PRIMORDIUM NULLA RETRORSUM
Chapter 5
AUTHOR: TowandaBR, Thisbee, Lady Cris Krux
Translation, Lady Cris Krux
DISCLAIMER: All of the characters of the series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" are property of John Landis, Telescene, Coote/Hayes, DirecTV, New Line Television, Space, Action Adventure Network, Goodman/Rosen Productions, and Richmel Productions.
SPOILERS: After HEART OF THE STORM
To all people who keep TLW alive by any means.
Roxana, Santa Crux, Cris, Explorer. Thanks for the reviews and comments.
Also in Portuguese: "PRIMORDIUM NULLA RETRORSUM"
The trip from London to Avebury had not been easy.
The whole time some passenger recognized the well-known adventurer's face that had been shown in the front page of all the main newspapers of the continent. So much attention by strangers was not a surprise, since to have left unharmed a lost expedition for three years was a feat.
But the fame was another person's dream, someone that had not survived to accomplish it.
Unharmed? Each one knows the pain and the delight to be what it is, and the delight of his existence had been extinguished. It had been harvested by incomprehensible forces that governed the plateau, while the stabbing pain of the loss remained, coming back more and more intense to each memory of those big blue eyes, the sarcastic laughter that illuminated his now extinguished existence.
But we all know that nothing is as bad as it seems, everything can be worst and that was an idea that bitter life had being inculcating in his heart.
The occurrences in London had not been the best ones, and his mother's message asking his immediate return to Avebury certainly had not contributed in anything to improve his condition.
The entrance of the Roxton's manor was the same. The great gate made of twisted iron, the road flanked by pine trees with the imposing staircase at the end, the pillars, the balcony, the great door.
There he had spent all his childhood and part of his youth, there he had survived great losses and he had found great happiness, but to enter without knocking on the door didn't seem appropriate.
He took a deep breath, lifted the latch and dropped it on the door in a shy, low sound, as if he was afraid to be answered. The door was opened by a familiar, sad and aged face that for a long time had not been amongst his thoughts.
"John, it's good that you attended our call. Lady Roxton is not well at all."
And he saw himself being guided, for whom he considered like a second father, Coburn, the faithful Roxton's butler for almost half century, to the second floor of the house where he had grown up.
Coburn stopped in front of the door of the main room and in a low voice tone prepared John for the scene that would face.
"Lady Roxton worsened a lot in the last few days. Her health was never the same again since the tragedy that affected all of us. The tuberculosis ran out of control. Her days are almost over... Nothing can be done... I'm sorry!"
Roxton knew about the disease against which his mother had been fighting for years. He had always been optimist about that, because Lady Roxton was always very strong and she fought bravely against the infection. The news could not be worse.
"Your departure and disappearance were too much for your mother. We thought we had lost you until we got the news from the newspapers. Seeing you now will affect her, we hope this is a way to make her last moments amongst us more peaceful."
And with these words, he opened the door of the dark room and saw the four posted bed where his mother was laying down, thin, pale, with an expression of deep pain. He got closer.
"Mother?" - he asked, taking her small hand, whose temperature accused her feverish state.
"My son! Are you all right? I thought that you wouldn't arrive on time."
"Mother, are you all right? What am I saying? I can see that you are not. Forgive me for abandoning you, I know I was a terrible son, but my pain was too big, I couldn't support the accusing glances. Everybody blamed me for William's accident and for dad's heart attack, I..."
Lady Roxton interrupted him.
"John, everything was a terrible accident, you are not guilty of anything. I'm so sorry that you spent all that time tormented by those feelings..." – She coughed, coughed vigorously, to the point of blood spilling from her lips - "Losing them was very difficult for me, and thinking that I had lost you was even more difficult. You are the last of us. I have a request..." - and she continued to cough, scaring Roxton, who had never seen his mother in that condition.
"Mom, we will talk to each other later, I need to call the doctor now. Rest while he doesn't get here. We will speak to each other when you feel better."
"No, my son, my time with you is getting extinguished fast. Soon I will be with your father and William. Don't cry, dear, I'm happy that I'll meet them again, someday you'll come too." – She said while coughing. "You are the last one, you need to assume your title... the family businesses... the properties... get married with a good girl... to be happy in... in... England..." – Suddenly she became silent, giving herself into spasms that got stronger and stronger, scaring Roxton even more.
"Mother!"
"Please,... say... that you will do it!" - She pleaded in a voice that soon extinguished.
Roxton took her hand once again and said, without even thinking.
"Yes, I will."
The woman continued coughing, contorting in a frightening way, until she stopped. Her strength was over.
More than fast, Coburn came to their encounter, but nothing else could be done.
Lady Roxton was gone.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Please R&R
About the title Primordium Nulla Retrorsum
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in Chapter 9 of The Lost World:
"This way, my young friend," said he; "vestigia nulla retrorsum. Never look rearwards, but always to our glorious goal."
The translation of Primordium Nulla Retrorsum to Portuguese means something like: Don't go back to the beginning or don't go back to the origin.
I was curious myself about the phrase and I asked about it. Joseph Brazauskas, a gentle translator (Latin to English) answered as follow.
Primordium Nulla Retrorsum
Joseph Brazauskas
Answer/comment: There's no turning back.
Explanation:
'Nulla' presumably qualifies some such substantive as 'vestigia'. The phrase seems to be an allusion to Horace, Epistulae, 1.1.70ff.:
Quod si me populus Romanus forte roget, cur
non, ut porticibus, sic iudiciis fruar isdem,
nec sequar aut fugiam quae diligit ipse vel odit,
olim quod volpes aegroto cauta leoni
respondit referam: 'Quia me vestigia terrent,
omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum.'
There are also extant some fragments of the satirist
Lucilius (180-102 BCE), whence Horace almost certainly drew
his inspiration for his own version of this Aesopic fable
(Warmington, 30.1111ff.):
leonem aegrotum et lassum
inluvies scabies oculos huic deque petigo
conscendere
tristem et corruptum scabie et porriginis plenum
Deducta tunc voce leo "cur te ipsa venire
non vis huc?"
"Sed tamen hoc dicas quid sit, si noenu molestum est."
"Quid sibi vult, quare fit ut introversus et ad te
spectent atque ferant vestigia se omnia prosus?"
The moral is that, once one has committed oneself to a life of abnormalcy and excess, it is impossible to return to the natural one to which one was born.