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A Descent into Egypt Chapters I - IV · Incredible Adventures

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Section eight of Incredible Adventures by Algernon Blackwood. This LibriVox recording is in the
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public domain. Read by beIN Tucker, A Descent into Egypt, Chapter one.
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He was an accomplished, versatile man, whom some called brilliant. Behind
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his talents lay a wealth of material that right selection could have lifted into genuine
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distinction. He did too many things, however, to excel in one.
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For a restless curiosity kept him ever on the move. George Isley was an
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able man. His short career and diplomacy proved it. Yet when he abandoned
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this for travel and exploration, no one thought it a pity. He would
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do big things in any line. He was merely finding himself among the rolling
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stones of humanity. If you acquire moss of considerable value, they are not
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necessarily shiftless. They travel light, the comfortable pockets in the game of life
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that attract the majority, or too small to retain them. They are in
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and out again in a moment. The world says, what a pity they
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stick to nothing. But the fact is that, like questing wild birds,
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they seek the nest they need. It is a question of values. They
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judge swiftly change their line of flight are gone, not even hearing the comment
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that they might have retired with a pension. And to this homeless, questing
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type, George Eisley certainly belonged. He was by no means shiftless. He
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merely sought, with insatiable yearning, that soft, particular nest where he could
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settle down in permanently, and to an accompaniment of sighs and regrets from his
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friends, he found it. He found it, however, not in the
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present, but by retiring from the world without a pension, unclothed with honors
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and distinctions, he withdrew from the present and slipped softly back into a mighty
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past where he belonged. Why how, obeying what strange instincts, this remains
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unknown, deep secretive, an inner life that found no resting place in modern
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things. Such instincts are not disclosable in twentieth century language, nor are the
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details of such a journey properly describable at all, except by the few poets,
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prophets, psychiatrists, and the like. Such experiences are dismissed with the
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neat museum label queer. So equally must the recorder of this experience share the
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honor of that little label, he who by chance witnessed certain external, invisible
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signs of this inner and spiritual journey. There remains, nevertheless, the amazing
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reality of the experience, and to the recorder alone was some clue of interpretation
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possible, perhaps because in himself also lay the lure, though less imperative,
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of a similar journey. At any rate, the interpretation may be offered to
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the handful who realize that trains and motors are not the only means of travel
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left to our progressive race. In his younger days, I knew George Eisley,
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intimately know him now. But the George Isley I knew of old,
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the arresting personality with whom I traveled, climbed, explored, is no longer
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with us. He is not here. He disappeared gradually into the past.
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There is no George Isley. And that such an individuality could vanish, while
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still his outer semblance walks the familiar streets, normal apparently, and not yet
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fifty in the number of his years, seems a tale, though difficult,
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well worth the telling. For I witnessed the slow submergence. It was very
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gradual. I cannot pretend to understand the entire significance of it. There was
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something questionable and sinister in the business that offered hints of astonishing possibilities. Were
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there a corps of spiritual police, the matter might be partially cleared up.
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But since none of the churches have yet organized anything effective of this sort,
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one can only fall back upon variance of the blessed Mesopotamia and whisper of derangement
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and the like. Such labels, of course, explain as little as most
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other cliches in life. That well groomed, soldierly figure strolling down Piccadilly,
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watching the races, dining out. There is no derangement there. The face
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is not melancholy, the eye not wild. The gestures are quiet and the
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speech controlled. Yet the eye is empty, the face expressionless. Vacancy reigns
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there, provocative and significant, if not unduly noticeable. It is because the
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majority in life neither expect nor offer more. At closer quarters, you may
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think questioning things, or you may think nothing. Probably the latter, you
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may wonder why something continually expected does not make its appearance, and you may
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watch for the evidence of personality. The general presentment of the men has led
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you to expect disappointed. Therefore you may certainly be, but I defy you
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to discover the smallest hint of mental disorder and of derangement or nervous affliction,
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absolutely nothing. Before long, perhaps you may feel you are talking with a
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dummy, some well trained automaton, a nonentity devoid of spontaneous life. And
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afterwards you may find that memory fades rapidly away, as though no impression of
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any kind has really been made at all. All this, yes, but
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nothing pathological. A few may be stimulated by this startling discrepancy between promise and
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performance, but most accustomed to accept face values would say a pleasant fellow,
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but nothing in him much, and an hour later forget him altogether. For
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the truth is, as you perhaps divined, You've been sitting beside no one.
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You've been talking to, looking at, listening to no one. The
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intercourse has conveyed nothing that can waken human response in you, good, bad,
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or indifferent. There is no George Isley, and the discovery, if
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you make it, will not even cause you to creep with the uncanniness of
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the experience, because the exterior is so wholly pleasing. George Isley to day
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is a picture with no meaning in it that charms merely by the harmonious coloring
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of an inoffensive subject. He moves undiscovered in the little world of society to
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which he was born, secure in the groove first habit has made comfortably automatic
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for him. No one guesses none, that is but the few who knew
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him intimately in early life, and his wandering existence has scattered these, they
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have forgotten what he was. So perfect indeed is he in the manners of
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the commonplace fashionable man, that no woman in his set is aware that he
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differs from the type she is accustomed to. He turns a compliment with the
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accepted language of her text book motors, golfs, and gambols. In the
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regulation manner of his particular world, he is an admirable, perfect automaton.
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He is nothing. He is a human shell. Chapter two. The name
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of George Eisley been before the public for some years, when, after a
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considerable interval, we met again in a hotel in Egypt. I for my
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health. He, for I knew not what at first, but I soon
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discovered archaeology and excavation had taken hold of him, though he had gone so
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quietly about it that no one seemed to have heard. I was not sure
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that he was glad to see me, for he had first withdrawn annoyed it
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seemed at being discovered, But later, as though after consideration, had made
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tentative advances, he welcomed me with a curious gesture of the entire body that
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seemed to shake himself free from something that it made him forget my identity.
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There was pathos somewhere in his attitude, almost as though he asked for sympathy.
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I've been out here off and on for the last three years, he
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told me, after describing something of what he had been doing. I find
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it the most repaying hobby in the world. It leads to a reconstruction,
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an imaginative reconstruction, of course, I mean of an enormous thing the world
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had entirely lost, a very gorgeous, stimulating hobby, believed me, and
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a very entice. He quickly changed the word exacting one. Indeed, I
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remember looking him up and down with astonishment. There was a change in him.
