It is
the holy of holies, heavily roofed with granite, the highest part of
the temple, the only part which the waters have not yet reached, and
there we are able to put foot to earth. Our footsteps resound noisily
on the large resonant flags, and the owls take to flight. Profound
darkness; the wind and the dampness freeze us. Three hours to go
before the rising of the moon; to wait in this place would be our
death. Rather let us return to Chelal, and shelter ourselves in any
lodging that offers, however wretched it may be.
*****
A tavern of the horrible village in the light of an electric lamp. It
reeks of absinthe, this desert tavern, in which we warm ourselves at a
little smoking fire. It has been hastily built of old tin boxes, of
the debris of whisky cases, and by way of mural decoration the
landlord, an ignorant Maltese, has pasted everywhere pictures cut from
our European pornographic newspapers. During our hours of waiting,
Nubians and Arabians follow one another hither, asking for drink, and
are supplied with brimming glassfuls of our alcoholic beverages. They
are the workers in the new factories who were formerly healthy beings,
living in the open air. But now their faces are stained with coal
dust, and their haggard eyes look unhappy and ill.
*****
The rising of the moon is fortunately at hand. Once more in our boat
we make our way slowly towards the sad rock which to-day is Philae.
The wind has fallen with the night, as happens almost invariably in
this country in winter, and the lake is calm. To the mournful yellow
sky has succeeded one that is blue-black, infinitely distant, where
the stars of Egypt scintillate in myriads.
A great glimmering light shows now in the east and at length the full
moon rises, not blood-coloured as in our climates but straightway very
luminous, and surrounded by an aureole of a kind of mist, caused by
the eternal dust of the sands. And when we return to the baseless
kiosk - lulled always by the Nubian song of the boatmen - a great disc
is already illuminating everything with a gentle splendour. As our
little boat winds in and out, we see the great ruddy disc passing and
repassing between the high columns, so striking in their archaism,
whose images are repeated in the water, that is now grown calm - more
than ever a kiosk of dreamland, a kiosk of old-world magic.
In returning to the temple of the goddess, we follow for a second time
the submerged road between the capitals and friezes of the colonnade
which emerge like a row of little reefs.
In the uncovered hall which forms the entrance to the temple, it is
still dark between the sovereign granites.
