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H.P. Lovecraft Short Horror Stories · H.P. Lovecraft Short Horror Stories

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  A reminiscence of Doctor Samuel Johnson by H. P. Lovecraft. The privilege
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  of reminiscence, however, rambling or tiresome, is one generally allowed to the
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  very aged. Indeed, tis frequently by means of such recollections that the obscure
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  occurrences of history and the lesser anecdotes of the great are transmitted to posterity.
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  Though many of my readers have at times observed and remarked a sort of antique
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  flow in my style of writing, it hath pleased me to pass amongst the
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  members of this generation as a young man, giving out the fiction that I
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  was born in eighteen ninety in America. I am, now, however,
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  resolved to unburden myself of a secret which I have hitherto kept through dread of
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  incredulity, and to impart to the public a true knowledge of my long years,
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  in order to gratify their taste for authentic information of an age with whose
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  famous personages I was on familiar terms. Be it then known that I was
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  born on the family estate in Devonshire of the tenth day of August sixteen hundred
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  and ninety, or in the new Gregorian style of reckoning the twentieth of August,
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  being therefore now in my two hundred and twenty eighth year. Coming early
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  to London, I saw as a child many of the celebrated men of King
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  William's reign, including the lamented mister Dryden, who sat much at the tables
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  of Will's coffee house with mister Addison and doctor Swift. I later became very
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  well acquainted and was an even more familiar friend to mister Pope, whom I
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  knew and respected till the day of his death. But since it is of
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  my more recent associate, the late doctor Johnson, that I am at this
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  time desired to write, I will pass over my youth for the present.
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  I had first knowledge of the doctor in May of the year seventeen thirty eight,
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  though I did not at that time meet him. Mister Pope had just
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  completed his epilogue to his satires, the piece beginning not twice a twelvemonth you
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  appear in print, and had arranged for its publication. On the very day
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  it appeared, there was also published a satire in imitation of juvenal entitled London,
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  by the then unknown Johnson, and this so struck the town that many
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  gentlemen of taste declared it was the work of a greater poet than mister Pope.
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  Notwithstanding what some detractors have said of mister Pope's petty jealousy, he gave
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  the verses of his new rival no small praise, and, having learnt through
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  mister Richardson, who the poet was, told me that mister Johnson would soon
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  be deterred. I had no personal acquaintance with the doctor till seventeen sixty three,
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  when I was presented to him at the Miter Tavern by mister James Boswell,
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  a young scotchman of excellent family and great learning, but small wit,
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  whose metrical effusions I had sometimes revised. Doctor Johnson as I beheld him,
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  was a full pursy man, very ill dressed, and of slovenly aspect.
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  I recall him to have worn a bushy bobwig, untied and without powder,
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  and much too small for his head. His clothes were of rusty brown,
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  much wrinkled, and with more than one button missing. His face, too
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  full to be handsome, was likewise marred by the effects of some scrofulous disorder,
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  and his head was continually rolling about in a sort of convulsive way of
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  this infirmity. Indeed, I had known before, having heard of it from
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  mister Pope, who took the trouble to make particular inquiries. Being nearly seventy
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  three full nineteen years older than doctor Johnson, I say, doctor, though
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  his degree came not till two years afterwards, I naturally expected him to have
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  some regard for my age, and was therefore not in that fear of him
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  which others confessed. On my asking him what he thought of my favorable notice
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  of his dictionary in the Londoner, my periodical paper, he said, Sir,
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  I possess no recollection of having perused your paper, and have not a
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  great interest in the opinions of the less thoughtful part of mankind. Being more
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  than a little piqued at the incivility of one whose celebrity made me solicitous of
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  his apperation, I ventured to retaliate in kind, and told him I was
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  surprised that a man of sense should judge the thoughtfulness of one whose productions he
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  admitted never having read, why, Sir, replied Johnson, I do not
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  require to become familiar with a man's writings in order to estimate the superficiality of
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  his attainments, when he plainly skews it by his eagerness to mention his own
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  productions in the first question he puts to me. Having thus become friends,
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  we conversed on many matters. When to agree with him, I said I
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  was distrustful of the authenticity of Ocean's poems, mister Johnson said that, Sir,
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  does not do your understanding particular credit. For what all the town is
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  sensible of is no great discovery for a grub street critic to make. You
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  might as well say you have a strong suspicion that Milton wrote Paradise Lost.
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  I thereafter saw Johnson very frequently, most often at meetings of the Literary Club,
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  which was founded the next year by the Doctor. Together with mister Burke,
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  the parliamentary orator, mister Boklerk, a gentleman of fashion, Mister Langton,
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  a pious man and captain of militia, Sir J. Reynolds, the
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  widely known painter, Doctor Goldsmith, the prose and poetic writer, Doctor Nugent,
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  father in law to mister Burke, Sir John Hawkins, mister Anthony Charmier,
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  and myself We assembled generally at seven o'clock of an evening once a week
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  at the Turk's Head in Gerard Street. Soho till that tavern was sold and
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  made into a private dwelling, after which event we moved our gatherings successively to
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  Princes in Sackville Street, Lettillier's in Dover Street, and Parslow's and the Thatched
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  House in Saint James's Street. In these meetings we preserved a remarkable degree of
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  amity and tranquility, which contrasts very favorably with some of the dissensions and disruptions
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  I observe in the literary and amateur press associations of to day. This tranquility
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  was the more remarkable because we had amongst us gentlemen of very opposed opinions.
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  Doctor Johnson and I, as well as many others, were high Tories,
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  whilst mister Burke was a Whig and against the American War, many of his
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  speeches on that subject having been widely published. The least congenial member was one
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  of the founders, Sir John Hawkins, who hath since written many misrepresentations of
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  our society. Sir John, an eccentric fellow, once declined to pay his
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  part of the reckoning for supper, because twas his custom at home to eat
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  no supper. Later, he insulted mister Burke in so intolerable a manner that
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  we all took pains to show our disapproval, after which incident he came no
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  more to our meetings. However, he never openly fell out with the doctor,
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  and was the executor of his will, though mister Boswell and others have
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  reason to question the genuineness of his attachment. Other and later members of the
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  club were mister David Garrick, the actor and early friend of doctor Johnson,
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  Messrs Thomas and Joseph Wharton, doctor Adam Smith, doctor Percy, author of
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  the Reliquists, mister Edward Gibbon, the historian, Doctor Burney the musician,
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  mister Malone the critic, and mister Boswell. Mister Garrick obtained admittance only with
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  difficulty for the doctor, notwithstanding his great friendship, was forever affecting to decry
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  the stage and all things connected with it. Johnson indeed had a most singular
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  habit of speaking for Davy when others were against him, and of arguing against
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  him when others were for him. I have no doubt that he sincerely loved
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  mister Garrick, for he never alluded to him as he did to Fotos,
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  who was a very coarse fellow. Despite his comic genius, mister Gibbons was
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  none too well liked, for he had an odious sneering way, which offended
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  even those of us who most admired his historical productions. Mister Goldsmith, a
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  little man, very vain of his dress, and very deficient and brilliancy of
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  conversation, was my particular favorite, since I was equally unable to shine in
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  the discourse. He was vastly jealous of doctor Johnson, though none the less
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  liking and respecting him. I remember that once a foreigner, a German I
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  think, was in our company, and that whilst Goldsmith was speaking, he
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  observed the doctor preparing to utter something unconsciously, looking upon Goldsmith as a mere
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  encumbrance when compared to the greater man. The foreigner bluntly interrupted him and incurred
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  his lasting hostility by crying, hush, doctor Johnson is going to speak in
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  this luminous company. I was tolerated more because of my years than for my
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  wit or learning, being no match at all for the rest my friendship for
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  the celebrated Monsieur Voltaire was ever a cause of annoyance to the doctor, who
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  was deeply Orthodox, and who used to say of the French philosopher vir est
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  akarimi ingenia et pocaram literarum, mister Boswell, a little teasing fellow whom I
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  had known for some time previously, used to make sport of my awkward manners
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  and old fashioned wig and clothes. Once coming in a little the worse for
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  wine, to which he was addicted, he endeavored to lampoon me by means
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  of an impromptu in verse writ on the surface of the table, But lacking
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  the aid he usually had in his composition, he made a bad grammatical blunder.
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  I told him he should not try to pascuonad the source of his poesy.
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  At another time, Bozzi, as we used to call him, complained
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  of my harshness toward new writers in the articles I prepared for the monthly review.
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  He said, I pushed every aspirant off the slopes of Parnassus. Sir,
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  I replied, you are mistaken. They who lose their hold do so
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  from their own want of strength, but desiring to conceal their weakness. They
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  attribute the absence of success to the first critic that mentions them. I am
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  glad to recall that doctor Johnson upheld me in this matter. Doctor Johnson was
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  second to no man in the pains he took to revise the bad verses of
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  others. Indeed, tis said that in the book of poor blind old Missus
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  Williams there are scarce two lines which are not the doctor's. At one time
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  Johnson recited to me some lines by a servant to the Duke of Leeds,
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  which had so amused him that he had got them by heart there on the
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  Duke's wedding, and so much resemble in quality the work of other and more
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  recent poetic dunces that I cannot forbear copying them. When the Duke of Leeds
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  shall marry it be to a fine young lady of high quality. How happy
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  will that gentlewoman be in his grace of leeds good company. I asked the
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  doctor if he had ever tried making sense of this piece, and upon his
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  saying he had not, I amused myself with the following amendment of it.
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  When gallant Leeds auspiciously shall wed the virtuous fair of ancient lineage bread. How
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  must the maid rejoice with conscious pride to win so great an husband to her
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  side. On showing this to Doctor Johnson, he said, Sir, you
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  have straightened out the feat, but you have put neither wit nor poetry into
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  the lines. It would afford me gratification to tell more of my experiences with
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  Doctor Johnson and his circle of wits. But I am an old man and
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  easily fatigued. I seem to ramble along without much logic or continuity when I
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  endeavor to recall the past, and I fear I light upon but few incidents
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  which others have not before discussed. Should my present recollections meet with favor,
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  I might later set down some further anecdotes of old times, which I am
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  the only survivor. I recall many things of Sam Johnson and his club,
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  having kept up my membership in the latter long after the doctor's death, at
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  which I sincerely mourned. I remember how John Burgoyne Esquire, the general whose
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  dramatic and poetical works were printed after his death, was blackballed by three votes,
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  probably because of his unfortunate defeat in the American War. At Saratoga.
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  Poor John his son fared better, I think, and was made a baronet.
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  But I am very tired. I am old, very old, and
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  it's time for my afternoon nap. And of a reminiscence of Doctor Samuel Johnson.
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  Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H. P. Lovecraft. I have
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  often wondered if the majority of mankind ever paused to reflect upon the occasionally titanic
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  significance of dreams and of the obscure world to which they belong. Whilst the
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  greater number of our nocturnal visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections
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  of our waking experiences. Freud to the contrary, with his puerile symbolism,
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  there are still a certain remainder whose immundane and ethereal character permit of no ordinary
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  interpretation, and whose vaguely exciting and disquieting effect suggests possible minute glimpses into a
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  sphere of mental existence, no less important than physical life, yet separated from
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  that life by an all but impassable barrier. From my experience, I cannot
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  doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in
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  another and uncorporeal life, of far different nature from the life we know,
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  and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking. From
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  those blurred and fragmentary memories, we may infer much yet prove little. We
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  may guess that in dreams life, matter, and vitality, as the Earth
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  knows, such things are not necessarily constant, and that time and space do
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  not exist as our waking selves comprehend them. Sometimes I believe that this less
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  material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous
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  globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon. It was from a youthful
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  reverie filled with speculations of this sort, that I arose one afternoon in the
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  winter of nineteen hundred and nineteen o one, when to the state psychopathic institution
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  in which I served as an intern, was brought the man whose case has
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  ever since haunted me so unceasingly. His name, as given on the records,
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  was Joe Slater or Slater, and his appearance was that of the typical
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  denizen of the Catskill Mountain region, one of those strange repellent scions of a
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  primitive colonial peasant stock, whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses
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  of a little traveled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of barbaric
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  degeneracy rather than advance with their more fortunately placed brethren of the thickly settled districts.
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  Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of white
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  trash in the South, law and morals are non existent, and their general
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  mental status is probably below that of any other section of Native American people.
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  Joe Slater, who came to the Institution in the vigilant custody of four state
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  policemen, and who was described as a highly dangerous character, certainly presented no
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  evidence of his perilous disposition when I first beheld him. Though well above the
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  middle stature and of somewhat brawny frame, he was given an absurd appearppearance of
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  harmless stupidity by the pale, sleepy blueness of his small, watery eyes,
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  the scantness of his neglected and never shaven growth of yellow beard, and the
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  listless drooping of his heavy nether lip. His age was unknown, since among
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  his kind neither family records nor permanent family ties exist. But from the baldness
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  of his head in front, and from the decayed condition of his teeth,
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  the head surgeon wrote him down as a man of about forty. From the
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  medical and court documents we learned all that could be gathered of his case.
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  This man, a vagabond hunter and trapper, had always been strange in the
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  eyes of his primitive associates. He had habitually slept at night beyond the ordinary
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  time, and upon waking, would often talk of unknown things in a manner
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  so bizarre as to inspire fear even in the hearts of an unimaginative populace.
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  Not that his form of language was at all unusual, for he never spoke
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  save in the debased petois of his environment. But the tone and tenor of
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  his utterances were of such mysterious wildness that none might listen without apprehension. He
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  himself was generally as terrified and baffled as his auditors, and within an hour
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  after awakening would forget all that he had said, or at least all that
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  had caused him to say what he did, relapsing into a bovine, half
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  amiable normality. Like that of the other hill dwellers. As Slater grew older,
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  it appeared his matudinal aberrations had gradually increased in frequency and violence till about
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  a month before his arrival at the institution had occurred the shocking tragedy which caused
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  his arrest by the authorities. One day, near noon after a profound sleep
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  begun in a whiskey de bauque at about five of the previous afternoon, the
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  man had roused himself most suddenly with u eulations so horrible and unearthly that they
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  brought several neighbors to his cabin, a filthy sty where he dwelt with a
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  family as indescribable as himself. Rushing out into the snow, he had flung
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  his arms aloft and commenced a series of leaps directly upward in the air,
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  the while shouting his determination to reach some quote big, big cabin with brightness
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  in the roof and walls and floor, and the loud queer music far away
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  unquote. As two men of moderate size sought to restrain him, he had
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  struggled with maniacal force and fury, screaming of his desire and need to find
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  and kill a certain quote thing that shines an n and shakes and laughs at
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  length. After temporarily felling one of his detainers with a sudden blow, he
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  had flung himself upon the other in a demonaic ecstasy of bloodthirstiness, shrieking fiendishly
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  that he would quote jump high in the air and burn his way through anything
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  that stopped him unquote. Family and neighbors had now fled in a panic,
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  and when the more courageous of them returned, Slatter was gone, leaving behind
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  an unrecognizable pulp like thing that had been a living man but an hour before.
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  None of the mountaineers had dared to pursue him, and it is likely
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  that they would have welcomed his death from the cold, But when several mornings
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  later they heard his screams from a distant ravine, they realized that he had
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  somehow managed to survive, and that his removal in one way or another would
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  be necessary. Then had followed an armed searching party, whose purpose, whatever
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  it may have been, originally became that of a sheriff's posse. After one
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  of the seldom popular state troopers had by accident observed, then questioned, and
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  finally joined the seekers. On the third day, Slater was found unconscious in
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  the hollow of tree and taken to the nearest jail, where alienists from Albany
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  examined him. As soon as his senses returned to them, he told a
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  simple story. He had, he said, gone to sleep one afternoon about
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  sundown, after drinking much liquor. He had awakened to find himself standing bloody
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  handed in the snow before his cabin, the mangled corpse of his neighbor,
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  Peter Slater at his feet. Horrified, he had taken to the woods in
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  a vague effort to escape from the scene of what must have been his crime.
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  Beyond these things, he seemed to know nothing, nor could the expert
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  questioning of his interrogators bring out a single additional fact. That night, Slater
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  slept quietly, and the next morning he awakened with no singular feature save a
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  certain alteration of expression. Doctor Barnard, who had been watching the patient,
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  thought he noticed in the pale blue eyes a certain gleam of peculiar quality,
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  and in the flaccid lips an all but imperceptible tightening, as if of intelligent
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  determination. But when questioned, Slater relapsed into the habitual vacancy of the mountaineer,
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  and only reiterated what he had said on the preceding day. On the
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  third morning occurred the first of the man's mental attacks, some show of uneasiness
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  in sleep. He burst forth into a frenzy so powerful that the combined efforts
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  of four men were needed to bind him in a strait jacket. The alienists
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  listened with keen attention to his words, since their curiosity had been aroused to
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  a high pitch by the suggestive, yet mostly conflicting and incoherent stories of his
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  family and neighbors. Slater raved for upward of fifteen minutes, babbling in his
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  backwoods dialect of green edifices of light, oceans of space, strange music,
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  and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did he dwell upon some
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  mysterious, blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked at him. This vast,
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  vague personality seemed to have done him a terrible wrong, and to kill
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  it in triumphant revenge was his paramount desire. In order to reach it,
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  he said, he would soar through abysses of emptiness, burning every obstacle that
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  stood in his way, thus ran his discourse, until with the greatest suddenness
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  he ceased. The fire of madness died from his eyes, and in dull
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  wonder he looked at his questioners and asked why he was bound. Doctor Barnard
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  unbuckled the leather harness and did not restore it till night, when he succeeded
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  in persuading Slatter to don it of his own volition for his own good.
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  The men had now admitted that he sometimes talked queerly, though he knew not
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  why. Within a week two more attacks appeared, but from them the doctors
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  learned little on the source of Slatter's visions. They speculated at length, for
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  since he could neither read nor write, and had apparently never heard a legend
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  or a fairy tale, his gorgeous image was quite inexplicable. That it could
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  not come from any known myth or romance was made especially clear by the fact
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  that the unfortunate lunatic expressed himself only in his own simple manner. He raved
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  of things he did not understand and could not interpret, things which he claimed
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  to have experienced, but which he could not have learned through any normal or
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  connected narration. The alienists soon agreed that abnormal dreams were the foundation of the
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  trouble, dreams whose vividness could, for a time completely dominate the waking mind
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  of this basically inferior man. With due formality. Slatter was tried for murder,
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  acquitted on the ground of insanity, and committed to the institution, wherein
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  I held so humble a post. I have said that I am a constant
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  speculator concerning dream life, and from this you may judge of them the eagerness
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  with which I applied myself to the study of the new patient. As soon
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  as I had fully ascertained the facts of his case. He seemed to sense
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  a certain friendliness in me, born no doubt of the interest I could not
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  conceal, and the gentle manner in which I questioned him. Not that he
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  ever recognized me during his attacks, when I hung breathlessly upon his chaotic but
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  cosmic word pictures. But he knew me in his quiet hours, when he
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  would sit by his barred window, weaving baskets of straw and willow, and
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  perhaps pining for the mountain freedom he could never again enjoy. His family never
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  called to see him. Probably it had found another temporary head after the manner
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  of decadent mountain folk. By degrees, I commenced to feel an overwhelming wonder
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  at the mad and fantastic conceptions of Joe Slater. The man himself was pitiably
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  inferior and mentality and language alike, But his glowing titanic visions, though described
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  in a barbarous, disjointed jargon, were assuredly things which only a superior or
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  even exceptional brain could conceive. How, I often asked myself, could the
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  stolid imagination of a catskilled, degenerate conjure upsights whose very possession argued a lurking
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  spark of genius? How could any backwoods dullard have gained so much as an
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  idea of those glittering realms of supernal radiance and space about which Slater ranted in
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  his furious delirium. More and more I inclined to the belief that in the
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  pitiful personality you cringed before me lay the disordered nucleus of something beyond my comprehension,
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  something infinitely beyond the comprehension of my more experienced but less imaginative medical and
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  scientific colleagues. And yet I could extract nothing definite from the man. The
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  sum of all my investigation was that, in a kind of semi corporeal dream
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  life, Slater wandered or floated through resplendent and prodigious valleys, mountains, gardens,
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  cities, and palaces of light, in a region unbounded and unknown to
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  man, that there he was no peasant or degenerate, but a creature of
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  importance and vivid life, moving proudly and dominantly, and checked only by a
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  certain deadly enemy, who seemed to be a being of visible yet ethereal structure,
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  and who did not appear to be of human shape. Since Slater never
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  referred to it as a man, or as aught save a thing, this
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  thing had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong, which the maniac if maniac
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  hee were yearned to avenge. From the manner in which Slater alluded to their
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  dealings, I judged that he and the luminous thing had met on equal terms,
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  that in his dream existence, the man was himself a luminous thing of
• 27:18
  the same race as his enemy. This impression was sustained by his frequent references
• 27:25
  to flying through space and burning all that impeded his progress. Yet these conceptions
• 27:33
  were formulated in rustic words wholly inadequate to convey them. The circumstance which drove
• 27:37
  me to the conclusion that if a dream world indeed existed, oral language was
• 27:44
  not its medium for the transmission of thought. Could it be that the dream
• 27:49
  soul inhabiting this inferior body was desperately struggling to speak things which the simple and
• 27:56
  halting tongue of dullness could not utter. Could it be that I was face
• 28:00
  to face with intellectual emanations which would explain the mystery, if I could but
• 28:07
  learn to discover and read them. I did not tell the older physicians of
• 28:12
  these things, for middle ages skeptical, cynical, and disinclined to accept new
• 28:18
  ideas. Besides, the head of the institution had but lately warned me in
• 28:25
  his paternal way, that I was overworking, that my mind needed a rest.
• 28:32
  It had long been my belief that human thought consists basically of atomic or
• 28:36
  molecular motion convertible into ether waves or radiant energy like heat, light, and
• 28:44
  electricity. This belief had early led me to contemplate the possibility of telepathy or
• 28:51
  mental communication by means of suitable apparatus, and I had, in my college
• 28:56
  days prepared a set of transmitting and receiving instruments somewhat similar to the cumbrous devices
• 29:02
  employed in wireless telegraphy at that crude pre radio period. These I had tested
• 29:10
  with a fellow student, but achieving no result, had soon packed them away
• 29:15
  with other scientific odds and ends for possible future use. Now, in my
• 29:22
  intense desire to probe into the dream life of Joe Slater, I sought these
• 29:26
  instruments again and spent several days in repairing them for action. When they were
• 29:32
  complete, once more, I missed no opportunity for their trial. At each
• 29:37
  outbreak of Slatter's violence, I would fit the transmitter to his forehead and the
• 29:41
  receiver to my own, constantly making delicate adjustments for various hypothetical wave lengths of
• 29:47
  intellectual energy. I had but little notion of how the thought impressions would,
• 29:52
  if successfully conveyed, arouse an intelligent response in my brain, but I felt
• 30:00
  certain that I could detect and interpret them accordingly. I continued my experiments,
• 30:06
  though informing no one of their nature. It was on the twenty first of
• 30:11
  February nineteen o one that the thing occurred. As I looked back across the
• 30:18
  years, I realize how unreal it seems, and sometimes wonder if old doctor
• 30:23
  Fenton was not right when he charged it all. To my excited imagination,
• 30:30
  I recalled that he listened with great kindness and patience when I told him,
• 30:33
  but afterward gave me a nerve powder and arranged for the half year's vacation on
• 30:38
  which I departed the next week. That fateful night, I was wildly agitated
• 30:45
  and perturbed, for despite the excellent care he had received, Joe Slater was
• 30:52
  unmistakably dying. Perhaps it was his mountain freedom that he missed, or perhaps
• 30:59
  the turmoil in his brain had grown to acute for his rather sluggish physique.
• 31:03
  But at all events, the flame of vitality flickered low in the decaed body.
• 31:10
  He was drowsy near the end, and as darkness fell, he dropped
• 31:14
  off into a troubled sleep. I did not strap on the strait jacket,
• 31:19
  as was customary when he slept, since I saw that he was too feeble
• 31:25
  to be dangerous, even if he woke in mental disorder once more before passing
• 31:29
  away. But I did place upon his head and mine the two ends of
• 31:34
  my cosmic radio, hoping against hope for a first and last message from the
• 31:41
  dream world. In the brief time remaining in the cell with us was one
• 31:47
  nurse, a mediocre fellow, who did not understand the purpose of the apparatus
• 31:52
  or think to inquire into my course. As the hours wore on, I
• 31:57
  saw his head droop awkward towardly in sleep, but I did not disturb him.
• 32:02
  I, myself, lulled by the rhythmical breathing of the healthy and the
• 32:07
  dying man, must have nodded a little later. The sound of weird lyric
• 32:16
  melody was what aroused me. Chords, vibrations, and harmonic ecstasies echoed passionately
• 32:24
  on every hand, while on my ravished sight burst the stupendous spectacle of ultimate
• 32:31
  beauty. Walls, columns, and architraves of living fire blazed effulgently around the
• 32:40
  spot where I seemed to float in air, extending upward to an infinitely high
• 32:46
  vaulted dome of indescribable splendor. Blending with this display of palatial magnificence, or
• 32:55
  rather supplanting it at times in kaleidoscopic rotation, were glimpses of wide plains and
• 33:02
  graceful valleys, high mountains, and inviting grottos, covered with every lovely attribute
• 33:09
  of scenery which my delighted eyes could conceive of, yet formed wholly of some
• 33:15
  glowing ethereal plastic entity, which inconsistency partook as much of spirit as of matter.
• 33:25
  As I gazed, I perceived that my own brain held the key to
• 33:30
  these enchanting metamorphoses. For each vista which appeared to me was the one my
• 33:35
  changing mind most wished to behold. Amidst this Elysian realm, I dwelt not
• 33:44
  as a stranger, for each sight and sound was familiar to me, just
• 33:49
  as it had been for uncounted eons of eternity before, and would be for
• 33:54
  like eternities to come. Then the respel London Aura of my brother of Light
• 34:01
  drew near and held colloquy with me, soul to soul, with silent and
• 34:07
  perfect interchange of thought. The hour was one of approaching triumph. For was
• 34:14
  not my fellow being escaping at last from a degrading periodic bondage, escaping forever
• 34:20
  and preparing to follow the accursed oppressor, even unto the uttermost fields of ether,
• 34:25
  that upon it might be wrought of flaming cosmic vengeance which would shake the
• 34:30
  spheres. We floated thus for a little time, when I perceived a slight
• 34:37
  blurring and fading of the objects around us, as though some force were recalling
• 34:42
  me to Earth, where I least wished to go. The form near me
• 34:47
  seemed to feel a change, also, for it gradually brought its discourse toward
• 34:52
  a conclusion, and itself prepared to quit, the scene fading from my sight
• 34:58
  at a rate somewhat less rapid than and that of the other objects. A
• 35:02
  few more thoughts were exchanged, and I knew that the luminous One and I
• 35:07
  were being recalled to bondage, though for my brother of Light it would be
• 35:13
  the last time. The sorry planet shell, being well nigh spent in less
• 35:21
  than an hour, my fellow would be free to pursue the oppressor along the
• 35:23
  Milky Way and passed the hither stars to the very confines of infinity. A
• 35:32
  well defined shock separates my final impression of the fading scene of light from my
• 35:37
  sudden and somewhat shamefaced awakening and straightening up in my chair as I saw the
• 35:44
  dying figure on the couch move hesitantly Joe Slater was indeed awakening, though probably
• 35:51
  for the last time. As I looked more closely, I saw that in
• 35:57
  the sallow cheeks shone spots of color which had never before been present. The
• 36:02
  lips, too, seemed unusual, being tightly compressed, as if by the
• 36:07
  force of a stronger character than had been Slatter's. The whole face finally began
• 36:14
  to grow tense, and the head turned restlessly with closed eyes. I did
• 36:22
  not rouse the sleeping nurse, but readjusted the slightly disarranged headband of my telepathic
• 36:27
  radio, intent to catch any parting message the dreamer might have to deliver.
