somest and noblest man
of them all, and grave and dignified too--was Assa, the old Mohar's
father, and grandfather of Pentaur--no, I should say of Paaker, the
pioneer; thou hast known him. Well, wherever I sang, he sat opposite me,
and gazed at me, and I could not take my eyes off him, and--thou canst
tell the rest! no! Well, no woman before or after me can ever love a man
as I loved Assa. Why dost thou not laugh? It must seem odd, too, to hear
such a thing from the toothless mouth of an old witch. He is dead, long
since dead. I hate him! and yet--wild as it sounds--I believe I love him
yet. And he loved me--for two years; then he went to the war with Seti,
and remained a long time away, and when I saw him again he had courted
the daughter of some rich and noble house. I was handsome enough still,
but he never looked at me at the banquets. I came across him at least
twenty times, but he avoided me as if I were tainted with leprosy, and I
began to fret, and fell ill of a fever. The doctors said it was all over
with me, so I sent him a letter in which there was nothing but these
words: 'Beki is dying, and would like to see Assa once more,' and in the
papyrus I put his first present--a plain ring. And what was the answer?
a handful of gold! Gold--gold! Thou may'st believe me, when I say that
the sight of it was more torturing to my eyes than the iron with which
they put out the eyes of criminals. Even now, when I think of it--But
what do you men, you lords of rank and wealth, know of a breaking heart?
When two or three of you happen to meet, and if thou should'st tell the
story, the most respectable will say in a pompous voice: 'The man acted
nobly indeed; he was married, and his wife would have complained with
justice if he had gone to see the singer.' Am I right or wrong? I know;
not one will remember that the other was a woman, a feeling human being;
it will occur to no one that his deed on the one hand saved an hour of
discomfort, and on the other wrought half a century of despair. Assa
escaped his wife's scolding, but a thousand curses have fallen on him
and on his house. How virtuous he felt himself when he had crushed and
poisoned a passionate heart that had never ceased to love him! Ay, and
he would have come if he had not still felt some love for me, if he had
not misdoubted himself, and feared that the dying woman might once more
light up the fire he had so carefully smothered and crushed out. I would
have grieved