H. P. Lovecraft - What the Moon Brings.pdf

(12 KB) Pobierz
What the Moon Brings by H. P. Lovecraft
What the Moon Brings
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 5 June 1922
Published May 1923 in
The National Amateur,
Vol. 45, No. 5, page 9
I hate the moon - I am afraid of it - for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes
makes them unfamiliar and hideous.
It was in the spectral summer when the moon shone down on the old garden where I wandered; the
spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas of foliage that bring wild and many-coloured
dreams. And as I walked by the shallow crystal stream I saw unwonted ripples tipped with yellow light,
as if those placid waters were drawn on in resistless currents to strange oceans that are not in the world.
Silent and sparkling, bright and baleful, those moon-cursed waters hurried I knew not whither; whilst
from the embowered banks white lotos-blossoms fluttered one by one in the opiate night-wind and
dropped despairingly into the stream, swirling away horribly under the arched, carven bridge, and staring
back with the sinister resignation of calm, dead faces.
And as I ran along the shore, crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feet and maddened ever by the fear
of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces, I saw that the garden had no end under that moon; for
where by day the walls were, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs,
stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow-litten stream past grassy banks and under grotesque
bridges of marble. And the lips of the dead lotos-faces whispered sadly, and bade me follow, nor did I
cease my steps till the stream became a river, and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds and beaches of
gleaming sand the shore of a vast and nameless sea.
Upon that sea the hateful moon shone, and over its unvocal waves weird perfumes breeded. And as I saw
therein the lotos-faces vanish, I longed for nets that I might capture them and learn from them the secrets
which the moon had brought upon the night. But when that moon went over to the west and the still tide
ebbed from the sullen shore, I saw in that light old spires that the waves almost uncovered, and white
columns gay with festoons of green seaweed. And knowing that to this sunken place all the dead had
come, I trembled and did not wish again to speak with the lotos-faces.
Yet when I saw afar out in the sea a black condor descend from the sky to seek rest on a vast reef, I
would fain have questioned him, and asked him of those whom I had known when they were alive. This I
would have asked him had he not been so far away, but he was very far, and could not be seen at all
when he drew nigh that gigantic reef.
So I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the
file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/What%20the%20Moon%20Brings%20by%20H_%20P_%20Lovecraft.htm (1 of 2) [4-4-02 23:02:51]
What the Moon Brings by H. P. Lovecraft
roofs of that dead, dripping city. And as I watched, my nostrils tried to close against the perfume-
conquering stench of the world's dead; for truly, in this unplaced and forgotten spot had all the flesh of
the churchyards gathered for puffy sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon.
Over these horrors the evil moon now hung very low, but the puffy worms of the sea need no moon to
feed by. And as I watched the ripples that told of the writhing of worms beneath, I felt a new chill from
afar out whither the condor had flown, as if my flesh had caught a horror before my eyes had seen it.
Nor had my flesh trembled without cause, for when I raised my eyes I saw that the waters had ebbed very
low, shewing much of the vast reef whose rim I had seen before. And when I saw that the reef was but
the black basalt crown of a shocking eikon whose monstrous forehead now shown in the dim moonlight
and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shrieked lest the hidden
face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that leering and
treacherous yellow moon.
And to escape this relentless thing I plunged gladly and unhesitantly into the stinking shallows where
amidst weedy walls and sunken streets fat sea-worms feast upon the world's dead.
file:///C|/WINDOWS/Desktop/What%20the%20Moon%20Brings%20by%20H_%20P_%20Lovecraft.htm (2 of 2) [4-4-02 23:02:51]

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin