[3] The centenarian pharaoh Ramses is breathing his last, "his chest... invested by a stifling incubus [that drains] the blood from his heart, the strength from his arm, and at times even the consciousness from his brain."

Behold, human hopes are vain before the decrees that the Eternal writes in fiery signs upon the heavens.The inspiration for the short story was investigated in a 1962 paper by the foremost Prus scholar, Zygmunt Szweykowski.

In late October 1887, Germany's first modern emperor, the warlike Kaiser Wilhelm I, had taken cold during a hunt and soon appeared to be at death's door; by November 2 a rumor spread that he had died.

Prince Frederick had been an object of lively interest among progressive Europeans, who hoped that his eventual reign would bring a broad-based parliamentary system, democratic freedoms, peace, and equal rights for non-German nationalities, including Poles, within the German Empire.

Szweykowski points out that the "Legend's" contrast between the despotic centenarian Pharaoh Ramses and his humane grandson and successor Horus was, in its historic German prototypes, doubled, with Prince Frederick actually facing two antagonists: his father, Kaiser Wilhelm I, and the "Iron Chancellor", Otto von Bismarck.

Bolesław Prus, who in his "Weekly Chronicles" frequently touched on political events in Germany, devoted much of his December 4, 1887, column to Prince Frederick and his illness.

"In putting Horus to death while Prince Frederick still lived, Prus anticipated events, but he erred only in details, not in the essence of the matter, which was meant to document the idea that 'human hopes are vain before the order of the world.'

Frederick III survived his father by only 99 days, dying at Potsdam on June 15, 1888, and leaving the German throne to his bellicose son Wilhelm II, who a quarter-century later would help launch World War I.

The connection between the German dynastic events and the genesis of Prus' "Legend of Old Egypt" was recognized in the Polish press already in 1888, even before Frederick's accession to short-lived impotent power, by a pseudonymous writer who styled himself "Logarithmus.

"[6] As Szweykowski observes, "the direct connection between the short story and political events in contemporaneous Germany doubtless opens new suggestions for the genesis of Pharaoh.

"[9] "A Legend of Old Egypt," published in 1888, shows unmistakable kinships in setting, theme and denouement with Prus' 1895 novel Pharaoh, for which the short story served as a preliminary sketch.