Under the chin of the cow there is a
standing statue of the King Mentu-Hotep, and beneath her the king
kneels as a boy.
Wonderfully expressive and solemnly refined is the
cow's face, which is of dark color, like the color of almost black
earth - earth fertilized by the Nile. Dignified, dominating, almost but
just not stern, strongly intelligent, and, through its beautiful
intelligence, entirely sympathetic ("to understand all, is to pardon
all"), this face, once thoroughly seen, completely noticed, can never
be forgotten. This is one of the most beautiful statues in the world.
When I was at Deir-el-Bahari I thought of it and wished that it still
stood there near the Colonnades of Thebes under the tiger-colored
precipices. And then I thought of Hatshepsu. Surely she would not
brook a rival to-day near the temple which she made - a rival long lost
and long forgotten. Is not her influence still there upon the terraced
platforms, among the apricot and the white columns, near the paintings
of the land of Punt? Did it not whisper to the antiquaries, even to
the soldiers from Cairo, who guarded the Vache-Hathor in the night, to
make haste to take her away far from the hills of Thebes and from the
Nile's long southern reaches, that the great queen might once more
reign alone? They obeyed. Hatshepsu was appeased. And, like a delicate
woman, perfumed and arranged, clothed in a creation of white and blue
and orange, standing ever so knowingly against a background of orange
and pink, of red and of brown-red, she rules at Deir-el-Bahari.
XIII
THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS
On the way to the tombs of the kings I went to the temple of Kurna,
that lonely cenotaph, with its sand-colored massive façade, its heaps
of fallen stone, its wide and ruined doorway, its thick, almost rough,
columns recalling Medinet-Abu. There is not very much to see, but from
there one has a fine view of other temples - of the Ramesseum, looking
superb, like a grand skeleton; of Medinet-Abu, distant, very pale gold
in the morning sunlight; of little Deir-al-Medinet, the pretty child
of the Ptolemies, with the heads of the seven Hathors. And from Kurna
the Colossi are exceptionally grand and exceptionally personal, so
personal that one imagines one sees the expressions of the faces that
they no longer possess.
Even if you do not go into the tombs - but you will go - you must ride
to the tombs of the kings; and you must, if you care for the finesse
of impressions, ride on a blazing day and toward the hour of noon.
Then the ravine is itself, like the great act that demonstrates a
temperament. It is the narrow home of fire, hemmed in by brilliant
colors, nearly all - perhaps quite all - of which could be found in a
glowing furnace. Every shade of yellow is there - lemon yellow, sulphur
yellow, the yellow of amber, the yellow of orange with its tendency
toward red, the yellow of gold, sand color, sun color. Cannot all
these yellows be found in a fire? And there are the reds - pink of the
carnation, pink of the coral, red of the little rose that grows in
certain places of sands, red of the bright flame's heart. And all
these colors are mingled in complete sterility. And all are fused into
a fierce brotherhood by the sun. and like a flood, they seem flowing
to the red and the yellow mountains, like a flood that is flowing to
its sea. You are taken by them toward the mountains, on and on, till
the world is closing in, and you know the way must come to an end. And
it comes to an end - in a tomb.
You go to a door in the rock, and a guardian lets you in, and wants to
follow you in. Prevent him if you can. Pay him. Go in alone. For this
is the tomb of Amenhotep II.; and he himself is here, far down, at
rest under the mountain, this king who lived and reigned more than
fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. The ravine-valley
leads to him, and you should go to him alone. He lies in the heart of
the living rock, in the dull heat of the earth's bowels, which is like
no other heat. You descend by stairs and corridors, you pass over a
well by a bridge, you pass through a naked chamber; and the king is
not there. And you go on down another staircase, and along another
corridor, and you come into a pillared chamber, with paintings on its
walls, and on its pillars, paintings of the king in the presence of
the gods of the underworld, under stars in a soft blue sky. And below
you, shut in on the farther side by the solid mountain in whose breast
you have all this time been walking, there is a crypt. And you turn
away from the bright paintings, and down there you see the king.
Many years ago in London I went to the private view of the Royal
Academy at Burlington House. I went in the afternoon, when the
galleries were crowded with politicians and artists, with dealers,
gossips, quidnuncs, and /flaneurs/; with authors, fashionable lawyers,
and doctors; with men and women of the world; with young dandies and
actresses /en vogue/. A roar of voices went up to the roof. Every one
was talking, smiling, laughing, commenting, and criticizing. It was a
little picture of the very worldly world that loves the things of
to-day and the chime of the passing hours. And suddenly some people
near me were silent, and some turned their heads to stare with a
strangely fixed attention. And I saw coming toward me an emaciated
figure, rather bent, much drawn together, walking slowly on legs like
sticks.
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