Joseph listened unaffectedly, in a respectful posture; while the King spoke he kept his eyes closed, but in no other way did he betray the profound abstraction of his being upon what he heard. He did something else too; he kept them shut for a little while after Amenhotep had finished and was waiting, holding his breath. He even went so far as to let the King wait a little, while he stood there, not looking but aware of the attention focused upon him. It was very still in the Cretan loggia, only the goddess mother gave a ringing cough and played with her ornaments.
     "Are you sleeping, lamb?" Amenhotep asked at last in a tremulous voice.
     "No, here I am" answered Joseph, as without undue haste he  

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opened his eyes before Pharaoh. Even then he seemed to look through him instead of at him, or rather his gaze, resting on the King's figure, broke there and turned inwards in contemplation - and all that be-came the black Rachel-eyes very well.
     "And what say you to my dreams?"
     "To your dreams?" Joseph answered. "To your dream you mean. To dream twice is not to dream two dreams. You dreamed but one dream that you dreamed it twice, first in one form and then in the other, has only the meaning of emphasis: it means that your dream will certainly be fulfilled and that speedily. Furthermore its second form is only the explanation and more precise definition of the mean-ing of the first."
    "That is just what My Majesty thought in the beginning!" cried Amenhotep. "Mother, what the lamb says was my own first thought, that the two dreams are at bottom only one. I dreamed of the goodly cattle and then the ghastly ones, and then it was as if someone said to me do you understand me? This is the meaning.' And then I dreamed of the ears, the full and blasted ones. As a man will try and express himself and then try again, 'In other words,' he says, 'so and so.' Mama, here is a good beginning which this prophetic boy has made, without foaming at the mouth. Those botchers from the book-house bungled at the very start and nothing good could come after that. Continue, prophet. What is the single meaning of my double royal dream?"
     "Single is the meaning, like the two lands, and double the dream like your crown," Joseph replied. "Is not that what you meant just now though you did not quite say it, yet said it not quite by chance? You betrayed what you meant in the words 'my royal dream.' Crown and train you wore in your dream, as I darkly perceived. You were not Amenhotep, but Nefer-Kheperu-Re, the King. God spoke to the King in his dream. He revealed his future purposes to Pharaoh that Pharaoh may know and plan accordingly."  
      "Absolutely," cried Amenhotep. "Nothing was clearer to me. Mother, nothing was more certain from the beginning than what this peculiar kind of lamb has said: that it was not I who dreamed but the King, in so far as the two can be separated, and in so far as not even I was necessary in order that the King should dream. Did not Pharaoh know it and swore to you at once next morning that the double dream was important for the realm and therefore absolutely must be interpreted? But it was sent to the King not as the father of the two lands but because he is also the mother of them; for the sex of the King is double. My dream has to do with matters of life and death and with the black underworld. I knew it and I know it. But yet I know no more," he suddenly bethought himself. "Why is it My Majesty utterly forgot that he knows nothing more and that the in-  

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terpretation is still to seek? You have a way," he turned to Joseph, "of making it seem as though everything is all beautifully clear whereas so far you have only told me what I knew already. What means my dream, what would it show to me?"
     "Pharaoh errs," Joseph responded, "if he thinks he does not know. His servant can do no more than prophesy to him what he already knows. Did you not see the cows as they came up out of the water in a row, one after the other, and followed in one another's steps, first the fat and then the lean, so that there was no break in the row? What are they that come out of the casket of eternity, one after the other, not together but in succession, and no break is between the going and coming and no interruption in their line?"
     "The years!" cried Amenhotep, snapping his fingers as he held them up.
     "Of course," said Joseph. "It needs not rise out of any cauldron nor any rolling of eyes nor foaming at the mouth to tell us that the cows are years, seven and seven. And the ears of corn which sprouted one after the other, and to the same number: shall they be some-thing quite different and vastly hard to guess?"
     "No cried Pharaoh and snapped his fingers again, they are years too!"
     "As divine reason would have it," answered Joseph, "to which all praise and honour shall be given. But why the cows should have become ears, seven fruitful and seven barren - now indeed the caul-dron must be fetched. Large round as the moon, that the answer may rise out of it and tell us what the connection is between cows and ears and the reason why the first seven cows were so fat and second seven so lean. Pharaoh will be so kind as to send for a cauldron and tripod!"  
     "Get along with your cauldron!" cried the King. Is this a time to talk of cauldrons, as though we needed anything of the sort! The connection is as plain as a pikestaff and clear as a gem of the first water. There is a connection between the goodness and the badness of the cows and the ears: one means good crops and the other bad ones." He paused, staring out into space before him. Seven fat years will come," he said in a form of transport, "and then seven lean ones."
      "Without fail or faltering, said Joseph, for it was told you twice."
      "Pharaoh directed his gaze upon his lamb.
      "You have not fallen dead after the prophesy," he said with a certain admiration.
      "Were it not evil and punishable to say so," Joseph responded, "one might put it that it is wonderful Pharaoh does not fall dead, for Pharaoh has prophesied."  
      "No you are just saying that," contradicted Amenhotep. "You made it seem as though I myself interpreted because you are a child  

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of strategems and descended from rogues. But why could I have not done it before you came? I only knew what was false but not what was true. For true is this interpretation, that I know in my very soul; my own dream knows itself again in the interpretation. Yes, you are indeed an inspired lamb, but you certainly have your own little ways. You are no slave of the binding pattern of the depths, you did not prophesy first the curse-time and then the blessing-time but the other way round, first the blessing and then the curse - and that is very original of you!"  
      "It was you yourself, Lord of the Two Lands," answered Joseph, "and on you it depended. You dreamed, first of the fat kine and ears of the lean ones; and you yourself are the only original."
     Amenhotep worked himself up out of the hollow of his chair and sprang to his feet. He strode to his mother's seat, moving swiftly on those odd limbs of his - the heavy thighs and thin lower parts showed plainly through the batiste garment.
     "Mama," he said, now we have it! My king-dreams are now inte-rpreted to me and I know the truth. When I think of the erudite rubbish that was passed off to My Majesty - the daughters, the cities, the kings, and the fourteen children - I feel as much like laughing as I felt like weeping before when I was desperate at its poverty. Now thanks to this prophetic youth, I know the truth and I can simply laugh at it. But the truth itself is serious enough. My Majesty has been shown that seven fat years will come in all Egypt and after that seven years of dearth, such that one will quite forget the previous plenty, and famine will consume the land, just as the lean kine con-sumed the fat, and the blasted ears the golden ones; for such was the message: that one would know no more of the fullness that was before the famine-time, for its harshness will consume our memory of the fullness. This is what was revealed to Pharaoh in his dreams, which were one dream and which came to him because he is the mother of the lands. That it remained dark to me until this hour is what I can scarcely understand. Now it is brought to life by the aid of this genu-ine but peculiar lamb. It was necessary, in order that the King might dream, that I should be; in the same way it was necessary that he should be, in order that the lamb might prophesy; our being is only the meeting-place between not- being and ever-being; our temporal only the medium of the eternal. And yet not only that. For we must ask - it is the problem which I should like to put before the thinkers of my Father's house -  whether the temporal, the individual, and the particular get more worth and value from the eternal, or the eternal more from the particular and temporal. That is one of those beauti-ful questions which permit of no solution, so that there is no end to the contemplation of them from dewy eve to early dawn."
     Seeing Tiy shake her head he broke off.  