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A lack a note was missing in his enthusiasm, a color in the
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voice, a quality in his manner. The ingredients were not mixed quite as
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of old. I did not bother him with questions. But I noted thus
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at the very first, a subtle alteration, another facet of the man presented
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itself. Something that had been independent and aggressive was replaced by a certain emptiness
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that invited sympathy even in his physical appearance. The change was manifested this odd
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suggestion of lessening. I looked again more closely. Lessening was the word he
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had, somehow dwindled. It was startling, vaguely unpleasant too. The entire
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subject, as usual, was at his finger tips. He knew all the
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important men, and had spent money freely on his hobby. I laughed,
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reminded him of his remark that Egypt had no attractions for him, owing to
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the organized advertisement of its somewhat theatrical charms. Admitting his error was a gesture.
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He brushed the objection easily aside. His manner, and a certain glow
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that rose about his atmospher as he answered increased my first astonishment. His voice
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was significant and suggestive. Come out with me, he said, in a
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low tone, and see how little the tourists matter, How inappreciable the excavation
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is compared to what remains to be done, how gigantic he emphasized the word
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impressively. The scope for discovery remains. He made a movement with his head
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and shoulders that conveyed a sense of the prodigious, For he was of massive
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build, his cast of features stern, and his eyes set deep into the
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face, shone past me with a somber gleam in them. I did not
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quite account for. It was the voice, however, that brought the mystery
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in It vibrated somewhere below the actual sound of it. Egypt, he continued,
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and so gravely that at first I made the mistake of thinking. He
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chose the curious words on purpose to produce a theatrical effect that has enriched her
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blood with the pageant of so many civilizations that has devoured Persians, Greeks and
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Romans, Saracens and Mamelukes, a dozen conquests and invasions. Besides, what
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can mere taurusts or explorers matter to her? The excavators scratch their skin and
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dig up mummies. And as for taurists, he laughed contemptuously, Flies that
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subtle for a moment on her covered face to vanish at the first signs of
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heat. Egypt is not even aware of them. The real Egypt lies underground
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in darkness. Taurists must have light to be seen as well as to sea.
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And the diggers, he paused, smiling with something between pity and contempt
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I did not quite appreciate, for personally I felt a great respect for the
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tireless excavators. And then he added, with a touch of feeling in his
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tones, as though he had a grievance against them, and had not also
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dug himself. Men who uncover the dead, restore the temples, and reconstruct
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a skeleton, thinking they have read its beating heart. He shrugged his great
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shoulders, and the rest of the sentence may have been but the protest of
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a man in defense of his own hobby, But that there seemed an undue
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earnestness and gravity about it that made me wonder more than ever. He went
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on to speak of this strangeness of the land as a mere ribbon of vegetation
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along the ancient river, the rest all ruins, desert, sun drenched wilderness
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of death, yet so breakingly alive with wonder power and a certain disquieting sense
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of deathlessness. There seemed for him a revelation of unusual spiritual kind in this
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land where the past survived so potently, he spoke almost as though it obliterated
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the present. Indeed, the hint of something solemn behind his words made it
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difficult for me to keep up the conversation, and the pause that presently came
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I filled in with some word of questioning surprise, which yet I think was
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chiefly in concurrence. I was aware of some big belief in him, some
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enveloping emotion that escaped my grasp. Yet though I did not understand, his
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great mood swept me. His voice lowered then, as he went on to
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mention temples, tombs, and deities, details of his own discoveries and of
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their effect upon him. But to this I listened with half an ear,
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because in the unusual language he had first made use of, I detected this
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other thing that stirred my curiosity more stirred it uncomfortably. Then the spell,
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I asked, remembering the effect of Egypt upon myself two years before, has
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worked upon you, as upon most others, only with greater power. He
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looked hard at me a moment, signs of trouble showing themselves faintly in his
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rugged, interesting face. I think he wanted to say more than he could
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bring himself to confess. He hesitated. I am wholly glad, he replied,
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after a pause. It didn't get hold of me. Earlier in life,
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it would have absorbed me. I should have lost all other interests.
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Now that curious look of helplessness of asking sympathy flitted like a shadow through his
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eyes. Now that I'm on the decline, it matters less. On the
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decline, I cannot imagine by what blundering I missed this chance. He never
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offered again. Somehow or other, The singular phrase passed unnoticed at the moment,
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and only came upon me with its full significance later, when it was
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too awkward to refer to it. He tested my readiness to help to sympathize,
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to share his inner life. I missed the clue, for at the
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moment, a more practical consideration interested me in his life language, being of
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those who regretted that he had not excelled by devoting his powers to a single
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object. I shrugged my shoulders. He caught my meaning instantly. Oh,
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he was glad to talk. He felt the possibility of my sympathy. Underneath,
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I think, oh, no, you take me wrongly. There he
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said, with gravity. What I mean, and I ought to know if
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anyone does, is that while most countries give, others take away, Egypt
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changes you. No one can live here and remain exactly what he was before.
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This puzzled me. It startled too again. His manner was so earnest.
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And Egypt, you mean, is one of the countries that take away,
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I asked. The strange idea unsettled my thoughts. A little first takes
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away from you, he replied, but in the end takes you away.
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Some lends enrich you. He went on, Seeing that I listened. While
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others impoverish from India, Greece, it all ancient lands, you return with
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memories you can use. From Egypt, you return with nothing. Its splendor
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stupefies. It's useless. There is a change in your inmost being, an
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emptiness and unaccountable yearning. But you find nothing that can fill the lack you
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are conscious of. Nothing comes to replace what has gone. You have been
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drained. I stared, but I nodded. A general acquiescence of a sensitive
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artistic temperament. This was certainly true, though by no means a superficial and
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generally accepted verdict. The majority imagine that Egypt has filled them to the brim.
