POLARIS by HPLovecraft
POLARIS by HPLovecraft
Translated by Arthur Kenter
Polaris, the north window of my room, glows with a mysterious light. It shines for all the endless hours of hellish night. And in autumn, when the north winds threaten and moan, and the swamp trees with red leaves share secrets in the early morning hours under the crescent of the waning moon, I sit by the window and gaze at the star.
Is lowered from the top of the bright sky Cassiopeia as the hours pass as well as the Big Dipper rises behind the trees of the swamp surrounded by vapors and shaken by the wind of the night. Just before dawn Arcturus winks reddish from the cemetery on the low hill, and Coma Berenices of light left burning in the distance in the mysterious East. But the North Star continues to spy on me from the same position, hateful nod like a mad keen eye which strives to communicate a strange message, but remember that nothing except the fact that it has a message to communicate.
Sometimes, when the sky is covered with clouds, can not sleep. I well remember the night when the magnificent sunrise over the swamp played eerie shadows and reflections of light demonic. Fortunately, the glow followed the clouds and then I fell asleep.
It was under the crescent of the waning moon, for the first time, saw the city. It is quiet and sleepy reclined on top of a strange plateau in a valley surrounded by bizarre heights. The walls and towers, columns and domes, the paving of the streets, everything was made of marble from a ghostly pallor. In the streets rose marble pillars, marble also, on the ends of which were carved the effigies of austere, bearded men. The air was warm and motionless. At the top, about ten degrees from the zenith, shone the North Star careful.
I was a long time to contemplate the city, but the day did not seem to ever get. When the red Aldebaran, which flickered low its way around the horizon, I saw the lights and animated movements of the houses and streets.
Silhouettes dressed oddly, with a noble-looking family and myself, walked outside under the crescent of the waning moon, and men, in a language they understood despite being completely different from any other known language, arguing with arcane knowledge. When the red Aldebaran surpassed half the horizon, again there were darkness and silence. When I woke up I was not one before. In my memory was imprinted with the image of the city, and soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection, of whose nature was not yet aware.
Since then, the cloudy nights during which I could sleep, I saw the city often, and sometimes appeared to me under the burning rays of a yellow sun that never sets, but spinning restlessly along the horizon. And in the nights clear days, the North Star was watching from above with renewed evil.
Gradually I came to wonder what might have my place in that city on the mysterious plateau surrounded by ominous mountains. If before I had been content to contemplate that scenario as a disembodied presence as a presence that wraps around his eyes, now felt a desire to establish what was my relationship with her and express my thoughts between severe talking characters that daily in public squares.
I said to myself: "This is not a dream, because the means by which I could demonstrate a higher reality of that other life that I live in the house of stone and brick, south of the sinister swamp and a cemetery on the hill, where the North Star faces every night at the window to the north? "
One night, while I was listening intently to the men talk in a large square adorned with numerous statues, I felt a change, I realized that I finally have a body. I felt more a stranger on the streets of Olathoё, situated on the plateau of Sarkia, between the mountains and Kadiphonek Noton. The speaker was my friend Alos, and his speech was balm for my soul, being the speech of a real man, a patriot. That night news came of the surrender of Daikos and the growth of Inuto: yellow and stocky hellish monsters that five years before had come from the unknown west to ravage the borders of our kingdom, and to besiege many of our cities.
Espugnate the forts at the foot of the mountains, had now cleared the way to the plateau, unless every citizen had not pledged to resist fighting with the strength of ten men. But these beings were stocky masters the art of war and ignored the scruples of honor which held back our men of Lomar, tall and gray-eyed, from abandoning a ruthless massacres.
My friend Alos was commander of all forces of the plateau, were placed in him the last hopes of our country. On that occasion he spoke of the dangers we would face and exhorted the men of Olathoё, bravest among Lomariani, to maintain the high traditions of their ancestors who were forced to abandon Zobna and move southward before the advance of the big blanket frost - even our descendants will one day be forced to flee from the land of Lomar - boldly and successfully defeated the cannibals Gnophkehs, hairy and long arms, which they had crossed the street.
Alos refused to trust a military role because of my weakness and sudden illnesses that struck me when I was subjected to tension and discomfort. But despite dedicate hours and hours every day to the study of manuscripts and wisdom of the fathers Pnakotici Zobnariani, my eyes were the keenest in the city: so my friend, anxious not to condemn the inertia, I gave him a task which importance was second to none. I sent the watchtower Thapnen, where I represented the eyes of our army. If the Inuto had tried to reach the town through the narrow gorge behind the mountain Noton to attack the garrison by surprise, I had to run smoke signals, warning the soldiers waiting and saving the town from immediate disaster.
Ascended the tower alone because the presence of every able-bodied man was required in the steps below. The fatigue and excitement I numbed the mind, already proven by the many sleepless nights, but I was determined, for he was my love for the native land of Lomar and the marble city of Olathoё that stood between the mountains and Noton Kadiphonek.
However, the top cell of the tower taken to contemplate the waning crescent moon, red and left, glimmering through the stagnant vapors over the distant valley Banof. Since opening in the roof glittered the pale Pole Star, which, shaken by beating almost vital, I spied malignant and demonic temptress. It was his spirit, I believe, to give me the evil counsel, cradled with rhythmic, detestable promises, repeated endlessly, drowsiness induced a traitor:
Sleep, sleep sentry:
some six centuries this star
upper sky will roll
until you return to the principle.
Other stars rise,
to the axis of the air will circulate:
stars happy, serene stars
that will heal your pain.
When my close circle,
your past will awaken.
Vain was my struggle against the torpor while trying to associate those strange words to the heavenly wisdom that I learned from Pnakotici Manuscripts. I fell on my head swaying breasts and weight, when the risollevai, I was a guest of a dream where the Pole Star grinning at me peeking through a window above the trees in a swamp dream agitated scary. I'm still dreaming.
In my shame and anguish sometimes scream desperately begging unreal creatures that surround me to wake up before they go back Inuto is sneaking up behind the mountain Noton, conquering the citadel by surprise, but those creatures are demons, because they laugh at me and I repeat that I am dreaming. They make fun of me while I sleep, and while the enemy yellow stripe and stocky, perhaps silent piombarci him.
I failed in my duty, I have betrayed the marble city of Olathoё, and I betrayed Alos, my friend and commander. But the shadows that haunt my dreams still yelling. I say that no land of Lomar except in my dreams at night, I repeat that in the realms where the Pole Star shines high in the sky, Aldebaran and the red strip on the horizon for thousands of years there was nothing more than ice and snow and there ever any man has gone except yellow and stocky creatures, blinded by the frost, which they call "Eskimo".
Now, while I torment in my guilty agony, desperate to save the city where danger increases at any moment, I try unsuccessfully to escape from this unnatural dream of a house of stone and brick, to the south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery, which crowns a low hill.
Meanwhile, the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, spying on me from the dark again, winking hideously like an insane watchful eye which strives to communicate a strange message, but remember that nothing except the fact that it has a message to communicate.