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"Meni," said she, "Your Majesty is incorrigible. You kept on at us about your dreams, which you thought were so important to the realm that they must be interpreted without fail, so that they could not fulfill themselves unhindered. But now that you have the meaning, or think you have, you act as though everything were all settled, you forget the meaning even as you utter it, to get lost in the most remote and impossible speculations. Is that like a mother? I could not even call it fatherly; and I can scarcely wait until this man here has gone back where he came from and we are alone, to admonish you indignantly from my maternal throne. It is possible that this soothsayer knows his craft and that what he says may happen. It has hap-pened in the past that good and poor seasons have alternated, that then the Nourisher has run low and time after time he has denied his blessings to the fields, so that want and famine consumed the lands. It has actually happened seven times running, as the chronicles show. It can happen again, and therefore you have dreamed it. But perhaps you have dreamed it because it is going to happen again. If that is what you think, then, my child, your mother is aston-ished that you can rejoice over the interpretation and even flatter yourself that in a way you made it yourself. And now, instead of summoning all your counsellors and wise men together to consider how to meet the threatening evil, you go off into such extravagant abstractions as this about the meeting place of the not being and the ever-being
       "But, dear little Mama, we have time!" cried Amenhotep, with a lively gesture. "Where there is no time, then of course one cannot take any; but we can, for before us lies a fullness of it. Seven years! That is the great thing; the fact to make us dance and rub our hands together: that this highly individual lamb was not bound to the hate-ful pattern and did not prophesy the accursed time before the blessing-time, but the blessing-time first, and for as long as seven years. Your rebuke would be just if the bad time, the time of the withered kine, were due to begin tomorrow. Then there would certainly be no time to lose in thinking about expedients and preventive measures - al-though My Majesty is free to confess he knows no adequate measures against failure of crops. But seven years of fatness are granted us in the kingdom of the black earth, during which the love of the people for their Pharaoh-mother will flourish like a tree, under which he can sit and teach his father's teaching. So I do not see why on the very first day - your eyes are speaking, soothsayer," he broke off," and you have such a very piercing look; have you anything to add to our common interpretation?"
    "Nothing," answered Joseph, "save a plea that you permit your servant to go now to his own place, back to the prison where he was serving and into the pit out of which you took him for the sake of  

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your dream. For his task is done and his presence is no longer fitting in the places of the great. In his hole will he live and feed upon the golden hour when he stood before Pharaoh, the beautiful sun of the lands, and before the great mother, whom I name in the second place only because language will have it so , which belongs to time and must deal with one thing after the other, unlike the world of images, where two can stand side by side. But speech and naming belongs to time; thus the first mention belongs to the King; Yet truly the second is not the second, for was not the mother before the son? So much in the succession of things. But whither my smallness now returns, there will I continue in my thoughts this intercourse with the great, to mingle with much were culpable Pharaoh was right, I shall say to myself in the silence, to rejoice in the reversed order and the beautiful respite before the time of cursing and the years of drought. But how wise the mother too, who was before him with the view and the  warning  that from  the very first day of the blessing-time and from the very day of the interpretation there must be much taking of thought against the coming of evil! Not to avoid it, for we avoid not the purposes of God; but to anticipate and provide against it by proper foresight. For the term of blessing which is promised us means in the first place a stage wherein to take breath to bear the affliction. But in the second place it means time and space to take steps, at least to clip the wings of the raven of calamity; to take note of the coming evil to work against it, and so far as possible not only keep it in bounds but perhaps derive from it a blessing to boot. This or something like it shall I be saying to myself in my dungeon, since it would be worse than improper for me to inject my thoughts into the converse of the great. What a great and splendid thing, shall I whisper to myself, is the wisdom which can convert even misfortune into blessing! And how gracious is God, that he granted to the King, through the medium of his dreams, such a wide survey over time - not only over seven, but over fourteen years! Therein lies the provision, and the command to provide. For the fourteen years are but one time made up of twice seven though it is; and it does not begin in the middle but at the beginning, in other words with today, for today is the day of surveying the whole. And to survey it all is to provide for it all."
       "All this is very odd," remarked Amenhotep. "Have you been speaking or have you not? You have been speaking while you did not speak but only let us hear your thoughts those; that is, which you only think to think. But it seems to me it is the same as though you had spoken. In other words, you contrived a little device, to say something that has not yet been said."
      "Everything must have its first time", Joseph replied. "But foresight is not new. And there has been for very long the shrewd employment  

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of what time is granted. If God had put the bad time before the blessing-time. And it began tomorrow, there could be no counsel nor could any avail. What the chafftime wrought among men could not be made good by the fullness to follow. But now it is the other way on, and there is time -  not to waste, but to make good the coming want and to balance the fullness and the lack, by saving the fullness to feed the lack. The order of the dream was meant to instruct us: The fat kine come up first and then the lean; which means that he who makes the survey is called and commanded to feed the lack."
      "You mean we must heap up provision and gather it into bins?" asked Amenhotep.
      "On the very largest scale," said Joseph with decision. "In quite other measure than has ever been in the time of the  two lands! And the master of the survey shall be the taskmaster of the fullness. He shall control it with strictness; the people's love for him will teach them the economy of plenty. Then when the dearth comes, and they find that he can give, how will their love and trust increase! Under that spreading tree he may sit and teach. And the master of the survey shall be the vicar and shadow-spender of the King."
      As he spoke, Joseph's eyes chanced to meet those of the great mother, the little dark figure sitting upright and hieratic upon her raised seat with her feet together. Those shrewd sharp eyes, gleaming black out of the shadow, were fixed upon him, and the lines about her full lips shaped a mocking smile. He dropped his lids gravely before this smile, yet not without a respectful twinkle.
     "If I have heard aright," said Amenhotep, " you think like the great mother, that without any loss of time I should summon my advisers to a council, that they may decide how to deal with the abundance to make it serve the lack?"
     "Pharaoh ," answered Joseph, "has had no great luck with the coun-cils he summoned to interpret the double dream dreamed by his double crown. He interpreted himself, he found the truth. To him alone was the prophecy sent and the whole situation made clear; on him alone is it incumbent to administer the supplies and husband the plenty which will come before the drought. The measures which must be taken are unprecedented in method and scope; whereas a council is prone to decide on a middle and traditional course. There-fore he alone who has dreamed and interpreted must be the man to decide and execute."
     "Pharaoh does not execute his decisions, " Tiy the mother coolly made herself heard. She gazed through and past both of them as she spoke." That is an ignorant conception. Even granted that he make his own decision about what to decide according to his dream - he will then put the performance of it into the  