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I took as deeper reading of the facts. I was aware of an
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odd fascination in his idea. Modern Egypt, he continued, is, after
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all, but a trick of civilization, and there was a kind of breathlessness
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in his measured tone. But ancient Egypt lies waiting, hiding underneath. Though
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dead, she is amazingly alive, and you feel her touching you. She
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takes from you, she enriches herself. You return from Egypt less than you
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were before. What came over my mind is hard to say. Some touch
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of visionary imagination burned its flaming path across my mind. I thought of some
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old Grecian heroes speaking of his delicious battle with the gods, battle in which
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he knew he must be worsted, but yet in which he delighted, because
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at death his spirit would join their glorious company beyond this world. I was
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aware, that is to say, of resignation as well as resistance. In
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him. He already felt the effortless peace which follows upon long unequal battling,
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as of a man who has fought the rapids with a strain beyond his strength.
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Then sinks back and goes with the awful mass of water smoothly and indifferently
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over the quiet fall. Yet it was not so much his words which clothed
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picturesquely and undonnsable truth, as the force of conviction that drove behind them,
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shrouding my mind with mystery and darkness. His eyes so steadily holding mine were
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lit, I admit, yet they were calm and sane, as those of
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a doctor discussing the symptoms of that daily battle to which we all finally succumb.
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This analogy occurred to me. There is, I stammered, a little
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faltering in my speech, an incalculable element in the country somewhere, I confess.
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You put it rather strongly, though, don't you, he answered,
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quietly, moving his eyes from my face towards the window that framed the serene
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and exquisite sky, towards the nile, the real, invisible Egypt, He
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murmured, I do find rather strong. I find it difficult to deal with
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you see, and he turned towards me, smiling like a tired child.
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I think the truth is that Egypt deals with me. It draws, I
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began, then started, as he interrupted me at once into the past.
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He uttered the little word in a way beyond me to describe. There came
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a flood of glory with it, a sense of peace and beauty, of
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battles over and of rest attained. No saint could have brimmed heaven with as
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much passionately enticing meaning. He went willingly, prolonging the struggle, merely to
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enjoy the greater relief and joy of the consummation. For again he spoke as
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though a struggle were in progress in his being. I got the impression that
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he somewhere wanted to help. I understood the pathetic quality I had vaguely discerned
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already. His character, naturally was so strong and independent, it now seemed
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weaker, as though certain fibers had been drawn out. And I understood then
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that the spell of Egypt, so lightly chattered about in its sensational aspect,
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so rarely known in its naked power, the nameless creeping influence that begins deep
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below the surface, and thence since delicate tendrils outwards, was in his blood.
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I and my untaught ignorance had felt it too. It is undeniable one
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is aware of unaccountable queer things in Egypt even the utterly prosaic feel them dead.
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Egypt is marvelously alive. I glanced past him, out of the big
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windows, where the desert glimmered in its featureless expanse of yellow leagues, two
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monstrous pyramids signaling from across the nile, and for a moment inexplicably, it
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seemed to me. Afterwards, I lost sight of my companion's stalwart figure that
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was yet so close before my eyes. He had risen from his chair,
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he was standing near me, yet my sight missed him altogether. Something dim
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as a shadow, faint as breath of air, rose up and bore my
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thoughts away, obliterating my vision too. I forgot for a moment who I
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was. Identities slipped from me, thought, sight, feeling, all sank
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away into the emptiness of those sun baked sands, sank as it were,
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into nothingness, caught away from the present, enticed, absorbed, And when
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I looked back again to answer him, or rather to ask what his curious
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words could mean, he was no longer there. More than surprise, for
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there was something of shock in the disappearance. I turned to search. I
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had not seen him go. He had stolen from my side so softly slipped
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away, silently, mysteriously, and so easily. I remember that a faint
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shiver ran down my back as I realized that I was alone. Was it
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that, momentarily I had caught a reflex of his state of mind, had
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my sympathy induced in myself an echo of what he experienced in full, a
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going backwards, a loss of present vigor, the enticing, subtle draw of
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those immeasurable sands that hide the living dead from the interruptions of the careless living.
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I sat down to reflect, and incidentally to watch the magnificence of the
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sunset, and the thing he had said returned upon me with insistent power,
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ringing like distant bells within my mind. His talk of the tombs and temples
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passed, but this remained. It stimulated. Oddly, his talk, I
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remembered, had always excited curiosity in this way. Some countries give while others
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take away. What did he mean? Precisely, what had Egypt taken away
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from him? And I realized more definitely that something in him was missing,
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something he possessed in former years that was now no longer there. He had
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grown shadowy already in my thoughts, the mind searched, keenly but in vain,
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And after some time I left my chair and moved over to another window,
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aware that a vague discomfort stirred within me that involved uneasiness. For him,
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I felt pity, but be Hin knew the pity was an eager,
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absorbing curiosity as well. He seemed receding curiously into misty distance, and the
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strong desire leaped in me to overtake, to travel with him into some vanished
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splendor that he had rediscovered. The feeling was a most remarkable one, for
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it included yearning, the yearning for some nameless, forgotten loveliness. The world
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is lost, it was in me too. At the approach of twilight,
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the mind loves to harbour shadows. The room, empty of guests was dark
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behind me. Darkness, too, was creeping across the desert like a veil,
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deepening the serenity of its grim, unfeatured face. It turned pale with
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distance. The whole great sheet of it went rustling into night. The first
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stars peeped and twinkled, hanging loosely in the air, as though they could
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be plucked like golden berries, and the sun was already below the Libyan horizon,
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where gold and crimson faded through violet and blue. I stood watching this
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mysterious Egyptian dusk, while an eery glamor seemed to bring the incredible with an
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uneasy reach of the half faltering senses. And suddenly the truth dropped in to
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me. Over George Isley, over his mind and energies, over his thoughts,
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and over his emotions too, a kind of darkness was also slowly creeping.
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Something in him had dimmed, yet not with age. It had gone
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out some inner night stealing over the present obliterated it. And yet he looked
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towards the dawn, Like the Egyptian monuments. His eyes turned eastwards. And
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so it came to me that what he had lost was personal ambition. He
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was glad, he said, that these Egyptian studies had not caught him earlier
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in life. The language he made use of was peculiar. Now I am
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on the decline, it matters less, a slight foundation, no doubt to
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build conviction on. And yet I felt sure that I was partly right.
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He was fascinated, but fascinated against his will. The present in him battled
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against the past, still fighting. He had yet lost hope. The desire
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not to change was now no longer in him. I turned away from the
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window so as not to see that gray encroaching desert. For the discovery produced
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a certain agitation in me. Egypt seemed suddenly a living entity of enormous power.
