We stood about watching the devout old shaykh. The Pasha smiled derisively, while I was sunk in my dreams. Neither us knew what Fate had concealed from us under those piles of dust. The labor appeared fruitless, and the Pasha grew bored. He suggested that we sit on the veranda—I followed him quietly. But we had hardly reached the stairs when Shaykh Jadallah ran up to intercept us, gasping from his gap-toothed mouth, “My lord…my lord…come and look!”
We turned toward him automatically. My heart was beating queerly from the shaykh’s appeal. He reminded me of his old counterpart who had cleaved my life between failure and success, between despair and hope. We hurried down the stairs, because the man had gone back the way he came—we both followed him, fighting our wish to run.
We found the three men moving a huge stone, approximately a square meter in size. As we drew nearer to them, we saw that the stone covered an opening of similar dimensions. I glanced at the Pasha, and he looked at me with eyes filled with astonishment and stupefaction. We then looked into the opening and saw a small staircase that ended in a corridor that led to the interior, parallel to the surface of the ground. The sun was about to go down, so I said to the Pasha, “Let’s have a lantern.” He sent a servant to fetch one. The man returned with the lantern, and I ordered him to walk before us. But he balked; I considered seizing the lamp from him. Shaykh Jadallah, however, reached him before me. He seized the man by the hand, reciting verses from the Qur’an and strange incantations. Then, sure-footedly, the shaykh went down; I followed him, and the two restive servants followed behind.
We found ourselves in an underground passage no more than ten meters in length. Its ceiling hung several inches over our heads. The ground was simply soil, but the walls were granite. We advanced in slow steps until we met a stone door that blocked the path to intruders. Its appearance was not unfamiliar to me, nor were the symbols carved in its center. I ran my eyes over it, then glanced at the Pasha—whom I told in a shaking voice:
“Your Excellency, you have discovered an ancient tomb—for here lies General Hor, one of the most powerful figures in the Eighteenth Dynasty.”
Violently piqued, Shaykh Jadallah declared, “Behind this door are riches—so says the book that does not lie!”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Call it what you will, the important thing is to open it.”
“Opening the treasure is hard,” the shaykh rejoined. “The only way to smash down the door and make it yield is by long recitation, which I will start doing now. That will take until dawn—are you ritually clean?”
His speech greatly affected the two servants, who looked at their master with embarrassment. They believed that they were soon to find themselves in the presence of the hidden power—but there was no time for ablution and the incantation of prayer. I reproved the shaykh firmly, “We didn’t reach this door through recitation, so it seems more fitting to open it by force, as we did the one that came before it.”
The shaykh was about to object, but could find no basis to do so, while the Pasha upbraided him. I kept quiet, as the shaykh looked at me askance. They resumed work once more: I snapped out of my reverie and set to work with them, until the insurmountable obstacle was sundered—and we found before us an opening into Hor’s place of eternal rest.
As I was an expert at this sort of work, I directed them to stay in their places awhile until the air had recirculated. For all of us together, it was a tense hour of waiting. The Pasha was silent and confused like one caught in a powerful dream, while the two servants looked on earnestly at the man in whom they placed their faith. The shaykh was warning me of what might befall us because of my contempt for his beliefs. As for myself, I was perhaps imagining what my eyes would behold. “Do you conceive what could happen if you acquire such a great antiquity, one that would become the highlight of the immortal museum in Paris?” I mused.
Then I went inside. Behind me entered al-Arna’uti Pasha, followed by Shaykh Jadallah; the servants deemed it wiser to remain in the outer corridor. But when the light of the lamp vanished, and the place plunged into darkness, they both leapt inside and cowered in a corner.
The burial chamber was just as its exterior indicated—I have seen its like numerous times in the past. The sarcophagus was in its customary place: on its surface was an image of its owner in gold. Next to it were three life-sized statues, one of them of a man—most probably Hor himself. Another was of a woman; from its position next to the man, this was undoubtedly his wife. In front of them both was a statue of a young boy.