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hands of his administrators who are there for the purpose
The two Viziers of the South and North, the steward of the storehouse and stalls, and the head of the treasury."
      "Precisely so," said Joseph, with an appearance of astonishment, "did I think in my hole to tell myself, in the imaginary conversation I was carrying on. Indeed, those very words, even 'ignorant concep-tion' did I put into the great mother and turned them again myself. I am swollen with pride to hear her utter just what I would have made her say, down there and only to myself. I will take back her words into my prison; there living and feeding upon the memories of this exalted hour, I will answer in spirit and say: 'Ignorant are all my conceptions, save perhaps one only: the thought that Pharaoh himself, the beautiful sun of the two lands, should carry out what he decides and not leave the perform-ance of it to tried and tested servants, saying: "I am Pharaoh! I Be as myself, receive from me full powers for the task wherein I have tried and tested you; for you shall be the middleman between me and men, as the moon is middleman between sun and earth. So shall you turn to blessing this threat to me and to the two lands." ' No, my igno-rance is perhaps not so all-embracing; for in this matter and in my own mind I clearly hear Pharaoh speak and say these words, yet not to many, but to one. And again, no man hearing my words, I will say: 'Many counsellors make many counsels; therefore let there be one, as the moon is one among the stars and is the middleman between above and below, who knows about the dreams of the sun, The first of the extraordinary measures must be the choice of him who shall put them into action. Otherwise they will be not extraordinary but mid-dling, usual, and inadequate. And why? Because they will not be put into action with faith and knowledgeable foresight. Tell the many your dreams, and they will both believe and disbelieve: part of each will have faith and part foresight, but all these parts together will not make up the complete faith or foresight which is necessary and can be only in one. Therefore let Pharaoh look for a wise and understand-ing man in whom dwells the spirit of his dreams, the spirit of seeing and the spirit of providing, and set him over the land of Egypt. Say to him "Be as I am," that he may be as it says in the song: "Unto the borders of the land' Twas he who saw it all." And let him administer the abundance of the years of plenty with a strictness never seen be-fore, that the king may have shade to sit in during the time of dearth.' Such are my words which I shall be saying to myself in my pit; for truly to utter them here before the gods would be the grossest indis-cretion. Will Pharaoh now dismiss his servant from his sight, that he may go out of the sun into his shadow?"
      "Joseph made a turn towards the bee-studded hangings and a ges-ture thitherwards, as though asking if he might pass through. The  

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eyes of the goddess-mother looked sharply at him, and the worldly-wise lines round her mouth deepened to a mocking smile. He saw, but purposely did not look back at her.

 

 

"I DON'T BELIEVE IN IT"

"STAY, said Amenhotep. "Wait a little, my friend. You have played very prettily upon this instrument of yours, this pretext that one may speak without speaking, not speak and yet speak withal, while getting a hearing for your thoughts. You have not only put My Majesty in the way of interpreting his own dream, but also you have pleasured me with this novel device of yours . Pharaoh cannot let you go unre-warded, surely you cannot think that. The only question is how can he reward you? About that My Majesty is not yet clear. For instance, to give you this tortoise-shell lyre the invention of the lord of mis-chief, that, I think , would be too little and surely you think so too. Yet take it at least, for the moment, my friend, take it in your arms it becomes you there. The god of contrivance gave it to his sooth-saying brother; you are a soothsayer too, and full of contrivance into the bargain. But I am thinking of keeping you at my court , if you will stop, and of making some fine title for you, such as First Dream-interpreter to the King, something very imposing, to cover up your real name and made it quite forgot. But what is your real name?  Ben-ezne,  perhaps, or Nekatiya, I suppose?"      
       "What I am called," Joseph answered, "I was not called, and neither my mother, the starry virgin, nor my father, the friend of God, called me so. But since my hostile brothers flung me in the pit and I died to my father, being stolen away down here, what I am has taken an-other name: it is now Osarsiph."
      "Most interesting," pronounced Amenhotep. He had settled back into the cushions of his too-easy-chair, while Joseph, the seafaring man's gift in his arms, stood there before him. "So you think one should not always be called the same, but suit his name to his circum-stances, according to what happens to him and how he feels? Mama what say you to that? I think My Majesty likes it well, for I am always pleased by new views; whereas those who know only outworn ones open their mouths in astonishment, as wide as I do when I yawn at theirs. Pharaoh himself has too long been called by his present name, and for long it has been out of tune with what he is  and how he now feels. In fact for some time he has cherished the idea of putting aside the old and mistaken name and taking a new and more accurate one. I have never spoken of this to you, Mama, because it would have been awk-ward for me to tell you just by ourselves. But in the presence of this soothsayer  Osarsiph, who himself once had another name, it is a good opportunity to speak. Certainly I will do nothing rash , it will not  

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happen from one day to the next. But happen it must, and soon; for what I am now called becomes daily more a lie and an offence to my Father above. It is a disgrace, in the long run it is not to be borne, that my name contains the name of  Amun the throne robber, who gives out that he consumed Re-Horakhte the lord of On and the ancestor of the kings of Egypt, and who now reigns as Amun-Re, the god of the Empire. You must understand Mama, that in the long run it is a sore offence to My Majesty to be named after him, instead of by a name pleasing to Aton; for out of him have I issued, in whom is united what was and what shall be. Lo, Amun's is the present, but the past and future are my Father's, and we two are old and young both, we are of times past and times to come. Pharaoh is a stranger in the world, for he is at home in the early time, when kings raised their arms to Re their father, the time of Hor- em-akhet, the time of the sphinx. And at home he is in the time that shall come, of which he is the forerunner; when all men shall look up to the sun, the unique god, their gracious father according to the teaching of the son, who knows his precepts, since he came out of him and his blood flows in his veins. Come hither, you!" said he to Joseph. "Come and look!" And he drew the batiste from his thin arm and showed the other the blue veins on the inside of the forearm. "That is the blood of the sun!"
     "The arm shook visibly, although Amenhotep supported it with the other hand; for the other hand shook too. Joseph looked respectfully at the exhibit and then drew back a little from the royal seat. The god-dess mother said
     "You excite yourself, Meni, and it is not good for Your Majesty's health. You should rest, after the interpretation and all this exchange of views, and take a little time from the time that is given you, to let your decisions ripen, not only concerning measures against what may come, but also about the very serious proposal to change your name, which you seem to be considering; while at the same time you are thinking about a proper reward for this soothsayer. Do go and rest!"
      But the King was unwilling. "Mama" he cried, "I do beg you most ardently not to ask that of me, just in the middle of such a promising train! I assure you, My Majesty is perfectly well and feels no trace of fatigue. I am so excited that I feel well, and so well that I feel ex-cited. You talk just like the nurses in my childhood; when I felt my liveliest, then they said: 'You are overtired, Lord of the Two lands, you must go to bed.' It could only make me savage, I could have kicked with rage. Now I am grown, and thank you most respectfully for your care of me. But I have the distinct feeling that this present audience can lead to further good and that my decisions can better ripen here than in my bed, and in talk with this skilled soothsayer, to whom I am so grateful, if for no other reason, for giving me the oppor-  