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She stirred about me. She was stirring. Now, This flat and
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motionless land, pretending it had no movement, was actually busy with a million
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gestures that came creeping round the heart. She was reducing him already from the
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complex texture of his personality. She had drawn one vital thread that, in
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its relation to the general woof, was of central importance ambition. The mind
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chose the simile, But in my heart, where thought fluttered in singular distress,
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another suggested itself as truer thread changed to artery. I turned quickly and
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went up to my room, where I could be alone. The idea was
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somewhere ghastly. Chapter three. Yet while dressing for dinner, the idea exfoliated,
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as only a living thing exfoliates. I saw in George Eisley this great
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question mark that had not been there formerly. All have, of course some
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question mark, and carry it about, though with most it rarely becomes visible
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until the end. With him, it was plainly visible in his atmosphere at
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the heyday of his life. He wore it like a fine curved scimitar above
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his head, so full of life, he yet seemed willingly dead. For
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though imagination sought every possible explanation, I got no further than the somewhat negative
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result that a certain energy wholly unconnected with mere physical health had been withdrawn.
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It was more than ambition, I think, for it included into desire self
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confidence as well. It was life itself. He was no longer in the
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present, He was no longer here. Some countries give while others take away.
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I find Egypt difficult to deal with. I find it, and,
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in that simple, uncomplex adjective, strong in memory and experience, the entire
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globe was mapped for him. It remained for Egypt then to teach him this
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marvelous new thing. But not Egypt of to day. It was vanished Egypt
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that had robbed him of his strength. He had described it as underground,
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hidden waiting. I was again aware of a faint shuddering, as though something
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crept secretly from my inmost heart to share the experience with him, and though
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my sympathy involved a willing consent that this should be so, with a sympathy,
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there must always be a shedding of the personal self. Each time I
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felt this sympathy, it seemed that something left me. I thought, in
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circles, arriving at no definite point where I could rest and say that's it.
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I understand the giving attitude of a country was easily comprehensible, but this
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idea of robbery of deprivation baffled me. An obscure alarm took hold of me
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for myself as well as for him. At dinner, where he invited me
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to his table. The impression passed off a good deal, however, and
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I convicted myself of a woman's exaggeration. Yet as we talked of many a
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day's adventure together in other lands, it struck me that we oddly left the
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present out. We ignored to day. His thoughts, as it were,
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went most easily backwards, and each adventure led, as by its own natural
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weight and impetus, towards one thing. The enormous glory of a vanished age.
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Ancient Egypt was home in this mysterious game life played with death. The
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specific gravity of his being to say nothing, for the moment of my own
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had shifted lower, farther off, backwards and below, or as he put
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it, underground. The sinking sensation I experienced was of a literal kind,
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and so I found myself wondering what had led him to this particular hotel.
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I had come out with an affected organ, the specialist promised me with heal
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in the marvelous air of Helouan. But it was queer that my companion also
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should have chosen it. Its clinel was mostly invalid, German and Russian invalid.
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At that the management set its face against the lighter, gayer side of
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life that hotels in Egypt usually encourage. Eagerly. It was a true rest
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house, a place of repose and leisure, a place where one could remain
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undiscovered and unknown. No English patronized it. One might easily the idea came
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unbidden, suddenly hide in it. Then you're doing nothing just now, I
28:52
asked, in the way of digging. No big expeditions or excavating at the
28:57
moment, I'm cuperating, he answered, carelessly. I've had two years up
29:03
at the Valley of the Kings, and overdid it rather, But I'm by
29:07
way of working at a little thing near here, across the Nile. And
29:11
he pointed in the direction of Sakhara, where the huge Memphian cemetery stretches underground,
29:17
from the Dakhur Pyramids to the Giza Monsters, four miles lower down.
29:21
There's a matter of a hundred years, and that alone you must have accumulated
29:26
a mass of interesting material. I suppose later you'll make use of it a
29:30
book or His expression stopped me, that strange look in the eyes that had
29:34
stirred my first uneasiness. It was as if something struggled up a moment,
29:40
looked bliquely out upon the present, then sank away again more, he answered
29:45
listlessly, than I can ever use. It's much more likely to use me,
29:52
he said it hurriedly, looking over his shoulder, as though some one
29:53
might be listening, then smiled significantly, bringing his eyes back upon my own
29:59
again. I told him that he was far too modest. If all the
30:03
excavators thought like that, I added, we ignorant ones should suffer. I
30:07
laughed, but the laughter was only on my lips. He shook his head
30:11
indifferently. They do their best, they do wonders. He replied, making
30:18
an indescribable gesture, as though he withdrew willingly from the topic altogether, yet
30:22
could not quite achieve it. I know their books. I know the writers
30:26
too, of various nationalities. He paused a moment, and his eyes turned
30:32
grave. I cannot understand quite how they do it, he added, half
30:38
below his breath. The labor you mean, the strain of the climate,
30:44
and so forth. I said this purposely, for I knew quite well he
30:47
meant another thing. The way he looked into my face, however, disturbed
30:51
me so that I believed I visibly started something very deep in me. Sat
30:56
up alertly, listening, almost on guard. I mean, he replied that
31:03
they must have uncommon powers of resistance. There he had used the very word
31:10
that had been hiding in me. It puzzles me, he went on,
31:15
for with one exception, they are not unusual men in the way of gifts.
31:19
Oh yes, it's in the way of resistance and protection that I mean
31:23
self protection, he added with emphasis. It was the way he said resistance
31:30
and self protection that sent a touch of cold through me. I learned later
31:34
that he himself had made surprising discoveries in these two years, penetrating closer to
31:40
the secret life of ancient Sacerdotal Egypt than any of his predecessors or co laborers,
31:45
then inexplicably had ceased. But this was told to me afterwards and by
31:51
others. At the moment, I was only conscious of this odd embarrassment.
31:56
I did not understand, yet felt that he touched upon something into me personal
32:00
to himself. He paused, expecting me to speak. Egypt perhaps merely pours
32:07
through them, I ventured. They give out mechanically, hardly realizing how much
32:12
they give. They report facts, devoid of interpretation, whereas with you,
32:15
it's the actual spirit of the past that is discovered and laid bare. You
32:20
live it, You feel old Egypt and disclose her. That divining faculty was
32:24
always yours. Uncannily, I used to think the flash of his somber eyes
32:30
betrayed that my aim was singularly good. It seemed a third had silently joined
32:36
our little table in the corner, something intruded, evoked by the power of
32:39
what our conversation skirted, but ever left unmentioned. It was huge and shadowy.
