Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт
Зов Ктулху / The Call of Cthulhu. Уровень 2

© Матвеев С. А., адаптация, словарь, 2022

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2022

Howard Phillips Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulhu

I. The Horror In Clay

I think, that the most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of infinite black seas. Will we voyage far? The sciences harmed us little; but some day the parts of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying views of reality, that we’ll go mad from the revelation. Or we’ll flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age[1].

Theosophists[2] tell about awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle where our world and human race form transient incidents. Their strange suggestions freeze the blood. When I think of them and when I dream of them, forbidden ages chill me and madden me. Like all dread glimpses of truth, that glimpse appeared from an accidental parts of separated things. In this case, from an old newspaper and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will collect those parts. Certainly, if I live, I will never add a link in that terrible chain. I think that the professor, too, intented to keep silent. He wanted to destroy his notes but sudden death stopped him.

My first knowledge of the theme began in the winter of 1926–1927 with the death of my great-uncle[3], George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages[4] in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Angell was widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions. The heads of prominent museums frequently asked him for help. Everybody talked about his death at the age of ninety-two. Moreover, the obscurity of the cause of death intensified the interest. The professor was stricken while he was returning from the Newport boat[5]. He fell suddenly. Witnesses said that a nautical-looking Negro[6] pushed him. That Negro came from one of the queer dark streets on the precipitous hillside. These streets formed a short way from the waterfront to the professor’s home in Williams Street. Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder. After perplexed debate they concluded that some obscure lesion of the heart was responsible for the end. The brisk ascent of a steep hill provoked that lesion. The professor was old. At the time I saw no reason to disagree with them, but lately I began to doubt.

My great-uncle’s died a childless widower. I was his heir and executor. I moved his files and boxes to my quarters in Boston to study his papers. The American Archaeological Society later published much of the material. But there was one box which I found very puzzling. I did not want to show this box to other eyes. It was locked and I did not find the key. But after I examined the personal ring which the professor carried in his pocket I was able to open it. When I did so I confronted another barrier. I found the queer clay bas-relief[7]

and the disjointed notes, ramblings, and cuttings. What was their meaning? Was my uncle, in his latter years, superstitious? I decided to find the eccentric sculptor which was responsible for this apparent disturbance of an old man’s mind.

The bas-relief was a rough rectangle less than an inch thick[8] and about five by six inches in area. Obviously it was of modern origin. Its designs, however, were far from modern in atmosphere and suggestion. And there was writing of some kind. But I was unable to identify the letters.

Above hieroglyphics was a figure. It was not detailed but it conveyed an idea. It was a sort of monster, or symbol of a monster. Only a diseased fancy can conceive this form. My extravagant imagination offered simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature. The spirit of the sculpture combined all of them. A pulpy, tentacled head[9] surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings. The general outline of the whole monster was very shocking and frightful. Behind the figure was a vague Cyclopean architectural background[10].

Professor Angell himself wrote some of the documents accompanying this thing. He made it recently; and made no pretense to literary style. The main document had the title “CTHULHU CULT”. The characters were painstakingly printed[11] to avoid the erroneous reading of an unknown word. This manuscript was divided into two sections. The first section had the title “1925 – Dream and Dream Work of H.A. Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Providence, R. I.[12]”. The second section had the title “Narrative of Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 A. A. S. Mtg. – Notes on Same, amp; Prof. Webb’s Acct.[13]” The other manuscript papers were brief notes. Some of these brief notes were the descriptions of the strange dreams of different persons. Some of them were citations from theosophical books and magazines (notably W. Scott-Elliot’s Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria[14]). The other notes were comments on secret societies and hidden cults, with references to passages in such mythological and anthropological books as Frazer’s Golden Bough[15] and Miss Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western Europe[16]. The articles cut from papers were mainly about mental illness and outbreaks of group folly or mania in the spring of 1925.

The first half of the principal manuscript told a very interesting tale. On March 1st, 1925, a thin, dark young man came to Professor Angell. He was nervous and excited and bearing the singular clay bas-relief. That bas-relief was exceedingly damp and fresh. His card bore the name of Henry Anthony Wilcox. My uncle had recognized him as the youngest son of an excellent family. He knew that family a little.

The young man was studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design[17]. He was living alone at the Fleur-de-Lys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious young genius with great eccentricity. When he was a child he liked strange stories and odd dreams. He liked to relate them, too. He called himself “psychically hypersensitive[18]”, but the people of the ancient commercial city called him “queer.” He disappeared gradually from social visibility, and was now known only to a small group of esthetes from other towns. Even the Providence Art Club[19], that was trying to preserve its conservatism, found him quite hopeless.

What did the professor’s manuscript tell about the cause of the visit? The sculptor abruptly asked to help him identify the hieroglyphics of the bas-relief. He spoke in a dreamy, stilted manner which suggested pride and alienated from him. My uncle’s reply was quite sharp. The conspicuous freshness of the tablet did not show any relation to archaeology. Young Wilcox’s answer impressed my uncle. It was of a fantastically poetic nature.

He said, “It is new, indeed. I made it last night in a dream of strange cities. These dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon[20].”

Then he began to tell his tale. The story suddenly won the interest of my uncle because it woke something in his memory. There was a slight earthquake tremor the night before, the most considerable in New England for some years. It affected Wilcox’s imagination greatly. He had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths[21]. They all were dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics covered the walls and pillars. From some undetermined point below came a voice that was not a voice. It was a chaotic sensation which only fancy transmuted into sound. He attempted to replicate it by the almost unpronounceable combination of letters: “Cthulhu fhtagn.”

This strange phrase was the key to the recollection which excited and disturbed Professor Angell. He questioned the sculptor with scientific interest. Then he studied with the great interest the bas-relief which the young man made. He did it half-dreaming and clad only in his night clothes. Wilcox afterwards said that my uncle blamed his old age, because he did not recognize hieroglyphics and pictorial designs fast enough. Many of his questions seemed highly inappropriate to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect the things with strange cults or societies. Wilcox did not understand the promises of silence, which professor offered him in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread mystical or paganly religious society.

Professor Angell became convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or system of cryptic lore. So he asked his visitor to supply him with future reports of dreams. This bore regular fruit. After the first interview the manuscript records daily visits of the young man. During these visits he related shocking fragments of nocturnal imaginery. He was always talking about some terrible Cyclopean pictures of dark and dripping stone, with a subterrene voice or intelligence shouting monotonously enigmatical uninscribable gibberish[22]. The two sounds were frequently repeated are rendered by the letters “Cthulhu” and “R’lyeh.”

The manuscript continued. On March 23, Wilcox did not come. He was ill with an obscure fever. They took him to the home of his family in Waterman Street. He cried out in the night, and arouse several other artists in the building. He showed since then only alternations of unconsciousness and delirium. My uncle at once telephoned the family. From that time he watched the case closely. He was calling often at the Thayer Street office of Dr. Tobey who treated Wilcox. The young man’s febrile mind, apparently, was dwelling on strange things. The doctor was shuddering as he spoke of them. They included not only a repetition of his former dreams. They also concerned gigantic things “miles high” which walked or lumbered about.

