by Joan Grant
“Such things are easy to say. Why should I believe them? You talk as if you were a priest, but you are only a girl, younger than myself. Don’t listen when they tell you of the littleness of death. Even if I believed the priests, what help would it be to me? To me—I never dream! For me sleep is nothingness, even so must be death: an end of consciousness, an end of hope.”
“But if you could remember your life beyond sleep, remember it more clearly than what you did yesterday, wouldn’t that teach you that what the priests told you was true?”
“That is easy to say. As well ask me if I should believe my husband lived if I saw him coming towards me along this path and heard his voice and felt his hand in mine. Both are impossible, so why torment me with thoughts of visions I shall never see?”
“Will you do one thing for me with your heart? Before you sleep, think not of your husband and your child as when you saw them dead. Think of them living, think of little happy things you did together, the sound of the laughter of your son, of your husband mending his nets at noonday in the shade with you beside him. Do not shroud yourself from him with sorrow, and I will help you to remember being with him, so that when you wake you will know he is alive. I do not ask you to believe these things, but I will give you proof, so you can judge them for yourself. Meet me here to-morrow three hours after dawn and I shall have good tidings for your heart.”
I knew that she did not believe me; yet she promised that she would wait for me.
That night when I slept, I went to her and found her still caught in her web of tears. She was standing by the upturned boat where she had found it drifted to the bank, frozen in horror as she saw the dead bodies shrouded together in the heavy net beneath the water. And beside her were her husband and her child, entreating her to speak to them and to show they were alive, trying to break through the cobwebbed greyness that enveloped her.
I bathed her still figure in a shaft of light, and the vision of death before her disappeared, and her cloak of greyness vanished like mist under the sun. And as though she were awakening after a deep sleep, she saw her husband and her son, and her face was lit with a radiance greater than that of a blind man who regains his sight. Then I took them to a place of grassy banks and flowers and waterfalls and splendid trees. Here are a thousand counterparts of Earth, where, in the places they have known happiness, people meet their loved ones who have died; and here, far nearer than they were on Earth, do they forget their hours of loneliness. But from this country of reality, each day for a little time they must return to Earth: and it seems shorter than if they but left their lover’s side to fill a water-jar from a river running by the house. Before I left her, I made the sign of the circle upon her forehead and told her that on Earth she would remember; and I told her that when we met upon the morrow, I would do unto her this same thing, lest she might think this was but a dream and not a memory of reality.
When in the morning I met her, she would have knelt at my feet in gratitude. And when I marked her upon the forehead, her tears were of joy. And she said to me, “You have taken me up out of a tomb and given me life. Once I disbelieved what the priests told me, and now I need not believe them, for I know that what they say is true. And every day I shall pray that I may be able to do for another what you have done for me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hykso-Diomenes
During the last year that I was in the temple, work was begun on two new cloistered courtyards, which Neyah was adding to the Temple of Atet. The walls were to be not of brick covered with plaster, but of stone. And they were to be carved with scenes from the life of the people of Kam: with fishermen at their nets and bird-snarers in their marshes, vintagers pressing out the grapes and herdsmen with their flocks. They were to be deep-cut in stone, so that they should endure like the plants in the pavilion of my father. There were to be no chariots of Pharaoh or royal tribute bearers, for it was in the temple, where all are ranked by the weighing of their hearts.
The architect of the new buildings was the son of a noble of the Delta, and he was called Hykso-diomenes. His hair was the colour of burnished copper, and his eyes were yellow like a lion’s eyes, but with dark flecks in them.
His work brought him often to the temple, for both the design of the building and the lining in of all the frescoes were done by him, and the stone-carving was carried out under his direction. He had a house near to the temple, and there he kept long papyrus rolls of sketches and designs, some to be frescoes and others to be carved in low relief. In the courtyard he had a model of the new building, made of palmwood and hardened wax. This he had made to show others what was still in his mind, so that all who were working on the building could see what it was that grew beneath their hands; and knowing what they built, they would work the better for sharing in the knowledge of the finished whole.
Much of his time, when he was not at the temple, was spent in the fields, or by the marshes, drawing animals and birds.
Often I talked to this man, who I called Dio; for I wished to learn of the art of building, so that the temples and palaces, which I might cause to rise when I was Pharaoh, should be worthy landmarks of my journey.
Sometimes I told him of the things that I had seen away from Earth, but I found he listened as though I were making a pretty story for a child. He believed that men perish when their bodies die and that their immortality is only through their children, or in men’s memory. He would talk of children as though each generation increased the father’s store of knowledge, just as a tree each harvest bears a heavier crop of fruit, flowering more freely on its lengthened boughs. In his philosophy the spirit of a child springs from the mind of its parents to think their burnished thoughts; and when its body leaves it mother’s womb, then for the first time it sees the sun; and in the child its parents find their immortality. Though he saw no ordered pattern of life, he was content. He thought that what I told him were pleasant fancies, as when his servant put a crumb of food before her household goddess before she ate. And I told him that his beliefs were as if he had forgotten all yesterdays and denied all to-morrows.
