Daughter of Akhenaten

She woke up suddenly, as if someone had awakened her. But who could have done that? Throughout that immense country, there was not a single person bold enough to disturb her peace. After all, she was an earthly goddess—just as her husband, the great and mighty ruler of Egypt, Pharaoh Tutankhamun, was an earthly god.

It was the sunbeams that woke her. They slipped between the green branches of the mandrake, lit up the colorful wall paintings and the majestic sculptures of the royal chambers.

When they danced upon the backrest of the golden couch, a gentle, warm ray touched the closed eyelashes of a young beauty.

She opened her eyes, listened to the melodic trickle of water—the faint sound of it falling into a stone basin—looked at the fresh lotuses whose pink petals spread out in a blue faience vase, and suddenly her gaze stopped on a magnificent chair glittering with gilding in the rays of the morning sun.

That chair was here completely unexpectedly, though she had long been expecting it and had asked many times how soon the artist would finish his work. She sprang up, slipped her feet into light, thin, gold-colored leather sandals, ran to the chair, and joyfully laughed.

Everything she had asked for had been done—better still, more beautiful. She sank onto a carpet of young leopard skins and, sitting on her haunches, began to study the leather backrest of the chair, decorated with golden embossing and colorful inlay.

“Truly he is a magician and a wizard!” she exclaimed, touching the image with her fingers. “How did he manage it? How did he remember our faces? He made them as if each of us were looking into a silver mirror!”