And
Hieroglyphs, Too, Repeated To Infinity, Envelop You On All Sides Like
A Multiple Woof Of Mystery.
*****
Minute by minute now, everything amongst these rigid dead things grows
more precise.
Cold, hard rays penetrate through the immense ruin,
separating with a sharp incisiveness the light from the shadows. The
feeling that these stones, wearied as they were with their long
duration, might still be thoughtful, still mindful of their past,
grows less - less than it was a few moments before, far less than
during the preceding blue phantasmagoria. Under this clear, pale
light, as in the daytime, under the fire of the sun, Thebes has lost
for the moment whatever remained to it of soul; it has receded farther
into the backward of time, and appears now nothing more than a vast
gigantic fossil that excites only our wonder and our fear.
*****
But the tourists will soon be here, attracted by the moon. A league
away, in the hotels of Luxor, I can fancy how they have hurried away
from the tables, for fear of missing the celebrated spectacle. For me,
therefore, it is time to beat a retreat, and, by the great avenue
again, I direct my steps towards the pylons of the Ptolemies, where
the night guards are waiting.
They are busy already, these Bedouins, in opening the gates for some
tourists, who have shown their permits, and who carry Kodaks,
magnesium to light up the temples - quite an outfit in short.
Farther on, when I have taken the road to Luxor, it is not long before
I meet, under the palm-trees and on the sands, the crowd, the main
body of the arrivals - some in carriages, some on horseback, some on
donkeys.
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