Djedef- his feelings now gathered in concentrated awareness — asked in concern, “Suddenly?”
“Yes, I was like the bird hovering safely in the sky until he feels an arrow dive into his heart — and he falls.”
“When did this happen, and where?”
“Djedef, when one talks about love, you don't ask about the time and the place!”
“Who is she?”
He said with reverence, as though intoning the name of Isis, “Mana, daughter of Kamadi in the Office of the Treasury.”
“And what will you do?”
“I will marry her.”
Djedef wondered, in a dreamy voice, “Is this how things change?”
“And even faster than that,” said Nafa. ‘An arrow and its victim — and what is the bird to do?”
Truly, love is an awesome thing. Djedef knew art, the teachings of the sages, and the sword. As for love, this was a new mystery indeed. And how could it not be a mystery, if it could do in one instant what Bisharu and he were unable to do in years! Meanwhile, he sensed his own passion flaring and his spirit wandering in far distant valleys.
“A happy Fate has willed that I be successful in my life as an artist, and Lord Fani invited me to decorate his reception hall. Some of my pictures were valued at ten pieces of gold — though I refuse to sell them. Look at this little one!”
Puzzled, Djedef turned toward where Nafa was pointing, and saw the miniature image of a peasant girl on the banks of the Nile, the horizons of evening tinged with the hues of sunset. As though awakened by the beauty of this picture that drew him from the valleys of his dreams, he approached it slowly, until he came to — within an arm's length of it. Nafa saw his amazement and could not have been more pleased.
“Do you not see it as a picture rich in both color and shadow? Look at the Nile, and the horizons!” he exclaimed.
Djedef answered in an otherworldly voice, “Just ask me to look at the peasant girl!”
Contemplating her picture, Nafa said, “The brush has immortalized the flow of the Nile, which has such dignity.”
But Djedef interjected, without paying any attention to what the artist was saying, “By the gods… such a soft, supple body, as slender and upright as a lance!”
“Look at the fields, and at the bent-over crops, whose direction shows…” said Nafa.
As though he didn't hear his brother at all, Djedef muttered: “How gorgeous this bronze face is, like the moon!”
“… that the wind was blowing from the south!” continued Nafa.
“How beautiful these two dark eyes — they have such a divine expression!”
“Joy isn't all there is in this picture. Notice also the sunset — only the gods know how much effort I put into drawing and tinting it,” said Nafa.
Djedef looked at him with a mad enthusiasm. “She's alive, O Nafa — I can almost hear her murmuring. How can you live with her under one roof?”
Nafa rubbed his hands happily. “For her sake, I turned down ten pieces of pure gold,” he said.
“This painting will never be sold.”
“And why is that?” asked Nafa.
“This picture is mine, even if I should pay for it with my life!”
Nafa said, laughing, “O age seventeen! You're like a blazing fire, a leaping flame. You give life and womanly qualities to stones, colors, and water. You passionately adore illusions and imaginings, and turn dreams into actualities… and you've brought us all the tortures of hell!”
The boy blushed, and fell silent. Nafa took pity on his exasperation, and said, “I am at your command, O Soldier.”
“You must never part with this picture, O Nafa,” said Djedef imploringly.
Nafa strode over to the picture, and lifting it from its place, presented it to his brother, saying, “Dear Djedef, she's yours.”
Djedef held it gently with his hands, as though he were clasping his own heart, then said like one obliged to be grateful, “Thank you, Nafa!”
Nafa sat down contented. As for Djedef, he stuck to his place without budging, absorbed in the face of the divine peasant girl.
At length he said, “How does the creative imagination captivate one so?”
“She's not a creature of imagination,” said Nafa, calmly.
The youth's heart quaked as he asked with desire, “Do you mean that the possessor of this form moves among the living?”
“Yes,” Nafa answered.
“Is… is she like your image of her?”
“She is even more beautiful, perhaps.”
“Nafa!” shouted Djedef.
