ABSTRACT
Three perfect mosques standing at right angles along three sides of an admirably proportioned square pointed their domes and their minarets towards the moon. The cool, enamelled surfaces of their portals and walls shimmered in faint blues and greens like the skin of a snake, and the silvery light ran and played over the intricate patterns of the mosaics, shrouding them in a diaphanous, unearthly haze. There they were, standing aslant, like the towers of Pisa or of Bologna, as if deriding the ponderous laws of terrestrial matter. The haughty silence of those lofty shrines created an atmosphere of unreality, which deepened their aloofness, made them no longer human, but nearly divine. The troika still trotted on, and the exquisite buildings, remote and reticent, slowly receded into the mist as the sleepy streets of Samarcand began unrolling their walls and gardens in an endless panorama.
