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The Mummy's Foot .............................................................................................................................................1

Theophile Gautier....................................................................................................................................1

I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosityvenders, who are called marchands de

bricabrac in that Parisian ar got which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.

You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some of these shops, which have become

so numerous now that it is fashionable to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stockbroker thinks

There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealer in old iron, the wareroom of the

tapestrymaker, the laboratory of the chemist, and the studio of the painter:in all those gloomy dens where

a furtive daylight filters in through the windowshutters, the most manifestly ancient thing is dust;the

cobwebs are more authentic than the guimp laces; and the old peartree furniture on exhibition is actually

The warehouse of my bricabrac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum; all ages and all nations seemed to

have made their rendezvous there; an Etruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony

panels, brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the court of Louis XV nonchalantly extended her

fawnlike feet under a massive table of the time of Louis XIII with heavy spiral supports of oak, and carven

Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immense Japanese dishes with red and blue

designs relieved by gilded hatching; side by side with enameled works by Bernard Palissy, representing

From disemboweled cabinets escaped cascades of silverlustrous Chinese silks and waves of tinsel, which an

oblique sunbeam shot through with luminous beads; while portraits of every era, in frames more or less

The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armor glittered in one corner; Loves and Nymphs of

porcelain; Chinese Grotesques, vases of celadon and crackleware; Saxon and old Souvres cups encumbered

The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrived between the piles of furniture; warding

off with his hands the hazardous sweep of my coatskirts; watching my elbows with the uneasy attention of

It was a singular face that of the merchant:an immense skull, polished like a knee, and surrounded by a

thin aureole of white hair, which brought out the clear salmon tint of his complexion all the more strikingly,

lent him a false aspect of patriarchal bonhomie, counteracted, however, by the scintillation of two little

yellow eyes which trembled in their orbits like two louisd' or upon quicksilver. The curve of his nose

presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested the Oriental or Jewish type. His handsthin, slender, full

of nerves which projected like strings upon the fingerboard of a violin, and armed with claws like those on

the terminations of bats' wingsshook with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became

firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious articlean onyx cup, a Venetian

glass, or a dish of Bohemian crystal. This strange old man had an aspect so thoroughly rabbinical and

cabalistic that he would have been burnt on the mere testimony of his face three centuries ago.

"Will you not buy something from me today, sir? Here is a Malay kreese with a blade undulating like flame:

look at those grooves contrived for the blood to run along, those teeth set backwards so as to tear out the

entrails in withdrawing the weaponit is a fine character of ferocious arm, and will look well in your

collection: this twohanded sword is very beautifulit is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this

"No; I have quite enough weapons and instruments of carnage;I want a small figure, something which will

suit me as a paperweight; for I cannot endure those trumpery bronzes which the stationers sell, and which

The old gnome foraged among his ancient wares, and finally arranged before me some antique

bronzessocalled, at least; fragments of malachite; little Hindoo or Chinese idolsa kind of poussah toys

in jadestone, representing the incarnations of Brahma or Vishnoo, and wonderfully appropriate to the very

I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon, all constellated with wartsits mouth formidable with bristling

tusks and ranges of teethand an abominable little Mexican fetish, representing the god Zitziliputzili au

naturel, when I caught sight of a charming foot, which I at first took for a fragment of some antique Venus.

It had those beautiful ruddy and tawny tints that lend to Florentine bronze that warm living look so much

preferable to the graygreen aspect of common bronzes, which might easily be mistaken for statues in a state

of putrefaction: satiny gleams played over its rounded forms, doubtless polished by the amorous kisses of

twenty centuries; for it seemed a Corinthian bronze, a work of the best era of artperhaps molded by

"That foot will be my choice," I said to the merchant, who regarded me with an ironical and saturnine air, and

I was surprised at its lightness; it was not a foot of metal, but in sooth a foot of fleshan embalmed foota

mummy's foot: on examining it still more closely the very grain of the skin, and the almost imperceptible

lines impressed upon it by the texture of the bandages, became perceptible. The toes were slender and

delicate, and terminated by perfectly formed nails, pure and transparent as agates; the great toe, slightly

separated from the rest, afforded a happy contrast, in the antique style, to the position of the other toes, and

lent it an aerial lightnessthe grace of a bird's foot;the sole, scarcely streaked by a few almost

imperceptible cross lines, afforded evidence that it had never touched the bare ground, and had only come in

contact with the finest matting of Nile rushes, and the softest carpets of panther skin.

