An Artist in Egypt

by Walter Tyndale

We were told that the coffee was now ready for us, and were asked to return to the parlour. My irritation at not being allowed to paint was increased by the fleas which had got at my ankles, and I neither wished to see the Prior again nor touch his coffee. Though Ibrahim had the Moslem’s poor opinion of the Copts, he implored me not to refuse the coffee, as it would be such an insult to the whole convent. Ibrahim did not want to paint, and he was probably less sensitive than I to the fleas, so he could view the matter in a calmer frame of mind. I saw, however, that he was right, so we went and sipped our coffee, made our salaams to the Prior, tipped the tatterdemalion of a lay-brother who had let us in, and were once more in the outside world.

While writing these lines, and missing the accompanying illustration of the chapel which might have fitted in so well here, I feel mean for having drunk that coffee.

It took us less time to gain admittance to the next convent, which was separated from its neighbour by about a quarter of a mile. Its outward appearance was much the same as the other, it having been built about the same period and under the same conditions. The dwellings and church also formed a group in the centre of the enclosure, and though somewhat different in plan, it had nevertheless much the same character. A spreading sycamore-tree, with a goat and one or two sheep lying in its shade, gave the place a less dead-alive look than had its neighbour, though the same signs of neglect and decay were visible everywhere.

As we turned the angle of the main building, an expression of disgust escaped my friend. What we saw was disgusting enough, but not quite sufficiently so to account for my friend’s expression, as he is the least demonstrative of men. A new erection between two wings of the earlier work had been run up by some builder whose architectural taste was of the café chantant order. It was already in a state of disrepair, which failed to give it a look of respectable age, but was merely a sign of bad material and still worse workmanship.

I told Jones what a pity it was that they had not asked him to design something which would have been in keeping with the rest of the convent, and I was answered that not only had he done so, but that he had also gone carefully into the cost of the building, and had given them his services for nothing. What had been run up during the preceding summer must have cost more than if his designs had been carried out, for workmen must have been got from Cairo to do the tawdry ornamentation.

We were shown into this place, with a certain amount of pride, by the monk who conducted us. The Prior was having his post-prandial sleep, and we were asked to make ourselves at home till he came to receive us. We begged that he might not be disturbed just yet, and asked to be allowed to have our lunch in the meantime. It was now about two o’clock, and our breakfast in the early dawn seemed a long way off. We had a hen and a brood of chicks as company in this new reception-room. The hen seemed to appreciate the samples of our lunch which fell her way, and her clucking brought more poultry to join the company. The monk appeared quite indifferent to the mess they made, and he squatted on the floor and conversed with Ibrahim. He would not join us in our food, but he willingly helped us with a bottle of wine we had brought.

Before we had finished, a very old man shuffled into the room from a neighbouring apartment, and muttered some greeting. We rose to meet him and to explain our errand. Jones tried to recall to his mind the days he had spent there during the previous winter; but whether the old man had any recollection of this or not his blank expression did not reveal. He wore a brown woollen habit, such as the first Christians who settled here would have worn, and a great rent in the garment showed that this was all he had on. He did not wish to see the Patriarch’s authorisation for us to work here; all things pertaining to this world seemed indifferent to him. He gave a shiver as if he felt the air passing through the rent in his garment, and shuffled out to sit on the doorsteps in the sun.

I made signs to Ibrahim to get a spirit-flask from out the basket and offer some to the old man, who mechanically accepted it, and drank it down. This seemed to revive him a little, and he passed the cup to have it refilled. Ibrahim gave him a second dose, and asked him his age. Not getting an answer that we could understand, the second monk told us that he must be more than a hundred years old. The poor old man looked it, and that was probably the only data which the other monk had.

The church was very interesting, and a more important structure than the previous one; but so dimly lighted that we had to wait till our eyes got used to the gloom before we could distinguish anything. Two or three minute windows in the vaulting admitted the only light. As our eyes got used to the gloom, the dilapidated condition of everything became more noticeable; some grease marks on the floor, beneath the few hanging lamps, seemed all the evidence of the place having been used in recent times.

I started a drawing of an interesting subject, one which might have consoled me for my disappointment in the other convent had I been able to see more clearly what I was about. The heykel, which corresponds to a chancel, was not here divided from the nave by the wooden screen common to most Coptic churches, but by a wall reaching to the vaulted roof. A high doorway was in the centre surmounted by a wooden grating, through which we could trace the outlines of the Coptic cross, and a curtain, as is usual, hung in the place of the door itself. A massive dresser stood to the left of the doorway, and a lectern slightly to the right. Rude Byzantine paintings hung from the top of the dresser, and an ikon of the Virgin and Child was fixed above the curtain.