re sublime--twin monarchs, spouses from
the bosom of eternity; he holding a sceptre with the head of a
conchoupha, and I a sceptre with a lotus-flower, we stood with hands
joined;--and the crash of empires did not change our attitude.

"Egypt lay stretched beneath us, monumental and solemn, long, like the
corridor of a temple, with obelisks at the right, pyramids at the left,
its labyrinth in the middle; and everywhere avenues of monsters, forests
of columns, massive archways flanking gates which have for their summit
the earth's sphere between two wings.

"The animals of her zodiac found their counterparts in her plains, and
with their forms and colours filled her mysterious writings. Divided
into twelve regions, as the year is into twelve months--each month, each
day, having its god--she reproduced the immutable order of the heavens;
and man, though he died, did not lose his lineaments, but, saturated
with perfumes and becoming imperishable, he went to sleep for three
thousand years in a silent Egypt.

"The latter, greater than the other, spread out beneath the earth.
Thither one descended by means of staircases leading to halls where were
reproduced the joys of the good, the tortures of the wicked, everything
that takes place in the third invisible world. Ranged along the walls,
the dead, in painted coffins, awaited each their turn; and the soul,
free from migrations, continued its sleep till it awakened in another
life.

"Meanwhile, Osiris sometimes came back to see me. His shade made me the
mother of Harpocrates."

She gazes on the child:

"It is he! Those are his eyes; those are his tresses, curling like a
ram's horns. Thou shalt begin his works over again. We shall bloom
afresh, like the lotus. I am always the great Isis! Nobody has ever yet
lifted my veil! My offspring is the sun!

"Sun of spring, let the clouds obscure thy face! The breath of Typhon
devours the pyramids. Just now I have seen the Sphinx fly away. He
galloped off like a jackal.

"I am seeking for my priests--my priests in their linen robes, with
great harps, carrying along a mystic skiff ornamented with paterae of
silver. No more feasts on the lakes! no more illuminations in my Delta!
no more cups of milk at Philae! For a long time Apis has not reappeared.

"Egypt! Egypt! Thy great immovable gods have their shoulders whitened by
the dung of birds, and the wind, as it passes along the desert, carries
with it the ashes of the dead!--Anub