| |
 |
 |
y hopes of happiness, children and a comforted old age were hardly more than resurrected before they were destroyed. Vicious rumor found the ear of my wife and she disappeared as though under the brand of shame, hiding herself from even her most remote connections. And it was only slowly, reluctantly, after much reasoning and inquiry, that I succumbed to the horrible understanding that she must have gone to the mansion by the sea. This fearful structure lay not very far from the place of my birth. Indeed, its nearer parts lay within two weeks' journey by foot, while the sea itself lay hundreds of miles beyond.
Despair prostrated me and delayed my departure for a full day. I lay in bed and told myself that I should be up and moving. And in another voice I said that she was gone, had been gone these many weeks, and that there was no use in the loss or possession of a day.
But on a morning in September, I rose and fitted myself for travel. I took no food but the most menial—hardtack, seeds, crushed and dried corn, and similar unappetizing but compact rations. To those, I added a blank journal and several pounds’ supply of chalk and charcoal, leaving the rest of my strength to carry water—the greatest essential and one that I could not be sure to obtain within the mansion.
I then set off on foot, and arrived after a week within sight of the place. It seemed not a house at all but a vast pile of black storm clouds stretched along the horizon. But the true early autumn clouds extended in a low, gray and undisturbed plateau and hid from view the mansion's uppermost towers. Nothing more could be gathered from my survey, even when I looked through a spyglass, and I trudged on, nearing day by day with so excruciating a slowness that I felt as if I chased the horizon itself. At each new morning, it rose ever higher before my eyes, while the blackness of its face gave way to a variety of shades, and the vague outlines of a hamlet appeared within its shadow.
At the outskirts of town, I stopped at an inn to fortify myself for the arduous journey to come. I spoke to the innkeeper over a mug of beer and asked whether the inhabitants were not afraid to live so close to the mansion. He said, "No, no more than anyone should be afraid to live beside a mountain. If you don't plant your dwelling at the foot of it, it won't come down on your head, and can do no other harm to you unless you were foolish enough to go up to it." I asked him whether there had not been any of the village foolish enough to venture there. To that, he dryly replied that there were those who disappeared from the village, never to return and rumored to be lost in the depths. But whether they had truly entered the mansion was, of course, impossible for him to say. For all it concerned him, he said, they might have gone to sea or joined a band of gypsies—and, so saying, made an end of conversation.
That night, I slept but little. My room was on the uppermost floor and, due to the peculiar architecture fashionable in that region of the country, I lay beneath a ceiling curved and ribbed with exposed beams, much like the inverted interior of a ship's hull. As I slumbered, I imagined that the curving beams were the hard palate of an enormous mouth, that I was swallowed up and consumed. Slipping into the darkness, I felt my dissolution in the belly of a beast and my body reduced to its lifeless constituency.
But when I arose next morning, I felt stronger. Night had robbed the beast of its terrors. If I were lost forever in the mansion, it was no more than to be lost in the grave to which I was already bound.
It was late afternoon when I arrived at the gate of the mansion's outer wall. I was surprised, though perhaps I shouldn't have been, that there was no great glory in its outer parts. The exterior court was enclosed by a wall of basalt. Its size was in keeping with the magnificence of the mansion itself, towering 120 feet and fully 30 feet thick. This wall was remarkably sound and perfect throughout most of its length. In a few places nearest the gate, it had indeed suffered some exterior damage, as though from the massive projectiles of some ancient battle. But time had ameliorated those wounds, wearing away at them with slow weathering until the breaks were smooth and polished, shining with even greater luster than the sections that were whole. And beyond those weathered breaks, the stones were riven by not a single crack, and every edge of every block of the cyclopean masonry sharply met that of its neighbor. The disjunct impression of great age in the weathering of certain damaged parts and of newness in the perfect preservation of the rest made a strange and uneasy impression on me—one that I was then and remain now unable to explain. Passing through the dim portal, sunlight behind and before but shadow covering me, I felt that I indeed entered the realm of the dead and I shuddered to think that those stones had been mined by no earthly power.