"Ha, ha!you want the foot of the Princess Hermonthis,"exclaimed the merchant, with a strange giggle,

fixing his owlish eyes upon me"ha, ha, ha!for a paperweight!an original idea!artistic idea! Old

Pharaoh would certainly have been surprised had some one told him that the foot of his adored daughter

would be used for a paperweight after he had had a mountain of granite hollowed out as a receptacle for the

triple coffin, painted and gildedcovered with hieroglyphics and beautiful paintings of the Judgment of

Souls,"continued the queer little merchant, half audibly, as though talking to himself!

"Ah, the highest price I can get; for it is a superb piece: if I had the match of it you could not have it for less

"Assuredly that is not a common article; but, still, how much do you want? In the first place let me warn you

that all my wealth consists of just five louis: I can buy anything that costs five louis, but nothing

dearer;you might search my vest pockets and most secret drawers without even finding one

"Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermonthis! that is very little, very little indeed; 'tis an authentic foot,"

muttered the merchant, shaking his head, and imparting a peculiar rotary motion to his eyes.

"Well, take it, and I will give you the bandages into the bargain," he added, wrapping the foot in an ancient

damask rag"very fine! real damaskIndian damask which has never been redyed; it is strong, and yet it is

soft," he mumbled, stroking the frayed tissue with his fingers, through the tradeacquired habit which moved

him to praise even an object of so little value that he himself deemed it only worth the giving away.

He poured the gold coins into a sort of medižval almspurse hanging at his belt, repeating:

Then turning his phosphorescent eyes upon me, he exclaimed in a voice strident as the crying of a cat which

"You speak as if you were a contemporary of his: you are old enough, goodness knows! but you do not date

back to the Pyramids of Egypt," I answered, laughingly, from the threshold. I went home, delighted with my

With the idea of putting it to profitable use as soon as possible, I placed the foot of the divine Princess

Hermonthis upon a heap of papers scribbled over with verses, in themselves an undecipherable mosaic work

of erasures; articles freshly begun; letters forgotten, and posted in the table drawer instead of the

letterboxan error to which absentminded people are peculiarly liable. The effect was charming, bizarre,

Well satisfied with this embellishment, I went out with the gravity and price becoming one who feels that he

has the ineffable advantage over all the passersby whom he elbows, of possessing a piece of the Princess

I looked upon all who did not possess, like myself, a paperweight so authentically Egyptian, as very

ridiculous people; and it seemed to me that the proper occupation of every sensible man should consist in the

Happily I met some friends, whose presence distracted me in my infatuation with this new acquisition: I went

When I came back that evening, with my brain slightly confused by a few glasses of wine, a vague whiff of

Oriental perfume delicately titillated my olfactory nerves: the heat of the room had warmed the natron,

bitumen, and myrrh in which the paraschistes, who cut open the bodies of the dead, had bathed the corpse of

the princess;it was a perfume at once sweet and penetratinga perfume that four thousand years had not

The Dream of Egypt was Eternity: her odors have the solidity of granite, and endure as long.

I soon drank deeply from the black cup of sleep: for a few hours all remained opaque to me; Oblivion and

Yet light gradually dawned upon the darkness of my mind; dreams commenced to touch me softly in their

The eyes of my soul were opened; and I beheld my chamber as it actually was; I might have believed myself

awake, but for a vague consciousness which assured me that I slept, and that something fantastic was about to

The odor of the myrrh had augmented in intensity; and I felt a slight headache, which I very naturally

attributed to several glasses of champagne that we had drunk to the unknown gods and our future fortunes.

I peered through my room with a feeling of expectation which I saw nothing to justify: every article of

furniture was in its proper place; the lamp, softly shaded by its globe of ground crystal, burned upon its

bracket; the watercolor sketches shone under their Bohemian glass; the curtains hung down languidly;

After a few moments, however, all this calm interior appeared to become disturbed; the woodwork cracked

stealthily; the ashcovered log suddenly emitted a jet of blue flame; and the disks of the pateras seemed like

great metallic eyes, watching, like myself, for the things which were about to happen.

My eyes accidentally fell upon the desk where I had placed the foot of the Princess Hermonthis.

Instead of remaining quietas behooved a foot which had been embalmed for four thousand yearsit

commenced to act in a nervous manner; contracted itself, and leaped over the papers like a startled

frog;one would have imagined that it had suddenly been brought into contact with a galvanic battery: I

could distinctly hear the dry sound made by its little heel, hard as the hoof of a gazelle.

