Monday, we spent the day at the Mokattam, seeing nothing. Lunch between two boulders; the donkeys get lost, Joseph spends his time looking for them. We walk in the desert - we lie on the ground - not an idea, not even a word - good day of inaction and air. On the height ear the citadel, an old mosque. We climb the ruined steps of the minaret, from which one sees Cairo, old Cairo in the foreground; the two white minarets of the Mehmed Ali mosque; the pyramids, Sakkara, the Nile Valley, the desert beyond, Choubra in the background to the right. We drank a cup of coffee in a café near the citadel and smoked long hookas (brought from Mecca). To my left a little behind me, a man was doing his prayer on a bench - a child blow in Joseph’s horn to make a joke; a donkey was at the door, standing in a Neapolitan fashion, one foot forward and the head prim like Jesus Christ’s ass in the fresco by Flandrin, in Saint-Germain-des-Près. After his prayer the man quietly groomed his beard, like a man in his private cabinet. This very same donkey of Maxime, which brayed often, ended up gurgling like a camel: maybe from hearing them so often? We have not yet studied how far imitation goes in animals. This could end up distorting their language: they would change their voice…

Midnight Mass (latin) - bishop under a canopy - candles, columns covered with red damask - above, gynoecium made of palm wood, shaped as a belly (as despite itself and under the force of its very purpose?); a few veils can be seen through it. While the priest dressed in their chasuble, dancing tunes of the organ.