登陆注册
15457600000038

第38章 XVIII(1)

OLD CAIRO

By Old Cairo I do not mean only /le vieux Caire/ of the guide-book, the little, desolate village containing the famous Coptic church of Abu Sergius, in the crypt of which the Virgin Mary and Christ are said to have stayed when they fled to the land of Egypt to escape the fury of King Herod; but the Cairo that is not new, that is not dedicated wholly to officialdom and tourists, that, in the midst of changes and the advance of civilisation--civilisation that does so much harm as well as so much good, that showers benefits with one hand and defaces beauty with the other--preserves its immemorial calm or immemorial turmult; that stands aloof, as stands aloof ever the Eastern from the Western man, even in the midst of what seems, perhaps, like intimacy;Eastern to the soul, though the fantasies, the passions, the vulgarities, the brilliant ineptitudes of the West beat about it like waves about some unyielding wall of the sea.

When I went back to Egypt, after a lapse of many years, I fled at once from Cairo, and upon the long reaches of the Nile, in the great spaces of the Libyan Desert, in the luxuriant palm-grooves of the Fayyum, among the tamarisk-bushes and on the pale waters of Kurun, I forgot the changes which, in my brief glimpse of the city and its environs, had moved me to despondency. But one cannot live in the solitudes for ever. And at last from Madi-nat-al-Fayyum, with the first pilgrims starting for Mecca, I returned to the great city, determined to seek in it once more for the fascinations it used to hold, and perhaps still held in the hidden ways where modern feet, nearly always in a hurry, had seldom time to penetrate.

A mist hung over the land. Out of it, with a sort of stern energy, there came to my ears loud hymns sung by the pilgrim voices--hymns in which, mingled with the enthusiasm of devotees en route for the holiest shrine of their faith, there seemed to sound the resolution of men strung up to confront the fatigues and the dangers of a great journey through a wild and unknown country. Those hymns led my feet to the venerable mosques of Cairo, the city of mosques, guided me on my lesser pilgrimage among the cupolas and the colonnades, where grave men dream in the silence near marble fountains, or bend muttering their prayers beneath domes that are dimmed by the ruthless fingers of Time. In the buildings consecrated to prayer and to meditation I first sought for the magic that still lurks in the teeming bosom of Cairo.

Long as I had sought it elsewhere, in the brilliant bazaars by day, and by night in the winding alleys, where the dark-eyed Jews looked stealthily forth from the low-browed doorways; where the Circassian girls promenade, gleaming with golden coins and barbaric jewels; where the air is alive with music that is feverish and antique, and in strangely lighted interiors one sees forms clad in brilliant draperies, or severely draped in the simplest pale-blue garments, moving in languid dances, fluttering painted figures, bending, swaying, dropping down, like the forms that people a dream.

In the bazaars is the passion for gain, in the alleys of music and light is the passion for pleasure, in the mosques is the passion for prayer that connects the souls of men with the unseen but strongly felt world. Each of these passions is old, each of these passions in the heart of Islam is fierce. On my return to Cairo I sought for the hidden fire that is magic in the dusky places of prayer.

A mist lay over the city as I stood in a narrow byway, and gazed up at a heavy lattice, of which the decayed and blackened wood seemed on guard before some tragic or weary secret. Before me was the entrance to the mosque of Ibn-Tulun, older than any mosque in Cairo save only the mosque of Amru. It is approached by a flight of steps, on each side of which stand old, impenetrable houses. Above my head, strung across from one house to the other, were many little red and yellow flags ornamented with gold lozenges. These were to bear witness that in a couple of days' time, from the great open place beneath the citadel of Cairo, the Sacred Carpet was to set out on its long journey to Mecca. My guide struck on a door and uttered a fierce cry. A small shutter in the blackened lattice was opened, and a young girl, with kohl-tinted eyelids, and a brilliant yellow handkerchief tied over her coarse black hair, leaned out, held a short parley, and vanished, drawing the shutter to behind her. The mist crept about the tawdry flags, a heavy door creaked, whined on its hinges, and from the house of the girl there came an old, fat man bearing a mighty key. In a moment I was free of the mosque of Ibn-Tulun.

I ascended the steps, passed through a doorway, and found myself on a piece of waste ground, flanked on the right by an old, mysterious wall, and on the left by the long wall of the mosque, from which close to me rose a grey, unornamented minaret, full of the plain dignity of unpretending age. Upon its summit was perched a large and weary- looking bird with draggled feathers, which remained so still that it seemed to be a sad ornament set there above the city, and watching it for ever with eyes that could not see. At right angles, touching the mosque, was such a house as one can see only in the East-- fantastically old, fantastically decayed, bleared, discolored, filthy, melancholy, showing hideous windows, like windows in the slum of a town set above coal-pits in a colliery district, a degraded house, and yet a house which roused the imagination and drove it to its work. In this building once dwelt the High Priest of the mosque. This dwelling, the ancient wall, the grey minaret with its motionless bird, the lamentable waste ground at my feet, prepared me rightly to appreciate the bit of old Cairo I had come to see.

