The Pharaoh and the Priest. Bolesław Prus

of high walls, access to him was made difficult.

      During the ten days which preceded his departure, representatives of all Egypt, if not of the whole world of that period, passed before the eyes of the new viceroy.

      First of all were admitted great personages. Hence to congratulate him came the high priests of temples, ministers, ambassadors, Phoenician, Greek, Hebrew, Assyrian, Nubian, men whose dresses even he could not remember. Next came the chiefs of neighboring provinces, judges, secretaries, the higher officers of the army corps in Memphis, and landowners.

      These people desired nothing, they simply expressed their delight at honor shown him. But the prince, while listening to these persons from morning till midday and from midday till evening, felt confusion in his head, and a quivering in all his members.

      After these came representatives of the lower classes with gifts: merchants bringing gold, foreign stuffs, amber, fruits, and perfumes. Then bankers and men who loaned money for interest. Further, architects with plans for new buildings, sculptors with projects for statues and carvings in relief, masons, potters, makers of ordinary and ornamental furniture, blacksmiths, founders, tanners, wine-merchants, weavers, even dissectors who opened the bodies of the departed.

      The procession of those men rendering homage had not finished when an army of petitioners approached the viceroy. Invalids, widows, and orphans of officers requested pensions; noble lords required court offices for their sons. Engineers presented new methods of irrigating Egypt; physicians offered means against diseases of all sorts; soothsayers offered horoscopes. Relatives of prisoners petitioned to lessen punishments; those condemned to death begged for life; the sick implored the heir to touch them, or to bestow on them his spittle.

      Finally, beautiful women announced themselves, the mothers of stately daughters begging the heir humbly but insistently to receive them into his mansion. Some indicated the amount of the pension demanded, praising their virginity and their talents.

      After ten days of looking every moment at new persons and faces, and hearing petitions which only the possession of a world and divine power to dispense it could satisfy, Prince Ramses was exhausted. He could not sleep; he was so excited that the buzz of a fly pained his nerves, and at moments he did not understand what people said when they talked to him.

      In this position Herhor came again to assist the viceroy. He commanded to inform the wealthy that the prince would not receive any more persons on questions of interest; and against common people, who, in spite of repeated invitations to disperse, were still waiting, he sent a company of Numidians with clubs. These succeeded with incomparably more ease than Ramses in meeting popular wishes, for before an hour had passed the petitioners had vanished from the square, like mist, while one and another of them for a couple of succeeding days poured water on their heads, or other bruised parts of their bodies.

      After this trial of supreme power the prince felt profound contempt for men and became apathetic. He lay two days on a couch with his hands beneath his head gazing vacantly at the ceiling. He did not wonder that his sacred father passed his time at the altars of the gods, but he could not understand how Herhor was able to manage the avalanche of business, which, like a storm, not only surpassed the strength of a man, but might even crush him.

      "How carry out plans in this case when a throng of petitions fetter our will, devour our thoughts, drink our blood? At the end of ten days I am sick, at the end of a year I should be an idiot. In this office it is impossible to carry out any plan; a man can just defend himself from madness."

      He was so alarmed by his weakness in the position of ruler that he summoned Herhor, and with a complaining voice told of his suffering.

      The statesman listened with a smile to the complaints of the young steersman of the ship of state, and at last said in answer,

      "Knowest thou, lord, that this immense palace in which we dwell was reared by one architect, named Senebi, who moreover died before it was finished? And to a certainty Thou wilt understand how this famous architect could carry out his plan without weariness and be always in a cheerful temper."

      "I am curious."

      "Well, he did not do everything himself; he did not hew the beams or cut the stones, he did not make the bricks, he did not carry them to the scaffolding. He did not lay them into the wall and fasten them together. He only drew the plan, and moreover he had assistants. But thou, prince, hadst the wish to do all things thyself, to listen in person and transact every business. That goes beyond human strength."

      "How should I do otherwise if among petitioners there are some who have suffered without cause, or if there is unrewarded service? Of course the foundation of the state is justice."

      "How many canst Thou hear in a day without weariness?" asked Herhor.

      "Well, twenty."

      "Thou art happy. I hear at the most six or ten, but they are not interested in the petitions, they are chief secretaries, overseers, and ministers. These men report to me no details, only the most important things that are done in the army, on the estates of the pharaoh, in questions of religion, in the courts, in the provinces, and touching movements of the Nile. Therefore they report no trivial matter, because each man before he comes to me must hear ten inferior secretaries. Each inferior secretary and overseer collected information from ten sub- secretaries and sub-inspectors, and they in their turn have heard reports from ten officials who are under them. In this manner I and his holiness speaking with only ten people daily know all that is most important in a hundred thousand points of Egypt and the world beyond it.

      "The watchman in charge of one part of a street in Memphis sees only a few houses. A decurion of ten policemen knows the whole street, a centurion a division of the city, the chief knows all the city. The pharaoh stands above them all, as if he were standing on the highest pylon of the temple of Ptah, and sees not only Memphis, but the cities, Sochem, On, Cheran, Turra, Tetani, with their suburbs, and a portion of the western desert.

      "From that height his holiness is unable, it is true, to see the people who are wronged, or those who are unrewarded, but he is able to see the crowd of laborers who have collected without work. He cannot see warriors in the dramshops, but he can know what regiment is exercising. He cannot see what a given earth-tiller or citizen is preparing for dinner, but he can see a fire beginning in a given quarter of the city.

      "This order in the state," continued Herhor, with growing animation, "is our strength and glory. Snofru, a pharaoh of the first dynasty, asked a certain priest what monument he should rear to himself.

      "'Draw on the earth, O lord,' replied the priest, 'a square, and put on it six million unhewn stones; they will represent the people. On that foundation place sixty thousand hewn stones; they will be the lower officials. On them place six thousand polished stones; they will be thy higher officials. On these put sixty covered with carvings; those will be thy most intimate counselors and chief leaders, and on the summit place one monolith with its pedestal and the golden image of the sun; that will be thyself.'

      "The Pharaoh Snofru followed that advice. Thus rose the oldest pyramid, the step pyramid, a tangible image of our state; from that pyramid all others had their origin. Those are immovable buildings, from the summits of which the rim of the world is visible, and they will be a marvel to the remotest generations.

      "In this system resides our superiority over all neighbors. The Ethiopians were as numerous as we, but their king himself took care of his own cattle, and beat his own subjects with a club; he knew not how many subjects he had, nor was he able to collect them when our troops invaded his country. There was not a united Ethiopia, but a great crowd of unorganized people. For that reason they are our vassals at present.

      "The Prince of Libya judges all disputes himself, especially among the wealthy, and gives so much time to them that he cannot attend to his own business. So at his side whole bands of robbers rise up; these we exterminate.

      "Were there in Phoenicia a single ruler who knew what was happening and who commanded in all parts, that country would not pay us one uten of tribute. But what a happiness for us that the kings of Nineveh and Babylon have each only one minister, and are tormented