• 36:34
  All at once. The head turned sharply in my direction, and the eyes
• 36:37
  fell open, causing me to stare in blank amazement at what I beheld.
• 36:45
  The man who had been Joe Slater, the catskilled decadent, was gazing at
• 36:49
  me with a pair of luminous, expanding eyes whose blue seemed subtly to have
• 36:53
  deepened. Neither mania nor degeneracy was visible in that gaze, and I felt,
• 37:00
  beyond a doubt that I was viewing a face behind which lay an active
• 37:04
  mind of high order. At this juncture, my brain became aware of a
• 37:09
  steady external influence operating upon it. I closed my eyes to concentrate my thoughts
• 37:16
  more profoundly, and was rewarded by the positive knowledge that my long sought mental
• 37:22
  message had come at last. Each transmitted idea formed rapidly in my mind,
• 37:29
  and though no actual language was employed, my habitual association of conception and expression
• 37:36
  was so great that I seemed to be receiving the message in ordinary English.
• 37:44
  Joe Slater is dead. Came the soul petrifying voice of an agency from beyond
• 37:49
  the wall of sleep. My opened eyes sought the couch of pain and curious
• 37:55
  horror, but the blue eyes were still calmly gazing, and the countenance was
• 38:00
  still intelligently animated. He is better dead, for he was unfit to bear
• 38:07
  the active intellect of cosmic entity. His gross body could not undergo the needed
• 38:14
  adjustments between ethereal life and planet life. He was too much an animal,
• 38:19
  too little a man. Yet it is through his deficiency that you have come
• 38:23
  to discover me. For the cosmic and planet souls rightly should never meet.
• 38:30
  He has been in my torment and diurnal prison for forty two of your terrestrial
• 38:35
  years. I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom
• 38:42
  of dreamless sleep. I am your brother of light, and have floated with
• 38:45
  you in the effulgent valleys. It has not permitted me to tell your waking
• 38:52
  earth self of your real self. But we are all roamors of vast spaces,
• 38:57
  and travelers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the
• 39:01
  Egypt, which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of San Shan,
• 39:07
  which is to come three thousand years. Hence you and I have drifted
• 39:13
  to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies
• 39:17
  of the insect philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter. How
• 39:22
  little does the Earth's self know life and its extent, How little indeed ought
• 39:28
  it to know for its own tranquility of the oppressor. I cannot speak you
• 39:35
  on Earth, have unwittingly felt its distant presence. You, without knowing,
• 39:40
  idly gave the blinking beacon the name of Algol, the demon star. It
• 39:46
  is to meet and conquer the oppressor that I have vainly striven for eons,
• 39:52
  held back by bodily encumbrances, to night. I go as a nemesis,
• 39:57
  bearing just and blazingly cataclysm mac vengeance. Watch me in the sky, close
• 40:02
  to the demon star. I cannot speak longer, for the body of Jos
• 40:07
  later grows cold and rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate.
• 40:12
  As I wish you have been my only friend on this planet, the only
• 40:16
  soul to sense and seek for me. Within the repellent form which lies on
• 40:21
  this couch. We shall meet again, perhaps in the shining mists of Orion's
• 40:28
  sword, perhaps on oblique plateau in prehistoric Asia, perhaps in unremembered dreams to
• 40:34
  night, perhaps in some other form an eon, hence, when the solar
• 40:39
  system shall have been swept away. At this point, the thought waves abruptly
• 40:46
  ceased. The pale eyes of the dreamer, or can I say, dead
• 40:52
  man, commenced to glaze fisially in a half stupor. I crossed over to
• 41:00
  the couch and felt of his wrist, but found it cold, stiff,
• 41:05
  and pulseless. The sallow cheeks paled again, and the thick lips fell open,
• 41:12
  disclosing the repulsively rotten fangs of the degenerate Joe Slater. I shivered,
• 41:19
  pulled a blanket over the hideous face, and awakened the nurse. Then I
• 41:22
  left the cell and went silently to my room. I had an instant and
• 41:29
  unaccountable craving for a sleep, whose dreams I should not remember the climax.
• 41:37
  What plain tale of science can boast of such a rhetorical effect. I have
• 41:43
  merely set down certain things appealing to me as facts, allowing you to construe
• 41:47
  them as you will. As I have already admitted, my superior, old
• 41:52
  doctor Fenton denies the reality of everything I have related. He vows that I
• 41:59
  was broken down with nervous strain and badly in need of a long vacation on
• 42:02
  full pay, which he so generously gave me. He assures me, on
• 42:08
  his professional honor, that Joe Slater was but a low grade paranoiac, whose
• 42:15
  fantastic notions must have come from the crude, hereditary folk tales which circulated even
• 42:20
  in the most decadent of communities. All this, he tells me, Yet
• 42:27
  I cannot forget what I saw in the sky on the night after Slater died.
• 42:34
  Lest you think me a biased witness, another pen must add this final
• 42:37
  testimony, which may perhaps supply the climax who expect. I will quote the
• 42:44
  following account of the star nova persee verbatim from the pages of that eminent astronomical
• 42:51
  authority, Professor Garrett P. Servis quote, on February twenty second nineth to
• 43:00
  Know One, a marvelous new star was discovered by doctor Anderson of Edinburgh,
• 43:05
  not very far from Algoal. No star had been visible at that point before.
• 43:10
  Within twenty four hours the stranger had become so bright that it outshone Capella.
• 43:16
  In a week or two it had visibly faded, and in the course
• 43:21
  of a few months it was hardly discernible with the naked eye. And Beyond
• 43:36
  the Wall of Sleep by H. P. Lovecraft, cell a face by
• 43:39
  H. P. Lovecraft. In a dream, Karanas saw the city in
• 43:45
  the valley, and the seacoast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea,
• 43:52
  and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of the harbor toward distant regions
• 43:59
  where the sea eats the sky. In a dream, it was also that
• 44:02
  he came by his name of Karanus, for when awake, he was called
• 44:07
  by another name. Perhaps it was natural for him to dream a new name,
• 44:14
  for he was the last of his family and alone among the indifferent millions
• 44:19
  of London, so there were not many to speak to him and remind him
• 44:22
  who he had been. His money and lands were gone, and he did
• 44:28
  not care for the ways of the people about him, but preferred to dream
• 44:32
  and write of his dreams. What he wrote was laughed at by those to
• 44:38
  whom he showed it, so that after a time he kept his writings to
• 44:43
  himself and finally ceased to write. The more he withdrew from the world about
• 44:50
  him, the more wonderful became his dreams, and it would have been quite
• 44:55
  futile to try to describe them on paper. Karanus was not modern and did
• 45:01
  not think like others who wrote, Whilst they strove to strip from life its
• 45:07
  embroidered robes of myth, and to show in naked ugliness the foul thing that
• 45:14
  is reality. Koranus sought for beauty alone. When truth and experience failed to
• 45:22
  reveal it, he sought it in fancy and illusion, and found it on
• 45:27
  his very door step. Amid the nebulous memories of childhood, tales and dreams.
• 45:36
  There are not many persons who know what wonders are open to them in
• 45:38
  the stories and visions of their youth. For when as children we listen and
• 45:44
  dream, we think but half formed thoughts, And when as men we try
• 45:50
  to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But
• 45:57
  some of us awakened the night with range phanfasms, of enchanted hills and gardens,
• 46:04
  of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging, murmuring
• 46:09
  seas, of plains that stretched down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone,
• 46:17
  and of shadowy companies, of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges
• 46:23
  of thick forests. And then we know that we have looked back through the
• 46:30
  ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and
• 46:36
  unhappy. Kiranas came very suddenly upon his old world of childhood. He had
• 46:44
  been dreaming of the house where he had been born, the great stone house
• 46:49
  covered with ivy, where thirteen generations of his ancestors had lived, and where
• 46:54
  he had hoped to die. It was moonlight, and he had stolen out
• 47:01
  into the fragrant summer night, through the gardens, down the terraces pasted the
• 47:07
  great oaks of the park and along the long white road to the village.
• 47:14
  The village seemed very old, eaten away at the edge, like the moon
• 47:19
  which had commenced to wane, and Koranus wondered whether the peaked roofs of the
• 47:24
  small houses he had sleep or death in the streets were spears of long grass,
• 47:32
  and the window panes on either side broken or filmily staring. Kuranus had
• 47:38
  not lingered, but had plodded on, as though summoned towards some goal.
• 47:45
  He dared not disobey the summons, for fear it might prove an illusion,
• 47:50
  like the urges and aspirations of waking life, which do not lead to any
• 47:53
  goal. Then he had been drawn down the lane that led off the from
• 47:59
  the village street towards the Channel cliffs, and had come to the end of
• 48:04
  things, to the precipice in the Abyss, where all the village and all
• 48:09
  the world fell abruptly into the unechoing emptiness of infinity, and where even the
• 48:16
  sky ahead was empty and unlit by the crumbling moon and the peering stars.
• 48:23
  Faith had urged him on over the precipice and into the Gulf faith had urged
• 48:30
  him on over the precipice and into the gulf, where he had floated down,
• 48:36
  down, down, passed dark, shapeless, undreamed dreams, faintly glowing
• 48:43
  spheres that may have been partly dreamed dreams, and laughing, winged things that
• 48:49
  seemed to mock the dreamers of all the worlds. Then a rift seemed to
• 48:54
  open in the darkness before him, and he saw the city of the valley
• 49:00
  glisteningly, radiantly far far below, with the background of sea and sky,
• 49:06
  and a snow capped mountain near the shore. Kuranus had awakened the very moment
• 49:14
  he beheld the city, yet he knew from his brief glance that it was
• 49:19
  none other than sell a face in the valley of uth Nargai, beyond the
• 49:22
  Tanarian Hills, where his spirit had dwelt all the eternity of an hour one
• 49:29
  summer afternoon, very long ago, when he had slipped away from his nurse
• 49:35
  and let the warm sea breeze lower him to sleep as he watched the clouds
• 49:39
  from the cliff near the village he had protested. Then, when they had
• 49:45
  found him, waked him and carried him home for just as he was aroused,
• 49:51
  he had been about to sail in a golden galley for those alluring regions
• 49:55
  where the sea meets the sky. And now now he was equally resentful of
• 50:00
  awaking, for he had found his fabulous city after forty weary years. But
• 50:09
  three nights afterward Kuranus came again to sell a face. As before, he
• 50:16
  dreamed first of the village that was asleep or dead, and of the abyss
• 50:22
  down which one must float silently. Then the rift appeared again, and he
• 50:27
  beheld the glittering minarets of the city, and saw the graceful galleys riding at
• 50:32
  anchor in the blue harbor, and watched the ginkgo trees of Mount Aaron swaying
• 50:37
  in the sea breeze. But this time he was not snatched away, and,
• 50:45
  like a winged being, settled gradually over a grassy hillside, till finally
• 50:51
  his feet rested gently on the turf. He had indeed come back to the
• 50:57
  valley of uth Nargai and the split of celeaface. Down the hill amid scented
• 51:05
  grasses and brilliant flowers, walked Koranas over the bubbling racsa on the small wooden
• 51:12
  bridge where he had carved his name so many years ago, and through the
• 51:16
  Whispering Grove to the great stone bridge by the city gate. All was as
• 51:23
  of old, nor were the marble walls discolored, nor the polished bronze statues
• 51:30
  upon them tarnished. And Karanas saw that he need not tremble lest the things
• 51:36
  he knew be vanished, for even the sentries on the ramparts were the same
• 51:43
  and still as young as he remembered them. When he entered the city,
• 51:49
  pasted the bronze gates and over the onyx pavements, the merchants and camel drivers
• 51:53
  greeted him as if he had never been away. And it was the same
• 51:59
  at the Turrukoru's temple of half Northath, where the orchid wreathed priests told him
• 52:05
  that there is no time in uth Nargai, but only perpetual youth. Then
• 52:12
  Kuranus walked through the street of pillars to the seaward wall, where gathered the
• 52:16
  traders and sailors and strange men from the regions where the sea meets the sky.
• 52:23
  There he stayed long, gazing out over the bright harbor, where the
• 52:29
  ripples sparkled beneath an unknown sun, and where rode lightly the galleys from far
• 52:35
  places over the water, and he gazed also upon Mount Aaron rising regally from
• 52:42
  the shore, its lower slopes green with swaying trees, and its white summit
• 52:47
  touching the sky. More than ever, Karanas wished to sail in a galley
• 52:54
  to the far places of which he had heard so many strange tanks, And
• 53:00
  he sought again the captain who had agreed to carry him so long ago.
• 53:06
  He found the man a Theb, sitting on the same chest of spice he
• 53:09
  had sat on before, and the Theb seemed not to realize that any time
• 53:15
  had passed. Then the two rode to a galley in the harbor, and
• 53:21
  giving orders to the ormond, commenced to sail out into the billowy Serenaian sea
• 53:28
  that leads to the sky. For several days they glided undulatingly over the water,
• 53:35
  till finally they came to the horizon where the sea meets the sky.
• 53:39
  Here the galley paused not at all, but floated easily in the blue of
• 53:45
  the sky, among fleecy clouds tinted with rows, and far beneath the keel.
• 53:52
  Kiranas could see strange lands and rivers and cities of surpassing beauty, spread
• 54:00
  indolently in the sunshine which seemed never to lessen or disappear. At length,
• 54:07
  theb told him that their journey was near its end, and that they would
• 54:10
  soon enter the harbor of Sirranian, the pink marble city of the Clouds,
• 54:16
  which is built on that ethereal coast where the west wind flows into the sky.
• 54:22
  But as the highest of the city's carven towers came into sight, there
• 54:28
  was a sound somewhere in space, and Kiranas awaked in his London garret.
• 54:36
  For many months after that, Kuranas sought the marvelous city of Celeaface and its
• 54:42
  sky bound galleys in Vain, And though his dreams carried him to many gorgeous
• 54:47
  and unheard of places, no one whom he met could tell him how to
• 54:52
  find uth Nargai. Beyond the Tanarian hills. One night he went flying over
• 55:00
  dark mountains where there were faint lone camp fires at great distances apart, and
• 55:06
  strange shaggy herds with tinkling bells on the leaders. And in the wildest part
• 55:13
  of this hilly country, so remote that few men could ever have seen it.
• 55:19
  He found a hideously ancient wall or causeway of stone, zigzagging along the
• 55:24
  ridges and valleys, too gigantic ever to have risen by human hands, and
• 55:31
  of such a length that neither end of it could be seen. Beyond that
• 55:37
  wall. In the gray dawn, he came to a land of quaint gardens
• 55:42
  and cherry trees, and when the sun rose, he beheld such beauty of
• 55:47
  red and white flowers, green foliage and lawns, white paths, diamond brooks,
• 55:53
  blue lakelets, carven bridges, and red roofed pagodas, that he for
• 55:59
  a moment forgot sella face and sheer delight. But he remembered it again when
• 56:06
  he walked down a white path toward a red roofed pagoda, and would have
• 56:10
  questioned the people of this land about it, had he not found that there
• 56:15
  were no people there, but only birds and bees and butterflies. On another
• 56:22
  night, Karanus walked up a damp stone spiral stairway endlessly and came to a
• 56:29
  tower window overlooking a mighty plain and river, lit by the full moon,
• 56:36
  and in the silent city that spread away from the river bank, he thought
• 56:39
  he beheld some feature or arrangement which he had known before. He would have
• 56:45
  descended and asked the way to uth Nargai, had not a faresome Aurora sputtered
• 56:52
  up from some remote place beyond the horizon, showing the ruin and antiquity of
• 56:58
  the city, and the stagnation of the reedy river, and the death lying
• 57:02
  upon that land as it had lain since King Chynaratholus came home from his conquests
• 57:12
  to find the vengeance of the gods. So Kuranus sought fruitlessly for the marvelous
• 57:19
  city of Celeaface and its galleys that sailed to Saranian in the sky, meanwhile
• 57:24
  seeing many wonders, and once barely escaping from the high priest not to be
• 57:30
  described, which wears a yellow silken mask over its face and dwells all alone
• 57:37
  in a prehistoric stone monastery in the cold desert plateau of Lng. In time,
• 57:45
  he grew so impatient of the bleak intervals of the day that he began
• 57:50
  buying drugs in order to increase his periods of sleep. Hashish helped the great
• 57:55
  deal and once set him to a part of Spain where form does not exist,
• 58:01
  but where glowing gases study the secrets of existence, and a violet colored
• 58:07
  gas told him that this part of space was outside what he had called infinity.
• 58:14
  The gas had not heard of planets and organisms before, but identified Koranas
• 58:20
  merely as one from the infinity, where matter, energy, and gravitation exist.
• 58:25
  Karanus was now very anxious to return to minaret studded Celeface and increased his
• 58:32
  doses of drugs, but eventually he had no more money left and could buy
• 58:38
  no drugs. Then one summer day, he was turned out of his garret
• 58:44
  and wandered aimlessly through the streets, drifting over a bridge to a place where
• 58:49
  the houses grew thinner and thinner. And it was there that fulfillment came,
• 58:55
  and he met the cortege of knights come from Celeface to bear him thither forever.
• 59:02
  Handsome knights, they were astride roan horses and clad in shining armor with
• 59:08
  tabirns of cloth of gold curiously emblazoned. So numerous were they that Kuranus almost
• 59:15
  mistook them for an army, but they were sent in his honor, since
• 59:20
  it was he who had created uth Nagai in his dreams, on which account
• 59:24
  he was now to be appointed its chief god for evermore. Then they gave
• 59:30
  Koranus a horse and placed him at the head of the cavalcade, and all
• 59:37
  rode majestically through the downs of Surrey and onward towards the region where Karanus and
• 59:42
  his ancestors were born. It was very strange, but as the riders went
• 59:49
  on, they seemed to gallop back through time. For wherever they passed through
• 59:54
  a village in the twilight, they saw only such houses and villages as Chaucer
• 1:00:00
  or men before him might have seen. And sometimes they saw nights on horseback
• 1:00:06
  with small companies of retainers. When it grew dark, they traveled more swiftly,
• 1:00:12
  till soon they were flying uncannily, as if in the air. In
• 1:00:17
  this dim dawn, they came upon the village which Koranus had seen alive in
• 1:00:22
  his childhood and asleep or dead in his dreams. It was alive now,
• 1:00:29
  and early villagers curtseyed as the horsemen clattered down the street and turned off into
• 1:00:35
  the lane that ends in the Abyss of dreams. Karanas had previously entered that
• 1:00:39
  abyss only at night, and wondered what it would look like by day,
• 1:00:45
  so he watched anxiously as the column approached its brink. Just as they galloped
• 1:00:52
  up the rising ground to the precipice, a golden glare came somewhere out of
• 1:00:57
  the west and hid all the landscape in fultant draperies. The abyss was a
• 1:01:02
  seething chaos of roseate and cerulean splendor, and invisible voices sang exultantly as the
• 1:01:09
  nightly entourage plunged over the edge and floated gracefully down, past glittering clouds and
• 1:01:16
  silvery coruscations. Endlessly down the horsemen floated their charges, pawing the ether as
• 1:01:24
  if galloping over golden sands. And then the luminous vapors spread apart to reveal
• 1:01:31
  a greater brightness, the brightness of the city cell a face, and the
• 1:01:37
  sea coast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily
• 1:01:43
  painted galleys that sail out of the harbor toward distant regions where the sea meets
• 1:01:49
  the sky. And Karanas reigned thereafter over Uth Dargai and all the neighboring regions
• 1:01:58
  of Dream, and held his court alternately in cellar face and in the cloud
• 1:02:04
  fashioned Seranian. He reigns there still and will rain happily forever. Though below
• 1:02:12
  the cliffs at Ensmouth, the Channel tides played mockingly with the body of a
• 1:02:17
  tramp who had stumbled through the half deserted village of Dawn, played mockingly and
• 1:02:24
  cast it upon the rocks by ivy covered Trevor Towers, where a notably fat
• 1:02:30
  and a specially offensive millionaire brewer enjoys the purchased atmosphere of extinct nobility. End
• 1:02:42
  of cell A Face Diggon by H. P. Lovecraft. I am writing
• 1:02:47
  this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more
• 1:02:52
  penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes
• 1:02:57
  life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer, and shall cast myself
• 1:03:01
  from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think, from
• 1:03:07
  my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or degenerate. When you have
• 1:03:12
  read these hastily scrawled pages, you may guess, though never fully realize,
• 1:03:16
  why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death. It was in one
• 1:03:22
  of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific, that the
• 1:03:27
  packet of which I was to supercargo fell a victim to the German sea raider.
• 1:03:32
  The Great War was then at its very beginning, and the ocean forces
• 1:03:37
  of the hun had not completely sunk to their later degradation, so that our
• 1:03:42
  vessel was made a legitimate prize, whilst we of her crew were treated with
• 1:03:46
  all the fairness and consideration due us as naval prisoners. So liberal, indeed
• 1:03:52
  was the discipline of our captors, that five days after we were taken I
• 1:03:55
  managed to escape alone in a small boat, with water and provisions for us
• 1:04:00
  good length of time. When I finally found myself adrift and free, I
• 1:04:04
  had but little idea of my surroundings. Never a competent navigator, I could
• 1:04:10
  only guess vaguely by the sun and stars that I was somewhat south of the
• 1:04:13
  equator of the longitude. I knew nothing, and no island or coastline was
• 1:04:17
  in sight. The weather kept fair, and for uncounted days I drifted aimlessly
• 1:04:23
  beneath the scorching sun, waiting either for some passing ship or to be cast
• 1:04:29
  on the shores of some habitable land. But neither ship nor land appeared.
• 1:04:33
  And I began to despair in my solitude upon the heaving, vastness of unbroken
• 1:04:39
  blue. The change happened whilst I slept. Its details I shall never know,
• 1:04:45
  for my slumber, though troubled and dream infested, was continuous. When
• 1:04:50
  at last I awakened, it was to discover myself half sucked into a slimy
• 1:04:55
  expanse of hellish black mire, which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far
• 1:05:00
  as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away.
• 1:05:05
  Though one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at
• 1:05:10
  so prodigious and unexpected a transformation of scenery, I was in reality more horrified
• 1:05:15
  than astonished. For there was in the air and in the rotting soil a
• 1:05:19
  sinister quality which chilled me to the very core. The region was putrid with
• 1:05:26
  the carcasses of decaying fish and of other less describable things, which I saw
• 1:05:30
  protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plane. Perhaps I should not hope
• 1:05:35
  to convey in mere words the unutterable hideousness that can dwell in absolute silence and
• 1:05:41
  barren immensity. There was nothing within hearing, and nothing in sight save a
• 1:05:46
  vast reach of black slime. Yet the very completeness of the stillness and the
• 1:05:53
  homogeneity of the landscape oppressed me with a nauseating fear. The sun one was
• 1:06:00
  blazing down from a sky which seemed to me almost black in its cloudless cruelty,
• 1:06:05
  as though reflecting the inky marsh beneath my feet. As I crawled into
• 1:06:10
  the stranded boat, I realized that only one theory could explain my position.
• 1:06:15
  Through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval, a portion of the ocean floor must have been
• 1:06:19
  thrown to the surface, exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years had lain
• 1:06:26
  hidden under unfathomable watery depths. So great was the extent of the new land
• 1:06:31
  which had risen beneath me that I could not detect the faintest noise of the
• 1:06:35
  surging ocean strained my ears as I might, Nor were there any sea fowl
• 1:06:40
  to prey upon the dead things. For several hours, I sat, thinking
• 1:06:45
  or brooding in the boat, which lay upon its side and afforded a slight
• 1:06:48
  shade as the sun moved across the heavens. As the day progressed, the
• 1:06:53
  ground lost some of its stickiness, and seemed likely to dry sufficiently for traveling
• 1:06:58
  purposes in a short time. That night I slept but little, and the
• 1:07:02
  next day I made for myself a pack containing food and water, preparatory to
• 1:07:06
  an overland journey in search of the vanished sea and possible rescue. On the
• 1:07:12
  third morning, I found the soil dry enough to walk upon with ease.
• 1:07:16
  The odor of the fish was maddening, but I was too much concerned with
• 1:07:20
  graver things to mind, so slight and evil and set out boldly for an
• 1:07:25
  unknown goal. All day I forged steadily westward, guided by a faraway hummock,
• 1:07:30
  which rose higher than any other elevation on the rolling desert. That night
• 1:07:34
  I encamped, and on the following day still traveled toward the hummock, though
• 1:07:40
  that object seemed scarcely nearer than when I had first despied it. By the
• 1:07:45
  fourth evening I attained the base of the mound, which turned out to be
• 1:07:48
  much higher than it had appeared from a distance on intervening valleys, setting it
• 1:07:54
  out in sharper relief from the general surface. Too weary to ascend, I
• 1:07:59
  slept the shadow of the hill. I know not why my dreams were so
• 1:08:03
  wild that night, but ere the waning and fantastically gibbous moon that had risen
• 1:08:09
  far above the eastern Plain. I was awake in a cold perspiration, determined
• 1:08:14
  to sleep no more. Such visions as I had experienced were too much for
• 1:08:19
  me to endure again. And in the glow of the moon, I saw
• 1:08:23
  how unwise I had been to travel by day. Without the glare of the
• 1:08:28
  parching sun, my journey would have cost me less energy. Indeed, I
• 1:08:32
  now felt quite able to perform the ascent which had deterred me. At sunset,
• 1:08:38
  picking up my pack, I started for the crest of the eminence.
• 1:08:43
  I have said that the unbroken monotony of the rolling plain was a source of
• 1:08:46
  vague horror to me, But I think my horror was greater when I gained
• 1:08:51
  the summit of the mound than looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit
• 1:08:57
  or canyon, whose black recesses the moon had not yet soared high enough to
• 1:09:00
  illuminate. I felt myself on the edge of the world, peering over the
• 1:09:06
  rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night. Through my terror ran curious reminiscence
• 1:09:14
  of paradise lost and Satan's hideous climb through the unfashioned realms of darkness. As
• 1:09:21
  the moon climbed higher in the sky, I began to see that the slopes
• 1:09:26
  of the valley were not so perpendicular as I had imagined. Ledges and outcroppings
• 1:09:31
  of rock afforded fairly easy footholds for a descent, whilst after a drop of
• 1:09:36
  a few hundred feet the declivity became very gradual. Urged on by an impulse
• 1:09:44
  which I cannot definitely analyze, I scrambled with some difficulty down the rocks and
• 1:09:48
  stood on a gentler slope beneath, gazing into the Stygian deeps, where no
• 1:09:54
  light had yet penetrated. All at once my attention was captured by a vast
• 1:10:00
  and singular object on the opposite slope, which rose steeply about a hundred yards
• 1:10:03
  ahead of me, an object which gleamed whitely in the newly bestowed rays of
• 1:10:09
  the ascending moon. That it was merely a gigantic piece of stone, I
• 1:10:14
  soon assured myself, But I was conscious of a distant impression that its contour
• 1:10:19
  and position were not altogether the work of nature. A closer scrutiny filled me
• 1:10:26
  with sensations I cannot express, for, despite its enormous magnitude and its position
• 1:10:31
  in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world
• 1:10:35
  was young, I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well
• 1:10:42
  shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living
• 1:10:48
  and thinking creatures. Dazed and frightened, yet not without a certain thrill of
• 1:10:57
  the scientist's or archaeologist's delight, I examined my surroundings more closely. The moon,
• 1:11:03
  now near the zenith, shone weirdly and vividly above the towering steeps that
• 1:11:09
  hemmed in the chasm, and revealed the fact that a far flung body of
• 1:11:13
  water flowed at the bottom, winding out of sight in both directions and almost
• 1:11:17
  lapping my feet as I stood on the slope across the chasm. The wavelets
• 1:11:24
  washed the base of the cyclopaean monolith, on whose surface I could now trace
• 1:11:28
  both inscriptions and crude sculptures. The writing was in a system of hieroglyphics,
• 1:11:33
  unknown to me and unlike anything I had ever seen in books, consisting for
• 1:11:39
  the most part of conventionalized aquatic symbols, such as fishes, eels, octopi,
• 1:11:44
  crustaceans, mollusk, whales in the like. Several characters obviously represented marine
• 1:11:49
  things which are unknown to the modern world, but whose decomposing forms I had
• 1:11:56
  observed on the ocean risen plain. It was the pictorial carving, however,
• 1:12:02
  that did most to hold me spell bound. Plainly visible across the intervening water
• 1:12:09
  on account of their enormous size, was an array of bas reliefs whose subject
• 1:12:14
  would have excited the envy of a door. I think that these things were
• 1:12:17
  supposed to depict men, at least a certain sort of men. Though the
• 1:12:23
  creatures were shown disporting like fishes in the waters of some marine grotto or paying
• 1:12:29
  homage at some monolithic shrine which appeared to be under the ways. As well
• 1:12:35
  of their faces and forms, I dare not speak in detail, for the
• 1:12:39
  mere remembrance makes me grow faint grotesque. Beyond the imagination of a poe or
• 1:12:45
  a bulwer, they were damnably human in the general outline, despite webbed hands
• 1:12:50
  and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and
• 1:12:57
  other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been
• 1:13:02
  chiseled badly at proportion with their scenic background. For one of the creatures was
• 1:13:06
  shown in the act of killing a whale, represented as but a little larger
• 1:13:11
  than himself. I remarked, as I say, their grotesqueness and strange size,
• 1:13:17
  but in a moment decided they were merely the imaginary gods of some primitive
• 1:13:23
  fishing or seafaring tribe, some tribe whose last descended had perished ears before the
• 1:13:28
  first ancestor of the piltdown or Neanderthal man was born. Awestruck at this unexpected
• 1:13:36
  glimpse into a past beyond the conception of the most daring anthropologist, I stood
• 1:13:43
  musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections on the silent channel before me. Then
• 1:13:48
  suddenly I saw it, with only a slight churning to mark its rise to
• 1:13:54
  the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast,
• 1:14:00
  polyphemus like and loathsome it darted, like a stupendous monster of nightmares, to
• 1:14:05
  the monolith about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms. The while it bowed
• 1:14:12
  its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds I think I went mad.