同类推荐
  • 武当玄天上帝灵应宝卷

    武当玄天上帝灵应宝卷

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 水族无鳞单

    水族无鳞单

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 天界觉浪盛禅师嘉禾语录

    天界觉浪盛禅师嘉禾语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 题秦州城

    题秦州城

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 节韵幼仪

    节韵幼仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 最强驭兽体

    最强驭兽体

    以幻兽入武,以武道驭兽。人兽合一,崩天裂地。上古凶兽残魂附于主角之身,一枚驭兽戒开启他的强者之路。这是一个武道与幻兽的世界,人与幻兽灵魂相通,追求天地之极限,逆天改命。宗门林立,大族传承,皇朝争霸。翱翔九天的凤凰,翻云覆雨的真龙,脚踩祥云的麒麟,兽皇体质现世,万兽朝拜的传说再现。每天稳定两到三更,打滚摸爬求收藏,推荐,点击,希望大家顺手支持下。
  • 宠妻宝典:总裁,别来无恙

    宠妻宝典:总裁,别来无恙

    秦蓁幻想过一百零八种和程漾重逢的场景,没想到时隔三年后相遇,挽着他手臂的却另有其人。可是这个半夜跑到她家骚扰她的男人是谁?秦蓁欲哭无泪的想要逃跑,却被某人给抓了回去:“跑一次,我让你一天下不来床,跑两次,我让你两天下不来床!”秦蓁弱弱的问:“十次呢?”某人冷冷一笑:“打断你的腿!”
  • 光退

    光退

    光,自以为速度最快,黑暗却总是在前方等着它的到来。我们不能怯懦,必须要直面黑暗,与之战斗。黑暗下的重刑犯是最聪明的一群人,要想拨开阴霾,抓住他们,必须要变得更聪明。要学会从蛛丝马迹中将犯罪者支离破碎的性格还原,从而推敲犯罪者的动机与心理。一旦你了解这个人,你就会知道他为什么这么做,如此也就能找出凶手。
  • 相思谋:妃常难娶

    相思谋:妃常难娶

    某日某王府张灯结彩,婚礼进行时,突然不知从哪冒出来一个小孩,对着新郎道:“爹爹,今天您的大婚之喜,娘亲让我来还一样东西。”说完提着手中的玉佩在新郎面前晃悠。此话一出,一府宾客哗然,然当大家看清这小孩与新郎如一个模子刻出来的面容时,顿时石化。此时某屋顶,一个绝色女子不耐烦的声音响起:“儿子,事情办完了我们走,别在那磨矶,耽误时间。”新郎一看屋顶上的女子,当下怒火攻心,扔下新娘就往女子所在的方向扑去,吼道:“女人,你给本王站住。”一场爱与被爱的追逐正式开始、、、、、、、
  • tfboys愿为繁星愿点缀

    tfboys愿为繁星愿点缀

    注意,这只是中西方文化的双结合!杨若兮:我去,这人真是抬头不见低头见啊。杨璃萧:哥,你那复习工具什么时候再借我来玩玩?林溪:这一个个伤的伤,亡的亡,他睡觉应该没那么吵吧!本书的第二部由@源圆潇宵的《tfboys青春有你,真好》请期待,谢谢!
  • 三年的承诺一年的错

    三年的承诺一年的错

    陈莹在以前的学校中屡屡不顺。作为副市长的陈爸不忍宝贝女儿整天沮丧。所以决定搬家。。正是因为这次搬家。一场虐恋在慢慢上映。。。。
  • 花的日记

    花的日记

    直美因为姐姐英子的出嫁而倍感忧伤,但是邻家的女孩子久里清子给了她安慰,女孩子花儿一样的年纪,有着花儿一样的明媚,连心里的秘密,也像清晨花瓣上的露珠一样,在朝阳下轻快地闪着柔和的光……
  • 木婚

    木婚

    80后小女人的日子,80后独生女的感觉;80后第一代独生子女如连理枝一样相互纠结的婚姻状态。80后第一代独生子女结婚五年记“亲爱的,我不知道怎么跟你相处;因为,我从未真正跟同龄人生活过。我没有兄弟姐妹,只有父母。”
  • 幻境幻情

    幻境幻情

    我从来都知道人都是有些微的差别的,而我为了掩饰我的不同而被各方所不容,那我将不再掩饰,不困于情,不惑于心。
  • 道家哲学智慧

    道家哲学智慧

    在战国时代,儒墨并称“显学”。韩非说:“世之显学,儒墨也”。道家是隐者之学,故不在显学之列,而其理论之湛深,思想之缜密,实超过了儒墨两家。孔子罕言天道,“夫子之言性与天道,不可得而闻也”。孟子虽说过“圣人之于天道也”,但也未多讲天道。道家老子不但谈论天道,而且提出“先天地生”的永恒性绝对性的“道”。孔子“祖述尧舜,宪章文武”,总结了夏商周三代的文化成就,墨子“背周道而用夏政”,老子则揭示了有史以来文化的流弊,对于文化发展提出批评意见。儒家虽反对苛政,而肯定区分贵贱上下的等级制度。墨家虽然宣称“官无常贵,民无终贱”,而仍承认贵贱之分,以“贵不傲贱”为理想。