you have crippled not my body only but my soul, and have condemned
me to sufferings that are nameless and unutterable."

The dwarf's big head sank on his breast, and with his left hand he
pressed his heart.

The old woman went up to him kindly.

"What ails you?" she asked, "I thought it was well with you in Mena's
house."

"You thought so?" cried the dwarf. "You who show me as in a mirror what I
am, and how mysterious powers throng and stir in me? You made me what I
am by your arts; you sold me to the treasurer of Rameses, and he gave me
to the father of Mena, his brother-in-law. Fifteen years ago! I was a
young man then, a youth like any other, only more passionate, more
restless, and fiery than they. I was given as a plaything to the young
Mena, and he harnessed me to his little chariot, and dressed me out with
ribbons and feathers, and flogged me when I did not go fast enough. How
the girl--for whom I would have given my life--the porter's daughter,
laughed when I, dressed up in motley, hopped panting in front of the
chariot and the young lord's whip whistled in my ears wringing the sweat
from my brow, and the blood from my broken heart. Then Mena's father
died, the boy, went to school, and I waited on the wife of his steward,
whom Katuti banished to Hermonthis. That was a time! The little daughter
of the house made a doll of me,

[Dolls belonging to the time of the Pharaohs are preserved in the
museums, for instance, the jointed ones at Leyden.]

laid me in the cradle, and made me shut my eyes and pretend to sleep,
while love and hatred, and great projects were strong within me. If I
tried to resist they beat me with rods; and when once, in a rage, I
forgot myself, and hit little Mertitefs hard, Mena, who came in, hung me
up in the store-room to a nail by my girdle, and left me to swing there;
he said he had forgotten to take me down again. The rats fell upon me;
here are the scars, these little white spots here--look! They perhaps
will some day wear out, but the wounds that my spirit received in those
hours have not yet ceased to bleed. Then Mena married Nefert, and, with
her, his mother-in-law, Katuti, came into the house. She took me from the
steward, I became indispensable to her; she treats me like a man, she
values my intelligence and listens to my advice,--therefore I will make
her great, and with her, and through her, I will wax mighty. If Ani
mounts the throne, we wilt guide him--you, and I, and