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shall have what you want. I will not hold back the answer that you should have heard forty years ago. Senwosret questioned me closely, so I told him that I would grant him whatever I had of fondness and friendship. But as for my heart. . . .”
    The queen halted for a moment, as Sinuhe again looked up, his beard twitching, shock and dismay bursting on his face. Then she resumed, “As for my heart—I am helpless to control it.”
    â€œMy Lord,” he muttered.
    â€œYes, that is what I said to Senwosret. He bid me a moving good-bye—and swore that he would remain your brother so long as he breathed.
    â€œBut you were hasty, Sinuhe, and ran off with the wind. You strangled our high hopes, and buried our happiness alive. When the news of your vanishing came to me, I could hardly believe it—I nearly died of grief. Afterward, I lived in seclusion for many long years. Then, at last, life mocked at my sorrows; the love of it freed me from the malaise of pain and despair. I was content with the king as my husband. This is my story, O Sinuhe.”
    She gazed into his face to see him drop his eyes in mourning; his fingers shook with emotion. She continued to regard him with compassion and joy, and asked herself: “Could it be that the agony of our long-ago love still toys with this ancient heart, so close to its demise?”

A Voice from the Other World

    One
    By God, what does this tomb want for the good things of a bygone existence? It is a fragment of life’s essence rich with lusciousness and luxury. Its walls are adorned with scenes of servants and slave girls. It is filled with the most lavish of furniture, the most sublime of embellishments. It has all that one could want of splendid fixtures and fragrances and decorative objects. It has a storehouse stuffed with seeds, fruits, and vegetables, and what my library bore of books filled with wisdom, and what a writer may need from the tools of his trade. It is the world as I knew it. But do my senses now still taste life? Do I still need its distractions? Those who built this house for the dead surely labored in vain. And yet, I cannot deny, however strange it may seem, that I have not lost the urge to write. How amazing! What are these leaves that call to me with their beloved bewitchment? Is there still some part of me from which Death has not obliterated the desires of weakness and passion? Have we, the community of scribblers, been sentenced to suffer for our deeds in both of our lives? In any case, a period of waiting still lies before me, after which I shall begin my journey into eternity. So let me occupy this idle time with the reed pen, for how often has this instrument enhanced my precious hours of leisure.
    O Lord! Do I not still remember the day that rent my world between life and death? Yes, on that day I left the Prince’s palace just before sunset, after exhausting efforts which had utterly absorbed me, until the Prince said to me, “Taw-ty, that’s enough work—don’t wear yourself out.” The sun was slanting toward the western horizon, the endless expanse of the realm of shadows. The flickerings of its fading rays shook with the shiver of Death upon the surface of the sacred Nile. I continued on my accustomed way, across from the sycamore tree at the southern edge of the village where my lovely house lies.
    O holy Amon! What is this aching in my joints and my bones? It’s not a result of my efforts at work, for how often have I worked without a pause, and how often have I zealously persevered and patiently carried on and prevailed over fatigue by force and resolve! What is this consuming pain? And what is this powerful trembling—a new and unexpected thing? I am filled with fear. Could this be the malaise that does not descend upon the body until the condition is fatal? Fold up, village road—for I lack the strength to draw any charm from your beauty! Be gone, you omen of heaven, for in