Thebes, the
immense town-mummy, seems all at once to be ablaze - as if its old
stones were able still to burn; all its blocks, fallen or upright,
appear to have been suddenly made ruddy by the glow of fire.
On this side, too, the view embraces great peaceful distances. Past
the last pylons, and beyond the crumbling ramparts the country, down
there behind the town, presents the same appearance as that we were
facing a moment before. The same cornfields, the same woods of date-
trees, that make a girdle of green palms around the ruins. And, right
in the background, a chain of mountains is lit up and glows with a
vivid coral colour. It is the chain of the Arabian desert, lying
parallel to that of Libya, along the whole length of the Nile Valley -
which is thus guarded on right and left by stones and sand stretched
out in profound solitudes.
In all the surrounding country which we command from this spot there
is no indication of the present day; only here and there, amongst the
palm-trees, the villages of the field labourers, whose houses of dried
earth can scarcely have changed since the days of the Pharaohs. Our
contemporary desecrators have up till now respected the infinite
desuetude of the place, and, for the tourists who begin to haunt it,
no one yet has dared to build a hotel.
Slowly the sun descends; and behind us the granites of the town-mummy
seem to burn more and more. It is true that a slight shadow of a
warmer tint, an amaranth violet, begins to encroach upon the lower
parts, spreading along the avenues and over the open spaces. But
everything that rises into the sky - the friezes of the temples, the
capitals of the columns, the sharp points of the obelisks - are still
red as glowing embers. These all become imbued with light and continue
to glow and shed a rosy illumination until the end of the twilight.
It is a glorious hour, even for the old dust of Egypt, which fills the
air eternally, without detracting at all from its wonderful clearness.
It savours of spices, of the Bedouin, of the bitumen of the
sarcophagus. And here now it is playing the role of those powders of
different shades of gold which the Japanese use for the backgrounds of
their lacquered landscapes. It reveals itself everywhere, close to and
on the horizon, modifying at its pleasure the colour of things, and
giving them a kind of metallic lustre. The phantasy of its changes is
unimaginable. Even in the distances of the countryside, it is busy
indicating by little trailing clouds of gold the smallest pathways
traversed by the herds.
And now the disc of the God of Thebes has disappeared behind the
Libyan mountains, after changing its light from red to yellow and from
yellow to green.