The artist grinned, as the enraptured young man interrogated him, “Do you know her?”
“I have seen her at times on the banks of the Nile,” he replied.
“Where?”
“North of Memphis,” said Nafa.
“Does she always go there?”
“She used to go in the late afternoon with her sisters, and they would sit down and play and then disappear with the setting sun. I used to take my place hidden behind a sycamore fig tree — I could hardly wait for them to arrive!”
“Are they still going there?” asked Djedef.
“I don't know,” replied Nafa. “I stopped following their movements when I had completed my picture.”
Djedef looked at him doubtfully. “How could you?” he said.
“This is a beauty that I worship, but which I do not love.”
Djedef, paying no attention to what Nafa was saying, asked him, “In what place did you see her?”
“North of the Temple of Apis.”
“Do you think that she still goes there?” Djedef queried.
“And what, O Officer, prompts your question?”
A look of confusion flashed in Djedef's eyes, and Nafa asked him, “Could Fate have it that these two brothers are wounded by the arrow of love in the same week?”
Djedef frowned as he returned to regarding the picture thoughtfully.
“Don't forget that she's a peasant girl,” said Nafa.
“Rather, she's a ravishing goddess,” Djedef muttered back.
“Ah, Djedef, I was struck by the arrow and destroyed in the palace of Kamadi,” said Nafa, laughing, “but I fear that you may be struck in a broken-down hut!”
16
The day bore the seal of dreams, as around midafternoon, Djedef — the enchanting portrait next to his breast — went to the bank of the Nile, rented a boat, and headed north. He was not truly aware of what he was doing, nor could he stop himself from doing it. Simply put, he had fallen under a spell and could submit only to its commands, and hear only its call. He set off in pursuit of his unknown objective driven by an all-conquering passion that he could not resist. This magic had seized a man for whom death held no terror, who had no regard for danger. Naturally, then, he struck out boldly for his goal, for it was not his custom to shrink back — and whatever would be, would be.
The boat made its way, cutting through the waters, propelled by the current and the youthful strength of his arms. All the while, Djedef kept his eyes fixed on the river's edge, searching for the object of his persistent quest. And what should he see first but the mansions of the wealthy people of Memphis, their marble staircases descending to the banks of the Nile. Beyond them, for many furlongs, he beheld the spreading fields until there appeared in the far distance Pharaoh's palace garden in the City of the White Walls. Djedef piloted his skiff in the midcourse of the river in order to avoid the Nilotic Guards, until — at the Temple of Apis — he turned back to shore once more. He then hastened northward opposite the spot, where people were not seen except during the great feasts and festivals. He would have given up in despair if he had not then noticed a group of peasant girls sitting on the riverbank nearby, dipping their legs into the flowing waters. His heart pounded intensely as his sense of bleakness fled, his eyes gleaming with ecstatic hope. His arms grew ever stronger as he rowed toward the land; with each stroke he faced them and gazed at them intently. When he drew close enough to see their faces, a faint sigh escaped his mouth, like that of the blind man when he suddenly regains the gift of sight. He felt the rapture of the drowning man, — when his feet chance upon a jutting rock — for he had spied the girl that he desired, the mistress of the image that he bore on his breast, reposing on the riverbank, set as though in a halo of her peers. Everything was, as we have said, suffused with the spirit of dreams, as he steered the boat closer beside them. Finally, Djedef stood up in it, with his handsome frame in his elegant white uniform, which fitted over his body as though he were a statue of divine potency and seductive beauty. He was like a god of the Nile, revealed by a sudden parting of the sacred waves, as he continued to stare at her of the angelic face, of that visage transparent with love and temptation. Confusion gripped the peasant girl, who kept running her eyes back and forth distractedly among her young companions. Meanwhile, they continued watching her radiant face, ignoring Djedef, who they thought was just passing by. But when they saw him standing erect in his skiff, they pulled their legs out of the water and put on their sandals, in disbelief and denial.