Lovecraft, H P & Bishop, Zealia - Medusa's Coil

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Medusa’s Coil

Medusa's Coil

by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop

Written May 1930

Published January 1939 in Weird Tales, 33, No. 1, 26-53.

The drive toward Cape Girardeau had been through unfamiliar country; and as the late

afternoon light grew golden and half-dreamlike I realized that I must have directions if I

expected to reach the town before night. I did not care to be wandering about these bleak

southern Missouri lowlands after dark, for roads were poor and the November cold rather

formidable in an open roadster. Black clouds, too, were massing on the horizon; so I

looked about among the long, grey and blue shadows that streaked the flat, brownish

fields, hoping to glimpse some house where I might get the needed information.

It was a lonely and deserted country, but at last I spied a roof among a clump of trees near

the small river on my right; perhaps a full half-mile from the road, and probably

reachable by some path or drive which I would presently come upon. In the absence of

any nearer dwelling, I resolved to try my luck there; and was glad when the bushes by the

roadside revealed the ruin of a carved stone gateway, covered with dry, dead vines and

choked with undergrowth which explained why I had not been able to trace the path

across the fields in my first distant view. I saw that I could not drive the car in, so I

parked it very carefully near the gate - where a thick evergreen would shield it in case of

rain - and got out for the long walk to the house.

Traversing that brush-growth path in the gathering twilight I was conscious of a distinct

sense of foreboding, probably induced by the air of sinister decay hovering about the gate

and the former driveway. From the carvings on the old stone pillars I inferred that this

place was once an estate of manorial dignity; and I could clearly see that the driveway

had originally boasted guardian lines of linden trees, some of which had died, while

others had lost their special identity among the wild scrub growths of the region.

As I ploughed onward, cockleburs and stickers clung to my clothes, and I began to

wonder whether the place could be inhabited after all. Was I tramping on a vain errand?

For a moment I was tempted to go back and try some farm farther along the road, when a

view of the house ahead aroused my curiosity and stimulated my venturesome spirit.

There was something provocatively fascinating in the tree-girt, decrepit pile before me,

for it spoke of the graces and spaciousness of a bygone era and a far more southerly

environment. It was a typical wooden plantation house of the classic, early nineteenth-

century pattern, with two and a half stories and a great Ionic portico whose pillars

reached up as far as the attic and supported a triangular pediment. Its state of decay was

extreme and obvious; one of the vast columns having rotted and fallen to the ground,

while the upper piazza or balcony had sagged dangerously low. Other buildings, I judged,

had formerly stood near it.

Medusa’s Coil

As I mounted the broad stone steps to the low porch and the carved and fanlighted

doorway I felt distinctly nervous, and started to light a cigarette - desisting when I saw

how dry and inflammable everything about me was. Though now convinced that the

house was deserted, I nevertheless hesitated to violate its dignity without knocking; so

tugged at the rusty iron knocker until I could get it to move, and finally set up a cautious

rapping which seemed to make the whole place shake and rattle. There was no response,

yet once more I plied the cumbrous, creaking device - as much to dispel the sense of

unholy silence and solitude as to arouse any possible occupant of the ruin.

Somewhere near the river I heard the mournful not of a dove, and it seemed as if the

coursing water itself were faintly audible. Half in a dream, I seized and rattled the ancient

latch, and finally gave the great six-panelled door a frank trying. It was unlocked, as I

could see in a moment; and though it stuck and grated on its hinges I began to push it

open, stepping through it into a vast shadowy hall as I did so.

But the moment I took this step I regretted it. It was not that a legion of specters

confronted me in that dim and dusty hall with the ghostly Empire furniture; but that I

knew all at once that the place was not deserted at all. There was a creaking on the great

curved staircase, and the sound of faltering footsteps slowly descending. Then I saw a

tall, bent figure silhouetted for an instant against the great Palladian window on the

landing.

My first start of terror was soon over, and as the figure descended the final flight I was

ready to greet the householder whose privacy I had invaded. In the semi-darkness I could

see him reach in his pocket for a match. There came a flare as he lighted a small kerosene

lamp which stood on a rickety console table near the foot of the stairs. In the feeble glow

was revealed the stooping figure of a very tall, emaciated old man; disordered as to dress

and unshaved as to face, yet for all that with the bearing and expression of a gentleman.

