he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
light in his eyes.

The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.

But his words were not forgotten. In the noise and tumult of the
daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
Bring the light inside!"

Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
Pyramid. He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
goat of the desert which furnished him with milk. And as he kept
always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun. Both
were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah. The
hermit was one who had surely reversed things--shadow without and light
within. When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
cave-dweller in order to find wisdom. At first the old man would not
let him come in. What had young blood to do with wisdom?

"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
writings."

The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying? I want it for
living."