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tunity to speak of my attention to take a real name, which contains the name of the unique one , namely  Ikhnaton, that my name may be pleasing to my Father. Everything should be called after him and not after Amun; and if the Lady of the Two Lands, who fills the palace with sweetness, the sweet Titi, is soon brought to bed, then the royal infant, whether prince or princess, shall be called Merytaton, that it may be loved by him who is love. No matter if I draw down on my head the anger of the mighty one of Karnak, who will come and make representations and harangue me with threats of the anger of the Ram! Him I can endure - all I can endure for the sake of my love to my Father above."
      "Pharaoh," said the mother, "you forget that we are not alone . Matters which need to be dealt with in wisdom and moderation are probably best not discussed in the hearing of a soothsayer of the people."
      "Let that be Mama ," replied Amenhotep. "He is the way of noble lineage, that he has himself  given us to understand - the son of a rogue and a lovely one, which is definitely attractive to me; while that he says he was even as a child called the lamb, that also indicates a certain refinement. Children of the lower classes are not given such nicknames. And besides, I get the impression that he is able to understand much, and give answer to much. Above and beyond all this, he loves me and is ready to help me, as he has done already in inter-preting the dreams and also by reason of his original view that one should call oneself according to one's own circumstances and feelings. It would all be very fine, if I liked a little better the name by which he chooses to be known. . . . I would not wish to be unfriendly or distress you," he turned to Joseph, "but the kind of name you have taken pains me Osarsiph, that is a name of the dead, as when we call the dead bull Osar-Hapi; it bears the name of the dead lord, Usir, the frightful, on the judge's throne and with the scale, who is only just but without mercy, and before whose tribunal the terrified soul trem-bles and shakes. This old creed has nothing in it but fear, it is dead itself, it is an Osar-creed, and my Father's son believes not in it."
       "Pharaoh," the mother's voice came again, "I must once more ap-peal to you and warn you to be cautious and I need not hesitate to do so in the presence of this foreign interpreter, since you grant him such extended audience and take as a sign of his higher origins his mere assertion that as a child he was called the lamb. So he may here that I warn you to be wise and moderate. It is enough that you go about to decrease the power of Amun and set yourself against his uni-versal rule, in that wherever possible you take from him step by step the unity with Re the horizon-dweller, who is the Aton. Even to do this takes all the shrewdness and policy in the world, and a cool head besides, for heated rashness comes of evil. But let your Majesty be-  

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ware of laying hands on the people's belief in Usir, King of the lower regions, to which it clings more obstinately than to any other deity, because all are equal before him, and each one hopes to go in unto him with his name. Bear in mind the prejudice of the many, for what you give to Aton by diminishing Amun, you take away by offending Usir."
      "Ah, I assure you Mama, the people only imagine that they cling so to Usir," cried Amenhotep. "How could it really cling to a belief that the soul which go up to the judge's seat must pass through seven times seven regions of terror, inhabited by demons who cross-examine it as it passes in some three hundred and sixty several magic formulas, each harder to remember than the last, yet the poor soul must have them all by heart and be able to repeat each one in the right place, otherwise it does not pass and will be devoured before ever it reaches the judgement seat. And if it does get there, it has every prospect of being devoured if its heart weighs too light in the scale; for then it is delivered over to the monstrous dog Amente. Iask you, where is there anything in all that to cling to? - it is against all the love and goodness of my partner above. Before Usir of the lower regions all are equal - yes, equal in terror. Whereas before my father all shall be equal in joy. With Amun and Aton it is the same. Amun too, with the help of Re, will be universal and will unite the world in worship of him. There are of one mind. But Amun would make the world one in the rigid service of fear, a false and sinister unity, which my father would not, for he would unite his children in joy and tenderness."
     "Meni," said the mother again, in her low voice , "it would be better for you to to spare yourself and not speak so much of joy and of tenderness. You know from experience that the words are dangerous to you and put you beside yourself."
     "I am speaking, Mama of belief and unbelief," answered Amen-hotep; once more he worked himself out of the cushions and stood on his feet. "Of these I speak, and my own good mind tells me that disbelief is almost more important than belief. In belief there must be a sizeable element of disbelief; for how can a man believe what is true so long as he also believes what is false/ If I want to teach the people what is true , I must first take from them certain beliefs to which they cling. Perhaps that is cruel, but it is the cruelty of love, and my father in the sky will forgive me. Yes, which is more glorious, belief or disbelief, and which should come one before the other? Believing is a great rapture for the soul. But not believing is almost more joyous than belief - I have found it so, My Majesty has experienced it, and I do not believe in the realms of fear and the demons and Usiri with his frightfully named ones and the devourer down there below. I  

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don't believe in it! Don't believe, don't believe," Pharaoh sang and trilled, skipping on his misshapen legs, whirling round arms outstretched and snapping the fingers of both hands.
      After that he was out of breath.
      "Why did you give yourself such a name of death?" he asked, gasping, as he came to a stop before Joseph. Even if your father thinks you are dead, after all you are not."
      "I must be silent to him," answered Joseph, "and I vowed myself to silence with my name. Whoever is thus dedicate and set apart, he is among the dead. You cannot separate the depths from the early and consecrated, they belong together; and just therefore lies upon him the gleam of light from above. We make offerings to the depths; yet therein lies the mystery, that in so doing we only rightly make them to the heights. For God is the whole."
     "He is the light and the sweet disk of the sun," said Amenhotep with emotion, "whose rays embrace the land and bind them in love - he makes the hands grow faint with love, and only the wicked, whose fate is directed below, have b hands. Ah how much more would things in the world go by love and goodness if not for this belief in the lower and in the devourer with the crushing jaws! No one shall persuade Pharaoh that men would not do much or consider much pleasing to do if their fate is not directed downwards. You know, the grandfather of my earthly father, King Akheperure, had very b hands and could span a bow which no one else in all the lands could span. So he went out to slay the kings of Asia and took seven of them alive. He fastened them to the prow of his ship by the heels - their hair hung down and they glared straight ahead with their up-side down blood shot eyes. And that was only the beginning of all that he did with them, which I will not go into, but he did it. It was the first story my nurses told me as a child, to instil in me a kingly spirit - but I started  shrieking out of my sleep with what they instilled and the doctors from the book-house came and installed an antidote. But do you suppose Akheperure would have done all that to his foes if he had not believed in the realms of horror and the spectres and the frightfully named ones of Usiri and the dog of Amente? Let me tell you: men are a hopeless lot. They know how to do nothing that comes from themselves, not even the very least thing happens to them on their own account. They only imitate the gods, and whatever picture they make of them, that they copy. Purify the god-head and you purify men."
      Joseph did not reply to all this until he had looked across to the mother and read in the eyes she rested on him that a reply from him would please her.
      "Harder than hard" he said then, "it is to reply to Pharaoh, for  

