But
Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against
violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the
Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed?
Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they
chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking
that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very
moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of
the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase
containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it
would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless
depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made
without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel
of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods,
man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some
millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase
containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some
secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless
desert that the earth will then be).
Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and
maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the
extinct sea of an extinct planet.
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