The Call of Cthulhu / Зов Ктулху (+ аудиоприложение)

Статьи из газет, как я выяснил, касались случаев паники, мании и чудачеств во время указанного периода. Коллекция профессора Энджелла была огромной, а источники были рассредоточены по всему земному шару. Здесь было ночное самоубийство в Лондоне, когда человек с диким криком выпрыгнул из окна. Здесь было письмо редактору газеты в Южной Америке, в котором некий фанатик на основании своих видений предсказывал будущее. Статья из Калифорнии описывала колонию теософов: люди в белых одеждах готовились к какому-то «великолепному исполнению», которое так и не наступило. Статьи из Индии говорили о серьёзных волнениях среди местного населения в ночь с 22-го на 23-е марта. Запад Ирландии был также полон диких слухов и легендарных историй, а живописец по имени Ардуа-Бонно, изображавший фантастические сюжеты, на весеннем парижском салоне в 1926-м году предложил богохульный «Пейзаж из сна». Также были зафиксированы многочисленные беспорядки в психиатрических лечебницах. Но я был тогда убеждён, что молодой Уилкокс знал о более ранних материалах, упомянутых профессором.

II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse

The older matters which had made the sculptor’s dream and bas-relief so significant to my uncle formed the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, thought about the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be written only as “Cthulhu”.

It was in 1908, seventeen years before, when the American Archaeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Professor Angell, due to his authority and attainments, had a prominent part in it. Other people offered him questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution.

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

Inspector Legrasse had the least interest in archaeology. He was prompted by purely professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting. And the rites connected with it were so singular and hideous, that the police treated it as 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: only erratic and unbelievable tales from the captured members; hence the police wanted to learn something which might help them to place 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 had been enough to throw the assembled scientists into a state of tense excitement. They crowded around him to gaze at the diminutive strange figure, apparently very old and unknown. Strange school of sculpture had animated this terrible object, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of stone.

The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height. It represented a vaguely anthropoid monster, with an octopus-like head, whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which was an embodiment of a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the centre, while the long, curved claws of the hind legs gripped the front edge and extended toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that 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 because 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; for the soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were totally unknown; and nobody could form 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.