Akhnaton, King of Egypt

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

IX

Merira was staying in Tuta's house, which had, at the king's orders, been preserved for the benefit of posterity. Merira lived in the summer house by himself, Horus and the other priests were in the winter house and the soldiers in the outbuildings.

Returning to the town after dark Merira called on Horus and told him to have everything ready in the upper Aton's temple at daybreak for a service to Amon and laying a curse upon the Criminal.

Then he went indoors to the upper chamber, where the conspirators' meeting had once been held, and lay down on the couch. He lay there with his eyes closed, his face still as death; he did not sleep and knew he would not.

Late at night he got up and sniffed the air with a grimace of disgust. His old illness was upon him again: he was everywhere pursued by bad smells—of dead rats, as in a granary, of bats' dirt as in the tombs, of rotten fish as on the banks of the Nile, where fish is cleaned, salted and dried in the sun. He opened a box at the head of the bed and taking out a gold casket, with white powder in it, sniffed it, put some on his tongue and spat it out. He knew the powder would make him sleep but afterwards sleeplessness would be worse than ever.

He placed the casket back in the box and took out the ring with the carbuncle—Amon's eye. He lifted the stone which turned on a tiny golden hinge and peeped into the cavity underneath, filled with silvery grey powder—the poison. Only a half of it remained, the other he had put into the king's cup at Saakera's feast. Moving the stone into its place he put the ring back into the box.

He went down into the garden and then through a gate in the garden wall into the street, bathed in the white moonlight on one side and black with the shadows of the ruins on the other.

He stooped as he walked with his head bent, treading heavily and leaning on a staff, like a weary pilgrim at the end of a day's journey.

Clouds, fluffy like lambs, with transparent opalescent fleece, tawny-pink and silvery-blue in the moonlight, slowly moved all in one direction as though grazing in the pastures of heaven, with the moon for shepherd. There was stillness in heaven and stillness on earth; nothing stirred, as though bound by the moon's silver chains; only bats flitted to and fro like shuttles in a loom.

Suddenly there came the sound of howling and laughter as though someone, tickled to the point of tears, were both laughing and weeping. It was the howling of hyenas that must have scented Merira. It was followed by the hysterical barking of jackals. The dead city came to life. But gradually they subsided and stillness reigned once more.

Passing a huge piece of waste ground with charred planks and beams—remnants of the king's palace, Merira came to Aton's temple.

Most of the temple had remained. The huge building, with thick walls of well-baked brick and stone, could not be burned and was not easy to demolish. Only wooden rafters in the ceilings had been burned and ceilings and columns had fallen down in places. All bas-reliefs of King Akhnaton sacrificing to the god of the Sun had been broken and hieroglyphic inscriptions painted over or erased. The three hundred and sixty-five alabaster altars, in the seven courts of the temple, had also been destroyed and their place defiled: cartloads of filth had been brought from the Jews' Settlement and flung there, so that for a time the stench took one's breath away. But soon the sun burnt out and cleansed everything, turning filth into black earth; the wind of the desert covered it with sand and what had once been a place of pollution was fragrant with the fresh smell of mint and bitter wormwood.

"Seven courts—seven temples: of Tammuz of Babylon, Attis of the Hittites, Adon of Canaan, Adun of Crete, Mithra of Mitanni, Ashmun of Phoenicia, Zagreus of Thrace. All these gods are the shadow of the One to come," Merira recalled and again he thought drearily: "He is always everywhere, there is no escaping from Him."

Suddenly there was a sound of footsteps. He looked round—there was no one. This happened several times. At last, by the time Merira reached the eighth, the secret temple, where the Holy of Holies had been, he saw in the distance a man who was running from moonlight into the shadow. He knew people were robbed and murdered in the city at night; he remembered he had no weapons; he stopped and wanted to shout "who goes there?" but felt such an aversion from his own voice that he said nothing and went into the temple.

The sixteen giant figures of Osiris in the likeness of King Akhnaton, in royal tiaras and tightly drawn winding sheets, had all been broken to bits. The ceiling had fallen in and pale moonlight fell upon the pale blocks of alabaster—the giant limbs of the dead giants.

Picking his way between them and climbing over them, Merira approached the inner wall of the Holy of Holies, where there was a figure of a Sphinx, with a lion's body and human arms, raising to Aton the Sun a figure of the goddess Maat, the Truth, as a sacrificial offering. The Sphinx had the face of King Akhnaton; if a man had been tortured for a thousand years in hell and then came to the earth again, he would have such a face.

The Sphinx had not been destroyed, either because those engaged on the task had failed to recognize the Criminal's face or because they had not the courage to destroy so terrible a monster.

