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- Говард Лавкрафт
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- Зов Ктулху
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- Стр. 4/13
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The
chief
of
these
outsiders
,
and
in
a
short
time
the
focus
of
interest
for
the
entire
meeting
,
was
a
commonplace
-
looking
middle
-
aged
man
who
had
travelled
all
the
way
from
New
Orleans
for
certain
special
information
unobtainable
from
any
local
source
.
His
name
was
John
Raymond
Legrasse
,
and
he
was
by
profession
an
Inspector
of
Police
.
With
him
he
bore
the
subject
of
his
visit
,
a
grotesque
,
repulsive
,
and
apparently
very
ancient
stone
statuette
whose
origin
he
was
at
a
loss
to
determine
.
It
must
not
be
fancied
that
Inspector
Legrasse
had
the
least
interest
in
archaeology
.
On
the
contrary
,
his
wish
for
enlightenment
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
so
singular
and
hideous
were
the
rites
connected
with
it
,
that
the
police
could
not
but
realise
that
they
had
stumbled
on
a
dark
cult
totally
unknown
to
them
,
and
infinitely
more
diabolic
than
even
the
blackest
of
the
African
voodoo
circles
.
Of
its
origin
,
apart
from
the
erratic
and
unbelievable
tales
extorted
from
the
captured
members
,
absolutely
nothing
was
to
be
discovered
;
hence
the
anxiety
of
the
police
for
any
antiquarian
lore
which
might
help
them
to
place
the
frightful
symbol
,
and
through
it
track
down
the
cult
to
its
fountain-head
.
Inspector
Legrasse
was
scarcely
prepared
for
the
sensation
which
his
offering
created
.
One
sight
of
the
thing
had
been
enough
to
throw
the
assembled
men
of
science
into
a
state
of
tense
excitement
,
and
they
lost
no
time
in
crowding
around
him
to
gaze
at
the
diminutive
figure
whose
utter
strangeness
and
air
of
genuinely
abysmal
antiquity
hinted
so
potently
at
unopened
and
archaic
vistas
.
No
recognised
school
of
sculpture
had
animated
this
terrible
object
,
yet
centuries
and
even
thousands
of
years
seemed
recorded
in
its
dim
and
greenish
surface
of
unplaceable
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
,
and
of
exquisitely
artistic
workmanship
.
It
represented
a
monster
of
vaguely
anthropoid
outline
,
but
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
seemed
instinct
with
a
fearsome
and
unnatural
malignancy
,
was
of
a
somewhat
bloated
corpulence
,
and
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
,
whilst
the
long
,
curved
claws
of
the
doubled-up
,
crouching
hind
legs
gripped
the
front
edge
and
extended
a
quarter
of
the
way
down
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
croucher
's
elevated
knees
.
The
aspect
of
the
whole
was
abnormally
life-like
,
and
the
more
subtly
fearful
because
its
source
was
so
totally
unknown
.
Its
vast
,
awesome
,
and
incalculable
age
was
unmistakable
;
yet
not
one
link
did
it
shew
with
any
known
type
of
art
belonging
to
civilisation
's
youth
--
or
indeed
to
any
other
time
.
Totally
separate
and
apart
,
its
very
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
equally
baffling
;
and
no
member
present
,
despite
a
representation
of
half
the
world
's
expert
learning
in
this
field
,
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
;
something
frightfully
suggestive
of
old
and
unhallowed
cycles
of
life
in
which
our
world
and
our
conceptions
have
no
part
.
And
yet
,
as
the
members
severally
shook
their
heads
and
confessed
defeat
at
the
Inspector
's
problem
,
there
was
one
man
in
that
gathering
who
suspected
a
touch
of
bizarre
familiarity
in
the
monstrous
shape
and
writing
,
and
who
presently
told
with
some
diffidence
of
the
odd
trifle
he
knew
.
This
person
was
the
late
William
Channing
Webb
,
Professor
of
Anthropology
in
Princeton
University
,
and
an
explorer
of
no
slight
note
.
Professor
Webb
had
been
engaged
,
forty-eight
years
before
,
in
a
tour
of
Greenland
and
Iceland
in
search
of
some
Runic
inscriptions
which
he
failed
to
unearth
;
and
whilst
high
up
on
the
West
Greenland
coast
had
encountered
a
singular
tribe
or
cult
of
degenerate
Esquimaux
whose
religion
,
a
curious
form
of
devil-worship
,
chilled
him
with
its
deliberate
bloodthirstiness
and
repulsiveness
.
It
was
a
faith
of
which
other
Esquimaux
knew
little
,
and
which
they
mentioned
only
with
shudders
,
saying
that
it
had
come
down
from
horribly
ancient
aeons
before
ever
the
world
was
made
.
Besides
nameless
rites
and
human
sacrifices
there
were
certain
queer
hereditary
rituals
addressed
to
a
supreme
elder
devil
or
tornasuk
;
and
of
this
Professor
Webb
had
taken
a
careful
phonetic
copy
from
an
aged
angekok
or
wizard-priest
,
expressing
the
sounds
in
Roman
letters
as
best
he
knew
how
.
But
just
now
of
prime
significance
was
the
fetish
which
this
cult
had
cherished
,
and
around
which
they
danced
when
the
aurora
leaped
high
over
the
ice
cliffs
.
It
was
,
the
professor
stated
,
a
very
crude
bas-relief
of
stone
,
comprising
a
hideous
picture
and
some
cryptic
writing
.
And
so
far
as
he
could
tell
,
it
was
a
rough
parallel
in
all
essential
features
of
the
bestial
thing
now
lying
before
the
meeting
.
This
data
,
received
with
suspense
and
astonishment
by
the
assembled
members
,
proved
doubly
exciting
to
Inspector
Legrasse
;
and
he
began
at
once
to
ply
his
informant
with
questions
.
Having
noted
and
copied
an
oral
ritual
among
the
swamp
cult-worshippers
his
men
had
arrested
,
he
besought
the
professor
to
remember
as
best
he
might
the
syllables
taken
down
amongst
the
diabolist
Esquimaux
.
There
then
followed
an
exhaustive
comparison
of
details
,
and
a
moment
of
really
awed
silence
when
both
detective
and
scientist
agreed
on
the
virtual
identity
of
the
phrase
common
to
two
hellish
rituals
so
many
worlds
of
distance
apart
.
What
,
in
substance
,
both
the
Esquimaux
wizards
and
the
Louisiana
swamp-priests
had
chanted
to
their
kindred
idols
was
something
very
like
this
--
the
word-divisions
being
guessed
at
from
traditional
breaks
in
the
phrase
as
chanted
aloud
:
