VI
As many were astonied at Him, His visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men." Dio recalled Issachar's prophecy when she looked at the king in his illness.
The first fit was followed by a second and a third one, the worst that he had ever had. Pentu, the physician, was afraid he would not live. He did live, but it was no joy either to himself or to others: it was terrible to see the soul dying in a living body.
The days and hours, however, were not all alike. Sometimes as though waking from deep sleep or a swoon, he understood everything and spoke so rationally that those around him had hopes of his complete recovery. But then his mind was clouded again. He sat for hours on the floor in some dark corner with his back to the wall and his legs stretched out, looking into vacancy with eyes dim as a new-born baby's; or slowly swaying his body to and fro, he muttered something under his breath rapidly and inarticulately as in delirium, laughing quietly, or crying, or humming a song. Or he repeated one and the same word over and over again with meaningless persistence. But sometimes there was an obscure meaning in these repetitions.
"Aton-Amon, Aton-Amon, Aton-Amon," he kept repeating one day, making one word of the two, as though on purpose: he had devoted his whole life to dividing them and now he seemed to have understood that it had not been worth while.
Or he asked himself with perplexity, as though he had forgotten and were trying to remember:
"Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?"
And suddenly, turning to Dio, said with a perfect understanding of what he was saying:
"Oh, if I only knew who I am, I should be saved!"
He often had visions of his mother Tiy, of his wife, Nefertiti, of his daughter, Maki, and spoke to them as though they were living.
He had a vision of Shiha, the eunuch, too: standing by his side on the top of a pyramid, he heard the laughter of innumerable crowds down below, saw the face of Aton the Sun red with laughter in the sky and covering his face with his hands repeated:
"Shame! Shame! Shame!"
But when a flash of consciousness lighted the darkness of his clouded mind, he was wise once more—wiser than he had ever been.
At first Dio rejoiced at these lucid intervals, but she came to fear them: after them the darkness was even more terrible; he suffered acutely each time that madness closed in upon him.
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" he cried out one day, repeating an old Babylonian psalm.
And suddenly Dio felt in a way she had never done before that it was He Himself, the Son Who was to come. She was terrified at the thought, but the memory of it remained in her soul like a trace of lightning.
They moved the king to the Maru-Aton palace where Princess Makitatona had died four months before.
It was a three-storeyed building, high like a tower; the bottom was of brick, the top, light and airy, of cedar and cypress wood, trellis-worked, gilded and painted like a jewel casket. On hot days drops of resin trickled down the match-boarded walls and the palace was fragrant like a censer.
The flat roof had a carved railing all round it—a row of Sun-serpents, with gold sun-discs on their heads, their throats dilated with poison. A fire was perpetually burning upon an altar on the roof and, on an alabaster column in front of it, the sun disc of the god Aton made of cham, a mixture of gold and silver, glittered in the sky like another sun.
As soon as the king felt better he went up on the roof to pray.
On the tenth day of his illness there was such an improvement in his health that Dio began to hope again.
He went up to the roof in the evening, himself chopped some sandalwood and put it on the altar, and when a white pillar of smoke rose in the still air he knelt down, and stretching his arms to the hand-shaped rays of Aton's sun began to pray. Standing beside him, Dio heard the words of an ancient Babylonian psalm:
"Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord! Hear my voice, let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication and enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified. The enemy has persecuted my soul, has smitten my life down to the ground, has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead. My spirit is overwhelmed within me, my heart within me is desolate. I stretch forth my hands unto Thee; my soul thirsteth after Thee as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord, for I am Thy son!"
The sun had set behind the Lybian hills and in the afterglow the sky seemed covered with feathers of fire; the green of the palm groves had turned blue and the mirror-like surface of the water, almost invisible, like another sky, reflected exquisite opalescent shades of white, blue, green, yellow and rose.
The day had not yet died in the west but the night was already being born in the east: there, in a violet velvety sky, a full moon was glowing, yellow as though filled with honey.
When he had finished his prayer, the king rose, looked round and said:
"How lovely it is, O Lord!"
Tears trembled in his voice. Dio knew they were tears of joy and yet she looked at him anxiously. He smiled at her and gently drawing her towards him put his cheek against hers, as he often did, with a childish tenderness.
"Ma, Ma, how lovely it is! Don't be afraid, I am not raving, I know you are not Ma."
Ma was the Cretan goddess, the Great Mother of gods and men.
And he added, after a pause:
"You and Nefertiti and Tiy, all three of you are One.... Don't be afraid, all shall be well, I will recover ... And if I don't, never mind, it will be well, too: even in my madness I will praise reason, the sun of suns!"
He sat down in a chair and Dio on the ground at his feet. Gently stroking her hair, he said:
"Yes, maybe I shall die in my madness; I shall be cursed, rejected, mocked by men. 'Ah, you silly, you have disgraced yourself before all the world,' as Shiha, the eunuch, says. And yet, I have been the first to see Him Who is to come! The first ray of sunshine is on the top of the pyramid while the rest of the earth is still in darkness: this is how His light rests upon me ... Why are you crying, Dio? Are you afraid that He will not come?"
"No, I am not afraid, I know He will come. If you have, so will He.... But when, when? Men have waited for him for centuries and may have to wait for centuries more! And when He does come, it will not be for us...."
"Yes, for us, too. Do you remember, I said to you 'Let us go to Him'? And now I say we shall not go to Him, but He will come to us!"
And suddenly he began muttering, as though in delirium:
"Soon! Soon! Soon!"