He never fully described these objects. He used occasional frantic words. After Dr. Tobey repeated them, the professor was convinced that they were identical with the nameless monster. This monster Wilcox tried to depict in his dream-sculpture. Reference to this object, the doctor added, was invariably a prelude to the young man’s lethargy. His temperature was quite normal. It was strange, indeed. But the whole condition was rather like true fever and not a mental disorder.

On April 2 at about 3 P.M. every trace of Wilcox’s illness suddenly ceased. He sat upright in bed. He was surprised to find himself at home. He was completely ignorant of what happened in dream or reality since the night of March 22. His physician declared that he recovered and he returned to his quarters in three days. But he was not able to help Professor Angell. All traces of strange dreaming vanished with his recovery. My uncle kept no record of his night-thoughts after a week of pointless and irrelevant descriptions of usual visions.

Here the first part of the manuscript ended. But the references to different notes gave me much material for thought. The notes were the descriptions of the dreams of various persons. They were covering the same period as that in which young Wilcox made his strange visits. It seems that my uncle was inquiring amongst nearly all the friends whom he was able to ask. He was asking for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visions for some time past. He received so many responses, that it seemed impossible to handle them without a secretary. This original correspondence was not preserved. But his notes formed a thorough and really significant digest. Average people in society and business gave an almost completely negative result. But sometimes they mentioned some formless nocturnal impressions, between March 23 and April 2. This was the period of young Wilcox’s delirium. Four cases of scientific men gave vague descriptions of strange landscapes. In one case there was mentioned a dread of something abnormal.

The answers of artists and poets were more interesting. I suspect that if we decide to compare the notes there will be some panic. But the original letters were absent. So I suspected that there were some leading questions[23], or somebody edited the correspondence. That is why I continued to feel that Wilcox was deceiving the old scientist. The responses from esthetes told disturbing tale. From February 28 to April 2 many of them dreamed very bizarre things. The intensity of the dreams was immeasurably stronger during the period of the sculptor’s delirium. Over a fourth of them[24] reported scenes and half-sounds like those which Wilcox described. Some of the dreamers were afraid of the gigantic nameless thing which became visible at the end. One case was very sad. A widely known architect had great interest toward theosophy and occultism. He went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure. He died after continuously screaming for several months, asking for help. He wanted to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell. My uncle did not mention their real names, so I was unable do personal investigation. I traced down only a few so I was unable to make personal investigation myself. And it is well that no explanation ever reached those people.

The cuttings from newspaper’ articles were about cases of panic, mania, and eccentricity during that period. Professor Angell’s collection was tremendous, probably he hired a cutting bureau[25]. The sources were scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in London, where a man leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here was a letter to the editor of a newspaper in South America, where a fanatic pretold future from his visions. An article from California described a theosophist colony. People in white robes were preparing for some “glorious fulfillment” which never arrived. Articles from India spoke of serious native unrest toward the end of March 22–23.

The west of Ireland, too, was full of wild rumour and legendary stories. A fantastic painter named Ardois-Bonnot offered a blasphemous Dream Landscape in the Paris spring salon of 1926. The recorded troubles in insane asylums were very numerous. And it is a miracle that nobody found something common in them. Then I was rationalistic, so I set them aside. Now I am simply unable to do so. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox knew of the older matters mentioned by the professor.

II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse

The older matters made the sculptor’s dream and bas-relief significant to my uncle. They formed the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell saw the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity. Once before he thought about the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be written only as “Cthulhu”. And the horrible connection that he discovered made him ask young Wilcox about his dreams.

It was in 1908, seventeen years before, when the American Archaeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Professor Angell, because of his authority and knowledge, had a prominent part in all the meetings. And some outsiders offered him questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution.

There was between them a middle-aged man who travelled all the way from New Orleans to get special information. He was unable to get it from any local source. His name was John Raymond Legrasse. He was an Inspector of Police and he brought the subject of his visit with him. It was a grotesque, repulsive, and apparently very ancient stone statuette. Its origin was unknown.

Inspector Legrasse was not interested in archaeology at all. He came because of purely professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, was captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting[26]. The rites connected with it were so singular and hideous, that the police immediately realized that it was a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Absolutely nothing was discovered of its origin. They discovered only erratic and unbelievable tales from the captured members. Hence the police asked for help from scholars. They wanted to identify the frightful symbol, and through it understand the cult itself.

Inspector Legrasse was not prepared for the sensation which his offering created. One sight of the thing was enough to throw the assembled scientists into a state of tense excitement. They crowded around him to gaze at the diminutive strange figure. The figure was apparently very old and nothing alike. An unknown school of sculpture made this terrible object. Centuries and even thousands of years were recorded in its dim and greenish surface of stone.

They passed slowly this figure from man to man for close and careful study. It was between seven and eight inches in height. It represented a vaguely humanoid monster, with an octopus-like head. Its face was a mass of feelers. It had a scaly rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing was an embodiment of a fearsome and unnatural malignancy[27]. It squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal that was covered with undecipherable characters[28]. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block. The seat occupied the center. The long, curved claws of the hind legs gripped the front edge and extended toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head[29] was bent forward. The ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore paws which clasped the elevated knees. The creature looked abnormally life-like and fearful. Its source was totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable. But it was not connected to any known type of art belonging to civilisation’s youth – or indeed to any other time. Even its material was a mystery. The soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations was not familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were totally unknown. Nobody had the least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know it.

The members shook their heads and confessed defeat at the Inspector’s problem. Yet there was one man in that gathering who recognized bizarre familiarity in the monstrous shape and writing. This person was the late William Channing Webb[30], Professor of Anthropology in Princeton University, and a famous explorer.

Professor Webb took part, forty-eight years before, in a tour of Greenland and Iceland in search of some Runic inscriptions. On the West Greenland coast he met a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Esquimaux[31]. Their religion was a curious form of devil-worship. It frightened him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness[32] and repulsiveness. It was a faith of which other Esquimaux knew little. They mentioned it only with shudders. They said that it came down from horribly ancient ages before the creation of the world. Besides nameless rites and human sacrifices there were certain queer hereditary rituals. These rituals addressed to a supreme elder devil ortornasuk[33]. Professor Webb took a careful phonetic copy of this from an agedangekok or wizard-priest[34]. It was expressing the sounds in Roman letters as best he knew how. The most important thing was the fetish, around which they danced when the aurora leaped high[35] over the ice cliffs. The professor stated that it was a very crude bas-relief of stone. It was comprising a hideous picture and some cryptic writing. And it was a rough parallel in all essential features of the bestial thing which was now lying before the meeting.

The assembled members received information with suspense and astonishment. It was even more exciting to Inspector Legrasse. He began at once to question his informant. He noted and copied an oral ritual among the swamp cult-worshippers which his men arrested. So he asked the professor to remember the syllables from the diabolist Esquimaux. There then followed an exhaustive comparison of details and a moment of silence. Both detective and scientist agreed on the identity of the phrase common to two hellish rituals. Both the Esquimaux wizards and the Louisiana swamp-priests chanted to their kindred idols strange words. They were something like this:

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

Legrasse said that some his mongrel prisoners told him the meaning of these words. This text meant:

“In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming[36].”