To Dio, time sped so quickly that he could almost hear the sweeping shadows hurry across the sand. To him, life and time were measured, and in the dark sea of eternal nothing his life was like a little lamp of oil, which for a small space let him see, and feel, and be alive; and when the oil was gone, his body cold, the great unruffled sea of nothingness lay undisturbed.
He said, “To have a building, conceived within the mind, and then born like a child through heavy labour, and to see it in its calm purity of line, that is the greatest man can hope for: that of their minds they should achieve something of beauty that endures, so that ahead in time others may see and say, ‘He knew, just as I know, that beauty is permanent, though bodies go back to dust’.”
I had never met one who thought like this. Evil I knew, and good. Yet he was neither. Young ones I knew, too young to understand more than the simple rules of right and wrong. But this man had been well tempered in the fire of life. So this strange obscurity I could not understand; and I tried to remove it with my will, and with my wit, and with my heart and mind. Just as a blind musician brings sweeter music than does his brother who can see the stars, so perhaps do those on Earth see beauty in form more clearly when the eyes of the spirit are closed with leaden seals.
How do they live, these people? How can they laugh, and sing, and praise the stars, thinking each day the sun that rises brings them yet nearer to a timeless dark? Why do they try to steer their lives, when they think the endless river a stagnant pool? Why, when they do not see the ordered pattern of life, do they not rail against the blind injustice which for them ousts the Gods? For they think themselves a grain in a great sandstorm of blinded forces seeking disordered doom.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dream of Minoas
Sometimes Dio would tell me legends of his mother’s country, which was Minoas, the Island Kingdom in the Northern Sea; how their gods lived
in the stars, and, if men failed in tribute to them, they would strike them down with rods of lightning. There they worship bulls, for, they say, without milk babies would die; if babies die, then all mankind will perish. And milk comes from the cow, yet the cow gives nothing until the lusty bull thrusts springing seed to swell her placid flanks. These people wrestle with their sacred bulls, vaulting between the razor danger of their horns, so that the watchers cheer to see a fellow mortal outwit the god.
And trying more closely to understand Dio’s heart I visited Minoas in a dream.…
It is more richly green than Kam, and vineyards crowd great steps down to the sea. Their temples have elaborate pageantry, yet they are but a mask that hides a face that is not there. Their gods are only puppet gods of stone, forgotten symbols of that which never was. Their temples ring with music to the deaf, and incense rises to nostrils that cannot scent. They seek truth from lips of carven stone, and deck themselves with roses for blind eyes. And, of the people’s will, these things of form shall raise great monuments to earth beauty; yet, if true knowledge does not come to them, their buildings shall be like a ruined hall, where only lizards cross the broken floor and lost altars crack beneath the sky.
In these temples there are no true dreamers, but the priests distil a draught of herbs, in which are poppy seeds, and they give this to any who come to the temple—if they can pay. He who drinks it has strange dreams, for it opens the eyes of the spirit, though to no place which it is desirable to see. Then, when he wakens, the sleeper describes his dreams to the priests, who, being men of wit, experience, and earthly knowledge—though having no true wisdom—interpret his dreams, saying that they have hidden meanings, and twisting a fevered vision until the poor dreamer thinks it a message from the Gods.
And in one temple, the Temple of Praxitlares, there was a high-priest who, though small of spirit, was most lusty of body. The priests of this country are celibate, as are the priestesses; and strangely, here they think it more important to keep their virginity than to open the gateways of their spirit. Yet the sower of this high-priest was impatient that his seed remained stored in his granaries, and often he longed to plant it in a fruitful furrow.
Now in the temple there was a statue, which was hollow; and in the secret chamber beneath it the high-priest would hide himself, and from there his voice would echo as though it were the statue that spoke. And the people revered it as an oracle.
There were days when to this oracle came virgins, who would ask it to describe to them the men who were to be their lovers or their husbands. They would wreathe the plinth of the statue with flowers, for he was the embodiment of all their hopes, being carved in the form of a young man of great beauty, with a straight nose in one with his forehead, full lips curved like a bow, and tightly curling hair.
One day while the girls were bowed before the statue, the priest’s voice spoke through it and said:
“I am a god, yet sometimes, when I am tempted by beauty such as yours, I come to Earth. But if I should come to you in my true godly form, then would you die as though you were plunged in fire. Nor can I take all outward semblance of a man, for that would be as though gold should cloak itself in filth. But I shall take the semblance of a swan, and ten of you, whom among yourselves you judge to be most fair, shall lie with me to enhance your beauty; and when men see you they will think it is a goddess that walks on Earth; and the proudest shall kneel at your feet in supplication that you should be their wives.
“And so to-night, which is the dark of the moon, secretly you shall come to the third sanctuary behind the temple. Each shall enter alone. Then you shall feel my swan’s wings brush your face, and each may keep one feather from my wing. And if in any of you there be some greater spark of godhead than in other mortals, then shall that one feel the god beneath the swan, and, in the darkness, to her I will appear in my most sacred semblance, as a man.