I did not wait for him to speak, but at once began to explain my presence.

"You'll pardon my coming in like this, but when my knocking didn't raise anybody I

concluded that no one lived here. What I wanted originally was to know the right road to

Cape Girardeau - the shortest road, that is. I wanted to get there before dark, but now, of

course - "

As I paused, the man spoke; in exactly the cultivated tone I had expected, and with a

mellow accent as unmistakably Southern as the house he inhabited.

"Rather, you must pardon me for not answering your knock more promptly. I live in a

very retired way, and am not usually expecting visitors. At first I thought you were a

mere curiosity-seeker. Then when you knocked again I started to answer, but I am not

well and have to move very slowly. Spinal neuritis - very troublesome case.

"But as for your getting to town before dark - it's plain you can't do that. The road you are

one - for I suppose you came from the gate - isn't the best or shortest way. What you must

Medusa’s Coil

do is to take your first left after you leave the gate - that is, the first real road to your left.

There are three or four cart paths you can ignore, but you can't mistake the real road

because of the extra large willow tree on the right just opposite it. Then when you've

turned, keep on past two roads and turn to the right along the third. After that - "

"Please wait a moment! How can I follow all these clues in pitch darkness, without ever

having been near here before, and with only an indifferent pair of headlights to tell me

what is and what isn't a road? Besides, I think it's going to storm pretty soon, and my car

is an open one. It looks as if I were in a bad fix if I want to get to Cape Girardeau tonight.

The fact is, I don't think I'd better try to make it. I don't like to impose burdens, or

anything like that - but in view of the circumstances, do you suppose you could put me up

for the night? I won't be any trouble - no meals or anything. Just let me have a corner to

sleep in till daylight, and I'm all right. I can leave the car in the road where it is - a bit of

wet weather won't hurt it if worst comes to worst."

As I made my sudden request I could see the old man's face lose its former expression of

quiet resignation and take on an odd, surprised look.

"Sleep - here?"

He seemed so astonished at my request that I repeated it.

"Yes, why not? I assure you I won't be any trouble. What else can I do? I'm a stranger

hereabouts, these roads are a labyrinth in the dark, and I'll wager it'll be raining torrents

outside of an hour - "

This time it my host's turn to interrupt, and as he did so I could feel a peculiar quality in

his deep, musical voice.

"A stranger - of course you must be, else you wouldn't think of sleeping here, wouldn't

think of coming here at all. People don't come here nowadays."

He paused, and my desire to stay was increased a thousandfold by the sense of mystery

his laconic words seemed to evoke. There was surely something alluringly queer about

this place, and the pervasive musty smell seemed to cloak a thousand secrets. Again I

noticed the extreme decrepitude of everything about me; manifest even in the feeble rays

of the single small lamp. I felt woefully chilly, and saw with regret that no heating was

provided, and yet so great was my curiosity that I still wished most ardently to stay and

learn something of the recluse and his dismal abode.

"Let that be as it may," I replied. "I can't help about other people. But I surely would like

to have a spot to stop till daylight. Still - if people don't relish this place, mayn't it be

because it's getting so run-down? Of course I suppose it a take a fortune to keep such an

estate up, but if the burden's too great why don't you look for smaller quarters? Why try

to stick it out here in this way - with all the hardships and discomforts?"

Medusa’s Coil

The man did not seem offended, but answered me very gravely.

"Surely you may stay if you really wish to - you can come to no harm that I know of. But

others claim there are certain peculiarly undesirable influences here. As for me - I stay

here because I have to. There is something I feel it a duty to guard - something that holds

me. I wish I had the money and health and ambition to take decent care of the house and

grounds."

With my curiosity still more heightened, I prepared to take my host at his word; and

followed him slowly upstairs when he motioned me to do so. It was very dark now, and a

faint pattering outside told me that the threatened rain had come. I would have been glad

of any shelter, but this was doubly welcome because of the hints of mystery about the

place and its master. For an incurable lover of the grotesque, no more fitting haven could

have been provided.

