Her Dead Stare Gives To The
Ferocity Of Her Visage Something Unreasoning And Fatal; An
Irresponsible Ogress, Without Pity As Without Pleasure, Devouring
After The Manner Of Nature And Of Time.
And it was so perhaps that she
was understood by the initiated of ancient Egypt, who symbolised
everything for the people in the figures of gods.
In the dark retreat, enclosed with defaced stones, in the little
temple where she stands, alone, upright and grand, with her enormous
head and thrust-out chin and tall goddess' headdress - one is
necessarily quite close to her. In touching her, at night, you are
astonished to find that she is less cold than the air; she becomes
somebody, and the intolerable dead stare seems to weigh you down.
During the /tete-a-tete/, one thinks involuntarily of the
surroundings, of these ruins in the desert, of the prevailing
nothingness, of the cold beneath the stars. And, now, that summation
of doubt and despair and terror, which such an assemblage of things
inspires in you, is confirmed, if one may say so, by the meeting with
this divinity-symbol, which awaits you at the end of the journey, to
receive ironically all human prayer; a rigid horror of granite, with
an implacable smile and a devouring jaw.
CHAPTER XIX
A TOWN PROMPTLY EMBELLISHED
Eight years and a line of railway have sufficed to accomplish its
metamorphosis. Once in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Nubia, there was
a little humble town, rarely visited, and wanting, it must be owned,
in elegance and even in comfort.
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