By steep staircases, by passages which slope so
rapidly that they hurry us along of themselves, like slides; and it
seems that we shall never ascend again, any more than the great mummy
who passed here so long ago on his way to his eternal chamber.
All
this brings us, first of all, to a deep well - dug there to swallow up
the desecrators in their passage - and it is on one of the sides of
this oubliette, behind a casual stone carefully sealed, that the
continuation of these funeral galleries was discovered. Then, when we
have passed the well, by a narrow bridge that has been thrown across
it, the stairs begin again, and the steep passages that almost make
you run; but now, by a sharp bend, they have changed their direction.
And still we descend, descend. Heavens! how deep down this king
dwells! And at each step of our descent we feel more and more
imprisoned under the sovereign mass of stone, in the centre of all
this compact and silent thickness.
*****
The little electric globes, placed apart like a garland, suffice now
for our eyes which have forgotten the sun. And we can distinguish
around us myriad figures inviting us to solemnity and silence. They
are inscribed everywhere on the smooth, spotless walls of the colour
of old ivory. They follow one another in regular order, repeating
themselves obstinately in parallel rows, as if the better to impose
upon our spirit, with gestures and symbols that are eternally the
same. The gods and demons, the representatives of Anubis, with his
black jackal's head and his long erect ears, seem to make signs to us
with their long arms and long fingers: "No noise! Look, there are
mummies here!" The wonderful preservation of all this, the vivid
colours, the clearness of the outlines, begin to cause a kind of
stupor and bewilderment. Verily you would think that the painter of
these figures of the shades had only just quitted the hypogeum. All
this past seems to draw you to itself like an abyss to which you have
approached too closely. It surrounds you, and little by little masters
you. It is so much at home here that it has /remained the present/.
Over and above the mere descent into the secret bowels of the rock
there has been a kind of seizure with vertigo, which we had not
anticipated and which has whirled us far away into the depths of the
ages.
These interminable, oppressive passages, by which we have crawled to
the innermost depths of the mountain, lead at length to something
vast, the walls divide, the vault expands and we are in the great
funeral hall, of which the blue ceiling, all bestrewn with stars like
the sky, is supported by six pillars hewn in the rock itself. On
either side open other chambers into which the electricity permits us
to see quite clearly, and opposite, at the end of the hall, a large
crypt is revealed, which one divines instinctively must be the
resting-place of the Pharaoh.
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