As Sombras sobre Lisboa

Abstract

The story begins with a woman – Martine – being extremely ill, while her lover Perry attempts to help her amidst convulsions and a high fever, during an unnatural thunderous storm in Lisbon. While this happens, Dombé, Perry’s servant, notes that the ground is shaking and opening up before them. Perry interprets the event as the Advent. Later, Comissário Luís Wadington is assigned to investigate a series of ritual murders, one of the victims being Perry himself. In the course of this investigation, Wadington is accompanied by the journalist José Maria Eça de Queiroz. Eça de Queiroz eventually comes to meet Antero de Quental and Carlos Fradique Mendes, who demonstrate a profound knowledge about occultism and, specifically, Chtulhu (as written in the text), eventually reaching the conclusion that the ritual murders are part of a plot to awaken the beast. Eventually, Wadington’s investigation leads him into the tunnels and sewers of the baixa pombalina, where he discovers a naked man on a metallic cauldron, with numerous tubes, cables and mechanisms connected to his body, through which different fluids circulate. Surrounding the man are also strange pieces of machinery, incandescent lights, and metal cylinders, alongside technological marvels of the period, namely a Pacinotti-Gramme electrical generator, a Froment electric motor, and a Worthington piston pump, with the scene invoking a sinister scientific experiment. Indeed, the Advent had arrived, when in Lisbon the storm continued to rage on, accompanied by a sinister yellowish light and ominous shadows, as the city progressively merged with R’lyeh, the home of Chtulhu, about to awaken. The story concludes with Eça de Queiroz awaiting the end of times, with Chtulhu awakening in the tunnels beneath Lisbon, while the machinery, cylinders and other devices stand ready to receive the evil soul of the beast. The story draws on historical figures while introducing fictional elements related to the mythology created by H. P. Lovecraft, mingling the horror of the mythos with scientific practices and innovative technology of the 19th century.