I became rather discontented with my acquisition, inasmuch as I wished my paperweights to be of a

sedentary disposition, and thought it very unnatural that feet should walk about without legs; and I

Suddenly I saw the folds of my bedcurtain stir; and heard a bumping sound, like that caused by some person

hopping on one foot across the floor. I must confess I became alternately hot and cold; that I felt a strange

wind chill my back; and that my suddenly rising hair caused my nightcap to execute a leap of several yards.

It was a young girl of a very deep coffeebrown complexion, like the bayadere Amani, and possessing the

purest Egyptian type of perfect beauty: her eyes were almondshaped and oblique, with eyebrows so black

that they seemed blue; her nose was exquisitely chiseled, almost Greek in its delicacy of outline; and she

might indeed have been taken for a Corinthian statue of bronze, but for the prominence of her cheekbones

and the slightly African fulness of her lips, which compelled one to recognize her as belonging beyond all

Her arms, slender and spindleshaped, like those of very young girls, were encircled by a peculiar kind of

metal bands and bracelets of glass beads; her hair was all twisted into little cords; and she wore upon her

bosom a little idolfigure of green paste, bearing a whip with seven lashes, which proved it to be an image of

Isis: her brow was adorned with a shining plate of gold; and a few traces of paint relieved the coppery tint of

As for her costume, it was very odd indeed. Fancy a pagne or skirt all formed of little strips of material

bedizened with red and black hieroglyphics, stiffened with bitumen, and apparrently belonging to a freshly

In one of those sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bricabrac

dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so enigmatical an

One strange circumstance, which was not at all calculated to restore my equanimity, was that the apparition

She approached the table where the foot was starting and fidgeting about more than ever, and there supported

herself upon the edge of the desk. I saw her eyes fill with pearlygleaming tears.

Although she had not as yet spoken, I fully comprehended the thoughts which agitated her: she looked at her

footit was indeed her ownwith an exquisitely graceful expression of coquettish sadness; but the foot

Then commenced between the Princess Hermonthis and her footwhich appeared to be endowed with a

special life of its owna very fantastic dialogue in a most ancient Coptic tongue, such as might have been

spoken thirty centuries ago in the syrinxes of the land of Ser: luckily, I understood Coptic perfectly well that

The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweet and vibrant as the tones of a crystal bell:

"Well, my dear little foot, you always flee from me; yet I always took good care of you. I bathed you with

perfumed water in a bowl of alabaster; I smoothed your heel with pumicestone mixed with palm oil; your

nails were cut with golden scissors and polished with a hippopotamus tooth; I was careful to select tatbebs for

you, painted and embroidered and turned up at the toes, which were the envy of all the young girls in Egypt:

you wore on your great toe rings bearing the device of the sacred Scarabžus; and you supported one of the

"You know well that I do not belong to myself any longer;I have been bought and paid for; the old

merchant knew what he was about; he bore you a grudge for having refused to espouse him;this is an ill

turn which he has done you. The Arab who violated your royal coffin in the subterranean pit of the necropolis

of Thebes was sent thither by him: he desired to prevent you from being present at the reunion of the

shadowy nations in the cities below. Have you five pieces of gold for my ransom?"

"Alas, no!my jewels, my rings, my purses of gold and silver, they were all stolen from me," answered the

"Princess," I then exclaimed, "I never retained anybody's foot unjustly;even though you have not got the

five louis which it cost me, I present it to you gladly: I should feel unutterably wretched to think that I were

I delivered this discourse in a royally gallant, troubadour tone, which must have astonished the beautiful

She turned a look of deepest gratitude upon me; and her eyes shone with bluish gleams of light.

She took her footwhich surrendered itself willingly this timelike a woman about to put on her little

This operation over, she took a few steps about the room, as though to assure herself that she was really no

"Ah, how pleased my father will be!he who was so unhappy because of my mutilation, and who from the

moment of my birth set a whole nation at work to hollow me out a tomb so deep that he might preserve me

intact until that last day, when souls must be weighed in the balance of Amenthi! Come with me to my

I thought this proposition natural enough. I arrayed myself in a dressinggown of largeflowered pattern,

which lent me a very Pharaonic aspect; hurriedly put on a pair of Turkish slippers, and informed the Princess

Before starting, Hermonthis took from her neck the little idol of green paste, and laid it on the scattered sheets

"It is only fair," she observed smilingly, "that I should replace your paperweight."

She gave me her hand, which felt soft and cold, like the skin of a serpent; and we departed.

