Nevertheless there were cold, clear moments when I saw the city of Akhetaton as no more than the fair rind of a fruit that inwardly was eaten away by maggots. The grubs of time sucked the substance from its gay life so that joy faded and laugher died in Akhetaton. I began to yearn for Thebes and had no need to seek out pretexts for the journey; my heart abundantly supplied me with these. So it was with many who fancied themselves devoted to Pharaoh; they left Akhetaton, some to see their estates, others to marry off their kinfolk. Many returned to Akhetaton, but some did not, being now indifferent to Pharaoh’s favor and relying more on the secret power of Ammon. I arranged for Kaptah to send me a number of papers testifying that my presence in Thebes was necessary, that Pharaoh might not prevent my going.
4
Once I had stepped aboard and was on my way up the river, my soul seemed liberated from a spell. Spring had come again, the river had fallen, and the swallows were flashing above the swift yellow waters. The fertile mud had spread over the fields, and fruit trees were in blossom. I hastened, filled with the sweet unrest of spring, like a bridegroom hastening to his beloved. So much is man the slave of his heart that he will shut his eyes to what does not please him and believe all that he hopes. Freed from the spell and the prowling fear of Akhetaton, my heart was jubilant as a bird released from its cage. It is hard to be bound by the will of another, as everyone in Akhetaton was bound by the fevered, fitful, and oppressive will of Pharaoh. To me, his physician, he was but a man, and this slavery was worse for me than for those to whom he was a god.
I rejoiced at seeing once more with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears, at speaking with my own tongue and living according to my will. Such freedom is in no way harmful; rather it made me humble and melted the bitterness from my heart. The greater my distance from Pharaoh the more clearly did I see him as he was and wish him well. The nearer I came to Thebes the more immediate and living were the memories in my heart, and the greater were Pharaoh Akhnaton and his god.
Therefore my hope and my belief were the same, and I rejoiced, feeling that I was a good man and better than many others. If I am to be honest with myself and live in truth, I must confess that I felt myself to be a better man than Pharaoh himself since I harmed no one willingly, forced my faith on none, and in the days of my youth had tended the poor without requiring gifts. As I pursued my way up the river, I saw everywhere the traces of Pharaoh Akhnaton’s god. Though it was now the height of the sowing season half the fields of Egypt lay unplowed, unsown, and barren save for weeds and thisdes, and the flood waters had filled the ditches with mud that no one cleared away.
Ammon was exerting his power over the hearts of men, driving the settlers from the land that had been his, and cursing Pharaoh’s fields also, so that plowmen and laborers fled from them and hid themselves in the cities. A few of the settlers remained in their huts, scared and bitter.
I spoke with them and said, “Madmen! Why do you not plow and sow? You will die of hunger when the winter comes.”
They looked at me with enmity because my clothes were of the finest linen and answered, “Why should we sow, when the bread that grows in our fields is accursed, killing those who eat it as the speckled grain has already killed our children?”
So remote lay the city of Akhetaton from the life of reality that it was only now I learned that the speckled grain caused the death of children. I had not heard of such a sickness before. It spiead from child to child; their bellies swelled, and they died with pitiful moaning. Neither physicians nor sorcerers could help them. It seemed to me that this sickness could not originate from the grain but rather from the flood waters whence came all the infectious diseases of winter. It is true that this one killed only children, but when I surveyed the grown people who dared not sow their fields, preferring to submit to death by famine, I saw that the illness had killed at least their hearts. I did not blame Pharaoh Akhnaton for all I saw, but Ammon, who so poisoned the lives of these people in the fields that they chose death rather than life.
Impatience to look once more upon Thebes drove me onward. The sweat poured down the faces of my oarsmen. With reproach they showed me their hands, which were blistered and swollen because I urged them to such speed. I promised to heal the sores with silver, and I quenched their thirst with beer in my desire for goodness.
But as they pulled, their haunches braced askew, I heard them mutter one to another, “Why should we row this fat swine if all men are equal before his god? Let him try it himself, to learn how it feels, and then heal his hands with silver if he can!”
The stick at my side cried out to lay about me, but my heart was filled with goodness because I was on my way to Thebes. Having reflected on the men’s words, I perceived their justice.
I went among the speakers and said, “Oarsmen, give me an oar!”
I stood and rowed among them until the hard wood of the oar rubbed blisters on the palms of my hands, and the blisters turned to sores. My back strained sideways until I thought my spine would crack, and I drew my breath with pain.
But I said to my heart, “Will you give up the labor you took on yourself, for your slaves to mock and scorn you? This and much more than this they endure every day. Experience their toil, their sweat, their swollen hands, that you may know what the boatmen’s life is like. You, Sinuhe, once required your cup to be full!”
So I rowed until I was near swooning and the servants had to carry me to my bed.
The next day also I rowed with my flayed hands, and the oarsmen no longer laughed at me but begged me to cease, saying, “You are our lord, and we your slaves. Row no more, or floor becomes roof for us, and we shall seem to walk backward with our feet in the air. Row no more, for there must be order in all things; every man has his station as ordained by the gods, and yours is not the oarsman’s stretcher.”
But I rowed among them all the way to Thebes; my food was their bread and their porridge and my drink the bitter beer of slaves. Every day I could row for a longer time; every day my limbs grew wirier; every day I took more delight in living and noted that I had ceased to be short winded.
My servants were uneasy on my account and said to one another, “Surely a scorpion has bitten our master, or he has gone mad like everyone else in Akhetaton, madness being an infectious disorder. Yet we do not fear him, for we have the horn of Ammon hidden beneath our clothes.”
But I was not mad and had no intention of rowing beyond Thebes.
So we approached the city, and the scent of it reached us far out on the river-a scent surpassing all others for one who was born in that place. I bade my servants rub healing salves into my hands and wash me and dress me in my best clothes. The loincloth was too wide for me, for much of my belly had melted away in rowing, and it was necessary to tighten it about me with pins, which they very woefully did. I laughed at them and sent them to warn Muti of my arrival, not daring to present myself unannounced.
I divided silver among the rowers, and gold also, and I said to them, “By Aton! Go, eat and fill your bellies! Rejoice your hearts with good beer and take pleasure with the beautiful girls of Thebes, for Aton is the giver of joy and loves simple delights, and he loves the poor better than the rich, because their pleasures are artless.”
At this the faces of the boatmen darkened; they fingered the silver and gold and said, “We would not offend you, but tell us whether this be accursed silver and accursed gold since you speak to us of Aton. For such we cannot accept; it burns our fingers and turns to dust as is well known.”