Pan's Flute

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  “I would have preferred to give you more intoxication and not receive that stone!” she said.

  He got up and left. As he drew away into the night she called after him: “Leave the amour that lasts to laborers and merchants. Thutmose will give you women of Syria and Kush in abundance. The man whose heart is not free will be the laughing stock of the enemy.”

  V

  On the three days that followed, Setne fund the son of Thutmose on the drill-field; he taught him again to draw the bow. The child became more adroit; he brought down his repast without difficulty, and took pleasure in aiming at other targets. He became attached to Setne; he waited for him impatiently at the end of the maneuvers; but the Tanite was only thinking about the princess; his ardent eyes were fixed on Thebes, hoping to see a white litter appear, shaded by the flabella with curly fringes.

  Aoura did not appear. The chief despaired of seeing her again. He spent entire evenings prowling around the royal gardens and along the river bank, dazed by dreams.

  He did not believe that he was in love with the princess. Such a thought had something frightening, mad and criminal about it. In any case, he did not recognize any of the emotions that accompany amour. It was not the possession of the young woman that he seemed to want, but merely her presence. No image of a caress or kiss troubled the desire he had to perceive the small proud silhouette that had appeared before the Theban camp. He was doubtless more likely to believe it a magical influence, the will of a god or a soul, when an amour so foreign to the men of Egypt came, than to attribute it to the divine quality of the descendants of Ahmose.

  He found what he experienced for Gaila more explicable; the memory of the feast burned his senses. Each of the slave’s attitudes was fixed within him; desire ravaged his flesh and growled in his breast like a malevolent beast.

  The greeted the morning of the sale with joy, and the sun was still far from its zenith when he set forth along the Nile. The terrible plain, breathless in the harsh light, seemed condemned to eternal dryness; the implacable sky opened like a devouring maw, and motionless Egypt, durable and sad, awaited the kiss of the solstice, when its cisterns would be delighted and its mud would howl with joy. Then the father of life, the great red Apis, would embrace his conquest, his patrimony attached to the desert, and the shadoofs would precipitate green life all the way to the summits of the hills.

  Setne reached Ankhi’s dwelling. He went through the pylon briskly, traversed the courtyards, and was received by the hostess. She was not wearing a wig; her head was as bald as an aged she-monkey, but her eyes were still beautiful, soft and despotic.

  She smiled at the visitor.

  “I would be anxious,” she said, “if I were your mother. You put too much ardor into your actions. It is thus that one emerges from one’s caste to command men, but it is thus, above all, that one runs toward death.”

  “I serve Death,” said the young man. “I have seen her wings on twenty battlefields. There is nothing redoubtable about her.”

  “No,” replied the hostess, “there is nothing redoubtable about her; she is beautiful and consoling for those who are ready for judgment.”

  Her gaze, fixed before her, seemed to be seeking the great reaper. She sighed. Like almost all Egyptians, she had a faith so perfect that eve her flesh no longer revolted against death. She glimpsed the divine realm of the soul, the Amenti, the gods of the South and the North, the sources of the Nile, the boat of Osiris; she ornamented with the splendid memories of her youth the land of death.

  “You’ve come to buy your slave?” she said. “Take care! She’s proud, mysterious, and too subtle; she’ll read your heart, she’ll be able to use you if you don’t defend yourself.” She added: “But she’s not ingrate, she knows how to keep her promises; thus, you’ll get good or evil out of her, in accordance with your actions. I’m hiding nothing from you. Reflect. And have no fear of offending me by leaving her with me; I won’t be embarrassed by her. But if you want her, you must pay her price.”

  Setne paid little heed to the loquacity of the good hostess. His desire was becoming insupportable. “I want her!” he cried

  “I don’t know of any flaws in her,” the old woman went on. “She’s beautiful and strong. She can weave linen and cover it with embroidery; she’s skillful in working with gold and silver thread. The men who have known her have taken pleasure in her possession. I can’t sell her for less than ten five-year-old oxen.”

