Then Other Voices Answer From The Depths Of The Ruins,
Voices Very Diverse, But All Sinister.
Some are only able to mew on
two long-drawn notes:
Some yelp like jackals round a cemetery, and
others again imitate the sound of a steel spring slowly unwinding
itself. And this concert comes always from above. Owls, ospreys,
screech-owls, all the different kinds of birds, with hooked beaks and
round eyes, and silken wings that enable them to fly noiselessly, have
their homes amongst the granites massively upheld in the air; and they
are celebrating now, each after its own fashion, the nocturnal
festival. Intermittent calls break upon the air, and long-drawn
infinitely mournful wailings, that sometimes swell and sometimes seem
to be strangled and end in a kind of sob. And then, in spite of the
sonority of the vast straight walls, in spite of the echoes which
prolong the cries, the silence obstinately returns. Silence. The
silence after all and beyond all doubt is the true master at this hour
of this kingdom at once colossal, motionless and blue - a silence that
seems to be infinite, because we know that there is nothing around
these ruins, nothing but the line of the dead sands, the threshold of
the deserts.
*****
I retrace my steps towards the west in the direction of the hypostyle,
traversing again the avenue of monstrous splendours, imprisoned and,
as it were, dwarfed between the rows of sovereign stones. There are
obelisks there, some upright, some overthrown. One like those of
Luxor, but much higher, remains intact and raises its sharp point into
the sky; others, less well known in their exquisite simplicity, are
quite plain and straight from base to summit, bearing only in relief
gigantic lotus flowers, whose long climbing stems bloom above in the
half light cast by the stars. The passage becomes narrower and more
obscure, and it is necessary sometimes to grope my way. And then again
my hands encounter the everlasting hieroglyphs carved everywhere, and
sometimes the legs of a colossus seated on its throne. The stones are
still slightly warm, so fierce has been the heat of the sun during the
day. And certain of the granites, so hard that our steel chisels could
not cut them, have kept their polish despite the lapse of centuries,
and my fingers slip in touching them.
There is now no sound. The music of the night birds has ceased. I
listen in vain - so attentively that I can hear the beating of my
heart. Not a sound, not even the buzzing of a fly. Everything is
silent, everything is ghostly; and in spite of the persistent warmth
of the stones the air grows colder and colder, and one gets the
impression that everything here is frozen - definitely - as in the
coldness of death.
A vast silence reigns, a silence that has subsisted for centuries, on
this same spot, where formerly for three or four thousand years rose
such an uproar of living men.
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