Two
The stunning sensation that I had actually died, that I no longer belonged to the realm of the living, truly overwhelmed me. I was still in my room, and the room was still as it was, so what had happened? What had changed within me? My mother and my wife were leaning over my body, when something occurred that I could not doubt, and it was the most critical thing of all. I was not surprised, and if I had been able to reply to my wife when she asked me, “Taw-ty, what do you see?” I would have said, “I am dying.” But I had lost the power of speech and of other things. I was not surprised, as I have said, when I felt the depths of Death — as the bed feels the numbing flow of sleep — completely aware of what was happening. What could not be doubted is that Death is neither painful nor terrifying, as mortals imagine. If they knew the truth about it, they would seek it out as they do well-aged wine, preferring it over all others. For it is not regret or sadness that grips the dying person. Rather, life appears as something paltry and unimportant when one intuits on the horizon that divine and joyous light. I was shackled with fetters, then they were smashed. I was trapped inside a vessel, then I was set free. I was intensely heavy on the earth, then I shed my bonds and was rid of my weight. My form was narrow, then I stretched everywhere outward without any bounds. My senses were limited, then each faculty changed utterly; I could see all and I could hear all and I could comprehend all, and I could perceive all at once what was above me and below me and around me — as if I had left my body sprawled before me to take from Creation an entirely new one. This total transformation that defies description took place in an instant. Yet, I still felt that I had not quit the room that had witnessed the happiest moments of my previous existence. It was as though I had been made custodian of my former body until it reached its final rest.
So I continued to observe everything around me calmly and attentively, without apprehension. The air of the room was enveloped in pain and dejection, while my mother and wife persisted in working together over my body — my old companion — with its familiar features, lying motionless on the bed. Meanwhile, its color had gone white tinged with blue, its eyelids closed, and its limbs went limp. The children and the servants kept calling to it; they all wept and cried. Those in attendance poured copious tears over it, until heartache, sorrow, and gloom seemed to consume them. All the time I watched them with an odd indifference, as if never for a day had I been close to them. What is this dead body? Why are these humans howling about it so? What is this misfortune that has made their faces ugly and distorted? No, I am no longer one of the people of the world, and their tears and lamentations cannot restore me to it. I wished that all my ties with it would be cut so that I could hover about in my new domain, but, regrettably, my dear ones still held a part of my liberty captive to the temporal world, so I steeled myself with patience as I took up this burden. Then my mother came with a sheet to cover my cadaver, while the children and servants went out. She took my wife by the hand as they both left the room and locked the door behind them. Yet they remained in my sight, because the walls did nothing to impede my view. I saw them both as they removed their clothing and dressed in black for mourning. Next they headed toward the house’s courtyard, loosening their braids and strewing dust over their heads, throwing off their sandals as they hurried toward the door. They rushed out shouting and beating the sides of their faces, while my mother kept callling “My son!” and my wife called out, “O my husband!” Then they both cried out together, “Mercy upon you, O poor Taw-ty — Death has taken you without compassion for your youth!”
They left the house in this condition of moaning and weeping, continuing along until they passed the first home on the way. There the mistress of the house came out to them in fright. “O Sisters, what is upsetting you?” she asked. The two women answered, “Our house is ruined! Our children are orphaned! The mother is bereaved! The wife is widowed! Mercy upon you, O Taw-ty!” So the woman bawled out from deep in her breast, “O heart dismayed! O youth deprived! O hopes destroyed!” And she followed the two women, all the while scattering dust on her own head and striking her cheeks. Each time they passed a house its mistress came out to join them, until all the women had flocked to their throng. A woman experienced in mourning led them onward, continually reciting my name and my virtues. On they went, cutting across all the streets in the village, bringing grief and desolation to every location. But this name of mine that the mourners were chanting, why did it not affect me at all?
Yes, this name had become as strange to me as my laid-out body. I kept wondering when, oh when, would all this end? Then, in the evening, the men came. As the wailing went up around us, they carried my body into the House of Embalming, and placed it on the slab in the Sacred Chamber. The room was long and very wide, without a single window save for a skylight in the center of the ceiling. The slab was in the center of the room, and on either side of it were shelves stocked with jars full of chemicals. In the middle, under the skylight, was a huge trough flowing with the miraculous fluid. The men went out, leaving only two behind. These two were experts, as testified by the speed and dexterity with which they worked. One of them came with a basin, which he set down close to the slab. They collaborated in stripping the cadaver of its clothing until every part of it was completely exposed. They did this quietly and without concern. Then the one who had brought the basin said, while feeling the muscles of my chest and arms, “He was a tough man, look!” And the other said, “He was Taw-ty, one of the Prince’s men. In exchange for food and drink, he bravely undertook the hazards of war.” The one who had brought the basin muttered cautiously, “What if one could borrow these bodies?” The other replied, laughing, “You old geezer, what good is a corpse?” But the man just said, while shaking his head, “He was a strong man, he truly was. .”
And so the other man, still laughing, took a long, sharp knife from one of the shelves, and said, “Let’s see just how strong he is now!” He stabbed the left side of the breast with the blade, slicing his way down to the hip. Then he worked the insides with his hand, grabbing and pulling until he brought out the bowels and the stomach, and dropped them into the basin. Then he added the heart and the liver. In just a few moments, my entire internal organs were laid before me, as these men were embalmers of consummate skill. I inspected each organ with care, especially my stomach, which I knew to be strong and ever-active. Thanks to my magical powers of sight, I could view its contents clearly — the rice and figs and remains of the wine from the Prince’s banquet last night. I recalled his remark when he beckoned me to the table, “Eat and drink, Taw-ty — may you enjoy life, most trustworthy man!” I saw and I remembered, without any feeling or effect, without any impact on my amazing indifference. Then I looked at my heart and saw a world filled with wonders: the ruins of passionate love, of sorrow and rage, the images of lovers and friends. And of enemies, for I had left my romantic ardor and the glory of its depths to display my courage in the wars of Zahi and Nubia. In these lands I had beheld horrifying scenes of carnage on the battlefield, of bloody, hacked-off limbs — the traces of a struggle unencumbered by mercy — until I added to my dynasty’s land a plot which our neighbor had also coveted for a number of years. I saw in my heart the bulk of my life and the longings that had grieved me.