariot flew over all obstacles, and the axles of the wheels rayed the walls in the narrow lanes.

"Pull in your horses," said Thamar to the Pharaoh; "the noise of the wheels in this solitude and silence might startle the fugitive, and she would again escape you."

The Pharaoh thought this advice sound, and in spite of his impatience made his horses slacken their impetuous pace.

"There is the place," said Thamar; "I left the door open. Go in. I shall look after the horses."

The king descended from the chariot, and bowing his head, entered the hut. The lamp was still burning, and shed its dying beams on the two sleeping girls. The Pharaoh caught up Tahoser in his strong arms and walked towards the door of the hut.

When the priest's daughter awoke, and saw flaming near her face the s.h.i.+ning face of the Pharaoh, she thought at first that it was one of the fancies of her dream transformed; but the air of night which struck her face soon restored her to the sense of reality. Mad with terror, she tried to scream, to call for help; the cry remained in her throat,--and then, who would have helped her against the Pharaoh?

With one bound the King sprang on to his chariot, threw the reins around his back, and pressing to his breast the half-dead Tahoser, sent his coursers at their top speed towards the Northern Palace.

Thamar glided like a serpent into the hut, crouched down in her accustomed place, and gazed with a look almost as tender as a mother's on her dear Ra'hel, who was still sound asleep.

XIII

The draught of cold air, due to the speed of the chariot, soon made Tahoser recover from her faint. Pressed and crushed against the breast of the Pharaoh, by his two stony arms, her heart had scarce room to beat, and the hard enamelled collars were making their mark on her heaving bosom. The horses, whose reins the King slackened by bending towards the front of the car, rushed furiously forward, the wheels went round like whirlwinds, the brazen plates justled, the heated axles smoked. Tahoser, terrified, saw vaguely, as in a dream, flash to the right and left vast ma.s.ses of buildings, clumps of trees, palaces, temples, pylons, obelisks, colossi, which the night made more fantastic and terrible. What were the thoughts that filled her mind during that mad rush? She thought as little as thinks a dove, fluttering in the talons of a hawk which is carrying it away to its eyrie. Mute terror stupefied her, made her blood run cold and dulled her feelings. Her limbs hung limp; her will was relaxed like her muscles, and, had she not been held firmly in the arms of the Pharaoh, she would have slipped and fallen in a heap on the bottom of the chariot like a piece of stuff which is let drop. Twice she thought she felt upon her cheek a burning breath and two lips of fire; she did not attempt to turn away her head, terror had killed modesty in her. When the chariot struck violently against a stone, a dim instinct of self-preservation made her cling with her hands to the shoulder of the King and press closer to him; then she let herself go again and leaned with her whole weight, light though it was, upon those arms which held her.

The chariot entered the avenue of sphinxes, at the end of which rose a giant pylon crowned with a cornice on which the symbolic globe displayed its wings; the lessening darkness allowed the priest's daughter to recognise the King's palace. Then despair filled her heart; she struggled, she strove to free herself from the embrace which held her close; she pressed her frail hands against the stony breast of the Pharaoh, stiffened out her arms, throwing herself back over the edge of the chariot. Her efforts were useless, her struggles were vain. Her ravisher brought her back to his breast with an irresistible, slow pressure, as if he would have driven her into it. She tried to scream; her lips were closed with a kiss.

Meanwhile the horses in three or four strides reached the pylon, under which they pa.s.sed at full gallop, glad to return to the stable, and the chariot rolled into the vast court. The servants hastened up and sprang to the heads of the horses, whose bits were white with foam.

Tahoser cast a terrified glance around her. High brick walls formed a vast square enclosure in which rose on the east a palace, on the west a temple, between two great pools, the piscinae of the sacred crocodiles.

The first rays of the sun, the orb of which was already rising behind the Arabian mountains, flushed with rosy light the top of the buildings, the lower portions of which were still plunged in bluish shadows.

