Our contemporary desecrators have up till now respected the infinite desuetude of the place, and, for the tourists who begin to haunt it, no one yet has dared to build a hotel.
Slowly the sun descends; and behind us the granites of the town-mummy seem to burn more and more.

It is true that a slight shadow of a warmer tint, an amaranth violet, begins to encroach upon the lower parts, spreading along the avenues and over the open spaces.

But everything that rises into the sky--the friezes of the temples, the capitals of the columns, the sharp points of the obelisks--are still red as glowing embers.

These all become imbued with light and continue to glow and shed a rosy illumination until the end of the twilight.
It is a glorious hour, even for the old dust of Egypt, which fills the air eternally, without detracting at all from its wonderful clearness.
It savours of spices, of the Bedouin, of the bitumen of the sarcophagus.
And here now it is playing the role of those powders of different shades of gold which the Japanese use for the backgrounds of their lacquered landscapes.

It reveals itself everywhere, close to and on the horizon, modifying at its pleasure the colour of things, and giving them a kind of metallic lustre.