The Works of Theophile Gautier Part 6

The Pharaoh smiled and said: "It is well. I give thee a chariot and its horses, a pectoral ornament of beads of lapis-lazuli and cornelian, with a golden circle weighing as much as the green basalt weight."

Meanwhile the sorrowing women pulled the flowers from their hair, tore their gauze robes, and sobbed, stretched out upon the polished stone floors which reflected, mirror-like, the image of their beautiful bodies, saying, "One of these accursed barbaric captives must have stolen our master's heart."

V

On the left bank of the Nile stood the villa of Poeri, the young man who had filled Tahoser with such emotion when, proceeding to view the triumphal return of the Pharaoh, she had pa.s.sed in her ox-drawn car under the balcony whereon leaned carelessly the handsome dreamer.

It was a vast estate, having something of the farm and something of the house of pleasaunce, which stretched between the banks of the river and the foothills of the Libyan chain, over an immense extent of ground, covered during the inundation by the reddish waters laden with fertilising mud, and which during the rest of the year was irrigated by skilfully planned ca.n.a.ls.

A wall, built of limestone drawn from the neighbouring mountains, enclosed the garden, the store-houses, the cellars, and the dwelling.

The walls sloped slightly inwards and were surmounted by an acroter with metal spikes, capable of stopping whosoever might attempt to climb over.

Three doors, the leaves of which were hung on ma.s.sive pillars, each adorned with a giant lotus-flower planted on top of the capital, were cut in the wall on three of the sides. In place of the fourth door rose a building which looked out into the garden from one of its facades, and on the road from the other.

The building in no respect resembled the houses in Thebes. The architect had not sought to reproduce either the heavy foundations, the great monumental lines, or the rich materials of city buildings, but had striven to attain elegant lightness, refres.h.i.+ng simplicity, and pastoral gracefulness in harmony with the verdure and the peacefulness of the country.

The lower courses of the building, which the Nile reached in times of high flood, were of sandstone, and the rest of the building of sycamore wood. Tall, fluted columns, extremely slender and resembling the staffs of the standards before the king's palace, sprang from the ground and rose unbroken to the palm-leaved cornice, where swelled out, under a simple cube, their lotus-flowered capitals.

The single story built above the ground-floor did not rise as high as the mouldings which bordered the terraced roof, and thus left an empty s.p.a.ce between the ceiling and the flat roof of the villa. Short, small pillars, with flowery capitals, divided into groups of four by the tall columns, formed an open gallery around this aerial apartment open to every wind.

Windows broader at the base than at the top of the opening, in accordance with the Egyptian style, and closed with double sashes, lighted the first story. The ground-floor was lighted by narrower windows placed closer to each other.

Above the door, which was adorned with deep mouldings, was a cross planted in a heart and framed in a parallelogram cut in the lower part to allow the sign of favourable omen to pa.s.s; the meaning being, as every one knows, "A good house."

The whole building was painted in soft, pleasant colours; the lotus of the capitals showed alternately red and blue in the green capsules; the gilded palm-leaves of the cornices stood out upon a blue background; the white walls of the facades set off the painted framework of the windows, and lines of red and green outlined panels and imitated the joints of the stone.

Outside the enclosing wall, which was built flush with the dwelling, stood a row of trees cut to a point, which formed a screen against the dusty southern wind, always laden with the desert heat.

In front of the building grew a vast vineyard. Stone shafts with lotus capitals placed at symmetrical distances outlined, through the vineyard, walks cutting each other at right angles. Boughs of vine leaves joined one plant to another and formed a succession of leafy arches under which one could walk erect. The ground, carefully raked and heaped up at the foot of each plant, contrasted by its brown colour with the bright green of the leaves, amid which played the sunbeams and the breeze.

On either side of the building two oblong pools bore upon their transparent surface aquatic birds and flowers. At the corners of these pools four great palm-trees spread out fanwise their green wreath of leaves at the top of their scaly trunks.

Compartments, regularly traced by narrow paths, divided the garden around the vineyard, marking the place of each different crop. Along a sort of belt walk which ran entirely around the enclosure dom palms alternated with sycamores, squares of ground were planted with fig, peach, almond, olive, pomegranate and other fruit trees; others, again, were planted with ornamental trees only: the tamarisk, the ca.s.sia, the acacia, the myrtle, the mimosa, and some still rarer gum-trees found beyond the cataracts of the Nile, under the Tropic of Cancer, in the oases of the Libyan Desert, and upon the sh.o.r.es of the Erythrean Gulf; for the Egyptians are very fond of cultivating shrubs and flowers, and they exact new species as a tribute from the peoples they have conquered.