And now Inspector Legrasse related his experience with the swamp worshippers. This is the story to which my uncle attached profound significance. It was the wildest dream of a myth-maker or a theosophist.

On November 1st, 1907, some frantic summons came to the New Orleans police from the swamp and lagoon country to the south. The people there are mostly primitive but good-natured descendants of Lafitte’s men[37]. They were in stark terror from an unknown thing which occurred in the night.

It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of the most terrible sort. Since the malevolent tom-tom[38] began its incessant beating, some of their women and children disappeared. The sounds came from the black haunted woods where no one walked. There were insane shouts and harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants and dancing devil-flames. The frightened messenger added that it was impossible to stand that.

So twenty police officers in two carriages and an automobile went there. The shivering squatter was their guide. At the end of the road they walked for miles in silence through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss beset them. Finally, they saw the squatter settlement, a miserable huddle of huts. Hysterical dwellers ran out to meet them. The policemen heard the beat of tom-toms now. It was far, far ahead; and a curdling shriek came when the wind shifted. The dim red light was visible through the forrest. The squatters refused to go toward the scene of unholy worship. Inspector Legrasse and his nineteen colleagues went into black arcades of horror.

They entered that region of traditionally evil repute. White men normally did not enter it. There were legends of a hidden lake, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypous animal with luminous eyes. Squatters whispered that bat-winged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight. It was there before the Indians, and before even the beasts and birds of the woods. It was nightmare itself, and to see it was to die. But it was coming to people in dreams, and so they knew enough not to go there. The present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on the fringe of this area. But even that location was bad enough. Perhaps the very place of the worship terrified the squatters more than the shocking sounds and incidents.

Legrasse’s men went on through the black swamp toward the red glare and muffled tom-toms. There are sounds made by men, and sounds made by beasts and was terrible their dreadful combination. The policemen heard howls of animal fury and orgiastic ecstasy. The voices were like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. From time to time the sounds ceased and a chorus of hoarse voices chanted that hideous phrase or ritual:

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

Then the men reached a spot where the trees were thinner. Four of them reeled, one fainted, and two cried frantically. Legrasse splashed some water in the face of the fainted man. They stood there, trembling and nearly hypnotized with horror.

In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island. The island was of an acre’s extent, clear of trees and dry. On this now leaped and twisted indescribable horde of humans. They were totally naked. This hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire. In the centre stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height. On top of this great granite monolith rested the noxious carven statuette. Ten scaffolds were set up at regular intervals, forming a circle. From them hung, head downward, the marred bodies of the helpless disappeared squatters. Inside this circle the ring of worshippers jumped and roared. They were moving from left to right in endless dance between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.

It may be only imagination, but one of policemen, a Spanish man, heard antiphonal responses to the ritual from some far and unillumined spot within the wood. I later met and questioned this man, Joseph D. Galvez. He said that he heard beating of great wings. He saw a glimpse of shining eyes and a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest trees. I suppose he was a little superstitious.

But duty came first. The police relied on their firearms and went determinedly into the nauseous rout. For five minutes the chaos was beyond description. Blows were struck, shots were fired, and escapes were made. In the end Legrasse counted forty-seven sullen prisoners. He ordered to dress them and fall into line between two rows of policemen. Five of the worshippers lay dead, and two were severely wounded. Of course, Legrasse took the statuette from the monolith.

After an exhausting trip, the prisoners were examined. They were men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type[39]. Most were seamen, some Negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands[40]. This cult and its members looked like connected to voodooism. But before many questions, it became clear that something far deeper and older than Negro fetishism was involved.

They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones[41] who lived ages before there were any men. The Great Old Ones came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea. Their dead bodies told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which never died. This was that cult. It always existed and will always exist. It is hidden in distant and dark places all over the world. The time will come when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R’lyeh under the waters will rise and rule the earth. Some day, when the stars are ready, he will call. The secret cult will always wait to liberate him.

They refused to tell more. There was a secret and it was impossible to extract it. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth. Some shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few[42]. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man saw the Old Ones. The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but nobody can say how the others look like. No one was able to read the old writing now. The things were told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret. The chant meant only this:

“In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.[43]”

Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to hang them. The rest were taken to various hospitals. All denied ritual murders, and said that the killing was done by Black Winged Ones[44] which came to them from their immemorial meeting-place in the haunted wood. But nobody wanted to talk about these mysterious allies. What the police learned, came mainly from the very old mestizo named Castro[45]. Castro sailed to different ports and talked with undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China.

Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There were ages when other Creatures ruled on the earth and They had great cities. The deathless Chinamen told him that remains of Them can still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific[46]. They all died long ago before men came. But it is possible to revive Them when the stars came round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They came themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.

These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right[47], They could travel from world to world through the sky. When the stars were wrong, They did not live.

But although They no longer lived, They never really died.

They all lie in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth once again are ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells prevent Them from an initial move. They can only lie awake in the dark and think while millions of years pass by. They know all that is occurring in the universe. Their mode of speech is transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them forming their dreams. Only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds.

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around tall idols which the Great Ones showed them. Idols were brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult will never die till the stars come right again. The secret priests will take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His servants and resume His rule of earth. It will be easy to know this time has come. Mankind will become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil. The people will throw aside laws and morals. And all men will shout and kill and revel in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones will teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves. All the earth will flame with a great fire of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and tell about their return.

In the elder time chosen men talked with the entombed Old Ones in dreams. Then something happened. The great stone city R’lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchres, sank beneath the waves. The deep waters, full of the primal mystery, cut off the communication. No thought can pass through them. But memory never died. The high-priests say that the city will rise again when the stars are right. Then the black spirits of earth will come out of the earth, mouldy and shadowy, and full of dim rumours. But old Castro dared not speak much of them.

He became silent hurriedly and said nothing more. He curiously declined to mention the size of the Old Ones, too. Of the cult, he said that he thought the centre lay amid the pathless desert of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars[48], dreams hidden and untouched. It was not connected to the European witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its members. No book ever mentioned it. Only in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, as the deathless Chinamen said were double meanings, which the initiated can read, especially the this couplet:

That is not dead which can eternal lie [49],
And with strange ages even death may die.

Legrasse was deeply impressed. He inquired about the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro, apparently, told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret. The authorities at Tulane University said nothing about either cult or image. So the detective came to the highest authorities in the country now and met only with the Greenland tale of Professor Webb.

The great interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse’s tale. It echoed in the correspondence of those who attended; although was not mentioned in the formal publications of the society. Caution is the first care of scientists who often face charlatanry and imposture. Legrasse lent the image to Professor Webb. When Professor died, it was returned to him. I saw it not long ago. It is truly a terrible thing, and very similar to the dream-sculpture of young Wilcox.