Merira stood on a stone to see it better in the pale moonlight. He was looking at it eagerly and suddenly stretched forward to it and kissed it on the lips.

At the same moment he felt that someone was standing behind his back: he turned round and saw Issachar.

"Ah, it's you again!" he said, stepping off the stone. "Why do you follow me about? What are you doing here?"

"And what are you doing?" Issachar asked.

"I am waiting for him," Merira answered, with a jeer. "If he is alive let him come. Does he visit you?"

"No. But he will come to us together: we both wanted to kill him and we shall both see him alive."

"Are you speaking of the king?"

"Of the king and of the Son—through the king to the Son—there is no other way for you and me."

"Why do you talk as though you were my equal? I am an Egyptian and you are a dirty Jew. Your Messiah is not ours."

"He is the same for all. You have killed Him and we shall give Him birth."

"And kill him also? .... Well, go along," Merira said, and walked on, without looking round. Issachar followed him.

Suddenly Merira stopped, looked round and said:

"Will you follow me about much longer? Go along, I tell you, while you have a chance."

"Don't drive me away, Merira. If I go away He will not come to you...."

"Do you imagine you've a charmed life, you Jewish dog?" Merira shouted, raising his stick.

Issachar never stirred and looked into his eyes. Merira lowered the stick and laughed.

"Ah, you crazy creature! What am I to do with you?" He paused and then said, in a changed voice:

"Very well, come along. Shall we go to my house?"

Issachar nodded, without speaking.

They walked quickly, as though in a hurry. Passing the seven sanctuary courts they came to the street. They never spoke and only as they drew near Tuta's estate, Merira said:

"What time is it?"

"About seven," Issachar answered, glancing at the sky. The time of the night was reckoned from sunset.

"Another five hours before sunrise. Well, there is plenty of time," Merira said.

They walked through the garden to the summer house. In the hall Merira took a lamp burning in a niche in the wall and led Issachar through several empty chambers. They went up the stairs, passed Merira's bedroom and entered the room next to it.

"Lie down here," Merira said, pointing to a couch, "I shall be next door. Lie still, don't get up and don't come in to me, do you hear?"

Issachar again nodded silently.

"Are you hungry? I expect you have not tasted food for the last day or two. See how thin you are."

"No, I am thirsty," Issachar replied.

Merira took a jug of beer off the table and gave it to him. He drank greedily.

"Why do you tremble?" Merira asked, noticing that Issachar's hands trembled so that he could hardly hold the jug.

He threw a cloak to him.

"Lie down and wrap yourself up, perhaps you will get warm."

"I am not sleepy, I will sit up."

"Lie down, lie down, I tell you!"

Issachar lay down on the couch. Merira covered him up with the cloak.

"Sleep. I will wake you at daybreak. We will go to the upper temple and meet Him there."....

Issachar sat up suddenly and would have kissed Merira's hand but he drew it quickly away.

He went into the next room, carefully shut the door after him, but did not lock it; put the lamp on a stand, took from the shelf by the wall two bleached cedar tablets and writing a few lines upon them hid them in his bosom. Then he took out of the box at the head of the bed the ring with the carbuncle, Amon's eye, and put it on his finger.

He paced up and down the room, muttering something under his breath, quickly and inaudibly as in delirium.

Two chairs of honour, one for the host and another for the visitor, stood according to Egyptian custom on a carpeted brick platform, one step high, in the middle of the room between four lotos-shaped, painted and gilded columns.

Every time that Merira walked past these chairs he slowed down his step and, without turning his head, looked at one of them out of the corner of his eye. His face was sleepy and immovable and he kept muttering to himself.

He spent more than an hour in this fashion. The moonlit sky through the clink-like windows with a stone grating under the very ceiling, turned darker and darker, and at last the grating was no longer visible: the moon must have set.

Merira lingered by the platform longer and longer each time. Suddenly he stopped and smiled, looking intently at one of the chairs. He stepped on to the platform, sat down in the other chair, stretched himself and yawned.

