One of the Four Holy Cities of Iraq
in the daytime so many jealous faces had prevented our
approach, now stood before us, the entrance to a world
incredibly unchanged and old.
We crossed die threshold under a looped chain that
one touches, for it confers a blessing, into the great court
or piazza of the sanctuary. It seemed enormously spacious:
the whole constellation of Orion hung above it in black
depths of sky. Round three sides are porticoes faced
with flowered tiles. The lights above and the light
from the clock shed a pleasant twilight in which many
gowned figures paced up and down. A group in a corner
held a newspaper: the Holy Cities, and the mosques more
especially, are great places for the hatching of seditions.
Black groups of women sat about on the pavement. The
space is so wide that numbers can walk here without
making it look crowded. In an absurd way I thought of
the square of St. Mark's on a summer evening.
And now we came to a gilt porch on slim wooden
columns, the outer door of the shrine itself. A man
crouching there took our shoes and added them to others
in rows. Thad just advanced to enter under the heavy
curtain, when a Sayid in green turban, one of the descendants
of the Prophet, called me back, giving me a very unpleasant
shock. One of my companions clutched at my abba with
a shaking hand: the Sayid, however, was only calling us