  “That’s the price I offered.”

  “Yes, but you’d been drinking cervoise and wine; your soul was speaking within you. You might have forgotten your offer, for I don’t suspect you, son of Raneferka, of being like the merchants of vile caste who take back their word. Since you accept, I’ll have Gaila come; it’s necessary that you look at her again. We don’t sell anything that hasn’t been seen by the purchaser.”

  The hostess gave the order to summon Gaila. Light footsteps were heard; the Bedouin slave showed herself in the doorway. She was not entirely unclad, as on the day of the feast. A narrow linen tunic enveloped her beauty, marking the rhythm of her gestures with a new elegance. Her hair was still thrown back to one side, like the mane of a mare.

  She smiled at the Tanite and stood there waiting, full of an enigmatic, disquieting charm.

  “Take off your tunic,” said the hostess.

  Gaila appeared in her magnificent nudity.

  Gently, the old woman turned her around, showing off her limbs, her breasts and her shoulders.

  “She’s perfect, you see. Her flesh is full and firm, her skin fresh and very delicate. Although she has served, no child has deformed her belly or caused her breasts to sag.”

  The examination made Setne impatient; it displeased him to see the old hands passing over those charming forms. He said: “I recognize that the slave is exempt from flaws. Have the deed of sale written. Don’t forget, dear hostess, that you are also ceding me the infant, Gaila’s brother, for two oxen. I will bring my witnesses.”

  “The deed will be ready tomorrow.”

  He gave her a gold ring as a guarantee; in accordance with custom, the ring would belong to the vendor if the purchaser withdrew from the sale. The Egyptian woman, judging that such a ring was worth several months of a slave’s work, allowed Setne to take Gaila away.

  He had carried off the slave as a lion carries off a gazelle to its cavern. When he had her alone, he buried himself in her sensuality. He did not see that she remained almost motionless in his arms. The folly of Hathor obscured his soul. But in the end, a pleasant lassitude relaxed him.

  The flesh of the charming slave palpitated softly against his own; when he opened his eyes he saw a delightful smile, and the tenebrous gleam of eyes. It was at that moment that she asked him: “Don’t you want to tell me your secret?”

  He opened his mouth, but could not speak. He was ashamed. Even though she was his slave, it seemed to be insulting her beauty to confess a desire for another woman.

  She saw his embarrassment, and said, politely: “Have I not said, my master, that for you I will do everything gladly? My words are not vain. If it is necessary to serve you with regard to another woman, don’t hesitate to ask it of me.”

  The more he heard Gaila, the more he was convinced that he could tell her everything. His tongue was loosened. He told her about the extraordinary amour that was blossoming in his soul.

  She listened with a vague smile. Familiarized with every human adventure, nothing had astonished her for a long time. In any case, having fulfilled a chimerical project herself, she was ready to do anything and hope for anything. Nor did she share Setne’s respect for a royal person. In her vagabond slavery, she had known the weakness of Egyptian women, and that even priests and monarchs did not escape their treason.

  Finally, she responded: “You bear the accomplishment of your desire within you. Are you ready for anything? I’m not speaking about courage, for those eyes answer for that, but the work of patience, of cunning?”

  �
��I’m ready for anything.”

  “Then you shall know the princess of Egypt,” she said, with a long gaze. “I don’t know whether you’ll have her for an hour, or seasons, but you’ll possess her...”

  She was speaking at hazard, persuaded that the first condition of success is a violent faith. By virtue of a phenomenon proper to her race, she gave herself the illusion as she prophesied, ready to risk her life in the game, rich in audacity, energy and wily prudence.

  She went on: “To begin with, you can do nothing by yourself. It’s necessary to obey me with confidence. I know the places where the princess goes, and I’ll put you in her passage. You’ll have the attitude that I shall indicate to you, and you won’t make a gesture without making me party to it very exactly.”

  She considered him with a kind of malice. And he listened to her, full of a pleasant attention, with such a keen sentiment of feminine subtlety that he came to find his amour less extraordinary. He also sensed that she would be a sincere ally, in spite of her youth, her beauty and her voluptuous flesh.

