On either side of it were ranged, for the princes, less splendid, though still extremely elegant and charmingly fanciful chairs; for the Egyptians are no less clever at carving cedar, cypress, and sycamore wood, in gilding, colouring, and inlaying it with enamels, than in cutting in the Philoe or Syêné quarries monstrous granite blocks for the palaces of the Pharaohs and the sanctuaries of the gods.
The King crossed the hall with a slow, majestic step, without his painted eyelids having once moved; nothing indicated that he heard the cries of love that welcomed him, or that he perceived the human beings kneeling or prostrate, whose brows were touched by the folds of the calasiris that fell around his feet. He sat down, placing his ankles close together and his hands on his knees in the solemn attitude of the gods.
The young princes, handsome as women, took their seats to the right and left of their father. The servants took off their enamelled necklaces, their belts, and their swords, poured flagons of scent upon their hair, rubbed their arms with aromatic oils, and presented them with wreaths of flowers, cool, perfumed collars, odorous luxuries better suited to the festival than the heavy richness of gold, of precious stones and pearls, which, for the matter of that, harmonise admirably with flowers.
Lovely nude slaves, whose slender forms showed the graceful transition from childhood to youth, their hips circled with a narrow belt that concealed none of their charms, lotus flowers in their hair, flagons of wavy alabaster in their hands, timidly pressed around the Pharaoh and poured palm oil over his shoulders, his arms, and his torso, polished like jasper. Other maids waved around his head broad fans of painted ostrich-feathers on long ivory or sandal-wood handles, that, as they were warmed by their small hands, gave forth a delightful odour. Others placed before the Pharaoh stalks of nymphœa that bloomed like the cup of the censers. All these attentions were rendered with a deep devotion, and a sort of respectful awe, as if to a divine, immortal personage, called down by pity from the superior zones to the vile tribe of men; for the king is the Son of the gods, the favoured of Phré, the protégé of Ammon Ra.
The women of the harem had risen from their prostrate attitude, and seated themselves on superb, carved and gilded chairs, with red-leather cushions filled with thistle-down. Thus ranged, they formed a line of graceful, smiling heads which a painter would have loved to reproduce. Some were dressed in tunics of white gauze with stripes alternately opaque and transparent, the narrow sleeves of which left bare the delicate, round arms covered with bracelets from the wrist to the elbow: others, bare to the waist, wore a skirt of pale lilac rayed with darker stripes, and covered with a fillet of little rose beads which showed in the diaper the cartouche of the Pharaoh traced on the stuff; others wore red skirts with black-pearl fillets; others again, draped in a tissue as light as woven air, as transparent as glass, wound the folds around them, and managed to show off coquettishly the shape of their lovely bosoms; others were enclosed in a sheath covered with blue, green, or red scales which moulded their forms accurately; and others again had their shoulders covered with a sort of pleated cape, and their fringed skirts were fastened below the breast with a scarf with long, floating ends.
The head-dresses were no less varied. Sometimes the plaited hair was spun out into curls; sometimes it was divided into three parts, one of which fell down the back and the other two on either side of the cheeks. Huge periwigs, closely curled, with numberless cords maintained transversely by golden threads, rows of enamels, or pearls, were put on like helmets over young and lovely faces, which sought of art an aid which their beauty did not need.
All these women held in their hands a flower of the blue or white lotus, and breathed amorously, with a fluttering of their nostrils, the penetrating odour which the broad calyx exhaled. A stalk of the same flower, springing from the back of their necks, bowed over their heads and showed its bud between their eyebrows darkened with antimony.
In front of them black or white slaves, with no other garment than a waist girdle, held out to them necklaces of flowers made of crocuses, the blooms of which, white outside, are yellow inside, purple safflowers, golden-yellow chrysanthemums, red-berried nightshade, myosotis whose flowers seemed made of blue enamel of the statues of Isis, and nepenthes whose intoxicating odour makes one forget everything, even the far-distant home.
These slaves were followed by others, who on the upturned palm of their right hands bore cups of silver or bronze full of wine, and in the left held napkins with which the guests wiped their lips.
The wines were drawn from amphoræ of clay, glass, or metal held in elegant woven baskets placed on four-footed pedestals made of a light, supple wood interlaced in ingenious fashion. The baskets contained seven sorts of wines: date wine, palm wine, and wine of the grape, white, red, and green wines, new wine, Phoenician and Greek wines, and white Mareotis wine with a bouquet of violets.