On a Balcony by David Stacton Page B

produce only girls, and she made no secret of the fact that she was giving Smenkara the education proper to a crown prince.
    She even consoled with Nefertiti. She offered sympathy ;and subtly, she brought forward Tadukhipa, who blinked and giggled and seemed astonished to be rescued from obscurity. As Nefertiti could see, Tadukhipa had been receiving a great deal of attention. She was thinner. She was cleaner. Her Egyptian had improved . And she, too, it seemed, had suddenly become interested in the Aton cult.
    Nefertiti sent for Meryra at once. And certainly, though Meryra was not without scruples, he had much to be grateful for. She thought he would see to the matter.
    Meanwhile the prince was restive. After all, life was not so pleasant. He might be Pharaoh, but so was his father. Everywhere he looked he saw temples of his father’s building. And though the world bowed down to him, he did not altogether like the way the world smiled when it did so. He had the pomp and nothing more. He could do anything, and yet what was there he could do?
    Sometimes, it was true, he went to see Tutmose.
    But these days Tutmose annoyed him, too. He had never thought life particularly real, but revelation had not come, and he found being a god was much like being a man. When one’s illusions turn into illusions, this is called facing up to reality. But really, reality is nothing but a mirror in which we cannot even see ourselves . In those circumstances Tutmose fascinated him to the point of despair.
    Like any artist, Tutmose was a magician, for the transmutation of metals and of the emotions are similar studies. Half of one’s life is devoted to what one can do; half to an endless search for what one cannot. In addition to this, he was curious, and curiosity has neither morals nor compunction.
    When people have everything, life is little more than a search for a further ingredient. Compared to the boredom of that, the painful search for technique isaltogether enviable. For at least it can succeed, whereas the endless search for something beyond technique is almost always doomed.
    Apparently, Tutmose saw, the prince did not even know he was a religious fanatic. Perhaps he was not yet sufficiently bored to become one, since one turns to religion out of boredom, in so far as if one knows everything , the unknowable suddenly becomes extremely attractive. It was time to hurry the process up. That was Meryra’s duty, not his, but he had no objection to taking a hand in things. The trouble with Meryra was that he had no creative imagination and scholars rouse nobody.
    It never even crossed Tutmose’s mind that to play with people is sometimes dangerous, for he knew very little about them, except as subject matter. To him they were only scale models of what he was about to do next. He was tired of doing studies in disillusionment. What he wanted now was a man in the grips of faith.
    Yet the prince admired these facile masks. “Why can I not do that?” he demanded. “I tell my artists what to make. I have even used a brush to show them. But it is they who do it. Why is that?”
    It was a question best left unanswered. “It is not your medium. A king fights wars and founds cities,” said Tutmose absent-mindedly. He would rather the prince talk about religion. When he talked about religion his eyes lit up. Besides, it was extremely unwise to tell Pharaoh anything. At the most, one could suggest.
    The prince went away thoughtful and entranced. Of course. Thebes was not his city. It was not even his father’s city, though it was full of his father’s works. It was Amon’s city. Pharaoh’s city would be different. Pharaoh’s city would be Aton’s city. No one would be able to interfere with Pharaoh there. He brought the matter up with Meryra.
    They were discussing the doctrine of effective personality .It helped to pass the time. The doctrine of effective personality was that once one was dead, one’s soul might become anything one