There was a second-floor corner room in less unkempt shape than the rest of the house,

and into this my host led me, setting down his small lamp and lighting a somewhat larger

one. From the cleanliness and contents of the room, and from the books ranged along the

walls, I could see that I had not guessed amiss in thinking the man a gentleman of taste of

breeding. He was a hermit and eccentric, no doubt, but he still had standards and

intellectual interests. As he waved me to a seat I began a conversation on general topics,

and was pleased to find him not at all taciturn. If anything, he seemed glad of someone to

talk, and did not even attempt to swerve the discussion from personal topics.

He was, I learned, one Antoine de Russy, of an ancient, powerful, and cultivated line of

Louisiana planters. More than a century ago his grandfather, a younger so, had migrated

to southern Missouri and founded a new estate in the lavish ancestral manner; building

this pillared mansion and surrounding it with all the accessories of a great plantation.

There had been, at one time, as many as 200 negroes in the cabins which stood on the flat

ground in the rear - ground that the river had now invaded - and to hear them singing and

laughing and playing the banjo at night was to know the fullest charm of a civilization

and social order now sadly extinct. In front of the house, where the great guardian oaks

and willows stood, there had been a lawn like a broad green carpet, always watered and

trimmed and with flagstoned, flower-bordered walks curving through it. "Riverside" - for

such the place was called - had been a lovely and idyllic homestead in its day; and my

host could recall it when many traces of its best period.

It was raining hard now, with dense sheets of water beating against the insecure roof,

walls, and windows, and sending in drops through a thousand chinks and crevices.

Moisture trickled down to the floor from unsuspected places, and the mounting wind

rattled the rotting, loose-hinged shutters outside. But I minded none of this, for I saw that

a story was coming. Incited to reminiscence, my host made a move to shew me to

sleeping-quarters; but kept on recalling the older, better days. Soon, I saw, I would

receive an inkling of why he lived alone in that ancient place, and why his neighbours

Medusa’s Coil

thought it full of undesirable influences. His voice was very musical as he spoke on, and

his tale soon took a turn which left me no chance to grow drowsy.

"Yes - Riverside was built in 1816, and my father was born in 1828. He'd be over a

century old now if he were alive, but he died young - so young I can just barely

remember him. In '64 that was - he was killed in the war, Seventh Louisiana Infantry

C.S.A., for he went back to the old home to enlist. My grandfather was too old to fight,

yet he lived on to be ninety-five, and helped my mother bring me up. A good bringing-

up, too - I'll give them credit. We always had strong traditions - high notions of honor -

and my grandfather saw to it that I grew up the way de Russys have grown up, generation

after generation, ever since the Crusades. We weren't quite wiped out financially, but

managed to get on very comfortable after the war. I went to a good school in Louisiana,

and later to Princeton. Later on I was able to get the plantation on a fairly profitable basis

- though you see what it's come to now.

"My mother died when I was twenty, and my grandfather two years later. It was rather

lonely after that; and in '85 I married a distant cousin in New Orleans. Things might have

bee different if she'd lived, but she died when my son Denis was born. Then I had only

Denis. I didn't try marriage again, but gave all my time to the boy. He was like me - like

all the de Russys - darkish and tall and thin, and with the devil of a temper. I gave him the

same training my grandfather had give me, but he didn't need much training when it came

to points of honor. It was in him, I reckon. Never saw such high spirit - all I could do to

keep him from running away to the Spanish War when he was eleven! Romantic young

devil, too - full of high notions - you'd call 'em Victorian, now - no trouble at all to make

him let the nigger wenches alone. I sent him to the same school I'd gone to, and to

Princeton, too. He was Class of 1909.

"In the end he decided to be a doctor, and went a year to the Harvard Medical School.

Then he hit on the idea of keeping to the old French tradition of the family, and argued

me into sending him across to the Sorbonne. I did - and proudly enough, though I knew

I'd be how lonely I'd be with him so far off. Would to God I hadn't! I thought he was the

safest kind of boy to be in Paris. He had a room in the Rue St. Jacques - that's near the

University in the 'Latin Quarter' - but according to his letters and his friends he didn't cut

up with the gayer dogs at all. The people he knew were mostly young fellows from home

- serious students and artists who thought more of their work than of striking attitudes

and painting the town red.

