Howard Lovecraft: Зов Ктулху / The Call of Cthulhu. Уровень 2

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] Rhode Island School of Design – художественная школа Род-Айленда . 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] psychically hypersensitive – чрезвычайно чувствительный психически ”, 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] Providence Art Club – Клуб любителей искусства в Провиденсе , 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] 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. .”

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] Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths – циклопических городов из каменных плит и взметнувшихся в небо монолитов . 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] enigmatical uninscribable gibberish – загадочную неописуемую тарабарщину . 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] leading questions – наводящие вопросы , 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] over a fourth of them – больше четверти из них 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.