Зов Ктулху / The Call of Cthulhu. Уровень 2

Articles from India spoke of serious native unrest toward the end of March 22–23.

The west of Ireland, too, was full of wild rumour and legendary stories. A fantastic painter named Ardois-Bonnot offered a blasphemous Dream Landscape in the Paris spring salon of 1926. The recorded troubles in insane asylums were very numerous. And it is a miracle that nobody found something common in them. Then I was rationalistic, so I set them aside. Now I am simply unable to do so. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox knew of the older matters mentioned by the professor.

II.В The Tale of Inspector Legrasse

The older matters made the sculptor’s dream and bas-relief significant to my uncle. They formed the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell saw the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity. Once before he thought about the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be written only as “Cthulhu”. And the horrible connection that he discovered made him ask young Wilcox about his dreams.

It was in 1908, seventeen years before, when the American Archaeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Professor Angell, because of his authority and knowledge, had a prominent part in all the meetings. And some outsiders offered him questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution.

There was between them a middle-aged man who travelled all the way from New Orleans to get special information. He was unable to get it from any local source.

His name was John Raymond Legrasse. He was an Inspector of Police and he brought the subject of his visit with him. It was a grotesque, repulsive, and apparently very ancient stone statuette. Its origin was unknown.

Inspector Legrasse was not interested in archaeology at all. He came because of purely professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, was captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting[26 - voodoo meeting – сборище приверженцев вуду].

The rites connected with it were so singular and hideous, that the police immediately realized that it was a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Absolutely nothing was discovered of its origin. They discovered only erratic and unbelievable tales from the captured members.