Part 6

At length we reach our destination. The point of the Pyramid has long since crumbled away, and we stand on a tolerably spacious platform. When our gasping breath and throbbing pulses have partially recovered and we have paid and got rid of the _Bedouin_, who torment us to exchange our money for sham antiquities, we look down upon the vast landscape, and the longer we gaze and absorb this distant view, the more significant and the more incomparable it appears. Fertility and sterility, life and death, lie nowhere in such close mingling as here. There in the east flows the broad Nile covered with lateen sails, and like emerald tapestry are the fields and meadows, gardens and groves of palm-trees, spread along its shores. The villages, hidden under the trees, look like birds’ nests among green boughs, and at the foot of the Mokattam mountain, which is now shining with golden light and which at sunset will reflect the rosy and violet afterglow, rise the thousand mosques of the city of the Caliphs, overtopped by the citadel and by those slenderest of all minarets which grace the Mausoleum of Mohammed Ali, an unmistakable feature of Cairo, visible from the farthest distance. Gardens and trees encircle the city like a garland around some lovely head. Nowhere is there to be found a more beautiful picture of prosperity, fertility, and life. The silver threads of the canals crossing the entire luxuriant valley appear to be some shining fluid. Unclouded is the sky, and yet light shadows fall across the fields. These are flocks of birds which find plenty of food and drink here. How vast is the bounty of God! How beautiful and rich is the earth!

The _Bedouin_ have left us. We stand alone on the summit. All is still. Not a sound reaches us from far or near. Turning now to the west, the eye can see nothing but pyramids and tombs, rocks and sand in countless number. Not a blade, not a bush can find nutriment in this sterile ground. Yellow, grey, and dull brown cover everything, far and wide, in unbroken monotony.

Only here and there a white object is shining amidst the dust. It is the dried skeleton of some dead animal. Silent and void, the enemy to everything that has life--the desert--stretches before us. Where is its end? In days, weeks, months the traveller would never reach it, even if he escaped alive from the choking sand. Here, if anywhere, Death is king; here, where the Egyptians saw the sun vanish every day behind the wall of the Libyan mountains, begins a world which bears the same comparison to the fruitful lands of the East as a corpse does to a living man happy in the battle and joy of life. A more silent burial-place than this desert exists nowhere on this earth; and so tomb after tomb was erected here, and, as if to preserve the secret of the dead, the desert has enveloped tombs and bodies with its veil of sand. Here the terrors of infinity are displayed. Here at the gate of the future life, where eternity begins, man’s work seems to have eluded the common destiny of earthly things and to have partaken of immortality.

“Time mocks all things, but the Pyramids mock Time” is an Arabian proverb which has been repeated thousands of times.

_Cicerone durch das alte und neue Ægypten_ (Stuttgart und Leipzig, 1886).

SAINT PETER’S.

CHARLES DICKENS.

When we were fairly off again, we began, in a perfect fever, to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two, the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance, it looked like--I am half afraid to write the word--like LONDON!!! There it lay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples, and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and, high above them all, one Dome. I swear, that keenly as I felt the seeming absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that distance, that if you could have shown it me in a glass, I should have taken it for nothing else.

We entered the Eternal City at about four o’clock in the afternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo, and came immediately--it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been heavy rain--on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, know that we were only looking at the fag-end of the masks, who were driving slowly round and round the Piazza, until they could find a promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene....

Immediately on going out next day we hurried off to St. Peter’s. It looked immense in the distance but distinctly and decidedly small, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the Piazza in which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns and its gushing fountains--so fresh, so broad, and free and beautiful--nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and most of all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to be forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel: which is before it, in the centre of the church: were like a goldsmith’s shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing. I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder in the Cathedral of San Mark, at Venice....

On Sunday the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St. Peter’s. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after many visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is an immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon; and it tires itself with wandering round and round. The very purpose of the place is not expressed in anything you see there, unless you examine its details--and all examination of details is incompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a Senate House, or a great architectural trophy, having no other object than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue of St. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger than life, and which is constantly having its great toe kissed by good Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominent and popular. But it does not heighten the effect of the temple as a work of art; and it is not expressive--to me, at least--of its high purpose.

[Illustration: ST. PETER’S.]

A large space behind the altar was fitted up with boxes, shaped like those at the Italian Opera in England, but in their decoration much more gaudy. In the centre of the kind of theatre thus railed off was a canopied dais with the Pope’s chair upon it. The pavement was covered with a carpet of the brightest green; and what with this green, and the intolerable reds and crimsons, and gold borders of the hangings, the whole concern looked like a stupendous Bonbon. On either side of the altar was a large box for lady strangers. These were filled with ladies in black dresses and black veils. The gentlemen of the Pope’s guard, in red coats, leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all this reserved space, with drawn swords that were very flashy in every sense; and, from the altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept clear by the Pope’s Swiss Guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and striped tight legs, and carry halberds like those which are usually shouldered by those theatrical supernumeraries, who never _can_ get off the stage fast enough, and who may be generally observed to linger in the enemy’s camp after the open country, held by the opposite forces, has been split up the middle by a convulsion of Nature.

