And Kings Shall Be Thy Nursing Fathers

Fiction. These are the ruminations of Tchaikovsky's corpse. Some religious traditions see the newly dead as confused after stepping through the door. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example, is an instruction manual, a tutorial, a collection of spells for, as the hieroglyphs say, "emerging forth into the light." Tchaikovsky lies here a bewildered newbie. Much needs to be parsed. Confusion haunts him throughout the text, the old life energy swimming in and out of his weakening grasp.