Читать книгу Зов Ктулху / The Call of Cthulhu. Уровень 2 - Говард Лавкрафт, Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт, Adolphe de Castro - Страница 3

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:

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…