8
" We had gone but a few steps when we could hear the sounds of a great uproar— and a group of the servants cut across our path. We saw that they were holding a Sa‘idi man, an Upper Egyptian, by his collar, giving him a sound beating with their fists. They dragged him roughly up to the Pasha, and one of them said, “Your Excellency, we caught this thief stealing Beamish’s food.”
I knew Beamish quite well—he was the Pasha’s beloved dog, the most precious creature of God to his heart after his wife and children. He lived a spoiled and honored life in the Pasha’s palace—attended by the staff and servants, and visited by a veterinarian once every month. Each day he was presented with meat, bones, milk, and broth—this wasn’t the first time that the Sa‘idis had pounced on Beamish’s lunch.
The thief was an unmixed Upper Egyptian, marked by the looks of the ancients themselves. It was clear from his dress that he was wretchedly poor. The Pasha fixed him with a vicious stare, interrogating him gruffly, “Whatever induced you to violate the sanctity of my home?”
The man replied in fervent entreaty, panting from his efforts to fight off the servants, “I was starving, Your Excellency, when I saw the cooked meat scattered on the grass. My resistance failed me—I haven’t tasted meat since the Feast of the Sacrifice!”
Turning to me, the Pasha exclaimed, “Do you see the difference between your unfortunates and ours? Your poor are propelled by hunger into stealing baguettes, while ours will settle for nothing less than cooked meat. "
― Naguib Mahfouz , Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales
13
" What could not be doubted is that Death is neither painful nor terrifying, as mortals imagine. If they knew the truth about it, they would seek it out as they do well-aged wine, preferring it over all others. For it is not regret or sadness that grips the dying person. Rather, life appears as something paltry and unimportant when one intuits on the horizon that divine and joyous light. I was shackled with fetters, then they were smashed. I was trapped inside a vessel, then I was set free. I was intensely heavy on the earth, then I shed my bonds and was rid of my weight. My form was narrow, then I stretched everywhere outward without any bounds. My senses were limited, then each faculty changed utterly; I could see all and I could hear all and I could comprehend all, and I could perceive all at once what was above me and below me and around me—as if I had left my body sprawled before me to take from Creation an entirely new one. "
― Naguib Mahfouz , Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales
