第14章 THE PAPYRUS(1)

Thais was born of free, but poor, parents, who were idolaters.When she was a very little girl, her father kept, at Alexandria, near the Gate of the Moon, an inn, which was frequented by sailors.She still retained some vivid, but disconnected, memories of her early youth.

She remembered her father, seated at the corner of the hearth with his legs crossed--tall, formidable, and quiet, like one of those old Pharaohs who are celebrated in the ballads sung by blind men at the street corners.She remembered also her thin, wretched mother, wandering like a hungry cat about the house, which she filled with the tones of her sharp voice, and the glitter of her phosphorescent eyes.

They said in the neighbourhood that she was a witch, and changed into an owl at night, and flew to see her lovers.It was a lie.Thais knew well, having often watched her, that her mother practised no magic arts, but that she was eaten up with avarice, and counted all night the gains of the day.The idle father and the greedy mother let the child live as best it could, like one of the fowls in the poultry-yard.She became very clever in extracting, one by one, the oboli from the belt of some drunken sailor, and in amusing the drinkers with artless songs and obscene words, the meaning of which she did not know.She passed from knee to knee, in a room reeking with the odours of fermented drinks and resiny wine-skins; then, her cheeks sticky with beer and pricked by rough beards, she escaped, clutching the oboli in her little hand, and ran to buy honey-cakes from an old woman who crouched behind her baskets under the Gate of the Moon.Every day the same scenes were repeated, the sailors relating their perilous adventures, then playing at dice or knuckle-bones, and blaspheming the gods, amid their shouting for the best beer of Cilicia.

Every night the child was awakened by the quarrels of the drunkards.

Oyster-shells would fly across the tables, cutting the heads of those they hit, and the uproar was terrible.Sometimes she saw, by the light of the smoky lamps, the knives glitter, and the blood flow.

It humiliated her to think that the only person who showed her any human kindness in her young days was the mild and gentle Ahmes.Ahmes, the house-slave, a Nubian blacker than the pot he gravely skimmed, was as good as a long night's sleep.Often he would take Thais on his knee, and tell her old tales about underground treasure-houses constructed for avaricious kings, who put to death the masons and architects.There were also tales about clever thieves who married kings' daughters, and courtesans who built pyramids.Little Thais loved Ahmes like a father, like a mother, like a nurse, and like a dog.She followed the slave into the cellar when he went to fill the amphorae, and into the poultry-yard amongst the scraggy and ragged fowls, all beak, claws, and feathers, who flew swifter than eagles before the knife of the black cook.Often at night, on the straw, instead of sleeping, he built for Thais little water-mills, and ships no bigger than his hand, with all their rigging.

He had been badly treated by his masters; one of his ears was torn, and his body covered with scars.Yet his features always wore an air of joyous peace.And no one ever asked him whence he drew the consolation in his soul, and the peace in his heart.He was as simple as a child.As he performed his heavy tasks, he sang, in a harsh voice, hymns which made the child tremble and dream.He murmured, in a gravely joyous tone--"Tell us, Mary, what thou hast seen where thou hast been?

I saw the shroud and the linen cloths, and the angels seated on the tomb.

And I saw the glory of the Risen One."

She asked him--"Father, why do you sing about angels seated on a tomb?"And he replied--

"Little light of my eyes, I sing of the angels because Jesus, our Lord, is risen to heaven."Ahmes was a Christian.He had been baptised, and was known as Theodore at the meetings of the faithful, to which he went secretly during the hours allowed him for sleep.

At that time the Church was suffering the severest trials.By order of the Emperor, the churches had been thrown down, the holy books burned, the sacred vessels and candlesticks melted.The Christians had been deprived of all their honours, and expected nothing but death.Terror reigned over all the community at Alexandria, and the prisons were crammed with victims.It was whispered with horror amongst the faithful, that in Syria, in Arabia, in Mesopotamia, in Cappadocia, in all the empire, bishops and virgins had been flogged, tortured, crucified or thrown to wild beasts.Then Anthony, already celebrated for his visions and his solitary life, a prophet, and the head of all the Egyptian believers, descended like an eagle from his desert rock on the city of Alexandria, and, flying from church to church, fired the whole community with his holy ardour.Invisible to the pagans, he was present at the same time at all the meetings of Christians, endowing all with the spirit of strength and prudence by which he was animated.Slaves, in particular, were persecuted with singular severity.Many of them, seized with fright, denied the faith.Others, and by far the greater number, fled to the desert, hoping to live there, either as hermits or robbers.Ahmes, however, frequented the meetings as usual, visited the prisoners, buried the martyrs, and joyfully professed the religion of Christ.The great Anthony, who saw his unshaken zeal, before he returned into the desert, pressed the black slave in his arms, and gave him the kiss of peace.

When Thais was seven years old, Ahmes began to talk to her of God.