Empty sarcophagus

A famous passage from Melville’s Pierre, when he discovers the existence of his previously unknown sister.

“Ten million things were as yet uncovered to Pierre. The old mummy lies buried in cloth on cloth; it takes time to unwrap this Egyptian king. Yet now, forsooth, because Pierre began to see through the first superficiality of the world, he fondly weens he has come to the unlayered substance. But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies . . . . By vast pains we mind into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we life the lid – and no body is there! Appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of a man!”