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he is gifted beyond measure, and what he says is true, so that one can only nod and murmur: 'Quite right' or else keep still and let the echo die of the truth he uttered. Yet we know Pharaoh would not have speech die away and cease at the truth. Rather he desires that it free itself and go on, past the truth and perhaps to further truth. For what is true is not the truth. Truth is endlessly far and all talk is end-less too. It is a pilgrimage into the eternal and looses itself without rest, or at most after a brief pause and an impatient 'Right, right it moves away from every station of the truth, just as the moon moves away from each of her stations in her eternal wanderings. All of this brings me - whether I will or no, and whether it is fit or unfit in this place - to the grandfather of my earthly father, whom at home we always called by a not quite so earthly name and named him the moon-wanderer, though we knew quite well that actually his name was Abiram, which means high father. He came from Ur in the Chaldees, the land of the great tower . He did not like it there and could not endure it - he could never endure it anywhere and hence the name we gave him."                    
      "You see, Mother," the King broke in, "that my soothsayer has good origins in his way? Not only that he himself was called the lamb, but also he had a great-grandfather to whom they gave a name not of this earth. Mixed races and people from the lower classes do not usually know their great-grandfathers. So he was a seeker after truth, your great-grandfather?"
     "So untiring," responded Joseph, "that in the end he discovered God and made a pact with Him that they should be holy the one in the other. But b he was in other ways two, a b-handed man; when robber kings came on from the east, burning and plundering, and took away his brother Lot a prisoner, then with swift resolve he went out again them with three hundred and eighteen men and Eliezer, his oldest servant, making three hundred and nineteen, and thrust at them with such force that he drove them beyond Damascus and freed his brother Lot out of their hands."
      The mother nodded and Pharaoh cast down his eyes.
      "Did he take the field," he asked, "before he had discovered God or afterwards?"
      "It was in between," answered Joseph, While he was working on his task and without loss of power from the combat. What can be done with robber kings that burn and plunder? You cannot give them the peace of God, they are two stupid and bad. You can only bring it to them by first smiting them hip and thigh until they know that the peace of God has b hands.But you owe it to God that things shall go on earth at least half-way according to His will and not en-tirely according to the will of burners and plunderers."
     "I see," said Amenhotep in boyish annoyance, "if you had been one  

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of my guardians, you too would have told me stories about hair floating upside down in the wind and rolling eyes full of blood,"  
     "Could it come to pass," Joseph inquired as though of himself, "that Pharaoh should err and despite extraordinary gifts and maturity be wrong in his thought? I can scarcely believe it; yet it seems to happen and is a sign that he has his human as well as his godlike side. Those who burdened his young heart with tales of warlike prowess," he went on always speaking as though to himself, "they, of course stood for war and lust of the sword for their own sakes. Now your soothsayer here, descended from the moon-wanderer, he would seek to bring to war word of the peace of God; while to peace he would put in a word for courage as a dealer between the spheres and go-between ' twixt above and below. The sword is stupid; yet I would not call meekness wise. Wise is the mediator who counsels courage in order that meekness may not be revealed as stupid in the sight of god and man. Would I might say to Pharaoh this that I think!"
     "I have heard," said Amenhotep, "what you have being saying to yourself. It is the same as before: the little trick you have invented, that you may speak aloud to yourself and that no one else has any ears. You are holding the seafaring man's gift in your arms - perhaps the little invention comes to you from it, and the spirit of the mis-chievous god speaks through your words."
     "It may be," responded Joseph. "Pharaoh speaks the word of the hour. It may be, it is possible, we should not quite reject the idea that the quick-witted god is present with us and would make Pharaoh mindful of him and aware that it was he who brought up the dream to him from below to where he sits in his palace. For he is a guide to the world below and, with all his gay spirits, the friend of the moon and the dead. He puts in a friendly word with the upper world for the lower and with the lower for the upper, he is a gentle-manly go-between 'twixt heaven and earth. Violence and abruptness are hateful to him and better than any one else he knows that one can be right and yet wrong."
      "You are coming back to your uncle," asked Amenhotep, "the wrong right one whose big tears rolled down in the dust while all the world laughed at him? Let that story be. It is amusing but it makes me uneasy. Perhaps it is true that what is funny is always at the same time a little sad, and that we only breathe freely and happily at the pure gold of serious things."
      "Pharaoh says it," answered Joseph, "and may he be the right one to say it! Serious and stern is the light and the power that streams up from below in its clarity - power it must surely be and of mas-culine kind, not mere tenderness; otherwise it is false and premature and tears will follow."
        He did not look at the mother after he spoke -  at least not  

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full in the face. But enough so that he could see whether she nodded approval. She did not nod, but he thought she looked steadily at him, which was perhaps even better.  
       Amenhotep had not been listening. He leaned back in his chair, in one of those exaggerated attitudes of his, deliberately aimed at the old style and the rigidity of Amun. One elbow leaned against the chair-back, his other hand was on his hip, thrust out by the weight he put on that leg, the other one resting lightly on its toes. He went back to his own last words.
      "I think," he said, "My Majesty said something very good, which merits attention. I mean about jest and earnest, one oppressing and the other blessing. The moon mediates between heaven and earth. True, but the mediation is of the jesting kind, uncanny, ghostly. Whereas all the beams of my father Aton are golden earnest without guile, bound up in truth, ending in tender hands, which caress the creation of the father. God alone is the whole roundness of the sun, from which the truth pours itself out upon the world, and unfalter-ing love."
      "The whole world hearkens to Pharaoh's words" answered Joseph, "and no one fails to hear a single one of them when he teaches. But that might easily happen to others, even when their words should by chance be just as much worth taking to heart as his. But never will it happen to the Lord of the Crown. His golden words put me in mind of one of our stories, namely how Adam and Eve, the first human beings, were frightened by the approach of the first night. They feared that the earth would again become formless. For it is the light which divides things and puts each in  
its place - it creates space and time, while night brings back disorder again, the chaos and the void. So the two were terribly frightened when the day died at the red even and darkness crept up on all sides. They beat their brows. But God gave them two stones: one of the deepest black, the other like the shadow of death. He rubbed the two together for them and lo, fire sprang out, fire from the bosom of the earth, the in-most pri-meval fire, young as the lightning and older than Re. It fed on dry leaves and burned on, making night plain for the two."
       "Very good, very good indeed!" said the King. "I see that not all your tales are jests. Pity you do not also speak of that great joy of the first morning, when God lighted up their whole world anew and drove away the frightful shapes of darkness; for their delight must have been very great. Light, light" he cried. Springing from his relaxed position, he stood up and began to move to and fro in the room, now fast, now slowly, now lifting both bebanded arms over his head, now pressing his two hands to his heart.
     "Blessed light, that created for itself the eyes which see it, cre-ated sight and thing seen; the becoming-conscious of the world which  