The courtyard stretched 200 yards ahead and to the vanishing point on my right and left. It was a dismal and forbidding sight, filled with rank grass, withered shrubs, creeping vines, bubbling cesspools and myriad small, furtive creatures that made sounds from hidden places. The clouds, as for days previous, hung low and gray and it was in this aspect that I entered the nameless and eternal domain.
As I neared the second wall and portal, I was forced to cross a streamlet by stepping from one to another of the stones that broke its surface. Once across, I thought it best to restore what little water I had consumed during the first part of the day. And I had just lowered a large skin to fill it when a metallic gleam caught my eye. Returning my hand to the water, I felt around until I discovered and removed a coin. There were many such lying on the bottom, half-concealed by the silt that washed over them. They were unfamiliar to me, being all of ancient mint, the currency of nations now forgotten. But I saw the wisdom of the men who had left them there. In the place I now entered, money was of no service but to burden, which to carry inside was to trifle with terror itself. I took my own coins from my pockets and dropped them into the water. Nor did I regard it as wasteful to throw away money that I might retrieve on my return, except that I never returned and more than money was lost.
In this manner, I came to the second gate, and here the wall was of granite, of equal size with the former. Here again the stones were hewn with great precision and without ornament, retaining a stark, military aspect. The damage wrought on the exterior gate was repeated at this one in a lesser degree but with the same unearthly luster and smoothness from ages-long weathering.
At last, I emerged into the second courtyard and saw the mansion itself. The lower portion of its face showed little more ornament than the gates. The blocks were cut of various sizes to show a crenellation of rectangles and lines. These patterns ran, like all the rest, to the curve of the horizon at either hand in inexhaustible and impassive symmetry. Several stories higher, different materials could be discerned, but only by using the spyglass. A faint line of white (which must in reality have comprised several stories) suggested a layer of marble facade.
I lowered my eyes once more to the inner courtyard. This region was flagged with slate, showing no more sign of wear in the individual stones than those of the walls. The very steps that led up were devoid of that patina of slow wear that might be expected in a place so likely over the centuries to have attracted curiosity-seekers, as if the forbidding extent of the domain had rejected the least sign of trespassers together with the possibility of habitation.
But I chastised myself for these qualms. If the mansion defied the ages, it could not defy my entry. The doorway lay in shadow mere yards before me. Only the wind soughed along the stone in the courtyard, while the canopy of clouds that broke the early evening sun threw doubtful shadows on the walls. Hesitating no more, I strode over the stones as impatiently as if I expected to meet the object of my journey on the threshold. And indeed, at that moment, I had not the slightest doubt of success in my expedition. I continued under the portico, passed through an arched doorway of gray stone and entered.
It may be well to reiterate a few of the generally established facts about the structure. There are only two entrances, those being the one I have described and an exactly identical one on the structure’s opposite side facing the sea. The face of the mansion surrounding both of these entrances is devoid of windows. Apertures of all kinds extend to within a hundred feet of the ground at every portion except near the entrances—and here the windows recede to height of three hundred feet.
The whole structure rests in a slight depression. From the area just surrounding the outermost wall to the building itself, the earth descends slightly, almost imperceptibly, as though the structure’s mass had in course of millennia compressed some weaker layer of rock or soil. It has even been suggested by some that the entire mansion is underlain by a network of caves, the gradual collapse of which has led to the depression. But in that case the collapse would not have extended into the outer courtyards, there being no weight to cause the compression. Moreover, I never discovered in my windings through many levels any sign of rending or disturbance of the walls of the interior that should be expected in a case of such shifting.
Finally, some uncertain observations have been made about meteorological disturbances in the vicinity of the mansion. Sailors claim that the waters on its seaward side are unusually treacherous, given to dangerous and capricious currents, and a breeding place for whirlpools. People of many regions have asserted seeing lightning in its upper reaches at various times of day and night, regardless of the season and at times when the sky was clear. And the same sources describe periodic exhalations of fog rising in high, thick banks around it, such as obscure the walls and, when the clouds are low, conceal the whole mansion from view.
