*****
Beyond, at the other extremity of the ruins, there is a sister of
these goddesses, taller than they, a great Sekhet, whom in these parts
men call the Ogress, and who dwells alone and upright, ambushed in a
narrow temple. Amongst the fellahs and the Bedouins of the
neighbourhood she enjoys a very bad reputation, it being her custom of
nights to issue from her temple, and devour men; and none of them
would willingly venture near her dwelling at this late hour. But
instead of returning to Luxor, like the good people whose carriages
have just departed, I rather choose to pay her a visit.
Her dwelling is some distance away, and I shall not reach it till the
dead of night.
First of all I have to retrace my steps, to return along the whole
avenue of rams, to pass again by the feet of the white giant, who has
already assumed his phantomlike appearance, while the violet waves
that bathed the town-mummy thicken and turn to a greyish-blue. And
then, leaving behind me the pylons guarded by the broken giants, I
thread my way among the palaces of the centre.
It is among these palaces that I encounter for good and all the night,
with the first cries of the owls and ospreys. It is still warm there,
on account of the heat stored by the stones during the day, but one
feels nevertheless that the air is freezing.
At a crossing a tall human figure looms up, draped in black and armed
with a baton. It is a roving Bedouin, one of the guards, and this more
or less is the dialogue exchanged between us (freely and succinctly
translated):
"Your permit, sir."
"Here it is."
(Here we combine our efforts to illuminate the said permit by the
light of a match.)
"Good, I will go with you."
"No. I beg of you."
"Yes; I had better. Where are you going?"
"Beyond, to the temple of that lady - you know, who is great and
powerful and has a face like a lioness."
"Ah! . . . Yes, I think I understand that you would prefer to go
alone." (Here the intonation becomes infantine.) "But you are a kind
gentleman and will not forget the poor Bedouin all the same."
He goes on his way. On leaving the palaces I have still to traverse an
extent of uncultivated country, where a veritable cold seizes me.
Above my head no longer the heavy suspended stones, but the far-off
expanse of the blue night sky - where are shining now myriads upon
myriads of stars. For the Thebans of old this beautiful vault,
scintillating always with its powder of diamonds, shed no doubt only
serenity upon their souls. But for us, /who knows, alas!/ it is on the
contrary the field of the great fear, which, out of pity, it would
have been better if we had never been able to see; the incommensurable
black void, where the worlds in their frenzied whirling precipitate
themselves like rain, crash into and annihilate one another, only to
be renewed for fresh eternities.
All this is seen too vividly, the horror of it becomes intolerable, on
a clear night like this, in a place so silent and littered so with
ruins. More and more the cold penetrates you - the mournful cold of the
sidereal spheres from which nothing now seems to protect you, so
rarefied - almost non-existent - does the limpid atmosphere appear. And
the gravel, the poor dried herbs, that crackle under foot, give the
illusion of the crunching noise we know at home on winter nights when
the frost is on the ground.
I approach at length the temple of the Ogress. These stones which now
appear, whitish in the night, this secret-looking dwelling near the
boundary wall of Thebes, proclaim the spot, and verily at such an hour
as this it has an evil aspect. Ptolemaic columns, little vestibules,
little courtyards where a dim blue light enables you to find your way.
Nothing moves; not even the flight of a night bird: an absolute
silence, magnified awfully by the presence of the desert which you
feel encompasses you beyond these walls. And beyond, at the bottom,
three chambers made of massive stone, each with its separate entrance.
I know that the first two are empty. It is in the third that the
Ogress dwells, unless, indeed, she has already set out upon her
nocturnal hunt for human flesh. Pitch darkness reigns within and I
have to grope my way. Quickly I light a match. Yes, there she is
indeed, alone and upright, almost part of the end wall, on which my
little light makes the horrible shadow of her head dance. The match
goes out - irreverently I light many more under her chin, under that
heavy, man-eating jaw. In very sooth, she is terrifying. Of black
granite - like her sisters, seated on the margin of the mournful lake -
but much taller than they, from six to eight feet in height, she has a
woman's body, exquisitely slim and young, with the breasts of a
virgin. Very chaste in attitude, she holds in her hand a long-stemmed
lotus flower, but by a contrast that nonplusses and paralyses you the
delicate shoulders support the monstrosity of a huge lioness' head.
The lappets of her bonnet fall on either side of her ears almost down
to her breast, and surmounting the bonnet, by way of addition to the
mysterious pomp, is a large moon disc. 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.
