"I ought no longer to
be here, but it seems I do not know anything.
I do not know even how
to die!" The grey, tall houses of Old Cairo do not know how to die. So
there they stand, showing their haggard facades, which are broken by
protruding, worm-eaten, wooden lattices not unlike the shaggy,
protuberant eyebrows which sometimes sprout above bleared eyes that
have seen too much. No one looked out from these lattices. Was there,
could there be, any life behind them? Did they conceal harems of
centenarian women with wrinkled faces, and corrugated necks and hands?
Here and there drooped down a string terminating in a lamp covered
with minute dust, that wavered in the wintry wind which stole
tremulously between the houses. And the houses seemed to be leaning
forward, as if they were fain to touch each other and leave no place
for the wind, as if they would blot out the exiguous alleys so that no
life should ever venture to stir through them again. Did the eyes of
the Virgin Mary, did the baby eyes of the Christ Child, ever gaze upon
these buildings? One could almost believe it. One could almost believe
that already these buildings were there when, fleeing from the wrath
of Herod, Mother and Child sought the shelter of the crypt of Abu
Sargah.
I went on, walking with precaution, and presently I saw a man. He was
sitting collapsed beneath an archway, and he looked older than the
world.
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