I need hardly say what effect these anomalies, together with the mere fact of the mansion itself and its suggestion of gigantic and ancient power, have had on popular imagination. A multitude of wild and contradictory superstitions and legends have fastened themselves to it like so many barnacles to the side of a vessel. But I will have nothing to do with superstition, and the circumstance under which I write this memoir will permit little of triviality.
In the beginning, I contrived to make a map of the place. For many days, I traced lines in the journal, systematically marking out passages and rooms, indicating the length and dimensions of each. And when the maps exhausted my supply of pages, I did not fail to patiently to blaze my trail by the use of the chalk and charcoal.
I passed the early days of my travel in bold confidence, not only mapping but also making small notes of the stranger and more impressive sights. From those notes, as well as from the black brand of memory, I relate the balance of what follows.
The outer rooms were of a rude nobility. Fluted pillars and pilasters followed my steps, glowing white from obscurely reflected light. This light indeed puzzled me, as I was unable to find its source. I would have said (had not common sense counseled otherwise) that it flowed gaseously through the corridors, pervading them like an odor—or else that the simple material of the mansion's structure emitted it in an irregular phosphorescence. The impression that the light was transmitted by some physical substance was encouraged, however doubtfully, by the similar prevalence of a peculiar gray dust that I found collected in all corners and nooks—a very fine dust that was most certainly not dirt but which I was at a loss to account for.
Amid the maze of stonework, my voice called continually the name of my bride, but returned in echoes so pertinacious and overlapping that they grew into a roar. At those times, I forbore and stood still while awaiting its subsidence, but always to the return of silence and the absence of any returning call. I then refrained from calling her name until I reached quarters where the echoes were less troublesome.
In the meantime, my path wound among a panoply of forms—under arches round and peaked—through oppressive and roughly hewn tunnels—into gigantic chambers of everlasting pillars and buttressed ceilings whose intricate interlacement of ribs seemed the webwork of spiders. Then there were maddening corridors, obstinately uniform, disclosing one after another identically unfurnished rooms.
For a time, life and the outer world remained accessible by the occasional window. There I drank deeply of fresh air, basked my face in the sun and rested my weary eyes on the body of the world's living landscape, which was as dear as bread to me in my loneliness. But I was disturbed to find that my view altered radically from one window to the next, even when their discovery was separated by a brief interval. At one hour, I looked out upon the open landscape at a height of only a few stories. At another, I looked down upon a narrow alley a thousand feet below, while at a distance of only a few yards faced a wall and window identical to the one at which I stood. But the radicalness of these alterations was clearly owing to the extreme convolution of the mansion’s windings. I could scarcely pass the distance of two rooms without some perceptible ascent or descent, while the proportions of the rooms and the angles of the connecting corridors were so inconsistent that it was difficult to conceive the relation of two rooms that were not actually in sight of one another.
I had exhausted roughly half my supply of chalk and charcoal, as well as the better part of my provisions, when I was disheartened by a series of events occurring within days of one another.
I was passing down a corridor of carved panels on which were depicted mountains and the mouths of caves. At the end, I opened a door and discovered a vertical shaft. This shaft was composed of four facing stone walls, 35 yards across, each with doors at equal heights and distances, and connected by intersecting bridges of wrought iron. Stepping onto the catwalk, I saw that the exterior of the door through which I had just passed was in the same well-preserved condition as the interior despite the exposure of the former to the outer air; the other three doors—facing and adjacent—were in the same perfect condition. The surrounding walls rose and fell to such distances that the light of the sky was reduced to a mere moon over a well of shadow while the bottom was dark with the obscurity of distance. Besides that, I noticed that the shaft discouraged any echo whatever, no matter how loudly I raised my voice. And the air was constantly pushed along with a blustery warm wind that arose from the bottom.
I walked the bridges to the three untried doors and investigated a little way beyond each. At the first, I pursued an upwardly sloping hallway until I arrived at an ample room, richly furnished with Persian rugs, leather chairs and couches, mahogany tables—even a small japanned box filled with fragrant tobacco. All of these articles were immovable, fixed by undiscoverable means to the places where they sat. The bottom-most layer of tobacco was itself wedded or strangely adhered to the box. Here, more than in any other part of the mansion, I suffered the impression of long undisturbed age. After scanning the walls, floor and ceiling, I concluded that the room had no second exit and quickly retraced my steps.
