Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

The next morning broke and the air was cold. The sky was wrapped in robes of cloud, white and incandescent above the source of the sun, like an innocent face — whose expression announces the inner thoughts, — while the distant horizon — was darker as if the tails of night lingered still as it withdrew.

A great task awaited her, but her heart was not inclined toward it, nor was the purification she had undergone that day at the temple pleased with it. Had she not sworn to wash away the past — with all its stains? And here she — was, — waiting to deceive Benamun, and to play with his emotions in order to serve her love and bring her goal to fruition. She did not hesitate in the slightest though, for she was in a race against time. Her love meant more to her than anything else and she was prepared to use bitter cruelty for its sake. She left her chamber for the summer room, supremely confident. It would not require much guile to seduce Benamun. It would be easy.

She walked in on her tiptoes and found him looking at her picture, singing a song that she used to sing on evenings long ago:

If your beauty works miracles,Then why can it not cure me?

She was taken aback by his singing, but she made use of the opportunity and sang the rest of the verse:

Am I playing with something I have no knowledge of?The horizon is hidden behind the clouds,I wonder if you are the one

Who's saved some love for my heart.

The young man turned to her, startled, bewitched. She met him with a sweet laugh and said, “You have a beautiful voice. How have you managed to hide it from me all these days?”

The blood rushed to his cheeks, and his lips trembled with consternation as he reacted to her kind affection — with amazement.

She understood what he was thinking and she continued her enticement. “I see you enjoying a song, and neglecting your work,” she said.

A look of denial appeared on his face, and he pointed to the picture he had engraved and mumbled, “Look.”

The picture had become a beautiful face, almost lifelike. “How gifted you are, Benamun,” she said in admiration.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”

Then, steering the conversation toward her intention, she said, “But you have been cruel to me, Benamun.”

“I? How my lady?”

“You have made me look oppressive,” she said, “and I so wanted to look like a dove.”

He was silent, and did not say a word. She interpreted his silence to suit her purpose, and said, “Did I not say you have been cruel to me? How do you see me, Benamun? Oppressive, cruel, and beautiful as in this image you have made? What a picture it is. I am amazed how the stone speaks. But you imagine that my heart does not feel, just like this stone, do you not? Do not deny it. That is your belief. But why, Benamun?”

He did not know what to say. Silence overcame him. She was putting her ideas into his mind, and he believed them and was drawn toward her as he grew more muddled and confused.

“Why do you think I am cruel, Benamun?” she went on. “You believe in appearances, because by your nature you cannot conceal that which stirs in your breast. I have read your face like the page of an open book. But we possess another nature, and openness loses us the sweet taste of victory, and spoils the most beautiful things the gods have created for us.”

Young Benamun asked himself in bewilderment what she could possibly mean, and whether or not he should understand from her speech what her words actually implied. Had she not been sitting there before him every day, her eyes and mind forever distracted? She had not sensed the fire raging in his being then. What had made her change? Why was she saying these delicious words to him? Why was she coming so near the sweet secrets that burned in his heart? Did she really mean — what she was saying, did she really mean what he had understood her words to mean?

Rhadopis moved another step forward. “Ah, Benamun,” she said. “You are being cruel to me. It is clear from the silence — with which you answer me.”

He gazed at her in bewilderment and tears of joy almost flooded his eyes. He knew for certain his thoughts had been correct. “There are not enough — words in the — world to express — what I feel,” he said in a trembling voice.

She breathed a sigh of relief that she had loosened the knot on his tongue, and said dreamily, “What need have you of words? You will not say anything I do not know. Let us ask the summer room, for she has seen us for months and we have left in her body a trace of our hearts forever. Yes, here you have learned a solemn secret.”