ide, descending, were white, ruined walls,
stretched out like defaced white arms of the temple to receive me.
I stood still for a moment and looked at the narrow, severely simple
doorway, at the twelve broken columns advanced on either side, white and
greyish white with their right angles, their once painted figures now
almost wholly colorless.

Here lay the Osirians, those blessed dead of the land of Egypt, who
worshipped the Judge of the Dead, the Lord of the Underworld, and who
hoped for immortality through him--Osiris, husband of Isis, Osiris,
receiver of prayers. Osiris the sun who will not be conquered by night,
but eternally rises again, and so is the symbol of the resurrection
of the soul. It is said that Set, the power of Evil, tore the body of
Osiris into fourteen fragments and scattered them over the land. But
multitudes of worshippers of Osiris believed him buried near Abydos and,
like those who loved the sweet songs of Hafiz, they desired to be buried
near him whom they adored; and so this place became a place of the dead,
a place of many prayers, a white place of many longings.

I was glad to be alone there. The guardian left me in perfect peace. I
happily forgot him. I sat down in the shadow of a column upon its mighty
projecting base. The sky was blinding blue. Great bees hummed, like
bourdons, through the silence, deepening the almost heavy calm. These
columns, architraves, doorways, how mighty, how grandly strong they
were! And yet soon I began to be aware that even here, where surely one
should read only the Book of the Dead, or bend down to the hot ground
to listen if perchance one might hear the dead themselves murmuring over
the chapters of Beatification far down in their hidden tombs, there was
a likeness, a gentle gaiety of life, as in the tomb of Thi. The effect
of solidity was immense. These columns bulged, almost like great fruits
swollen out by their heady strength of blood. They towered up in crowds.
The heavy roof, broken in places most mercifully to show squares and
oblongs of that perfect, calling blue, was like a frowning brow. And yet
I was with grace, with gentleness, with lightness, because in the place
of the dead I was again with the happy, living walls. Above me, on the
roof, there was a gleam of palest blue, like the blue I have sometimes
seen at morning on the Ionian sea just where it meets the shore. The
double rows of gigantic columns stretched away, tall almost as forest
tree