  “And what do you want in exchange for your devotion?” he said, after a long silence. “For the pleasure I obtain with you pays the price of the slavery...”

  She raised a hard face. From the depths of her soul, a cry of murder rose. She heard her father roar in the furnace, her sisters howl at the rape of the nomads, her mother uttering a great sinister plaint. She saw herself again, among the yellow reeds, and the soft beasts, holding her silent little brother against her breast, while the blood of warriors streamed over the pasture and a fire of joy rose up before the trembling stars. Then she relived the terrified flight, and the long slavery in which she had submitted to the lust of men, and known all the forms that they give to intercourse.

  “After the murder of my family,” she said, “I was captured in the desert of Kenner by merchants of the Gulf. I knew the first man by violence and pain. Until then I had only lived in terror and blind hatred. The rape enlightened my soul. I made an oath to reconquer the land of Zoum and to enable my blood to reign over the tribe off the Bene-Asher, now wandering in the land of sand. Death alone will release me from the oath. Now, I have need above all that my brother lives and grows. Without the lust of masters I would have lost him a hundred times; I would like to be sure that he will never be separated from me.”

  “Your brother will grow in my shadow,” he replied, gravely.

  She kissed his hand. Then, stirred by hope, and that hope filling him with ardor, he put his mouth once again to the lips of the slave, in which an inexhaustible voluptuousness sparkled.

  VI

  Aoura was bored. She was no longer interested by the beautiful slaves that King Thutmose had given her, and the amour of the male was still forbidden to her. Her breast rose at the sight of well-constructed men, her nights were stormy. In vain, a Memphite whom she had adored and a daughter of Lydia with the contours of Isis offered her their caresses; she no longer took any pleasure in them.

  With a less elevated sentiment of duty she could have seduced one of the young men who served in the court. She respected the gods, the law and custom, and, in sum, she was virtuous; but virtue was still unaware of modesty and chastity. Thirty centuries later, Aoura would have been a chaste young woman. Under the eighteenth dynasty, nothing similar was demanded. On the other hand, duty required royal daughters to obey the Pharaoh and not to know a man without his consent. Religious and loyal, worshipful of the will of her brother Thutmose, Aoura was incapable of transgressing the commandments. She had the merit of that; her curiosity and her desire became insupportable.

  That day, she had dispersed her slaves and she was sitting in the shade of a tamarind. Three fountains were falling upon the grass and nourishing a basalt basin in which sacred birds were parading their luminous bodies. The trees, to which the soil of Egypt is harsh, extended their green freshness and their elegant lines everywhere. There were so many roses that the stones of the palace were impregnated with their perfume.

  But Aoura was bored, indifferent to the luxury for which so many men had perished. She remained motionless for an entire hour; she would have fallen asleep with sadness if she had not been due to go to the temple build by Amenemhat III,19 where she like to pray to the soul of the king and the god of Thebes. She went there often; the place had been more favorable to her wishes than any other. She also liked it because of the route that it was necessary to follow, and for an old sacred lake whose flowers were prodigious.

  She called her slaves. The Memphite and the Lydian immediately came running, but she refused their services and sent for her palanquin, her black servants, her porters.

  Gaila was waiting on the road to the Amenemhat temple, amid the wild vines, on the edge of the ancient lake where the nelumbos raised their winged corollas. A temple ruined by the Shous was visible, which might have dated back to the days when the Egyptians did not yet make use of metal. It displayed red columns, porticoes of porphyry, whose inscriptions time and the blows of men had not been able to ruin entirely, with the figures of thickset men, and a lion designed by a naïve chisel but very veridical. Trees and flowers grew in the gaps between the columns or on platforms filled with earth, and hardly anyone ever approached the grim place, where reptiles battled with carnivorous birds. Sacred Egypt, rich in symbols and in svelte figures, in simple, proud, eternal lines, was scarcely recognizable in that dense ancestral work, in which the life of men and beasts seemed too submissive to reality. No one was any longer encountered there but old sorcerers, women who read fortunes or equivocal foreigners.