At the second door, a short passage widened into a long low room entirely of concrete and penetrated by narrow doorways every few yards. A brief investigation showed me that those doorways let on to interminable and irregular windings, forming altogether a featureless and abysmal maze.
At the third, however, I found a corridor precisely similar and directly opposite the one by which I had discovered the shaft. I launched myself upon this third passage, then, anticipating further repetitions in keeping with the initial similarity. And indeed, symmetry was marvelously well maintained for the first several windings—until I came to the library. This little room was scarcely ten feet square, and formed no more than a brief expansion along a narrow corridor. In one corner sat a black wing chair, while on the walls parallel to the corridor were row upon row of books. These were of widely varying appearance, in size and color as well as in material but were, like all other appurtenances of the mansion, of a single ageless preservation. The pages were all perfectly white and flexible, and the covers showed no wear, not even bending at their corners, although I could easily bend one with my thumb. The sole sign of decay—if decay it was—lay in the accumulation of a sticky, colorless ichor between the books and the shelves were they rested. In removing any one of them, I was forced to break many strands of this ichor, and even between the pages it could be felt as a dewy residue.
Further examination showed the books to be written in a great variety of languages and scripts, most of them totally unfamiliar to me and nearly all incomprehensible. But there were a few, written in an antiquated dialect of my own tongue, that I was able to read. The titles of these volumes were no less diverse than their external appearances but were found all to indicate a common subject. Not one of them described anything other than the mansion by the sea. Nor did the authors employ any preamble or context but each proceeded immediately and exhaustingly through a catalogue of rooms and passages—halls paved with mother-of-pearl, cylindrical onyx tunnels, uneven chambers of crumbling soapstone, and a thousand other wonders—not one of which had so far passed before my eyes or could be found described in more than one book. The authors (if multiple authors there were, and not one selfsame lunatic) agreed on only one point—that the mansion was perfectly uninhabited and had been so from time immemorial.
Only one day had passed from this incident when I saw that I was coming to an end of my chalk and charcoal. I might have gone on further but my rations were also sufficiently low to warrant my turning back. I did so, and proceeded several days over familiar sights—I recrossed the library, the shaft of intersecting catwalks, the chambers of giant pillars and weblike interlacing ribs. But I could not help noting uneasily as I went that the guiding marks of chalk and charcoal became gradually fainter, as though suffered by moisture or wind to wear away from the wood and stone. This was all the more remarkable as I had noticed, in the vast majority of rooms, no appreciable dampness or current of air. On the contrary, the subtly pervading light of the place, with an equally pervasive though mild warmth, had given the uniform impression of a place well regulated for habitation, without any atmospheric excess whatsoever, except at windows or such an opening as the vertical shaft.
Nevertheless, I knew that the initial portion of my journey had been mapped in my journal and that if I could reach the room where my map ended before the marks were totally effaced, the remainder would be assured. As such, I now marched in earnest, for long hours of day and night—although the moon and sun were alike invisible to me in the recesses of the abode and I saw no such companionable sights as clouds or stars along my way. Meanwhile, the marks continued to become fainter with my progress. I became so alarmed that I now kept up a steady jog from room to room, and continued my exertions even when exhaustion and sleep threatened to take me.
Fainter—constantly fainter—the marks faded so that I was forced to peer at walls and doorways in the truly omniprevalent but now seemingly feeble light of the house to find them. I consulted my journal repeatedly to remember the appearance of the last room described on my maps. It was, after all, only an ordinary room, one among millions, but I felt that when I saw it I would recognize it immediately—that it would appear like the face of a friend and rescuer, and I already anticipated the feelings of relief and gratitude I would enjoy at the sight of it. With each passing minute, I felt more and more that I had always sojourned in the house—had always lived with the same hunger for another human face or voice—and kept my connection to the outer world only by the windows and the slenderest thread of memory.
