• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1138 0

papers, was none too impressive. Yes, the Press have told the truth in nouns but not in adjectives. I heard the Times called the chariot wheels “haunting” and the gold “blinding” and the statues “magnificent” and the tomb itself “unlike anything ever seen in this land.” It is not true, it is simply not true, Margaret, it is just a room stuffed without logic or story, just a room of eye-catching mishmash, and of course, the untrained tourist oohs and aahs and practically drops her own jewels at the sight of these semiprecious relics, but for an expert eye, I really feel a certain amount of pity for Carter and a general sense of disgust, as if I had just been forced to eat sweets and sweets and sweets in the most sweltering weather. There was one piece in particular, this huge bed with carved lion-head footboards, and I could just hear dear Hugo Marlowe’s voice crackling with laughter at the gaudiness of the thing. The throne with a backrest in gold bas-relief, these jars of carved calcite and alabaster in this grotesque XVIIIth-Dynasty, decadent, sagging belly, overwrought, neurotic androgyny. Of course I was kind to poor Carter, complimenting him, but I saw in his eye a bashfulness that was new to him: my friend was a little ashamed of the whole production, that he had the public’s attention but for all the wrong reasons.

I am off to my own site now, Margaret, my work, my puzzle, my glorious discovery. All for you, my love.

Journal: To achieve despite your conditions, not thanks to your conditions, you see. That is something Atum-hadu understood, and there comes a point where it is comic, more than tragic, where the indelible character of the self-powered man is so much stronger than any challenge Fate can fling at him, that it becomes exhilarating and humorous to see him overcome all that.

To wit: Amr was gone when I returned from the Carter show, though the boy had done a fair job on my temporary door. I called for him, but out of the tomb emerged instead an angry Ahmed. He had sent Amr home, told me not to expect his return, so I can only imagine the threats this brute made to the poor boy. There remained this issue of back salary for Ahmed, for which I do have a certain amount of sympathy, and so I spent my valuable working time trying to explain the situation, gently reminding him of his failures in our bargain, and of the difficulty in handing him all of his cash today.

Ahmed boasted of his patience. Ahmed raged. Ahmed threatened. But there was no cash, so threats did not avail. So then Ahmed offered another solution: he handed me a sledgehammer. I would have done anything to escape this, would have paid him anything, but I had no choice. At his forceful insistence, I opened Door C, and every stinging blow vibrated mercilessly down my leg and up to my head by way of my breaking heart. Ahmed ran in ahead of me—I cannot believe I am even writing down this sorry fact. He emerged shaking his head. I will never forget: “My disappointment is keen, Englishman.” Unsatisfied, he expressed his rage in the primitive’s usual fashion. Most of his assault consisted of kicks to my wounded leg, but also blows to the face, and kicks to my back when I was prone. But he did not proceed any farther in his destruction, thank God, than the one door. Greed blinds, you see, so he could not be bothered to open the Great Portal, which still awaits my care and love, and which will reward my sacrifices.

So be it. I wash my injuries as best I can, bandage where necessary. The swine stole Amr’s donkey and one of my gramophones as he left—the Columbia Favorite.

Circumstances aside, I have today opened the seventh chamber of the tomb of Atum-hadu.

(FIG. G: THE FIRST SEVEN CHAMBERS, 29 NOVEMBER, 1922)

The rest must wait until tomorrow, the description of this new chamber, which is remarkable in a dozen different ways. Wedge Amr’s door in the front hole.

Bank is disappointing. Post yields an incomprehensible cable, like a joke. It is a joke, or at least some fool’s game.

CABLE. BOSTON TO RALPH TRILIPUSH, LUXOR, 11/29/22, 10:27 A.M.