The Greatest Historical Novels of Georg Ebers. Georg Ebers

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      CHAPTER XIX.

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      As soon as Paaker had disappeared behind the shrubs, Katuti struck a little sheet of metal, a slave appeared, and Katuti asked her whether Nefert had returned from the temple.

      “Her litter is just now at the side gate,” was the answer.

      “I await her here,” said the widow. The slave went away, and a few minutes later Nefert entered the hall.

      “You want me?” she said; and after kissing her mother she sank upon her couch. “I am tired,” she exclaimed, “Nemu, take a fan and keep the flies off me.”

      The dwarf sat down on a cushion by her couch, and began to wave the semi-circular fan of ostrich-feathers; but Katuti put him aside and said:

      “You can leave us for the present; we want to speak to each other in private.”

      The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and got up, but Nefert looked at her mother with an irresistible appeal.

      “Let him stay,” she said, as pathetically as if her whole happiness depended upon it. “The flies torment me so, and Nemu always holds his tongue.”

      She patted the dwarf’s big head as if he were a lap-dog, and called the white cat, which with a graceful leap sprang on to her shoulder and stood there with its back arched, to be stroked by her slender fingers.

      Nemu looked enquiringly at his mistress, but Katuti turned to her daughter, and said in a warning voice:

      “I have very serious things to discuss with you.”

      “Indeed?” said her daughter, “but I cannot be stung by the flies all the same. Of course, if you wish it—”

      “Nemu may stay then,” said Katuti, and her voice had the tone of that of a nurse who gives way to a naughty child. “Besides, he knows what I have to talk about.”

      “There now!” said Nefert, kissing the head of the white cat, and she gave the fan back to the dwarf.

      The widow looked at her daughter with sincere compassion, she went up to her and looked for the thousandth time in admiration at her pretty face.

      “Poor child,” she sighed, “how willingly I would spare you the frightful news which sooner or later you must hear—must bear. Leave off your foolish play with the cat, I have things of the most hideous gravity to tell you.”

      “Speak on,” replied Nefert. “To-day I cannot fear the worst. Mena’s star, the haruspex told me, stands under the sign of happiness, and I enquired of the oracle in the temple of Besa, and heard that my husband is prospering. I have prayed in the temple till I am quite content. Only speak!—I know my brother’s letter from the camp had no good news in it; the evening before last I saw you had been crying, and yesterday you did not look well; even the pomegranate flowers in your hair did not suit you.”

      “Your brother,” sighed Katuti, “has occasioned me great trouble, and we might through him have suffered deep dishonor—”

      “We-dishonor?” exclaimed Nefert, and she nervously clutched at the cat.

      “Your brother lost enormous sums at play; to recover them he pledged the mummy of your father—”

      “Horrible!” cried Nefert. “We must appeal at once to the king;—I will write to him myself; for Mena’s sake he will hear me. Rameses is great and noble, and will not let a house that is faithfully devoted to him fall into disgrace through the reckless folly of a boy. Certainly I will write to him.”

      She said this in a voice of most childlike confidence, and desired Nemu to wave the fan more gently, as if this concern were settled.

      In Katuti’s heart surprise and indignation at the unnatural indifference of her daughter were struggling together; but she withheld all blame, and said carelessly:

      “We are already released, for my nephew Paaker, as soon as he heard what threatened us, offered me his help; freely and unprompted, from pure goodness of heart and attachment.”

      “How good of Paaker!” cried Nefert. “He was so fond of me, and you know, mother, I always stood up for him. No doubt it was for my sake that he behaved so generously!”

      The young wife laughed, and pulling the cat’s face close to her own, held her nose to its cool little nose, stared into its green eyes, and said, imitating childish talk:

      “There now, pussy—how kind people are to your little mistress.”

      Katuti was vexed daughter’s childish impulses.

      “It seems to me,” she said, “that you might leave off playing and trifling when I am talking of such serious matters. I have long since observed that the fate of the house to which your father and mother belong is a matter of perfect indifference to you; and yet you would have to seek shelter and protection under its roof if your husband—”

      “Well, mother?” asked Nefert breathing more quickly.

      As soon as Katuti perceived her daughter’s agitation she regretted that she had not more gently led up to the news she had to break to her; for she loved her daughter, and knew that it would give her keen pain.

      So she went on more sympathetically:

      “You boasted in joke that people are good to you, and it is true; you win hearts by your mere being—by only being what you are. And Mena too loved you tenderly; but ‘absence,’ says the proverb, ‘is the one real enemy,’ and Mena—”

      “What has Mena done?” Once more Nefert interrupted her mother, and her nostrils quivered.

      “Mena,” said Katuti, decidedly, “has violated the truth and esteem which he owes you—he has trodden them under foot, and—”

      “Mena?” exclaimed the young wife with flashing eyes; she flung the cat on the floor, and sprang from her couch.

      “Yes—Mena,” said Katuti firmly. “Your brother writes that he would have neither silver nor gold for his spoil, but took the fair daughter of the prince of the Danaids into his tent. The ignoble wretch!”

      “Ignoble wretch!” cried Nefert, and two or three times she repeated her mother’s last words. Katuti drew back in horror, for her gentle, docile, childlike daughter stood before her absolutely transfigured beyond all recognition.

      She looked like a beautiful demon of revenge; her eyes sparkled, her breath came quickly, her limbs quivered, and СКАЧАТЬ