Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
History
Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
Essays; Literature -- History and criticism; Periodicals
It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless
crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the
endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw
hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind
fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness;
against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling,
churning; struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks
played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up
on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and
squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific
than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about "imposture" and "static
electricity," Nyarlathotep drave us all out, down the dizzy stairs into
the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was
_not_ afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me
for solace. We sware to one another that the city _was_ exactly the
same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we
cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces
we made.
I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when
we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary
marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared
not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks
loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to show
where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram-car, lone,
windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around
the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed
that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then we
split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different
direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only
the echo of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway
entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked
toward the open country, and presently felt a chill which was not of the
hot autumn: for as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld around us
the hellish moon-glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows,
swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blacker
for its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as it
plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in
the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the
reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my
power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before,
I half-floated between the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid,
into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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