32:45
It was also watchful. Egypt came gliding floating up beside us. I
32:50
saw her reflected in his face and gaze. The desert slipped in through walls
32:54
and ceiling, rising from beneath our feet, settling about us, listening,
33:00
peering, waiting. The strange obsession was sudden and complete. The gigantic scale
33:06
of her swam in among the very pillars, arches and windows of that modern
33:09
dining room. I felt against my skin the touch of chilly air that sunlight
33:15
never reaches, stealing from beneath the granite monoluths. Behind it came the stifling
33:20
breath of the heated tombs, of the serapium, of the chambers and corridors
33:24
in the pyramids. There was a rustling, as of myriad footsteps far away,
33:30
and as of sand. The busy winds go shifting through the ages,
33:34
and in startling contrast to this impression of prodigious size, Isley himself wore suddenly
33:39
an air of strangely dwindling. For a second he shrank visibly before my very
33:45
eyes. He was receding. His outline seemed to retreat and lessen, as
33:49
though he stood to the waist, and what appeared like flowing mist, only
33:52
his head and shoulders still above the ground. Far far away I saw him.
33:59
It was a vivid picture that I somehow transferred objectively. It was a
34:02
dramatized sensation. Of course. His former phrase, now that I am declining,
34:08
flashed back upon me with sharp discomfort. Again, perhaps his state of
34:14
mind was reflected into me by some emotional telepathy. I waited, conscious of
34:19
an almost sensible oppression that would not lift. It seemed an age before he
34:23
spoke, and when he did there was the tremor of feeling in his voice.
34:27
He sought, nevertheless to repress. I kept my eyes on the table
34:30
for some reason, but I listened intently. It's you that have the divining
34:37
faculty, not I, he said, an odd note of distance even in
34:40
his tone, yet a resonance, as though it rose up between reverberating walls.
34:45
There is, I believe, something here that resents to close inquiry,
34:52
or rather that resists discovery, almost takes offense. I looked up quickly,
34:59
then looked down again. It was such a startling thing to hear on the
35:02
lips of a modern Englishman. He spoke lightly, but the expression of his
35:06
face belied the careless tone. There was no mockery in those earnest eyes,
35:10
and in the hushed voice was a little creeping sound that gave me once again
35:14
the touch of goose flesh. The only word I can find is subterranean.
35:20
All that was mental in him had sunk, so that he seemed speaking underground,
35:23
head and shoulders alone visible. The effect was almost ghastly. Such extraordinary
35:30
obstacles are put in one's way, he went on, when the prying gets
35:36
too close to the reality physical external obstacles. I mean either that or the
35:44
mind loses its assimilative faculties. One or other happens. His voice died down
35:51
into a whisper, and discovery ceases of its own accord. The same minute,
35:57
then he suddenly raised himself, like a man emerging from a tomb.
36:00
He leaned across the table. He made an effort of some violent internal kind
36:06
on the verge I fully believe of a pregnant personal statement. There was a
36:09
confession in his attitude. I think he was about to speak of his work
36:14
at Thebes and the reason for its abrupt cessation. For I had the feeling
36:17
of one about to hear a weighty secret. The responsibility unwelcome. This uncomfortable
36:23
emotion rose in me as I raised my eyes to his, somewhat unwillingly only
36:29
to find that I was wholly at fault. It was not me he was
36:31
looking at. He was staring past me, in the direction of the wide,
36:36
unshuttered windows. The expression of yearning was visible in his eyes. Again.
36:39
Something had stopped his utterance, and instinctively I turned and saw what he
36:45
saw. So far as external details were concerned, at least, I saw
36:51
it across the glare and glitter of the uncompromising modern dining room, past crowded
36:58
tables, and over the heads of German feeding Unpicturesquely, I saw the moon,
37:04
her reddish disk, hanging unreal and enormous, lifted the spread sheet of
37:08
desert till it floated off the surface of the world. The great window faced
37:14
the east, where the Arabian desert breaks into a ruin of gorges, cliffs,
37:17
and flat topped ridges. It looked unfriendly, ominous, with danger in
37:22
it. Unlike the serener sand dunes of the Libyan desert, there lay both
37:28
menace and seduction behind its flood of shadows, and the moonlight emphasized this aspect,
37:35
its ghostly desolation, its cruelty, its bleak hostility, turning it murderous.
37:40
For no river sweetens this Arabian desert. Instead of sandy softness, it
37:45
has fangs of limestone, rock, sharp and aggressive across it, just visible
37:51
in the moonlight as a thread of paler gray. The old camel trail to
37:54
Suez beckoned faintly, and it was this that he looked at so intently.
38:00
It was, I know, a theatrical stage like glimpse, yet in it
38:04
a seductiveness, most potent. Come out, it seemed to whisper and taste
38:09
my awful beauty. Come out and lose yourself and die. Come out and
38:14
follow my moonlit trail into the past, where there is peace and immobility,
38:19
in silence. My kingdom is unchanging underground. Come down, come softly,
38:24
Come through sandy corridors below this tensil of your modern world. Come back,
38:31
Come down into my golden past. A poignant desire stole through my heart on
38:37
moonlit feet. I was personally conscious of a keen yearning to slip away in
38:42
unresisting obedience, for it was uncommonly impressive. This sudden, haunting glimpse of
38:47
the world outside. The hairy foreigners, uncouthly garbed, all busily eating in
38:53
full electric light provided a sensational contrast of emphatically distressing kind. Much of what
39:00
it called unearthly hovered about that distance through the window. There was weirdness in
39:06
it. Egypt looked in upon us. Egypt watched and listened, beckoning through
39:13
the moonlit windows of the heart to come and find her. Mind and imagination
39:19
might flounder as they pleased, But something of this kind happened, undeniably,
39:22
whether expression and language fails to hold the truth or not. And George Isley,
39:29
aware of being seen, looked straight into the awful visage, fascinated over
39:36
the bronze of his skin, there stole a shade of gray. My own
39:38
feeling of enticement grew the desire to go out into the moonlight, to leave
39:44
my kind and wander blindly through the desert, to see the gorges in their
39:47
shining silver, and taste the keenness of the cool, sharp air. Further
39:52
than this with me it did not go, but that my companion felt the
39:55
bigger, deeper draw behind this surface glamour. I have no reasonable doubt.
