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.

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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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9

tentacled head – голова, снабжённая щупальцами

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10

vague Cyclopean architectural background – на фоне угадывались циклопические строения

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11

characters painstakingly printed – тщательно выписанные буквы

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12

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

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13

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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15

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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18

psychically hypersensitive – чрезвычайно чувствительный психически

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19

Providence Art Club – Клуб любителей искусства в Провиденсе

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20

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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