There was no hope of flight. The buildings, though in no wise gloomy, had a look of irresistible strength, of absolute will, of eternal persistence: a world catastrophe alone could have opened an issue through these thick walls, through these piles of hard sandstone. To overthrow the pylons built of fragments of mountains, the earth itself would have had to quake; even a conflagration could only have licked with its fiery tongues those indestructible blocks.

Poor Tahoser did not have at her command such violent means, and she was compelled to allow herself to be carried like a child by the Pharaoh, who had sprung from his chariot.

Four high columns with palm-leaf capitals formed the propylaeum of the palace into which the king entered, still pressing to his breast the daughter of Petamounoph. When he had pa.s.sed through the door, he gently placed his burden on the ground, and seeing Tahoser stagger, he said to her: "Be rea.s.sured. You rule the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh rules the world."

These were the first words he had spoken to her.

If love followed the dictates of reason, Tahoser would certainly have preferred the Pharaoh to Poeri. The King was endowed with supreme beauty. His great, clean, regular features seemed to be chiselled, and not the slightest imperfection could be detected in them. The habit of command had given to his glance that penetrating gleam which makes divinities and kings so easily recognisable. His lips, one word from which would have changed the face of the world and the fate of nations, were of a purple red, like fresh blood upon the blade of a sword, and when he smiled, they possessed that grace of terrible things which nothing can resist. His tall, well proportioned, majestic figure presented the n.o.bility of form admired in the temple statues; and when he appeared solemn and radiant, covered with gold, enamels, and gems, in the midst of the bluish vapour of the censers, he did not seem to belong to that frail race which from generation to generation falls like leaves, and is stretched, sticky with bitumen, in the dark depths of the mummy pits.

What was poor Poeri by the side of this demiG.o.d? Nevertheless, Tahoser loved him.

The wise have long since given up attempting to explain the heart of woman. They are masters of astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic; they know the origin of the world, and can tell where were the planets at the very moment of creation; they are sure that the moon was then in the constellation of Cancer, the sun in that of the Lion, Mercury in that of the Virgin, Venus in the Balance, Mars in the Scorpion, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Saturn in Capricorn; they trace on papyrus or granite the direction of the celestial ocean, which goes from the east to the west; they have summed up the number of stars strewn over the blue robe of the G.o.ddess Neith, and make the sun travel in the lower or the superior hemisphere with the twelve diurnal and the twelve nocturnal baris under the conduct of the hawk-headed pilot and of Neb Wa, the Lady of the Bark; they know that in the second half of the month of Tobi, Orion influences the left ear, and Sirius the heart; but they are absolutely ignorant why a woman prefers one man to another, a wretched Israelite to an ill.u.s.trious Pharaoh.

After having traversed several halls with Tahoser, whom he led by the hand, the King sat down on a seat in the shape of a throne in a superbly decorated room.

Golden stars gleamed in the blue ceiling, and against the pillars which supported the cornice were placed the statues of kings wearing the pschent, their legs merging into the block of stone and their arms crossed on their chest, looking into the room with frightful intensity out of their black-lined eyes. Between every two pillars burned a lamp placed upon a pedestal, and on the base of the walls was represented a sort of ethnographic procession: the nations of the four quarters of the world were represented there with their particular faces and their particular dress.

At the head of the series, guided by Horus the shepherd of the nations, walked the man of men, the Egyptian, the Rot'en'no with a gentle face, slightly aquiline nose, plaited hair, and his dark red skin brought out by the whiteness of the loin-cloth; next came the negro or Nahasi, with his black skin, thick lips, protruding cheekbones and woolly hair; then the Asiatic or Namou, with yellow flesh-colour, strongly aquiline nose, thick black beard cut to a point, wearing a striped skirt fringed with tufts; then the European or Tamhou, the least civilised of all, differing from the others by his white complexion, his red beard and hair, his blue eyes, an undressed ox-skin cast over his shoulder, and his arms and legs tattooed. The other panels were filled with various subjects, scenes of war and triumph and hieroglyphic inscriptions.