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knows of itself only through the light, which distinguishes in love. Ah, Mama, and you dear soothsayer, how glorious above all glory and how unique in the all is Aton my father, and how my heart beats with fullness of pride because I came forth from him and before all others he gave me to understand his beauty and love! For as he is unique in greatness and goodness, so am I his son unique in love to him whom he has entrusted with his teaching. When he rises in the eastern horizon of heaven and mounts out of the land of God in the east, glitteringly crowned as king of the gods then all creatures exult. The apes adore with lifted hands and al- wild creatures praise him, running and leaping. For every day is his blessing-time and a feast of joy after the cursing time of the night, when his face was turned away and the world sunk in self-forgetfulness. It is frightful when the world forgets itself, though it may be well for its refreshment. Men sleep in their chambers, their heads are wrapped up, their nostrils stopped, and none seeth the other, stolen are all the things that are under their heads while they know it not. Every lion cometh forth from his den, all serpents they sting. But thou hast raised them up, their limbs bathed, they take their clothing, their limbs uplifted in adoration to thy dawning. Then in all the world they do their work. The barks sail upstream and downstream alike. Every highway is opened because thou hast dawned. The fish in the river leap up before him, and his rays are in the midst of the great sea. Though he is afar, yet his rays are upon the earth as in the sea and fix all creatures with his love. For unless he were so high and far, how should he be over all and everywhere in the world which he has linked and spread out in manifold beauty: the countries of Syria and Nubia and Punt and the land of Egypt; thou hast set a Nile in the heavens that he may fall for them, making floods upon the mountains like the great sea and watering their fields among their towns as he springs for us out of of the earth and makes fertile the desert that we may eat. Yes, how mani-fold, O Lord, are thy works! Thou makest the seasons in order to create all thy works with million shapes, that they live in you and fulfil their life- span, which you give, in cities , towns and settlements, on highway or on river. Thou settest every man in his place, thou suppliest their necessities. Everyone has in his possessions and his days are numbered. Their tongues are divers in speech, their ways are vary-ing but you embrace them all. Some are brown, others red, others black and still others like milk and blood. And in all these hues they reveal themselves in you and are your manifestations. They have hooked noses or flat or such as come straight out of the face, they dress in gay colours or white, in wool or linen, according as they know or think; but all that is no reason for them to laugh or to be spiteful, rather only interesting and solely a ground for love and wor-ship. Thou fundamentally good God, how joyful and sound is all  

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that thou createst and nourishest and what heart-filling delight hast thou instilled in Pharaoh, thy beloved son who proclaims thee! Thou hast made the seed in man and giveth life to the son in the body of the woman, thou soothest him that he may not weep thou good nurse and nourisher! Thou makest of what the flies live on and of the like the fleas, the worm, and the offspring of the worm. It would be enough for the heart and even well-nigh too much that the creature is satisfied in his pasture, that trees and plants are in sap and blossoms spring in praise and thanks, while countless birds flutter above the marshes. But when I think of the little mouse in its hole where thou preparest what it needs, there it sits with its beady eyes and cleans its nose with its paws - then my eyes run over. And I may not think at all of the little chick that cries in the egg-shell, out of which it bursts when he has made it ready - then it comes out of the egg to chirp with all its might and runneth about before Him upon its two feet with the greatest nimbleness - especially may I not be mindful of this, else I must dry my face with the finest batiste, for it is flooded with tears of love. - I should like to kiss the queen," he suddenly cried, and stood still with his face turned up to the ceiling. "Let Nefertiti be summoned at once, she who fills the palace with beauty, the mistress of the lands my sweet concert!"        

JACOB,S son was almost as weary with standing before Pharaoh as when he had played dumb waiter for the old pair in the garden-house. And young Pharaoh, for all his delicasy of feeling for the gnats, the chicks, the little mouse, and the offspring of the worm, seemed to have no thought for Joseph's discomfort. His delicacy was of a regal kind, it had lapses. To neither him nor the mother-goddess on her high seat did the idea occur - and probably it could not - to tell him to sit down a while. His limbs had great longing and there were many charming little stools in the Cretan loggia to invite him thereto. It was hard; but when one knows what is involved, one just takes the hardship for granted and stands firm - and here we have a good instance of a literally correct usage.
      "The goddess-widow took it on herself to clap her hands when her son announced his desire. The chamberlain from the anteroom sidled sweetly through the bee-curtain. He rolled up his eyes when Tiy flung at him: "Pharaoh summons the great consort!" and disappeared again. Amenhotep stood at one of the great bay-windows with his back to the room and looked out over the gardens, his chest and his whole body heaving with the violence of the homage paid to the sun and its works. His mother was looking towards him with concern. But only a few minutes passed before she appeared whom he  

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had summoned - she could not have been far away. A little door, invisible among the paintings, opened in the right-hand wall, and two maidservants fell on their faces on the threshold. Between them the Queen of the two lands appeared, with swaying tread, faintly smiling, her eyes cast down, the long lovely neck, thrust anxiously out: the bearer of the seed of the sun. She did not speak. Her hair was covered with a blue cap, which hung in a bag behind, elongating the shape of her head; her large, thin, finely turned ears were uncovered. Navel and thighs showed through the ethereal pleatings of her flowing garb, the bosom was covered with a shoulder drapery and a flower-collar glittering with enamel and gems. She moved with hesitant steps to-wards her young husband, who approached her still panting with access of feeling.
     "Here art thou, golden dove, my sweet bed-sister," he said with trembling voice; embraced and kissed her on eyes and mouth, so that the two cobras on their heads touched two. "I had to see thee, if only for a moment to show thee my love - it came over me while talking. Was my summons a burden to thee? Art thou at the moment not suffering from thy present sacred condition? My Majesty does wrong , perhaps, even to ask; for I might thereby rouse and recall thy nausea with my words. You see how the King has understanding of all. I would have been so grateful to the Father          
if you had today been able to keep our excellent breakfast by you. But no matter of that. Here thrones the eternal mother, and this man with the lyre is a foreign magician and soothsayer who has interpreted for me my politically important dream and can tell such amusing tales that I may keep him by me, in a high office at court. He lay in prison owing to some mistake, such as can sometimes happen. Nefer-em-Wese too, my cup-bearer, was once in prison by mistake, while his companion there, the late chief baker, was guilty. Of two that lie in prison, one always seems to be innocent,and of three, two.This I say as a man. But as god and King, I say that prisons are necessary, notwithstanding. And as a man I kiss you, my sacred love, on your eyes, your cheeks and mouth; be not surprised that I do it not only in the presence of the mother but also of the soothsaying stranger, since you know that Pharaoh loves to show himself as he is before men. I think to go even further in this direction. You do not know about that yet, nor does Mama, therefore I take this opportunity to tell you. I am considering a pleasure voyage on the royal barge Star of the Two Lands. The populace, urged by curiosity and also partly by my royal command, will follow along the banks in crowds, and there in their sight my sacred treasure, without having got permission from Amun's first priest beforehand, I will sit with you under the canopy and hold you on my knee and kiss you right soundly and often before all the people. That will annoy him  of Karnak, but the people will exult, and it will  

