We Can See, Beyond, The Old Sacred Nile Between The Clusters Of Palm-
Trees On Its Banks; Meandering There Like A Rosy Pathway, Which
Remains, Nevertheless, In This Hour Of Universal Incandescence,
Astonishingly Pale, And Gleams Occasionally With A Bluish Light.
And
on the farther bank, from one end to the other of the western horizon,
stretches the chain of
The Libyan mountains behind which the sun is
about to plunge; a chain of red sandstone, parched since the beginning
of the world - without a rival in the preservation to perpetuity of
dead bodies - which the Thebans perforated to its extreme depths to
fill it with sarcophagi.
We watch the sun descend. But we turn also to see, behind us, the
ruins in this the traditional moment of their apotheosis. Thebes, the
immense town-mummy, seems all at once to be ablaze - as if its old
stones were able still to burn; all its blocks, fallen or upright,
appear to have been suddenly made ruddy by the glow of fire.
On this side, too, the view embraces great peaceful distances. Past
the last pylons, and beyond the crumbling ramparts the country, down
there behind the town, presents the same appearance as that we were
facing a moment before. The same cornfields, the same woods of date-
trees, that make a girdle of green palms around the ruins. And, right
in the background, a chain of mountains is lit up and glows with a
vivid coral colour. It is the chain of the Arabian desert, lying
parallel to that of Libya, along the whole length of the Nile Valley -
which is thus guarded on right and left by stones and sand stretched
out in profound solitudes.
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