The Call of Cthulhu | Page 9

Arabia, where Irem, the City of
Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. It was not allied to the European
witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its members. No book
had ever really hinted of it, though the deathless Chinamen said that
there were double meanings in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab
Abdul Alhazred which the initiated might read as they chose, especially

the much-discussed couplet:
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even
death may die.
Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, had inquired in
vain concerning the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro, apparently,
had told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret. The
authorities at Tulane University could shed no light upon either cult or
image, and now the detective had come to the highest authorities in the
country and met with no more than the Greenland tale of Professor
Webb.
The feverish interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse's tale,
corroborated as it was by the statuette, is echoed in the subsequent
correspondence of those who attended; although scant mention occurs
in the formal publications of the society. Caution is the first care of
those accustomed to face occasional charlatanry and imposture.
Legrasse for some time lent the image to Professor Webb, but at the
latter's death it was returned to him and remains in his possession,
where I viewed it not long ago. It is truly a terrible thing, and
unmistakably akin to the dream-sculpture of young Wilcox.
That my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor I did not wonder,
for what thoughts must arise upon hearing, after a knowledge of what
Legrasse had learned of the cult, of a sensitive young man who had
dreamed not only the figure and exact hieroglyphics of the
swamp-found image and the Greenland devil tablet, but had come in
his dreams upon at least three of the precise words of the formula
uttered alike by Esquimaux diabolists and mongrel Louisianans?.
Professor Angell's instant start on an investigation of the utmost
thoroughness was eminently natural; though privately I suspected
young Wilcox of having heard of the cult in some indirect way, and of
having invented a series of dreams to heighten and continue the
mystery at my uncle's expense. The dream-narratives and cuttings
collected by the professor were, of course, strong corroboration; but the
rationalism of my mind and the extravagance of the whole subject led
me to adopt what I thought the most sensible conclusions. So, after

thoroughly studying the manuscript again and correlating the
theosophical and anthropological notes with the cult narrative of
Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence to see the sculptor and give him
the rebuke I thought proper for so boldly imposing upon a learned and
aged man.
Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street,
a hideous Victorian imitation of seventeenth century Breton
Architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely colonial
houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest
Georgian steeple in America, I found him at work in his rooms, and at
once conceded from the specimens scattered about that his genius is
indeed profound and authentic. He will, I believe, some time be heard
from as one of the great decadents; for he has crystallised in clay and
will one day mirror in marble those nightmares and phantasies which
Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith makes visible
in verse and in painting.
Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect, he turned languidly at my
knock and asked me my business without rising. Then I told him who I
was, he displayed some interest; for my uncle had excited his curiosity
in probing his strange dreams, yet had never explained the reason for
the study. I did not enlarge his knowledge in this regard, but sought
with some subtlety to draw him out. In a short time I became convinced
ofhis absolute sincerity, for he spoke of the dreams in a manner none
could mistake. They and their subconscious residuum had influenced
his art profoundly, and he shewed me a morbid statue whose contours
almost made me shake with the potency of its black suggestion. He
could not recall having seen the original of this thing except in his own
dream bas-relief, but the outlines had formed themselves insensibly
under his hands. It was, no doubt, the giant shape he had raved of in
delirium. That he really knew nothing of the hidden cult, save from
what my uncle's relentless catechism had let fall, he soon made clear;
and again I strove to think of some way in which he could possibly
have received the weird impressions.
He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making