Across from them were some sealed boxes, plus a number of colored vessels, chairs, tables, and military tackle. The walls were covered with paintings, signs, and inscriptions.
I shot a quick, awed glance over that now-resurrected world, but the Pasha did not leave me to my musings. He said to me—in what I did not know would be his last spoken words in this life, “The most appropriate thing, Professor Dorian, would be to inform the government about this matter immediately.”
I sensed the defeat of my hopes, as I replied, “Wait a little, Pasha, while I make a quick appraisal.”
With the Pasha to my right, I approached the boxes and furnishings, continuing to scrutinize them with expert, covetous eyes. My soul urged me to open them and to see their contents. I believed that they were filled with food, clothes, and jewelry, but it was very difficult for someone like me to control his will in the presence of those majestic artifacts that overwhelmed my heart with passion and emotion. And let us not forget the sarcophagus and the statues and the mummy—how bewitching was their allure!
I was awakened again from my fantasies when I heard the crude voice of Shaykh Jadallah shouting “Hush!” I turned toward him, hopping with rage—the least whisper at that time gravely affected my nerves. But then the shaykh blurted idiotically, “A sparrow!”
“What sparrow is this, O shaykh! Is this the time for jokes?” I rebuked him.
“I saw a sparrow fluttering its wings over the sarcophagus,” he insisted.
We looked at the sarcophagus but saw nothing there. It would have been ludicrous to question the servants, so I told the obsolete holy man, “Spare us your delusions, Shaykh Jadallah.”
Then I laughed, exclaiming to the Pasha in French, “Perhaps it was the ka—the soul of the deceased—come to pay him a visit with us.”
I returned to perusing the boxes and the walls, which conversed with my heart in a silent language that only I could comprehend. Yet I could not give them my complete attention—for I soon heard the voices of the servants shrieking in terror, “Your Excellency—Pasha!”
We looked over at them quickly with wrath and exasperation—but only to find them in a bizarre state of horror, each grabbing onto the other. Their eyes widened and bulged wildly out of their heads, gazing stiff as the dead in the direction of the sarcophagus. Shaykh Jadallah was frozen where he stood, his hand trembling on the lamp, his eyes never moving from the same object. I looked at the sarcophagus and forgot my ire—for I saw its lid rising, and the mummy lying before us in its wrappings…
What is this? How was the sarcophagus opened? Have I been so influenced by my long residence in the Orient that my eye has been traduced—to this absurd degree—by its illusions and sleight of hand?
But what sleight of hand is this? I see the mummy in front of me—and I am not the only one to see it. And how the Pasha has turned into a statue! And how these three men seem about to die with extreme fear and fright! What hallucination is this?
The truth is that I feel shame each time that circumstances compel me to tell what happened next—for I normally recount it to rational, well-educated people who have studied Taylor and Levy-Bruhl and Durkheim. But what can I do? Descartes himself, if he were then in my place, would not have dared to dismiss his own senses.
What did I see?
I saw the mummy stir and sit up in his sarcophagus with a swift, nimble movement that would be impossible for a drunken man or one heavy from sleep, to say nothing of a corpse
just roused from the world of the Dead. Then he bounded with a smoothly athletic motion—and stood erect facing us before the coffin.
My back was to the servants and Shaykh Jadallah, so I did not observe what was happening to them. But the light that illuminated the room was shaking with the hand that held it, while I fell into a state that beggars all description. I confess that my limbs rattled in a manner that I cannot convey—prey to a fear that I had never in my life experienced. Next to it, I cannot even recall the terror I felt in those harrowing days I spent on the Eastern Front and at the Battle of the Marne. How astonishing! Is that not a mummy there ahead? Or is that a corpse to which life has been restored by mysterious means? Or is that an Egyptian general who quivered with awe and submissiveness whenever he crossed the threshold of Pharaoh’s palace?