It is no surprise that my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor. The fact that sensitive young man saw in his dreams these figure and hieroglyphics was very interesting. Professor Angell started an investigation immediately. Privately I suspected young Wilcox of a trickery. He could invent a series of dreams to heighten and continue the mystery. My rationalism made me think this way. So, after thoroughly studying the manuscript again and correlating the theosophical and anthropological notes with the cult narrative of Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence. I wanted to see the sculptor and accuse him of deceiving a learned and aged man.

Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street, a hideous Victorian imitation of seventeenth century Breton Architecture[50]. I found him at work in his rooms. I understood at once that his genius was indeed profound and authentic. I believe, one day he will be well-known as one of the great decadents. He has crystallized in clay and one day will repeat in marble nightmares and phantasies. Like those which Arthur Machen[51] evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith[52] makes visible in verse and in painting.

He was dark and frail, a little bit unkempt. He asked me about my business without rising. When I told him who I was, he displayed some interest. My uncle excited his curiosity because he was studying his strange dreams, yet never explained the reason for the study. In a short time I became convinced of his absolute sincerity. He spoke of the dreams honestly. They influenced his art profoundly. He showed me a morbid statue whose contours almost shook me. He hasn’t seen the original of this thing except in his own dream bas-relief. The outlines formed themselves insensibly under his hands. It was, no doubt, the giant shape that he saw in delirium. But he really knew nothing of the hidden cult.

He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion. It made me imagine the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone – whose geometry, he said, was all wrong. He heard with frightened expectancy the ceaseless, half-mental calling from underground: “Cthulhu fhtagn”, “Cthulhu fhtagn.”

These words formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead Cthulhu’s dream-vigil in his stone vault at R’lyeh[53]. I felt deeply touched despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure, heard of the cult in some casual way. He soon forgot it amidst the mass of his equally weird reading and imagining. Later it found subconscious expression in dreams, in the bas-relief, and in the terrible statue. The young man was slightly affected and slightly ill-mannered. I never liked that type, but I admitted both his genius and his honesty. I wished him all the success his talent promises when I left.

The matter of the cult still fascinated me. Sometimes I dreamed of earning fame from serious researches into its origins. I visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and other people of that old-time party. I saw the frightful image, and even questioned some mongrel prisoners. Old Castro, unfortunately, was dead. What I now heard was really no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle wrote before. It excited me once again. I felt sure that I touched a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion. Its discovery will make me a famous scholar. My attitude was absolutly materialistic (I wish it still were) and I discounted the coincidence between Willcox dreams and the cuttings collected by my grand-uncle.

One thing I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that my uncle’s death was not natural. He fell on a narrow hill street. This street was swarming with foreign mongels. He fell after a careless push from a Negro sailor. I did not forget the mixed blood and marine background of the cult-members in Louisiana. I won’t be surprised to learn of poisoned needles and other ruthless secret methods. Legrasse and his men, it is true, are still alive; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw some strange things is dead. Maybe the deeper inquiries of my uncle came to sinister ears? I think Professor Angell died because he knew too much. Or because there was a chance for him to learn too much as well. And at the moment I knew much, too…

III. The Madness from the Sea

I almost ceased my inquiries into what Professor Angell called the “Cthulhu Cult”, and was visiting a learned friend in Paterson, New Jersey. He was the curator of a local museum and a famous mineralogist. One day I was examining the stones in a rear room of the museum. My eye noticed an odd picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. It was the Australian journal, the Sydney Bulletin[54], for April 18, 1925. There was a picture of a hideous stone image almost identical with that which Legrasse found in the swamp.

I read the article in detail. What I read was very important for my investigation. So I carefully tore it out. It read as follows:

MYSTERY DERELICT FOUND AT SEA

Vigilant Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow [55].

One Survivor and Dead Man Found Aboard. Tale of Desperate Battle and Deaths at Sea. Rescued Seaman Refuses Particulars of Strange Experience. Odd Idol Found in His Possession. Inquiry to Follow[56].

The Morrison Co.’s freighter Vigilant[57], bound from Valparaiso, arrived this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour. It had in tow the battled and disabled but heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N.Z., which was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude 34°21’, W. Longitude 152°17’, with one living and one dead man aboard.

The Vigilant left Valparaiso March 25th. On April 2nd, exceptionally heavy storms and monster waves drove the ship considerably south of its course. On April 12th the derelict was sighted. One survivor in a half-delirious condition and one man who was evidently dead for more than a week were found. The living man was holding a horrible stone idol of unknown origin, about foot in height. The authorities at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street were unable to say anything about its origin. The survivor says he found it in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine.

This man told an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian. He is from the two-masted schooner Emma of Auckland, which sailed for Callao February 20th with a complement of eleven men. He says, the great storm of March 1st threw the Emma widely south of her course by. On March 22nd, in S. Latitude 49°51’ W. Longitude 128°34’, the ship encountered the Alert. It was manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes[58]. They ordered to turn back, Capt. Collins refused. The strange crew began to fire savagely and without warning. The schooner began to sink from shots beneath the water-line, but the Emma’s men managed to heave alongside their enemy and board it. They killed them all.

Three of the Emma’s men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, were killed. The remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen continued to navigate the captured yacht. They were going in their original direction to see why they were ordered back The next day, it appears, they found and landed on a small island. None knew about it in that part of the ocean. Six of the men somehow died ashore. Johansen strangely says very little about this part of his story. Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried to manage it. But they were driven by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th the man remembers little. He does not even recall when William Briden, his companion, died. There was no apparent cause for Briden’s death. It happened probably due to excitement or exposure. The Alert was well known there as an island trader[59]. It bore evil reputation. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes. Their frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted curiosity. It started in great haste just after the storm and earth tremors of March 1st. Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an excellent reputation. He describes Johansen as a sober and worthy man. The admiralty will start an inquiry. They will try to make Johansen speak more freely than he did before.

This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image. What a train of ideas it started in my mind! Here was new information about the Cthulhu Cult! Here was the evidence that it had strange interests at sea as well as on land. Why did the hybrid crew order the Emma to sail back? What was the unknown island on which six of the Emma’s crew died? Why Johansen was so secretive? And most important, what deep connection was there, between these dates and events so carefully noted by my uncle?

March 1st – or February 28th according to the International Date Line[60] – the earthquake and storm came. From Dunedin the Alert and her crew sailed eagerly. It looked as if somebody summoned it. On the other side of the earth poets and artists began to dream of a strange Cyclopean city while a young sculptor moulded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an unknown island. They left six men dead. On that date the dreams of sensitive men became very vivid and darkened with dread of a giant monster’s malign pursuit. On that date architect went mad and a sculptor went suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2nd – the date on which all dreams of the strange city ceased? The date on which Wilcox recovered from the strange fever? An old Castro talked about the sunken, star-born Old Ones and their coming reign; their faithful cult and their mastery of dreams. In some way the second of April stopped monstrous menace, which began the siege of mankind’s soul.

That evening I took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I was in Dunedin. There I found that little was known of the strange cult-members who spent their time in the old sea-taverns. But there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels made. During that trip faint drumming and red flame were noted on the distant hills. In Auckland I learned that Johansen returned with yellow hair turned white after a questioning at Sydney. Hereafter he sold his cottage in West Street and sailed with his wife to his old home in Oslo. He did not told much to his friends but they gave me his Oslo address.

