His face went red, and he pointed to the right wall in embarrassment and said, “I will fill that space with a picture of your face and neck.”
“How awful. I fear it might turn out frightful and ugly.”
“It will be beautiful as it is now.”
The youth spoke these words with a simple innocence, and she looked at him intently. He was quickly embarrassed and she felt sorry for him and looked straight ahead so that her eyes settled upon the pool beyond the eastern door of the room. What a delicate young man he was, like an innocent virgin. He caused a strange compassion to stir in her heart and awakened the sleeping mother in the deep recesses of her soul. She turned to him and found him bent over his work, but he was not entirely absorbed in it, for the redness of embarrassment still shone on his cheeks. Should she not leave him and go on her way? But she felt a desire to talk to him, — which she gave in to. “Are you from the South?” she asked.
The youth raised his head, his face clothed in a cheerful, happy light and answered, “I am from Ambus, my lady.”
“You are from the north of the South then. So — what brought you together — with sculptor Henfer, since he is from Bilaq?”
“My father — was a friend of sculptor Henfer, and — when he saw my keen interest in art he sent me to him and commended me to his charge.”
“Is your father an artist?”
The youth was silent for a moment, then said, “Not at all. My father was the senior physician of Ambus. He was a distinguished chemist and embalmer. He made numerous discoveries in methods of mummification and the composition of poisons.”
Rhadopis concluded from the way he was speaking that his father was dead. But she was impressed by his discovery of the composition of poisons and asked, “Why did he manufacture poisons?”
“He used them as beneficial medicines,” replied the boy sadly. “Physicians used to take them from him, but sadly, it cost him his life in the end.”
“How was that, Benamun?” she asked him with great concern.
“I recall, my lady, that my father concocted a wonderful poison. He always used to boast that it was the deadliest of all poisons and could finish off its victim in a matter of seconds. For that reason he called it the ‘happy poison.’ Then one sad night he spent the entire night in his laboratory working ceaselessly. In the morning he was found stretched out on his bench, the spirit gone out of him, and by his side was a phial of the deadly poison, its seal broken open.”
“How strange! Did he commit suicide?”
“It is certain that he took a dose of the deadly poison, but what was it that drove him to perdition? His secret was buried with him. We all believed that some devilish spirit had possessed him and caused him to lose all reason and he carried out his deed in a state of incapacity and confusion. Our entire family was devastated.”
A deep sadness covered his face and he lowered his head over his chest. Rhadopis regretted she had brought up this painful subject and asked, “Is your mother still alive?”
“Yes, my lady. She still lives in our palace in Ambus. As for my father's laboratory, no one has entered its door since that night.”
Rhadopis returned to her chambers thinking of the strange death of the physician Besar and his poisons locked up in the closed laboratory.
Benamun was the only outsider to appear on the calm horizon of her world of love and tranquility, as indeed he was the only person to snatch an hour from the time she allotted to love every morning. Despite this, he did not annoy her in the slightest for he was lighter and more delicate than a sprite. The days passed with her madly in love and him bent over his work, while the sublime spirit of art breathed its life into the walls of the summer room.
She delighted in watching his hand as it diffused the spirit of wondrous beauty through the room. She became convinced of his outstanding talents and felt certain that he would be ready to take over from sculptor Henfer before very long. One day she asked him, as she was about to leave the room after an hour's sitting, “Do you never feel tired or bored?”
The young man smiled proudly and said, “Not at all.”
“It is as if you are driven by some demonic power.”
A brilliant smile flashed across his dark face and he said quietly, naively, “It is the power of love.”
Her heart fluttered at these words that awoke in her delicious associations conjuring up in her mind a beloved image surrounded by splendor and radiance, yet he did not comprehend a thing that went on in her soul.
“Do you not know, my lady, that art is love?” he went on.
“Really?”
He pointed to the top of her forehead, which he had drawn on the wall, and said, “Here is my soul pure and unsullied.”
She had regained control of her emotions and said sarcastically, “But it is just deaf stone.”
“It was stone before my hands touched it, but now I have put myself into it.”
She laughed. “You are so in love with yourself!” she said as she turned her back on him; but it was clear after that day that his self was not the only thing he loved. She was walking aimlessly in the garden one day like a lost thought in a happy dreaming head, when she looked out suddenly over the summer room. She felt an urge to amuse herself by climbing the high hill in the sycamore glade and looking through the window of the room where she could see the picture of her face nearing completion directly in front of her on the opposite wall. She saw the young artist at the bottom of the wall and thought at first that he was absorbed in his work, as was his wont. Then she saw him kneel down, his arms folded across his chest, his head raised as if he was deep in prayer, except that his head was turned toward the head and face of her that he had engraved.
Her instinct drove her to hide behind a bough and she continued to watch him furtively with surprise and some alarm. She saw him rise to his feet as if he had finished his prayer, and wipe his eyes with the edge of his wide sleeve. Her heart quivered, and she remained for a moment motionless, surrounded by absolute silence. All she could hear was the intermittent cries of the ducks and their flapping as they swam on the water, then she turned round and raced back down to the palace.
What she had hoped would not happen, out of compassion for him, had happened. She had observed its possibility in his honest eyes every time he stared at her, but she had been unable to avert the calamity. Should she keep him far away from her? Should she close the door of the palace in his face with any pretext she could think to use against him? But she was concerned she might torment his delicate soul. She did not know what to do.
Her dilemma did not last long however. Nothing in the universe was capable of taking possession of her consciousness for more than a fleeting moment, for all her feelings and emotions were the booty of love, possessions in the hands of a covetous and eager lover whose desire for her knew no bounds. He would fly to her palace of dreams, renouncing his own palace and his world, unhindered by regret. Together they would escape existence, seeking refuge in their own love-filled spirits, succumbing to the magic and allure of their passion, consumed by its fire, seeing the rooms and the garden and the birds through its wonder and grandeur. The greatest cause for concern that Rhadopis felt those days was that she might discover, in the morning after he had bade her farewell, that she had omitted to ask him — whether it — was her eyes that stirred his desire or her lips. As for Pharaoh, he might remember on his — way back to his palace that he had not kissed her right leg as affectionately as he had her left, and perhaps this regret would cause him to rush back to erase from his mind this most trivial cause for concern. They were days unlike any other.
Khnumhotep