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- Говард Лавкрафт
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- Ужас Данвича
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- Стр. 1/20
Dunwich Horror
When
a
traveller
in
north
central
Massachusetts
takes
the
wrong
fork
at
the
junction
of
Aylesbury
pike
just
beyond
Dean
's
Corners
he
comes
upon
a
lonely
and
curious
country
.
The
ground
gets
higher
,
and
the
brier-bordered
stone
walls
press
closer
and
closer
against
the
ruts
of
the
dusty
,
curving
road
.
The
trees
of
the
frequent
forest
belts
seem
too
large
,
and
the
wild
weeds
,
brambles
and
grasses
attain
a
luxuriance
not
often
found
in
settled
regions
.
At
the
same
time
the
planted
fields
appear
singularly
few
and
barren
;
while
the
sparsely
scattered
houses
wear
a
surprisingly
uniform
aspect
of
age
,
squalor
,
and
dilapidation
.
Without
knowing
why
,
one
hesitates
to
ask
directions
from
the
gnarled
solitary
figures
spied
now
and
then
on
crumbling
doorsteps
or
on
the
sloping
,
rock-strewn
meadows
.
Those
figures
are
so
silent
and
furtive
that
one
feels
somehow
confronted
by
forbidden
things
,
with
which
it
would
be
better
to
have
nothing
to
do
.
When
a
rise
in
the
road
brings
the
mountains
in
view
above
the
deep
woods
,
the
feeling
of
strange
uneasiness
is
increased
.
The
summits
are
too
rounded
and
symmetrical
to
give
a
sense
of
comfort
and
naturalness
,
and
sometimes
the
sky
silhouettes
with
especial
clearness
the
queer
circles
of
tall
stone
pillars
with
which
most
of
them
are
crowned
.
Gorges
and
ravines
of
problematical
depth
intersect
the
way
,
and
the
crude
wooden
bridges
always
seem
of
dubious
safety
.
When
the
road
dips
again
there
are
stretches
of
marshland
that
one
instinctively
dislikes
,
and
indeed
almost
fears
at
evening
when
unseen
whippoorwills
chatter
and
the
fireflies
come
out
in
abnormal
profusion
to
dance
to
the
raucous
,
creepily
insistent
rhythms
of
stridently
piping
bull-frogs
.
The
thin
,
shining
line
of
the
Miskatonic
's
upper
reaches
has
an
oddly
serpent-like
suggestion
as
it
winds
close
to
the
feet
of
the
domed
hills
among
which
it
rises
.
As
the
hills
draw
nearer
,
one
heeds
their
wooded
sides
more
than
their
stone-crowned
tops
.
Those
sides
loom
up
so
darkly
and
precipitously
that
one
wishes
they
would
keep
their
distance
,
but
there
is
no
road
by
which
to
escape
them
.
Across
a
covered
bridge
one
sees
a
small
village
huddled
between
the
stream
and
the
vertical
slope
of
Round
Mountain
,
and
wonders
at
the
cluster
of
rotting
gambrel
roofs
bespeaking
an
earlier
architectural
period
than
that
of
the
neighbouring
region
.
It
is
not
reassuring
to
see
,
on
a
closer
glance
,
that
most
of
the
houses
are
deserted
and
falling
to
ruin
,
and
that
the
broken-steepled
church
now
harbours
the
one
slovenly
mercantile
establishment
of
the
hamlet
.
One
dreads
to
trust
the
tenebrous
tunnel
of
the
bridge
,
yet
there
is
no
way
to
avoid
it
.
Once
across
,
it
is
hard
to
prevent
the
impression
of
a
faint
,
malign
odour
about
the
village
street
,
as
of
the
massed
mould
and
decay
of
centuries
.
It
is
always
a
relief
to
get
clear
of
the
place
,
and
to
follow
the
narrow
road
around
the
base
of
the
hills
and
across
the
level
country
beyond
till
it
rejoins
the
Aylesbury
pike
.
Afterwards
one
sometimes
learns
that
one
has
been
through
Dunwich
.
Outsiders
visit
Dunwich
as
seldom
as
possible
,
and
since
a
certain
season
of
horror
all
the
signboards
pointing
towards
it
have
been
taken
down
.
The
scenery
,
judged
by
an
ordinary
aesthetic
canon
,
is
more
than
commonly
beautiful
;
yet
there
is
no
influx
of
artists
or
summer
tourists
.
Two
centuries
ago
,
when
talk
of
witch-blood
,
Satan-worship
,
and
strange
forest
presences
was
not
laughed
at
,
it
was
the
custom
to
give
reasons
for
avoiding
the
locality
.
In
our
sensible
age
--
since
the
Dunwich
horror
of
1928
was
hushed
up
by
those
who
had
the
town
's
and
the
world
's
welfare
at
heart
--
people
shun
it
without
knowing
exactly
why
.
Perhaps
one
reason
--
though
it
can
not
apply
to
uninformed
strangers
--
is
that
the
natives
are
now
repellently
decadent
,
having
gone
far
along
that
path
of
retrogression
so
common
in
many
New
England
backwaters
.
They
have
come
to
form
a
race
by
themselves
,
with
the
well-defined
mental
and
physical
stigmata
of
degeneracy
and
inbreeding
.
The
average
of
their
intelligence
is
woefully
low
,
whilst
their
annals
reek
of
overt
viciousness
and
of
half-hidden
murders
,
incests
,
and
deeds
of
almost
unnameable
violence
and
perversity
.
The
old
gentry
,
representing
the
two
or
three
armigerous
families
which
came
from
Salem
in
1692
,
have
kept
somewhat
above
the
general
level
of
decay
;
though
many
branches
are
sunk
into
the
sordid
populace
so
deeply
that
only
their
names
remain
as
a
key
to
the
origin
they
disgrace
.
Some
of
the
Whateleys
and
Bishops
still
send
their
eldest
sons
to
Harvard
and
Miskatonic
,
though
those
sons
seldom
return
to
the
mouldering
gambrel
roofs
under
which
they
and
their
ancestors
were
born
.
No
one
,
even
those
who
have
the
facts
concerning
the
recent
horror
,
can
say
just
what
is
the
matter
with
Dunwich
;
though
old
legends
speak
of
unhallowed
rites
and
conclaves
of
the
Indians
,
amidst
which
they
called
forbidden
shapes
of
shadow
out
of
the
great
rounded
hills
,
and
made
wild
orgiastic
prayers
that
were
answered
by
loud
crackings
and
rumblings
from
the
ground
below
.
In
1747
the
Reverend
Abijah
Hoadley
,
newly
come
to
the
Congregational
Church
at
Dunwich
Village
,
preached
a
memorable
sermon
on
the
close
presence
of
Satan
and
his
imps
;
in
which
he
said
:
"
It
must
be
allow
'd
,
that
these
Blasphemies
of
an
infernall
Train
of
Daemons
are
Matters
of
too
common
Knowledge
to
be
deny
'd
;