"Forgive me, sire," he said aloud, as though speaking to someone who sat on the chair opposite him. "I know it is unseemly to yawn in the presence of a king, especially of a dead one. But I am fearfully sleepy. And it wouldn't be so bad if I were awake, but this is a dream. Does it ever happen to you? To be asleep and yet to feel sleepy at the same time? Issachar now wouldn't yawn in your presence. I confess I envied him last night. He is shaking with fear but he would give his soul to see you! It is he you ought to visit. But evidently the dead are like women: you only love those who don't put too much trust in you.... By the way, I ought to have locked the door into his room, I forgot to do it. He would be frightened to death if he came in, poor fellow! .... But perhaps I left it open on purpose so that he might come in and I should know whether he could see you.... This is what I am driven to in my dreariness! It is dreary, Enra, very dreary. Can it be as bad in your world? Always the same thing—rotten fish in eternity.... Or is it rather different with you? Is it worse or better? You are silent? I don't like it when you are silent and look at me with pity as though to say 'it's better for such as I and worse for such as you'.... Well, aren't you going to speak? Tell me, what have you come for? Do you remember, Enra, how you said when I wanted to kill you, 'I love you, Merira'.... And just now who is it has said it, you or I?"

He paused as though listening to an answer and then spoke again.

"You love your enemy? He has taught you this? You come from Him to try and save me? No, Enra, you cannot save a man who does not want to be saved. You died for what you loved; let me too die for what I love—not for the world beyond the grave but for this one, for this life—for living and not for rotten fish. The world already smells of putrefaction because of Him and one day it will stifle in its own stench. He lies that the world kills Him; He kills the world. He calls Himself the Son of God in order to kill the true Son—the world. I know it is hard to go against Him, but I don't care, I don't seek for what is easy: I am the first but not the last to rise against Him. There will be men like me when He comes: they will kill Him and destroy His work; they will perish but will not save the world; this is how it will be, Enra!"

He paused again and smiled suddenly, as he did in the Maru-Aton garden that afternoon when looking at Maki's birch tree he recalled Dio.

"How living you are to-day, more living than you have ever been! I see every fold of your dress: see how small the pleats are: you have good pleaters in your world. You have the royal serpent on your forehead; so you had renounced your crown here and accepted it there? I see every line in your face: the charming, childish ones round the mouth—your smile, Enra. I loved it so and I love it now. Enra, Enra, do you know that I love you? You have grown younger, more beautiful. And how is Dio? Is she with you? There, forgive me, I won't... Yes, you are quite living, you could not be more so! And yet I know that you don't exist, that you are my dream.... Goodbye, Enra, this is the last time I see you. I want to escape from Him.... You think I cannot? He is always and everywhere and there is no escaping from Him? ... Well, we shall live and die and see. There is a great deal you don't know, Enra: you are wise like a god, but you are not clever. You remember, you yourself used to say 'wisdom is beyond reason'.... Oh, I nearly forgot: here is the ring, do you remember it? Take it as a keepsake.... A-ah, you laugh! You understand? Yes, I want to test you: if the ring is not on my finger when I wake, it will mean that you exist, and if it is on my finger—you don't exist. Well, will you take it?"

His guest stretched out his hand to him—a hand he knew so well that he would have recognized it among a thousand—a long, slender, beautiful hand, with the same childishly piteous expression as the face, with blue veins under the brown skin, so real that warm, red blood seemed to be flowing in them. The middle finger was slightly apart from the others so that the ring could be slipped on more easily and the nail on it was a dark rosy colour with a white arch at the bottom.

"If I touch this hand I will die of horror," Merira thought and an icy shiver ran down his back. Yet he did touch it, put the ring on the middle finger, felt the firm bone under the soft flesh and he felt no horror but only a desire to know what it was, who it was.

He suddenly clasped the hand: it was soft, dry, warm—a real, living hand!

"You are real! You are real! I adjure you by the living God, tell me, are you real?" he cried in such a voice as though his soul left his body with that cry.

Regaining consciousness he saw an empty chair in front of him and Issachar kneeling beside it. Looking at the chair he trembled so violently that Merira heard his teeth chattering.

"What has frightened you so?"

Issachar said nothing and went on staring at the chair, his teeth chattering.

"He has been here," he whispered at last, turning to Merira.

"Who?"

"King Akhnaton."

"Have you seen him?"

Issachar was going to say 'No,' but said 'Yes,' as though somebody else had uttered the word instead of him. And no sooner had he said it than he believed he had really seen the king.

"Have you heard him?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"That the Son would come to you."

"What else?"

"He spoke about the ring. You gave him the ring to test him."

"Did he take it?"

"He did."

"But what's this?" Merira asked, with a laugh, pointing to the ring on his finger. "You heard me raving—this is all the miracle."

Issachar gazed at the ring in silence with the same terror as he had gazed at the empty chair. Suddenly he raised his eyes to Merira and exclaimed:

"He has been here! He has!"

"Yes, he has. I, too, think that Somebody has been here," Merira answered quietly and, as it were, thoughtfully, without a laugh.

He paused and then said, getting up:

"Let us go, it is time, the sun will soon be rising."