• 1:14:17
  Then, of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff, and of
• 1:14:23
  my delirious journey back to the stranded boat, I remember little. I believe
• 1:14:28
  I sang a great deal, and laughed oddly when I was unable to sing.
• 1:14:31
  I have indistinct recollections of a great storm some time after I reached the
• 1:14:35
  boat. At any rate, I knew that I heard peals of thunder and
• 1:14:41
  other tones which nature utters only in her wildest moods. When I came out
• 1:14:46
  of the shadows, I was in a San Francisco hospital, brought thither by
• 1:14:50
  the captain of the American ship, which had picked up my boat in mid
• 1:14:55
  ocean. In my delirium, I had said much, but found that my
• 1:14:59
  words had been given scant attention of any land upheaval in the Pacific. My
• 1:15:04
  rescuers knew nothing, nor did I deem it necessary to insist upon a thing
• 1:15:10
  which I knew they could not believe. Once, I sought out a celebrated
• 1:15:15
  ethnologist and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon the
• 1:15:21
  fish god, but soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional I did not press
• 1:15:28
  my inquiries. It is at night, especially when the moon is gibbous and
• 1:15:33
  waning, that I see the thing. I tried morphine, but the drug
• 1:15:39
  has given only transient circees, and has drawn me into its clutches as a
• 1:15:44
  hopeless slave. So now I am to end it all, having written a
• 1:15:48
  full account for the information of the contemptuous amusement of my fellow men. Often
• 1:15:55
  I asked myself if it could not all have been pure phantasm, a mere
• 1:16:00
  freak of fever, As I lay sunstricken and raving in the open boat after
• 1:16:04
  my escape from the German Man o War. This, I ask myself,
• 1:16:10
  But ever does there come before me a hideously vivid vision. In reply,
• 1:16:15
  I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may,
• 1:16:19
  at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshiping
• 1:16:25
  their ancient stone idols, and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of
• 1:16:30
  water soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the
• 1:16:34
  billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of a puny war exhausted
• 1:16:41
  mankind of a day when the land shall sink and the dark ocean floor shall
• 1:16:45
  ascend amidst universal pandemonium. The end is near. I hear a noise at
• 1:16:53
  the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall
• 1:16:59
  not find me, God that hand the window, the window end of dagon
• 1:17:06
  ex Oblivione by H. P. Lovecraft. When the last days were upon
• 1:17:15
  me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness,
• 1:17:19
  Like the small drops of water that torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of
• 1:17:25
  their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep in my dreams.
• 1:17:30
  I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and
• 1:17:33
  wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods. Once, when the wind was soft
• 1:17:40
  and scented, I heard the South calling, and sailed endlessly and languorously under
• 1:17:45
  strange stars. Once, when the gentle rain fell, I glided in a
• 1:17:50
  barge down a sunless stream under the earth, till I reached another world of
• 1:17:55
  purple twilight, iridescent arbors, and undying roses. And once I walked through
• 1:18:01
  a golden valley that led to shadowy groves and ruins, and ended in a
• 1:18:05
  mighty wall, green with antique vines and pierced by a little gate of bronze.
• 1:18:12
  Many times I walked through that valley, and longer and longer would I
• 1:18:15
  pause in the spectral half light, where the giant trees squirmed and twisted grotesquely,
• 1:18:21
  and the gray ground stretched damply from trunk to trunk, sometimes disclosing the
• 1:18:27
  mold stained stones of buried temples. And always the goal of my fancies was
• 1:18:32
  the mighty vine grown wall with the little gate of bronze therein. After a
• 1:18:39
  while, as the days of waking became less and less bearable from their grayness
• 1:18:44
  and sameness, I would often drift in opiate peace through the valley and the
• 1:18:47
  shadowy groves, and wonder how I might seize them for my eternal dwelling place,
• 1:18:53
  so that I need no more crawl back to a dull world, stripped
• 1:18:57
  of interest and new colors. As I looked upon the little gate in the
• 1:19:00
  mighty wall, I felt that beyond it lay a dream country from which,
• 1:19:05
  once it was entered, there would be no return. So each night,
• 1:19:10
  in sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied
• 1:19:14
  antique wall, though it was exceedingly well hidden, and I would tell myself
• 1:19:18
  that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely
• 1:19:24
  and radiant as well. Then one night, in the dream city of Zakarion,
• 1:19:29
  I found a yellowed papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream sages who dwelt
• 1:19:32
  of old in that city, and who were too wise ever to be borne
• 1:19:36
  in the waking world. Therein were written many things concerning the world of dream,
• 1:19:42
  and among them was lore of a golden valley and a sacred grove with
• 1:19:45
  temples, and a high wall pierced by a little bronze gait. When I
• 1:19:51
  saw this lore, I knew that it touched on the scenes I had haunted,
• 1:19:56
  and I therefore read long in the yellowed papyrus. Some of the dream
• 1:20:00
  sages wrote gorgeously of the wonders beyond the irrepassable gate, but others told of
• 1:20:05
  horror and disappointment. I knew not which to believe, yet longed more and
• 1:20:10
  more to cross forever into the unknown land. For doubt and secrecy are the
• 1:20:15
  lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily
• 1:20:18
  torture of the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which would unlock
• 1:20:24
  the gate and drive me through, I resolved to take it. When next
• 1:20:27
  I awaked last night, I swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden
• 1:20:32
  valley and the shadowy groves. And when I came this time to the antique
• 1:20:36
  wall, I saw that the small gate of bronze was ajar. From beyond
• 1:20:42
  came a glow that weirdly lit the giant, twisted trees and the tops of
• 1:20:45
  the buried temples. And I drifted on songfully expectant of the glories of the
• 1:20:49
  land from whence I should never return. But as the gate swung wider,
• 1:20:55
  and the sorcery of the drug and the dream pushed me through, I knew
• 1:20:59
  that all sights glories were at an end, For in that new realm was
• 1:21:01
  neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space.
• 1:21:09
  So happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again
• 1:21:13
  into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the damon life had called me
• 1:21:17
  for one brief and desolate hour. This is the end of ex Oblivione Facts
• 1:21:26
  concerning the late Arthur Jerman and his family by H. P. Lovecraft,
• 1:21:32
  Part one. Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what
• 1:21:42
  we know of it pure demoniacal hints of truth, which make it sometimes one
• 1:21:48
  thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive, with its shocking revelations, will
• 1:21:57
  perhaps be the ultimate extermity of our human species, if separate species we be,
• 1:22:04
  for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains.
• 1:22:12
  If loosed upon the world. If we knew what we are, we should
• 1:22:18
  do as Sir Arthur German did. And Arthur German soaked himself in oil and
• 1:22:26
  set fire to his clothing one night. No one placed the charred fragments in
• 1:22:32
  an urn or set a memorial to him who had been for certain papers and
• 1:22:42
  a certain boxed object were found, which made men wish to forget Some who
• 1:22:51
  knew him do not admit that he ever existed. Arthur German went out on
• 1:23:00
  the more and burned himself after seeing the boxed object, which had come from
• 1:23:06
  Africa. It was this object and not his peculiar personal appearance, which made
• 1:23:15
  him end his life. Many would have disliked to live if possessed of the
• 1:23:20
  peculiar features of Arthur German. But he had been a poet and a scholar,
• 1:23:28
  and had not minded. Learning was in his blood. For his great
• 1:23:33
  grandfather, Sir Robert German, Baronet, had been an anthropologist of note,
• 1:23:41
  whilst his great great great grandfather, Sir Wade German, was one of the
• 1:23:48
  earliest explorers of the Congo region and had written eruditely of its tribes, animals,
• 1:23:56
  and supposed antiquities. In Indeed, old Sir Wade had possessed an intellectual
• 1:24:03
  zeal amounting almost to a mania, his bizarre conjectures on a prehistoric white Congolese
• 1:24:14
  civilization earning him much ridicule when his book Observations on the Several Parts of Africa
• 1:24:23
  was published in seventeen sixty five. This fearless explorer had been placed in a
• 1:24:31
  mad house at Huntingdon. Madness was in all the Germans, and people were
• 1:24:40
  glad there were not many of them. The line put forth no branches,
• 1:24:45
  and Arthur was the last of it. If he had not been one cannot
• 1:24:51
  say what he would have done. When the object came, the Germans never
• 1:24:59
  seemed to quite right. Something was amiss, though Arthur was the worst and
• 1:25:08
  the old family portraits in German House showed fine faces enough before Sir Wade's time.
• 1:25:15
  Certainly the madness began with Sir Wade, whose wild stories of Africa were
• 1:25:23
  at once the delight and terror of his few friends. It showed in his
• 1:25:30
  collection of trophies and specimens which were not such as a normal man would accumulate
• 1:25:38
  and preserve, and appeared strikingly in the oriental seclusion in which he kept his
• 1:25:46
  wife. The latter, he had said, was the daughter of a Portuguese
• 1:25:53
  trader whom he met in Africa and did not like English ways. She,
• 1:26:00
  with an infant son born in Africa, had accompanied him back from the second
• 1:26:08
  and longest of his trips, and had gone with him on the third and
• 1:26:13
  last, never returning. No one had ever seen her closely, not even
• 1:26:19
  the servants, for her disposition had been violent and singular. During her brief
• 1:26:27
  stay at German House, she occupied a remote wing and was waited on by
• 1:26:33
  her husband alone. Sir Wade was indeed most peculiar in his solicitude for his
• 1:26:42
  family, For when he returned to Africa, he would permit no one to
• 1:26:47
  care for his young son, save a loathsome black woman from Guinea. Upon
• 1:26:55
  coming back after the death of Lady German, he himself assumed complete care of
• 1:27:00
  the boy. But it was the talk of Sir Wayde, especially when in
• 1:27:06
  his cups, which chiefly led his friends to deem him mad. In a
• 1:27:13
  rational age like the eighteenth century, it was unwise for a man of learning
• 1:27:19
  to talk about wild sights and strange scenes under a congo moon, of the
• 1:27:27
  gigantic walls and pillars, of a forgotten city crumbling and vine grown, and
• 1:27:33
  of damp, silent stone steps leading interminably down into the darkness of abysmal treasure
• 1:27:43
  vaults and inconceivable catacombs. Especially, was it unwise to rave of the living
• 1:27:51
  things that might haunt such a place. Of creatures half of the jungle and
• 1:28:00
  half of the impiously aged city, fabulous creatures which even a Pliny might describe
• 1:28:08
  with skepticism, things that might have sprung up after the great apes had overrun
• 1:28:15
  the dying city, with the walls and the pillars, the vaults and the
• 1:28:18
  weird carvings. Yet after he came home for the last time. Sir Wade
• 1:28:27
  would speak of such matters with a shudderingly uncanny zest, mostly after his third
• 1:28:33
  glass at the Knight's Head, boasting of what he had found in the jungle,
• 1:28:39
  and of how he had dwelt among terrible ruins known only to him,
• 1:28:45
  And finally he had spoken of the living things in such a manner that he
• 1:28:51
  was taken to the madhouse. He had shown little regret when shut into the
• 1:28:58
  bard room and hunting for his mind moved curiously. Ever since his son had
• 1:29:06
  commenced to grow out of infancy, he had liked his home less and less,
• 1:29:13
  till at last he had seemed to dread it. The Knight's Head had
• 1:29:18
  been his headquarters, and when he was confined he expressed some vague gratitude,
• 1:29:29
  as if for protection. Three years later he died. Wade German's son,
• 1:29:38
  Philip, was a highly peculiar person. Despite a strong physical resemblance to his
• 1:29:45
  father, his appearance and conduct were in many particulars so coarse that he was
• 1:29:55
  universally shunned. Though he did not inherit the matess which was feared by some.
• 1:30:01
  He was densely stupid and given to brief periods of uncontrollable violence. In
• 1:30:11
  frame. He was small but intensely powerful, and was of incredible agility.
• 1:30:18
  Twelve years after succeeding to his title, he married the daughter of his gamekeeper,
• 1:30:26
  a person said to be of gipsy extraction, But before his son was
• 1:30:30
  born, joined the navy as a common sailor, completing the general disgust which
• 1:30:39
  his habits and misalliance had begun. After the close of the American War,
• 1:30:45
  he was heard of as a sailor on a merchantman in the African trade,
• 1:30:51
  having a kind of reputation for feats of strength and climbing, but finally disappearing
• 1:31:00
  one night as his ship lay off the Congo coast. In the son of
• 1:31:05
  Sir Philip German, the now accepted family peculiarity, took a strange and fatal
• 1:31:14
  turn. Tall and fairly handsome, with a sort of weird Eastern grace despite
• 1:31:23
  certain slight oddities of proportion, Robert Jerman began life as a scholar and investigator.
• 1:31:32
  It was he who first studied scientifically the vast collection of relics which his
• 1:31:40
  mad grandfather had brought from Africa, and who made the family name as celebrated
• 1:31:45
  in ethnology as an exploration. In eighteen fifteen, Sir Robert married a daughter
• 1:31:54
  of the seventh Viscount Brideholm, and was subsequently blessed with three children, the
• 1:32:00
  eldest and youngest of whom were never publicly seen on account of deformities in mind
• 1:32:09
  and body. Saddened by these family misfortunes, the scientists sought relief in work
• 1:32:17
  and made two long expeditions in the interior of Africa. In eighteen forty nine,
• 1:32:26
  his second son, Neville, a singularly repellent person who seemed to combine
• 1:32:33
  the surliness of Philip German with the auteur of the Brightholmes, ran away with
• 1:32:41
  a vulgar dancer, but was pardoned upon his return. In the following year,
• 1:32:47
  he came back to German house a widower with an infant son, Alfred,
• 1:32:54
  who was one day to be the father of Arthur Jerman. Friends said
• 1:33:00
  that it was this series of griefs which unhinged the mind of Sir Robert Jermyan.
• 1:33:09
  Yet it was probably merely a bit of African folklore which caused the disaster.
• 1:33:15
  The elderly scholar had been collecting legends of the Onnga tribes near the field
• 1:33:23
  of his grandfather's and his own explorations, Hoping in some way to account for
• 1:33:30
  Sir Wade's wild tales of a lost city peopled by strange hybrid creatures. A
• 1:33:39
  certain consistency in the strange papers of his ancestor suggested that the madman's imagination might
• 1:33:47
  have been stimulated by native myths. On October nineteenth, eighteen fifty two,
• 1:33:57
  the explorer Samuel Seton called at German house with a manuscript of notes collected among
• 1:34:04
  the Ungas, believing that certain legends of a gray city of white apes ruled
• 1:34:13
  by a white god might prove valuable to the ethnologist. In his conversation,
• 1:34:21
  he probably supplied many additional details, the nature of which will never be known,
• 1:34:29
  since a hideous series of tragedies suddenly burst into being. When Sir Robert
• 1:34:38
  Jermyn emerged from his library, he left behind the strangled corpse of the explorer,
• 1:34:47
  and before he could be restrained, had put an end to all three
• 1:34:54
  of his children, the two who were never seen and the son who had
• 1:35:00
  run away. Neville German died in the successful defense of his own two year
• 1:35:08
  old son who had apparently been included in the old man's madly murderous scheme.
• 1:35:19
  Sir Robert himself, after repeated attempts at suicide and a stubborn refusal to utter
• 1:35:29
  an articulate sound, died of apoplexy in the second year of his confinement.
• 1:35:39
  Sir Alfred Jerman was a baronet before his fourth birthday, but his tastes never
• 1:35:46
  matched his title. At twenty he had joined a band of musical performers,
• 1:35:55
  and at thirty six had deserted his wife and child to travel with an itinerant
• 1:36:00
  American circus. His end was very revolting. Among the animals in the exhibition
• 1:36:10
  with which he traveled was a huge bull gorilla of lighter color than average,
• 1:36:17
  a surprisingly tractable beast of much popularity with the performers. With this gorilla,
• 1:36:25
  Alfred German, was singularly fascinated, and on many occasions the two would eye
• 1:36:31
  each other for long periods through the intervening bars. Eventually, German asked and
• 1:36:41
  obtained permission to train the animal, astonishing audiences and fellow performers alike with his
• 1:36:47
  success. One morning in Chicago, as the gorilla and Alfred German were rehearsing
• 1:36:57
  an exceedingly clever boxing match, the former delivered a blow of more than usual
• 1:37:03
  force, hurting both the body and the dignity of the amateur trainer. Of
• 1:37:11
  what followed. Members of the Greatest show on Earth do not like to speak.
• 1:37:19
  They did not expect to hear Sir Alfred jermann emit a shrill, any
• 1:37:29
  human scream, or to see him seize his clumsy antagonists with both hands,
• 1:37:38
  dash it to the floor of the cage, and bite fiendishly at its hairy
• 1:37:43
  throat. The gorilla was off its guard, but not for long, and
• 1:37:48
  before anything could be done by the regular trainer, the body, which had
• 1:37:55
  belonged to a baronet was past recognition. Part two. Arthur German was the
• 1:38:06
  son of Sir Alfred German and a musical singer of unknown origin. When the
• 1:38:14
  husband and father deserted his family, the mother took the child to German house,
• 1:38:19
  where there was none left to object to her presence. She was not
• 1:38:26
  without notions of what a nobleman's dignity should be, and saw to it that
• 1:38:30
  her son received the best education which limited money could provide. The family resources
• 1:38:39
  were now sadly slender and German house had fallen into woeful disrepair, but young
• 1:38:46
  Arthur loved the old edifice and all its contents. He was not like any
• 1:38:53
  other German who had ever lived, for he was a poet and a dreamer.
• 1:39:00
  Of the neighboring families, who had heard tales of old surwayed Germans unseen
• 1:39:05
  Portuguese wife declared that her Latin blood must be showing itself, but most persons
• 1:39:14
  merely sneered at his sensitiveness to beauty, attributing it to his music hall mother,
• 1:39:21
  who was socially unrecognized. The poetic delicacy of Arthur German was the more
• 1:39:30
  remarkable because of his uncouth personal appearance. Most of the Germans had possessed a
• 1:39:39
  subtly awed and repellent cast, but Arthur's case was very striking. It's hard
• 1:39:46
  to say just what he resembled, but his expression, his facial angle,
• 1:39:55
  and the length of his arms gave a thrill of repulsion to those who met
• 1:40:00
  him for the first time. It was the mind and character of Arthur Jerman
• 1:40:08
  which atoned for his aspect. Gifted and learned, he took highest honors at
• 1:40:15
  Oxford and seemed likely to redeem the intellectual fame of his family, though of
• 1:40:21
  poetic rather than scientific temperament. He planned to continue the work of his forefathers
• 1:40:28
  in African ethnology and antiquities, utilizing the truly wonderful those strange collection of Sir
• 1:40:34
  Wade. With his fanciful mind. He thought often of the prehistoric civilization in
• 1:40:44
  which the mad explur had so implicitly believed, and would weave tale after tale
• 1:40:50
  about the silent jungle mentioned in the latter's wilder notes and paragraphs. For the
• 1:40:59
  Nebulous Terrances concerning a nameless, unsuspected race of jungle hybrids. He had a
• 1:41:08
  peculiar feeling of mingled terror and attraction, speculating on the possible basis of such
• 1:41:16
  a fancy and seeking to obtain light among the more recent data gleaned by his
• 1:41:24
  great grandfather and Samuel Seton amongst the Angas. In nineteen eleven, after the
• 1:41:32
  death of his mother, Sir Arthur Jerman determined to pursue his investigations to the
• 1:41:40
  utmost extent, selling a portion of his estate to obtain the requisite money.
• 1:41:46
  He outfitted an expedition and sailed for the Congo, arranging with Belgian authorities for
• 1:41:54
  a party of guides. He spent a year in the Onnga and Khan country,
• 1:42:00
  finding data beyond the highest of his expectations. Among the Kalieres was an
• 1:42:08
  aged chief called Muwanu, who possessed not only a highly retentive memory, but
• 1:42:15
  a singular degree of intelligence and interests in the old legends. This ancient confirmed
• 1:42:23
  every tale which German had heard, adding his own account of the Stone City
• 1:42:29
  and of the white Apes as it had been told to him. According to
• 1:42:33
  Muwanu, the Gray City and the hybrid creatures were no more, having been
• 1:42:40
  annihilated by the warlike Nebengus many years ago. This tribe, after destroying most
• 1:42:47
  of the edifices and killing the live beings, had carried off the stuffed goddess
• 1:42:54
  which had been the object of their quest, the white Ape goddess, which
• 1:43:00
  the strange beings worshiped, and which was held by Congo tradition to be the
• 1:43:06
  form of one who had reigned as a princess among these beings. Just what
• 1:43:13
  the white ape like creatures could have been, muwan who had no idea,
• 1:43:18
  but he thought they were the builders of the ruined city. German could form
• 1:43:24
  no conjecture but by close questioning obtained a very picturesque legend of the stuffed goddess.
• 1:43:32
  The eight Princess, it was said, became the consort of a great
• 1:43:38
  white god who had come out of the west. For a long time,
• 1:43:42
  they had reigned over the city together, but when they had a son,
• 1:43:46
  all three went away. Later, the god and princess had returned, and
• 1:43:53
  upon the death of the princess, her divine husband had mummified the body and
• 1:44:00
  hind it in a vast house of stone, where it was worshiped. Then
• 1:44:05
  he departed alone. The legend here seemed to present three variants. According to
• 1:44:13
  one story, nothing further happened, save that the stuffed goddess became a symbol
• 1:44:18
  of supremacy for whatever tribe might possess it. It was for this reason that
• 1:44:25
  the Nabengos carried it off. A second story told of a god's return and
• 1:44:31
  death at the feet of his enshrined wife. A third told of the return
• 1:44:38
  of the sun grown to manhood or ape hood or godhood, as the case
• 1:44:45
  might be. Yet unconscious of his identity, surely the imaginative Blacks had made
• 1:44:53
  the most of whatever events might lie behind the extravagant legendary of the reality of
• 1:45:00
  the jungle city described by Sir Wade. Arthur German had no further doubt and
• 1:45:08
  was hardly astonished when early in nineteen twelve he came upon what was left of
• 1:45:14
  it. Its size must have been exaggerated, yet the stones lying about proved
• 1:45:19
  that it was no mere Negro village. Unfortunately, no carvings could be found,
• 1:45:27
  and the small size of the expedition prevented operations toward clearing the one visible
• 1:45:33
  passageway that seemed to lead down into the system of vaults which Sir Wade had
• 1:45:39
  mentioned. The white apes and the stuffed Goddess were discussed with all the native
• 1:45:45
  chiefs of the region, but it remained for European to improve on the data
• 1:45:51
  offered by old Mowanu. Monsieur Verheren, Belgian agent at a trading post on
• 1:45:59
  the Congo, believed that he could not only locate but obtain the stuffed Goddess
• 1:46:06
  of which he had vaguely heard. Since the once mighty Nabangus were now the
• 1:46:13
  submissive servants of King Albert's government, and with but little persuasion could be induced
• 1:46:19
  to part with the gruesome deity they had carried off when Germans sailed for England.
