THREE DAYS LATER, on his birthday, Pharaoh gave a feast for the high nobility, and he summoned the chief butler and the chief baker. He restored the chief butler to his former position, forgiving his peccadillo and welcoming him back with great warmth, and he had the chief baker hanged, just as Joseph had foretold.
Though the butler had fully intended to keep his promise, he gave no further thought to Joseph. He had been grateful to the handsome young barbarian for easing his mind during the last three days of the horrible captivity, and he would have been glad to do something for him. But the exhilaration of being back in Pharaoh’s good graces, the joy of returning home to his wife and children and to the pleasures of court life, the feasts, the elaborate ceremonies in which his own movements were choreographed down to the minutest details, the horse racing, the hunting, the masques and musical entertainments, the flirtations with young women who were witty or pretty or both, the palace intrigues, the latest gossip about who was in and who was out—all this drowned out his promise like the din of a large crowd.
In fact, he did everything he could to avoid revisiting those months he had spent in prison under the heavy weight of his master’s displeasure. It was too painful, and why should he purposely invite pain into his mind, now that he was back in the full current of life? Whenever a fleeting image of those months did appear, the young barbarian wasn’t in it. All the butler could see was the bare cell with its wretched cot and himself pacing back and forth like a caged beast.