40:01
For a moment, indeed, I thought he meant to leave the table.
40:06
He had half risen in his chair. It seemed he struggled and resisted,
40:09
and then his big frame subsided again. He sat back. He looked in
40:14
the attitude his body took less impressive, smaller, actually shrunken into the proportions
40:21
of some minuter scale. It was as though something in that second had been
40:24
drawn out of him, decreasing even his physical appearance. The voice, when
40:31
he spoke presently, with a touch of resignation, held a lifeless quality,
40:36
as though deprived of virile timber. It's always there, he whispered, half
40:40
collapsing back into his chair. It's always watching, waiting, listening, almost
40:47
like a monster of the Fables, isn't it. It makes no movement of
40:52
its own, you see, it's far too strong for that. It just
40:55
hangs there, half in the air and half upon the earth. A gigantic
41:00
web. Its prey flies into it. That's Egypt all over. Do you
41:05
feel like that too, or does it seem to you just imaginative rubbish?
41:10
To me, it seems that she just wastes her time. She gets you
41:14
quicker that way, and the end you're bound to go. There's power,
41:19
certainly, I said, after a moment's pause to collect my wits. My
41:22
distress increased by the morbidness of his simile. For some minds, there may
41:29
be a kind of terror too, for weak temperaments that are all imagination.
41:34
My thoughts are scattered, and I cannot readily find good words. There is
41:37
startling grandeur in a sight like that, for instance, And I pointed to
41:40
the window. You feel drawn, as if you simply had to go.
41:45
My mind still buzzed with his curious words. In the end, you're bound
41:49
to go. It betrayed his heart and soul. I suppose a fly does
41:53
feel drawn, I added, or a moth to the destroying flame? Or
42:00
is it just unconscious on their part? He jerked his big head significantly.
42:05
Well, well, he answered, But the fly isn't necessarily weak, or
42:09
the moth misguided over adventurous. Perhaps, yet both obedient to the laws of
42:16
their respective beings. They get warnings too. Only when the moth wants to
42:21
know too much, the fire stops it. Both flame and spider enrich themselves
42:27
by understanding the natures of their prey, and fly and moth return again and
42:32
again until this is accomplished. Yet George Eisley was as sane as the head
42:37
waiter, who, noticing our interest in the window, came up just then
42:40
and inquired whether we felt a draft and would prefer it closed Ieslely, I
42:45
realized was struggling to express a passionate state of soul, for which, owing
42:50
to its rarity, no adequate expression lies at hand. There is a language
42:54
of the mind, but there is none as yet of the spirit. I
42:58
felt ill at ease. All this so foreign to the wholesome, strenuous personality
43:01
of the man as I remembered it. But, my dear fellow, I
43:07
stammered, aren't you giving pooral Egypt a bad name she hardly deserves. I
43:13
feel only the amazing strength and beauty of it. Ah, if you like,
43:16
But none of this resentment you so mysteriously hint at you understand? For
43:22
all that, he answered quietly, and again he seemed on the verge of
43:28
some significant confession that might ease his soul. My uncomfortable emotion grew. Certainly
43:34
he was at high pressure somewhere, And if necessary, you could help your
43:39
sympathy, I mean, is a hope already, he said it half to
43:44
himself, and in a suddenly lowered tone, again, a help, I
43:49
gasped my sympathy. Of course, if a witness, he murmured, not
43:54
looking at me, some one who understands yet does not think me mad.
44:00
There was such a peal in his voice that I felt ready and eager to
44:04
do anything to help him. Our eyes met my own. Tried to express
44:07
this willingness in me. But what I said I hardly know, for a
44:10
cloud of confusion was on my mind, and my speech went fumbling like a
44:15
schoolboy's. I was more than disconcerted through this bewilderment. Then I just caught
44:21
the tail end of another sentence, in which the words relief it is to
44:24
have some one to hold to when the disappearance calms sounded like voices heard in
44:30
dream. But I missed the complete phrase and shrank from asking him to repeat
44:35
it. Some sympathetic answer struggled to my lips, though what it was I
44:39
know. Not the thing I murmured, however, seemed apparently well chosen.
44:45
He leaned across and laid his big hand a moment on my own, with
44:47
eloquent pressure. It was cold as ice. A look of gratitude passed over
44:52
his sunburned features. He sighed, and we left the table then and passed
44:57
into the inner smoking room for coffee, a room who his windows gave out
45:00
column terraces that allowed no view of the encircling desert. He led the conversation
45:05
into channels less personal and thank heaven less intensely emotional and mysterious. What we
45:12
talked about I now forget it was interesting, but in another key altogether his
45:17
old charm and power worked. The respect I had always felt for his character
45:22
and gifts returned in force. But it was the pity I now experienced that
45:27
remained chiefly in my mind. For this change in him became more and more
45:30
noticeable. He was less impressive, less convincing, less suggestive. His talk,
45:38
though so knowledgeable, lacked that spiritual quality that drives home. He was
45:44
uncannily less real. And I went up to bed, uneasy and disturbed.
45:50
It is not age, I said to myself, and assuredly it is not
45:53
death he fears, although he spoke of disappearance. It is mental and deepest
46:00
sense. It is what religious people would call soul. Something is happening to
46:07
his soul. Chapter four, And this word soul remained with me to the
46:15
end. Egypt was taking his soul away into the past. What was of
46:20
value in him went willingly. The rest some lesser aspect of his mind and
46:24
character resisted holding to the present. A struggle therefore was involved. But this
46:30
was being gradually obliterated too. How I arrived gaily at this monstrous conclusion seemed
46:37
to me now a mystery. But the truth is that from a conversation one
46:39
brings away a general idea that is larger than the words actually heard and spoken.
46:45
I have reported, naturally, but a fragment of what passed between us
46:49
and language, and of what was suggested by gesture, expression, silence,
46:54
merely perhaps a hint. I can only assert that this troubling verdict remained conviction
47:00
in my mind. It came upstairs with me. It watched and listened by
47:04
my side. That mysterious third evoked in our conversation was bigger than either of
47:10
us separately. It might be called the spirit of ancient Egypt, or it
47:15
might be called, with equal generalization, the past. This third, at
47:22
any rate, stood by me whispering this astounding thing. I went out on
47:28
to my little balcony to smoke a pipe and enjoy the comforting presence of the
47:31
stars. Before turning in. It came out with me. It was everywhere
47:37
I heard the barking of dogs, the monotonous beating of a distant drum towards
47:42
Bedrachian, the sing song voices of the natives in their booths, and down
47:46
the dim lit streets. I was aware of this invisible third behind all these
47:52
familiar sounds. The enormous night sky, drowned in stars, conveyed it too.
47:59
It was in the breath of chilly wind that whispered round the walls,
48:01
and it brooded everywhere above the sleepless desert. I was alone, as little
48:07
as though George Isley stood beside me in person. And at that moment a
48:12
moving figure caught my eye below. My window was on the sixth story,
48:15
but there was no mistaking the tall and soldierly bearing of the man who was
48:20
strolling past the hotel. George Isley was going slowly out into the desert.
48:27
There was actually nothing unusual in the night. It was only ten o'clock.
48:30
But for doctor's orders, I might have been doing the same myself. Yet
48:34
as I leaned over the dizzy ledge and watched him, a chill struck through
48:37
me, and a feeling nothing could justify nor pages of writing described rose up
48:44
and mastered me. His words at dinner came back with curious force. Egypt
48:49
lay round him, motionless, a vast gray web. His feet were caught
48:53
in it. It quivered, the silvery meshes in the moonlight announced the fact.
48:59
From Memphis up to Thebes, across the Nile, from underground Sacara to
49:04
the Valley of the Kings, a trimmer ran over the entire desert, and
49:07
again, as in the dining room, the leagues of sand went rustling.
49:10
It seemed to me that I caught him in the act of disappearing. I
49:15
realized in that moment the haunting power of this mysterious still atmosphere which is Egypt,
49:20
and some magical emanation of its mighty past, broke over me suddenly like
49:23
a wave. Perhaps in that moment I felt what he himself felt. The
49:29
withdrawing suction of the huge spent wave swept something out of me into the past.
49:34
With it, an indescribable yearning, drew something living from my heart,
49:38
something that longed with a kind of burning, searching sweetness for a glory of
49:43
spiritual passion that was gone. The pain and happiness of it were more poignant
49:47
than may be told, and my present personality some vital portion of it,
49:52
at any rate, wilted before the power of its enticement. I stood there,
49:58
motionless as stone and s dared, erect and steady, knowing resistance,
50:02
vain, eager to go, yet striving to remain in half. With an
50:06
air of floating off the ground, he went towards the pale, gray thread,
50:08
which was the track to Suez and the far red sea. There came
50:14
upon me this strange, deep sense of pity, pathos, sympathy that was
50:19
beyond all explanation, and mysterious as a pain in dreams. For a sense
50:23
of his awful loneliness stole into me, a loneliness nothing on this earth could
50:28
possibly relieve. Robbed of the present, he sought this chimera of his soul,
50:34
an unreal past. Not even the calm majesty of this exquisite Egyptian night
50:38
could soothe the dream away. The peace and silence were marvelous, the sweet
50:44
perfume of the desert air intoxicating. But all these intensified it only, And
50:50
though at a loss to explain my own emotion, its poignancy was so real
50:53
that a sigh escaped me, and I felt that tears lay not too far
50:58
away. I watched him, yet felt I had no right to watch Softly.
51:04
I drew back from the window with the sensation of eavesdropping upon his privacy.
51:08
But before I did so, I had seen his outline melt away into
51:12
the dim world of sand that began at the very walls of the hotel.
51:16
He wore a cloak of green that reached down almost to his heels, and
51:21
its color blended with the silvery surface of the desert's dark sea tint. This
51:27
sheen first draped and then concealed him. It covered him with a fold of
51:30
its mysterious garment that, without seam or binding, veiled Egypt for a thousand
51:36
leagues. The desert took him, Egypt caught him in her web. He
51:42
was gone. Sleep for me just then seemed out of the question. The
51:45
change in him made me feel less sure of myself. To see him thus
51:51
Invertebrate shocked me. I was aware that I had nerves. For a long
51:54
time, I sat smoking by the window, my body weary, but my
51:59
imagination ereatingly stimulated. The big sign lights of the hotel went out. Window
52:05
after window closed below me. The electric standards in the streets were already extinguished,
52:09
and Helluin looked like a child's white blocks, scattered in ruin upon the
52:14
nursery carpet, it seemed so wee. Upon the vast expanse, it lay
52:19
in a twinkling pattern, like a cluster of glow worms. Dropped into a
52:22
negligible crease of the tremendous desert. It peeped up at the stars a little
52:28
frightened. The night was very still. There hung an enormous, brooding beauty
52:32
everywhere, a hint of the sinister in it that only the brilliance of the
52:37
blazing stars relieved. Nothing really slept. Grouped here and there, at intervals
52:42
about this dun colored world stood the everlasting watchers and solemn, tireless guardianship,
52:47
the soaring pyramids, the Sphynx, the grim colossi, the empty temples,
52:53
the long deserted tombs. The mind was aware of them, stationed like sentry
53:00
through the night. This is Egypt. You are actually in Egypt, whispered
53:06
the silence. Eight thousand years of history, life fluttering outside your window.
53:12
She lies there underground, sleepless, mighty, deathless, not to be trifled
53:16
with. Beware, or she will change you too. My imagination offered this
53:22
hint. Egypt is difficult to realize. It remains outside the mind, a
53:30
fabulous, half legendary idea. So many enormous elements together refuse to be assimilated.
53:37
The heart pauses, asking for time and breath. The senses reel a
53:39
little, and in the end, a mental torpor akin to stupefaction creeps upon
53:45
the brain. With a sigh, the struggle is abandoned, and the mind
53:49
surrenders to Egypt on her own terms alone. The diggers and archaeologists, confined
53:54
to definite facts, offer successful resistance. My friend's use of the word resistance
54:00
and protection became clearer to me. While logic halted, intuition fluttered round.
