The Mummys Foot | Page 4

which dwelt upon the banks of the Nile.
Her arms, slender and spindle-shaped like those of very young girls,
were encircled by a peculiar kind of metal bands and bracelets of glass
beads; her hair was all twisted into little cords, and she wore upon her
bosom a little idol-figure of green paste, bearing a whip with seven

lashes, which proved it to be an image of Isis; her brow was adorned
with a shining plate of gold, and a few traces of paint relieved the
coppery tint of her cheeks.
As for her costume, it was very odd indeed.
Fancy a pagne, or skirt, all formed of little strips of material bedizened
with red and black hieroglyphics, stiffened with bitumen, and
apparently belonging to a freshly unbandaged mummy.
In one of those sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard
the hoarse falsetto of the bric-à-brac dealer, repeating like a
monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so
enigmatical an intonation:
'Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased He loved his daughter, the dear
man!'
One strange circumstance, which was not at all calculated to restore my
equanimity, was that the apparition had but one foot; the other was
broken off at the ankle!
She approached the table where the foot was starting and fidgeting
about more than ever, and there supported herself upon the edge of the
desk. I saw her eyes fill with pearly gleaming tears.
Although she had not as yet spoken, I fully comprehended the thoughts
which agitated her. She looked at her foot--for it was indeed her
own--with an exquisitely graceful expression of coquettish sadness, but
the foot leaped and ran hither and thither, as though impelled on steel
springs.
Twice or thrice she extended her hand to seize it, but could not succeed.
Then commenced between the Princess Hermonthis and her
foot--which appeared to be endowed with a special life of its own--a
very fantastic dialogue in a most ancient Coptic tongue, such as might
have been spoken thirty centuries ago in the syrinxes of the land of Ser.

Luckily I understood Coptic perfectly well that night.
The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweet and vibrant as the
tones of a crystal bell:
'Well, my dear little foot, you always flee from me, yet I always took
good care of you. I bathed you with perfumed water in a bowl of
alabaster; I smoothed your heel with pumice-stone mixed with palm-oil;
your nails were cut with golden scissors and polished with a
hippopotamus tooth; I was careful to select tatbebs for you, painted and
embroidered and turned up at the toes, which were the envy of all the
young girls in Egypt. You wore on your great toe rings bearing the
device of the sacred Scarabseus, and you supported one of the lightest
bodies that a lazy foot could sustain.'
The foot replied in a pouting and chagrined tone:
'You know well that I do not belong to myself any longer. I have been
bought and paid for. The old merchant knew what he was about. He
bore you a grudge for having refused to espouse him. This is an ill turn
which he has done you. The Arab who violated your royal coffin in the
subterranean pits of the necropolis of Thebes was sent thither by him.
He desired to prevent you from being present at the reunion of the
shadowy nations in the cities below. Have you five pieces of gold for
my ransom?'
'Alas, no! My jewels, my rings, my purses of gold and silver were all
stolen from me,' answered the Princess Hermonthis with a sob.
'Princess,' I then exclaimed, 'I never retained anybody's foot unjustly.
Even though you have not got the five louis which it cost me, I present
it to you gladly. I should feel unutterably wretched to think that I were
the cause of so amiable a person as the Princess Hermonthis being
lame.'
I delivered this discourse in a royally gallant, troubadour tone which
must have astonished the beautiful Egyptian girl.

She turned a look of deepest gratitude upon me, and her eyes shone
with bluish gleams of light.
She took her foot, which surrendered itself willingly this time, like a
woman about to put on her little shoe, and adjusted it to her leg with
much skill.
This operation over, she took a few steps about the room, as though to
assure herself that she was really no longer lame.
'Ah, how pleased my father will be! He who was so unhappy because
of my mutilation, and who from the moment of my birth set a whole
nation at work to hollow me out a tomb so deep that he might preserve
me intact until that last day when