Flowers of all kinds, and many varieties of watermelons, lupines, and onions adorned the beds. Two other pools of greater size, fed by the covered ca.n.a.l leading from the Nile, each bore a small boat to enable the master of the estate to enjoy the pleasure of fis.h.i.+ng. Fishes of divers forms and brilliant colours played in the limpid waters among the stalks and the broad leaves of the lotus. Banks of luxuriant vegetation surrounded these pools and were reflected in their green mirror.

Near each pool rose a kiosk formed of slender columns bearing a light roof and surrounded by an open balcony whence one could enjoy the sight of the waters and breathe the coolness of the morning and the evening while reclining on a rustic seat of wood and reeds.

The garden, lighted by the rising sun, had a bright, happy, restful look. The green of the trees was so brilliant, the colours of the flowers so splendid, air and light filled so joyously the vast enclosure with breeze and sunbeams, the contrast of the rich greenness with the bare whiteness of the chalky sterility of the Libyan chain, the crest of which was seen above the walls cutting into the blue sky, was so marked that one felt the wish to stop and set up one's tent there. It looked like a nest purposely built for a longed-for happiness.

Along the walks travelled servants bearing on their shoulders a yoke of bent wood, from the ends of which hung by ropes two clay jars filled at the reservoirs, the contents of which they poured into small basins dug at the foot of each plant. Others, handling a jar suspended from a pole working on a post, filled with water a wooden gutter which carried it to the parts of the garden that needed irrigating. Gardeners were clipping the trees to a point or into an elliptical shape. With the help of a hoe formed of two pieces of hard wood bound by a cord and thus making a hook, other workmen were preparing the ground for planting.

It was a delightful sight to see these men with their black, woolly hair, their bodies the colour of brick, dressed only in a pair of white drawers, going and coming amid the greenery with orderly activity, singing a rustic song to which their steps kept time. The birds perched on the trees seemed to know them, and scarcely to fly off when, as they pa.s.sed, they rubbed against the branches.

The door of the building opened, and Poeri appeared on the threshold.

Though he was dressed in the Egyptian fas.h.i.+on, his features were not in accordance with the national type, and it took no long observation to see that he did not belong to the native race of the valley of the Nile.

He was a.s.suredly not a _Rot'en'no_. His thin aquiline nose, his flat cheeks, his serious-looking, closed lips, the perfect oval of his face, were essentially different from the African nose, the projecting cheek-bones, the thick lips, and broad face characteristic of the Egyptians. Nor was his complexion the same; the copper tint was replaced by an olive pallor, which the rich, pure blood flushed slightly; his eyes, instead of showing black between their lines of antimony, were of a dark blue like the sky of night; his hair, silkier and softer, curled in less crisp undulations, and his shoulders did not exhibit that rigid, transversal line which is the characteristic sign of the race as represented on the statues of the temples and the frescoes of the tombs.

All these characteristics went to form a remarkable beauty, which Petamounoph's daughter had been unable to resist. Since the day when Poeri had by chance appeared to her, leaning upon the gallery of the building--which was his favourite place when he was not busy with the farm work--she had returned many times under pretext of driving, and had made her chariot pa.s.s under the balcony of the villa; but although she had put on her handsomest tunics, fastened around her neck her richest necklaces and encircled her wrists with her most wondrously chased bracelets, wreathed her hair with the freshest lotus-flowers, drawn to the temples the black line of her eyes, and brightened her cheeks with rouge, Poeri had never seemed to pay the smallest attention to her.

And yet Tahoser was rarely beautiful, and the love which the pensive tenant of the villa disdained, the Pharaoh would willingly have purchased at a great price. In exchange for the priest's daughter he would have given Twea, Taa, Amense, Hont-Reche, his Asiatic captives, his vases of gold and silver, his necklaces of gems, his war chariots, his invincible army, his sceptre,--all, in a word, even his tomb, on which since the beginning of his reign had been working in the darkness thousands upon thousands of workmen.

Love is not the same in the hot regions swept by a fiery wind as on the icy sh.o.r.es where calm descends from heaven with the cold; it is not blood but fire that flows in the veins. So Tahoser languished and fainted, though she breathed perfumes, surrounded herself with flowers, and drank draughts that bring forgetfulness. Music wearied her or overexcited her feelings; she had ceased to take any pleasure in the dances of her companions; at night, sleep fled from her eyelids, and breathless, stifling, her breast heaving with sighs, she would leave her sumptuous couch and stretch herself out upon the broad slabs of the pavement, pressing her bosom against the hard granite as if she wished to breathe in its coolness.

On the night which followed the triumphal entry of the Pharaoh, Tahoser felt so unhappy and life seemed so empty that she determined not to die without having made at least one last effort.