• 1:46:26
  Therefore, it was with the exultant probability that he would within a few
• 1:46:30
  months receive a priceless ethnological relic confirming the wildest of his great great great grandfather's
• 1:46:40
  narratives, that is, the wildest which he had ever heard. Countrymen near
• 1:46:47
  German House had perhaps heard wilder tales handed down from ancestors who had listened to
• 1:46:54
  Sir Wade around the table of the Knight's head Earth. German waited very patiently
• 1:47:01
  for the expected box from Monsieur Vheren, Meanwhile studying with increased diligence the manuscripts
• 1:47:11
  left by his mad ancestor. He began to feel closely akin to Sir Wade,
• 1:47:18
  and to seek relics of the latter's personal life in England as well as
• 1:47:24
  of his African exploits. Oral accounts of the mysterious and secluded wife had been
• 1:47:32
  numerous, but no tangible relic of her stay at German House remained. German
• 1:47:40
  wondered what circumstance had prompted or permitted such an effacement, and decided that the
• 1:47:48
  husband's insanity was the prime cause his great great great grandmother he recalled, was
• 1:47:57
  said to have been the daughter of a Pooruguese trader in Africa. No doubt,
• 1:48:03
  her practical heritage and superficial knowledge of the dark continent had caused her to
• 1:48:10
  flout Sir Wade's tales of the interior, a thing which such a man would
• 1:48:15
  not be likely to forgive. She had died in Africa, perhaps dragged thither
• 1:48:24
  by a husband determined to prove what he had told. But as German indulged
• 1:48:30
  in these reflections, he could not but smile at their futility. A century
• 1:48:35
  and a half after the death of both of his strange progenitors, in June
• 1:48:44
  nineteen thirteen, a letter arrived from Monsieur Verheren telling of the finding of the
• 1:48:51
  stuffed goddess. It was the Belgian Averred, a most extraordinary object, an
• 1:49:00
  object quite beyond the power of a layman to classify whether it was human or
• 1:49:08
  simian. Only a scientist could determine, and the process of determination would be
• 1:49:15
  greatly hampered by its imperfect condition. Time and the Congo climate are not kind
• 1:49:21
  to mummies, especially when their preparation is as amateurish as seemed to be the
• 1:49:29
  case here. Around the creature's neck had been found a golden chain bearing an
• 1:49:36
  empty locket, on which were armorial designs. No doubt some hapless travelers keepsake
• 1:49:45
  taken by the nabangos and hung upon the goddess as a charm. In commenting
• 1:49:50
  on the contour of the mummy's face, Monsieur Vheren suggested a whimsical comparison,
• 1:49:58
  or rather expressed a humorous wonder just how it would strike his correspondent, but
• 1:50:06
  was much too interested scientifically to waste many words in levity. The stuffed goddess,
• 1:50:14
  he wrote, would arrive duly packed about a month after receipt of the
• 1:50:18
  letter. The boxed object was delivered at German House on the afternoon of August
• 1:50:27
  third, nineteen thirteen, being conveyed immediately to the large chamber which housed the
• 1:50:33
  collection of African specimens. As arranged by Sir Robert and Arthur, what ensued
• 1:50:43
  can best be gathered by the tales of servants, and from things and papers
• 1:50:47
  later examined. Of the various tales, that of aged Psalms the family Butler
• 1:50:57
  is most ample and coherent. According to this trustworthy man, Sir Arthur Jerman
• 1:51:05
  dismissed everyone from the room before opening the box, though the instant sound of
• 1:51:12
  hammer and chisels showed he did not delay the operation. Nothing was heard for
• 1:51:18
  some time. Just how long Palms cannot exactly estimate, but it was certainly
• 1:51:27
  less than a quarter of an hour later that the horrible scream, undoubtedly in
• 1:51:32
  German's voice, was heard. Immediately afterward, German emerged from the room,
• 1:51:42
  rushing frantically toward the front of the house, as if pursued by some hideous
• 1:51:46
  enemy. The expression on his face, a face ghastly enough in repose,
• 1:51:53
  was beyond description. When near the front door, he seemed to think of
• 1:51:59
  some thing and turned back in his flight, finally disappearing down the stairs to
• 1:52:03
  the cellar. The servants were utterly dumbfounded and watched at the head of the
• 1:52:10
  stairs, but their master did not return. A smell of oil was all
• 1:52:15
  that came up from the regions below. After dark, a rattling was heard
• 1:52:21
  at the door leading from the cellar into the courtyard, and a stable boy
• 1:52:26
  saw Arthur Jerman, glistening from head to foot with oil and redolent of that
• 1:52:31
  fluid steal furtively out and vanish on the black moor surrounding the house. Then,
• 1:52:41
  in an exultation of supreme horror, everyone saw the end. A spark
• 1:52:47
  appeared on the moor, a flame arose, and a pillar of human fire
• 1:52:54
  reached to the heavens. The house of German no longer existed. The reason
• 1:53:02
  why Arthur Jerman's charred fragments were not collected and buried lies in what was found
• 1:53:10
  afterward. Principally, the thing in the box, the stuffed goddess, was
• 1:53:16
  a nauseous sight, withered and eaten away. But it was clearly a mummified
• 1:53:25
  white ape of some unknown species, less hairy than any recorded variety, and
• 1:53:32
  infinitely nearer mankind, quite shockingly. So detailed description would be rather unpleasant,
• 1:53:43
  But two salient features must be told, for they fit in revoltingly with certain
• 1:53:49
  notes of Surwayed German's African expeditions, and with the Congolese legends of the white
• 1:53:57
  God and the ape Princess. The two particulars in question, or these the
• 1:54:02
  arms on the golden lockheat about the creature's neck, were the German arms,
• 1:54:09
  and the jocose suggestion of Monsieur Verheran about certain resemblance as connected with the shriveled
• 1:54:18
  face applied with vivid, ghastly and unnatural horror to none other than the sensitive
• 1:54:29
  Arthur German, great great great grandson of Surwayed German and an unknown wife.
• 1:54:41
  Members of the Royal Anthropological Institute burned the thing and threw the locket into a
• 1:54:47
  well, and some of them do not admit that Arthur German ever existed.
• 1:54:59
  The end of facts concerning the late Arthur Jerman and his family. Herbert West
• 1:55:08
  Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft, Part A. To be dead,
• 1:55:15
  to be truly dead, must be glorious. There are far worse things awaiting
• 1:55:19
  man than death. Count Dracula Part one. From the dark of Herbert West,
• 1:55:29
  who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak
• 1:55:32
  only with extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinister manner
• 1:55:39
  of his recent disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his life
• 1:55:44
  work, and first gained its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when
• 1:55:48
  we were in the third year of our course at the Miskatonic University Medical School
• 1:55:53
  in Arkhan. While he was with me, the wonder and diabolism of his
• 1:55:58
  experience fastened me utterly, and I was his closest companion. Now that he
• 1:56:03
  is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fears, greater, memories,
• 1:56:10
  and possibilities are even more hideous than realities. The first horrible incident of
• 1:56:17
  our acquaintance was the greatest shock I ever experienced, and it is only with
• 1:56:23
  reluctance that I repeat it as I have said. It happened when we are
• 1:56:27
  in the medical school, where West had already made himself notorious through his wild
• 1:56:31
  theories on the nature of death and the possibility of overcoming it artificially, His
• 1:56:38
  views, which were ridiculed by the faculty and by his fellow students, hinged
• 1:56:43
  on the essentially mechanistic nature of life, and concerned means for operating the organic
• 1:56:48
  machinery of mankind by calculated chemical action. After the failure of natural processes.
• 1:56:56
  In his experiments with a various animating solutions, he had killed and treated immense
• 1:57:01
  numbers of rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys, till
• 1:57:05
  he had become the prime nuisance of the college. Several times he had actually
• 1:57:11
  obtained signs of life in animals supposedly dead, in many cases violent signs,
• 1:57:16
  But he soon saw that the perfection of his process, if indeed possible,
• 1:57:20
  would necessarily involve a lifetime of research. It likewise became clear that, since
• 1:57:28
  the same solution never worked alike on different organic species, he would require human
• 1:57:33
  subjects for further and more specialized progress. It was here that he first came
• 1:57:39
  into conflict with the college authorities, and was debarred from further experiments by no
• 1:57:45
  less a dignitary than the Dean of the medical school himself, the learned and
• 1:57:48
  benevolent doctor Allan Halsey, whose work in Behalf of the Stricken is recalled by
• 1:57:56
  every old resident of Arkham. I had always been exceptionally tolerant of West's pursuits,
• 1:58:02
  and we frequently discussed his theories, whose ramifications and corollaries were almost infinite.
• 1:58:09
  Holding with Hackel that all life is the chemical and physical process, and
• 1:58:13
  that the so called soul is a myth. My friend believed that artificial reanimation
• 1:58:17
  of the dead can depend only on the condition of the tissues, and that
• 1:58:21
  unless actual decomposition has set in, a corpse fully equipped with organs may,
• 1:58:27
  with suitable measures, be set going again in the peculiar fashion known as life.
• 1:58:32
  That the psychic or intellectual life might be impaired by the slight deterioration of
• 1:58:39
  sensitive brain cells, which even a short period of death would be apt to
• 1:58:43
  cause. West fully realized it had been at first his hope to find a
• 1:58:47
  reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent of death, and only repeated
• 1:58:54
  failures on animals had shown him that the natural and artificial life motions were incompact.
• 1:59:00
  He then sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his solution into the
• 1:59:05
  blood immediately after the extinction of life. It was this circumstance which made the
• 1:59:11
  professors so carelessly skeptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred.
• 1:59:15
  In any case, they did not stop to view the matter closely and reasoningly.
• 1:59:23
  It was not long after the faculty had interdicted his work that West confided
• 1:59:28
  to me his resolution to get fresh human bodies in some manner and continue in
• 1:59:32
  secret the experiments he could no longer perform openly. To hear him discussing ways
• 1:59:38
  and means was rather ghastly, for at the college we had never procured anatomical
• 1:59:43
  specimens ourselves. Whenever the morgue proved inadequate, two local negroes attended to this
• 1:59:48
  matter, and they were seldom questioned. West was then a small, slender,
• 1:59:54
  spectacled youth, with delicate features, yellow hair, pale blue eyes,
• 1:59:58
  and a soft voice, and it was uncanny to hear him dwelling on the
• 2:00:01
  relative merits of christ Church Cemetery and the Potter's Field. We finally decided on
• 2:00:06
  the Potter's Field because practically everybody in christ Church was embalmed, a thing,
• 2:00:12
  of course ruinous to West's researches. I was by this time his active and
• 2:00:18
  enthralled assistant, and helped him make all his decisions, not only concerning the
• 2:00:24
  source of bodies, but concerning a suitable place for our loathes Mork. It
• 2:00:29
  was I who thought of the deserted Chapman farmhouse beyond Meadow Hill, where we
• 2:00:32
  fitted up on the ground floor an operating room and a laboratory, each with
• 2:00:38
  dark curtains to conceal our midnight doings. The place was far from any road
• 2:00:43
  and in sight of no other house. Yet precautions were none the less necessary,
• 2:00:47
  since rumors of strange lights started by chance nocturnal roamors, would soon bring
• 2:00:53
  disaster on our enterprise. It was agreed to call the whole thing a chemical
• 2:00:58
  laboratory if discovery should owes occur. Gradually, we equipped our sinister haunt of
• 2:01:02
  science with materials either purchased in Boston or borrowed quietly from the College. Materials
• 2:01:10
  carefully made unrecognizable save to expert eyes, and provided spades and picks for the
• 2:01:15
  many burials we should have to make. In the cellar at the college,
• 2:01:18
  we used an incinerator, but the apparatus was too costly for our unauthorized laboratory.
• 2:01:26
  Bodies were always a nuisance, even the small guinea pig bodies from the
• 2:01:30
  slight clandestine experiments in West's room at the boarding house. We followed the local
• 2:01:36
  death notices like ghouls, for our specimens demanded particular qualities. What we wanted
• 2:01:44
  were corpses interred soon after death and without artificial preservation, preferably free from malforming
• 2:01:49
  disease, and certainly with all organs present. Accident victims were our best hope.
• 2:01:57
  Not for many weeks did we hear of anything suitable. Though we talked
• 2:02:00
  with Morgan hospital authorities, ostensibly in the College's interest, as often as we
• 2:02:05
  could without exciting suspicion. We found that the college had the first choice in
• 2:02:11
  every case, so that it might be necessary to remain in Arkham during the
• 2:02:15
  summer, when only the limited summer school classes were held. In the end,
• 2:02:19
  though luck favored us. For one day we heard of an almost ideal
• 2:02:24
  case in the Potter's field, A brawny young workman drowned only the morning before
• 2:02:29
  in Summer's pond and buried at the town's expense without delay or embalming. That
• 2:02:34
  afternoon we found the new grave and determined to begin work soon after midnight.
• 2:02:42
  It was a repulsive task that we undertook in the black small hours, even
• 2:02:46
  though we lacked at that time the special horror of graveyards which later experiences brought
• 2:02:51
  to us. We carried spades and oil dark lanterns, for although electric torches
• 2:02:58
  were then manufactured, they were not as satisfactory as the tungsten contrivances of today.
• 2:03:03
  The process of unearthing was slow and sordid. It might have been gruesomely
• 2:03:08
  poetical if we had been artists instead of scientists, and we were glad when
• 2:03:14
  our spades struck wood. When the pine box was fully uncovered, West scrambled
• 2:03:18
  down and removed the lid, dragging out and propping up the contents. I
• 2:03:24
  reached down and hauled the contents out of the grave, and then both toiled
• 2:03:28
  hard to restore the spot to its former appearance. The affair made us rather
• 2:03:32
  nervous, especially the stiff form and the vacant face of our first trophy,
• 2:03:39
  but we managed to remove all traces of our visit. When we had padded
• 2:03:44
  down the last shovelful of earth, we put the specimen in a canvas sack
• 2:03:47
  and set out for the old Chapman place beyond Meadow Hill. On an improvised
• 2:03:55
  dissecting table in the old farmhouse by the light of a powerful ascetlye lamp,
• 2:04:00
  the specimen was not very spectral looking. It had been a sturdy and apparently
• 2:04:04
  unimaginative youth of wholesome Plebeian type, large framed, gray eyed, and brown
• 2:04:11
  haired, a sound animal, without psychological subtleties, and probably having vital processes
• 2:04:16
  of the simplest and healthiest sort. Now, with the eyes closed, it
• 2:04:21
  looked more asleep than dead, though the expert tests of my friend soon left
• 2:04:26
  no doubt on that score. We had at last what West had always longed
• 2:04:30
  for, a real dead man of the ideal kind, ready for the solution,
• 2:04:35
  as prepared according to the most careful calculations and theories for human use.
• 2:04:41
  The tension on our part became very great. We knew that there was scarcely
• 2:04:45
  a chance for anything like complete success, and could not avoid hideous fears at
• 2:04:50
  possible grotesque results of partial animation. Especially were we apprehensive concerning the mind and
• 2:04:57
  the impulses of the creature. In the space following death, some of the
• 2:05:01
  more delicate cerebral cells might well have suffered deterioration. I myself still held some
• 2:05:09
  curious notions about the traditional soul of man, and felt an awe at the
• 2:05:14
  secrets that might be told by one returning from the dead. I wondered what
• 2:05:17
  sights this placid youth might have seen in inaccessible spheres, and what he could
• 2:05:23
  relate if fully restored to life. But my wonder was not overwhelming, since
• 2:05:28
  for the most part I shared the materialism of my friend. He was calmer
• 2:05:31
  than I as he forced a large quantity of his fluid into a vein in
• 2:05:35
  the body's arm, immediately binding the incision securely. The waiting was gruesome,
• 2:05:45
  but West never faltered. Every now and then he applied his steposcope to the
• 2:05:48
  specimen and bore the negative results philosophically. After about three quarters of an hour,
• 2:05:56
  without the least sign of life, he disappointedly pronounced the inadequate, but
• 2:06:01
  determined to make the most of his opportunity and try one change in the formula
• 2:06:05
  before disposing of his ghastly prize. We had that afternoon dug a grave in
• 2:06:11
  the cellar, and would have to fill it by dawn, for although we
• 2:06:14
  had fixed a lock on the house, we wished to shun even the remotest
• 2:06:18
  risk of a ghoulish discovery. Besides, the body would not be even approximately
• 2:06:24
  fresh the next night, So taking the solitary acettylene lamp into the adjacent laboratory,
• 2:06:30
  we left our silent guest on the slab in the dark and bent every
• 2:06:34
  energy to the mixing of a new solution. The weighing and measuring supervised by
• 2:06:39
  West with an almost fanatical care. The awful event was very sudden and wholly
• 2:06:46
  unexpected. I was pouring something from one test tube to another, and West
• 2:06:51
  was busy over the alcohol blasted lamp, which had to answer for a Bunsen
• 2:06:56
  burner in this gasless Edithus, when from the pitch black room we had left
• 2:07:00
  there burst the most appalling and demonic succession of cries that either of us had
• 2:07:04
  ever heard. Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if
• 2:07:11
  the pit itself had opened to release the agony of the damned. For in
• 2:07:15
  one inconceivable cacophony was centered all the supernal terror and an unnatural despair of animate
• 2:07:21
  nature human it could not have been. It is not in man to make
• 2:07:27
  such sounds. And without a thought of our late employment or its possible discovery,
• 2:07:31
  both West and I leaped to the nearest window, like stricken animals,
• 2:07:35
  overturning tubes, lamp and retorts, and vaulting madly into the starred abyss of
• 2:07:41
  the rural night. I think we screamed ourselves as we stumbled frantically toward the
• 2:07:46
  town, though as we reached the outskirts we put on a semblance of restraint,
• 2:07:51
  just enough to seem like belated revelers staggering home from a debauch. We
• 2:07:59
  did not separate rate, but managed to get to West's room, where we
• 2:08:03
  whispered with the gas up until dawn. By then we had calmed ourselves a
• 2:08:07
  little with rational theories and plans for investigation, so that we could sleep through
• 2:08:11
  the day classes being disregarded. But that evening two items in the paper wholly
• 2:08:16
  unrelated, made it again impossible for us to sleep. The old deserted Chapman
• 2:08:22
  House had inexplicably burned to an amorphous heap of ashes that we could understand because
• 2:08:28
  of the upset lamp. Also, an attempt had been made to disturb a
• 2:08:33
  new grave in the Potter's field, as if by futile and spadeless clawing at
• 2:08:37
  the earth, that we could not understand, for we had padded down the
• 2:08:41
  mold very carefully, and for seventeen years after that, Westwood looked frequently over
• 2:08:48
  his shoulder and complain of fancied footsteps behind him. Now he has disappeared.
• 2:08:56
  Part two, The Plague Demon. I shall never forget that hideous summer sixteen
• 2:09:05
  years ago, when, like a noxious effrit from the halls of Eblis,
• 2:09:09
  typhoids stalked leeringly through Arkham. It is by that satanic scourge that most recall
• 2:09:16
  the year, for truly horror brooded with bat wings over the piles of coffins
• 2:09:20
  in the tombs of Christ Church Cemetery. Yet for me there is a greater
• 2:09:26
  horror in that time, a horror known to me alone, now that Herbert
• 2:09:31
  West has disappeared. West and I were doing postgraduate work in summer classes at
• 2:09:39
  the medical School of Miskatonic University, and my friend had attained a wide notoriety
• 2:09:43
  because of his experiments leading toward the revivification of the dead after scientific slaughter of
• 2:09:50
  uncounted small animals. The freakish work had ostensibly stopped by order of our skeptical
• 2:09:56
  dean, doctor Allan Halsey, though West had continued you to perform certain secret
• 2:10:01
  tests in his Dingy boarding house room, and had, on one terrible and
• 2:10:05
  unforgettable occasion, taken a human body from its grave in the Potter's Field to
• 2:10:11
  a deserted farmhouse beyond Meadow Hill. I was with him on that odious occasion
• 2:10:18
  and saw him inject into the still veins the elixir, which he thought would
• 2:10:22
  to some extent restore life's chemical and physical processes. It had ended horribly in
• 2:10:30
  the delirium of fear, which we gradually came to attribute to our own overwrought
• 2:10:33
  nerves. And West had never afterward been able to shake off the maddening sensation
• 2:10:39
  of being haunted and hunted. The body had not been quite fresh enough.
• 2:10:46
  It is obvious that to restore normal mental attributes, a body must be very
• 2:10:50
  fresh. Indeed, and the burning of the old house had prevented us from
• 2:10:54
  burying the thing. It would have been better if we could have known it
• 2:10:58
  was underground. After that experience, West had dropped his researches for some time,
• 2:11:07
  but the zeal of the born scientists slowly returned, and he again became
• 2:11:11
  importunate with the college faculty, pleading for the use of the dissecting room and
• 2:11:15
  of fresh human specimens for the work he regarded as so overwhelmingly important. His
• 2:11:22
  pleas, however, were wholly in vain, for the decision of doctor Halsey
• 2:11:26
  was inflexible, and the other professors all endorsed the verdict of their leader.
• 2:11:31
  In the radical theory of reanimation, they saw nothing but the immature vagarities of
• 2:11:37
  a youthful enthusiast, whose slight form, yellow hair, spectacled blue eyes,
• 2:11:41
  and soft voice gave no hint of the supernormal, almost diabolical power of the
• 2:11:48
  cold brain within. I can see him now as he was then, and
• 2:11:52
  I shiver. He grew sterner of face, but never elderly, and now
• 2:11:58
  sefton asylum has had the mishap, and West has vanished. West clashed disagreeably
• 2:12:05
  with doctor Halsey near the end of our last undergraduate term, in a wordy
• 2:12:11
  dispute that did less credit to him than to the kindly dean in point of
• 2:12:15
  courtesy. He felt that he was needlessly and irrationally retarded in a supremely great
• 2:12:20
  work, a work which he could, of course conduct to suit himself in
• 2:12:24
  later years, but which he wished to begin while still possessed of the exceptional
• 2:12:30
  facilities of the university. That the tradition bound elders should ignore his singular results
• 2:12:37
  on animals and persist in their denial of the possibility of reanimation was inexpressibly disgusting
• 2:12:43
  and almost incomprehensible to a youth of West's logical temperament. Only greater maturity could
• 2:12:50
  help him understand the chronic mental limitations of the professor doctor type, the product
• 2:12:56
  of generations of pathetic puritanism, Kindly conscientious and sometimes gentle and amiable, yet
• 2:13:03
  always narrow, intolerant, custom ridden and lacking in perspective, Age has more
• 2:13:09
  charity for these incomplete yet high souled characters whose worst real vice is timidity,
• 2:13:16
  and who are ultimately punished by general ridicule for their intellectual sins sins like Ptolemaism,
• 2:13:22
  Calvinism, anti Darwinism and anti Nitism, and every sort of sabotinarianism and
• 2:13:30
  sumptuary legislation. West Young, despite his marvelous scientific acquirements, had scant patience
• 2:13:37
  with good Doctor Halsey and his erudite colleagues, and nursed an increasing resentment,
• 2:13:43
  coupled with a desire to prove his theories to these obtuse worthies in some striking
• 2:13:48
  in dramatic fashion. Like most youths, he indulged in elaborate day dreams of
• 2:13:54
  revenge, triumph and final magnanimous forgiveness, and then had come the scourge,
• 2:14:01
  grinning and lethal from the nightmare caverns of Tartarus. West and I had graduated
• 2:14:07
  about the time of its beginning, but had remained for additional work at the
• 2:14:09
  Summer's school, so that we were in ourkham when it broke with full demonic
• 2:14:13
  fury upon the town. Though not as yet licensed physicians, we now had
• 2:14:18
  our degrees and were pressed frantically into the public service. As the number of
• 2:14:22
  the stricken grew, the situation was almost past management, and deaths ensued too
• 2:14:28
  frequently for the local undertakers to handle. Burials without embalming were made in rapid
• 2:14:33
  succession, and even the Christ Church Cemetery receiving tomb was crammed with coffins of
• 2:14:39
  the unembalmed dead. This circumstance was not without effect on West, who thought
• 2:14:45
  often of the irony of the situation. So many fresh specimens, yet none
• 2:14:50
  for his persecuted researches. We were frightfully overworked, and the terrific mental and
• 2:14:56
  nervous strain made my friend rude morbidly. But West's gentle enemies were no less
• 2:15:03
  harassed with prostrating duties. College had all but closed, and every doctor of
• 2:15:09
  the medical faculty was helping to fight the typhoid plague. Doctor Housey in particular,
• 2:15:13
  had distinguished himself in sacrificing service, applying his extreme skill with wholehearted energy
• 2:15:20
  to cases which many others shunned because of danger or apparent hopelessness. Before a
• 2:15:26
  month was over, the fearless Dean had become a popular hero, though he
• 2:15:30
  seemed unconscious of his fame as he struggled to keep from collapsing with physical fatigue
• 2:15:35
  and nervous exhaustion. West could not withhold admiration for the fortitude of his foe,
• 2:15:41
  but because of this was even more determined to prove to him the truth
• 2:15:45
  of his amazing doctrines. Taking advantage of the disorganization of both college work and
• 2:15:50
  municipal health regulations, he managed to get a recently deceased body smuggled into the
• 2:15:56
  university dissecting room one night, and in my presence, injected a new modification
• 2:16:01
  of his solution. The thing actually opened its eyes, but only stared at
• 2:16:07
  the ceiling with a look of soul petrifying horror, before collapsing in an inertness
• 2:16:11
  from which nothing could rouse it. West said it was not fresh enough.
• 2:16:16
  The hot summer air does not favor corpses. That time, we were almost
• 2:16:22
  caught before we incinerated the thing, and West doubted the advisability of repeating his
• 2:16:26
  daring misuse of the college laboratory. The peak of the epidemic was reached in
• 2:16:33
  August. West and I were almost dead, and doctor Halsey did die on
• 2:16:37
  the fourteenth. The students all attended the hasty funeral on the fifteenth and bought
• 2:16:43
  an impressive wreath, though the latter was quite overshadowed by the tributes sent by
• 2:16:46
  wealthy Arkham citizens and by the municipality itself. It was almost a public affair,
• 2:16:52
  for the Dean had surely been a public benefactor. After the entumbment,
• 2:16:58
  we were all somewhat depressed and spent the afternoon at the bar of the Commercial
• 2:17:01
  House, where West, though shaken by the death of his chief opponent,
• 2:17:05
  chilled the rest of us with references to his notorious theories. Most of the
• 2:17:11
  students went home or to various duties as the evening advanced, but West persuaded
• 2:17:15
  me to aid him in making a night of it. West's landlady saw us
• 2:17:20
  arrive at his room about two in the morning, with a third man between
• 2:17:22
  us, and told her husband that we had all evidently dined and wined rather
• 2:17:28
  well. Apparently this suscidulous matron was right. For about three a m.
• 2:17:35
  The whole house was aroused by cries coming from West's room, where when they
• 2:17:39
  broke down the door they found the two of us unconscious on the blood stained
• 2:17:43
  carpet beaten, scratched and mauled, and with the broken remnants of West's bottles
• 2:17:48
  and instruments around us. Only an open window told what had become of our
• 2:17:52
  assailant, and many wondered how he himself had fared after the terrific leap from
• 2:17:58
  the second story to the lawn, which he must have made. There were
• 2:18:01
  some strange garments in the room, but West, upon regaining consciousness, said
• 2:18:07
  that they did not belong to the stranger, but were specimens collected for bacteriological
• 2:18:11
  analysis in the course of investigations on the transmission of germ diseases. He ordered
• 2:18:18
  them burnt as soon as possible in the capacious fireplace. To the police,
• 2:18:22
  we both declared ignorance of our late companion's identity. He was West, nervously
• 2:18:28
  said a congenial stranger, whom we had met at some downtown bar of uncertain
• 2:18:33
  location. We had all been rather jovial, and West and I did not
• 2:18:37
  wish to have our pugnacious companion hunted down. That same night saw the beginning
• 2:18:45
  of the second Arkham horror, the horror that to me eclipsed the plague itself.
• 2:18:50
  Christ Church Cemetery was the scene of a terrible killing, a watchman having
• 2:18:54
  been clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but
• 2:18:58
  raising it doubt as to the human agency of the deed. The victim had
• 2:19:03
  been seen alive considerably after midnight. The dawn revealed the unutterable thing. The
• 2:19:09
  manager of a circus at the neighboring town of Bolton was questioned, but he
• 2:19:13
  swore that no beast had at any time escaped from its cage. Those who
• 2:19:18
  found the body noted a trail of blood leading to the receiving tomb, where
• 2:19:22
  a small pool of red lay on the concrete just outside the gate. A
• 2:19:26
  fainter trail led away toward the woods, but it soon gave out. The
• 2:19:31
  next night, devils danced on the roofs of Arkham, and a natural madness
• 2:19:37
  howled in the wind through the fevered town had crept a curse which some said
• 2:19:41
  was greater than the plg and which some whispered was the embodied demon soul of
• 2:19:46
  the plug itself. Eight houses were entered by a nameless thing, which strewed
• 2:19:50
  red death in its wake. In all, seventeen maimed and shapeless remnants of
• 2:19:54
  bodies were left behind by a voiceless, sadistic monster that crept abroad. A
• 2:20:01
  few persons had half seen it in the dark and said it was white and
• 2:20:05
  like a malformed ape or anthropomorphic fiend. It had not left behind quite all
• 2:20:09
  that it had attacked, for sometimes it had been hungry. The number it
• 2:20:13
  had killed was fourteen. Three of the bodies had been in stricken homes and
• 2:20:18
  had not been alive. On the third night, frantic bands of searchers led
• 2:20:24
  by the police captured it in a house on Crane Street near the Meskatonic campus.
• 2:20:30
  They had organized the quest with care, keeping in touch by means of
• 2:20:33
  volunteer telephone stations, and when someone in the college district had reported hearing a
• 2:20:39
  scratching at a shuttered window, the net was quickly spread. On account of
• 2:20:43
  the general alarm and precautions, there were only two more victims and the capture
• 2:20:48
  was effected without major casualties. The thing was finally stopped by a bullet,
• 2:20:54
  though not a fatal one, and was rushed to the local hospital amidst universal
• 2:20:58
  excitement loathing for it had been a man, This much was clear. Despite
• 2:21:05
  the nauseous eyes, the voiceless simianism and the demonic savagery. They dressed its
• 2:21:11
  wound and carted it to the asylum at Sefton, where it beat its head
• 2:21:15
  against the walls of a padded cell for sixteen years until the recent mishap,
• 2:21:20
  when it escaped under circumstances that few liked to mention. What had most disgusted
• 2:21:26
  the searchers of Arkham was the thing they noticed when the monster's face was cleaned,
• 2:21:31
  the mocking, unbelievable resemblance to a learned and self sacrificing martyr who had
• 2:21:37
  been entombed but three days before the late doctor Alan Halsey, public benefactor and
• 2:21:43
  dean of the Medical School of Miskatonic University. To the vanished Herbert West,
• 2:21:48
  and to me, the disgust and horror were supreme. I shudder tonight as
• 2:21:54
  I think of it, shudder even more than I did that morning when West
• 2:21:56
  muttered through his bandages. Damn, it wasn't quite fresh enough. Part three.