In the centre of the room, on a table supported by prisoners bound by the elbows, so skilfully carved that they seemed to live and suffer, bloomed a vast bouquet of flowers whose sweet scent perfumed the atmosphere.

So in this vast hall, surrounded by the effigies of his ancestors, all things spoke and sang of the glory of the Pharaoh. The nations of the world walked behind Egypt and acknowledged her supremacy, and he governed Egypt. Yet the daughter of Petamounoph, far from being dazzled by this splendour, thought of the rustic villa, of Poeri, and especially of the mean hut of mud and straw in the Hebrew quarter, where she had left Ra'hel,--Ra'hel, from henceforward the happy and only spouse of the young Hebrew.

The Pharaoh held the tips of the fingers of Tahoser, who stood before him, and he fixed upon her his hawk eyes, the eyelids of which never moved. The young girl had no other garment than the drapery subst.i.tuted by Ra'hel for the dress which had been soaked during the swim across the Nile, but her beauty was in no wise impaired. She remained thus, half nude, holding with one hand the coa.r.s.e stuff which slipped, and the whole upper portion of her beautiful body appeared in its golden fairness. When she was adorned with her jewels, one was tempted to regret that any part of her form should be concealed by her necklaces, her bracelets, and her belts of gold or of gems; but on seeing her thus devoid of all ornament, admiration was satisfied, or rather exalted.

Certainly many very beautiful women had entered the Pharaoh's harem, but not one of them comparable to Tahoser; and the eyes of the King flashed such burning glances that, unable to bear their brilliancy, she was obliged to cast down her eyes.

In her heart, Tahoser was proud of having excited love in the Pharaoh; for who is the woman, however perfect she may be, who has not some vanity. Yet she would have preferred to follow the young Hebrew into the desert. The King terrified her, she felt herself dazzled by the splendour of his face, and her limbs gave way under her.

The Pharaoh noticed her emotion, and made her sit down at his feet on a red cus.h.i.+on adorned with tufts.

"Oh, Tahoser," he said, kissing her hair, "I love you. When I saw you from the top of my triumphal palanquin, borne higher than the heads of men by the generals, an unknown feeling entered into my soul. I, whose every desire is forestalled, desired something; I understood that I was not everything. Until then I had lived solitary in my almightiness, in the depths of my vast palaces, surrounded by mere shadows which called themselves women, and who had no more effect upon me than the painted figures in the frescoes. I heard in the distance, muttering and complaining low, the nations upon whose heads I wipe my sandals or which I lift by their hair, as I am represented doing on the symbolical _ba.s.si-relievi_ of the palaces, and in my cold breast, as strong as that of a basalt G.o.d, I never heard the beat of my own heart. It seemed to me that there was nowhere on earth a being like myself, a being who could move me. In vain I brought back from my expeditions into foreign lands choice virgins and women famous for their beauty in their own country; I cast them aside like flowers, after having breathed their scent for a moment. None inspired me with a desire to see her again. When they were present, I scarce glanced at them; when they were absent, I immediately forgot them. Twea, Taa, Amense, Hont-Reche, whom I have kept to avoid the disgust of having to find others who the next day would have been as indifferent as themselves, have never been, when in my arms, aught but vain phantoms, perfumed and graceful forms, beings of another race with whom my nature could not mingle any more than the leopard can mate with the gazelle, the dweller in the air with the dweller in the waters. I had come to think that, placed by the G.o.ds apart from and above all mortals, I was never to share either their pains or their joys. Fearful weariness, like that which no doubt tires the mummies, who, wrapped up in their bands, wait in their caves in the depths of the hypogea until the soul shall have finished the cycle of migrations,--a fearful weariness had fallen upon me on my throne; for I often remained with my hands on my knees like a granite colossus, thinking of the impossible, the infinite, the eternal. How many a time have I thought of raising the veil of Isis, at the risk of falling blasted at the feet of the G.o.ddess.