The moment came when no examination of the room in which I stood, however scrutinizing, could detect the slightest mark. Nor did the room correspond in the least to the last room described on my map. Still, there was hope that the mapped portion of my journey did not lie far off. The passage of a few more doorways might disclose it, and in mere minutes the relief long-anticipated might be enjoyed. I endured an agonizing hour of systematically trying each near passage, even while my body craved sleep and my eyes darkened with exhaustion and hopelessness. But each new turning greeted me with despair. At last, in an unfamiliar room of no particular character, I lay down on the floor and slept the dreamless and somehow peaceful sleep of the vanquished.
When I awoke and fully remembered my position, it was with the calm determination to continue my search. If there would be no escape for me, at least I would not neglect the cause that had brought me to this architectural wilderness. Somewhere in the recess of this cave of caves, my bride awaited, living or dead, and I was bound to search for her. Even as I calculated my remaining rations, I felt sure she must already be dead. I who came living to find life would certainly starve—how much more one who came only to be lost?
I proceeded, minding my route only so much that I should not repeat my windings and waste my effort. I passed countless chambers small and large, as before, built with every variety of material, in baroque ornamentation and barbaric simplicity. I came indeed to a second vertical shaft, alike in all its main features but the passages that extended from it. I passed, as though in a dream, over the same intersecting bridges, amid the same uprushing of warm air. But the height of this shaft disclosed no moonlike spot of light above, and I knew it must be night.
When only two days' small rations remained, I rested and gave thought to how I should meet my end. I was coming to the beginning of a long bodily suffering. I told myself that when weakness overcame me, I would rest as long as necessary; and that when despair dominated my rest, I would rise and walk. By turns, with discipline and fortitude, I might deprive both confusion and famine of their taunts, and brave the face of death.
Yet I had not been without food for more than a day when I was greeted by the strangest of all sights. I had just emerged from a corridor into a capacious portico. To my right stood a massive doorway inscribed with indecipherable figures, while to my left the floor fell away in a series of flights and terraces, the flanking walls spreading further apart with the floor's descent. As I pursued this descent, I saw that the ceiling rose higher and higher, and that I was entering on the outer edge of an incomprehensibly large dome. This ceiling was imbued with a light greater than that of the other rooms passed, the whole of it giving off a uniform but soft radiance that did not diminish as the ceiling rose, although the stone itself became featureless and merged with the light.
At the bottom of the steps and just beyond the last of all terraces, I came to a wood. Stretching limitlessly beyond the near walls were trees, vines and flowers in rich profusion. The very terminating stones of the terrace were covered with moss and separated by wayward grass. And forming the boundary between the terrace and the forest was a small stream overarched by a stone bridge. This bridge was the last object of artificial construction. Beyond it, lay a barely discernible path.
I stopped beside the stream to drink and found the water ice-cold. I saw also, while I rested, that the stream's source lay in a distant waterfall that poured down steadily from an opening high on the wall that faced the forest. And as I looked, I realized I could hear the sounds of living creatures—the hum of insects and the call of birds. In my further wandering among the trees and meadows of the woods, I discovered a variety of fruit. Here then, was the rest I sought, and another day of survival. In drinking, eating and resting, I was soon restored to my former strength if not to hope of escape.
But before I could think so much of escape as to attempt it, the last of all discoveries befell me. In the eternal morning of the forest, I came upon one of those broad stretches of flowered fields that separate the trees and discerned a figure in the distance. In as simple a manner as this, no more than it might have been on the day we first met, I found my bride. We met in the open, beneath the sunny dome of the stone sky, and renewed more than the love that was lost. Nor did we—nor have we—the slightest thought of abandoning so much that is good to venture the intricate and unknowable corridors of the maze that surrounds us. For here with us are those that were lost—lost no more who have found one another—and who resolved as we have done to stay in this retreat, neither knowing nor known to the world.
But I have taken this much thought for those now left behind—that upon the pages of my journal, between the many lines of the maps, I have set down this testimony to record our presence, survival and happiness. I will leave it not far from the portico, where it may remain preserved for some time to come. If anyone shall find this record, he may pass through the great doorway before him and enter the path into the trees—where we or our secret descendants may be found. |
|
|
