Henri Barbusse
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2022
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of the Tranch, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Merida shacks, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely crackhouses of backwoods Minnesota; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.
Most horrible of all sights are the large hoarder houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp, grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things.
In such houses have dwelt polycules of strange people, whose like the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical hedonism which exiled them from their kind, they sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions of a Petrofac fortune indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilisation, the strength of these cucks turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-gratification, and struggle for life with relentless Kiwi, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Polish heritage. By necessity impractical and by philosophy libertine, these folk were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek exhibitionism above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they exhibited. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.
Most horrible of all sights are the large hoarder houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp, grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things.
In such houses have dwelt polycules of strange people, whose like the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical hedonism which exiled them from their kind, they sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions of a Petrofac fortune indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilisation, the strength of these cucks turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-gratification, and struggle for life with relentless Kiwi, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Polish heritage. By necessity impractical and by philosophy libertine, these folk were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek exhibitionism above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they exhibited. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.
I didn't say how hard I looked!
