It Seems Like Some Journey Of The
End Of Time, In A Kind Of Deserted Venice, Which Is About To Topple
Over, To Sink And Be Forgotten.
We arrive at the temple.
Above our heads rise the enormous pylons,
ornamented with figures in bas-relief: an Isis who stretches out her
arms as if she were making signs to us, and numerous other divinities
gesticulating mysteriously. The door which opens in the thickness of
these walls is low, besides being half flooded, and gives on to depths
already in darkness. We row on and enter the sanctuary, and as soon as
one boat has crossed the sacred threshold the boatmen stop their song
and suddenly give voice to the new cry that has been taught them for
the benefit of the tourists: "Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah!" Coming at this
moment, when, with heart oppressed by all the utilitarian vandalism
that surrounds us, we were entering the sanctuary, what an effect of
gross and imbecile profanation this bellowing of English joy produces!
The boatmen know, moreover, that they have been displaced, that their
day has gone for ever; perhaps even, in the depths of their Nubian
souls, they understand us, for all that we have imposed silence on
them. The darkness increases within, although the place is open to the
sky, and the icy wind blows more mournfully than it did outside. A
penetrating humidity - a humidity altogether unknown in this country
before the inundation - chills us to the bone. We are now in that part
of the temple which was left uncovered, the part where the faithful
used to kneel.
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