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Tesseract, v. 2, issue 4, April 1937
Page 7
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tesseract 7 THE CRAWLING CHAOS by H. P. Lovecraft and W. W. Jackson (Part One) Of the pleasures and pains of opium much has been written. The ecstasies and horrors of DeQuincey and the [[underline]]paradis artificiels[[end underline]]of Baudelaire are preserved and interpreted with an art which makes them immortal, and the world knowswell the beauty, the terror and the mystery of these obscure realms into which the inspired dreamer is transported. But much as has been told, no man has yet dared intimate the [[underline]]nature[[end unerline]] of the phantasms thus unfolded to the mind, or hint at the [[underline]]direction[[end underline]] of the unheard-of roads along whose ornate and exotic course the partaker of the drug is so irresistibly borne. DeQuincey was drawn back into Asia, that teeming land of nebulous shadows whose hideous antiquity is so impressive that "the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual," but farther than that he dare not go. Those who [[underline]]have[[end underline]] gone farther have seldom returned; and even when they have, they have been either silent or quite mad. I took opium but once -- in the year of the plague, when doctors sought to deaden the agonies they could not cure. There was an overdose -- my physician was worn out with horror and exertion -- and I traveled very far indeed. In the end I returned and lived, but my nights are filled with strange memories, nor have I ever permitted a doctor to give me opium again. The pain and pounding in my head had been quite unendurable when the drug was administered. Of the future I had no heed; to escape, whether by cure, unconsciousness, or death, was all that concerned me. I was partly delirous, so that it is hard to place the exact moment of transition, but I think the effect must have begun shortly before the pounding ceased to be painful. As I have said, there was an overdose; so my reactions were probably far from normal. The sensation of falling, curiously dissociated from the idea of gravity or direction, was paramount; thought here was a subsidiary impression of unseen throngs in incalculable profusion, throngs of infinitely diverse nature, but all more or less related to me. Sometimes it seemed loss as though I were falling, than as though the universe or the ages were falling past me. Suddenly my pain ceased, and I began to associate the pounding with external rather than internal force. The falling ceased also, giving place to a sensation of uneasy, temporary rest; and when I listened closely, I fancied the pounding was that of the vast, inscrutable sea as its sinister, colossal breakers lacerated some desolate shore after a storm of titanic magnitude. Then I opened my eyes. For a moment my surroundings seemed confused, like a projected image hopelessly out of focus, but gradually I realized my solitary pre3sence in a strange and beautiful room lighted by many windows. Of the exact nature of the apartment I could form no idea, for my thoughts were still far from settled, but I noticed vari-colored rugs and draperies, elaborately fashioned tables, chairs, ottomans, and divans, and delicate vases and ornaments which conveyed a suggestion of the exotic without being actually alien. These things I noticed, yet they were not long uppermost in my mind. Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown; a fear all the greater because I could not analyse it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent. Presently I realized that the direct symbol and excitant of my fear was the hideous pounding whose incessang reverberations throbbed maddeningly against my exhausted brain. It seemed to come from a point outside and below the edifice in which I stood, and to associate itself with the most terrifying mental images. I felt that some horrible scene or object lured beyond the silk-hung walls and shrank from glancing through the arched, latticed windows that opened so bewilderingly on every hand. Perceiving shutters attached to these windows, I closed them all, averting my eyes from the exterior as I did so. Then, employing a flint and steel which I found on one of the small tables, I lit the many candles reposing about the walls in arabesque sconces. The added sense of security brought by close shutters and
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tesseract 7 THE CRAWLING CHAOS by H. P. Lovecraft and W. W. Jackson (Part One) Of the pleasures and pains of opium much has been written. The ecstasies and horrors of DeQuincey and the [[underline]]paradis artificiels[[end underline]]of Baudelaire are preserved and interpreted with an art which makes them immortal, and the world knowswell the beauty, the terror and the mystery of these obscure realms into which the inspired dreamer is transported. But much as has been told, no man has yet dared intimate the [[underline]]nature[[end unerline]] of the phantasms thus unfolded to the mind, or hint at the [[underline]]direction[[end underline]] of the unheard-of roads along whose ornate and exotic course the partaker of the drug is so irresistibly borne. DeQuincey was drawn back into Asia, that teeming land of nebulous shadows whose hideous antiquity is so impressive that "the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual," but farther than that he dare not go. Those who [[underline]]have[[end underline]] gone farther have seldom returned; and even when they have, they have been either silent or quite mad. I took opium but once -- in the year of the plague, when doctors sought to deaden the agonies they could not cure. There was an overdose -- my physician was worn out with horror and exertion -- and I traveled very far indeed. In the end I returned and lived, but my nights are filled with strange memories, nor have I ever permitted a doctor to give me opium again. The pain and pounding in my head had been quite unendurable when the drug was administered. Of the future I had no heed; to escape, whether by cure, unconsciousness, or death, was all that concerned me. I was partly delirous, so that it is hard to place the exact moment of transition, but I think the effect must have begun shortly before the pounding ceased to be painful. As I have said, there was an overdose; so my reactions were probably far from normal. The sensation of falling, curiously dissociated from the idea of gravity or direction, was paramount; thought here was a subsidiary impression of unseen throngs in incalculable profusion, throngs of infinitely diverse nature, but all more or less related to me. Sometimes it seemed loss as though I were falling, than as though the universe or the ages were falling past me. Suddenly my pain ceased, and I began to associate the pounding with external rather than internal force. The falling ceased also, giving place to a sensation of uneasy, temporary rest; and when I listened closely, I fancied the pounding was that of the vast, inscrutable sea as its sinister, colossal breakers lacerated some desolate shore after a storm of titanic magnitude. Then I opened my eyes. For a moment my surroundings seemed confused, like a projected image hopelessly out of focus, but gradually I realized my solitary pre3sence in a strange and beautiful room lighted by many windows. Of the exact nature of the apartment I could form no idea, for my thoughts were still far from settled, but I noticed vari-colored rugs and draperies, elaborately fashioned tables, chairs, ottomans, and divans, and delicate vases and ornaments which conveyed a suggestion of the exotic without being actually alien. These things I noticed, yet they were not long uppermost in my mind. Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown; a fear all the greater because I could not analyse it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent. Presently I realized that the direct symbol and excitant of my fear was the hideous pounding whose incessang reverberations throbbed maddeningly against my exhausted brain. It seemed to come from a point outside and below the edifice in which I stood, and to associate itself with the most terrifying mental images. I felt that some horrible scene or object lured beyond the silk-hung walls and shrank from glancing through the arched, latticed windows that opened so bewilderingly on every hand. Perceiving shutters attached to these windows, I closed them all, averting my eyes from the exterior as I did so. Then, employing a flint and steel which I found on one of the small tables, I lit the many candles reposing about the walls in arabesque sconces. The added sense of security brought by close shutters and
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