• 2:22:05
  Six shots by moonlight. It is uncommon to fire all six shots of
• 2:22:11
  a revolver with great suddenness, when one would probably be sufficient. But many
• 2:22:16
  things in the life of Herbert West were uncommon. It is, for instance,
• 2:22:20
  not often that a young physician leaving college is obligated to conceal the principles
• 2:22:26
  which guide his selection of a house and office. Yet that was the case
• 2:22:30
  with Herbert West, when he and I obtained our degrees at the medical school
• 2:22:35
  of Miskatonic University and sought to relieve our poverty by setting up as general practitioners.
• 2:22:41
  We took great care not to say that we chose our home because it
• 2:22:45
  was fairly well isolated and as near as possible to the potter's field. Reticence
• 2:22:52
  such as this is seldom without a cause, nor indeed was ours. For
• 2:22:56
  our requirements were those resulting from a life work distanc unpopular. Outwardly, we
• 2:23:01
  were doctors only, But beneath the surface were aims of far greater and more
• 2:23:07
  terrible moment. For the essence of Herbert West's existence was a quest amid black
• 2:23:11
  and forbidden realms of the unknown, in which he hoped to uncover the secret
• 2:23:16
  of life and restore to perpetual animation the graveyard's cold clay. Such a quest
• 2:23:22
  demands strange materials, among them fresh human bodies, and in order to keep
• 2:23:28
  supplied with these indispensable things, one must live quietly and not far from a
• 2:23:33
  place of informal interment. West and I had met in college, and I
• 2:23:39
  had been the only one to sympathize with his hideous experiments. Gradually I had
• 2:23:43
  come to be his inseparable assistant, and now that we were out of college,
• 2:23:48
  we had to keep together. It was not easy to find a good
• 2:23:52
  opening for two doctors in company, but finally the influence of the university secured
• 2:23:56
  us a practice in Bolton, a factory town near Darkham, the seat of
• 2:24:00
  the college. The Bolt and Worsted mills are the largest in the Miskatonic Valley,
• 2:24:05
  and their polyglot employees are never popular as patients with the local physicians.
• 2:24:11
  We chose our house with the greatest care, seizing at last on a rather
• 2:24:15
  run down cottage near the end of Pond Street, five numbers from the closest
• 2:24:20
  neighbor, and separated from the local potter's field by only a stretch of meadow
• 2:24:24
  land bisected by a narrow neck of the rather dense forest which lies to the
• 2:24:28
  north. The distance was greater than we wished, but we could get no
• 2:24:33
  nearer house without going on the other side of the field, wholly out of
• 2:24:37
  the factory district. We were not much displeased, however, since there were
• 2:24:41
  no people between us and our sinister source of supplies. The walk was a
• 2:24:46
  trifle long, but we could haul our silent specimens undisturbed. Our practice was
• 2:24:52
  surprisingly large from the very first, large enough to please most young doctors,
• 2:24:58
  and large enough to prove a bore and a burden to students whose real interest
• 2:25:03
  lay elsewhere. The mill hands were of somewhat turbulent inclinations, and besides their
• 2:25:07
  many natural needs, their frequent clashes and stabbing a phrays gave us plenty to
• 2:25:13
  do. But what actually absorbed our minds was the secret laboratory we had fitted
• 2:25:18
  up in the cellar, the laboratory with the long table under the electric lights,
• 2:25:22
  where in the small hours of the morning we often injected West's various solutions
• 2:25:26
  into the veins of the things we dragged from the potter's field. West was
• 2:25:31
  experimenting madly to find something which would start man's vital motions anew after they had
• 2:25:37
  been stopped by the thing we called death, but had encountered the most ghastly
• 2:25:43
  obstacles. The solution had to be differently compounded for different types. What would
• 2:25:48
  serve for guinea pigs would not serve for human beings, and different human specimens
• 2:25:54
  required large modifications. The bodies had to be exceedingly fresh, where the slight
• 2:26:01
  decomposition of brain tissue would render perfect reanimation impossible. Indeed, the greatest problem
• 2:26:07
  was to get them fresh enough. West had had horrible experiences during his secret
• 2:26:13
  college researches with corpses of doubtful vintage. The results of partial or imperfect animation
• 2:26:20
  were much more hideous than were the total failures, and we both held fearsome
• 2:26:24
  recollections of such things. Ever since our first demonic session in the deserted farmhouse
• 2:26:30
  on Meadow Hill in Arkham, we had felt a brooding menace, and West,
• 2:26:35
  though a calm, blonde, blue eyed scientific automaton in most respects,
• 2:26:39
  often confessed to a shuddering sensation of stealthy pursuit. He half felt that he
• 2:26:46
  was followed a psychological delusion of shaken nerves, enhanced by the undeniably disturbing fact
• 2:26:52
  that at least one of our reanimated specimens was still alive, a frightful,
• 2:26:56
  carnivorous thing in a padded cell. At Sefton, there was another, our
• 2:27:01
  first whose exact fate we had never learned. We had fair luck with specimens
• 2:27:09
  in Bolton, much better than in Arkham. We had not been settled a
• 2:27:13
  week before. We got an accident victim on the very night of burial and
• 2:27:16
  made it open its eyes with an amazingly rational expression. Before the solution failed,
• 2:27:22
  it had lost an arm. If it had been a perfect body,
• 2:27:26
  we might have succeeded better. Between then and the next January we secured three
• 2:27:31
  more, one total failure, one case of marked muscular motion, and one
• 2:27:37
  rather shivery thing. It rose of itself and uttered a sound. Then came
• 2:27:41
  a period where luck was poor. Interments fell off, and those that did
• 2:27:46
  occur were of specimens either too diseased or too maimed for use. We kept
• 2:27:50
  track of all the deaths and their circumstances with systematic care. One March night,
• 2:27:58
  however, we unexpectedly obtained a specimen which did not come from the potter's
• 2:28:03
  field. In Bolton, the prevailing spirit of Puritanism had outlawed the sport of
• 2:28:07
  boxing, with the usual result. Surreptitious and ill conducted bouts among the mill
• 2:28:13
  workers were common, and occasionally professional talent of low grade was imported. This
• 2:28:18
  late winter night, there had been such a match, evidently with disastrous results.
• 2:28:24
  Since two timorous Pulls had come to us with incoherently whispered entreaties to attend
• 2:28:28
  to a very secret and desperate case, we followed them to an abandoned barn,
• 2:28:33
  where the remnants of a crowd of frightened foreigners were watching a silent black
• 2:28:39
  form on the floor. The match had been between Kid O'Brien, a lubberly
• 2:28:45
  and now quaking youth with a most Unhiberian hooked nose, and Buck Robinson,
• 2:28:50
  the Harlem Smoke. The Negro had been knocked out, and a moment's examination
• 2:28:56
  showed us that he would permanently remain so. He was a loathe, so
• 2:29:00
  guerrilla like thing with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling four legs,
• 2:29:05
  and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and Tom Tom's
• 2:29:11
  pounding under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life,
• 2:29:15
  But the world holds many ugly things. Fear was upon the whole pitiful
• 2:29:20
  crowd, for they did not know what the law would extract from them if
• 2:29:24
  the affair were not hushed up, and they were grateful when West, in
• 2:29:28
  spite of my involuntary shutters, offered to get rid of the thing quietly for
• 2:29:33
  a purpose I knew too well. There was bright moonlight over the snowless landscape.
• 2:29:41
  But we dressed the thing and carried it home between us, through the
• 2:29:43
  deserted streets and meadows, as we had carried a similar thing one horrible night
• 2:29:48
  in our camp. We approached the house from the field in the rear,
• 2:29:52
  and took the specimen in the back door and down the cellar stairs, and
• 2:29:56
  prepared it for the usual experiment. Our fear of the lease was absurdly great,
• 2:30:01
  though we had timed our trip to avoid the solitary patrol man of that
• 2:30:05
  section. The result was wearily anticlimactic, ghastly. As our prize appeared,
• 2:30:11
  it was wholly unresponsive to every solution we injected in its black arm, solutions
• 2:30:18
  prepared from experience with white specimens. Only so as the hour grew dangerously near
• 2:30:24
  to dawn, we did as we had done with the others, dragged the
• 2:30:26
  thing across the meadows to the neck of the woods near the potter's field,
• 2:30:31
  and buried it there in the best sort of grave the frozen ground would furnish.
• 2:30:35
  The grave was not very deep, but fully as good as that of
• 2:30:39
  the previous specimen. The thing, which had risen of itself and uttered a
• 2:30:43
  sound in the light of our dark lanterns, we carefully covered it with leaves
• 2:30:46
  and dead vines, fairly certain that the police would never find it in a
• 2:30:50
  forest so dim and dense. The next day I was increasingly apprehensive about the
• 2:30:58
  police, for a patient brought rumors of a suspected fight and death. West
• 2:31:03
  had still another source of worry, for he had been called in the afternoon
• 2:31:07
  to a case which ended very threateningly. An Italian woman had become hysterical over
• 2:31:11
  her missing child, a lad of five, who had strayed off early in
• 2:31:16
  the morning and failed to appear for dinner, and had developed symptoms highly alarming
• 2:31:20
  in view of an always weak heart. It was a very foolish hysteria,
• 2:31:24
  for the boy had often run away before. But Italian peasants are exceedingly superstitious,
• 2:31:31
  and this woman seemed as much harassed by omens as by facts. About
• 2:31:35
  seven o'clock in the evening, she had died, and her frantic husband had
• 2:31:39
  made a frightful scene in his efforts to kill West, whom he wildly blamed
• 2:31:43
  for not saving her life. Friends had held him back when he drew a
• 2:31:48
  stiletto, but West departed amidst his inhuman shrieks, curses, and oaths of
• 2:31:52
  vengeance. In his latest affliction, the fellow seemed to have forgotten his child,
• 2:31:58
  who was still missing. As the night advanced, there was some talk
• 2:32:01
  of searching the woods, but most of the family's friends were busy with the
• 2:32:05
  dead woman and the screaming man altogether. The nervous strain upon West must have
• 2:32:11
  been tremendous. Thoughts of the police and of the mad Italian both weighed heavily.
• 2:32:18
  We retired about eleven, but I did not sleep well. Bolton had
• 2:32:22
  a surprisingly good police force for so small a town, and I could not
• 2:32:26
  help fearing the mess which would ensue if the affair of the night before were
• 2:32:28
  ever tracked down. It might mean the end of all our local work,
• 2:32:33
  and perhaps prison for both West and me. I did not like those rumors
• 2:32:37
  a fight which were floating about. After the clock had struck three, the
• 2:32:41
  moon shone in my eyes, but I turned over without rising to pull down
• 2:32:46
  the shade. Then came the steady rattling at the back door. I lay
• 2:32:52
  still and somewhat dazed, but before long heard West's rap on my door.
• 2:32:56
  He was clad in dressing gown and slippers, and had in his hands a
• 2:33:00
  revolver and an electric flashlight. From the revolver, I knew that he was
• 2:33:05
  thinking more of the crazed Italian than of the police. We'd better both go,
• 2:33:09
  he whispered. It wouldn't do, not answer it anyway, and it
• 2:33:13
  may be a patient. It would be like one of those schools to try
• 2:33:16
  the back door. So we both went down the stairs on tiptoe, with
• 2:33:22
  a fear, partly justified and partly that which comes only from the soul of
• 2:33:26
  the weird small hours. The rattling continued, growing somewhat louder. When we
• 2:33:31
  reached the door, I cautiously unbolted it and threw it open, as the
• 2:33:35
  moon streamed, revealingly down on the form silhouetted there. West did a peculiar
• 2:33:41
  thing, despite the obvious danger of attracting notice and bringing down on our heads
• 2:33:46
  the dreaded police investigation, a thing which after all was mercifully averted by the
• 2:33:50
  relative isolation of our cottage. My friend suddenly, excitedly and unnecessarily emptied all
• 2:33:56
  six chambers of his revolver to the nocturnal visitor, for that visitor was neither
• 2:34:03
  Italian nor policeman. Looming hideously against the spectral moon was a gigantic, misshapen
• 2:34:09
  thing not to be imagined save in nightmares, A glassy eyed, ink black
• 2:34:15
  apparition, nearly on all fours, covered with bits of mold, leaves and
• 2:34:20
  vines, foul with caked blood, and having between its glistening teeth, a
• 2:34:24
  snow white, terrible cylindrical object terminating in a tiny hand end of Herbert West
• 2:34:33
  Reanimator. Herbert West Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft, Part B,
• 2:34:41
  Part four, The Scream of the Dead. The scream of a dead man
• 2:34:46
  gave to me that acute and added horror of doctor Herbert West, which harassed
• 2:34:50
  the later years of our companionship. It is natural that such a thing as
• 2:34:56
  a dead man's scream should give horror, for it is obviously not a pleasing
• 2:35:00
  or ordinary occurrence. But I was used to similar experiences, hence suffered on
• 2:35:05
  this occasion only because of a particular circumstance, and as I have implied,
• 2:35:11
  it was not of the dead man himself that I became afraid. Herbert West,
• 2:35:18
  whose associate and assistant I was, possessed scientific interests far beyond the usual
• 2:35:24
  routine of a village physician. That was why, when establishing his practice in
• 2:35:28
  Bolton, he had chosen an isolated house near the Potter's field. Briefly and
• 2:35:33
  brutally stated, West's sole absorbing interest was a secret study of the phenomena of
• 2:35:39
  life and its cessation, leading toward the reanimation of the dead through injections of
• 2:35:46
  an excitant solution. For this ghastly experimenting, it was necessary to have a
• 2:35:50
  constant supply of very fresh human bodies, very fresh because the least decay hopelessly
• 2:35:58
  damaged the brain's tree structure, and human because we found that the solution had
• 2:36:03
  to be compounded differently for different types of organisms. Scores of rabbits and guinea
• 2:36:09
  pigs had been killed and treated, but their trail was a blind one.
• 2:36:13
  West had never fully succeeded because he had never been able to secure a corpse
• 2:36:18
  sufficiently fresh. What he wanted were bodies from which vitality had only just departed,
• 2:36:24
  bodies with every cell intact and capable of receiving again the impulse towards the
• 2:36:31
  motive of motion called life. There was hope that this second and artificial life
• 2:36:37
  might be made perpetual by repetitions of the injection. But we had learned that
• 2:36:43
  an ordinary natural life would not respond to the action. To establish the artificial
• 2:36:48
  motion, natural life must be extinct, The specimens must be very fresh,
• 2:36:56
  but genuinely dead. The awesome quest had begun when West and I were students
• 2:37:03
  at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, vividly conscious for the first time
• 2:37:09
  of the thoroughly mechanical nature of life. That was seven years before, but
• 2:37:15
  West looked scarcely a day older. Now. He was small, blonde,
• 2:37:18
  clean shaven, soft voiced, and spectacled, with only an occasional flash of
• 2:37:24
  a cold blue eye to tell of the hardening and growing fanaticism of his character
• 2:37:28
  under the pressure of his terrible investigations. Our experiences had often been hideous in
• 2:37:35
  the extreme, the results of defective reanimation. When lumps of graveyard clay had
• 2:37:41
  been galvanized into morbid, unnatural and brainless motion by various modifications of the vital
• 2:37:48
  solution, one thing had uttered a nerve shattering scream. Another had risen violently
• 2:37:56
  beaten us both to unconsciousness and run amok in a shop walking way before it
• 2:38:01
  could be placed behind asylum bars. Still another, a loathsome African monstrosity,
• 2:38:07
  had clawed out of its shallow grave and done adeed. West had had to
• 2:38:11
  shoot that object. We could not get bodies fresh enough to show any trace
• 2:38:15
  of reason when reanimated, so had perforce created nameless horrors. It was disturbing
• 2:38:22
  to think that one, perhaps two, of our monsters still lived. That
• 2:38:26
  thought haunted us shadowingly till finally West disappeared under frightful circumstances. But at the
• 2:38:33
  time of the scream in the cellar laboratory of the isolated Bolton College, our
• 2:38:39
  fears were subordinate to our anxiety for extremely fresh specimens. West was more avid
• 2:38:45
  than I, so that it almost seemed to me that he looked half covetously
• 2:38:50
  had any very healthy living physique. It was in July nineteen ten that the
• 2:38:56
  bad luck regarding specimens began to turn. I had been on a long visit
• 2:39:01
  to my parents in Illinois, and upon my return, found West in a
• 2:39:05
  state of singular elation. He had he told me excitedly, in all likelihood
• 2:39:11
  solved the problem of freshness threw an approach from an entirely new angle, that
• 2:39:16
  of artificial preservation. I had known that he was working on a new and
• 2:39:20
  highly unusual embalming compound, and was not surprised that it had turned out well,
• 2:39:26
  But until he explained the details, I was rather puzzled as to how
• 2:39:31
  such a compound would help in our work, since the objectionable staleness of the
• 2:39:35
  specimens was largely due to delay occurring before we secured them. This, I
• 2:39:41
  now saw West had clearly recognized creating his embalming compound for future rather than immediate
• 2:39:48
  use, and trusting to fate to supply again some very recent and unburied corpse,
• 2:39:54
  as it had years before when we obtained the Negro killed in the Bolt
• 2:40:00
  Prize fight. At last, fate had been kind so that on this occasion
• 2:40:05
  there lay in the secret cellar laboratory a corpse whose delay could not, by
• 2:40:11
  any possibility have begun. What would happen on reanimation, and whether we could
• 2:40:16
  help for a revival of mind and reason? West did not venture to predict
• 2:40:22
  the experiment would be a landmark in our studies, and he had saved the
• 2:40:28
  new body for my return, so that both might share in the spectacle.
• 2:40:31
  In accustomed to fashion, West told me how he had obtained the specimen.
• 2:40:39
  It had been a vigorous man, a well dressed stranger, just off the
• 2:40:43
  train on his way to transact some business with the Bolton Worsted Mills. The
• 2:40:48
  walk through the town had been long, and by the time the stranger paused
• 2:40:52
  at our cottage to ask the way to the factories, his heart had become
• 2:40:56
  greatly overtaxed. He had refused a stimulate and had suddenly dropped dead only a
• 2:41:01
  moment later. The body, as might be expected, seemed to West a
• 2:41:07
  heaven sent gift. In his brief conversation, the stranger had made it clear
• 2:41:11
  that he was unknown in Bolton, and a search of his pockets subsequently revealed
• 2:41:16
  him to be one Robert Levitt of Saint Louis, apparently without a family to
• 2:41:22
  make instant inquiries about his disappearance. If this man could not be restored to
• 2:41:26
  life, no one would know of our experiment. We buried our materials in
• 2:41:31
  a dense strip of woods between the house and the potter's field. If,
• 2:41:37
  on the other hand, he could be restored, our fame would be brilliantly
• 2:41:41
  and perpetually established. So, without delay, West had injected into the body's
• 2:41:48
  wrist the compound which would hold it fresh for until after my arrival. The
• 2:41:54
  matter of the presumably weak heart, which to my mind imperiled the success of
• 2:41:58
  our experience, did not appear to trouble West extensively. He hoped at least
• 2:42:05
  to obtain what he had never obtained before, a rekindled spark of reason and
• 2:42:11
  perhaps a normal living creature. So, on the night of July eighteenth,
• 2:42:16
  nineteen ten, Herbert West and I stood in the cellar laboratory and gazed at
• 2:42:22
  a white, silent figure beneath the dazzling arc light. The embalming compound had
• 2:42:26
  worked uncannily well, for as I stared fascinatedly at the sturdy frame, which
• 2:42:33
  had lain two weeks without stiffening, I was moved to seek West's assurance that
• 2:42:39
  the thing was really dead. This assurance he gave readily enough, reminding me
• 2:42:43
  that the reanimating solution was never used without careful tests as to life, since
• 2:42:48
  it could have no effect if any of the original vitality were present. As
• 2:42:54
  West proceeded to take preliminary steps. I was impressed by the fact vast intricacy
• 2:43:01
  of the new experiment, an intricacy so vast that he could trust no hand
• 2:43:05
  less delicate than his own forbidding me to touch the body. He first injected
• 2:43:11
  a drug in the wrist, just beside the place his needle had punctured when
• 2:43:15
  injecting the embalming compound. This, he said, was to neutralize the compound
• 2:43:20
  and release the system to a normal relaxation, so that the reanimating solution might
• 2:43:26
  freely work when injected. Slightly later, when a change in a gentle tremor
• 2:43:33
  seemed to effect the dead limbs, West stuffed a pillow like object violently over
• 2:43:39
  the twitching face, not withdrawing it until the corpse appeared quiet and ready for
• 2:43:43
  our attempt at reanimation. The pale enthusiast now applied some last perfunctory tests for
• 2:43:50
  absolute lifelessness, Withdrew satisfied, and finally injected into the left arm an accurately
• 2:43:58
  measured amount of the vital elirition, prepared during the afternoon with a greater care
• 2:44:03
  than we had used since college days, when our feats were new and groping.
• 2:44:07
  I cannot express the wild, breathless suspense with which we waited for results
• 2:44:13
  on this first really fresh specimen, the first we could reasonably expect to open
• 2:44:20
  its lips in rational speech, perhaps to tell of what it had seen beyond
• 2:44:24
  the unfathomable abyss. West was a materialist, believing in no soul and attributing
• 2:44:31
  all the working of consciousness to bodily phenomena. Consequently, he looked for no
• 2:44:37
  revelation of hideous secrets from the gulfs and caverns beyond death's barrier. I did
• 2:44:43
  not wholly disagree with him theoretically, yet held vague instinctive reminence of the primitive
• 2:44:50
  faith of my forefathers, so that I could not help eyeing the corpse with
• 2:44:54
  a certain amount of awe and terrible expectation. Besides, I could not extract
• 2:45:01
  from my memory that hideous inhuman shriek we heard on the night we tried our
• 2:45:05
  first experiment in the deserted farmhouse at Arkham. Very little time had elapsed before
• 2:45:13
  I saw the attempt was not to be a total failure. A touch of
• 2:45:16
  color came to cheeks, hitherto chalk white, and spread out under the curiously
• 2:45:22
  ample stubble of sandy Beard. West, who had his hand on the pulse
• 2:45:26
  of the left wrist, suddenly nodded significantly, and almost simultaneously, a mist
• 2:45:33
  appeared on the mirror inclined above the body's mouth. There followed a few spasmodic
• 2:45:37
  muscular motions, and then an audible breathing and visible motion of the chest.
• 2:45:43
  I looked at the closed eyelids and thought I detected a quivering. Then the
• 2:45:50
  lids opened, showing eyes which were gray, calm and alive, but still
• 2:45:56
  unintelligent and not even curious. In a moment of fantastic whim, I whispered
• 2:46:03
  questions to the reddening ears, questions of other worlds of which the memory might
• 2:46:09
  still be present. Subsequent hair drove them from my mind, but I think
• 2:46:13
  the last one, which I repeated, was where have you been? I
• 2:46:18
  do not yet know whether I was answered or not, for no sound came
• 2:46:22
  from the well shaped mouth. But I do know that at that moment I
• 2:46:26
  firmly thought, the thin lips moved silently, forming syllables which I would have
• 2:46:30
  vocalized as only now if that phrase had possessed any sense or relevancy at that
• 2:46:37
  moment, As I say, I was elated with the conviction that the one
• 2:46:41
  great goal had been attained, and that, for the first time a reanimated
• 2:46:46
  corpse had uttered distinct words impelled by actual reason. In the next moment,
• 2:46:52
  there was no doubt about the triumph, no doubt that the Solution had truly
• 2:46:56
  accomplished, at least temporarily, its mission of restoring rational and articulate life to
• 2:47:03
  the dead. But in that triumph there came to me the greatest of all
• 2:47:07
  horrors, not horror of the thing that spoke, but of the deed that
• 2:47:11
  I had witnessed, and of the man with whom my professional fortunes were joined.
• 2:47:16
  For that very fresh body, at last, writhing into full and terrifying
• 2:47:22
  consciousness, with eyes dilated at the memory of its last scene on earth,
• 2:47:26
  threw out its frantic hands in a life and death struggle with the air,
• 2:47:30
  and suddenly collapsing into a second and final dissolution from which there could be no
• 2:47:35
  return. Screamed out the cry that will ring eternally in my aching brain.
• 2:47:41
  Help keep off, you cursed little tow head fiend. Keep that damned needle
• 2:47:46
  away from me. Part five. The horror from the shadows many men have
• 2:47:54
  related hideous things not mentioned in print, which happened on the battle of the
• 2:48:00
  Great War. Some of these things have made me faint, others have convulsed
• 2:48:05
  me with devastating nausea, while still others have made me tremble and look behind
• 2:48:09
  me in the dark. Yet, despite the worst of them, I believe
• 2:48:13
  that I can myself relate the most hideous thing of all, the shocking,
• 2:48:16
  the unnatural, the unbelievable horror from the shadows. In nineteen fifteen, I
• 2:48:22
  was a physician with the rank of first lieutenant in a Canadian regiment in Flanders,
• 2:48:28
  one of many Americans to precede the government itself into the Gigantic Struggle.
• 2:48:33
  I had not entered the army of my own initiative, but rather as a
• 2:48:37
  natural result of the enlistment of the man whose indispensable assistant I was, the
• 2:48:43
  celebrated Boston surgical specialist, doctor Herbert West. Doctor West had been avid for
• 2:48:48
  a chance to serve as a surgeon in a great war, and when the
• 2:48:52
  chance had come, he carried me with him, almost against my will.
• 2:48:56
  There were reasons why I could have been glad to let the war separate us,
• 2:49:01
  reasons why I found the practice of medicine and the companionship of West more
• 2:49:05
  and more irritating. But when he had gone to Ottawa and, through a
• 2:49:09
  colleague's influence, secured a medical commission as major, I could not resist the
• 2:49:15
  imperious persuasion of one determined that I should accompany him in my usual capacity.
• 2:49:22
  When I say that doctor West was avid to serve in battle, I do
• 2:49:26
  not mean to imply that he was either naturally warlike or anxious for the safety
• 2:49:31
  of civilization. Always an ice cold, intellectual machine, slight, blond,
• 2:49:37
  blue eyed, and spectacled, I think he secretly sneered at my occasional martial
• 2:49:41
  enthusiasms and censures of supperine neutrality. There was, however, something he wanted
• 2:49:48
  in embattled Flanders, and in order to secure it, had had to assume
• 2:49:52
  a military exterior. What he wanted was not a thing which many persons want,
• 2:50:00
  but something connected with the peculiar branch of medical science, which he had
• 2:50:05
  chosen quite clandestinely to follow, and in which he had achieved amazing and occasionally
• 2:50:09
  hideous results. It was, in fact, nothing more or less than an
• 2:50:15
  abundant supply of freshly killed men in every stage of dismemberment. Herbert West needed
• 2:50:22
  fresh bodies because his life work was the reanimation of the dead. This work
• 2:50:28
  was not known to the fashionable clientele who had so swiftly built up his fame
• 2:50:33
  after his arrival in Boston, but was only too well known to me,
• 2:50:37
  who had been his closest friend and sole assistant since the old days at Miskatonic
• 2:50:41
  University Medical School at Arkham. It was in those college days that he had
• 2:50:46
  begun his terrible experiments, first on small animals and then on human bodies.
