Diary of Rudolf Gedney

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Diary of Rudolf Gedney

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Rudolf Gedney was the hapless student abducted by elder things during the fateful Miskatonic University expedition to Antarctica in H. P. Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.
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January 22nd 1931

Out of the bottle glass window I see terrific mountains. Professsor Lake’s discovery are astonishing—who knew that such giants, taller by far than the Himalayas, were here in Antarctica?

Knut Heyerdahl, the expedition surveyor and a good friend of mine, knocks the burnt tobacco from the bowl of his meerschaum pipe upon the heel of his boot and glances impatiently at the stove. “It is no good,” he said sadly in his heavy Nordic accent, referring to the stove and its struggle to warm the dining room or boil water. I agreed, with a nonchalant smile (how I wish for a hot drink). “The stove’s pipe is not well connected?” he added, and, as if to confirm Knut’s words, it puffed out a cloud of noxious smoke.

January 23rd 1931

Last night I dreamed that you dreamed of me. My malodorous, snoring mates soon dispelled that blissful image when I woke up. In the bunk house we are packed in like sardines; and there is only one restroom for all of us, it’s a tin bucket filled with frozen s——.

At breakfast we dined from penguin omelette. The egg, when fried, had a red yolk and translucent white, which made it look most unappetising on the plate. Professor Lake, who was sat at the head of the tables, stood up and frowned over his half-moon spectacles, peering at a handwritten page which detailed his plan for our day ahead. “Fellows, we begin our work here in earnest. Thanks to Frank Pabodie and his engineering genius, we have the means to extract core samples from the ice with ease. My hope is to discover evidence of ancient flora and fauna. Today we truly begin our adventure. After our delicious breakfast”—everyone laughed because the penguin omelette tasted, rather revoltingly, of pickled herring—“please assemble wearing the appropriate clothing. I believe it is to be a cold one today. Gentlemen, I believe that hard work, your hard work I mean,” he smiled, “will guarantee the success of our expedition!” I surreptitiously surveyed the audience to gauge how enthusiastic everyone felt about his speechifying, he seemed to have hit the right note however—pour encourager les autres. Afterwards, Knut and I shouldered our way through the press of men to read the foolscap sheet the Professor had tacked to a keg of brandy. Knut was to help position the drill, recording the exact location of each sample, and I was to remain at camp with Professor Lake and help examine the extracted ice cores in the laboratory.

He is a sterling fellow, no doubt, and worthy of his position as our leader. He is totally committed to the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and absolutely dedicated to the expedition and its goal; however, this leaves little room for any jokes (something I always appreciate), which was clear to me and Carroll, another biology student. We spent a dull day using tweezers to pick out likely-looking grit from the ice cores and examining it under a microscope. The work was enlivened when Carroll broke wind loudly, but I had to choke on my guffaws because the Professor was not amused, his nose merely wrinkled and he continued studying a specimen in his petri dish. Our diet of pemmican—fatty corned beef—and peach quarters in syrup is the root cause of the men’s ever present flatulence.

~
Dearest Ethel, forgive me for not writing sooner. I know that many weeks have passed by since that idyllic tea upon your parents’ lawn. When I told your father of our plans and my intended proposal, his response was—well, it was as if he had feared that I would ask.

Our long walk to the salt flats is a sweet memory for me: The rustle and sweep of the willows which overhang the brook—the sea breeze—the beauty of it all was so perfect that I did not tell you of his refusal or my scheme to win fame and fortune——
~

January 23rd 1931—supper

Knut is weary from a day tramping around the sastrugi with his theodolite—— Uh-oh, here comes Mills wearing an unpleasant grin.

“Knut, Rudi,” he said, “I just wanted to remind you two that tomorrow, before breakfast, it’s your turn to collect clean ice for the kitchen.”

“We are aware thank you, Mills”—my sarcastic tone conveying exactly what I thought of him but the idiot didn’t appear to notice, “isn’t that so, Knut?”