After that I went to Sydney and talked with seamen and members of the vice-admiralty court but without result. I saw the Alert but gained nothing. The Alert was sold and now in commercial use. The crouching image with its cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park. I studied it long and well. Geologists, the curator told me, found it a monstrous puzzle. They vowed that the rock like it did not exist. Then I remembered with a shudder the words that Old Castro told Legrasse about the Old Ones;

“They came from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.”

My rationalistic thinking was shaken. I decided to visit Mate Johansen in Oslo. Johansen lived, I discovered, in the Old Town. I made a brief taxi-trip. Then I knocked at the door of a neat and ancient building. A sad-faced woman in black came out and told me in broken English that Gustaf Johansen was dead.

It was his wife and she told me something. He did not live long after his return. The sea events in 1925 broke him. He told her no more than he told the public. But he left a long manuscript – of “technical matters” as he said – written in English. During a walk near the Gothenburg dock, a bundle of papers from an attic window knocked him down. Two Lascar sailors[61] at once helped him, but before the ambulance arrived, he was dead. Physicians said that his death occurred due to a heart trouble and a weakened constitution.

I felt dark terror now, the terror that will never leave me. At least till I die, “accidentally” or otherwise. I persuaded the widow to get her husband’s “technical matters”. I bore the document away and began to read it on the London boat. It was a naive sailor’s effort at a diary – to recall day by day that last awful voyage. After I read this story I was unable to hear the sound of the waves anymore. But I will try to retell this story.

Johansen, thank God, did not know everything, even though he saw the city and the Thing. I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space. These blasphemies from elder stars dream beneath the sea and the nightmare cult is ready to let them loose when they have another chance.

Johansen’s voyage began just as he told it to the vice-admiralty. The Emma left Auckland on February 20th. The ship felt the full force of the earthquake-born tempest. Once more under control, the ship was making good progress. The Alert stopped the ship on March 22nd. I could feel the mate’s regret as he wrote of the bombardment and sinking. He speaks with significant horror of the dark cult-fiends on the Alert. Then they went forward driven by curiosity. They sailed in their captured yacht under Johansen’s command. The men saw a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea. In S. Latitude 47°9’, W. Longitude l23°43’, they came upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror. It was the nightmare corpse-city of R’lyeh. This city was built in measureless ages behind history by the vast, loathsome creatures that came down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults. They were sending out at last the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive. These thoughts called imperiously to the faithful to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration. All this Johansen did not suspect, but he soon saw enough!

I suppose that only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-crowned citadel actually emerged from the waters. Here great Cthulhu was buried. When I think what else lies there I almost want to kill myself. Johansen and his men were awed by the cosmic majesty of this dripping Babylon of elder demons. They probably guessed that it was nothing of this planet. Awe at the unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks, at the height of the great carven monolith, and at the identity of the colossal statues and bas-reliefs with the queer image found in the shrine on the Alert, is visible in every line of the frightened description. Johansen had no idea of futurism. But his description of the city was very similar to it: great stone surfaces, vast angles, horrible images and hieroglyphs. The whole geometry of this place was not normal, just like in Wilcox awful dream.

Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mud-bank on this monstrous Acropolis. They climbed slipperily up over titan oozy blocks. Even the sun seemed distorted. The menace was lurking in the corners of this carven rock.

It was Rodriguez the Portuguese[62] who climbed up the foot of the monolith. He shouted of what he found. The rest followed him. They looked curiously at the immense carved door with the squid-dragon bas-relief. It was, Johansen said, like a great barn-door. But they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trap-door[63] or slantwise like an outside cellar-door. As Wilcox said, the geometry of the place was all wrong. The sea and the ground were not horizontal, because the relative position of everything else seemed phantasmally variable.

Briden pushed at the stone in several places without result. Then Donovan studied the edge and pressed each point separately. He climbed along the grotesque stone moulding. The door was impossibly vast. Then, very softly and slowly, the acre-great panel began to go down; and they saw that it was balanced. Everyone watched the queer recession of the monstrously carven portal. In this prismatic distortion it moved in a diagonal way.

The aperture was black. The odour that rose from the newly opened depths was intolerable. Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, slopping sound down there. Everyone listened. Everyone was listening still when It appeared. It gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness[64].

Of the six men who never reached the ship, two died of fear immediately. The Thing cannot be described. There is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy[65]. It contradicted all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God! No wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad, and poor Wilcox raved with fever in that telepathic instant. The Thing of the idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, awaked to claim his own[66]. The stars were right again. What an age-old cult failed to do, a band of innocent sailors did by accident. After millions of years great Cthulhu was loose again. And It was ravening for delight.

The flabby claws swept three men up before anybody turned. They were Donovan, Guerrera, and Angstrom. Parker slipped as the other three were running to the boat. Johansen swears he was swallowed up by a masonry. When Briden and Johansen reached the boat, and pulled desperately for the Alert, the mountainous monstrosity flopped down the slimy stones and was floundering at the edge of the water.

Slowly, amidst the distorted horrors of that indescribable scene, the Alert began to sail. Then on the masonry of that shore great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to pursue. Briden looked back and went mad. He was laughing till death found him one night in the cabin while Johansen was wandering deliriously.

But Johansen did not surrender. He knew that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert. So he set the engine for full speed, and reversed the wheel. The brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly. The awful squid-head came to the bowsprit but Johansen drove on relentlessly.

There was a horrific bursting as of an exploding bladder, a stench as of a thousand opened graves. There was a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was hidden by an acrid green cloud. And – God in heaven! The distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

That was all. After that Johansen only watched the idol in the cabin and prepared some food for himself and the laughing maniac. He did not try to navigate, for he was completely exhausted. Then came the storm of April 2nd. He lost his consciousness.

One day came rescue – the Vigilant, the vice-admiralty court, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the old house. He did not tell anything. Everybody would call him mad. He wrote of what he knew before death came. Death will be a boon if only it deletes the memories.

That was the document I read. Now I placed it in the tin box beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. This record of mine will be placed with them. I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives.

Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more. I know it because the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. Who knows the end? What rose may sink. What sank may rise. It waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come… – but I must not and cannot think about it! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors let nobody read this.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft
At the Mountains of Madness

I

I don’t want to tell the reasons why I oppose the invasion of the Antarctic – with its vast fossil hunt and its melting of the ancient ice caps. But I must do so. I can understand clearly that my story will seem extravagant and incredible. But there are photographs, both ordinary and aerial, and they will help me. They are vivid and graphic. Of course, some people can say that it is all fakery. And there are ink drawings, but somebody may laugh at them and call them obvious impostures.

I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders. They have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought. On the other hand, they have sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any over-ambitious program[67] in the region of those mountains of madness. It is pity that[68] ordinary men like myself and my colleagues are connected only with a small university. That’s why we have little chance to make an impression in the controversial matters[69].