She wrapped herself up in a piece of common stuff, kept on but a single bracelet of odoriferous wood, twisted a piece of striped gauze around her head, and with the first light of the dawn, without being heard by Nofre, who was dreaming of the handsome Ahmosis, she left her room, crossed the garden, drew the bolts of the water gate, proceeded to the quay, waked a waterman asleep in his papyrus boat, and had herself transported to the other bank of the stream.

Staggering and pressing her little hand to her heart to still its beating, she drew near Poeri's dwelling.

It was now broad daylight, and the gates were opening to give pa.s.sage to the ox teams going to work, and to the flocks going forth to pasture.

Tahoser knelt on the threshold and placed her hand above her head with a supplicating gesture, more beautiful, perhaps, even in this humble att.i.tude and in her mean dress. Her bosom rose and fell and tears streamed down her pale cheeks.

Poeri saw her and took her for what she was, indeed, a most unhappy woman.

"Enter," said he; "enter without fear. This house is hospitable."

VI

Tahoser, encouraged by the friendly words of Poeri, abandoned her supplicating att.i.tude and rose. A rich glow flushed her cheek but now so pale; shame came back to her with hope; she blushed at the strange action to which love had driven her; she hesitated to pa.s.s the threshold which she had crossed so often in her dreams. Her maidenly scruples, stifled for a time by pa.s.sion, resumed their power in the presence of reality.

The young man, thinking that timidity, the companion of misfortune, alone prevented Tahoser from entering the house, said to her in a soft, musical voice marked by a foreign accent,--

"Enter, maiden, and do not tremble so. My home is large enough to shelter you. If you are weary, rest; if you are thirsty, my servants will bring you pure water cooled in porous clay-jars; if you are hungry, they will set before you wheaten bread, dates, and dried figs."

Petamounoph's daughter, encouraged by these hospitable words, entered the house, which justified the hieroglyph of welcome inscribed upon the gate.

Poeri took her to a room on the ground-floor, the walls of which were painted with green vertical bands ending in lotus flowers, making the apartment pleasant to the eye. A fine mat of reeds woven in symmetrical designs covered the floor. At each corner of the room great sheaves of flowers filled tall vases, held in place by pedestals, and scattered their perfume through the cool shade of the hall. At the back a low sofa, the wood-work of which was ornamented with foliage and chimerical animals, tempted with its broad bed the fatigued or idle guest. Two chairs, the seats made of Nile reeds, with sloping back, strengthened by stays, a wooden foot-stool cut in the shape of a sh.e.l.l and resting upon three legs, an oblong table, also three-legged, bordered with inlaid work and ornamented in the centre with uraeus snakes, wreaths, and agricultural symbols, and on which was placed a vase of rose and blue lotus,--completed the furniture of the room, which was pastoral in its simplicity and gracefulness.

Poeri sat down on the sofa. Tahoser, bending one leg under her thigh and raising one knee, knelt before the young man who fixed upon her a glance full of kindly questioning. She was most lovely in that att.i.tude.

The gauze veil in which she was enveloped exhibited, as it fell back, the rich ma.s.s of her hair bound with a narrow white ribbon, and revealed her gentle, sweet, sad face. Her sleeveless tunic showed her lovely arms bare to the shoulder and left them free.

"I am called Poeri," said the young man; "I am steward of the royal estates, and have the right to wear the gilded ram's-horns on my state head-dress."

"And I am called Hora," replied Tahoser, who had arranged her little story beforehand. "My parents are dead, their goods were sold by their creditors, leaving me just enough to pay for their burial; so I have been left alone and without means. But since you are kind enough to receive me, I shall repay you for your hospitality. I have been taught the work of women, although my condition did not oblige me to perform it. I can spin and weave linen with thread of various colours; I can imitate flowers and embroider ornaments on stuffs; I can even, when you are tired by your work and overcome by the heat of the day, delight you with song, harp, or lute."

"Hora, you are welcome to my dwelling," said the young man. "You will find here, without taxing your strength,--for you seem to me to be delicate,--occupation suitable for a maiden who has known better days; among my maids are gentle and good girls who will be pleasant companions for you, and who will show you how we live in this pastoral home. So the days will pa.s.s, and perhaps brighter ones will dawn for you. If not, you can quietly grow old in my home in the midst of abundance and peace. The guest whom the G.o.ds send is sacred."

Having said these words, Poeri arose, as if to avoid the thanks of the supposed Hora, who had prostrated herself at his feet and was kissing them, as do wretches who have just been granted a favour; but the lover in her had taken the place of the suppliant, and her ripe, rosy lips found it hard to leave those beautiful, clean, white feet that resembled the jasper feet of the G.o.ds.

Before going out to superintend the work of the farm, Poeri turned around on the threshold of the room and said,--