“Ja ja,” Knut’s laconic reply had a lugubrious tone. I glanced from Mills’ nasty face to Knut’s face and then followed his gaze outside, I too saw the streaks of grey cloud rolling down the mountains, an Antarctic gale was brewing. Mills minced off giggling, without turning round he waggled his fingers above his shoulder:

“Enjoy, boys!”

January 24th 1931

Today was a good day. At 5a.m. I swung my feet off of my cot and into my reindeer boots, straightened my cavalry coat, a gift from a White Russian whom I met in Hobart—excellent pyjamas—and shuffled off myopically to meet up with Knut. He was waiting for me beside the stove, stamping his feet with either impatience or the chill.

“Think of the task as a necessary evil,” he said cheerfully as I stood before him wiping sleep from my eyes “The wind flowing down from the mountain is even worse than it was last night so we must be careful.” Knut gestured towards our ice gathering equipment: 2 alpenstocks, 2 ice picks, 1 wooden crate, and a sturdy rope. He thrust an alpenstock at me. “Here, take this—ach! What’s up, Rudi?” My face must have been a picture, distaste for the job at hand being uppermost in my thoughts.

“This is madness,” I said, listening with growing despair to the background noise of whistling wind. “And I presume that that dwarf’s coffin is for collecting the ice?”

“Harrumph! You’ll also need these,” Knut proffered to me two spiky horseshoes, “they are crampons,” and he added when he noticed my vacant stare, “they are grips for the feet. Now, Rudi, wrap in your windproof smock. So long as we keep moving our clothing is adequate.” He grasped my bicep and favored me with an encouraging smile: “Let’s get the job over with.”

The wind and cold were simply awful. I sank down upon my canvas knee guards and began to crawl and slither across the snow like an injured invertebrate. The alpenstock was an effective anchor against being blown away, with one hand looped through its strap and the wooden crate skidding behind me on a rope, I began to chip away clean ice. My thoughts wandered to last Christmas, the snow-covered fields beyond her garden gate, and our sleigh ride together. My train of thought says a lot, perhaps, about my flippant outlook on life: What is the point? Well, to love and be loved in return of course! A contrary gust propelled the wooden crate against me. I could have sobbed at the unfairness of it all, instead I raised myself up off of the ice and then lowered myself down onto it with my knees up by my chin. Gradually I accelerated and was swept under Knut’s leaning form . . . and as I sped along I could feel Ethel's arms clasped tightly round my waist, her body pressed against my back, her chin resting upon my shoulder, the rush of the sled, and the whip against my cheek of her perfumed hair, “Rudi, Rudi, Rudi . . .”

January 25th 1931

Professor Lake appointed me overseer of a drilling crew. Our first core struck nothing at all, literally nothing—the drill had bitten through to a subterranean void. What luck! After inserting a quantity of dynamite and retreating well away from the blast radius we blew a hole in the rock. The dust settled to reveal a complex cave system, and inside a frozen tomb which must have lain undisturbed since a time immemorial.  Lowered down into the hole by eager hands I was the first person to drop the several feet to the floor of the cave where my feet crunched upon innumerable shells and fossils, it felt like I was a little boy exploring a trolls’ den littered with the bones of nameless victims. Crouching down I cupped a handful of the brittle deposit, and then let it fall through my fingers until only a green pebble remained in the palm of my hand. I slipped the pebble into a pocket, my prize. Watkins and Knut were the next men to climb down. They passed by me, torch beams probing the dark ahead. Watkins yelped and then whistled at what he saw, a troll, in fact lots of trolls! Others descended into the cave. Together and in silence we gaped at what our torches illuminated. The trolls, incredible vegetable-animal things, filled the cave. They were fossils, of course, but unlike anything imaginable. The expedition, all of us, will be famous forever! Linking our arms together we hollered and cheered, bouncing up and down with delight.  

After I escorted several troll specimens to camp I visited the dogs’ corral, which is next to our huts. The Alaskan dogs are beautiful animals, and my favorite is Pavlova. She came bounding over to me when I called her name. She loves, and expects, the titbit which I invariably bring along with me. Today I proffered her some pemmican—minced animal off-cuts, the detritus of my lunch; its crowning delight was a cow’s aorta, a thumb sized tube of repulsive offal. Pavlova snaffled it eagerly when I “innocently” turned my head away to greet Mills (of all people); “Mills!” I shouted, and raised a hand in greeting, and he too raised his hand until he realized who it was that had called his name, and he slunk back sulkily to the kitchen.