We passed for some time with the velocity of an arrow through a fluid and grayish expanse, in which

A few moments later obelisks commenced to tower in the distance: pylons and vast flights of steps guarded

We had reached our destination. The princess conducted me to the mountain of rosecolored granite, in the

face of which appeared an opening so narrow and low that it would have been difficult to distinguish it from

the fissures in the rock, had not its location been marked by two stelž wrought with sculptures.

We traversed corridors hewn through the living rock: their walls, covered with hieroglyphics and paintings of

allegorical processions, might well have occupied thousands of arms for thousands of years in their

formation;these corridors, of interminable length, opened into square chambers, in the midst of which pits

had been contrived, through which we descended by crampirons or spiral stairways;these pits again

conducted us into other chambers, opening into other corridors, likewise decorated with painted

sparrowhawks, serpents coiled in circles, the symbols of the tau and pedumprodigious works of art which

no living eye can ever examineinterminable legends of granite which only the dead have time to read

At last we found ourselves in a hall so vast, so enormous, so immeasurable, that the eye could not reach its

limits; files of monstrous columns streatched far out of sight on every side, between which twinkled livid

stars of yellowish flame;points of light which revealed further depths incalculable in the darkness beyond.

The Princess Hermonthis still held my hand, and graciously saluted the mummies of her acquaintance.

I beheld the kings of the subterranean races seated upon thronesgrand old men, though dry, withered,

wrinkled like parchment, and blackened with naphtha and bitumenall wearing pshents of gold, and

breastplaces and gorgets glittering with precious stones; their eyes immovably fixed like the eyes of sphinxes,

and their long beards whitened by the snow of centuries. Behind them stood their peoples, in the stiff and

constrained posture enjoined by Egyptian art, all eternally preserving the attitude prescribed by the hieratic

code. Behind these nations, the cats, ibises, and crocodiles contemporary with themrendered monstrous of

aspect by their swathing bandsmewed, flapped their wings, or extended their jaws in a saurian giggle.

All the Pharaohs were thereCheops, Chephrenes, Psammetichus, Sesostris, Amenotaphall the dark

rulers of the pyramids and syrinxeson yet higher thrones sat Chronos and Xixouthroswho was

The beard of King Xixouthros had grown seven times around the granite table, upon which he leaned, lost in

Further back, through a dusty cloud, I beheld dimly the seventytwo preAdamite Kings, with their

After permitting me to gaze upon this bewildering spectacle a few moments, the Princess Hermonthis

"I have found my foot again!I have found my foot!" cried the Princess, clapping her little hands together

The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasiall the black, bronzed, and coppercolored nations repeated in

He raised his heavy eyelids, stroked his mustache with his fingers, and turned upon me a glance weighty with

"By Oms, the dog of Hell, and Tmei, daughter of the Sun and of Truth! this is a brave and worthy lad!"

exclaimed Pharaoh, pointing to me with his scepter, which was terminated with a lotusflower.

Filled with that daring inspired by dreams in which nothing seems impossible, I asked him for the hand of the

Princess Hermonthis;the hand seemed to me a very proper antithetic recompense for the foot.

Pharaoh opened wide his great eyes of glass in astonishment at my witty request.

"Twentyseven years old! and he wishes to espouse the Princess Hermonthis, who is thirty centuries old!"

"If you were even only two thousand years old," replied the ancient King, "I would willingly give you the

Princess; but the disproportion is too great; and, besides, we must give our daughters husbands who will last

well: you do not know how to preserve yourselves any longer; even those who died only fifteen centuries ago

are already no more than a handful of dust;behold! my flesh is solid as basalt; my bones are bars of steel!

"I shall be present on the last day of the world, with the same body and the same features which I had during

"Then the last particles of your dust will have been scattered abroad by the winds; and even Isis herself, who

was able to find the atoms of Osiris, would scarce be able to recompose your being.

"See how vigorous I yet remain, and how mighty is my grasp," he added, shaking my hand in the English

He squeezed me so hard that I awoke, and found my friend Alfred shaking me by the arm to make me get up.

"O you everlasting sleeper!must I have you carried out into the middle of the street, and fireworks

exploded in your ears? It is after noon; don't you recollect your promise to take me with you to see M.

"God! I forgot all, all about it," I answered, dressing myself hurriedly; "we will go there at once; I have the

I started to find it;but fancy my astonishment when I beheld, instead of the mummy's foot I had purchased

the evening before, the little green paste idol left in its place by the Princess Hermonthis!