"But of what use are priests to me? Are they to cause great outgo in my kitchen and cellar? Or, perhaps, to hear what I say, and see what I do?"
"The whole country will revolt," interrupted the queen, "if the priests declare that Thou art an unbeliever."
"The country is in revolt now. But the priests are the cause of it," replied the pharaoh. "And touching the devotion of the Egyptian people I begin to have another idea. If Thou knew, mother, how many lawsuits there are in Lower Egypt for insults to the gods, and in Upper Egypt for robbing the dead, Thou wouldst be convinced that for our people the cause of the priests has ceased to be holy."
"This is through the influence of foreigners, especially Phoenicians, who are flooding Egypt," cried the lady.
"All one through whose influence; enough that Egypt no longer considers either statues or priests as superhuman. And wert thou, mother, to hear the nobility, the officers, the warriors talk, Thou wouldst understand that the time has come to put the power of the pharaoh in the place of priestly power, unless all power is to fall in this country."
"Egypt is thine," sighed the queen. "Thy wisdom is uncommon, so do as may please thee. But act Thou with caution oh, with caution! A scorpion even when killed may still wound an unwary conqueror."
They embraced and the pharaoh returned to his bedchamber. But, in truth, he could not sleep that time.
He understood clearly that between him and the priesthood a struggle had begun, or rather something repulsive which did not even deserve the name struggle, and which at the first moment he, the leader, could not manage. For where was the enemy? Against whom was his faithful army to show itself? Was it against the priests who fell on their faces before him? Or against the stars which said that the pharaoh had not entered yet on the true way? What and whom was he to vanquish? Was it, perhaps, those voices of spirits which were raised amid darkness? Or was it his own mother, who begged him in terror not to dismiss priests from state offices?
The pharaoh writhed on his bed while feeling his helplessness. Suddenly the thought came to him: "What care I for an enemy which yields like mud in a hand grasp? Let them talk in empty halls, let them be angry at my godlessness. I will issue orders, and whoso will not carry them out is my enemy; against him I will turn courts, police, and warriors."