Is it possible that such thoughts possessed me at that time? Nevertheless, I resisted this possession with all my might—for how can one be rightly guided by terror? I was mortally afraid. Yet my eyes were able to see even as my memory was able to preserve what my eyes saw.
I did not find before me a mere mummy, but a whole living man—complete in his manliness and vitality. His form reminded me of those images that one sees on so many temple walls. He was garbed in a white robe and a short loincloth, his great head covered with an elegant cowl. His broad chest was hung with many glittering honors. He was dignified, dreadful, of an imposing height. But, with all of his daunting splendor, it seemed to me that I had seen him before. I remembered the Sa‘idi that the servants dragged to the Pasha and accused of stealing the dog Beamish’s food. The resemblance was unnerving, but it was confined to his stature and color, not to his spirit and liveliness. Yet if this being right before me did not display such majesty and nobility, then perhaps I would be seized by doubts.
All the while, Hor fixed the Pasha in a cruel glare that he did not lift from him, as though he saw nothing but him.
What should I say, gentlemen? Yet I heard him speak—my God, Hor spoke after a silence of three thousand years. But he spoke in that ancient language that Death had enfolded for more than a millennium. I will forget everything in the world before I forget a single word of what his tongue uttered.
He said to my luckless friend, the Pasha, in a voice whose equal in augustness I had never heard before—for I have not yet had the honor of conversing with kings:
“Do you not know me, slave? Why are you not falling on your knees before me?”
From the Pasha, I heard not a sound, nor could I shift my rigid stare toward him. But I heard the Mighty One, possessor of the overpowering voice, speak once more:
“I did not feel the troubling captivity of Death until my soul saw the astounding things that take place in this world, while I was bound with the shackles of Eternity, unable to move. Nor could I go to you, because my life had ended, as Osiris had decreed. But you came to me on your own two feet. I am bewildered at how you could seduce yourself into doing this foolish thing. Madness and vanity have overtaken you. Do you not praise the gods that Death had intervened between us? What did you come to do here, servant? You aren’t satisfied with robbing my sons—so you have come to plunder my tomb, as well? Speak, you slave!”
But the poor man could say nothing…for he understood nothing…he appeared struck by paralysis. Life had stolen back into the long-dead mummy—as it abandoned the living Pasha.
The mummy, meanwhile, resumed his reproach:
“What’s the matter with you—why do you not speak? Am I not Hor? Are you not my servant, Shanaq? Do you not recollect that I came to you in your northern country, during one of my victorious raids? Do you pretend not to know me, slave? Your white skin, which is the mark of servitude, gives you away—no matter how much you may deny it. What are these ridiculous clothes that you have on? And what is this false pride that you hide yourself behind?”
Hor evidently believed that the Pasha deliberately refused to reply—so he shouted, his veins swelling, his face scowling with anger:
“What has befallen you? What has befallen the earth that the lowly are made lords and the lords are laid low? The sovereigns are reduced to slaves, and the slaves raised to sovereigns? How can you, slave, own such a palace, while my sons sweat there as your servants? Where are our inherited traditions? Where are the divine laws? Is this some sort of mockery?”
Hor’s rage intensified. His eyes turned a furious red. Sparks flew out of them, as he railed with a voice like pealing thunder:
“How could you be so insolent with my son, you slave? Indeed, you humiliated him with a harshness that proves the slave-like nature that your soul exudes. You struck him with your stick because he was hungry, and forced his brothers to beat him, as well. Do Egypt’s children go without food? Woe unto you, abject one….”
Hor had not quite finished his rant when he advanced, roaring like a lion, upon the Pasha—intent to make him his prey. But the hapless Pasha did not wait for him—he had lost his power to endure. He fell motionless upon the ground, while Hor’s menace spread a new terror throughout the chamber that shattered our last shred of composure. Shaykh Jadallah instantly prostrated himself on his face, the lamp going down with him—extinguishing its light, sending the room back into gloom. I recoiled in shock, as if expecting a deadly blow, without knowing from what direction it would strike my head. I stared into the darkness, shivering with panic and alarm. My strength deserted me, while, to my good fortune, I lost all consciousness—and absented myself from the world….