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not only show them our great happiness but also instruct them in the essence, spirit, and goodness of my Father above. I am glad that I have now mentioned this plan of mine. But do not think I sent for you on this account, for I only happened to come on the thought as I was speaking. I called you simply and solely out of sudden unconquer-able longing to show you my tenderness and now I have done so. Go then, my crowning joy! Pharaoh is overwhelmed with affairs and must take counsel on matters of high import with his dear and eternal little mama and with this young man, who, you must understand, comes of the stock of the inspired lamb. Go, and take great care of yourself, guarding against all jars to your person. Divert yourself with dancing and song. The babe, whatever it is, shall be called Mery-taton, when you are happily brought to bed - that is, if you find it good and I see you do. You always find everything good that Phar-aoh thinks. If only the whole world would think well of what he thinks and teaches, it would be better for it. Adieu, swan's throat, little dawn-cloud, golden-seamed! Adieu and au-revoir!"
   "The Queen swayed away again. Behind her the picture-door closed and became invisible. Amenhotep, embarrassed by his own emotions, turned back to his throne chair.
    "Happy lands," said he, "to which such a mistress is vouchsafed, and a Pharaoh whom she makes so happy! Am I right to say that soothsayer ? If you stop on at my court as interpreter of the King's dreams, I will marry you off, that is my firm intention. I will myself choose the bride, befitting your office, from the higher circles. You do not know how delightful it is to be married. For My Majesty, as my idea about the-pleasure voyage in public will have shown you, it is the very image and expression of my human side, on which I lean more than I can say. For look, Phar-aoh is not proud - and if he is not, then who in the world should be? But in you, my friend, I feel a sort of pride, with all your charm of manner - I say a sort, for I do not know its cause and can only suspect it has to do with what you told us, that you are in some way set apart and consecrate to silence and the deeps, as though the sacri-ficial garland lay on your brow, made of an herb called touch-me-not. It was just this that gave me the idea to bestow you in marriage ."
    "I am in the hand of the highest," answered Joseph. What he does will be beneficent. Pharaoh knows not how necessary was my pride to protect me from evil-doing. I am set apart for God alone, who is the bridegrom of my race and we are the bride. But as it says of the star: 'In the evening a woman, in the morning a man,' so I suppose it is here too, and out of the bride steps forth the wooer."
    "Such a double nature may be fitting for the son of the sly one and the lovely one," said the King, with a worldly-wise air. "But  

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now," he added, let us speak seriously of serious matters. Your God, who and what is He? You have neglected or avoided giving me a clear understanding. The forefather of your father, you say discov-ered Him? That sounds as though he had found the true and only God is it possible that so remote from me in space and time a man divined that the true and only God is the sun's disc, the creator of sight and seen, my eternal father above?"
     "No Pharaoh," Joseph answered smiling. "He did not stop at the sun disk. He was a wanderer, and even the sun was but a way-station on his painful wandering. Restless was he and unsatisfied call it pride if you will; for thereby you seal your censure with the sign of honour and necessity. For it was the pride of the man, that the hu-man should serve only the Highest. Therefore his thoughts went out beyond the sun."
     "Amenhotep had flushed. He sat bent forward, his head in the blue wig stretched out on its neck; with the tips of his fingers he squeezed and kneeded his chin.
     "Mama, pay attention! By all you hold dear, pay strict attention," he breathed, without turning the fixed gaze of his grey eyes away from Joseph. His suspense was so great that it seemed he would tear away the veil which dimmed them.
     "Go on you!" said he. Wait! Stop, no go on! He did not stop? He went out beyond the sun? Speak! Or I will speak myself, though I know not what I would say."  
     "He made things hard for himself, in his unavoidable pride," Jo-seph said. For this he was anointed. He overcame many temptations to worship and adore, for he longed to do so, but to worship the highest one alone, for only this seemed right to him. Earth the mother , tempted him; she who preserves life and brings forth fruit. But he saw her neediness, which only heaven can supply, and so he turned his face upwards. Him tempted the turmoil of the clouds, the uproar of the storm, the pelting rain, the blue-lightning-flash driving down, the thunder's rattling roar. But he shook his head at their claims, for his soul instructed him they were all of the second rank. They were no better, so his soul spake to him, than he himself - perhaps lesser indeed, although so mighty; and though they were above him it was simply in space, but not in spirit. To pray to them, so he felt, was to pray too near and too low; and better not at all, he said to himself, than too near or low, for that was an abomination."
      "Good, said Amenhotep, almost soundlessly, and kneeded his chin. Good! Wait! No, go on! Mama pay attention!"
      "Yes, how many great manifestations did not tempt my forefather!" Joseph went on. "The whole host of the stars was among them, the shepherd and his sheep. They were indeed far and high, and very great in their courses. But he saw them scattered before the beams  

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of the morning star - and she indeed was surpassingly lovely, of two-fold nature and rich in tales, yet weak, too weak for that which she heralded; she paled before it and vanished away - poor morning star!"
      "Spare your regrets!" ordered the King. "Here is matter for tri-umph. For tell me what it was she paled before, and who appeared, whom she had heralded?" he asked, making his voice sound as proud and threatening as it could.
      "Of course, the sun" Joseph replied. "What a temptation for him who so longed to worship! Before its cruelty and its benignity all peoples of the earth bowed down. But my ancestor,s caution was unlimited, his reservations endless. Peace and satisfaction, he said, are not the point. The all-important thing is to avoid the great peril to the honour of humanity, that man should bow down before a lower than the highest. 'Mighty art thou,' he said to Shamash-Marduk-Bel, 'and mighty is thy power of blessing and cursing. But something there is above thee, in me a worm, and it warns me not to take the witness for that which it witnesses. The greater the witness, the greater the fault in me if I let myself be misled to worship it instead of that to which it bears witness. Godlike is the witness. But yet not God. I too am a witness and a testimony: I and my doing and dreaming, which mount up above the sun towards that to which it more mightily bears witness than even itself, and whose heat is greater than the heat of the sun.' "
     "Mother," Amenhotep whispered, without turning his eyes from Joseph, "what did I say? No, no, I did not say it, I only knew it, it was said to me. When of late I had my seizure, and revelation was vouchsafed me for the improvement of the teaching - for it is not complete, never have I asserted that it was complete - then I heard my Father's voice and it spoke to me saying: 'I am the heat of the Aton, which is in Him. But millions of suns could I feed from my fires. Callest thou me Aton, then know that the name itself stands in need of improvement. When you call me so, you are not calling me by my last and final name. For my last name is: the Lord of the Aton.' Thus Pharaoh heard it, the father's beloved child, and brought it back with him out of his attack. But he kept silent, and even the silence made him forget. Pharaoh has set truth in his heart, for the Father is the truth. But he is responsible for the triumph of the teaching, that all men may receive it; and he is concerned lest the improvement and purification, until at last it consists only of the pure truth, might mean to make it unteachable. This is a sore concern which no one can understand save one on whom as much responsi-bility rests as on Pharaoh. For others it is easy to say: You have not set truth in your heart, but rather the teaching.' Yet the teaching is the sole means of bringing men nearer the truth.                          
It should be im-  

