The Crawling Chaos

Of the pleasures and pains of opium much has been written. The ecstasies and 
horrors of De Quinceyandthe paradis artificiels of Baudelaire are preserved 
and interpreted with an art which makes them immortal, and the world knows well 
the beauty, the terror and the mystery of those obscure realms into which the 
inspired dreamer is transported. But much as has been told, no man has yet dared 
intimate the nature of the phantasms thus unfolded to the mind, or hint at the 
direction of the unheard-of roads along whose ornate and exotic course the 
partaker of the drug is so irresistibly borne. De Quincey was drawn back into 
Asia, that teeming land of nebulous shadows whose hideous antiquity is so 
impressive that "the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth 
in the individual," but farther than that he dared not go. Those who have gone 
farther seldom returned, and even when they have, they have been either silent 
or quite mad. I took opium but once -- in the year of the plague, when doctors 
sought to deaden the agonies they could not cure. There was an overdose -- my 
physician was worn out with horror and exertion -- and I travelled very far 
indeed. In the end I returned and lived, but my nights are filled with strange 
memories, nor have I ever permitted a doctor to give me opium again.
The pain and pounding in my head had been quite unendurable when the drug 
was administered, Of the future I had no heed; to escape, whether by cure, 
unconsciousness, or death, was all that concerned me. I was partly delirious, so 
that it is hard to place the exact moment of transition, but I think the effect 
must have begun shortly before the pounding ceased to be painful. As I have 
said, there was an overdose; so my reactions were probably far from normal. The 
sensation of falling, curiously dissociated from the idea of gravity or 
direction, was paramount; though there was subsidiary impression of unseen 
throngs in incalculable profusion, throngs of infinitely di-verse nature, but 
all more or less related to me. Sometimes it seemed less as though I were 
falling, than as though the universe or the ages were falling past me. Suddenly 
my pain ceased, and I began to associate the pounding with an external rather 
than internal force. The falling had ceased also, giving place to a sensation of 
uneasy, temporary rest; and when I listened closely, I fancied the pounding was 
that of the vast, inscrutable sea as its sinister, colossal breakers lacerated 
some desolate shore after a storm of titanic magnitude. Then I opened my eyes. 
For a moment my surroundings seemed confused, like a projected image 
hopelessly out of focus, but gradually I realised my solitary presence in a 
strange and beautiful room lighted by many windows. Of the exact nature of the 
apartment I could form no idea, for my thoughts were still far from settled, but 
I noticed van-coloured rugs and draperies, elaborately fashioned tables, chairs, 
ottomans, and divans, and delicate vases and ornaments which conveyed a 
suggestion of the exotic without being actually alien. These things I noticed, 
yet they were not long uppermost in my mind. Slowly but inexorably crawling upon 
my consciousness and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear 
of the unknown; a fear all the greater because I could not analyse it, and 
seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some 
nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent. 
Presently I realised that the direct symbol and excitant of my fear was the 
hideous pounding whose incessant reverberations throbbed maddeningly against my 
exhausted brain. It seemed to come from a point outside and below the edifice in 
which I stood, and to associate itself with the most terrifying mental images. I 
felt that some horrible scene or object lurked beyond the silk-hung walls, and 
shrank from glancing through the arched, latticed windows that opened so 
bewilderingly on every hand. Perceiving shutters attached to these windows, I 
closed them all, averting my eyes from the exterior as I did so. Then, employing 
a flint and steel which I found on one of the small tables, I lit the many 
candles reposing about the walls in arabesque sconces. The added sense of 
security brought by closed shutters and artificial light calmed my nerves to 
some degree, but I could not shut out the monotonous pounding. Now that I was 
calmer, the sound became as fascinating as it was fearful, and I felt a 
contradictory desire to seek out its source despite my still powerful shrinking. 
Opening a portiere at the side of the room nearest the pounding, I beheld a 
small and richly draped corridor ending in a cavern door and large oriel window. 
To this window I was irresistibly drawn, though my ill-defined apprehensions 
seemed almost equally bent on holding me back. As I approached it I could see a 
chaotic whirl of waters in the distance. Then, as I attained it and glanced out 
on all sides, the stupendous picture of my surroundings burst upon me with full 
and devastating force.
I beheld such a sight as I had never beheld before, and which no living 
person can have seen save in the delirium of fever or the inferno of opium. The 
building stood on a narrow point of land -- or what was now a narrow point of 
land -- fully three hundred feet above what must lately have been a seething 
vortex of mad waters. On either side of the house there fell a newly washed-out 
precipice of red earth, whilst ahead of me the hideous waves were still rolling 
in frightfully, eating away the land with ghastly monotony and deliberation. Out 
a mile or more there rose and fell menacing breakers at least fifty feet in 
height, and on the far horizon ghoulish black clouds of grotesque contour were 
resting and brooding like unwholesome vultures. The waves were dark and 
purplish, almost black, and clutched at the yielding red mud of the bank as if 
with uncouth, greedy hands. I could not but feel that some noxious marine mind 
had declared a war of extermination upon all the solid ground, perhaps abetted 
by the angry sky.