• 2:50:52
  Shockingly obtained. There was a solution which he injected into the veins of dead
• 2:50:58
  things, and if they were fresh enough, they responded in strange ways.
• 2:51:03
  He had had much trouble in discovering the proper formula for each type of organism
• 2:51:09
  was found to need a stimulus especially adapted to it. Terror stocked him when
• 2:51:15
  he reflected on his partial failures, nameless things resulting from being perfect solutions or
• 2:51:20
  from bodies insufficiently fresh. A certain number of these failures had remained alive,
• 2:51:26
  one was at an asylum, while others had vanished, and as he thought
• 2:51:31
  of conceivable yet virtually impossible eventualities, he often shivered beneath his usual stolidity.
• 2:51:41
  West had soon learned that absolute freshness was the prime requisite for useful specimens,
• 2:51:46
  and had accordingly resorted to frightful and unnatural expedients in body snatching. In college
• 2:51:52
  and during our early practice together in the factory town of Bolton. My attitude
• 2:51:56
  toward him had been largely one of fast admiration. But as his boldness and
• 2:52:01
  methods grew, I began to develop a gnawing fear. I did not like
• 2:52:07
  the way he looked at healthy, living bodies. And then there came a
• 2:52:11
  nightmarish session in the cellar laboratory when I learned that a certain specimen had been
• 2:52:16
  a living body when he secured it. That was the first time he had
• 2:52:22
  ever been able to revive the quality of rational thought in a corpse, and
• 2:52:26
  his success, obtained at such a loathsome cost, had completely hardened him of
• 2:52:33
  his methods. In the intervening five years, I dare not speak. I
• 2:52:37
  was held to him by sheer force of fear, and witnessed sights that no
• 2:52:41
  human tongue could repeat. Gradually I came to find Herbert West himself more horrible
• 2:52:48
  than anything he did. That was when it dawned on me that his once
• 2:52:52
  normal scientific zeal for prolonged life had subtly degenerated into a mere morbid and ghoulish
• 2:52:58
  care curiosity and secret sense of Charnel picturesqueness. His interest became a hellish and
• 2:53:07
  perverse addiction to the repellently and fiendishly abnormal. He gloated calmly over artificial monstrosities
• 2:53:13
  which would make most healthy men drop dead from fright and disgust. He became,
• 2:53:20
  behind his pallid intellectuality, a fastidious Beaudelaire of physical experiment, a languid
• 2:53:26
  eligabolous of the tombs dangers he met unflinchingly, crimes he committed unmoved. I
• 2:53:35
  think the climax came when he had proved his point that rational life can be
• 2:53:39
  restored, and had sought new worlds to conquer by experimenting on the reanimation of
• 2:53:45
  detached parts of bodies. He had wild and original ideas on the independent vital
• 2:53:50
  properties of organic cells and nerve tissue separated from the natural physiological systems, and
• 2:53:56
  achieved some hideous preliminary results in the form of never dying. Artificially nourished tissue
• 2:54:03
  obtained from the nearly hatched eggs of an indescribable tropical reptile. Two biological points
• 2:54:09
  he was exceedingly anxious to settle. First, whether any amount of consciousness and
• 2:54:15
  rational action be possible without the brain proceeding from the spinal cord and various nerve
• 2:54:20
  centers. And second, whether any kind of ethereal intangible relation, distinct from
• 2:54:28
  the material cells may exist to link the surgically separated parts of what had previously
• 2:54:33
  been a single living organism. All this research work required a prodigious supply of
• 2:54:39
  freshly slaughtered human flesh, and that was why Herbert West had entered the Great
• 2:54:46
  War. The phantasmal, unmentionable thing occurred one midnight late in March nineteen fifteen
• 2:54:54
  in a field hospital behind the lines of Saint Alois. I wonder even now
• 2:55:00
  if it could have been other than a demonic dream of delirium. West had
• 2:55:03
  a private laboratory in an east room of the barn like temporary edifice assigned him
• 2:55:09
  on his plea that he was devising new and radical methods for the treatment of
• 2:55:13
  hitherto hopeless cases of maiming. There he worked like a butcher in the midst
• 2:55:20
  of his gory wares. I could never get used to the levity with which
• 2:55:24
  he handled and classified certain things. At times he actually did perform marvels of
• 2:55:30
  surgery for the soldiers, but his chief delights were of a less public and
• 2:55:33
  philanthropic kind, requiring many explanations of sounds which seemed peculiar even amidst that babble
• 2:55:41
  of the damned. Among these sounds were frequent revolver shots, surely not uncommon
• 2:55:46
  on a battle field, but distinctly uncommon in a hospital. Doctor West's reanimated
• 2:55:52
  specimens were not meant for long existence or a large audience. Besides human tissue,
• 2:55:58
  West employed much of the reptile embryo tissue which he had cultivated in such
• 2:56:05
  singular results it was better than human material for maintaining life in organless fragments,
• 2:56:11
  and that was now my friend's chief activity. In a dark corner of the
• 2:56:16
  laboratory, over a queer incubating burner, he kept a large covered vat full
• 2:56:22
  of this reptilian cell matter, which multiplied and grew puffily and hideously. On
• 2:56:28
  the night of which I speak, we had a splendid new specimen, a
• 2:56:33
  man, at once physically powerful and of such high mentality that a sensitive nervous
• 2:56:37
  system was assured. It was rather ironic, for he was the officer who
• 2:56:43
  had helped West to his commission, and who was now to have been our
• 2:56:46
  associate. Moreover, he had in the past secretly studied the theory of reanimation
• 2:56:52
  to some extent under West. Major Sir Eric Morland claphamilely Dso was the greatest
• 2:56:58
  surgeon in our division, and had been hastily assigned to the Saint Elois sector
• 2:57:03
  when news of the heavy fighting reached headquarters. He had come in an airplane
• 2:57:09
  piloted by the intrepid Lieutenant Ronald Hill, only to be shot down when directly
• 2:57:15
  over his destination. The fall had been spectacular and awful. Hill was unrecognizable
• 2:57:20
  afterwards, but the wreck yielded up the great surgeon in a nearly decapitated but
• 2:57:26
  otherwise intact condition. West had greedily seized the lifeless thing which had once been
• 2:57:31
  his friend and fellow scholar, and I shuddered when he finished severing the head,
• 2:57:37
  placed it in his hellish vat of pulpy reptile tissue to preserve it for
• 2:57:41
  future experiments, and proceeded to treat the decapitated body on the operating table.
• 2:57:48
  He injected new blood, joined certain veins, arteries and nerves at the headless
• 2:57:52
  neck, and closed the ghastly aperture with in graft skin from an unidentified specimen
• 2:57:58
  which had sworn an officer's uniform. I knew what he wanted to see.
• 2:58:03
  If this highly organized body could exhibit, without its head, any of the
• 2:58:07
  signs of mental life which had distinguished Sir Eric Morland Clapham Lee, once a
• 2:58:15
  student of reanimation, this silent trunk was now gruesomely called upon to exemplify it.
• 2:58:22
  I can still see Herbert West under the sinister electric light as he injected
• 2:58:28
  his reanimating solution into the arm of the headless body. The scene I cannot
• 2:58:33
  describe. I would faint if I tried it, for there is a madness
• 2:58:37
  in a room full of classified Charnel things, with blood and lesser human debris
• 2:58:43
  almost ankle deep on the slimy floor, and with hideous reptilian abnormalities sprouting,
• 2:58:48
  bubbling and baking over a winking, bluish green specter of dim flame in a
• 2:58:54
  far corner of black shadows. The specimen, as West repeatedly observed, had
• 2:59:01
  a splendid nervous system. Much was expected of it, and as a few
• 2:59:05
  twitching motions began to appear, I could see the feverish interest on West's face.
• 2:59:11
  He was ready, I think, to see proof of his increasingly strong
• 2:59:16
  opinion that consciousness, reason, and personality can exist independently of the brain,
• 2:59:22
  that man has no central connective spirit, but is merely a machine of nervous
• 2:59:26
  matter, each section more or less complete in itself. In one triumphant demonstration,
• 2:59:33
  West was about to relegate the mystery of life to the category of myth.
• 2:59:37
  The body now twitched more vigorously, and beneath our avid eyes commenced to
• 2:59:43
  heave in a frightful way. The arms stirred disquietingly, the legs drew up,
• 2:59:48
  and various muscles contracted in a repulsive kind of writhing. Then the headless
• 2:59:54
  thing threw its arms out in a gesture which was unmistakably one of desperation,
• 2:59:58
  in intelligent desperation, apparently sufficient to prove every theory of Herbert West. Certainly,
• 3:00:05
  the nerves were recalling the man's last act in life, the struggle to
• 3:00:09
  get free of the falling airplane. What followed I shall never positively know it
• 3:00:16
  may have been wholly a hallucination from the shock caused at that instant by the
• 3:00:22
  sudden and complete destruction of the building in a cataclysm of German shell fire.
• 3:00:26
  Who can gainsay it? Since West and I were the only proved survivors.
• 3:00:31
  West liked to think that before his recent disappearance, but there were times when
• 3:00:37
  he could not, for it was queer that we both had the same hallucination.
• 3:00:41
  The hideous occurrence itself was very simple, notable only for what it implied.
• 3:00:48
  The body on the table had risen with a blind and terrible groping,
• 3:00:52
  and we had heard a sound. I should not call that sound of voice,
• 3:00:56
  for it was too awful. And yet its timber was not the most
• 3:01:00
  awful thing about it. Neither was its message. It had merely screamed,
• 3:01:03
  Jump, Ronald, for God's sake. Jump. The awful thing was its
• 3:01:07
  source, for it had come from the large covered vat in that ghoulish corner
• 3:01:13
  of crawling black shadows, Part six The Tomb Legions. When doctor Herbert West
• 3:01:24
  disappeared a year ago, the Boston police questioned me closely. They suspected that
• 3:01:30
  I was holding something back, and perhaps suspected graver things. But I could
• 3:01:35
  not tell them the truth because they would not have believed it. They knew,
• 3:01:39
  indeed, that West had been connected with activities beyond the credence of ordinary
• 3:01:43
  men. For his hideous experiments in the reanimation of dead bodies had long been
• 3:01:48
  too extensive to admit of perfect secrecy. But the final soul shattering catastrophe held
• 3:01:56
  elements of demonic fantasy which make even me doubt the reality of what I saw.
• 3:02:03
  I was West's closest friend and only confidential assistant. We had met years
• 3:02:09
  before in medical school, and from the first I had shared his terrible researches.
• 3:02:13
  He had slowly tried to perfect a solution which, injected into the veins
• 3:02:18
  of the newly deceased, would restore life, a labor demanding an abundance of
• 3:02:22
  fresh corpses and therefore involving the most unnatural actions. Still more shocking were the
• 3:02:30
  products of some of his experiments, grizzly masses of flesh that had been dead,
• 3:02:35
  but that West waked to a blind, brainless, nauseous animation. These
• 3:02:41
  were the usual results, for in order to reawaken the mind, it was
• 3:02:46
  necessary to have specimens so absolutely fresh that no decay could possibly affect the delicate
• 3:02:52
  brain cells. This need for very fresh corpses had been West's moral undoing.
• 3:03:00
  They were hard to get, and one awful day he had secured a specimen
• 3:03:03
  while it was still alive and vigorous. A struggle a needle and a powerful
• 3:03:09
  alkaloid had transformed it into a very fresh corpse, and the experiment had succeeded
• 3:03:16
  for a brief and memorable moment. But West had emerged with a soul callous
• 3:03:20
  and seared a hardened eye which sometimes glanced with a kind of hideous and calculating
• 3:03:26
  appraisal at men of a specially sensitive brain and especially vigorous physique. Towards the
• 3:03:33
  last I became acutely afraid of West, for he began to look at me
• 3:03:37
  that way. People did not seem to notice his glances, but they noticed
• 3:03:43
  my fear, and after his disappearance, used that as a basis for some
• 3:03:48
  absurd suspicions. West, in reality, was more afraid than I, for
• 3:03:54
  his abominable pursuits entailed life of furtiveness and dread of every ship. Partially it
• 3:04:01
  was the police he feared, but sometimes his nervousness was deeper and more nebulous,
• 3:04:07
  touching on certain indescribable things into which he had injected a morbid life,
• 3:04:13
  and from which he had not seen that life depart. He usually finished his
• 3:04:18
  experiments with a revolver, but a few times he had not been quick enough.
• 3:04:22
  There was that first specimen, on whose rifled grave marks of clawing were
• 3:04:26
  later seen. There was also that Arkam Professor's body, which had done cannibal
• 3:04:31
  things before it had been captured and thrust unidentified into a madhouse sal at Sefton,
• 3:04:37
  where it beat the walls for sixteen years. Most of the other possibly
• 3:04:43
  surviving results were things less easy to speak of, for in later years,
• 3:04:48
  West's scientific zeal had degenerated into an unhealthy and fantastic mania. He had spent
• 3:04:54
  his chief skill in vitalizing not entire human bodies, but isolated parts of bodies,
• 3:05:01
  were parts joined to organic matter other than human. It had become fiendishly
• 3:05:07
  disgusting. By the time he disappeared. Many of the experiments could not even
• 3:05:11
  be hinted at in print. The Great War, through which both of us
• 3:05:16
  served as surgeons, had intensified this side of West. In saying that West's
• 3:05:22
  sphere of his specimens was nebulous I have in mind, particularly its complex nature.
• 3:05:28
  Part of it came merely from knowing of the existence of such nameless monsters,
• 3:05:33
  while another part rose from apprehension of the bodily harm they might, under
• 3:05:37
  certain circumstances do him. Their disappearance added horror to the situation of them all.
• 3:05:43
  West knew the whereabouts of only one, the pitiful asylum thing. Then
• 3:05:50
  there was a more subtle fear, a very fantastic sensation resulting from a curious
• 3:05:56
  experiment in the Canadian Army in nineteen fifteen, West, in the midst of
• 3:06:01
  a severe battle, had reanimated Major Sir Eric Morland clapham Ley d s O.
• 3:06:07
  A fellow physician who knew about his experiments and could have duplicated them.
• 3:06:13
  The head had been removed so that the possibilities of quasi intelligent life in the
• 3:06:18
  trunk might be investigated. Just as the building was wiped out by a German
• 3:06:22
  shell. There had been a success. The trunk had moved intelligently and unbelievable
• 3:06:28
  to relate. We were both sickeningly sure that articulate sounds had come from the
• 3:06:33
  detached head as it lay in a shadowy corner of the laboratory. The shell
• 3:06:39
  had been merciful in a way, but West could never feel as certain as
• 3:06:43
  he wished that we, too were the only survivors. He used to make
• 3:06:48
  shuddering conjectures about the possible actions of a headless physician with the power of reanimating
• 3:06:54
  the dead. West's last quarters were in a venerable house of much elegance,
• 3:07:01
  overlooking one of the oldest burying grounds in Boston. He had chosen the place
• 3:07:07
  for purely symbolic and fantastical esthetic reasons, since most of the interments were of
• 3:07:13
  the colonial period and therefore of little use to a scientist seeking very fresh bodies.
• 3:07:20
  The laboratory was in a sub cellar secretly constructed by imported workmen and containing
• 3:07:26
  a huge incinerator for the quiet and complete disposal of such bodies or fragments in
• 3:07:31
  synthetic mockeries of bodies as might remain from the morbid experiments and unhallowed amusements of
• 3:07:37
  the owner. During the excavation of this cellar, the workmen had struck some
• 3:07:43
  exceedingly ancient masonry, undoubtedly connected with the old burying ground, yet far too
• 3:07:50
  deep to correspond with any known sepulcher therein. After a number of calculations,
• 3:07:56
  West decided that it represented some secret chamber beneath the tomb of the Avrils,
• 3:08:01
  where the last interment had been made in seventeen sixty eight. I was with
• 3:08:07
  him when he studied the nitrous, dripping walls laid bare by the spades and
• 3:08:11
  mattocks of the men, and was prepared for the gruesome thrill which would attend
• 3:08:16
  the uncovering of centuried grave secrets. But for the first time West's new timidity
• 3:08:22
  conquered his natural curiosity, and he betrayed his degenerating fiber by ordering the masonry
• 3:08:30
  left intact and plastered over. Thus it remained, until the final hellish night,
• 3:08:35
  part of the walls of the secret laboratory. I speak of West's decadence,
• 3:08:41
  but must add that it was a purely mental and intangible thing. Outwardly,
• 3:08:46
  he was the same to the last, calm, cold slight, yellow
• 3:08:50
  haired, with spectacled blue eyes, and a general aspect of youth which years
• 3:08:56
  and fears seemed never to change. He seemed calm even when he thought of
• 3:09:01
  that clawed grave and looked over his shoulder, even when he thought of the
• 3:09:05
  carnivorous thing that gnawed and powd at Sefton Bar's. The end of Herbert West
• 3:09:11
  began one evening in our joint study. When he was dividing his curious glance
• 3:09:16
  between the newspaper and me, a strange headline item had struck at him from
• 3:09:22
  the crumpled page, and a nameless titan claw had seemed to reach down through
• 3:09:26
  sixteen years, something fearsome and incredible had happened at Sefton Asylum, fifty miles
• 3:09:33
  away, stunning the neighborhood and baffling the police. In the small hours of
• 3:09:39
  the morning, a body of silent men had entered the grounds, and their
• 3:09:43
  leader had aroused the attendants. He was a menacing military figure who talked without
• 3:09:48
  moving his lips, and whose voice seemed almost rantriloquially connected with an immense black
• 3:09:54
  case he carried. The expressionless face, was handsome to the point of radiant
• 3:10:00
  beauty, and had shocked the superintendent when the hall light fell on it,
• 3:10:05
  for it was a wax face with eyes of painted glass. Some nameless accident
• 3:10:09
  had befallen this man. A larger man guided his steps, a repellent hulk
• 3:10:15
  whose blueish face seemed half eaten away by some unknown malady. The speaker had
• 3:10:20
  asked for the custody of the cannibal monster committed from Arkham sixteen years before,
• 3:10:26
  and upon being refused, gave a signal which precipitated a shocking riot. The
• 3:10:31
  fiends had beaten, trampled, and bitten every attendant who did not flee,
• 3:10:35
  killing four, and finally succeeding in the liberation of the monster. Those victims
• 3:10:41
  who could recall the event without hysteria swore that the creatures had acted less like
• 3:10:46
  men than like unthinkable automata guided by the waxed faced leader. By the time
• 3:10:52
  help could be summoned, every trace of the men and their mad charge had
• 3:10:56
  vanished. From the hour of reading this item until midnight, West sat almost
• 3:11:03
  paralyzed. At midnight the doorbell rang, startling him fearfully. All the servants
• 3:11:09
  were asleep in the attic, so I answered the bell as I have told
• 3:11:13
  the police. There was no wagon in the street, but only a group
• 3:11:16
  of strange looking figures bearing a large square box, which they deposited in the
• 3:11:22
  hallway after one of them had grunted in a highly unnatural voice, express prepaid
• 3:11:30
  They filed out of the house with a jerky tread, and as I watched
• 3:11:33
  them go, I had an odd idea that they were turning toward the ancient
• 3:11:37
  cemetery on which the back of the house abutted. When I slammed the door
• 3:11:41
  after them, West came downstairs and looked at the box. It was about
• 3:11:46
  two feet square and bore West's correct name and present address. It also bore
• 3:11:52
  the inscription from Eric Moreland Clapham Lee, Saint Alois, Flanders. Years before,
• 3:12:01
  in Flanders, a shelled hospital had fallen upon the headless, reanimated trunk
• 3:12:05
  of doctor Clapham Lee and upon the detached head, which perhaps had uttered articulate
• 3:12:11
  sounds. West was not even excited now his condition was more ghastly. Quickly,
• 3:12:20
  he said, it's the finish, but let's incinerate this. We carried
• 3:12:24
  the thing down to the laboratory, listening. I do not remember many particulars.
• 3:12:31
  You can imagine my state of mind, but it is a vicious lie
• 3:12:33
  to say that it was Herbert West's body which I put into the incinerator.
• 3:12:39
  We both inserted the whole unopened wooden box, closed the door, and started
• 3:12:43
  the electricity. Nor did any sound come from the box. After all,
• 3:12:50
  it was West who first noticed the falling plaster on that part of the wall
• 3:12:54
  where the ancient tomb masonry had been covered up. I was going to run,
• 3:12:58
  but he stopped me. Then I saw a small black aperture, felt
• 3:13:03
  a ghoulish wind of ice, and smelled the carnal bowels of a putresquent earth.
• 3:13:07
  There was no sound, but just then the electric lights went out,
• 3:13:11
  and I saw outlined against some phosphorescence of the nether world, a horde of
• 3:13:18
  silent, toiling things which only insanity or worse could create. Their outlines were
• 3:13:24
  human, semi human, fractionally human, and not human at all. The
• 3:13:28
  horde was grotesquely heterogeneous. They were removing the stones quietly, one by one
• 3:13:35
  from the centuried wall, and then as the breech became large enough, they
• 3:13:39
  came out into the laboratory single file, led by a talking thing with a
• 3:13:43
  beautiful head made of wax. A sort of mad eyed monstrosity behind the leader
• 3:13:50
  seized on Herbert West. West did not resist or utter a sound. Then
• 3:13:54
  they all sprang at him and tore him to pieces before my eyes, bearing
• 3:13:58
  the fragments away into that subterranean vault of fabulous abominations. West's head was carried
• 3:14:05
  off by the wax headed leader, who wore a Canadian officer's uniform. As
• 3:14:09
  it disappeared, I saw that the blue eyes behind the spectacles were hideously blazing
• 3:14:16
  with their first touch of frantic visible emotion. Servants found me unconscious in the
• 3:14:22
  morning. West was gone. The incinerator contained only unidentifiable ashes. Detectives have
• 3:14:30
  questioned me, But what can I say? The Sefton tragedy. They will
• 3:14:33
  not connect with West, not that nor the men with the box, whose
• 3:14:37
  existence they deny. I told them of the vault, and they pointed to
• 3:14:43
  the unbroken plaster wall and laughed. So I told them no more. They
• 3:14:46
  imply that I am either a madman or a murderer. Probably I am mad,
• 3:14:52
  but I might not be mad if those accursed tomb legions had not been
• 3:14:56
  so silent. End of Herbert West Reanimator Memory by H. P. Lovecraft.
• 3:15:07
  In the valley of this the occur's waning moon shines thienly, tearing apart
• 3:15:13
  for its light with female horns, through the lethal foliage of a great uber
• 3:15:16
  tree, and within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches,
• 3:15:20
  not move, forms not meant to be held. Rank is a herbage on
• 3:15:26
  each slope, whereyval vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of wind palaces,
• 3:15:33
  twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements
• 3:15:39
  laid by forgotten hands, and in trees that grow gigantic and crumbling courtyards deep
• 3:15:46
  little apes, while in and out of the treasure vault with poisoned serpents and
• 3:15:52
  scaly things without a name. Vast are the stones, rich sleep beneath coverlets
• 3:15:58
  of dank, moss and mighty were the walls from which they fell. For
• 3:16:03
  all time did their builders erect them, And in sooth they yet self nobly
• 3:16:09
  fall beneath them. The great oat makes his habitation. At the very bottom
• 3:16:13
  of the valley lies the river Thumb, whose waters are slimy and filled with
• 3:16:18
  wheats. From hidden springs it rises, and to subterranean grottoes it flows,
• 3:16:24
  so that the demon of the valley knows not why it waters are red,
• 3:16:30
  nor whither they are bound. The genie that harms the moonbeams spake to the
• 3:16:35
  demon of the valley saying, I am old and forget much. Tell me
• 3:16:41
  the deeds an aspect the name of them, build these things of stone.
• 3:16:48
  And the demon replied, I am memory, and am wise in law of
• 3:16:52
  the past. But I too am old. These things were like the waters
• 3:16:56
  of the river tharm, not to be understood. Their deeds I recall,
• 3:17:01
  not for they were, but of a moment the respect I recalled, damnly,
• 3:17:05
  it was like to that of the little apes in the trees. The
• 3:17:09
  name I recall clearly fight rhyme with that of the river. These things of
• 3:17:15
  yesterday were called men. So the genie flew back to the thin, harned
• 3:17:20
  moon, and the demon looked intently at a little ape in the tree that
• 3:17:24
  grew in a crumbling copyard. Enough memory, niro ethertap by H. P.
• 3:17:33
  Lovecraft, niro ethertap the crawling chaos. I am the last I will
• 3:17:41
  tell the audient void. I do not recall distinctly when it began, but
• 3:17:46
  it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of
• 3:17:52
  political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger,
• 3:17:58
  a danger widespread and all embracing such a danger as may be imagined only
• 3:18:03
  in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went
• 3:18:07
  about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one
• 3:18:13
  dared consciously repeat or acknowledged to himself that he had heard. A sense of
• 3:18:18
  monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars
• 3:18:24
  swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was
• 3:18:30
  a demonaic alteration in the secrets of the seasons. The autumn heat lingered fearsomely,
• 3:18:35
  and every one felt that the world, and perhaps the universe, had
• 3:18:39
  passed from the control of known gods or forces, to that of God's or
• 3:18:43
  forces which were unknown. And it was then that niro Lathotep came out of
• 3:18:50
  Egypt. Who he was none could tell, but he was of the old
• 3:18:54
  native blood and looked like a pharaoh. The Felihin knelt when they saw him,
• 3:19:00
  yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of
• 3:19:03
  the blackness of twenty seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places
• 3:19:09
  not on this planet. Into the lands of civilization. Came Nirolathatep, swarthy,
• 3:19:15
  slender and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining
• 3:19:20
  them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences of electricity and
• 3:19:26
  psychology, and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet
• 3:19:33
  which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nirolathatep
• 3:19:39
  and shuddered, And where Nilathatep went, rest vanished, for the small hours
• 3:19:46
  were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare
• 3:19:50
  been such a public problem. Now the wise men almost wished they could forbid
• 3:19:56
  sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturbed
• 3:20:01
  the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters, gliding under bridges
• 3:20:05
  and old steeples, crumbling against a sickly sky. I remember when Nyroleithatep came
• 3:20:11
  to my city, the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered
• 3:20:16
  crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination
• 3:20:22
  and allurement of his revelations, And I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost
• 3:20:26
  mysteries. My friends said they were horrible and impressive, beyond my most fevered
• 3:20:33
  imaginings. And what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things.