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proved; but if one improve it to the extent that it becomes unavail-able as a medium of truth - I ask the father and you: will not only then the reproach be justified that I have shut up the teaching in my heart to the disadvantage of the truth? Pharaoh shows mankind the image of the revered Father, made by his artists: the golden from which rays go down upon his creatures, ending in tender hands, which caress all creation. 'Adore!' he commands. 'This is the Aton, my Father, whose blood runs in me, who revealed himself to me, but will be father to you all, that you may become good and lovely in him.' And he adds: 'Pardon , dear human beings, that I am so strict with your thoughts. Gladly would I spare your simplicity. But it must be. Therefore I say to you: Not the image shall you worship when you worship, not to it sing your hymns when you sing; but rather to him whose image it is, you understand, the true disk of the sun, my Father in the sky, who is the Aton, for the image is not yet he' That is hard enough; it is a challenge to men; out of a hundred, twelve understand it. But if now the teacher says: 'Still another and further effort must I urge upon you for the sake of truth, however much it pains me for your simplicity. For the image is but the image of the image and witness to a witness. Not the actual round sun up there in the sky are you to think of when you burn incense to his image and sing his praise - not this, but the Lord of Aton, who is the heat in it and who guides its course.' That goes too far, it is too much teaching, and not twelve, not even one understands. Only Pharaoh himself understands, who is outside of all count, and yet he is supposed to teach the many. Your forefather, soothsayer, had an easy task, although he made it hard for himself. He might make it as hard as he liked, striving after truth for his own sake and the sake of his pride, for he is only a wanderer but Iam a King, and a teacher; Imay not think what Icannot teach. Whereas such a one very soon learns not even to think the unteachable."
      "Here Tiy, his mother, cleared her throat, rattled her ornaments, and said, looking ahead of her into space:
      "Pharaoh is to be praised when he practises statesmanship in mat-ters of religious belief and spares the simplicity of  the many. That is why I warned him not to wound the popular attachment to Usir, king of the lower regions. There is no contradiction between knowing and sparing, in this connection; and the office of teacher need not darken knowledge. Never have priests taught the multitude all they themselves know. They have told them what was wholesome, and wisely left in the realm of the mysteries what was not beneficial. Thus knowledge and wisdom are together in the world , truth and for-bearance. The mother recommends that it so remain."
       "Thank you, Mama," said Amenhotep, with a deprecating bow. "Thank you for the contribution. It is very valuable and will for  

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9 x 6 x 8 = 432   4 + 3 = 7 + 2 = 9  /

eternal ages be held in honour. But we are speaking of two different things. My Majesty speaks of the fetters which the teaching puts upon the thoughts of God; yours refers to priestly statecraft, which divides teaching and knowledge. But Pharaoh would not be arro-gant, and there is no greater arrogance than such a division. No, there is no arrogance in the world greater than that of dividing the children of our father into initiate and uninitiate and teaching double words; all-knowingly for the masses, knowingly in the inner circle .  No, we must speak what we know and witness what we have seen.. Pharaoh wants to do nothing but improve the teaching, even though it be made hard for him by the teaching. And still it has been said to me: 'Call me not Aton , for that is in need of improvement. Call me the Lord of the Aton!" But I, through keeping silent, forgot. See now what the Father does for his beloved son! He sends him a mes-senger and dream interpreter, who shows him his dreams, dreams from below and dreams from above, dreams important for the realm and for heaven; that he should awake in him what he already knows, and interpret what was already said to him. Yes, how loveth the Father his child the King who came forth out of him, that he sends down a soothsayer to him, to whom from long ages has been handed down the teaching that it profits man to press on towards the last and highest!"    
       "To my knowledge" Tiy coldly remarked, "your soothsayer came up from below, out of a dungeon, and not from
above."
      "Ah," in my opinion that is sheer mischief, that he came from below, cried Amenhotep. And besides, above and below mean not much to the Father, who when he goes down makes the lower the upper , for where he shines, there is the upper world. From which it comes that his messengers interpret dreams from above and below with equal skill. Go on, soothsayer! Did I say stop? If I did, I meant go on! That wanderer out of the East, from whom you spring, did
not stop at the sun, but pressed on above it?"
       "Yes, in spirit," answered Joseph smiling. "For in the flesh he was but a worm on this earth, weaker than most of those above and below him. And still he refused to bow and to worship, even before one of these phenomena, for they were but witness and work, as he himself was. All being, he said, is a work of the highest, and before the being is the spirit of whom it bears witness. How could I commit so great a folly and burn incense to a witness, be it never so weighty - I, who am consciously a witness, whereas the others simply are and know it not? Is there not something in me of Him, for which all being is but evidence of the being of the Being  which is greater than his works and is outside them? It is outside the world, yet is the world not its compass. Far is the sun, surely three hundred and sixty thousand miles away, and yet  

/ Page 969  

9 x 6 x 9 = 486   4 + 8 + 6 = 18   1 + 8 = 9  /

his rays are here. But He who shows the sun the way hither is further than far, yet near in the same measure, nearer than near. Near or far is all the same to Him, for He has no space nor any time; and though the world is in Him, he is not in the world at all, but in heaven."
       "Did you hear that Mama?" asked Amenhotep in a small voice, tears in his eyes. "Did you hear the message that my heavenly Father sends me through this young man, In whom I straightway saw something, as he came in, and who interprets to me my dreams? I will only say that I have not said all that was said to me in my seizure, and, keeping silent forgot it. But when I heard: 'Call me not Aton, but rather the Lord of Aton,' then I heard also this: Call on me not as "my Father above," for that is of the sun in the sky; it must needs be changed, to say: "My father who art in heaven"! So heard I and shut it up within me, because I was anxious over the truth for the sake of the teaching. But he whom I took out of the prison, he opens the prison of truth that she may come forth in beauty and light; and teaching and truth shall embrace each other, even as I embrace him."    
      "And with wet eyelashes he worked himself up out of his sunken seat, embraced Joseph, and kissed him.  
      "Yes, yes!" he cried. He began to hurry once more up and down the Cretan loggia, to the bee-portieres, to the windows and back, his hands pressed to his heart. "Yes, yes, who art in heaven, fur-ther than far and nearer than near, the Being of beings, that looks not into death, that does not become and does not die but is, the abiding light, that neither rises nor sets the unchanging source, out of which stream all life light, beauty, and  truth - that is the Father, so reveals He Himself to Pharaoh His son, who lies in His bosom and to whom He shows all that He has made. For he has made all, and His love is in the world, and the world knows Him not. But Pharaoh is His witness and bears witness to His light and His love, that through him all men may become blessed and may believe, even though now they still love the darkness more than the light that shines in it. For they understand it not, therefore are their deeds evil. But the son who came from the Father, will teach it to them. Golden spirit is the light, father-spirit; out of the mother-depths below power strives upward to it, to be purified in its flame and become spirit in the Father. Im-material is God, like His sunshine, spirit is He, and Pharaoh teaches you to worship Him in spirit and in truth. For the son knoweth the Father as the Father knoweth him, and will royally reward all those who love Him and keep his commandments - he will make them great and gilded at court because they love the Father in the son who came out of Him. For my words are not mine, but the words of my Father who sent me, that all might become one in light and love, even as I and  the Father are one. . . ."  

/ Page 970  

9 x 7 x 0   9 x 7 = 63   6 + 3 =9   9 + 7   7 +  6 = 16  1 + 6 = 7  /  

He smiled, an all too blissful smile; at the same time grew pale as death; putting his hands on his back, he leaned against the painted wall, closed his eyes, and so remained, upright indeed, but obviously no longer present.