"But of course there were lots of fellows who were on a sort of dividing line between

serious studies and the devil. The aesthetes - the decadents, you know. Experiments in

life and sensation - the Baudelaire kind of a chap. Naturally Denis ran up against a good

many of these, and saw a good deal of their life. They had all sorts of crazy circles and

cults - imitation devil-worship, fake Black Masses, and the like. Doubt if it did them

much harm on the whole - probably most of 'em forgot all about it in a year or two. One

of the deepest in this queer stuff was a fellow Denis had known at school - for that

matter, whose father I'd known myself. Frank Marsh, of New Orleans. Disciple of

Medusa’s Coil

Lafcadio Hearn and Gauguin and Van Gogh - regular epitome of the yellow 'nineties.

Poor devil - he had the makings of a great artist, at that.

"Marsh was the oldest friend Denis had in Paris, so as a matter of course they saw a good

deal of each other - to talk over old times at St. Clair academy, and all that. The boy

wrote me a good deal about him, and I didn't see any especial harm when he spoke of the

group of mystics Marsh ran with. It seems there was some cult of prehistoric Egyptian

and Carthaginian magic having a rage among the Bohemian element on the left bank -

some nonsensical thing that pretended to reach back to forgotten sources of hidden truth

in lost African civilisations - the great Zimbabwe, the dead Atlantean cities in the Haggar

region of the Sahara - and they had a lot of gibberish concerned with snakes and human

hair. At least, I called it gibberish, then. Denis used to quote Marsh as saying odd things

about the veiled facts behind the legend of Medusa's snaky locks - and behind the later

Ptolemaic myth of Berenice, who offered up her hair to save her husband-brother, and

had it set in the sky as the constellation Coma Berenices.

"I don't think this business made much impression on Denis until the night of the queer

ritual at Marsh's rooms when he met the priestess. Most of the devotees of the cult were

young fellows, but the head of it was a young woman who called herself 'Tanit-Isis' -

letting it be known that her real name - her name in this latest incarnation, as she put it -

was Marceline Bedard. She claimed to be the left-handed daughter of Marquis de

Chameaux, and seemed to have been both a petty artist and an artist's model before

adopting this more lucrative magical game. Someone said she had lived for a time in the

West Indies - Martinique, I think - but she was very reticent about herself. Part of her

pose was a great show of austerity and holiness, but I don't think the more experienced

students took that very seriously.

"Denis, though, was far from experienced, and wrote me fully ten pages of slush about

the goddess he had discovered. If I'd only realised his simplicity I might have done

something, but I never thought a puppy infatuation like could mean much. I felt absurdly

sure that Denis' touchy personal honour and family pride would always keep him out of

the most serious complications.

"As time went, though, his letters began to make me nervous. He mentioned this

Marceline more and more, and his friends less and les, and began talking about the 'cruel

and silly way' they declined to introduce her to their mothers and sisters. He seems to

have asked her no questions about herself, and I don't doubt but that she filled him full of

romantic legendry concerning her origin and divine revelations and the way people

slighted her. At length I could see that Denis was altogether cutting his own crowd and

spending the bulk of his time with his alluring priestess. At her especial request he never

told the old crowd of their continual meetings; so nobody over there tried to break the

affair up.

"I suppose she thought he was fabulously rich; for he had the air of a patrician, and

people of a certain class think all aristocratic Americans are wealthy. In any case, she

probably thought this a rare chance to contract a genuine right-handed alliance with a

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摘要：

Medusa’sCoilMedusa'sCoilbyH.P.LovecraftandZealiaBishopWrittenMay1930PublishedJanuary1939inWeirdTales,33,No.1,26-53.ThedrivetowardCapeGirardeauhadbeenthroughunfamiliarcountry;andasthelateafternoonlightgrewgoldenandhalf-dreamlikeIrealizedthatImusthavedirectionsifIexpectedtoreachthetownbeforenight.Idid...

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