Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

All she was able to do was to open her arms, and, hastening to him, to entwine them around his neck while her lips trembled — with these words, “My son.my son.” The young man was dumbfounded, as though he was watching a strange dream unfold. He remained silent, sometimes looking at Zaya's cadaverlike face, and sometimes at the woman hanging onto him, kissing him — with a motherly fervor and clutching him to her beating breast. Zaya saw his surrender, noting in his eye a look of affection and compassion. Groaning in despair, she turned her back to them, bolting out of the room like a butchered hen.

Djedef started to move, but the woman strengthened her grip and implored him, “My son… my son… would you abandon your mother?”

The youth froze where he was, casting a long look into her face. He saw the visage that had moved his heart from the very first glance. He saw in it this time even greater purity, beauty, and misery than he had noticed before. Giving himself over in sympathy to her, he leaned his head toward her unthinkingly until he felt her lips press on his cheek. The woman sighed in relief as her eyes drowned in tears — then she began weeping, and he set about trying to ease her distress. He sat her down on the divan, taking a seat next to her as she held back her sobs, while she remained in a state between confusion and happiness over this new love in her life.

Looking at him, the woman said, “Say to me, ‘Mother!’ “

“Mother…” he said, weakly.

Then he said in bewilderment, “But I hardly understand anything.

“You will learn everything, my son.”

And so she recited to him all the long tale, telling him about his birth and the momentous prophecies surrounding it, and of the prodigious events that befell her — until the fortunate hour when her spirit returned to her breast at the sight of him — alive, happy, and full of glory.

32

The fates guided Bisharu to hear Ruddjedet's tale without his intending it. Wanting to welcome Djedef's guest himself, he went down to greet her, arriving by chance just as Zaya was leaving like one possessed by madness. Shocked and confused, he approached the room's door with caution, behind which he heard the voice of Ruddjedet — which she had forgotten to lower — erupting as she spoke in a state of high excitement. Secretly he listened, along with Djedef, to the woman's story — from its beginning through to its end.

Afterward, he rushed from his hiding place straight to his bedroom, heedless of all things around him, his face furrowed by a seriousness reserved for the most grievous disasters. He couldn't bear to sit down, so he kept pacing back and forth, his consciousness scattered, his soul upset, his thoughts rash and reckless. He was considering what he had heard as its jumble kept running through his head, turning it up and down on its various sides, until the feverish contemplation burnt up his mind, making it like a piece of molten bronze.

Aloud he said to himself, as though addressing a stranger, “Bisharu! Oh, you wretched old man! The gods have tested you with a difficult trial.”

And what a trial!

Dear, handsome Djedef, whom he had held as a suckling baby, rescued from hunger and want, and raised in the merciful eye of fatherhood — as a crawling infant, as a running boy, and as a wholesome young man. He to whom he gave the upbringing of a nobleman's son, and for whom he smoothed the road to success, until he became a man worth a nation full of men. He to whom he granted a father's affection, and his heart entire — and from whom he received the love of a son, and filial piety, as well. Dear, beautiful Djedef, the Fates have shown him the truth about himself- and suddenly his enemy is Pharaoh! Suddenly, he was the means that the Lord Ra had held in store to convulse the unshakeable throne by challenging its majestic sire, and to usurp the right of the noble heir apparent!

The Inspector of Pharaoh's Pyramid cried out again as he spoke to himself, “Bisharu! You miserable old man! The deities have tested you with a difficult trial!” The man's anxiety escalated and weighed more heavily upon him, as he continued blabbering to himself in sorrow and pain.

“O beloved Djedef, whether you're the son of the martyred worker, or the heir to the priest of Ra the Most Powerful, I truly love you the way I do Kheny and Nafa — and you have known no father but me.