Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Complete by Georg Ebers (find a book to read txt) 📕

While the two friends from the House of Seti were engaged in conversation, Katuti restlessly paced the large open hall of her son-in-law’s house, in which we have already seen her. A snow-white cat followed her steps, now playing with the hem of her long plain dress, and now turning to a large stand on which the dwarf Nemu sat in a heap; where formerly a silver statue had stood, which a few months previously had been sold.

He liked this place, for it put him in a position to look into the eyes of his mistress and other frill-grown people. “If you have betrayed me! If you have deceived me!” said Katuti with a threatening gesture as she passed his perch.

“Put me on a hook to angle for a crocodile if I have. But I am curious to know how he will offer you the money.”

“You swore to me,” interrupted his mistress with feverish agitation, “that you had not used my name in asking Paaker to save us?”

“A thousand times I swear it,” said the little man.

“Shall I repeat all our conversation? I tell thee he will sacrifice his land, and his house-great gate and all, for one friendly glance from Nefert’s eyes.”

“If only Mena loved her as he does!” sighed the widow, and then again she walked up and down the hall in silence, while the dwarf looked out at the garden entrance. Suddenly she paused in front of Nemu, and said so hoarsely that Nemu shuddered:

“I wish she were a widow.” “The little man made a gesture as if to protect himself from the evil eye, but at the same instant he slipped down from his pedestal, and exclaimed:

“There is a chariot, and I hear his big dog barking. It is he. Shall I call Nefert?”

“No!” said Katuti in a low voice, and she clutched at the back of a chair as if for support.

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders, and slunk behind a clump of ornamental plants, and a few minutes later Paaker stood in the presence of Katuti, who greeted him, with quiet dignity and self-possession.

Not a feature of her finely-cut face betrayed her inward agitation, and after the Mohar had greeted her she said with rather patronizing friendliness:

“I thought that you would come. Take a seat. Your heart is like your father’s; now that you are friends with us again it is not by halves.”

Paaker had come to offer his aunt the sum which was necessary for the redemption of her husband’s mummy. He had doubted for a long time whether he should not leave this to his mother, but reserve partly and partly vanity had kept him from doing so. He liked to display his wealth, and Katuti should learn what he could do, what a son-in-law she had rejected.

He would have preferred to send the gold, which he had resolved to give away, by the hand of one of his slaves, like a tributary prince. But that could not be done so he put on his finger a ring set with a valuable stone, which king Seti I., had given to his father, and added various clasps and bracelets to his dress.

When, before leaving the house, he looked at himself in a mirror, he said to himself with some satisfaction, that he, as he stood, was worth as much as the whole of Mena’s estates.

Since his conversation with Nemu, and the dwarf’s interpretation of his dream, the path which he must tread to reach his aim had been plain before him. Nefert’s mother must be won with the gold which would save her from disgrace, and Mena must be sent to the other world. He relied chiefly on his own reckless obstinacy—which he liked to call firm determination—Nemu’s cunning, and the love-philter.

He now approached Katuti with the certainty of success, like a merchant who means to acquire some costly object, and feels that he is rich enough to pay for it. But his aunt’s proud and dignified manner confounded him.

He had pictured her quite otherwise, spirit-broken, and suppliant; and he had expected, and hoped to earn, Nefert’s thanks as well as her mother’s by his generosity. Mena’s pretty wife was however absent, and Katuti did not send for her even after he had enquired after her health.

The widow made no advances, and some time passed in indifferent conversation, till Paaker abruptly informed her that he had heard of her son’s reckless conduct, and had decided, as being his mother’s nearest relation, to preserve her from the degradation that threatened her. For the sake of his bluntness, which she took for honesty, Katuti forgave the magnificence of his dress, which under the circumstances certainly seemed ill-chosen; she thanked him with dignity, but warmly, more for the sake of her children than for her own; for life she said was opening before them, while for her it was drawing to its close.

“You are still at a good time of life,” said Paaker.

“Perhaps at the best,” replied the widow, “at any rate from my point of view; regarding life as I do as a charge, a heavy responsibility.”

“The administration of this involved estate must give you many, anxious hours—that I understand.” Katuti nodded, and then said sadly:

“I could bear it all, if I were not condemned to see my poor child being brought to misery without being able to help her or advise her. You once would willingly have married her, and I ask you, was there a maiden in Thebes—nay in all Egypt—to compare with her for beauty? Was she not worthy to be loved, and is she not so still? Does she deserve that her husband should leave her to starve, neglect her, and take a strange woman into his tent as if he had repudiated her? I see what you feel about it! You throw all the blame on me. Your heart says: ‘Why did she break off our betrothal,’ and your right feeling tells you that you would have given her a happier lot.”

With these words Katuti took her nephew’s hand, and went on with increasing warmth.

“We know you to-day for the most magnanimous man in Thebes, for you have requited injustice with an immense benefaction; but even as a boy you were kind and noble. Your father’s wish has always been dear and sacred to me, for during his lifetime he always behaved to us as an affectionate brother, and I would sooner have sown the seeds of sorrow for myself than for your mother, my beloved sister. I brought up my child—I guarded her jealously—for the young hero who was absent, proving his valor in Syria—for you and