The Pharaoh and the Priest. Bolesław Prus

a week. If I had hit the warrior, I should have got a blow of a fist in the belly that would have made my tongue stick out, for I am nothing but an earth-worker, and he is a warrior of our lord who lives through eternity."

      The heir leaned out from behind the column. They led away Dutmoses, and brought in Anup. He was a short fellow. On his shoulders were scars from club-strokes.

      "Tell me, Anup," began the official again, "how was it about that attack on the garden of the heir to the throne?"

      "Eye of the sun," said the man, "vessel of wisdom, Thou knowest best of all that I did not make the attack, only a neighbor comes to me and says he, 'Anup, come up, for the Nile is rising.' And I say to him, 'Is it rising?' And he says to me, 'Thou art duller than an ass, for an ass would hear music on a hill, and Thou dost not hear it.' 'But,' says I, 'I am dull, for I did not learn writing; but with permission music is one thing and the rise of the river is another.' 'If there were not a rise,' says he, 'people would not have anything to be glad about and play and sing.' So I say to thy justice, we went to the hill, and they had driven away the music there and were throwing stones at the garden."

      "Who threw stones?"

      "I could not tell. The men did not look like earth-workers, but more like unclean dissectors who open dead bodies for embalming."

      "And didst Thou see the priest?"

      "With thy permission, O watchfulness, that was not a priest, but some spirit that guards the house of the erpatr may he live through eternity!"

      "Why a spirit?"

      "For at moments I saw him and at moments he went somewhere."

      "Perhaps he was behind the people?"

      "Indeed the people sometimes were in front of him. But at one time he was higher and at another time lower."

      "Maybe he went up on the hill and came down from it?"

      "He must have gone up and come down, but maybe he stretched and shortened himself, for he was a great wonderworker. Barely had he said, 'The Nile will rise,' and that minute the Nile began to rise."

      "And didst Thou throw stones, Anup?"

      "How should I dare to throw stones into the garden of the erpatr? I am a simple fellow, my hand would wither to the elbow for such sacrilege."

      The prince gave command to stop the examination, and when they had led away the accused, he asked the official,

      "Are these of the most guilty?"

      "Thou hast said it, lord," answered the official.

      "In that case all must be liberated today. We should not imprison people because they wished to convince themselves that the holy Nile was rising or for listening to music."

      "The highest wisdom is speaking through thy lips, erpatr," said the official. "I was commanded to find the most guilty, hence I have summoned those whom I have found so; but it is not in my power to return them liberty."

      "Why?"

      "Look, most worthy, on that box. It is full of papyruses on which are written the details of the case. A judge in Memphis receives a report on the progress of the case daily, and reports to his holiness. What would become of the labor of so many learned scribes and great men if the accused were set free?"

      "But they are innocent!" cried the prince.

      "There was an attack, therefore an offence. Where there is an offence there must be offenders. Whoever has fallen once into the hands of power, and is described in acts, cannot get free without some result. In an inn a man drinks and pays; at a fair he sells something and receives; in a field he sows and harvests; at graves he receives blessings from his deceased ancestors. How, then, could any one after he has come to a court return with nothing, like a traveler stopping half-way on his journey and turning back his steps homeward without attaining his object?"

      "Thou speakest wisely," answered the heir. "But tell me, has not his holiness the right to free these people?"

      The official crossed his arms on his breast and bent his head,

      "He is equal to the gods, he can do what he wishes; liberate accused, nay, condemned men, and destroy even the documents of a case, things which if done by a common man would be sacrilege."

      The prince took farewell of the official, and said to the overseer, "Give the accused better food at my expense." Then he sailed, greatly irritated, to the other bank, stretching forth his hands toward the palace continually, as if begging the pharaoh to destroy the case.

      But that day his holiness had many religious ceremonies and a counsel with the ministers, hence the heir could not see him. The prince went immediately to the grand secretary, who next to the minister of war had most significance at the court of the pharaoh. That ancient official, a priest at one of the temples in Memphis, received the prince politely but coldly, and when he had heard him he answered,

      "It is a marvel to me that Thou wishest, worthiness, to disturb our lord with such questions. It is as if Thou wert to beg him not to destroy locusts which devour what is on the fields."

      "But they are innocent people."

      "We, worthy lord, cannot know that, for law and the courts decide as to guilt and innocence. One thing is clear to me, the state cannot suffer an attack on any one's garden, and especially cannot suffer that hands should be raised against property of the erpatr."

      "Thou speakest justly, but where are the guilty?" answered Ramses.

      "Where there are no guilty there must at least be men who are punished. Not the guilt of a man, but the punishment which follows a crime, teaches others that they are not to commit the crime in question."

      "I see," interrupted the heir, "that your worthiness will not support my prayer."

      "Wisdom flows from thy lips, erpatr," answered the priest. "Never shall I give my lord a counsel which would expose the dignity of power to a blow."

      The prince returned home pained and astonished. He felt that an injury had been done to some hundreds of people, and he saw that he could not save them any more than he could rescue a man on whom an obelisk or the column of a temple had fallen.

      "My hands are too weak to rear this edifice," thought the prince, with anguish of spirit.

      For the first time he felt that there was a power infinitely greater than his will, the interest of the state, which even the all-powerful pharaoh acknowledges and before which he the erpatr must bend himself.

      Night had fallen. Ramses commanded his servants to admit no one, and walked in loneliness on the terrace of his villa, thinking,

      "A wonderful thing! Down there at Pi-Bailos the invincible regiments of Nitager opened before me, while in Memphis an overseer of prisons, an investigating official, and a scribe bar the way to me. What are they? Mere servants of my father, may he live through eternity! who can cast them down to the rank of slaves at any moment and send them to the quarries. But why should not my father pardon the innocent? The state does not wish him to do so. And what is the state? Does it eat? where does it sleep? where are its hands and its sword, of which all are in terror?"

      He looked into the garden, and among the trees on the summit of an eminence he saw two immense silhouettes of pylons, on which sentry lights were burning. The thought came to him that that watch never slept, those pylons never ate, but still they existed. Those pylons had existed for ages, mighty, like Ramses the Great, that potentate who had reared them.

      Could he lift those edifices and hundreds of similar grandeur; could he escape those guards and thousands of others who watch over the safety of Egypt; could he disobey laws established by Ramses the Great and other preceding pharaohs still greater, laws which twenty dynasties had consecrated by their reverence?

      In the soul of the prince for the first time in life a certain idea, dim but gigantic, began to fix itself in outline, the idea of the state. The state is something more magnificent than the temple