In the strictest sense, we are not specialists in these fields. Miskatonic University[70] sent me as a geologist. The aim of our expedition was to secure deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the Antarctic continent. We had a remarkable drill that was designed by Professor Frank H. Pabodie[71] of our engineering department. I hoped, as a geologist, that this new mechanical device will discover the materials, unacceptable by the ordinary methods of collection. And I had no wish to be a pioneer in any other field than this.

Pabodie’s drilling apparatus was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity. Only three sledges carried steel head, jointed rods[72], gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick[73], dynamiting paraphernalia[74], cords, rubbish-removal auger[75], and sectional piping for bores five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep. This was possible due to aluminum alloy used by Pabodie. Four large aeroplanes were able to transport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to various inland points.

We planned to explore a great area in one season. We were operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau south of Ross Sea[76]. These were regions explored by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd[77]. We expected to get a quite unprecedented amount of material – especially in the pre-Cambrian[78] strata. We wished also to obtain a variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks. The primal life history of this realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the earth’s past. The Antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical. We hoped to expand that information about its flora and fauna in variety, accuracy, and detail.

The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent reports to the Arkham Advertiser and Associated Press[79], and through the later articles of Pabodie and myself. There were four men from the University – Pabodie, Lake of the biology department[80], Atwood of the physics department[81] – also a meteorologist – and myself. I was representing geology and was a nominal leader. There were also sixteen assistants: seven graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these sixteen, twelve were qualified aeroplane pilots. Most of them were competent wireless operators as well. Eight of them understood navigation with compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood, and I. In addition, of course, our two ships were fully manned[82].

The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation[83] financed the expedition. The dogs, sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five planes were delivered in Boston. There our ships were loaded. We were marvelously well-equipped for our specific purposes. As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 1930. We took a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama Canal, and stopped at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania [84]. There we got final supplies. Our ship captains were J. B. Douglas[85], commanding the brig Arkham, and Georg Thorfinnssen[86], commanding the Miskatonic. They both were veteran whalers in Antarctic waters.

At about 62° South Latitude we noticed our first icebergs. These were table-like objects with vertical sides. Just before reaching the Antarctic circle[87], which we crossed on October 20th with appropriately ceremonies, field ice [88] considerably troubled us. The falling temperature bothered me considerably after our long voyage through the tropics. Very often the curious atmospheric effects enchanted me vastly. Distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles.

We were pushing through the ice. Finally, we regained open water at South Latitude 67°, East Longitude 175°. On the morning of October 26th, a snow-clad mountain chain appeared on the south. That was an outpost of the great unknown continent and its cryptic world of frozen death. These peaks were obviously the Admiralty Range discovered by Ross[89]. Our task was to round Cape Adare[90] and sail down the east coast of Victoria Land[91] to our base on the shore of McMurdo Sound[92], at the foot of the volcano Erebus in South Latitude 77° 9’.

The last part of the voyage was vivid and fancy-stirring. Great barren peaks of mystery, white snow, bluish ice and water lanes, and black bits of exposed granite slope. Something about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich[93], and of the disturbing descriptions of the evil plateau of Leng[94]. These descriptions appear in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred[95]. I was rather sorry, later on, that I looked into that monstrous book at the college library.

On the 7th of November, we passed Franklin Island[96]. The next day the cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror on Ross Island[97] appeared, with the long line of the Parry Mountains[98] beyond. There was a white line of the great ice barrier. It was rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec. It marked the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo Sound and stood off the coast near the Mt. Erebus. Beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude.

One of the graduate assistants – a brilliant young fellow named Danforth[99] – noticed lava on the snowy slope. On the barren shore, and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriads of grotesque penguins walked.

We used small boats and landed on Ross Island shortly after midnight on the morning of the 9th. Then we prepared to unload supplies. Our camp on the frozen shore below the volcano’s slope was only a provisional one. Headquarters were situated aboard the Arkham. We landed all our drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experimental ice-melting outfit[100], cameras, both ordinary and aerial, aeroplane parts, and other accessories, including three small portable wireless devices – besides those in the planes. These devices helped us to communicate with the Arkham’s large device from any part of the Antarctic continent that we wanted to visit. The ship’s radio was communicating with the outside world. It was able to convey press reports to the Arkham Advertiser’s powerful wireless station on Kingsport Head, Massachusetts[101]. We hoped to complete our work during an Antarctic summer. Otherwise we planned to winter on the Arkham and send the Miskatonic north for another summer’s supplies.

I need not repeat what the newspapers already published about our early work. The health of our party – twenty men and fifty-five Alaskan sledge dogs – was remarkable. Of course we did not encounter really destructive temperatures or windstorms.

We reached Beardmore Glacier[102], the largest valley glacier in the world. The frozen sea changed to a mountainous coast line. We were eight thousand, five hundred feet above sea-level. When experimental drillings revealed solid ground only twelve feet down through the snow and ice at certain points, we made considerable use of the small melting apparatus.

In certain sandstones we found some highly interesting fossil fragments. We found ferns, seaweeds, and mollusks. They were very important for the region’s primordial history. There was also a queer triangular, striated marking[103], about a foot in greatest diameter. Lake, as a biologist, found these curious marking unusually puzzling and provocative. To my geological eye it looked not unlike some of the ripple effects common in the sedimentary rocks[104]. Since slate is no more than a metamorphic formation, I saw no reason for extreme wonder.

On January 6th, 1931, Lake, Pabodie, Danforth, the other six students, and myself flew directly over the South pole in two planes. There was a high wind. This was, as the papers said, one of several observation flights. Distant mountains floated in the sky as enchanted cities. Often the whole white world dissolved into a gold, silver, and scarlet land of dreams under the magic of the low midnight sun.

We resolved to carry out our original plan. We wanted to fly five hundred miles eastward and establish a new base. Our health remained excellent. It was now midsummer. With haste and care we will be able to conclude work by March and avoid a tedious wintering through the long Antarctic night. There were some severe windstorms but we escaped the damage. No doubt, we had our good luck. But this good luck was almost strange.

Lake insisted on a westward – or rather, northwestward – trip before our shift to the new base. He was too much interested in that triangular marking in the slate. He was strangely convinced that the marking was the print of some bulky, unknown, and unclassifiable organism of advanced evolution. Lake thought that this rock was probably Cambrian or even pre-Cambrian. It meant that this advanced organism existed in times when there was only unicellular life[105]. So these fragments, with their odd marking, were five hundred million – a thousand million years old.

II

The journey of January 11th to 18th with Pabodie and five others brought up more and more of the Archaean slate[106]. Even I was interested in evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancient stratum. These markings, however, were of very primitive life forms. Therefore I did not like Lake’s idea to explore further. However I did not say no to his idea. But I decided not to accompany the northwestward party despite Lake’s plea for my geological advice. While they were gone, I remained at the base with Pabodie and five men. We were working out final plans for the eastward shift[107].

Lake’s expedition into the unknown sent out reports from the shortwave transmitters on the planes. The start was made January 22nd at 4 A.M. The first wireless message that we received came only two hours later. Lake spoke of descending and starting an ice-melting and boring at a point some three hundred miles away from us. Six hours later a second message told of the frantic work. They found more slate fragments with these markings.

