As We Descended The Sandy Pathway We Were Not Slow To Perceive The
Sphinx Itself, Half Hill, Half Couchant Beast,
Turning its back upon
us in the attitude of a gigantic dog, that thought to bay the moon;
its head
Stood out in dark silhouette, like a screen before the light
it seemed to be regarding, and the lappets of its headgear showed like
downhanging ears. And then gradually, as we walked on, we saw it in
profile, shorn of its nose - flat-nosed like a death's head - but having
already an expression even when seen afar off and from the side;
already disdainful with thrust-out chin and baffling, mysterious
smile. And when at length we arrived before the colossal visage, face
to face with it - without however encountering its gaze, which passed
high above our heads - there came over us at once the sentiment of all
the secret thought which these men of old contrived to incorporate and
make eternal behind this mutilated mask.
But in full daylight their great Sphinx is no more. It has ceased as
it were to exist. It is so scarred by time, and by the hands of
iconoclasts; so dilapidated, broken and diminished, that it is as
inexpressive as the crumbling mummies found in the sarcophagi, which
no longer even ape humanity. But after the manner of all phantoms it
comes to life again at night, beneath the enchantments of the moon.
For the men of its time whom did it represent? King Amenemhat? The Sun
God? Who can rightly tell? Of all hieroglyphic images it remains the
one least understood. The unfathomable thinkers of Egypt symbolised
everything for the benefit of the uninitiated under the form of awe-
inspiring figures of the gods; and it may be, perhaps, that, after
having meditated so deeply in the shadow of their temples, and sought
so long the everlasting wherefore of life and death, they wished
simply to sum up in the smile of these closed lips the vanity of the
most profound of our human speculations. . . . It is said that the
Sphinx was once of striking beauty, when harmonious contour and
colouring animated the face, and it was enthroned at its full height
on a kind of esplanade paved with long slabs of stone. But was it then
more sovereign than it is to-night in its last decrepitude? Almost
buried beneath the sand of the Libyan desert, which now quite hides
its base, it rises at this hour like a phantom which nothing solid
sustains in the air.
*****
It has gone midnight. In little groups the tourists of the evening
have disappeared; to regain perhaps the neighbouring hotel, where the
orchestra doubtless has not ceased to rage; or may be, remounting
their cars, to join, in some club of Cairo, one of those bridge
parties, in which the really superior intellects of our time delight;
some - the stouthearted ones - departed talking loudly and with cigar in
mouth; others, however, daunted in spite of themselves, lowered their
voices as people instinctively do in church.
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