Perhaps, I said to myself, that mysterious face is the one I have been dreaming of, the one which is to inspire me with love. If earth refuses me happiness, I shall climb to heaven. But I saw you; I felt a strange, unaccustomed sensation; I understood that there existed outside myself a being necessary, imperious, and fatal to me, whom I could not live without, and who possessed the power of making me unhappy. I was a king, almost a G.o.d, and you, O Tahoser, have made of me a man."

Never, perhaps, had the Pharaoh uttered so long a speech; usually a word, a gesture, a motion of the eye sufficed to manifest his will, which was immediately divined by a thousand attentive, restless eyes; performance followed his thought, as the lightning follows the thunder-clap. But with desire he seemed to have given up his granitic majesty; he spoke and explained himself like a mortal.

Tahoser was a prey to singular emotion. However much she felt the honour of having inspired love in the man preferred of Phre, in the favoured of Ammon Ra, the destroyer of nations, in the terrifying, solemn and superb being upon whom she scarce dared to gaze, she felt no sympathy for him, and the idea of belonging to him filled her with terror and repulsion.

To the Pharaoh who had carried off her body she could not give her soul, which had remained with Poeri and Ra'hel; and as the King appeared to await a reply, she said,--

"How is it, O King, that amid all the maids of Egypt your glance should have fallen on me,--on me whom so many others surpa.s.s in beauty, in talent, in gifts of all sorts? How is it that in the midst of clumps of white, blue, and rose lotus, with open corollas, with delicate scent, you have chosen the modest blade of gra.s.s which nothing marks?"

"I know not, but I know that you alone exist in this world for me, and that I shall make kings' daughters your servants."

"But suppose I do not love you?" said Tahoser, timidly.

"What care I, if I love you," replied the Pharaoh. "Have not the most beautiful women in the world thrown themselves down upon my threshold weeping and moaning, tearing their cheeks, beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, plucking out their hair, and have they not died imploring a glance of love which never fell upon them? Never has pa.s.sion in any one made my heart of bra.s.s beat within my stony breast. Resist me, hate if you will,--you will only be more charming; for the first time an obstacle will have come in the way of my will, and I shall know how to overcome it."

"But suppose I love another?" continued Tahoser, more boldly.

At this suggestion the eyebrows of the Pharaoh were bent; he violently bit his lower lip, in which his teeth left white marks, and he pressed to the point of hurting her the fingers of the maid which he still held.

Then he cooled down again, and said in a low, deep voice,--

"When you shall have lived in this palace, in the midst of these splendours, surrounded by the atmosphere of my love, you will forget everything as does he who eats nepenthe. Your past life will appear to you like a dream, your former feelings will vanish as incense upon the coals of the censer. The woman who is loved by the King no longer remembers men. Go, come; accustom yourself to Pharaonic magnificence; help yourself as you please to my treasures; make gold flow, heap up gems; order, make, unmake, raise, destroy; be my mistress, my wife, my queen. I give you Egypt with its priests, its armies, its toilers, its numberless population, its palaces, its temples and cities. Crumple it up as you would crumple up gauze,--I will win other kingdoms for you, larger, fairer, and richer. If the world is not sufficient, I will conquer planets for you, I will dethrone the G.o.ds. You are she whom I love; Tahoser, the daughter of Petamounoph is no more."

XIV

When Ra'hel awoke, she was amazed not to find Tahoser by her side, and cast her glance around the room, thinking the Egyptian had already risen. Crouching in a corner, her arms crossed on her knees, her head upon her arms, which formed a bony pillow, Thamar slept,--or rather, pretended to sleep; for through the long locks of her disordered hair which fell to the ground, might have been seen her eyes as yellow as those of an owl, gleaming with malicious joy and satisfied wickedness.

"Thamar," cried Ra'hel, "what has become of Tahoser?"