I got upon the border of the green carpet, in company with a great many other gentlemen attired in black (no other passport is necessary), and stood there, at my ease, during the performance of mass. The singers were in a crib of wire-work (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in one corner; and sung most atrociously. All about the green carpet there was a slowly-moving crowd of people: talking to each other: staring at the Pope through eye-glasses: defrauding one another, in moments of partial curiosity, out of precarious seats on the bases of pillars: and grinning hideously at the ladies. Dotted here and there were little knots of friars (Francescani, or Cappuccini, in their coarse brown dresses and peaked hoods), making a strange contrast to the gaudy ecclesiastics of higher degree, and having their humility gratified to the utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and stained garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces of the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their dogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour having something in it half miserable, and half ridiculous.

Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, was a perfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple, violet, white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these went to and fro among the crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and receiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; other functionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in court dresses, were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, and stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of human man-traps, and with their own devout legs tripped up other people’s by the dozen.

There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me, which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-work tippet, like a summer ornament for a fire-place in tissue paper, made himself very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: one apiece. They loitered about with these for some time, under their arms like walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At a certain period of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle up to the Pope, laid it across his two knees to be blessed, took it back again, and filed off. This was done in a very attenuated procession, as you may suppose, and occupied a long time. Not because it takes long to bless a candle through and through, but because there were so many candles to be blessed. At last they were all blessed, and then they were all lighted; and then the Pope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the church....

On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope bestows his benediction on the people from the balcony in front of St. Peter’s. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: so cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad weather vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen the Thursday’s benediction dropping damply on some hundreds of umbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then in all the hundred fountains of Rome--such fountains as they are!--and, on this Sunday morning, they were running diamonds. The miles of miserable streets through which we drove (compelled to a certain course by the Pope’s dragoons: the Roman police on such occasions) were so full of colour, that nothing in them was capable of wearing a faded aspect. The common people came out in their gayest dresses; the richer people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the church of the Poor Fisherman in their state carriages; shabby magnificence flaunted its threadbare liveries and tarnished cocked-hats in the sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition for the Great Piazza of St. Peter’s.

One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet there was ample room. How many carriages were there I don’t know; yet there was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps of the church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini, from Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, and the mingling of bright colours in the crowd was beautiful. Below the steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent proportions of the place, they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans, lively peasants from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrims from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing foreigners of all nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; and high above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbow colours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled and tumbled bountifully.

A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and the sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery. An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old man from the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were turned up to this window. In due time the chair was seen approaching to the front, with the gigantic fans of peacock’s feathers close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony is very high) then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while all the male spectators in the square uncovered, and some, but not by any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon the ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, that the benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smaller heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like party-coloured sand....

But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon, what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and shining all round the colonnade of the Piazza. And what a sense of exultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half past seven--on the instant--to behold one bright red mass of fire soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summit of the cross, and, the moment it leaped into its place, become the signal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great, and red, and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; so that every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork of the enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!

A train of gunpowder, an electric chain--nothing could be fired more suddenly and swiftly than this second illumination: and when we had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked toward it two hours afterward, there it still stood, shining and glittering in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of its proportions wanting; not an angle blunted; not an atom of its radiance lost.

_Pictures from Italy_ (London, 1845).

THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG.

VICTOR HUGO.

I arrived in Nancy Sunday evening at seven o’clock; at eight the diligence started again. Was I more fatigued? Was the road better? The fact is I propped myself on the braces of the conveyance and slept. Thus I arrived in Phalsbourg.

I woke up about four o’clock in the morning. A cool breeze blew upon my face and the carriage was going down the incline at a gallop, for we were descending the famous Saverne.

It was one of the most beautiful impressions of my life. The rain had ceased, the mists had been blown to the four winds, and the crescent moon slipped rapidly through the clouds and sailed freely through the azure space like a barque on a little lake. A breeze which came from the Rhine made the trees, which bordered the road, tremble. From time to time they waved aside and permitted me to see an indistinct and frightful abyss: in the foreground, a forest beneath which the mountain disappeared; below, immense plains, meandering streams glittering like streaks of lightning; and in the background a dark, indistinct, and heavy line--the Black Forest--a magical panorama beheld by moonlight. Such incomplete visions have, perhaps, more distinction than any others. They are dreams which one can look upon and feel. I knew that my eyes rested upon France, Germany, and Switzerland, Strasburg with its spire, the Black Forest with its mountains, and the Rhine with its windings; I searched for everything and I saw nothing. I have never experienced a more extraordinary sensation. Add to that the hour, the journey, the horses dashing down the precipice, the violent noise of the wheels, the rattling of the windows, the frequent passage through dark woods, the breath of the morning upon the mountains, a gentle murmur heard through the valleys, and the beauty of the sky, and you will understand what I felt. Day is amazing in this valley; night is fascinating.

