Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [106]
Morgan went to Rome and took his usual floor at the Grand Hotel. Very quickly the butler’s silver plate filled with cards. For several weeks Morgan received counts and dukes and other aristocrats. They arrived with pieces that had been in their families for generations. Some of them were impoverished, others merely wished to convert their assets. But they all seemed to want to leave Europe as quickly as possible. Morgan sat in a straight chair with his hands folded upon the cane between his knees and viewed canvases, majolica, porcelain, faience, brasses, bas-reliefs and missals. He nodded or shook his head. Slowly the rooms filled with objects. He was offered a beautiful golden crucifix that pulled apart to become a stiletto. He nodded. Through the lobby of the hotel and out the doors and around the block stretched a line of aristocrats. They wore morning coats, top hats, spats. They held walking sticks. They carried bundles wrapped in brown paper. Some of the more intemperate of them offered their wives or their children. Beautiful young women with pale skin and the most mournful of eyes. Delicate young men. One individual brought in twins, a boy and girl, done up in gray velvet and lace. He undressed them and turned them in every direction.
Morgan remained in Europe until his agents advised him that his Nile steamer was waiting in Alexandria, outfitted and ready to sail. Before departing he attempted for the last time to persuade Henry Ford to come to Egypt. He composed a lengthy cable. The reply came back from Ford that he could not leave Michigan because he had entered into the most sensitive stage of negotiations with an inventor fellow who was able to power a motorcar’s engine with a green pill. Morgan ordered his bags packed. After giving instructions in the crating and shipping of his acquisitions, he set off. It was the autumn of the year. When he reached Alexandria he came up to his boat, a paddle steamer built of steel, and without more than a glance from the pier he went aboard and ordered the captain to cast off.
Morgan’s intention in Egypt was to journey down the Nile and choose a site for his pyramid. He stowed in the safe in his stateroom the plans for this structure secretly designed for him by the firm of McKim and White. He expected that with modern construction techniques, the use of precut stones, steam shovels, cranes, and so forth, a serviceable pyramid could be put up in less than three years. The prospect thrilled him as nothing ever had. There was to be a False King’s Chamber as well as a True King’s Chamber, an impregnable Treasure Room, a Grand Gallery, a Descending Corridor, an Ascending Corridor. There was to be a Causeway to the banks of the Nile.
His first stop was at Giza. He wanted to feel in advance the eternal energies he would exemplify when he died and rose on the rays of the sun in order to be born again. When the boat docked it was nighttime, and he could see from the starboard deck the pyramid field silhouetted against a blue night sky of stars. He went down the ramp and was met by several men in the Arab burnoose. He was installed on the back of a camel and taken in this ancient way up to the north face, to the entrance of the Great Pyramid itself. Against all advice he was determined to spend the night inside. He hoped to learn if he could the disposition by Osiris of his ka, or soul, and his ba, or physical vitality. He followed his guides down the entrance corridor. The light of a torch threw great bounding shadows against the stone-block walls and ceiling. After many