H. P. Lovecraft - Nyarlathotep.pdf - H. P. Lovecraft - catchy.kathy

Nyarlathotep

byH. P.Lovecraft

Written early Dec 1920

Published November 1920 in The United Amateur, Vol. 20, No. 2, p. 19-21.

Nyarlathotep... the crawling chaos... I am the last... I will tell the audient

void...

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general

tensionwas horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a

strangeand brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger

widespreadand all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most

terriblephantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale

andworried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared

consciouslyrepeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of

monstrousguilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars

sweptchill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a

demoniacalteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered

fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed

fromthe control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were

unknown.

And it was then thatNyarlathotep came out ofEgypt. Who he was, none could

tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin

kneltwhen they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of

theblackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from

placesnot on this planet. Into the lands ofcivilisation cameNyarlathotep ,

swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and

metaland combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the

sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent

hisspectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding

magnitude. Men advised one another to seeNyarlathotep , and shuddered. And where

Nyarlathotepwent,rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams

ofnightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public

problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small

hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying

moonas it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples

crumblingagainst a sickly sky.

I remember whenNyarlathotep came to my city—the great, the old, the terrible

cityof unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling

fascinationand allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to

explorehis uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and

impressivebeyond my most fevered imaginings; and what was thrown on a screen in

thedarkened room prophesied things none butNyarlathotep dared prophesy, and in

thesputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been

takenbefore yet whichshewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad

thatthose who knewNyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds

toseeNyarlathotep ; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into

thechoking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and

yellowevil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world

battlingagainst blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate

space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the

sparksplayed amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on

endwhilst 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

tremblingprotest about “imposture” and “static electricity,”Nyarlathotep drove

usall out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, desertedmidnightstreets.

I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others

screamedwith me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly

thesame, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed

thecompany 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

beganto depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary marching

formationsand 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 toshew 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

differentdirection. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only

theecho of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway entrance,

howlingwith a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the open

country, and presently I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as we

stalkedout on the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon-glitter of

evilsnows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept asunder in one direction only,

wherelay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls. The column seemed

verythin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for

theblack rift in the green-littensnow was frightful, and I thought I had heard

thereverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power

tolinger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I

half-floatedbetween the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the

sightlessvortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A

sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled

blindlypast ghastlymidnightsof rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with

soresthat were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them

flickerlow. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen

columnsofunsanctifled temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and

reachup to dizzyvacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through

thisrevolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of

drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable,

unlightedchambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto

danceslowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the

blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul isNyarlathotep .

Last modified:12/18/199918:44:40

H. P. Lovecraft - Nyarlathotep.pdf

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