54:07
This clue to the solution of the influences at work. George Eisley realized Egypt
54:12
more than most, but as she had been, and I recalled its first
54:16
effect upon myself, and how my mind had been unable to cope with the
54:21
memory of it. Afterwards. There had come to its summons a colossal medley,
54:24
a gigantic colored blur that merely bewildered only lesser points lodged comfortably in the
54:30
heart. I saw a chaotic vision, sands drenched in dazzling light, vast
54:36
granite aisles, stupendous figures that stared unblinking at the sun, a shining river
54:42
and a shadowy desert, both endless as the sky. Mountainous pyramids and gigantic
54:47
monoliths, armies of heads, of paws, of faces, all set to
54:52
a scale of SiGe that was prodigious. The items stunned. The composite effect
54:59
was too unwielder to be grasped. Something that blazed with splendor rolled before the
55:04
eyes, too close to be seen distinctly at the same time very distant,
55:08
unrealized. Then with the passing of the weeks, it slowly stirred to life.
55:14
It had attacked unseen. Its grip was quite tremendous, yet it could
55:19
be neither told, nor painted, nor described. It flamed up unexpectedly in
55:23
the foggy London streets at the club in the theater, a sound recalled the
55:29
street cries of the Arabs. A breath of scented air brought back the heated
55:32
sand. Beyond the palm groves. Up rose the huge Egyptian glamor, transforming
55:38
common things it had lain buried all this time, and deep recesses of the
55:43
heart that are inaccessible to ordinary daily life, and there hid in it something
55:49
of uneasiness that was inexplicable. Awe, a hint of cold eternity, a
55:53
touch of something unchanging and terrific, something sublime made lovely yet unearthly, which
56:00
shadowy time and distance, the melancholy of the nile and the grandeur of a
56:04
hundred battered temples, dropped some unutterable beauty upon the heart. Upswept the desert
56:09
air, the luminous pale shadows, the naked desolation that yet brims with sharp
56:15
vitality. An Arab on his donkey, tripped in color across the mind,
56:20
melting off into tiny perspective, strangely vivid. A string of camels stood in
56:27
silhouette against the crimson sky. Great winds, great blazing spaces, great solemn
56:34
nights, great days of golden splendor rose from the pavement or the theater stall
56:38
and London dim lit England. The whole of modern life indeed, seemed suddenly
56:43
reduced to a paltry insignificance that produced an aching longing for the pageantry of those
56:49
millions of vanished souls. Egypt rolled through the heart for a moment and was
56:53
gone. I remembered that some such fantastic experience had been mine. Put it
57:00
as one may, The fact remains that for certain temperaments, Egypt can rob
57:04
the present of some thread of interest that was formerly there. The memory became
57:08
for me an integral part of personality. Something in me yearned for its curious
57:13
and awful beauty. He who has drunk of the nile shall return to drink
57:16
of it again. And if for myself this was possible, what might not
57:21
happen to a character of George Isley's type. Some glimmer of comprehension came to
57:27
me. The ancient, buried, hidden Egypt had cast her net about his
57:30
soul, grown shadowy in the present, his life was being transferred into some
57:36
golden, reconstructed past where it was real. Some countries give while others take
57:42
away, and George Isley was worth robbing. Disturbed by these singular reflections,
57:47
I moved away from the open window, closing it. But the closing did
57:52
not exclude the presence of the third. The biting night air followed me in.
57:57
I drew the mosquito curtains round the bed, but the light I left
58:00
still burning, and lying there, I jotted down upon a scrap of paper,
58:04
this curious impression as best I could, only to find that it escaped
58:07
easily between the words. Such visionary and spiritual perceptions are too elusive to be
58:15
trapped in language. Reading it over after an interval of years, it is
58:20
difficult to recall with what intense meaning, what uncanny emotion I wrote those faded
58:25
lines and pencil. Their rhetoric seems cheap, their content much exaggerated. Yet
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at the time truth burned in every syllable. Egypt, which since time began,
58:37
has suffered robbery with violence at the hands of all the world, now
58:40
takes her vengeance, choosing her individual prey. Her time has come behind a
58:46
modern mask. She lies in wait, intensely active, sure of her hidden
58:51
power. Prostitute of dead empire. She lies now at peace beneath the same
58:54
old stars, her loveliness unimpaired, bejeweled with the beaten gold of ages,
59:00
her breasts uncovered and her grand limbs flashing in the sun. Her shoulders of
59:05
alabaster are lifted above the sand drifts. She surveys the little figures of to
59:08
day. She takes her choice. That night I did not dream, but
59:15
neither did the whole of me lie down in sleep during the long dark hours.
59:20
I was aware of that picture, endlessly repeating itself, the picture of
59:24
George Isley stealing out into the moonlight desert the night so swiftly dropped her hood
59:30
about him, so mysteriously he merged into the unchanging thing which cloaks the past.
59:37
It lifted some huge, shadowy hand, gloved softly yet of granite,
59:42
stretched over the leagues to take him. He disappeared. They say the desert
59:47
is motionless and has no gestures. That night I saw it moving, hurrying.
59:52
It went tearing after him. You understand my meaning. No, Well,
59:57
when excited, it produces this strange impress And the terrible moment is when
1:00:01
you surrender helplessly you desire, it shall swallow you. You let it come.
1:00:08
George Isley spoke of a web. It is, at any rate,
1:00:13
some central power that conceals itself behind the surface. Glamor folk call the spell
1:00:17
of Egypt. Its home is not apparent. It dwells with ancient Egypt underground,
1:00:23
behind the stillness of hot, windless days, behind the peace of calm
1:00:28
gigantic nights. It lurks, unrealized, monstrous and irresistible. My mind grasped
1:00:35
it as little as the fact that our Solar system, with all its retinue
1:00:38
of satellites and planets, rushes annually many million miles towards a star in Hercules,
1:00:45
while yet that constellation appears no closer than it did six thousand years ago.
1:00:50
But the clue dropped in to me. George Eisley, with his entire
1:00:53
retinue of thought and life and feeling, was being similarly drawn, and I,
1:00:58
a minor satellite, had become aware of the horrifying pull. It was
1:01:02
magnificent, and I fell asleep on the crest of this enormous wave. End
1:01:08
of Section eight