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The Statement of Randolph Carter
Lovecraft, Howard Phillips
Published:
1920
Categorie(s):
Fiction, Short Stories
Source:
http://en.wikisource.org
1
About Lovecraft:
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of fantasy, horror
and science fiction. He is notable for blending elements of science fiction
and horror; and for popularizing "cosmic horror": the notion that some
concepts, entities or experiences are barely comprehensible to human
minds, and those who delve into such risk their sanity. Lovecraft has be-
come a cult figure in the horror genre and is noted as creator of the
"Cthulhu Mythos," a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a
"pantheon" of nonhuman creatures, as well as the famed Necronomicon,
a grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works typically had a
tone of "cosmic pessimism," regarding mankind as insignificant and
powerless in the universe. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his
life, and his works, particularly early in his career, have been criticized as
occasionally ponderous, and for their uneven quality. Nevertheless,
Lovecraft’s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he
is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers
of the 20th Century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though of-
ten indirect. Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Lovecraft:
•
(1926)
•
(1931)
•
(1928)
•
(1934)
•
(1931)
•
(1936)
•
(1930)
•
(1927)
•
(1938)
•
(1932)
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Again I say, I do not know what has become of Harley Warren, though I
think—almost hope—that he is in peaceful oblivion, if there be anywhere
so blessed a thing. It is true that I have for five years been his closest
friend, and a partial sharer of his terrible researches into the unknown. I
will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this
witness of yours may have seen us together as he says, on the Gainsville
pike, walking toward Big Cypress Swamp, at half past 11 on that awful
night. That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil of wire
with attached instruments, I will even affirm; for these things all played
a part in the single hideous scene which remains burned into my shaken
recollection. But of what followed, and of the reason I was found alone
and dazed on the edge of the swamp next morning, I must insist that I
know nothing save what I have told you over and over again. You say to
me that there is nothing in the swamp or near it which could form the
setting of that frightful episode. I reply that I knew nothing beyond what
I saw. Vision or nightmare it may have been—vision or nightmare I fer-
vently hope it was—yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place
in those shocking hours after we left the sight of men. And why Harley
Warren did not return, he or his shade—or some nameless thing I cannot
describe— alone can tell.
As I have said before, the weird studies of Harley Warren were well
known to me, and to some extent shared by me. Of his vast collection of
strange, rare books on forbidden subjects I have read all that are written
in the languages of which I am master; but these are few as compared
with those in languages I cannot understand. Most, I believe, are in Ar-
abic; and the fiend-inspired book which brought on the end—the book
which he carried in his pocket out of the world—was written in charac-
ters whose like I never saw elsewhere. Warren would never tell me just
what was in that book. As to the nature of our studies—must I say again
that I no longer retain full comprehension? It seems to me rather merci-
ful that I do not, for they were terrible studies, which I pursued more
through reluctant fascination than through actual inclination. Warren al-
ways dominated me, and sometimes I feared him. I remember how I
shuddered at his facial expression on the night before the awful happen-
ing, when he talked so incessantly of his theory, why certain corpses
never decay, but rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years.
But I do not fear him now, for I suspect that he has known horrors bey-
ond my ken. Now I fear for him.
Once more I say that I have no clear idea of our object on that night.
Certainly, it had much to do with something in the book which Warren
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carried with him—that ancient book in undecipherable characters which
had come to him from India a month before—but I swear I do not know
what it was that we expected to find. Your witness says he saw us at half
past 11 on the Gainsville pike, headed for Big Cypress Swamp. This is
probably true, but I have no distinct memory of it. The picture seared in-
to my soul is of one scene only, and the hour must have been long after
midnight; for a waning crescent moon was high in the vaporous
heavens.
The place was an ancient cemetery; so ancient that I trembled at the
manifold signs of immemorial years. It was in a deep, damp hollow,
overgrown with rank grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds, and
filled with a vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdly with
rotting stone. On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude,
and I seemed haunted by the notion that Warren and I were the first liv-
ing creatures to invade a lethal silence of centuries. Over the valley's rim
a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors that
seemed to emanate from unheard of catacombs, and by its feeble, waver-
ing beams I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns,
cenotaphs, and mausoleum facades; all crumbling, moss-grown, and
moisture-stained, and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the un-
healthy vegetation.
My first vivid impression of my own presence in this terrible necropol-
is concerns the act of pausing with Warren before a certain half- obliter-
ated sepulcher and of throwing down some burdens which we seemed
to have been carrying. I now observed that I had with me an electric lan-
tern and two spades, whilst my companion was supplied with a similar
lantern and a portable telephone outfit. No word was uttered, for the
spot and the task seemed known to us; and without delay we seized our
spades and commenced to clear away the grass, weeds, and drifted earth
from the flat, archaic mortuary. After uncovering the entire surface,
which consisted of three immense granite slabs, we stepped back some
distance to survey the charnel scene; and Warren appeared to make
some mental calculations. Then he returned to the sepulcher, and using
his spade as a lever, sought to pry up the slab lying nearest to a stony ru-
in which may have been a monument in its day. He did not succeed, and
motioned to me to come to his assistance. Finally our combined strength
loosened the stone, which we raised and tipped to one side.
The removal of the slab revealed a black aperture, from which rushed
an effluence of miasmal gases so nauseous that we started back in hor-
ror. After an interval, however, we approached the pit again, and found
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the exhalations less unbearable. Our lanterns disclosed the top of a flight
of stone steps, dripping with some detestable ichor of the inner earth,
and bordered by moist walls encrusted with niter. And now for the first
time my memory records verbal discourse, Warren addressing me at
length in his mellow tenor voice; a voice singularly unperturbed by our
awesome surroundings.
"I'm sorry to have to ask you to stay on the surface," he said, "but it
would be a crime to let anyone with your frail nerves go down there.
You can't imagine, even from what you have read and from what I've
told you, the things I shall have to see and do. It's fiendish work, Carter,
and I doubt if any man without ironclad sensibilities could ever see it
through and come up alive and sane. I don't wish to offend you, and
Heaven knows I'd be glad enough to have you with me; but the respons-
ibility is in a certain sense mine, and I couldn't drag a bundle of nerves
like you down to probable death or madness. I tell you, you can't ima-
gine what the thing is really like! But I promise to keep you informed
over the telephone of every move—you see I've enough wire here to
reach to the center of the earth and back!"
I can still hear, in memory, those coolly spoken words; and I can still
remember my remonstrances. I seemed desperately anxious to accom-
pany my friend into those sepulchral depths, yet he proved inflexibly ob-
durate. At one time he threatened to abandon the expedition if I re-
mained insistent; a threat which proved effective, since he alone held the
key to the thing. All this I can still remember, though I no longer know
what manner of thing we sought. After he had obtained my reluctant ac-
quiescence in his design, Warren picked up the reel of wire and adjusted
the instruments. At his nod I took one of the latter and seated myself
upon an aged, discolored gravestone close by the newly uncovered aper-
ture. Then he shook my hand, shouldered the coil of wire, and disap-
peared within that indescribable ossuary.
For a minute I kept sight of the glow of his lantern, and heard the
rustle of the wire as he laid it down after him; but the glow soon disap-
peared abruptly, as if a turn in the stone staircase had been encountered,
and the sound died away almost as quickly. I was alone, yet bound to
the unknown depths by those magic strands whose insulated surface lay
green beneath the struggling beams of that waning crescent moon.
I constantly consulted my watch by the light of my electric lantern,
and listened with feverish anxiety at the receiver of the telephone; but for
more than a quarter of an hour heard nothing. Then a faint clicking came
from the instrument, and I called down to my friend in a tense voice.
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