When We Arrive At The Walls Of What Used To Be The Roman Citadel We
Have To Descend From Our Carriage, And Passing Through A Low Doorway
Penetrate On Foot Into The Labyrinth Of A Coptic Quarter Which Is
Dying Of Dust And Old Age.
Deserted houses that have become the
refuges of outcasts; mushrabiyas, worm-eaten and decayed; little
mousetrap alleys that lead us under arches of the Middle Ages, and
sometimes close over our heads by reason of the fantastic bending of
the ruins.
Even by such a route as this are we conducted to a famous
basilica! Were it not for these groups of Copts, dressed in their
Sunday garb, who make their way like us through the ruins to the
Easter mass, we should think that we had lost our way.
And how pretty they look, these women draped like phantoms in their
black silks. Their long veils do not completely hide them, as do those
of the Moslems. They are simply placed over their hair and leave
uncovered the delicate features, the golden necklet and the half-bared
arms that carry on their wrists thick twisted bracelets of virgin
gold. Pure Egyptians as they are, they have preserved the same
delicate profile, the same elongated eyes, as mark the old goddesses
carved in bas-relief on the Pharaonic walls. But some, alas, amongst
the young ones have discarded their traditional costume, and are
arrayed /a la franque/, in gowns and hats. And such gowns, such hats,
such flowers! The very peasants of our meanest villages would disdain
them. Oh! why cannot someone tell these poor little women, who have it
in their power to be so adorable, that the beautiful folds of their
black veils give to them an exquisite and characteristic distinction,
while this poor tinsel, which recalls the mid-Lent carnivals, makes of
them objects that excite our pity!
In one of the walls which now surround us there is a low and shrinking
doorway. Can this be the entrance to the basilica? The idea seems
absurd. And yet some of the pretty creatures in the black veils and
bracelets of gold, who were in front of us, have disappeared through
it, and already the perfume of the censers is wafted towards us. A
kind of corridor, astonishingly poor and old, twists itself
suspiciously, and then issues into a narrow court, more than a
thousand years old, where offertory boxes, fixed on Oriental brackets,
invite our alms. The odour of the incense becomes more pronounced, and
at last a door, hidden in shadow at the end of this retreat, gives
access to the venerable church itself.
The church! It is a mixture of Byzantine basilica, mosque and desert
hut. Entering there, it is as if we were introduced suddenly to the
naïve infancy of Christianity, as if we surprised it, as it were, in
its cradle - which was indeed Oriental. The triple nave is full of
little children (here also, that is what strikes us first), of little
mites who cry or else laugh and play; and there are mothers suckling
their new-born babes - and all the time the invisible mass is being
celebrated beyond, behind the iconostasis.
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