XIII

THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS

On the way to the tombs of the kings I went to the temple of Kurna, that lonely cenotaph, with its sand-colored massive facade, its heaps of fallen stone, its wide and ruined doorway, its thick, almost rough, columns recalling Medinet-Abu.  There is not very much to see, but from there one has a fine view of other temples—­of the Ramesseum, looking superb, like a grand skeleton; of Medinet-Abu, distant, very pale gold in the morning sunlight; of little Deir-al-Medinet, the pretty child of the Ptolemies, with the heads of the seven Hathors.  And from Kurna the Colossi are exceptionally grand and exceptionally personal, so personal that one imagines one sees the expressions of the faces that they no longer possess.

Even if you do not go into the tombs—­but you will go—­you must ride to the tombs of the kings; and you must, if you care for the finesse of impressions, ride on a blazing day and toward the hour of noon.  Then the ravine is itself, like the great act that demonstrates a temperament.  It is the narrow home of fire, hemmed in by brilliant colors, nearly all—­perhaps quite all—­of which could be found in a glowing furnace.  Every shade of yellow is there—­lemon yellow, sulphur yellow, the yellow of amber, the yellow of orange with its tendency toward red, the yellow of gold, sand color, sun color.  Cannot all these yellows be found in a fire?  And there are the reds—­pink of the carnation, pink of the coral, red of the little rose that grows in certain places of sands, red of the bright flame’s heart.  And all these colors are mingled in complete sterility.  And all are fused into a fierce brotherhood by the sun. and like a flood, they seem flowing to the red and the yellow mountains, like a flood that is flowing to its sea.  You are taken by them toward the mountains, on and on, till the world is closing in, and you know the way must come to an end.  And it comes to an end—­in a tomb.

You go to a door in the rock, and a guardian lets you in, and wants to follow you in.  Prevent him if you can.  Pay him.  Go in alone.  For this is the tomb of Amenhotep II.; and he himself is here, far down, at rest under the mountain, this king who lived and reigned more than fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ.  The ravine-valley leads to him, and you should go to him alone.  He lies in the heart of the living rock, in the dull heat of the earth’s bowels, which is like no other heat.  You descend by stairs and corridors, you pass over a well by a bridge, you pass through a naked chamber; and the king is not there.  And you go on down another staircase, and along another corridor, and you come into a pillared chamber, with paintings on its walls, and on its pillars, paintings of the king in the presence of the gods of the underworld, under stars in a soft blue sky.  And below you, shut in on the farther side by the solid mountain in whose breast you have all this time been walking, there is a crypt.  And you turn away from the bright paintings, and down there you see the king.