The Pyramid by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online Page A

more than for the preceding stones, but perhaps it was the expectant anxiety rather than the actual presence of the stones that prompted the Grim Reaper to greater vigor. That was what people spread around, but no one really got to know the truth of the matter: how can you know whether the evil engendered by an object comes after it, alongside it, or, like a running dog, ahead of it? Hopes ran high that the eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-first stone would bring respite, since the series of evil-veined blocks was now finished; but it only secreted an even more unbearable atmosphere in which a great number of mostly nameless workmen died in silence, like flies. The eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-second stone (from the El Bersheh quarry) was being maneuvered into place when the chief inspector of the pyramid arrived and had the superintendent of the west face whipped in front of the whole workforce. This corporal punishment, which prematurely hastened the superintendent’s way to the other world, was justified, so people said, by the slow progress of the work. However, it was soon learned that similar punishments had been meted out on the three other faces, in the main quarries, and on the four desert roads used by the caravans that were supposed to hasten the transport and delivery of the stones, as indeed they did. But what had not been foreseen was the sinister rumor resulting from the acceleration of the building work. It was really the blackest of rumors, one of the most destructive that could be imagined. It got about that the feverish haste and impatience to complete the royal tomb only proved what the State had used every effort to hush up: that the Pharaoh was ill. A whole armory of repressive measures was therefore assembled: death sentences., strangling, torture, and even the dispatch of public criers throughout the land to deny the rumor, which, as usually happens in such circumstances, did not die down, but spread and swelled all the more, So, during the installation of the eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-third and the eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-fourth stones, both from the Elephantine quarry, a very peculiar situation developed, People did not know what to do: to expedite their work at a time when intemperate zeal could be seen as a way of supporting the rumor, or to slacken off, even though their bodies were striped with welts from whippings and other punishments meted out for just such slackness. Some said it was better to carry on working as if they knew nothing; others thought the opposite, that of the two evils, slowing down was the lesser. It seems that the majority were of the second opinion, since a wave of indolence was observed throughout the whole project: the movement of the stones through the desert slowed down by the day, as did their installation. The builders themselves became ever more languid, not just in their working movements but in their whole manner and bearings in the way they turned their heads, or spoke, or even breathed. It was plain to see: sometimes the whole workforce looked as though it were on the point of dozing off. The eleven thousand three hundred and ninety-fifth stone and its successor would thus come to be known as the sluggards’ stones. The foreman and superintendents no doubt noticed it gloomily, but none dared raise his whip to demand more application to the task, for that could easily have rebounded on them. So the mood of relative apathy continued, and, despite appearances, it concealed genuine disquiet. People discussed the pyramid more than ever before, talking of its imposing dimensions, of its shape, of the huge number of stones that it would consume. It was hard to decide whether these topics of conversation had their roots in the general chatter going round the baking-hot radius of the four great slopes, that is to say whether these topics were already known to everyone, or whether, on the contrary, they had previously