Three hours later a brief bulletin announced the resumption of the flight. I protested against it, because it was too risky. But Lake was extremely excited, and said that his new specimens were worth it. I saw that I was unable to stop him. And it was frightening, because he went deeper and deeper into that treacherous white desert. It was putting the whole expedition to the risk.

Then, in about an hour and a half more, came even more excited message from Lake’s plane. It almost made me sorry that I did not went too:

“10:05 P.M. On the wing[108]. After snowstorm, appeared mountain range ahead higher than any hitherto seen. May equal Himalayas[109]. Probable Latitude 76° 15’, Longitude 113° 10’ E. Takes all the horizon. Two smoking cones. All peaks black and bare of snow. Strong wind impedes navigation.”

After that Pabodie, the men and I stood breathlessly by the receiver. Thought of these titanic mountains seven hundred miles away inflamed our deepest sense of adventure. In half an hour Lake called us again:

“The plane forced down on plateau in foothills[110]. Nobody hurt and perhaps can repair it. We will transfer things to other three planes. You can’t imagine anything like this. Highest peaks must go over thirty-five thousand feet. Atwood will work with theodolite while Carroll and I will go up[111]. Possibly pre-Cambrian slate[112] with other strata mixed in. Queer skyline effects – regular sections of cubes clinging to highest peaks[113]. Like land of mystery in a dream or gateway to forbidden world. Wish you were here to study[114].”

Though it was sleeping-time, not one of us went to bed. We were sorry, of course, about the damaged aeroplane. But it will be fixed easily, of course. Then, at 11 P.M., came another call from Lake:

“Up with Carroll over highest foothills. Frightful to climb, and hard to go at this altitude. But it’s worth it. Main summits exceed Himalayas, and very queer. Range looks like pre-Cambrian slate, with plain signs of many other strata. Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low, vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles. Impressive from distance. Carroll thought they were formed of smaller separate pieces, but that is probably an illusion.

Parts, especially upper parts, seem lighter than any visible strata on slopes. If you fly near you can see many cave-mouths, some unusually regular in outline, square or semicircular. You must come and investigate. I saw rampart squarely on top of one peak. Height seems about thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet. I am up twenty-one thousand, five hundred myself, in devilish, gnawing cold. Wind whistles and pipes, but no danger to fly.”

We replied that we will join Lake as soon as he sends a plane. It was obvious now that the character of the expedition changed. So it was possible that there is no need in eastward flight, after all, this season.

Lake called me later. He decided to let the camp stay where damaged plane landed. The ice sheet was very thin, with dark ground visible here and there. Lake spoke of the majesty of the whole scene, and the queer state of his sensations. The height of the five tallest peaks was from thirty thousand to thirty-four thousand feet. The camp lay a little more than five miles from the higher foothills. Lake was clearly afraid of windstorms from the mountains. I traced a note of subconscious alarm in his words. He asked us to hurry to come to this strange region. He was going to rest now, after a continuous day’s work.

In the morning we came to an agreement. One of Lake’s planes will come to my base for Pabodie, the five men, and myself, as well as for all the fuel it could carry. Pabodie and I were preparing to close our base for a short or long period. Some of our conical tents were already reinforced by blocks of hard snow. Now we decided to complete the job and to make a permanent base. I sent a message that Pabodie and I will be ready for the northwestward journey after one day’s work and one night’s rest.

But we stopped after 4 P.M. because Lake began to send the most extraordinary and excited messages. He resolved to do some local boring as part of the expedition’s general program. In three hours young Gedney – the acting foreman[115] – rushed into the camp with the shocking news.

They struck a cave. The layer was not more than seven or eight feet deep. But it extended off in all directions. Its roof and floor were equipped with large stalactites and stalagmites. The most important things were shells and bones. This mix contained representatives of many Cretaceous[116], Eocene[117], and other animal species. It would take a year[118] for the greatest paleontologist to count or classify them. Mollusks, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and early mammals – great and small, known and unknown. No wonder Gedney ran back to the camp. No wonder everyone else dropped work and ran headlong to a new-found gateway to secrets of inner earth and vanished ages.

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Примечания

1

dark age – темные века

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2

theosophists – теософы, последователи религиозно-философского учения, популярного в конце XIX – нач. XX вв.

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3

great-uncle – двоюродный дед

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4

Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages – заслуженный профессор в отставке, специалист по семитским языкам

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5

Newport boat – ньюпортский пароход

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6

nautical-looking Negro – негр, похожий на моряка

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7

clay bas-relief – глиняный барельеф

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8

than an inch thick – толщиной менее дюйма (1 дюйм = 2,54 см)

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tentacled head – голова, снабжённая щупальцами

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10

vague Cyclopean architectural background – на фоне угадывались циклопические строения

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characters painstakingly printed – тщательно выписанные буквы

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1925 – Сон и воплощающая его скульптура Х.А. Уилкокса, Томас-стрит, 7, Провиденс, Род-Айленд

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121 Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 A. A. S. Mtg. – Notes on Same, & Prof. Webb’s Acct. – 121 Бьенвиль-стрит, Нью-Орлеан, на собрании А. А. О. – заметки о том же + сообщение проф. Уэбба

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14

W. Scott-Elliot’s Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria – книга теософа У. Скотта-Эллиота «История Атлантиды и пропавшая Лемурия»

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Frazer’s Golden Bough – книга Дж. Фрэзера «Золотая ветвь», посвященная выявлению общих чертов в мифологиях разных народов.

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16

Miss Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western Europe – книга мисс Мюррей «Культ ведьм в Западной Европе»

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17

Rhode Island School of Design – художественная школа Род-Айленда

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psychically hypersensitive – чрезвычайно чувствительный психически

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19

Providence Art Club – Клуб любителей искусства в Провиденсе

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These dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon – Эти сны древней, чем мечтательный Тир, созерцательный Сфинкс, или опоясанный садами Вавилон.

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21

Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths – циклопических городов из каменных плит и взметнувшихся в небо монолитов

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22

enigmatical uninscribable gibberish – загадочную неописуемую тарабарщину

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23

leading questions – наводящие вопросы

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24

over a fourth of them – больше четверти из них

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cutting bureau – бюро, занимавшееся поиском информации в газетах

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voodoo meeting – сборище приверженцев вуду

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This thing was an embodiment of a fearsome and unnatural malignancy. – Это существо было воплощением устрашающей и противоестественной злобы.

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undecipherable characters – неизвестные иероглифы

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29

cephalopod head – осьминожья голова

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30

the late William Channing Webb – ныне покойный Уильям Ченнинг Уэбб

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31

degenerate Esquimaux – вырождавшихся эскимосов

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bloodthirstiness – кровожадность

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addressed to a supreme elder devil or tornasuk – посвящённые верховному дьяволу, или «торнасуку»

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took a careful phonetic copy from an aged angekok or wizard-priest – тщательно записал из уст старого «ангекока», или шамана

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35

the aurora leaped high – занималось северное сияние

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36

In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. – В своём доме в Р’льехе мёртвый Ктулху ожидает во сне.

