Pharos and Pharillon by E.M. Forster

During the last years of their lives the old King and Queen had seldom left the Palace. They sought seclusion, though for different reasons. The King, who was gay and shy, did not wish his pleasures to be observed. He had gathered a suitable circle of friends round him, and was content. There was Agathocles-who, by the way, was Prime Minister; there was Agathoclea-who, by the way, was the little prince's nurse; there was Œnanthe, the mother of the two A. 's, an elderly but accomplished woman who knew how to shampoo. And there were one or two more, for instance the wife of a forage contractor who would say to the King, "Here, Daddy, drink this. " The King liked young women who called him Daddy; and he drank, and when he had drunk enough he would get up and dance, the others danced too, he would fall down, it was all delightful. But it was not a delight he desired his subjects to witness.

The Queen employed herself otherwise. Shut up in her own apartments, she meditated on the past. She thought of all the years when she had been on trial: the King had never cared for her, and, though negotiating for the marriage, had kept her waiting. Then came the Battle of Rafa. The Syrians were invading Egypt, and just as the Egyptian army was breaking she had ridden forth among the elephants, her hair streaming, her colour high, and had turned defeat into victory. She became the popular heroine, and he married her. But for nine years they had had no child. She could see no hope anywhere. The child had come, but the situation had not changed. Months passed, and still she sat in the Palace enclosure-the Fortress inside the fortress of the Royal City-and looked from the promontory that we now call Silsileh across the harbour to Pharos, and over the unvarying expanse of the sea.