On This Easter Morning, Having Set Out From The Cairo Of To-Day To Be
Present At This Mass, We
Have first to traverse a suburb in course of
transformation, upon whose ancient soil will shortly appear numbers of
these
Modern horrors, in mud and metal - factories or large hotels -
which multiply in this poor land with a stupefying rapidity. Then
comes a mile or so of uncultivated ground, mixed with stretches of
sand, and already a little desertlike. And then the walls of Old
Cairo; after which begins the peace of the deserted houses, of little
gardens and orchards among the ruins. The wind and the dust beset us
the whole way, the almost eternal wind and the eternal dust of this
land, by which, since the beginning of the ages, so many human eyes
have been burnt beyond recovery. They keep us now in blinding
whirlwinds, which swarm with flies. The "season" indeed is already
over, and the foreign invaders have fled until next autumn. Egypt is
now more Egyptian, beneath a more burning sky. The sun of this Easter
Sunday is as hot as ours of July, and the ground seems as if it would
perish of drought. But it is always thus in the springtime of this
rainless country; the trees, which have kept their leaves throughout
the winter, shed them in April as ours do in November. There is no
shade anywhere and everything suffers. Everything grows yellow on the
yellow sands. But there is no cause for uneasiness: the inundation is
at hand, which has never failed since the commencement of our
geological period. In another few weeks the prodigious river will
spread along its banks, just as in the times of the God Amen, a
precocious and impetuous life. And meanwhile the orange-trees, the
jasmine and the honeysuckle, which men have taken care to water with
water from the Nile, are full of riotous bloom. As we pass the gardens
of Old Cairo, which alternate with the tumbling houses, this continual
cloud of white dust that envelops us comes suddenly laden with their
sweet fragrance; so that, despite the drought and the bareness of the
trees, the scents of a sudden and feverish springtime are already in
the air.
When we arrive at the walls of what used to be the Roman citadel we
have to descend from our carriage, and passing through a low doorway
penetrate on foot into the labyrinth of a Coptic quarter which is
dying of dust and old age. Deserted houses that have become the
refuges of outcasts; mushrabiyas, worm-eaten and decayed; little
mousetrap alleys that lead us under arches of the Middle Ages, and
sometimes close over our heads by reason of the fantastic bending of
the ruins. Even by such a route as this are we conducted to a famous
basilica! Were it not for these groups of Copts, dressed in their
Sunday garb, who make their way like us through the ruins to the
Easter mass, we should think that we had lost our way.
And how pretty they look, these women draped like phantoms in their
black silks. Their long veils do not completely hide them, as do those
of the Moslems. They are simply placed over their hair and leave
uncovered the delicate features, the golden necklet and the half-bared
arms that carry on their wrists thick twisted bracelets of virgin
gold. Pure Egyptians as they are, they have preserved the same
delicate profile, the same elongated eyes, as mark the old goddesses
carved in bas-relief on the Pharaonic walls. But some, alas, amongst
the young ones have discarded their traditional costume, and are
arrayed /a la franque/, in gowns and hats. And such gowns, such hats,
such flowers! The very peasants of our meanest villages would disdain
them. Oh! why cannot someone tell these poor little women, who have it
in their power to be so adorable, that the beautiful folds of their
black veils give to them an exquisite and characteristic distinction,
while this poor tinsel, which recalls the mid-Lent carnivals, makes of
them objects that excite our pity!
In one of the walls which now surround us there is a low and shrinking
doorway. Can this be the entrance to the basilica? The idea seems
absurd. And yet some of the pretty creatures in the black veils and
bracelets of gold, who were in front of us, have disappeared through
it, and already the perfume of the censers is wafted towards us. A
kind of corridor, astonishingly poor and old, twists itself
suspiciously, and then issues into a narrow court, more than a
thousand years old, where offertory boxes, fixed on Oriental brackets,
invite our alms. The odour of the incense becomes more pronounced, and
at last a door, hidden in shadow at the end of this retreat, gives
access to the venerable church itself.
The church! It is a mixture of Byzantine basilica, mosque and desert
hut. Entering there, it is as if we were introduced suddenly to the
naïve infancy of Christianity, as if we surprised it, as it were, in
its cradle - which was indeed Oriental. The triple nave is full of
little children (here also, that is what strikes us first), of little
mites who cry or else laugh and play; and there are mothers suckling
their new-born babes - and all the time the invisible mass is being
celebrated beyond, behind the iconostasis. On the ground, on mats,
whole families are seated in circle, as if they were in their homes. A
thick deposit of white chalk on the defaced, shrunken walls bears
witness to great age. And over all this is a strange old ceiling of
cedarwood, traversed by large barbaric beams.
In the nave, supported by columns of marble, brought in days gone by
from Pagan temples, there are, as in all these old Coptic churches,
high transverse wooden partitions, elaborately wrought in the Arab
fashion, which divide it into three sections:
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