Recovering at length from the stupor into which this unnatural spectacle had 
thrown me, I realized that my actual physical danger was acute. Even whilst I 
gazed, the bank had lost many feet, and it could not be long before the house 
would fall undermined into the awful pit of lashing waves. Accordingly I 
hastened to the opposite side of the edifice, and finding a door, emerged at 
once, locking it after me with a curious key which had hung inside. I now beheld 
more of the strange region about me, and marked a singular division which seemed 
to exist in the hostile ocean and firmament. On each side of the jutting 
promontory different conditions held sway. At my left as I faced inland was a 
gently heaving sea with great green waves rolling peacefully in under a brightly 
shining sun. Something about that sun’s nature and position made me shudder, but 
I could not then tell, and cannot tell now, what it was. At my right also was 
the sea, but it was blue, calm, and only gently undulating, while the sky above 
it was darker and the washed-out bank more nearly white than reddish. 
I now turned my attention to the land, and found occasion for fresh 
surprise; for the vegetation resembled nothing I had ever seen or read about. It 
was apparently tropical or at least sub-tropical -- a conclusion borne out by 
the intense heat of the air. Sometimes I thought I could trace strange analogies 
with the flora of my native land, fancying that the well-known plants and shrubs 
might assume such forms under a radical change of climate; but the gigantic and 
omnipresent palm trees were plainly foreign. The house I had just left was very 
small -- hardly more than a cottage -- but its material was evidently marble, 
and its architecture was weird and composite, involving a quaint fusion of 
Western and Eastern forms. At the corners were Corinthian columns, but the red 
tile roof was like that of a Chinese pagoda. From the door inland there 
stretched a path of singularly white sand, about four feet wide, and lined on 
either side with stately palms and unidentifiable flowering shrubs and plants. 
It lay toward the side of the promontory where the sea was blue and the bank 
rather whitish. Down this path I felt impelled to flee, as if pursued by some 
malignant spirit from the pounding ocean. At first it was slightly uphill, then 
I reached a gentle crest. Behind me I saw the scene I had left; the entire point 
with the cottage and the black water, with the green sea on one side and the 
blue sea on the other, and a curse unnamed and unnamable lowering over all. I 
never saw it again, and often wonder.... After this last look I strode ahead and 
surveyed the inland panorama before me.
The path, as I have intimated, ran along the right-hand shore as one went 
inland. Ahead and to the left I now viewed a magnificent valley comprising 
thousands of acres, and covered with a swaying growth of tropical grass higher 
than my head. Almost at the limit of vision was a colossal palm tree which 
seemed to fascinate and beckon me. By this time wonder and’ escape from the 
imperilled peninsula had largely dissipated my fear, but as I paused and sank 
fatigued to the path, idly digging with my hands into the warm, whitish-golden 
sand, a new and acute sense of danger seized me. Some terror in the swishing 
tall grass seemed added to that of the diabolically pounding sea, and I started 
up crying aloud and disjointedly, "Tiger? Tiger? Is it Tiger? Beast? Beast? Is 
it a Beast that I am afraid of?" My mind wandered back to an ancient and 
classical story of tigers which I had read; I strove to recall the author, but 
had difficulty. Then in the midst of my fear I remembered that the tale was by 
Rudyard Kipling; nor did the grotesqueness of deeming him an ancient author 
occur to me; I wished for the volume containing this story, and had almost 
started back toward the doomed cottage to procure it when my better sense and 
the lure of the palm prevented me.
Whether or not I could have resisted the backward beckoning without the 
counter-fascination of the vast palm tree, I do not know. This attraction was 
now dominant, and I left the path and crawled on hands and knees down the 
valley’s slope despite my fear of the grass and of the serpents it might 
contain. I resolved to fight for life and reason as long as possible against all 
menaces of sea or land, though I sometimes feared defeat as the maddening swish 
of the uncanny grasses joined the still audible and irritating pounding of the 
distant breakers. I would frequently pause and put my hands to my ears for 
relief, but could never quite shut out the detestable sound. It was, as it 
seemed to me, only after ages that I finally dragged myself to the beckoning 
palm tree and lay quiet beneath its protecting shade.
There now ensued a series of incidents which transported me to the opposite 
extremes of ecstasy and horror; incidents which I tremble to recall and dare not 
seek to interpret. No sooner had I crawled beneath the overhanging foliage of 
the palm, than there dropped from its branches a young child of such beauty as I 
never beheld before. Though ragged and dusty, this being bore the features of a 
faun or demigod, and seemed almost to diffuse a radiance in the dense shadow of 
the tree. It smiled and extended its hand, but before I could arise and speak I 
heard in the upper air the exquisite melody of singing; notes high and low blent 
with a sublime and ethereal harmoniousness. The sun had by this time sunk below 
the horizon, and in the twilight I saw an aureole of lambent light encircled the 
child’s head. Then in a tone of silver it addressed me: "It is the end. They 
have come down through the gloaming from the stars. Now all is over, and beyond 
the Arinurian streams we shall dwell blissfully in Teloe. 