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descendants of Lafitte’s men – потомки людей Лафита (Жан Лафит – контрабандист и корсар, в нач. XIX в. обосновавшийся в Луизиане)

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malevolent tom-tom – зловещий там-там (там-там – ударный музыкальный инструмент)

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mentally aberrant type – низкое умственное развитие

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Cape Verde Islands – Острова Зеленого Мыса

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Great Old Ones – Великие Древние

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to visit the faithful few – чтобы посетить немногих верных

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In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming – Мёртвый Ктулху в своём доме в Р’льехе ожидает во сне

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Black Winged Ones – Чернокрылые

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mestizo named Castro – метис по имени Кастро

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on islands in the Pacific – на островах Тихого океана

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When the stars were right – когда звезды были в правильном положении

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Irem, the City of Pillars – Ирем, град колонн

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That is not dead which can eternal lie. – Не мёртво то, что может вечно покоиться.

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hideous Victorian imitation of seventeenth century Breton Architecture – безобразной викторианской стилизации бретонской архитектуры семнадцатого века

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Arthur Machen – Артур Мэкен (1863–1947) английский (валлийский) писатель, автор фантасмогорических историй, существенно повлиявших на Г.Ф. Лавкрафта.

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Clark Ashton Smith – Кларк Эштон Смит (1893–1961) американский поэт и писатель, художник, скульптор; писал рассказы в жанре фантастики, фэнтези и ужасов.

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dead Cthulhu’s dream-vigil in his stone vault at R’lyeh – бдительном сне мертвого Ктулху в его каменном склепе в Р’льехе.

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Australian journal, the SydneyBulletin – австралийский журнал, «Сиднейский вестник»

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Vigilant Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow. – «Неусыпный» прибывает в порт с неуправляемой новозеландской яхтой на буксире.

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Inquiry to Follow. – Предстоит расследование.

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the Morrison Co.’s freighter Vigilant– сухогруз «Неусыпный», принадлежащий компании «Моррисон»

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Kanakas and half-castes – канаки и полукровки

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island trader – каботажное судно

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according to the International Date Line – согласно международной демаркации суточного времени

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Lascar sailors – моряки из Индии, используемые для черной работы

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Rodriguez the Portuguese – Португалец Родригез

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trap-door – дверь-люк

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It gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway – наощупь стало выдавливать Свою зеленую, желеобразную безмерность через черный дверной проем

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abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy – пучин кричащего вневременного безумия

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to claim his own – заявить свои права

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to deter the exploring world in general from any over-ambitious program – дабы удержать исследователей от чересчур поспешных и опрометчивых предприятий

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It is pity that – очень жаль, что

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to make an impression in the controversial matters – повлиять, когда речь идет о противоречивых материях

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Miscatonic University – Мискатоникский университет (вымышленный университет, часто встречающийся в произведениях Г.Ф. Лавкрафта, расположенный в городе Аркхеме(тоже вымышленном), штат Массачусетс, США)

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Professor Frank H. Pabodie – Профессор Фрэнк Х. Пэбоди

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jointed rods – складной хвостовик бура

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collapsible wooden derrick – разборная деревянная буровая вышка

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dynamiting paraphernalia – принадлежности для взрывных работ

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rubbish-removal auger – бур для удаления отработанной породы

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Ross Sea – Море Росса

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Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd – исследователи Антарктиды Шеклтон, Амундсен, Скотт, и Берд.

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pre-Cambrian – докембрийский период, длившийся 4 млрд. лет (самая ранняя часть геологической истории Земли, которая предшествовала кембрийскому периоду (около 540 млн. лет назад)

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ArkhamAdvertiser and AssociatedPress – газеты «Аркхэм Адвертайзер» и «Ассошиэйтед Пресс»

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Lake of the biology department – Лэйк от кафедры биологии

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Atwood of the physics department – Этвуд от кафедры физики

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were fully manned – были полностью укомплектованы командами

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The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation – Фонд Натаниэля Дерби Пикмэна

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Panama Canal… Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania – Панамский канал… Самоа и Хобарт, Тасмания.

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J. B. Douglas – Дж. Б. Дуглас

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Georg Thorfinnssen – Георг Торфинсен

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the Antarctic circle – Южный полярный круг

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field ice – лед, плавающий в воде, айсберги

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the Admiralty Range discovered by Ross – горы Адмиралтейства, открытые Россом

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Cape Adare – мыс Адэр

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Victoria Land – земля Виктории (регион Антарктиды)

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McMurdo Sound – покрытый льдом пролив Мак-Мердо в Антарктиде, отправная точка экспедиции Скотта

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Nicholas Roerich – Николай Рерих (1874–1947) русский художник, философ-мистик, путешественник и общественный деятель. Провел ряд экспедиций в Азию, вдохновивших его на множество картин.

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the evil plateau of Leng – зловещее плато Ленг (вымышленное)

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the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred – ужасный Некрономикон безумного араба Абдула Альхазреда (придуманная Лавкрафтом книга, не существовавшая в реальности, но на которую он и писатели его круга регулярно ссылались)

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Franklin Island – остров Франклина, небольшой остров в море Росса. Населен пингвинами.

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Mts. Erebus and Terror on Ross Island – горы Эребус и Террор на острове Росса в Антарктиде, названные в честь кораблей экспедиции Дж. Кл. Росса

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Parry Mountains – горы Перри(обычно выделяют одну гору Перри в горах Стрибога)

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Danforth – Данфорт

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experimental ice-melting outfit – экспериментальное оборудование для растапливания льда

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Kingsport Head, Massachusetts – Кингспорт Хэд, Массачусетс

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Beardmore Glacier – Ледник Бирдмора, через который экспедиция Скотта достигла Южного Полюса.

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a queer triangular, striated marking – странная бороздчатая отметка треугольной формы

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ripple effects common in the sedimentary rocks – эффект ряби, обычный для для осадочных пород

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unicellular life – одноклеточная жизнь

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the Archaean slate – сланец Архейского эона, в котором появилась жизнь на Земле

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We were working out final plans for the eastward shift – Мы обсуждали подробности запланированного перемещения на восток

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On the wing – С борта

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May equal Himalayas – Могут сравниться с Гималаями

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The plane forced down on plateau in foothills – Самолету пришлось приземлиться на плато у подножья

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Atwood will work with theodolite while Carroll and I will go up – Этвуд измерит высоту теодолитом, пока мы с Кэрроллом начнем подъём

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pre-Cambrian slate – докембрийские сланцы

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Queer skyline effects – regular sections of cubes clinging to highest peaks – Горизонт выглядит странно – словно к горам пристали наросты правильной кубической формы

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Wish you were here to study – Жаль, что вы не тут

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young Gedney – the acting foreman – юный Гедни, руководивший работами

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Cretaceous – меловой период, последний период мезозойской эры; начался около 145 млн. лет назад, закончился 66 млн. лет назад.

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Eocene – эоцен, вторая геологическая эпоха палеогенового периода; начался около 56 млн. лет назад и закончился 33,9 млн. лет назад.

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It would take a year – Понадобился бы целый год

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