“Let no word of this escape your lips, lest you profane the message of the gods by letting it be heard by other mortals. To-night I shall await you as a swan, and perhaps to one of you as man.” Then the girls returned to their homes. And they spent that day in busy longing, smoothing their bodies with fragrant oil.
As they walked up to the temple through the moonless dark, their pulses sang with an expectant joy. The high-priest waited in the inner sanctuary, and as each girl entered alone, he threw about her a feathered cloak, so that she felt as though a great swan clasped her in its wings. And while she lay upon a silken couch, she thought she must be a goddess to have reached with a god this pinnacle of bliss, where past and future were lost in feathered flames.
Then through the secret door of the sanctuary each in her turn found herself alone upon the mountain-side, holding a single feather in her hand. And one was drowsy with her memories and slept beneath a tree through the warm night. Her body had shown her as yet undreamed-of-joys, and the future hid from her its heaviness and the sharp cruelties of birth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Blind Goddess
Dio was building a temple wherein Truth is housed, yet he could not see her walking through the courts or hear her voice in the quiet sanctuaries. Although I could not give him of my knowledge, there were many things of Earth he gave to me. He showed me that though a bird is carved in stone, its feathers may seem warm beneath the hand; and a carved baby donkey has all the sprawled unsteadiness of youth. In a hunting frieze, the stalking muscles slide smooth beneath the skin of a young leopard; and the deer surprised at drinking stands rigid with quick fear. He showed me that a dancer’s posture may be caught so that she stirs the pulse with her smooth rhythm, though long still in death. And though a dead fish dulls, when netted in stone its slippery silver lasts a thousand years.
One day, while I was watching Dio carving the frieze of fisherman pulling in their loaded nets, I thought in my heart, “When I am Pharaoh I shall cause the buildings in Dio’s mind to grow upon Earth. I shall send messengers to bring scribes and workers in stone to Men-atet-iss. I shall work in granite as others have worked in clay and brick. The pillars shall soar about men like the stalks of corn about a field-mouse, yet the craftsmanship in stone shall have the precision of goldsmiths’ work. The scribes shall write so that the eye as well as the heart delights in their message, and the walls shall be painted as though they were mirrors in which the beauty of the Two Lands is reflected. In dreams I have visited countries where there are great temples empty of teaching, and others where there is teaching in buildings that are unbeautiful. But in Kam the Light shall be housed worthily: a flame in a lamp of flawless alabaster.”
I wanted to tell Dio what I would do for him in the future, but if he had known that Pharaoh was my brother and that I had been born on the royal birth-chair, I feared that he would shut the doors of his heart to me. I hoped that one day they would be wide open to me and I could enter though I wore the White Crown.
As I watched the stone under Dio’s hand turning to fishes trapped in the nets, I thought of the Great Artificers. And I told him of them, and of how they wrought in flesh as he in stone. “Although those who see your carven fish will share your memory of them, the thoughts of the Gods can come alive on Earth and follow out their master’s plans for them. Some fish are made to drowse contentedly in pools, shading their noondays under lotus leaves, and others journey the watery highways to the sea.”
I saw that my words had made no ripple in his thoughts, although he loved to listen to my voice.
“Dio, you think the Earth is not made by Ptah. How do you think ants learned to build their citied hills? Why does the lotus live only in water, and the scarlet poppy spring among the corn?”
“The lotus has come from a thousand thousand years of plants where land was wet; the plants that needed the warmth of the sun upon their roots died out, and so we do not know of them; but lotuses adapted themselves and shot up long stems so that their flowers might blossom in the air.”
“Do you think that this plant growing by the wall,
of its own will designed its sheltering leaves to hide its buds from the hot sun? Do you deny the Great Artificers and hold that all things create and change themselves?”
And Dio said: “It must be so. I have heard that in countries to the north animals grow thicker coats in winter to protect themselves; and there are many things like that; those that conform to change survive, the others die. So we only see those that succeed, and those that perish are forgotten.”
“Do you think, then, that a plant possesses a more keenly tempered will than a woman? For you say this plant designed its leaves at will. I have known women who wanted to have red hair, and though for thirty years they longed for it, still did their hair spring obstinately black—although the rest of it succumbed to dye. You talk of Nature, whom you think a blind goddess, the twin-sister of Chance, but to change the form of any living thing so that its seed shall reproduce that change can only be done by the artificers. It pleases you to deny the Gods. Yet you do not deny them; you call their power by other names. One day you will find out that you but play with words, and though you think you simplify the world, you but shroud truth in small complexities.
“You think that the convolvulus once grew along the ground, where taller plants kept it from the sun, and then of its own will it put out tendrilled arms to save itself from death in the green shade. Do you think that the violet made its scent, and the fish its multiplicity of scales? You would not expect the stone under your hand to flow into patterns untouched by a chisel unguided by your thought. Why do you give the flowers this godliness, the fish this wit, this clarity of thought to achieve this beauty of themselves? You who love order and beauty of design, with every stone meticulously placed, why do you look for chaos in the universe and try to make the smooth rhythm of the world into a lost drunkard staggering along a road that leads to nothingness?”