The Professor required my presence in the laboratory tent for the examination of a troll or elder thing—his name for the fossil. Incredibly the troll began to thaw, its granite-like shell metamorphosed into leather, and the viscera inside—— I shall note here a personal observation of my own to add to the comprehensive notes I wrote from his dictation. Due to the intractable nature of the troll’s hide no ordinary surgical tool would cut into it. Professor Lake scored and stabbed at the troll with his scalpel, attempting to form the desired “Y” incision, but he could not cut into it. In frustration he used small hatchet and thumped the troll with a tremendous blow. The hatchet’s blade bit deep into its hide, a clear liquid welled up through the gash and a saffron juice slid down the its barrel chest. Bile rose up inside me and burned at the back of my throat. With difficulty I swallowed the vile mucus gob. 

At dinner we celebrated our find with brandy, an enamel mug each and full to the brim! “Lake,” we cried happily. Lake!” and, “Hooray. Three cheers, three cheers for the Professor!” He was clearly tired from his exertions in the specimen tent, but he beamed triumphantly as he leaned back in his chair.

“We,” began Professor Lake, “have found a wonder which will thrust natural science, Miskatonic University and ourselves into the spotlight. Charles Darwin’s ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES, which informed us of Natural Selection and man’s rise from the amoeba to become the supreme life-form upon this Earth, shall have a new chapter! Our find of the elder things, with its peculiar anatomy, poses some intriguing questions. For life on Earth to exist the Natural Laws: speed of light, gravity, atomic weight, etc., must be precisely as they are. But there is no magic, so how can a creature like an elder thing have existed? The answer, perhaps, is that it was spawned in a different universe. Remember, no magic and no chance, so are there an infinite number of universes and does each one have different Natural Laws? If true, then anything conceivable will come to pass; everything is inevitable.

“To each man his want,” he continued, “academic recognition, publicity, notoriety, and wealth, too.” We hammered cutlery upon the table in rapt joy. “As some of you may know,” added Professor Lake, “I have long cherished the notion that we are not alone in the Cosmos—–” And he said no more. A trickle of blood ran down from one of Professor Lake’s nostrils and, as if not to waste a drop, he created a cup by jutting his lower jaw forward and when his mouth filled the overflow of blood drizzled down his chin. He staggered forward, the plates and cups upon the table strewn everywhere, and collapsed. I watched on utterly stupefied by what I had witnessed. The stove belched out smoke and ash; it was the most dismal sound conceivable and a wordless description for the utter deflation I felt.

January 26th 1931

I woke after an apocalyptic dream. The confusion did not fade with consciousness because I found myself sprawled on a sled, it is on a precipice that is built from titan granite blocks high up in the mountains—I guess many thousands of feet. My legs are folded round each other with their joints at obscene angles. A tunnel runs deep into the rock. I can see crude glyphs that adorn the walls as far as the starlight filters in—no, wait . . . there is luminous phosphorescence down there, saffron in color, which pulses in the dark like a sickly lighthouse beam. Odd shapes are moving down there . . . elder things, vertical zeppelins who gently glide and bump against one another, their many arms—tentacles—dance gracefully, intertwining and caressing one another.

Help me! God, help me—— No one can help me, now or ever. By pushing with my arms I can maneuvre myself to the lip of the precipice. And so over.


Afterward

Rudolf Gedney was a member of the ill-fated 1930 Miskatonic University expedition to Antarctica and the tragic sub-expedition led by the biologist Professor Lake, which disappeared with the loss of so much life. The diary was returned to me by Professor W. Dyer; he must have already shown it to the author H. P. Lovecraft who wove a fantasy based upon the events in the diary. The complete diary charts the rise of insanity, and these pages showcase the diseased ramblings of a young man desperate to win his fortune for love.

E. P., Nantucket, 1953

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