He even writhes with laughter, and eats a corner of his shroud as if to prevent himself from bursting into a too unseemly mirth.
And then, suddenly, black night! And we stand as if congealed in our place.

The electric light has gone out--everywhere at once.

Above, on the earth, midday must have sounded--for those who still have cognisance of the sun and the hours.
The guard who has brought us hither shouts in his Bedouin falsetto, in order to get the light switched on again, but the infinite thickness of the walls, instead of prolonging the vibrations, seems to deaden them; and besides, who could hear us, in the depths where we now are?
Then, groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping passage.

The hurried patter of his sandals and the flapping of his burnous grow faint in the distance, and the cries that he continues to utter sound so smothered to us soon that we might ourselves be buried.
And meanwhile we do not move.

But how comes it that it is so hot amongst these mummies?
It seems as if there were fires burning in some oven close by.