" As the child spoke, I 
beheld a soft radiance through the leaves of the palm tree, and rising, greeted 
a pair whom I knew to be the chief singers among those I had heard. A god and 
goddess they must have been, for such beauty is not mortal; and they took my 
hands, saying, "Come, child, you have heard the voices, and all is well. In 
Teloe beyond the Milky Way and the Arinurian streams are cities all of amber and 
chalcedony. And upon their domes of many facets glisten the images of strange 
and beautiful stars. Under the ivory bridges of Teloe flow rivers of liquid gold 
bearing pleasure-barges bound for blossomy Cytharion of the Seven Suns. And in 
Teloe and Cytharion abide only youth, beauty, and pleasure, nor are any sounds 
heard, save of laughter, song, and the lute. Only the gods dwell in Teloe of the 
golden rivers, but among them shalt thou dwell."
As I listened, enchanted, I suddenly became aware of a change in my 
surroundings. The palm tree, so lately overshadowing my exhausted form, was now 
some distance to my left and considerably below me. I was obviously floating in 
the atmosphere; companioned not only by the strange child and the radiant pair, 
but by a constantly increasing throng of half-luminous, vine-crowned youths and 
maidens with wind-blown hair and joyful countenance. We slowly ascended 
together, as if borne on a fragrant breeze which blew not from the earth but 
from the golden nebulae, and the child whispered in my ear that I must look 
always upward to the pathways of light, and never backward to the sphere I had 
just left. The youths and maidens now chanted mellifluous choriambics to the 
accompaniment of lutes, and I felt enveloped in a peace and happiness more 
profound than any I had in life imagined, when the intrusion of a single sound 
altered my destiny and shattered my soul. Through the ravishing strains of the 
singers and the lutanists, as if in mocking, daemoniac concord, throbbed from 
gulfs below the damnable, the detestable pounding of that hideous ocean. As 
those black breakers beat their message into my ears I forgot the words of the 
child and looked back, down upon the doomed scene from which I thought I had 
escaped.
Down through the aether I saw the accursed earth slowly turning, ever 
turning, with angry and tempestuous seas gnawing at wild desolate shores and 
dashing foam against the tottering towers of deserted cities. And under a 
ghastly moon there gleamed sights I can never describe, sights I can never 
forget; deserts of corpselike clay and jungles of ruin and decadence where once 
stretched the populous plains and villages of my native land, and maelstroms of 
frothing ocean where once rose the mighty temples of my forefathers. Round the 
northern pole steamed a morass of noisome growths and miasmal vapours, hissing 
before the onslaught of the ever-mounting waves that curled and fretted from the 
shuddering deep. Then a rending report clave the night, and athwart the desert of 
deserts appeared a smoking rift. Still the black ocean foamed and gnawed, eating 
away the desert on either side as the rift in the center widened and widened. 
There was now no land left but the desert, and still the fuming ocean ate 
and ate. All at once I thought even the pounding sea seemed afraid of something, 
afraid of dark gods of the inner earth that are greater than the evil god of 
waters, but even if it was it could not turn back; and the desert had suffered 
too much from those nightmare waves to help them now. So the ocean ate the last 
of the land and poured into the smoking gulf, thereby giving up all it had ever 
conquered. From the new-flooded lands it flowed again, uncovering death and 
decay; and from its ancient and immemorial bed it trickled loathsomely, 
uncovering nighted secrets of the years when Time was young and the gods unborn. 
Above the waves rose weedy remembered spires. The moon laid pale lilies of light 
on dead London, and Paris stood up from its damp grave to be sanctified with 
star-dust. Then rose spires and monoliths that were weedy but not remembered; 
terrible spires and monoliths of lands that men never knew were lands. 
There was not any pounding now, but only the unearthly roaring and hissing 
of waters tumbling into the rift. The smoke of that rift had changed to steam, 
and almost hid the world as it grew denser and denser. It seared my face and 
hands, and when I looked to see how it affected my companions I found they had 
all disappeared. Then very suddenly it ended, and I knew no more till I awaked 
upon a bed of convalescence. As the cloud of steam from the Plutonic gulf 
finally concealed the entire surface from my sight, all the firmament shrieked 
at a sudden agony of mad reverberations which shook the trembling aether. In one 
delirious flash and burst it happened; one blinding, deafening holocaust of 
fire, smoke, and thunder that dissolved the wan moon as it sped outward to the 
void.
And when the smoke cleared away, and I sought to look upon the earth, I 
beheld against the background of cold, humorous stars only the dying sun and the 
pale mournful planets searching for their sister.
Category:Fiction