Lovecraft, H P & Whitehead, Henry - The Trap

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The Trap

by H. P. Lovecraft & Henry S. Whitehead

Written late 1931

It was on a certain Thursday morning in December that the whole thing began with that

unaccountable motion I thought I saw in my antique Copenhagen mirror. Something, it

seemed to me, stirred - something reflected in the glass, though I was alone in my

quarters. I paused and looked intently, then, deciding that the effect must be a pure

illusion, resumed the interrupted brushing of my hair.

I had discovered the old mirror, covered with dust and cobwebs, in an outbuilding of an

abandoned estate-house in Santa Cruz's sparsely settled Northside territory, and had

brought it to the United States from the Virgin Islands. The venerable glass was dim from

more than two hundred years' exposure to a tropical climate, and the graceful

ornamentation along the top of the gilt frame had been badly smashed. I had had the

detached pieces set back into the frame before placing it in storage with my other

belongings.

Now, several years later, I was staying half as a guest and half as a tutor at the private

school of my old friend Browne on a windy Connecticut hillside - occupying an unused

wing in one of the dormitories, where I had two rooms and a hallway to myself. The old

mirror, stowed securely in mattresses, was the first of my possessions to be unpacked on

my arrival; and I had set it up majestically in the living-room, on top of an old rosewood

console which had belonged to my great-grandmother.

The door of my bedroom was just opposite that of the living-room, with a hallway

between; and I had noticed that by looking into my chiffonier glass I could see the larger

mirror through the two doorways - which was exactly like glancing down an endless,

though diminishing, corridor. On this Thursday morning I thought I saw a curious

suggestion of motion down that normally empty corridor - but, as I have said, soon

dismissed the notion.

When I reached the dining-room I found everyone complaining of the cold, and learned

that the school's heating-plant was temporarily out of order. Being especially sensitive to

low temperatures, I was myself an acute sufferer; and at once decided not to brave any

freezing schoolroom that day. Accordingly I invited my class to come over to my living-

room for an informal session around my grate-fire - a suggestion which the boys received

enthusiastically.

After the session one of the boys, Robert Grandison, asked if he might remain; since he

had no appointment for the second morning period. I told him to stay, and welcome. He

sat down to study in front of the fireplace in a comfortable chair.

The Trap

It was not long, however, before Robert moved to another chair somewhat farther away

from the freshly replenished blaze, this change bringing him directly opposite the old

mirror. From my own chair in another part of the room I noticed how fixedly he began to

look at the dim, cloudy glass, and, wondering what so greatly interested him, was

reminded of my own experience earlier that morning. As time passed he continued to

gaze, a slight frown knitting his brows.

At last I quietly asked him what had attracted his attention. Slowly, and still wearing the

puzzled frown, he looked over and replied rather cautiously:

"It's the corrugations in the glass - or whatever they are, Mr. Canevin. I was noticing how

they all seem to run from a certain point. Look - I'll show you what I mean."

The boy jumped up, went over to the mirror, and placed his finger on a point near its

lower left-hand corner.

"It's right here, sir," he explained, turning to look toward me and keeping his finger on

the chosen spot.

His muscular action in turning may have pressed his finger against the glass. Suddenly he

withdrew his hand as though with some slight effort, and with a faintly muttered "Ouch."

Then he looked at the glass in obvious mystification.

"What happened?" I asked, rising and approaching.

"Why - it..." He seemed embarrassed. "It - I - felt - well, as though it were pulling my

finger into it. Seems - er - perfectly foolish, sir, but - well - it was a most peculiar

sensation." Robert had an unusual vocabulary for his fifteen years.

I came over and had him show me the exact spot he meant.

"You'll think I'm rather a fool, sir," he said shamefacedly, "but - well, from right here I

can't be absolutely sure. From the chair it seemed to be clear enough."

Now thoroughly interested, I sat down in the chair Robert had occupied and looked at the

spot he selected on the mirror. Instantly the thing "jumped out at me." Unmistakably,

from that particular angle, all the many whorls in the ancient glass appeared to converge

like a large number of spread strings held in one hand and radiating out in streams.

Getting up and crossing to the mirror, I could no longer see the curious spot. Only from

certain angles, apparently, was it visible. Directly viewed, that portion of the mirror did

not even give back a normal reflection - for I could not see my face in it. Manifestly I had

a minor puzzle on my hands.

Presently the school gong sounded, and the fascinated Robert Grandison departed

hurriedly, leaving me alone with my odd little problem in optics. I raised several window-

The Trap

shades, crossed the hallway, and sought for the spot in the chiffonier mirror's reflection.

Finding it readily, I looked very intently and thought I again detected something of the

"motion." I craned my neck, and at last, at a certain angle of vision, the thing again

"jumped out at me."

The vague "motion" was now positive and definite - an appearance of torsional

movement, or of whirling; much like a minute yet intense whirlwind or waterspout, or a

huddle of autumn leaves dancing circularly in an eddy of wind along a level lawn. It was,

like the earth's, a double motion - around and around, and at the same time inward, as if

the whorls poured themselves endlessly toward some point inside the glass. Fascinated,

yet realizing that the thing must be an illusion, I grasped an impression of quite distinct

suction, and thought of Robert's embarrassed explanation: "I felt as though it were pulling

my finger into it."