• 3:20:37
  None but Nirolethatep dared prophecy. And in the sputter of his sparks there
• 3:20:43
  was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet, which shewed
• 3:20:46
  only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted a brawl that those who
• 3:20:50
  knew Nyarlethatep looked on sights which others saw not. It was in the hot
• 3:20:56
  autumn that I went through the night with the restling crowds to see nirol Athatep,
• 3:21:01
  through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room,
• 3:21:07
  and shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow
• 3:21:13
  evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments, And I saw the world battling against
• 3:21:18
  blackness, against the waves of destruction from ultimate space, whirling, churning,
• 3:21:24
  struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the
• 3:21:30
  heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque
• 3:21:35
  than I can tell, came out and squatted on the heads. And when
• 3:21:39
  I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling
• 3:21:43
  protest about imposture and static electricity, nrole ethatep drove us all out down the
• 3:21:50
  dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud
• 3:21:56
  that I was not afraid, that I never could be a frayed, and
• 3:22:01
  others screamed with me. For solace, we swore to one another that the
• 3:22:05
  city was exactly the same and still alive. And when the electric lights began
• 3:22:09
  to fade, we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at
• 3:22:15
  the queer faces we made. I believe we felt something coming down from the
• 3:22:20
  greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light, we drifted
• 3:22:24
  into curious and voluntary marching formations, and seemed to know our destinations, though
• 3:22:31
  we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found
• 3:22:35
  the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal
• 3:22:39
  to show where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram car
• 3:22:43
  long windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around
• 3:22:50
  the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and
• 3:22:54
  noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then
• 3:22:58
  we split up into an air columns, each of which seemed drawn in a
• 3:23:01
  different direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only
• 3:23:07
  the echo of a shocking moan. Another file down a weed choked subway entrance,
• 3:23:13
  howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward
• 3:23:18
  the open country, and presently I felt a shield which was not of the
• 3:23:22
  hot autumn. For as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld
• 3:23:26
  around us the hellish moon, glitter of evil snows, trackless, inexplicable snows
• 3:23:31
  swept asunder in one direction only where lay a gulf, all the blacker for
• 3:23:37
  its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin. Indeed, as it plodded
• 3:23:41
  dreamily into the gulf, I lingered behind, for the black rift in the
• 3:23:46
  greenlitten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a
• 3:23:50
  disquietening quail. As my companions vanished, but my power to linger was slight,
• 3:23:58
  as if beckoned by those who had gone before, or I half floated
• 3:24:01
  between the Titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the
• 3:24:07
  unimaginable, screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious. Only the gods that were can tell
• 3:24:15
  A sickened, sensitive shadow, writhing in hands that are not hands, and
• 3:24:20
  whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation corpses of dead worlds with sores that
• 3:24:26
  were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low
• 3:24:33
  beyond the world's vague ghosts of monstrous things, half seen columns of unsanctified temples
• 3:24:39
  that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the
• 3:24:43
  spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe,
• 3:24:50
  the muffled, maddening beating of drums and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes
• 3:24:56
  from inconceivable, unlighted chain burst beyond time, the detestable pounding and piping,
• 3:25:03
  wherein to dance slowly, awkwardly and absurdly, the gigantic, tembrous ultimate gods,
• 3:25:13
  the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles, whose soul is nirolethatep end of
• 3:25:22
  Niroletha Tip Polaris by H. P. Lovecraft. Into the north window of
• 3:25:28
  my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light all through the long hellish hours
• 3:25:35
  of blackness. It shines there, and in the autumn of the year,
• 3:25:39
  when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red leaved trees
• 3:25:43
  of the swamp mutter things to one another. In the small hours of the
• 3:25:46
  morning, under the horned, waning moon, I sit by the easement and
• 3:25:50
  watch that star down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear
• 3:25:56
  on, while Charles's Wane lumbers up from behind the vapor soaked swamp trees that
• 3:26:03
  sway in the night wind. Just before dawn, Arcturis winks ruddily from above
• 3:26:07
  the cemetery on the low Hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in
• 3:26:13
  the mysterious east. But still the Pole Star leers down from the same place
• 3:26:18
  in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye, which strives
• 3:26:24
  to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a
• 3:26:30
  message to convey. Sometimes when it is cloudy, I can sleep well.
• 3:26:37
  Do I remember the night of the Great Aurora, when over the swamp played
• 3:26:41
  the shocking coruscations of the damon light. After the beams came clouds. And
• 3:26:46
  then I slept. And it was under a horned, waning moon that I
• 3:26:50
  saw the city for the first time, Still and somnolent. Did it lie
• 3:26:56
  on a strange plateau, in a hollow betwixt strange peaks of ghastly marble.
• 3:27:01
  Were its walls and its towers, its columns, domes, and pavements.
• 3:27:05
  In the marble streets were marble pillars, the upper parts of which were carven
• 3:27:09
  into the images of grave bearded men. The air was warm and stirred not,
• 3:27:16
  and overhead, scarce ten degrees from the zenith glowed that watching pole star.
• 3:27:22
  Long did I gaze on the city. But the day came. Not
• 3:27:26
  when the red Aldebaran, which blinked low in the sky but never set,
• 3:27:31
  had crawled a quarter of the way around the horizon, I saw light and
• 3:27:35
  motion in the houses and the streets forms strangely robed, but at once noble
• 3:27:41
  and familiar, walked abroad, and under the horned, waning moon, men
• 3:27:45
  talked wisdom in a tongue which I understood, though it was unlike any language
• 3:27:48
  I had ever known. And when the red Aldebaran had crawled more than half
• 3:27:54
  way around the horizon, there were again darkness and silence. When I I
• 3:28:00
  was not as I had been upon My memory was graven. The vision of
• 3:28:05
  the city and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection, of whose
• 3:28:09
  nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights, when
• 3:28:13
  I could sleep, I saw the city, often sometimes under that horned,
• 3:28:18
  waning moon, and sometimes under the hot yellow rays of a sun which did
• 3:28:22
  not set, but which wheeled low around the horizon. And on the clear
• 3:28:26
  nights the pole star leered as never before. Gradually I came to wonder what
• 3:28:33
  might be my place in that city on the strange plateau betwixt strange peaks.
• 3:28:39
  At first content to view the scene as in all observant uncorporeal presence, I
• 3:28:43
  now desired to define my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongst
• 3:28:48
  the grave men who conversed each day in the public squares. I said to
• 3:28:52
  myself, this is no dream, for by what means can I prove the
• 3:28:56
  greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and bricks south of
• 3:29:01
  the sinister swamp, and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the pole
• 3:29:05
  star peers into my north window each night. One night, as I listened
• 3:29:11
  to the discourse in the large square containing many statues, I felt a change
• 3:29:16
  and perceived that I had at last a bodily form. Nor was I a
• 3:29:20
  stranger in the streets of Olathoa, which lies on the plateau of Sarcus betwixt
• 3:29:24
  the peaks Noton and kadifonek. It was my friend Alos who spoke, and
• 3:29:30
  his speech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of
• 3:29:33
  a true man and patriot. That night had the news come of Daikos's fall
• 3:29:39
  and of the advance of the Inutos squat hellish yellow fiends, who five years
• 3:29:45
  ago appeared out of the unknown West to ravage the confines of our kingdom and
• 3:29:50
  finally to besiege our towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of
• 3:29:56
  the mountains. Their way now lay open to the plateau unless every citizen could
• 3:30:01
  resist with the strength of ten men. For the squat creatures were mighty in
• 3:30:05
  the arts of war and knew not the scruples of honor which held back our
• 3:30:09
  tall, gray eyed men of Lomar from ruthless conquest. Alos, my friend,
• 3:30:15
  was commander of all the forces of the plateau, and in him lay
• 3:30:18
  the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils
• 3:30:22
  to be faced, and exhorted the men of Olathoway, bravest of the Lomarians,
• 3:30:26
  to sustain the traditions of their ancestors, who, when forced to move
• 3:30:30
  southward from Zobna before the advance of the great ice sheet, even as our
• 3:30:33
  descendants must some day flee from the land of Lomar, valiantly and victoriously swept
• 3:30:39
  aside the hairy, long armed cannibal Gnupcays that stood in their way. To
• 3:30:45
  me, Alos denied a warrior's part, for I was feeble and given to
• 3:30:48
  strange faintings when subjected to stress and hardships. But my eyes were the keenest
• 3:30:54
  in the city. Despite the long hours I gave each day to the study
• 3:30:58
  of the narcotic manuscripts and the wisdom of the Zubnarian fathers. So my friend,
• 3:31:03
  desiring not to doom me to inaction, rewarded me with that duty,
• 3:31:07
  which was second to nothing in importance to the watch tower of Thapnan. He
• 3:31:13
  sent me there to serve as the eyes of our army should the Innutos attempt
• 3:31:18
  to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the Peak No Tan, and
• 3:31:22
  thereby surprised the garrison. I was to give the signal of fire, which
• 3:31:26
  would warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster. Alone,
• 3:31:33
  I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in the
• 3:31:37
  passes below. My brain was sore, dazed with excitement and fatigue, for
• 3:31:41
  I had not slept in many days. Yet my purpose was firm, for
• 3:31:46
  I loved my native land of Lomar and the marble city of Olathoway that lies
• 3:31:50
  betwixt the peaks of Notan and Cadifonek. But as I stood in the tower's
• 3:31:54
  topmost chamber, I beheld the horned, waning moon, red and sinister,
• 3:32:01
  quivering through the vapors that hovered over the distant valley of Banoff and through an
• 3:32:05
  opening in the roof, glittered the pale pole star, fluttering as if alive
• 3:32:11
  and leering like a fiend, and tempter methought its spirit whispered evil counsel,
• 3:32:16
  soothing me to traitor aus somnolence with a damnable rhythmical promise, which it repeated
• 3:32:22
  over and over, slumber Watcher, till the spheres six and twenty thousand years
• 3:32:30
  have revolved, and I returned to the spot where now I burn. Other
• 3:32:35
  stars anon shall rise to the axis of the skies, stars that soothe,
• 3:32:43
  and stars that bless with a sweet forgetfulness. Only when my round is o're
• 3:32:48
  shall the past disturb thy door. Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness,
• 3:32:54
  seeking to connect these strange words with some lore of the skies, which I
• 3:32:58
  had learned from the narcotic manuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped
• 3:33:03
  to my breast, and when next I looked up, it was in a
• 3:33:07
  dream, with a pole star grinning at me through a window from over the
• 3:33:11
  horrible swaying trees of a dream swamp. And I am still dreaming. In
• 3:33:16
  my shame and despair, I sometimes scream frantically, begging the dream creatures around
• 3:33:22
  me to waken me. Ere the Anutos steal up the pass behind the peak
• 3:33:26
  Notton and take the citadel by surprise. But these creatures are damons, for
• 3:33:31
  they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me
• 3:33:33
  whilst I sleep, and whilst the squat yellow foe may be creeping silently upon
• 3:33:39
  us. I have failed in my duty and betrayed the marble city of Alathaway.
• 3:33:43
  I have proven false to Alos, my friend and commander. But still
• 3:33:48
  these shadows of my dream deride me. They say there is no land of
• 3:33:50
  Lomar save in my nocturnal imaginings. Then in those realms where the pole star
• 3:33:56
  shines high and red Aldebaron crawls low around the hole horizon, there has been
• 3:34:01
  nought save ice and snow for thousands of years, and never a man,
• 3:34:05
  save squat yellow creatures blighted by the cold, whom they call Esquimau. And
• 3:34:11
  as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose peril
• 3:34:15
  every moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a
• 3:34:20
  house of stone and bricks south of a sinister swamp, and on a cemetery
• 3:34:24
  on a low hillock. The pole, star even and monstrous, leers down
• 3:34:28
  from the black vault, winking hideously, like an insane watching eye, which
• 3:34:33
  strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that at once had
• 3:34:39
  a message to convey. This is the end of Polaris by H. P.
• 3:34:46
  Lovecraft. The Alchemist by H. P. Lovecraft. High up,
• 3:34:52
  crowding the grassy summit of a swelling mount, whose sides are wooded, near
• 3:34:56
  the base with the gnarled trees of a primeville forest, stands the old chateau
• 3:35:01
  of my ancestors. For centuries, its lofty battlements have frowned down upon the
• 3:35:05
  wild and rugged countryside about, serving as a home and stronghold for the proud
• 3:35:09
  houses, whose honoured line is older even than moss grown castle walls. These
• 3:35:16
  ancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumbling under the slow yet
• 3:35:20
  mighty pressure of time, formed in the ages of Fedulism, one of the
• 3:35:24
  most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From its mocky collated paraphets and
• 3:35:28
  mounted battlements, barrens, accounts, and even kings have been defied, yet
• 3:35:33
  never has its spacious hall resounded to the footsteps of the invader. But since
• 3:35:37
  those glorious years all is changed. A poverty but little above the level of
• 3:35:41
  dire want, together with a pride of name that forbids its alleviation by the
• 3:35:45
  pursuits of commercial life, have prevented the silence of our line from maintaining their
• 3:35:48
  estates in Pristine's splendor. And the falling stone of the walls, the overgrown
• 3:35:52
  vegetation of the parks, the dry and dusty moat, the ill paved court
• 3:35:56
  yards and toppling towers without, as well as the sagging floors, the worm
• 3:36:03
  eaten waincoats, and the faded tapestries within, all tell a gloomy tale of
• 3:36:07
  fallen grandeur. As the ages passed, first one then another of the four
• 3:36:11
  great turrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single tower housed
• 3:36:16
  the sadly reduced descendants of the once mighty lords of the estate. It was
• 3:36:20
  in one of the vast and gloomy chambers of this remaining tower that I and
• 3:36:24
  Tone, last of the unhappy and accursed counts of Deceit, first saw the
• 3:36:28
  light of day ninety long years ago. Within these walls, and amongst the
• 3:36:33
  dark and shadowy forests, the wild ravines and grottos of the hillside below were
• 3:36:37
  spent the first years of my troubled life my parents. I never knew.
• 3:36:41
  My father had been killed at the age of thirty two, a month before
• 3:36:45
  I was born, by the fall of a stone somehow dislodged from one of
• 3:36:48
  the deserted parapets of the castle, and my mother having died at my birth,
• 3:36:54
  my care and education devolved solely upon one remaining servitor, an old and
• 3:36:58
  trust a man of considerable intelligence, whose name I remember as Pierre. I
• 3:37:03
  was an only child, and the lack of companionship which this fact entailed upon
• 3:37:07
  me was augmented by the strange care exercised by my aged guardian in excluding me
• 3:37:11
  from society of the peasant children, whose abodes were scattered here and there upon
• 3:37:16
  the plains that surround the base of the hill. At the time, Pierre
• 3:37:20
  said that this restriction was imposed upon me because my noble birth laced me above
• 3:37:24
  association with such blebyan company. Now I know its real object was to keep
• 3:37:28
  from my ears the idle tales of the dread curse upon our line that were
• 3:37:33
  nightly told and magnified by the simple tenantry as they conversed in their hushed accents
• 3:37:37
  in the glow of their cottage hearths. Thus isolated and thrown upon my own
• 3:37:41
  resources, I spent the hours of my childhood in poring over the ancient tombs
• 3:37:45
  that filled the shadow haunted library of the chateau, and in roaming without aim
• 3:37:50
  or purpose, through the perpetual dust of the spectral wood that closed the side
• 3:37:52
  of the hill near its foot. It was perhaps an effect of such surrounding
• 3:37:56
  that my mind early acquired a shade of melanchos. Those studies in pursuit which
• 3:38:01
  partake of the dark and occult in nature most strongly claimed my attention. Of
• 3:38:07
  my own race. I was permitted to learn singularly little. Yet what small
• 3:38:09
  knowledge of it I was able to gain seemed to depress me much. Perhaps
• 3:38:13
  it was at first only the manifest reluctance of my old preceptor to discuss with
• 3:38:18
  me my paternal ancestry that gave rise to the terror which I ever felt at
• 3:38:22
  the mention of my great house. Yet as I grew out of childhood,
• 3:38:26
  I was able to piece together disconnected fragments of discourse let it slip from the
• 3:38:30
  unwilling tongue, which had begun to falter in approaching senility, and had a
• 3:38:35
  sort of relation to a certain circumstance which I had always deemed strange, but
• 3:38:39
  which now became dimly terrible. The circumstances to which I allude is the early
• 3:38:43
  age at which all the counts of my line had met their end. Whilst
• 3:38:48
  I had hitherto considered this but a natural attribute of a family of short lived
• 3:38:52
  men, I afterwards pondered long upon the premature deaths, and began to connect
• 3:38:56
  them with the wanderings of the old man, who often spoke of a curse
• 3:38:58
  which were sents had prevented the lives of the holders of my title from much
• 3:39:01
  exceeding the span of thirty two years. Upon my twenty first birthday, the
• 3:39:05
  aged Pierre gave to me a family document which he said had from many generations
• 3:39:11
  been handed down from bother to son, and continued by each possessor. Its
• 3:39:13
  contents were of the most startling nature, and its perusal confirmed the gravest of
• 3:39:18
  my apprehensions. At this time, my belief in the supernatural was firm and
• 3:39:22
  deep seated, else I would have dismissed with scorn, the incredible narrative unfolded
• 3:39:24
  before my eyes. The paper carried me back to the days of the thirteenth
• 3:39:28
  century, when the old castle in which I sat had been a feared and
• 3:39:31
  impregnable fortress. It told of a certain ancient man who had once dwelled on
• 3:39:37
  our estates, a person of no small accomplishments, though little above the rank
• 3:39:41
  of peasant by name Michael, usually designated by a surname of malvas the Evil.
• 3:39:46
  On account of his sinister reputation, he had studied beyond the custom of
• 3:39:50
  his kind, seeking such things as a philosopher's stone or the elixir of eternal
• 3:39:54
  life, and was reputed wise in the terrible secrets of lack, magic and
• 3:39:56
  alchemy. Michael Malvaus had won one son named Charles, a youth as proficient
• 3:40:01
  as himself in the hidden arts, who had therefore become called la Sorcerer or
• 3:40:07
  the Wizard. This pair, shunned by all honest folk, were suspected of
• 3:40:11
  the most hideous practices. Old Michael was said to have burnt his wife alive
• 3:40:15
  as a sacrifice to the devil, and the unaccountable disappearance of many small peasant
• 3:40:18
  children was laid at the dreaded door of these two. Yet through the dark
• 3:40:22
  natures of the father and son ran one deemingly ray of humanity. The old
• 3:40:28
  man loved his offspring with fierce intensity, whilst the youth had for his parent
• 3:40:33
  a more than filial affection. One night, the castle on the Hill was
• 3:40:37
  thrown into the wild's confusion by the vanishment of a young Godfrey, son to
• 3:40:41
  Henry the Count. A searching party, headed by the frantic Father, invaded
• 3:40:45
  the cottage of the Sorcerers, and there came upon old Michael Malvaus, busy
• 3:40:50
  over a huge and violently bouldering cauldron without certain cause. In the ungoverned madness
• 3:40:54
  of fury and despair, the Count laid hands on the aged wizard, and
• 3:40:58
  ere he released his murderous hole. His victim was no more. Meanwhile,
• 3:41:01
  joyful servants were proclaiming the finding of young Godfrey in a distant and unused chamber
• 3:41:07
  of the great Edifice, telling too late that poor Michael had been killed in
• 3:41:11
  vain. As the Count and his associates turned away from the lovely abode of
• 3:41:15
  the alchemist, the form of Charles Lessaucerer appeared through the trees. The excited
• 3:41:20
  chatter of menials standing about told him what had occurred. Yet he seemed at
• 3:41:24
  first unmoved at his father's fate. Then, slowly advancing to meet the Count,
• 3:41:28
  he pronounced in dull yet terrible accents, the curse that, ever afterward
• 3:41:33
  haunted the house of Sea, may never ennoble of thy murderous line survive to
• 3:41:37
  reach a greater age than thine, spoke he, when suddenly, leaping backwards
• 3:41:41
  into the black woods, he drew from his tunic a file of colorless liquid,
• 3:41:45
  which he threw into the faces of his father's slayer as he disappeared behind
• 3:41:48
  the inky curtain of the night. The Count died without utterance, and was
• 3:41:52
  buried the next day. But little more than two and thirty years from the
• 3:41:56
  hour of his birth, no trace of the assassin could be found, though
• 3:41:58
  relayless bands of peasants scoured the neighboring woods and the meadow land around the hill.
• 3:42:03
  Thus, time and the want of a remainder dulled the memory of the
• 3:42:07
  curse in the mind of the late count's family, so that when Godfrey,
• 3:42:11
  innocent cause of the whole tragedy, and now bearing the title was killed by
• 3:42:15
  an arrow whilst haunting at the age of thirty two. There were no thoughts
• 3:42:18
  save those of grief at his demise. But when years afterwards the next young
• 3:42:22
  count, Robert by name, was found dead in a nearby field of no
• 3:42:26
  apparent cause, the peasants told in whispers that their Sonniere had but lately passed
• 3:42:31
  his thirty second birthday. When surprised by early death, Lewis sun To Robert
• 3:42:35
  was found drowned in the moat at the same fateful age, And thus down
• 3:42:39
  through the centuries ran the ominous chronicle Henris, Robert, Antonius and armand snatched
• 3:42:43
  from happy and virtuous lives when little below the age of their unfortunate ancestor at
• 3:42:48
  his murder, that I had left at most but eleven years of further existence
• 3:42:54
  was made certain to me by the words which I had read. My life
• 3:42:56
  previously held. Its small value became dearer to me each day as I delved
• 3:43:03
  deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the hidden world of black magic. Isolated
• 3:43:07
  as I was, modern science had produced no impression upon me, and I
• 3:43:11
  labored as in the Middle Ages, as rapt as had been Old Michael and
• 3:43:15
  young Charles themselves in the acquisition of demonological and alchemical learning. Yet, read
• 3:43:20
  as I might, in no manner could I account for the strange curse upon
• 3:43:24
  my line. In unusually rational moments, I would even go so far as
• 3:43:28
  to seek a natural explanation attributing the early deaths of my ancestors to the sinister
• 3:43:33
  Charles Les Sousser and his heirs. Yet, having found, upon careful inquiry
• 3:43:37
  that there were no known descendants of the alchemists, I would fall back to
• 3:43:41
  occult studies and once more endeavor to find a spell that would release my house
• 3:43:46
  from its terrible burden. Upon one thing I was absolutely resolved, I should
• 3:43:50
  never wed before. Since no other branch of my family was in existence,
• 3:43:54
  I might thus end the curse with myself. As I drew near the age
• 3:43:58
  of thirty, old Pierre was called to the land beyond alone. I buried
• 3:44:03
  him beneath the stones of the courtyard about which he had loved to wander in
• 3:44:07
  life. Thus was I left to ponder on myself as the only human creature
• 3:44:11
  within the great fortress, And in my utter solitude, my mind began to
• 3:44:13
  cease a vain protest against the impending doom to become almost reconciled to the fate
• 3:44:18
  which so many of my ancestors had met. Much of my time now was
• 3:44:22
  occupied with the exploration of the ruined and abandoned halls of the towers of the
• 3:44:26
  old chateau, which in my youth ear had caused me to shun, and
• 3:44:30
  some of which Old Pierre had once told me had not been trodden by human
• 3:44:33
  foot for over four centuries. Strange and awesome were many of the objects I
• 3:44:37
  encountered. Furniture covered by the dust of ages and crumbling with a rot of
• 3:44:43
  long dampness, met my eyes. Cobwebs in a profusion never before seen by
• 3:44:48
  me were spun everywhere, and huge bats flapped their bony and uncanny wings on
• 3:44:52
  all sides of the otherwise untenonated gloom of my exact age. Even down to
• 3:44:56
  days and hours, I kept a most careful record for each movement of the
• 3:45:01
  pendulum of the massive lock in the library hold off so much of my doomed
• 3:45:03
  existence. At length, I approached that time which I had so long viewed
• 3:45:09
  with apprehension, since most of my ancestors had been seized some little while before
• 3:45:13
  they reached the exact age of Count Henry at his end. I was every
• 3:45:18
  moment on the watch for the coming of the unknown death. In what strange
• 3:45:20
  form the curse should overtake me, I knew not, but I was resolved
• 3:45:24
  at least that it should not find me a cowardly or passive victim. With
• 3:45:28
  new vigor, I applied myself to my examination of the old chateau and its
• 3:45:33
  contents. It was upon one of the longest of all my excursions of discovery
• 3:45:37
  in the deserted portion of the castle, less than a week before that fatal
• 3:45:41
  hour, which I felt must mark the utmost limit of my stay on earth,
• 3:45:45
  beyond which I could not even the slightest hope of continuing to draw breath,
• 3:45:48
  that I came upon the culminating event of my whole life. I had
• 3:45:52
  spent the better part of the morning in climbing up and down half ruined staircases
• 3:45:58
  in one of the most dilapidated and ancient turrets. As the afternoon progressed,
• 3:46:01
  I sought the lower levels, descending into what appeared to be either a medieval
• 3:46:05
  place of confinement or a more recently excavated storehouse for gunpowder. As I slowly
• 3:46:11
  traversed the nitron crusted passageway. At the foot of the last staircase, the
• 3:46:16
  paving became very damp, and soon I saw, by the light of my
• 3:46:18
  flickering torch that a blank, water stained wall impeded my journey. Turning to
• 3:46:24
  retrace my steps, my eye fell upon a small trapped door with a ring,
• 3:46:28
  which lay directly beneath my foot. Pausing, I succeeded with difficulty in
• 3:46:33
  raising it, whereupon there was revealed a black aperture, exhaling nauseous fumes,
• 3:46:37
  which caused my torch to sputter and disclosing in the unsteady glare top of a
• 3:46:41
  flight of stone steps. As soon as the torch, which I lowered into
• 3:46:46
  the repellent depths, burned freely and steadily, I commenced my descent. The
• 3:46:48
  steps were many and led to a narrow, stone lagged passage which I knew
• 3:46:54
  must be far underground. This passage proved of great length and terminated in the
• 3:46:58
  massive oak door, dripping with the moisture of the place and stoutly resisting all
• 3:47:03
  my attempts to open it, Ceasing after a time my efforts in this direction,
• 3:47:07
  I had proceeded back some distance towards the steps, where there suddenly fell
• 3:47:11
  to my experience one of the most profound and maddening shocks capable of reception by
• 3:47:16
  the human mind. Without warning, I heard the heavy door behind me creak
• 3:47:20
  slowly opened upon its rusty hinges. My immediate sensations were incapable of analysis.
• 3:47:26
  To be confronted in a place as thoroughly deserted as I had deemed the old
• 3:47:30
  Castle with evidence of the presence of man or spirit produced in my brain a
• 3:47:33
  horror of the most acute description. When at last I turned and faced the
• 3:47:37
  seat of the sound, my eyes must have started from their orbits at the
• 3:47:41
  sight that they beheld. There in the ancient Gothic doorway stood a human figure.
• 3:47:46
  It was that of a man clad in a skull cap and long medieval
• 3:47:50
  tunic of a dark color. His long hair and flowing beard were of a
• 3:47:54
  terrible and intense lack hue and incredible profusion, his forehead high beyond the usual
• 3:47:58
  days, his cheeks deep sunken and heavily lined with wrinkles, and his hands
• 3:48:03
  long, clawlike and gnarled, were such a deadly marble like whiteness as I
• 3:48:09
  had never elsewhere seen in man. His figure, leaned to proportions of a
• 3:48:13
  skeleton, was strangely bent and almost lost within the volumes of olds of his
• 3:48:18
  particular garment. But strangest of all were his eyes, twin caves of abysmal
• 3:48:22
  blackness, profound an expression of understanding yet inhuman, and degree of wickedness.
• 3:48:26
  These were now fixed upon me, piercing my soul with their hatred, and
• 3:48:31
  rooting me to the spot whereon I stood. At last, the figure spoke
• 3:48:33
  in a rumbling voice that chilled me through with its dull, hollowness and latent
• 3:48:37
  belevolence. The language in which the discourse was clothed was that debased form of
• 3:48:43
  Latin in use amongst the more learned men of the Middle Ages, and made
• 3:48:46
  it familiar to me by my prolonged researches into the works of the old alchemists
• 3:48:48
  and demonologists. The apparition spoke of the curse which had hovered over my house,
• 3:48:54
  told me of the coming end dwelt on the wrong perpetuated by my ancestor
• 3:48:58
  against old Michael Malveaus, and gloated over the revenge of Charles le Sossiers.
