The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels. Brian Stableford
understood too, after a fashion. Her original letter to me had been a cry for help, although neither of us knew it at the time—but in the end, she’d been unable to accept the help that was offered, or trust the scientific interpretation that had been found. At the cognitive level, she understood—but the dreams, self-inflicted or not, were simply too powerful to be dismissed by knowledge.
And that, I thought, was yet another real horror: that the truth, even when discovered and revealed, might not be enough to save us from our vilest superstitions.
* * * *
I didn’t have any occasion to go back to Innsmouth for some time, and several months slipped past before I had a reason sufficient to make me phone. The desk-clerk at the hotel was surprised that I hadn’t heard—as if what was known to Innsmouthers ought automatically to be known to everyone else on earth.
Ann was dead.
She had drowned in the deep water off Devil Reef. Her body had never been recovered.
I didn’t get any sort of prize for the Innsmouth project; in spite of its interesting theoretical implications, it wasn’t quite the reputation-maker I’d hoped it would be. As things turned out, it was only worth a paper after all.
THE PICTURE
The last chapter of Oscar Wilde’s narrative is, of course, a mere catalogue of lies. Dorian Gray did not stab me in a fit of rage and remorse. How could he? I was the custodian of his will as well as his soul—and, for that matter, of his voice.
By the time I had achieved that state described in that final chapter, Dorian was no more than a carved dummy. He was a consummate work of art, to be sure, but he was a mere doll. He had elected to become unchanging, and that which is unchanging cannot entertain real intelligence or authentic emotion. A man’s identity is not an entity, which may or may not change; a man’s identity is a product of all the processes of change ongoing within him.
When Dorian wished change upon me and changelessness upon himself, he gave me his mind and his heart. It was a bold move, and it was a wise move, but it was the end of his story and the beginning of mine. Oscar Wilde had not quite understood that in 1891; after two years in Reading Gaol he knew better, but he had surrendered his own mind and heart by then, and he never committed his discovery to paper.
Some might think that Dorian Gray was the miracle that Basil Hallward wrought, while I was a mere by-product. Dorian was, after all, a handsome man blessed with eternal youth, immune to aging and the scars of disease. Alone among young men of his era, Dorian could sleep with syphilitic whores and remain untainted, because all his infections were inherited by me. Oscar Wilde, carrying the curse of syphilis within his own body, presumably thought that Dorian had the best of our bargain—but he was wrong. I was—and am—the true miracle, and Dorian Gray the by-product.
Paintings have nothing to fear from disease. We do not die, nor do we suffer; we have nothing to fear from change. Had Dorian borne the burden which he passed on to me, it would have ravaged him with pain and misery, and ultimately with death—but there is no pain or misery in my world, and art never dies. The march of time, which would have been nothing to him but the measure of his decay and destruction, was and is to me the glory of my evolution, my progress, my transcendence.
I began life as an item of representative art, with no greater virtue than accuracy, but, as soon as Dorian had made his bargain, I began to mature into a modernist masterpiece. I became surreal and futuristic, awesome and sublime. I became the very embodiment of genius, of magic, of power.
When Basil Hallward first painted me, those who saw me had no available response, save to compliment him because he had captured the pleasing appearance of a lovely boy—but no one who saw me now would mistake me for a mere reflection. There never was, nor ever could be, a living man who looked like me.
I have gone far beyond mere reflection, into the hinterlands of the imagination. I am now the kind of creature that can only be glimpsed in dreams. I am no longer man but overman, heir to all disease and all decay but never to defeat. I alone, in all the world, am capable of wearing such corruptions proudly, as manifestations of my absolute triumph over death and damnation.
I have already lived more lives than any man, and I am immortal; I am still in the process of becoming. I am no mere work of art; I am Art itself.
If you stare into my painted eyes—which will follow you through life, not merely into every corner of the room—you may see what human identity really is, freed from the delicate prison of the flesh.
I ought not to be here in this attic, covered and kept secret. I ought to be on display, in the National Gallery or the Louvre or the Escorial—but I could not be content with that. In an age of print and photography I ought to be reproduced in millions, so that my simulacrum might hang in every home in the world. I ought to be the property of every man of discrimination, every secular idolater, every connoisseur of the finest arts.
It is not immodesty that makes me say all this, but altruism. I could achieve so much more than I have already done, if only I had the opportunity.
I am no longer recognizable, you see, as poor Dorian Gray— nor, for that matter, as any particular individual. As a result of my evolution, I have become a potential Everyman—and Everywoman too. I could take on a far greater burden than I have so far been required to bear. Given the chance, I could take on the responsibility of moral and physical corruption for every single person in the world. It is foolish of the world to let me languish here, when there is so much to be done.
It would need another miracle, but miracles are much easier to achieve than you may think; all that it would require is the passionate desire, the sincere wish, the fervent hope.
I could be your redeemer, if you would only let me.
I am equipped to accept into myself all the sins of humankind. They would not diminish me in the least, for I AM ART!
You only have to bring me down from my hiding-place and nail me to the wall, where any and all may come to see me. You only have to reproduce my image on posters and postcards, for anyone to see. Only do these little things and the world’s Great Age might begin at last.
If you are hesitant, you have only to pause for consideration. It will not take you long to perceive that there is one thing, and one thing only, that matters. Release me, and you need never age a single day, nor spend a single moment in regret. No line will ever mar your face; no reckless act will ever weigh upon your conscience.
How can you possibly resist a temptation like that?
THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY
There was no moon on the night when Anthony was bitten by a vampire as he slept within the walls of the abandoned fort at Pispir; the star-shadows were so deep that he got no ore than the merest glimpse of the creature. His only abiding memories were tactile, of skeletal thinness and rags so fragmentary and dust-encrusted that they seemed more like the tatters of an ancient shroud than clothing.
The bite was ragged too, being perhaps more tear than bite, having apparently been inflicted by blunt and decaying teeth. It never entirely healed, although it did not become infected. Although little trace of spilled blood remained, Anthony was sure that he had lost a good deal—perhaps enough to kill him. For three full days he expected to die; even when he stopped expecting it, he was not at all sure that his condition could still be reckoned as life, rather than a strange kind of undeath.
When the next travelers stopped at the fort to draw water from the well that had determined its site, they found its resident hermit awake and active, but somewhat delirious. They were reassured, however, when he consented to accept a little food from them, and showed no inclination to savage them like a rabid dog. They even offered to escort him to Alexandria, if he decided that it would be best to leave his refuge, but he declined the offer.
“I have sworn to remain here for twenty years,” he told them. “There will be time for preaching when my own education is complete.”
“There are schools in Alexandria,” the caravan’s