...of bewilderment

The spirals of sand stirred up by the wind shimmered outside. With bewilderment on their faces they gazed at these vortices reaching towards the heavens. They stayed silent, and only their eyes appeared to say: by what stairway wilt thou rise on high, o our sovereign? When the day comes, how wilt thou climb to the firmament, there to change in your turn into a star, like all other Pharaohs? how wilt thou illuminate us?

[The Pyramid, Kadare, I.]