—
My dear sirs…There are times when I am beset by confusion, when I am wracked with doubt. So I ask myself, was what I saw real, or a deception? Perhaps, at times, I have a tendency to lie to myself. Yet each time that I incline toward disbelief, I am confronted by facts over which I have no control. What do you say, for example, to the testimony of Shaykh Jadallah, a living person ready and able to repeat to you what I have relayed? And what is your reply to the two pathetic servants, who were driven insane? And what of the tomb of Hor, and the now-deserted palace? And, above all else, what of the death of Mahmoud Pasha al-Arna’uti—which all the readers of the press remember with the utmost sense of wonder?
ALSO BY
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
VOICES FROM THE OTHER WORLD
Ancient Egyptian Tales
Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz reaches back millennia to his homeland’s majestic past in this enchanting collection of early tales that brings the world of ancient Egypt face to face with our own times. From the Predynastic Period, where a cabal of entrenched rulers banish virtue in jealous defense of their status, to the Fifth Dynasty, where a Pharaoh returns from an extended leave to find that only his dog has remained loyal, to the twentieth century, where a mummy from the Eighteenth Dynasty awakens in fury to reproach a modern Egyptian nobleman for his arrogance, these five stories conduct timeless truths over the course of thousands of years. Summoning the power and mystery of a legendary civilization, they examplify the artistry that has made Mahfouz among the most revered writers in world literature.
Short Stories
AKHENATEN
Dweller in Truth
The “heretic pharaoh,” Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt during the 18th Dynasty (1540–1307 B.C.) was at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. In Mahfouz’s novel, after the pharaoh’s mysterious death, a young man questions Akhenaten’s closest friends, his bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti, in an effort to discover what really happened in those dark days at Akhenaten’s court.
Fiction/Literature
ARABIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS
The Nobel Prize–winning novelist refashions the classic tales of Scheherazade in his own imaginative, spellbinding style. Here are genies and flying carpets, Aladdin and Sinbad, Ali Baba, and many other familiar stories made new by the magical pen of the acknowledged dean of Arabic letters.
Fiction/Literature
CHILDREN OF
THE ALLEY
The tumultuous “alley” of this rich and intricate novel tells the story of a delightful Egyptian family, but also reveals a second, hidden, and daring narrative: the spiritual history of humankind. From the supreme feudal lord who disowns one son for diabolical pride and puts another to the test, to the savior of a succeeding generation who frees his people from bondage, we find the men and women of a modern Cairo neighborhood unwittingly reenacting the lives of their holy ancestors: the “children of the alley.” This powerful, self-contained novel confirms again the richness and variety of Mahfouz’s storytelling.
Fiction/Literature
MORNING AND EVENING TALK
This unusual epic portrays five generations of one sprawling family against the upheavals of two centuries of modern Egyptian history. Set in Cairo, Morning and Evening Talk traces three related families from the arrival of Napoleon to the 1980s, through short character sketches arranged in alphabetical order. This highly experimental device produces a kind of biographical dictionary, whose individual entries come together to paint a vivid portrait of life in Cairo. The characters include representatives of every class and human type and as the intricate family saga unfolds, a powerful picture of a society in transition emerges. This is a tale of change and continuity, of the death of a traditional way of life and the road to independence and beyond. Naguib Mahfouz’s last chronicle of Cairo is both an elegy to a bygone era and a tribute to the Egyptian spirit.
Fiction/Literature
ALSO AVAILABLE
Adrift on the Nile
Before the Throne
The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail
The Beginning and the End
Cairo Modern
The Day the Leader Was Killed
The Dreams
Echoes of an Autobiography