'Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could be published, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shall never take the responsibility of publishing or divulging5 one word of what is here written, not only on account of my oath freely given to those two persons who were present, but also because the details are too abominable6. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, and after weighing the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper, or at least leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion7, to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.
'As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make sure that I was suffering under no delusion8. At first astounded9, I could hardly think, but in a minute's time I was sure that my pulse was steady and regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I then fixed10 my eyes quietly on what was before me.
'Though horror and revolting nausea11 rose up within me, and an odour of corruption12 choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant13, began to melt and dissolve.
'I knew that the body may be separated into its[237] elements by external agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused dissolution and change.
'Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend14 to the beasts whence it ascended15, and that which was on the heights go down to the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.
'The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness of night, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly and without difficulty. But it was the negation16 of light; objects were presented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such a manner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen no colours represented in it.
'I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then the ladder was ascended again ... [here the MS. is illegible] ... for one instant I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will not farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancient sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava17, too foul18 to be spoken of ... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man nor beast, was changed into human form, there came finally death.
'I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing20 of soul, here write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be true.
'Robert Matheson, Med. Dr.'
[238]
... Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. The burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell it to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread on, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean I dare not guess. I know that what I saw perish was not Mary, and yet in the last agony Mary's eyes looked into mine. Whether there be any one who can show the last link in this chain of awful mystery, I do not know, but if there be any one who can do this, you, Raymond, are the man. And if you know the secret, it rests with you to tell it or not, as you please.
I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town. I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may be able to guess in what part. While the horror and wonder of London was at its height—for 'Mrs. Beaumont,' as I have told you, was well known in society—I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief outline, or rather hint, of what had happened, and asking him to tell me the name of the village where the events he had related to me occurred. He gave me the name, as he said with[239] the less hesitation22, because Rachel's father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had gone to a relative in the State of Washington six months before. The parents, he said, had undoubtedly23 died of grief and horror caused by the terrible death of their daughter, and by what had gone before that death. On the evening of the day on which I received Phillips's letter I was at Caermaen, and standing24 beneath the mouldering25 Roman walls, white with the winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow where once had stood the older temple of the 'God of the Deeps,' and saw a house gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had lived. I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place, I found, knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke19 to on the matter seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed26 myself to be) should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a very commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what I knew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just above the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many an hour I strayed through the maze27 of the forest, turning now to right and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys28 of undergrowth, shadowy and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks; lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent29 of wild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of the elder, whose mingled30 odour is like the odour of the room of the[240] dead, a vapour of incense31 and corruption. I stood at the edges of the wood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves towering amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyond them into deep thickets32 of close undergrowth where springs boil up from the rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my wanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterday that I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient Roman road that threads the highest ridge33 of the wood. Here they had walked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement of green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, and tall hedges of shining beech34, and here I followed in their steps, looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs35, and seeing on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks in the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up a gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant summer glade36 Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I did not stay long there.
In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the most part Roman remains37 which have been found in the neighbourhood at various times.[241] On the day after my arrival at Caermaen I walked over to the town in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting this museum. After I had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins38, rings, coins, and fragments of tessellated pavement which the place contains, I was shown a small square pillar of white stone, which had been recently discovered in the wood of which I have been speaking, and, as I found on inquiry39, in that open space where the Roman road broadens out. On one side of the pillar was an inscription40, of which I took a note. Some of the letters have been defaced, but I do not think there can be any doubt as to those which I supply. The inscription is as follows:
DEVOMNODENTi
FLAvIVSSENILISPOSSVit
PROPTERNVPtias
quaSVIDITSVBVMBra
'To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) Flavius Senilis has erected41 this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw beneath the shade.'
The custodian42 of the museum informed me that local antiquaries were much puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty in translating it, but as to the circumstance or rite21 to which allusion43 is made.
... And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan, whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almost incredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal, nay44 all, of what you told me I knew already.[242] I can understand the strange likeness45 you remarked both in the portrait and in the actual face; you have seen Helen's mother. You remember that still summer night so many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond the shadows, and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother of Helen Vaughan, who was born nine months after that night.
Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all the while upon her bed, and a few days after the child was born she died. I fancy that just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed, and the old look came into her eyes for a second, and then she shuddered46 and groaned47 and died. It was an ill work I did that night when you were present; I broke open the door of the house of life, without knowing or caring what might pass forth48 or enter in. I recollect49 your telling me at the time, sharply enough, and rightly enough too, in one sense, that I had ruined the reason of a human being by a foolish experiment, based on an absurd theory. You did well to blame me, but my theory was not all absurdity50. What I said Mary would see, she saw, but I forgot that no human eyes could look on such a vision with impunity51. And I forgot, as I have just said, that when the house of life is thus thrown open, there may enter in that for which we have no name, and human flesh may become the veil of a horror one dare not express. I played with energies which I did not understand, and you have seen the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did well to bind52 the cord about her neck and die, though the death was horrible. The blackened face, the hideous53 form upon the bed, changing and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and from beast to[243] worse than beast, all the strange horror that you witnessed, surprises me but little. What you say the doctor whom you sent for saw and shuddered at I noticed long ago; I knew what I had done the moment the child was born, and when it was scarcely five years old I surprised it, not once or twice but several times with a playmate, you may guess of what kind. It was for me a constant, an incarnate54 horror, and after a few years I felt I could bear it no longer, and I sent Helen Vaughan away. You know now what frightened the boy in the wood. The rest of the strange story, and all else that you tell me, as discovered by your friend, I have contrived55 to learn from time to time, almost to the last chapter. And now Helen is with her companions....
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1
apoplectic
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| adj.中风的；愤怒的；n.中风患者 | |
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2
seizure
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| n.没收；占有；抵押 | |
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3
abbreviated
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| adj. 简短的，省略的 动词abbreviate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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4
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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divulging
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| v.吐露，泄露( divulge的现在分词 ) | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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7
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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9
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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10
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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11
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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12
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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13
adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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14
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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15
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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18
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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19
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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20
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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21
rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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26
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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27
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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28
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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29
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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30
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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31
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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32
thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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33
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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34
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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35
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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36
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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37
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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38
coffins
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| n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物 | |
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39
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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40
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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41
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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42
custodian
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| n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守 | |
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43
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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44
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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45
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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46
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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47
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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48
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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49
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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50
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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51
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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52
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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53
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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54
incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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55
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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