The descent took a quarter of an hour. Half an hour later came the twilight of morning; at my left the dawn quickened the lower sky, a group of white houses with black roofs became visible on the summit of a hill, the blue of day began to overflow the horizon, several peasants passed by going to their vines, a clear, cold, and violet light struggled with the ashy glimmer of the moon, the constellations paled, two of the Pleiades were lost to sight, the three horses in our chariot descended rapidly towards their stable with its blue doors, it was cold and I was frozen, for it had become necessary to open the windows. A moment afterwards the sun rose, and the first thing it showed to me was the village notary shaving at a broken mirror under a red calico curtain.

A league further on the peasants became more picturesque and the waggons magnificent; I counted in one thirteen mules harnessed far apart by long chains. You felt you were approaching Strasburg, the old German city.

Galloping furiously, we traversed Wasselonne, a long narrow trench of houses strangled in the last gorge of the Vosges by the side of Strasburg. There I caught a glimpse of one façade of the Cathedral, surmounted by three round and pointed towers in juxtaposition, which the movement of the diligence brought before my vision brusquely and then took it away, jolting it about as if it were a scene in the theatre.

Suddenly, at a turn in the road the mist lifted and I saw the Münster. It was six o’clock in the morning. The enormous Cathedral, which is the highest building that the hand of man has made since the great Pyramid, was clearly defined against a background of dark mountains whose forms were magnificent and whose valleys were flooded with sunshine. The work of God made for man and the work of man made for God, the mountain and the Cathedral contesting for grandeur. I have never seen anything more imposing.

Yesterday I visited the Cathedral. The Münster is truly a marvel. The doors of the church are beautiful, particularly the Roman porch, the façade contains some superb figures on horseback, the rose-window is beautifully cut, and the entire face of the Cathedral is a poem, wisely composed. But the real triumph of the Cathedral is the spire. It is a true tiara of stone with its crown and its cross. It is a prodigy of grandeur and delicacy. I have seen Chartres, and I have seen Antwerp, but Strasburg pleases me best.

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG.]

The church has never been finished. The apse, miserably mutilated, has been restored according to that imbecile, the Cardinal de Rohan, of the necklace fame. It is hideous. The window they have selected is like a modern carpet. It is ignoble. The other windows, with the exception of some added panes, are beautiful, notably the great rose-window. All the church is shamefully whitewashed; some of the sculptures have been restored with some little taste. This Cathedral has been affected by all styles. The pulpit is a little construction of the Fifteenth Century, of florid Gothic of a design and style that are ravishing. Unfortunately they have gilded it in the most stupid manner. The baptismal font is of the same period and is restored in a superior manner. It is a vase surrounded by foliage in sculpture, the most marvellous in the world. In a dark chapel at the side there are two tombs. One, of a bishop of the time of Louis V., is of that formidable character which Gothic architecture always expresses. The sepulchre is in two floors. The bishop, in pontifical robes and with his mitre on his head, is lying in his bed under a canopy; he is sleeping. Above and on the foot of the bed in the shadow, you perceive an enormous stone in which two enormous iron rings are imbedded; that is the lid of the tomb. You see nothing more. The architects of the Sixteenth Century showed you the corpse (you remember the tombs of Brou?); those of the Fourteenth concealed it: that is even more terrifying. Nothing could be more sinister than these two rings....

The tomb of which I have spoken is in the left arm of the cross. In the right arm there is a chapel, which scaffolding prevented me from seeing. At the side of this chapel runs a balustrade of the Fifteenth Century, leaning against a wall. A sculptured and painted figure leans against this balustrade and seems to be admiring a pillar surrounded by statues placed one over the other, which is directly opposite and which has a marvellous effect. Tradition says that this figure represents the first architect of the Münster--Erwyn von Steinbach....

I did not see the famous astronomical clock, which is in the nave and which is a charming little building of the Sixteenth Century. They were restoring it and it was covered with a scaffolding of boards.

After having seen the church, I made the ascent of the steeple. You know my taste for perpendicular trips. I was very careful not to miss the highest spire in the world. The Münster of Strasburg is nearly five hundred feet high. It belongs to the family of spires which are open-worked stairways.