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By Root 968 0

lady of the house. He shouts with pride that he has learnt to do this or that, something academic or athletic. And he receives as a mark of her definitive indifference to him either a blow or a fruity curse marinated in liquor or mere runny-nosed, vomiting silence, while new semi-siblings mewl and squat all over the room. As if such a moment is, in the child’s blossoming mind, necessarily tragic! Not at all: why assume such a moment represents a door closing, rather than the equally creaky sound of a door opening? How can the untrained ear tell the difference? Close your eyes, and if, after that tooth-grinding squeal, one feels a breeze of insight or opportunity, then you know. As Atum-hadu apparently knew. Something had opened for him, which he chose to recall as a nocturnal visit from Seth.

Modern sociology shows that the brightest children understand the significance of this moment, and their adaptation to it can only be termed a second birth: a birth into total independence, free of any ties to illusions, free of any illusions of ties. A birth in which the child becomes both his own parents. He alone will make himself from this day on. There can be no question what passed through the great king’s mind when he chose the name by which the world later knew him: the greatest act of creation will now begin, the creation of myself.

And, of course, it is only by this superficially torturous second birth that one is able even to aspire towards the third birth, which eludes most men, even men who have made themselves (let there be no doubt of the monstrous odds at play here). The third birth is that of immortality, in which, after a productive life guided solely by one’s own auto-parental instincts, one’s name is remembered and loved forever, in an underworld or merely in celebrated glory. But, if you are unable to realise your way out of childish delusions, if you blunder on, relying on the love of a mother, the trustworthy interest of the priest or the teacher or the employer or the lover or the officer, the benevolent concern of the rich for the poor, the jolly companionship and foul-weather loyalty of trusted pals, well, then you are doomed to a life of childhood. You will have no real adulthood, and no hope of making an achievement worthy of permanent note.

All of this makes Atum-hadu a worthy model for study. For if one thing is clear in Quatrain 80 (Fragment C only), it is how closely the great king’s life illustrates the principles I have just outlined:

The mother’s heart seals itself shut to her child.

No greater gift can she bestow, though he weeps and wails,

As we weep on our deathbed like a maiden defiled,

But it is when our tomb door is sealed that our soul prevails.

The donkey-headed god Seth—sexually aggressive, mischievous, power-hungry—is depicted on these walls also as sympathetic and caretaking, almost a family dog rather than a donkey. The nameless mother, the priest, the neighbours are all—even in the restrained profiles and formal requirements of Egyptian art, even when they are little more than dribbling stick figures—clearly depraved and vicious.

Sunset on the Bayview Nursing Home

Sydney, Australia

January 5, 1955

Macy,

I’ve been unwell again, not to be a bore about it, old men do fall ill, and who cares. Also, I rather hoped to have heard from you by now, a response to my first letter, but now I look at the new calendar they’ve tacked up here, pictures of the bloody ocean, and I see I’m being impatient. Even in the fastest circumstances, I couldn’t hope to hear from you for some days yet, I suppose. Still, a word from you that you’ve had some luck with publishers or motion picture people, well, that would go a long way in helping me feel fit again, mate. Tired more than ill is how I feel, didn’t much enjoy mucking about in all those memories of Boston, had quite put them out of my mind for some years, bit of a splash of cold water on the face and heart after all that time. When I think of your poor aunt, finding happiness again after this misadventure, well, that gladdens the