But, Alas, Under The Profaned Columns A Crowd Of
People Passes, With /Baedekers/ In Their Hands, The Same People That
One Sees Here Everywhere, The Same World As Frequents Nice And The
Riviera.
And, to crown the mockery, the noise of the dynamos pursues
us even here, for the boats of Messrs.
Cook are moored to the bank
close by.
Hundreds of columns, columns which are anterior by many centuries to
those of Greece, and represent, in their naïve enormity, the first
conceptions of the human brain. Some are fluted and give the
impression of sheaves of monstrous weeds; others, quite plain and
simple, imitate the stem of the papyrus, and bear by way of capital
its strange flower. The tourists, like the flies, enter at certain
times of the day, which it suffices to know. Soon the little bells of
the hotels will call them away and the hour of midday will find me
here alone. But what in heaven's name will deliver me from the noise
of the dynamos? But look! beyond there, at the bottom of the
sanctuaries, in the part which should be the holy of holies, that
great fresco, now half effaced, but still clearly visible on the wall
- how unexpected and arresting it is! An image of Christ! Christ
crowned with the Byzantine aureole. It has been painted on a coarse
plaster, which seems to have been added by an unskilful hand, and is
wearing off and exposing the hieroglyphs beneath. . . . This temple,
in fact, almost indestructible by reason of its massiveness, has
passed through the hands of diverse masters.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 123 of 206
Words from 33146 to 33412
of 55391