  Gaila waited patiently for the passage of Princess Aoura. Clad in fiery red, with a grasshopper and a serpent made of green stone, in her hair, she was holding a figurine in the shape of a crescent in her hand. By those signs, the prophetic women of the far shore of the Red Gulf were recognizable, to whom the Egyptians—especially Egyptian women—attributed an accurate prevision and the knowledge of redoubtable arcana. Sometimes they were hunted, sometimes they were left some liberty. Thutmose, to whom one of them had made an accurate prediction, was presently covering them with his protection. And Gaila was counting on attracting the attention of the princess, who was due to go, that morning, to the temple of Amenemhat, as she did at the beginning and end of every lunation.

  The day was ardent. Herons on one foot, sentinels of melancholy, stood in the shadow of the willows or at the points of creeks of promontories. A phoenix and pink flamingoes rose up lightly toward the sky; the quiet water, full of islets were animals and plants swarmed, filled the profound landscape with life.

  Thinking about her native land, Gaila detested that quietude. Her soul rose up rancorously against the tranquil beauty of the land of Egypt. But an interior vision made her smile; she took pleasure in the memory of the master in whom she had put her hope.

  She shivered, her penetrating gaze swept the sea and recognized Princess Aoura among her followers and servants. Then the nomad seized a little flute that she had hidden in her robe, and drew faint sounds from it, which sometimes resembled the grating of grasshoppers and sometimes the plaint of a sparrow frightened by a horned viper.

  When she was close enough, the princess wanted to know where that voice was coming from. She perceived Gaila costumed as a sorceress, and became excited, for she was credulous and avid to know the future. Even so, she would have passed on her way—but her eyes encountered Gaila’s. She was subjected to the fire of seduction that escaped from the nomad. The flute gave voice to its most dolorous cry; the young Bedouin woman marched toward the escort without ceasing to look at the princess. That movement was favorable to her. She appeared with an elegance of rhythm and a mysterious charm that acted on the servants as well as on Aoura.

  The latter, raising a nonchalant hand, had the porters halt, and asked, with a hint of suspicion: “What do you want, daughter of the Gulf?”

  “Sister of King Thutmose, I posses arcana that can charm men, beasts and the birds of the sky. I know the signs of the nigh
t and the desert, and I can punish those who offend me. Above all, I can see into the future as into clear water. But I cannot say everything; the gods would punish me. It belongs to those who have a subtle mind and who are not ignorant of any of the art of good scribes to clarify my words.”

  She put such a mild gravity into her speech that Aoura, who was not fearful, ceased to be suspicious.

  “Tell me, daughter of the Gulf, what I ought to dread and hope…”

  “I will trace your fate,” said Gaila.

  She drew a copper stylus from her bosom and described a complicated figure on the ground, in which eyes, triangles and crescents were perceptible. The she said: It is necessary to put your bracelet, Princess, in a triangle, or on the point of a crescent. Only then will the figures be an arcanum.”

  The princess got down from her chair and placed a golden bracelet on a crescent, Gaila seemed to be immersed in meditation. Then she made the bracelet leap several times. Her forehead creased, her eyes became fixed, as if elsewhere.

  She said, in a somber voice: “You must fear the evils that are in the west, and in everything, avoid the figure of the serpent. It will be harmful to you, if a man who comes from the south and who bears a little of the blood of ancient kings in his blood does not come to your aid before two years have elapsed.”

  Aoura darted a proud and fearful gaze at the slave. “And how can I avoid the figure of the serpent? It is present everywhere in the palace of Thebes.”

  “It is only redoubtable in your own rooms and your garden. You should make it disappear or veil it. You should avoid it, above all, in your adornment....”

  “By what sign will I recognize the man who ought to come to my aid? Is he a scribe who will give me an arcanum? Is he an enchanter who will render me invulnerable?”