A kind of slight chill ran suddenly up and down my backbone. There was something here

distinctly worth looking into. And as the idea of investigation came to me, I recalled the

rather wistful expression of Robert Grandison when the gong called him to class. I

remembered how he had looked back over his shoulder as he walked obediently out into

the hallway, and resolved that he should be included in whatever analysis I might make

of this little mystery.

Exciting events connected with that same Robert, however, were soon to chase all

thoughts of the mirror from my consciousness for a time. I was away all that afternoon,

and did not return to the school until the five-fifteen "Call-Over" - a general assembly at

which the boys' attendance was compulsory. Dropping in at this function with the idea of

picking Robert up for a session with the mirror, I was astonished and pained to find him

absent - a very unusual and unaccountable thing in his case. That evening Browne told

me that the boy had actually disappeared, a search in his room, in the gymnasium, and in

all other accustomed places being unavailing, though all his belongings - including his

outdoor clothing - were in their proper places.

He had not been encountered on the ice or with any of the hiking groups that afternoon,

and telephone calls to all the school-catering merchants of the neighborhood were in vain.

There was, in short, no record of his having been seen since the end of the lesson periods

at two-fifteen; when he had turned up the stairs toward his room in Dormitory Number

Three.

When the disappearance was fully realized, the resulting sensation was tremendous

throughout the school. Browne, as headmaster, had to bear the brunt of it; and such an

unprecedented occurrence in his well-regulated, highly organized institution left him

quite bewildered. It was learned that Robert had not run away to his home in western

Pennsylvania, nor did any of the searching-parties of boys and masters find any trace of

him in the snowy countryside around the school. So far as could be seen, he had simply

vanished.

The Trap

Robert's parents arrived on the afternoon of the second day after his disappearance. They

took their trouble quietly, though, of course, they were staggered by this unexpected

disaster. Browne looked ten years older for it, but there was absolutely nothing that could

be done. By the fourth day the case had settled down in the opinion of the school as an

insoluble mystery. Mr. and Mrs. Grandison went reluctantly back to their home, and on

the following morning the ten days' Christmas vacation began.

Boys and masters departed in anything but the usual holiday spirit; and Browne and his

wife were left, along with the servants, as my only fellow-occupants of the big place.

Without the masters and boys it seemed a very hollow shell indeed.

That afternoon I sat in front of my grate-fire thinking about Robert's disappearance and

evolving all sorts of fantastic theories to account for it. By evening I had acquired a bad

headache, and ate a light supper accordingly. Then, after a brisk walk around the massed

buildings, I returned to my living-room and took up the burden of thought once more.

A little after ten o'clock I awakened in my armchair, stiff and chilled, from a doze during

which I had let the fire go out. I was physically uncomfortable, yet mentally aroused by a

peculiar sensation of expectancy and possible hope. Of course it had to do with the

problem that was harassing me. For I had started from that inadvertent nap with a

curious, persistent idea - the odd idea that a tenuous, hardly recognizable Robert

Grandison had been trying desperately to communicate with me. I finally went to bed

with one conviction unreasoningly strong in my mind. Somehow I was sure that young

Robert Grandison was still alive.

That I should be receptive of such a notion will not seem strange to those who know my

long residence in the West Indies and my close contact with unexplained happenings

there. It will not seem strange, either, that I fell asleep with an urgent desire to establish

some sort of mental communication with the missing boy. Even the most prosaic

scientists affirm, with Freud, Jung, and Adler, that the subconscious mind is most open to

external impressions in sleep; though such impressions are seldom carried over intact into

the waking state.

Going a step further and granting the existence of telepathic forces, it follows that such

forces must act most strongly on a sleeper; so that if I were ever to get a definite message

from Robert, it would be during a period of profoundest slumber. Of course, I might lose

the message in waking; but my aptitude for retaining such things has been sharpened by

types of mental discipline picked up in various obscure corners of the globe.

I must have dropped asleep instantaneously, and from the vividness of my dreams and the

absence of wakeful intervals I judge that my sleep was a very deep one. It was six-forty-

five when I awakened, and there still lingered with me certain impressions which I knew

were carried over from the world of somnolent cerebration. Filling my mind was the

vision of Robert Grandison strangely transformed to a boy of a dull greenish dark-blue

color; Robert desperately endeavoring to communicate with me by means of speech, yet

finding some almost insuperable difficulty in so doing. A wall of curious spatial

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摘要：

TheTrapTheTrapbyH.P.Lovecraft&HenryS.WhiteheadWrittenlate1931ItwasonacertainThursdaymorninginDecemberthatthewholethingbeganwiththatunaccountablemotionIthoughtIsawinmyantiqueCopenhagenmirror.Something,itseemedtome,stirred-somethingreflectedintheglass,thoughIwasaloneinmyquarters.Ipausedandlookedintent...

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Lovecraft, H P & Whitehead, Henry - The Trap

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