• 3:49:03
  He told me how young Charles had escaped into the night, returning and after
• 3:49:07
  years to kill Godfrey the heir, with an arrow, just as he approached
• 3:49:09
  the age which had been his father's at his assassination. How he had secretly
• 3:49:15
  returned to the estate and established himself unknown in the even then deserted subterranean chamber,
• 3:49:20
  whose doorway now framed the hideous narrator. How he had seized Robert,
• 3:49:24
  son of Godfrey, in a field, forced poison down his throat, and
• 3:49:26
  then left him to die at the age of thirty two, thus maintaining the
• 3:49:31
  foul provisions of his vengeful curse. At this point I was left to imagine
• 3:49:35
  the solution of the greatest mystery of all, how the curse had been fulfilled
• 3:49:39
  since that time when Charles le Sossiers must, in the course of nature,
• 3:49:43
  have died. For the man digressed into an account of a deep alchymaical studies
• 3:49:46
  of two wizards, father and son, speaking most particularly of the researches of
• 3:49:50
  Charles le Sossiers concerning the elixir which should grant him who partook of it in
• 3:49:56
  eternal life and youth. His enthusiasm had seemed for the moment to remove from
• 3:50:01
  his terrible eyes, the black malevolence that had verst so haunted me. But
• 3:50:05
  suddenly the fiendish glare returned, and with a shocking sound like the hissing of
• 3:50:09
  a serpent, the stranger raised a glass phial with the evident intent of ending
• 3:50:13
  my life, as had Charles d. Socier six hundred years before ended that
• 3:50:16
  of my ancestor. Prompted by some preserving instinct of self defense, I broke
• 3:50:22
  through the spell that had hinted too held me immovable, and flung my now
• 3:50:26
  dying torch at the creature who menaced my existence. I heard the file break
• 3:50:31
  harmlessly against the stones of the passage, as the tunic of the strange man
• 3:50:35
  caught fire and lit the horrid scene with a ghastly radiance. The shriek of
• 3:50:39
  fright and impotent malice emanated by the would be assassin proved too much for my
• 3:50:43
  already shaken nerves, and I fell prone upon the salimy floor in a total
• 3:50:48
  faint. When at last my senses returned, all was frightly dark, and
• 3:50:52
  my mind, remembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding any
• 3:50:56
  more. Yet curiosity over mastered all. Who I asked myself was the man
• 3:51:01
  of evil? And how come he within the castle walls? Why should he
• 3:51:05
  seek to avenge the death of Michael Malveus, And how had the curse been
• 3:51:07
  carried on through all these long centuries since the time of Charles Les Socier.
• 3:51:13
  The dread of years was lifted from my shoulders, for I knew that he
• 3:51:16
  whom I had felled was the source of all my danger from the curse.
• 3:51:20
  And now I was free. I burned with desire to learn more of the
• 3:51:22
  sinister thing which had haunted my line for centuries and made of my own youth
• 3:51:28
  one long, continued nightmare. Determined upon further exploration, I felt my pockets
• 3:51:33
  for lint and steel and lit the unused torch which I had with me.
• 3:51:37
  First of all, new light revealed this storted and blackened form of the mysterious
• 3:51:41
  stranger. The hideous eyes were now closed. Disliking the sight, I turned
• 3:51:45
  away and entered the chamber beyond the gothic door. Here I found what seemed
• 3:51:48
  much like an alchemists laboratory. In one corner was an immense pile of shining
• 3:51:54
  yellow metal that sparkled gorgeously in the light of the torch. It may have
• 3:51:58
  been gold, but I did not paused to examine it, for I was
• 3:52:01
  strangely affected by that which I had undergone. At the farthest end of the
• 3:52:05
  apartment was an opening leading out into one of the many wild ravines of the
• 3:52:09
  dark hillside forest, filled with wonder. Yet, now realizing how the man
• 3:52:13
  had obtained access to the chateau, I proceeded to return. I had intended
• 3:52:18
  to pass by the remains of the stranger with averted face, but as I
• 3:52:20
  approached the body, I seemed to hear emanating from it a faint sound,
• 3:52:24
  as though life were not yet wholly extinct. Aghast I turned to examine the
• 3:52:28
  charred and shrivel figure on the floor. Then, all at once, the
• 3:52:33
  horrible eyes, blacker even than the seared face in which they were set,
• 3:52:37
  opened wide with an expression which I was unable to interpret. The cracked lips
• 3:52:41
  tried to frame words I could not well understand. Once I caught the name
• 3:52:45
  of Charles lest Saucier, and again I fancied the words years and curse issued
• 3:52:48
  from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss to gather the purport
• 3:52:52
  of his disconnected speech. At my evident ignorance of his meaning, The pitchy
• 3:52:56
  eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until helps as I saw my opponent
• 3:53:01
  to be I trembled as I watched him. Suddenly the wretch, animated,
• 3:53:03
  with his last burst of strength, raised his picture's head from the damp and
• 3:53:07
  sunken pavement. Then, as I remained paralyzed with fear, he found his
• 3:53:11
  voice, and his dying breath screamed forth those words which have ever afterwards haunted
• 3:53:16
  my days and nights. Fool, he shrieked, Can you not guess my
• 3:53:20
  secret? Have you no brain whereby you may recognize the will which has,
• 3:53:24
  through six long centuries fulfilled the dreadful curse upon the house. Have I not
• 3:53:28
  told you the great elixture of eternal life? Know you not how the secret
• 3:53:33
  of alchemy was solved? I tell you it is I I. I have
• 3:53:37
  lived for six hundred years to maintain my revenge. For I am Charles le
• 3:53:41
  Soosier end of the Alchemist, The Beast in the Cave by H. P.
• 3:53:48
  Lovecraft. The horrible conclusion which had been gradually intruding itself upon my confused
• 3:53:56
  and reluctant mind, was now an awful certain time I was lost, completely,
• 3:54:03
  hopelessly lost in the vast and labyrinthine recess of the mammoth cave. Turn
• 3:54:09
  as I might in no direction, could my straining vision seize on any object
• 3:54:13
  capable of serving as a guide post to set me on the outward path.
• 3:54:18
  That never more should I behold the blessed light of day, or scan the
• 3:54:22
  pleasant hills and dales of the beautiful world outside. My reason could no longer
• 3:54:26
  entertain the slightest unbelief hope had departed. Yet, indoctrinated as I was by
• 3:54:33
  a life of philosophical study, I derived no small measure of satisfaction from my
• 3:54:39
  unimpassioned demeanor. For although I had frequently read of the wild frenzies into which
• 3:54:43
  were thrown the victims of similar situations, I experienced none of these, but
• 3:54:48
  stood quiet as soon as I clearly realized the loss of my bearings. Nor
• 3:54:52
  did the thought that I had probably wandered beyond the utmost limits of an ordinary
• 3:54:58
  search cause me to abandon my composure even for a moment. If I must
• 3:55:03
  die, I reflected, then, was this terrible yet majestic cavern as welcome
• 3:55:07
  a sepulcher, as that which any churchyard might afford a conception which carried with
• 3:55:11
  it more of tranquility than of despair. Starving would prove my ultimate fate.
• 3:55:16
  Of this, I was certain some I knew had gone mad under circumstances such
• 3:55:20
  as these, But I felt that this end would not be mine. My
• 3:55:22
  disaster was the result of no fault save my own, Since, unknown to
• 3:55:26
  the guide, I had separated myself from the regular party of sightseers, and,
• 3:55:31
  wandering for over an hour and forbidden avenues of the cave, had found
• 3:55:35
  myself unable to retrace the devious windings which I had pursued since forsaking my companions.
• 3:55:41
  Already my torch had begun to expire. Soon I would be enveloped by
• 3:55:46
  the total and almost palpable blackness of the bowels of the earth. As I
• 3:55:52
  stood in the waning, unsteady light, I idly wondered over the exact circumstances
• 3:55:58
  of my coming end. I remember remembered the accounts which I had heard of
• 3:56:01
  the colony of consumptives who taking their residence in this gigantic grotto to find health
• 3:56:07
  from the apparently salubrious air of the underground world, with its steady, uniform
• 3:56:11
  temperature, pure air, and peaceful quiet had found instead death in strange and
• 3:56:16
  ghastly form. I had seen the sad remains of their ill mad cottages as
• 3:56:22
  I passed them by with the party, and had wondered what unnatural influence a
• 3:56:26
  long sojourn in this immense and silent cavern would exert upon one as healthy and
• 3:56:31
  vigorous as I now. I grimly told myself my opportunity for settling this point
• 3:56:37
  it arrived, provided that want of food should not bring me too speedy a
• 3:56:41
  departure from this life. As the last fitful rays of my torch faded into
• 3:56:46
  obscurity, I resolved to leave no stone unturned, no possible means of escape
• 3:56:52
  neglected. So, summoning all the powers possessed by my lungs, I set
• 3:56:56
  up a series of loud shoutings in the vain hope of attracting the attention of
• 3:57:00
  the guide by my clamor. Yet as I called, I believed in my
• 3:57:03
  heart that my cries were to no purpose, and that my voice, magnified
• 3:57:07
  and reflected by the numberless ramparts of the black maze about me, fell upon
• 3:57:11
  no ears save my own. All At once, however, my attention was
• 3:57:16
  fixed with a start as I fancied that I heard the sound of soft approaching
• 3:57:20
  steps on the rocky floor of the cavern. Was my deliverance about to be
• 3:57:24
  accomplished so soon? Had then all my horrible apprehensions been for naught? And
• 3:57:30
  was the Guide having marked my unwarranted absence from the party following my course and
• 3:57:33
  seeking me out in this limestone labyrinth. Whilst these joyful queries arose in my
• 3:57:39
  brain, I was on the point of renewing my cries in order that my
• 3:57:43
  discovery might come the sooner, when in an instant my delight was turned to
• 3:57:46
  horror. As I listened for my ever acute ear, now sharpened an even
• 3:57:50
  greater degree by the complete silence of the cave, bore to my benumbed understanding
• 3:57:54
  the unexpected and dreadful knowledge that these footfalls were not like those of any moone
• 3:58:00
  mortal man. In the unearthly stillness of this subterranean region, the tread of
• 3:58:03
  the booted guide would have sounded like a series of sharp and incisive blows.
• 3:58:09
  These impacts were soft and stealthy, as of the pause of some feline.
• 3:58:13
  Besides, when I listened carefully, I seemed to trace the falls of four
• 3:58:18
  instead of two feet. I was now convinced that I had, by my
• 3:58:20
  own cries, aroused and attracted some wild beast, perhaps a mountain lion,
• 3:58:24
  which had accidentally strayed within the cave. Perhaps, I considered the Almighty had
• 3:58:31
  chosen for me a swifter and more merciful death than that of hunger. Yet
• 3:58:35
  the instinct of self preservation, never wholly dormant, was stirred in my breast,
• 3:58:39
  And though escape from the oncoming peril might but spare me for a sterner
• 3:58:43
  and more lingering, and I determined nevertheless to part with my life at as
• 3:58:48
  high a price as I could command. Strange as it may seem, my
• 3:58:50
  mind conceived of no intent on the part of the visitor, save that of
• 3:58:54
  hostility. Accordingly, I became very quiet in the hope that the unknown beast
• 3:59:00
  would, in the absence of a guiding sound, lose its direction as had
• 3:59:03
  I, and thus pass me by. But this hope was not destined for
• 3:59:09
  realization, for the strange footfalls steadily advanced the animal, evidently having obtained my
• 3:59:15
  scent, which, in an atmosphere so absolutely free from all distracting influences,
• 3:59:18
  as is that of the cave, could doubtless be followed at great distance.
• 3:59:24
  Seeing therefore that I must be armed for defense against an uncanny and unseen attack.
• 3:59:28
  In the dark, I grouped about me the largest of the fragments of
• 3:59:31
  rock, which were strewn upon all parts of the floor of the cavern in
• 3:59:35
  the vicinity, and grasping one in each han for immediate use, awaited with
• 3:59:39
  resignation the inevitable result. Meanwhile, the hideous pattering of the pause drew near.
• 3:59:45
  Certainly, the conduct of the creature was exceedingly strange. Most of the
• 3:59:48
  time, the tread seemed to be that of a quadruped walking with a singular
• 3:59:52
  lack of unison betwixt hind and four feet. Yet at brief and infrequent intervals
• 3:59:58
  I fancied that but two feet were engaged in the process of locomotion. I
• 4:00:03
  wondered what species of animal was to confront me. It must, I thought,
• 4:00:07
  be some unfortunate beast who had paid for its curiosity to investigate one of
• 4:00:11
  the entrances of the fearful grotto. With a life long confinement. In its
• 4:00:13
  interminable recesses, it doubtless obtained as food the eyeless fish bats and rats of
• 4:00:20
  the cave, as well as some of the ordinary fish that are wafted in
• 4:00:24
  at every freshet of green river, which communicates in some occult manner with the
• 4:00:28
  waters of the cave. I occupied my terrible vigil with grotesque conjectures of what
• 4:00:33
  alteration cave life might have wrought in the physical structure of the beast. Remembering
• 4:00:39
  the awful appearances ascribed by local tradition to the consumptives who had died after long
• 4:00:43
  residence in the cave. Then I remembered with a start that even should I
• 4:00:48
  succeed in felling my antagonist, I should never behold its form, as my
• 4:00:52
  torch had long since been extinct and I was entirely unprovided with matches. The
• 4:00:58
  tension on my brain now became fright. My disordered fancy conjured up hideous and
• 4:01:01
  fearsome shapes from the sinister darkness that surrounded me, and that actually seemed to
• 4:01:07
  press upon my body. Nearer nearer the dreadful footfalls approached, it seemed that
• 4:01:11
  I must give vent to a piercing scream. Yet, had it been sufficiently
• 4:01:16
  irresolute to attempt such a thing, my voice could scarce have responded. I
• 4:01:20
  was petrified. Rooted to the spot, I doubted if my right arm would
• 4:01:22
  allow me to hurl its missile at the oncoming thing when the crucial moment should
• 4:01:26
  arrive. Now the steady pat pat of the steps was close at hand,
• 4:01:31
  Now very close, I could hear the labored breathing of the animal, and
• 4:01:35
  terror struck as I was, I realized that it must have come from a
• 4:01:37
  considerable distance, and was correspondingly fatigued. Suddenly the spell broke. My right
• 4:01:45
  hand, guided by my ever trustworthy sense of hearing, threw with full force
• 4:01:48
  the sharp angled bit of limestone which it contained, toward that point in the
• 4:01:52
  darkness, from which emanated the breathing and pattering, and wonderful to relate,
• 4:01:56
  it nearly reached its goal, for I heard the thing jump, landing at
• 4:02:00
  a distance away where it seemed to pause. Having readjusted my aim, I
• 4:02:03
  discharged my second missile, this time most effectively, for with a flood of
• 4:02:07
  joy, I listened as the creature fell in what sounded like a complete collapse,
• 4:02:11
  and evidently remained prone and unmoving. Almost overpowered by the great relief which
• 4:02:18
  rushed over me, I reeled back against the wall The breathing continued in heavy
• 4:02:22
  gasping inhalations and expirations. Whence I realized that I had no more than wounded
• 4:02:26
  the creature, and now all desire to examine the thing ceased. At last,
• 4:02:31
  something alike to groundless superstitious fear had entered my brain, and I did
• 4:02:35
  not approach the body, nor did I continue to cast stones at it in
• 4:02:39
  order to complete the extinction of its life. Instead, I ran at full
• 4:02:43
  speed in what was as nearly as I could estimate in my frenzied condition,
• 4:02:48
  the direction from which I had come. Suddenly I heard a sound, or
• 4:02:52
  rather a regular succession of sounds. In another instant they had resolved themselves into
• 4:02:56
  a series of sharp metallic clicks. This time there was no doubt it was
• 4:03:01
  the Guide. And then I shouted, yelled, screamed, even shrieked with
• 4:03:05
  joy. As I beheld in the vaulted arches above the faint and glimmering effulgence,
• 4:03:09
  which I knew to be the reflected light of an approaching torch. I
• 4:03:13
  ran to meet the flare, and before I could completely understand what had occurred,
• 4:03:16
  was lying upon the ground at the feet of the Guide. Embracing his
• 4:03:20
  boots and gibbering despite my boasted reserve, in a most meaningless and idiotic manner,
• 4:03:24
  pouring out my terrible story, and at the same time overwhelming my auditor
• 4:03:28
  with protestations of gratitude. At length I awoke to something like my normal consciousness.
• 4:03:35
  The guide had noted my absence upon the arrival of the party at the
• 4:03:37
  entrance of the cave, and had, from his own intuitive sense of direction,
• 4:03:41
  proceeded to make a thorough canvas of by passages just ahead of where he
• 4:03:45
  had last spoken to me, locating my whereabouts after a quest of about four
• 4:03:48
  hours. By the time he had related this to me, I, emboldened
• 4:03:54
  by his torch and his company, began to reflect upon the strange beast which
• 4:03:58
  I had wounded, but a short distance back in the darkness, and suggested
• 4:04:01
  that we ascertained by the flashlight's aid what manner of creature was my victim.
• 4:04:05
  Accordingly, I retraced my steps, this time with a courage born of companionship,
• 4:04:09
  to the scene of my terrible experience. Soon we descried a white object
• 4:04:15
  upon the floor, an object whiter even than the gleaming limestone itself. Cautiously
• 4:04:20
  advancing, we gave vent to a simultaneous ejaculation of wonderment, for of all
• 4:04:24
  the unnatural monsters either of us had in our lifetimes beheld, this was,
• 4:04:28
  in surpassing degree the strangest. It appeared to be an anthropoid ape of large
• 4:04:33
  proportions, escaped perhaps from some itinerant menagerie. Its hair was snow white,
• 4:04:39
  a thing due no doubt to the bleaching action of a long existence within the
• 4:04:43
  inky confines of the cave. But it was also surprisingly thin, being indeed
• 4:04:48
  largely absent save on the head, where it was of such length and abundance
• 4:04:52
  that it fell over the shoulders in considerable profusion. The face was turned away
• 4:04:56
  from us, as the creature lay almost directly upon it. The inclination of
• 4:05:00
  the limbs was very singular, explaining, however, the alternation in their use
• 4:05:05
  which I had before noted, whereby the beast used sometimes all four, and
• 4:05:07
  on other occasions but two for its progress from the tips of the fingers or
• 4:05:13
  toes, long rat like claws extended the hands or feet were not prehensile,
• 4:05:16
  a fact that I ascribed to that long residence in the cave, which,
• 4:05:20
  as I before mentioned, seemed evident from the all pervading and almost unearthly whiteness
• 4:05:26
  so characteristic of the whole anatomy. No tale seemed to be present. The
• 4:05:30
  respiration had now grown very feeble, and the guide had drawn his pistol with
• 4:05:33
  the evident intent of dispatching the creature, when a sudden sound emitted by the
• 4:05:39
  latter caused the weapon to fall unused. The sound was of a nature difficult
• 4:05:43
  to describe. It was not like the normal note of any known species of
• 4:05:46
  simion, and I wonder if this unnatural quality were not the result of a
• 4:05:52
  long, continued and complete silence broken by the sensations produced by the advent of
• 4:05:56
  the light, a thing which the beast could not have seen since its first
• 4:06:00
  entrance into the cave. The sound, which I might feebly attempt to classify
• 4:06:05
  as a kind of deep toned chattering, was faintly continued all at once a
• 4:06:09
  fleeting spasm of energy seemed to pass through the frame of the beast. The
• 4:06:13
  pause went through a convulsive motion, and the limbs contracted with a jerk.
• 4:06:16
  The white body rolled over so that its face was turned in our direction.
• 4:06:20
  For a moment, I was so struck with horror at the eyes thus revealed
• 4:06:24
  that I noted nothing else. They were black. Those eyes deep jetty black
• 4:06:28
  and hideous contrast to the snow white hair and flesh Like those of other cave
• 4:06:33
  denizens. They were deeply sunken in their orbits and were entirely destitute of iris.
• 4:06:39
  As I looked more closely, I saw that they were sat in a
• 4:06:41
  face less prognathous than that of the average ape, and infinitely less hairy.
• 4:06:46
  The nose was quite distinct. As we gazed upon the uncanny sight presented to
• 4:06:50
  our vision, the thick lips opened and several sounds issued from them, after
• 4:06:54
  which the thing relaxed in death. The guy clutched my coat sleeve and trembled
• 4:07:01
  so violently that the light shook fitfully, casting weird moving shadows on the walls.
• 4:07:07
  I made no motion, but stood rigidly still, my horrified eyes fixed
• 4:07:11
  upon the floor ahead. The fear left, and wonder awe, compassion and
• 4:07:15
  reverence succeeded in its place, for the sounds uttered by the stricken figure that
• 4:07:20
  lay stretched out on the limestone had told us the awesome truth. The creature
• 4:07:24
  I had killed, the strange beast of the unfathomed cave was, or had
• 4:07:31
  at one time been a man end of the beast in the Cave by H.
• 4:07:39
  P. Lovecraft. The Cats of ol Thar by H. P.
• 4:07:45
  Lovecraft. It is said that in Olthar, which lies beyond the river sky,
• 4:07:52
  no man may kill a cat. And this I can verily believe as
• 4:07:56
  I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is
• 4:08:01
  cryptic and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul
• 4:08:07
  of Antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Merroway and Ophir.
• 4:08:15
  He is the kin of the Jungle's lords, and heir to the secrets
• 4:08:18
  of Hoary and Sinister Africa. The Sphynx is his cousin, and he speaks
• 4:08:24
  her language. But he is more ancient than the Sphynx, and remembers that
• 4:08:30
  which she hath forgotten. In Ulthar, before ever the Burgesses forbade the killing
• 4:08:35
  of cats, there dwelt an old cotter and his wife, who delighted to
• 4:08:39
  trap and slay the cats of their neighbors. Why they did this I know
• 4:08:43
  not, save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night and
• 4:08:48
  take it ill that cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight.
• 4:08:54
  But whatever the reason, this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and
• 4:08:58
  slaying every cat which came near to their hovel. And from some of the
• 4:09:01
  sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that the manner of slaying was exceedingly
• 4:09:07
  peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and
• 4:09:11
  his wife because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two,
• 4:09:16
  and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at
• 4:09:20
  the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of
• 4:09:26
  cats hated these odd folk, they feared them more, and instead of berating
• 4:09:30
  them as brutal assassins, merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should
• 4:09:35
  stray toward the remote hovel under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight
• 4:09:41
  a cat was missed and sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently
• 4:09:46
  or console himself by thanking fate that it was not one of his children who
• 4:09:50
  had thus vanished. For the people of Allthar were simple and knew not whence
• 4:09:56
  it is all cats first came. One day a caravan of strange wanderers from
• 4:10:01
  the south entered the narrow, cobbled streets of Olthar. Dark wanderers they were,
• 4:10:07
  and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village twice every year.
• 4:10:13
  In the marketplace, they told fortunes for silver and bought gay beads from
• 4:10:16
  the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could tell, but
• 4:10:20
  it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had
• 4:10:24
  painted on the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads
• 4:10:28
  of cats, hawks, rams, and lions. And the leader of the
• 4:10:33
  caravan wore a head dress with two horns, and a curious disk betwixt the
• 4:10:37
  horns. There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or
• 4:10:43
  mother, but only a tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had not
• 4:10:46
  been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate
• 4:10:52
  his sorrow. And when one is very young, one can find great relief
• 4:10:56
  in the lively antics of a black kitten. So and whom the dark people
• 4:11:00
  called Menes smiled more often than he wept as he sat playing with his graceful
• 4:11:05
  kitten on the steps of an oddly painted wagon. On the third morning of
• 4:11:09
  the wanderer's stay in Olphar, Menes could not find his kitten, and as
• 4:11:15
  he sobbed aloud in the marketplace, certain villagers told him of the old man
• 4:11:18
  and his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he
• 4:11:22
  heard these things, his sobbing gave place to meditation, and finally to prayer.
• 4:11:30
  He stretched out his arms toward the sun and prayed in a tongue no
• 4:11:33
  villager could understand, though indeed the villagers did not try very hard to understand,
• 4:11:37
  since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the odd shapes
• 4:11:41
  the clouds were. Assuming it was very peculiar. But as the little boy
• 4:11:46
  uttered his petition, there seemed to form overhead the shadowy, nebulous figures of
• 4:11:50
  exotic things, of hybrid creatures crowned with horn flanked disks. Nature is full
• 4:11:56
  of such illusions to impress the imaginative. That night, the wanderers left Olthar
• 4:12:03
  and were never seen again, and the householders were troubled when they noticed that
• 4:12:07
  in all the village there was not a cat to be found. From each
• 4:12:11
  hearth the familiar cat had vanished. Cats large and small, black, gray,
• 4:12:18
  striped, yellow and white. Old Crannon, the burgomaster, swore that
• 4:12:24
  the dark folk had taken the cats away in revenge for the killing of MENACE's
• 4:12:28
  kitten, and cursed the caravan and the little boy. But Nith, the
• 4:12:33
  lean notary, declared that the old cotter and his wife were more likely persons
• 4:12:39
  to suspect, for their hatred of cats was notorious and increasingly bold. Still
• 4:12:45
  no one durst complain to the sinister couple, even in Little Atal. The
• 4:12:50
  innkeeper's son vowed that he had at twilight seen all the cats of Olthar in
• 4:12:54
  that accursed yard under the trees, pacing very slowly and solemnly in a circle
• 4:13:00
  around the cottage, two abreast, as if in performance of some unheard of
• 4:13:05
  rite of beasts. The villagers did not know how much to believe from so
• 4:13:09
  small a boy, and though they feared that the evil pair had charmed the
• 4:13:11
  cats to their death, they preferred not to chide the old cotter till they
• 4:13:16
  met him outside his dark and repellent yard. So Othar went to sleep in
• 4:13:22
  vain anger, and when the people awakened at dawn, behold every cat was
• 4:13:26
  back at his accustomed hearth, large and small, black, gray, striped,
• 4:13:33
  yellow and white. None was missing. Very sleek and fat did the
• 4:13:37
  cats appear, and sonorous with purring content. The citizens talked with one another
• 4:13:43
  of the affair and marveled not a little. Old Crannon again insisted that it
• 4:13:48
  was the dark folk who had taken them, since cats did not return alive
• 4:13:52
  from the cottage of the ancient man and his wife. But all agreed on
• 4:13:54
  one thing that the refusal of all the cats to eat their portions of meat
• 4:14:00
  or drink their saucers of milk was exceedingly curious. And for two whole days
• 4:14:05
  the sleek, lazy cats of Olthar would touch no food, but only doze
• 4:14:11
  by the fire or in the sun. It was fully a week before the
• 4:14:15
  villagers noticed that no lights were appearing at dusk in the windows of the cottage
• 4:14:18
  under the trees. Then the lean nith remarked that no one had seen the
• 4:14:24
  old man or his wife since the night the cats were away. In another
• 4:14:28
  week, the burgomaster decided to overcome his fears and call at the strangely silent
• 4:14:33
  dwelling as a matter of duty, though in so doing he was careful to
• 4:14:37
  take with him Shang the blacksmith, and Thull, the cutter of stone,
• 4:14:41
  as witnesses. And when they had broken down the frail door, they found
• 4:14:45
  only this two cleanly picked human skeletons on the earthen floor, and a number
• 4:14:52
  of singular beetles crawling in the shadowy corners. There was subsequently much talk among
• 4:14:58
  the burgesses of olthar Zath. The coroner disputed at length with Nith, the
• 4:15:03
  lean notary, and Crannon, and Shang and Thull were overwhelmed with questions.
• 4:15:11
  Even little Atal, the innkeeper's son, was closely questioned and given a sweetmeat
• 4:15:16
  as reward. They talked of the old cotter and his wife, of the
• 4:15:20
  caravan of dark wanderers, of small menace and his black kitten, of the
• 4:15:24
  prayer of menace and of the sky during that prayer, of the doings of
• 4:15:28
  the cats on the night the caravan left, and of what was later found
• 4:15:33
  in the cottage under the dark trees in the repellent yard. And in the
• 4:15:37
  end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hathek,
• 4:15:43
  and discussed by travelers in near namely that in oul Thar no man may
• 4:15:50
  kill a cat. This is the end of the cats of Olthar, the
• 4:15:56
  crawling chaos. By H. P. Lovecraft of the Pleasures and Pains of
• 4:16:02
  Opium, much has been written. The ecstasies and horrors of de Quincey and
• 4:16:06
  the paradise artificialists of Ballaire are preserved and interpreted with an art which makes them
• 4:16:11
  immortal. And the world knows well the beauty, the terror, and the
• 4:16:15
  mystery of those obscure realms into which the inspired dreamer is transported. But much
• 4:16:19
  as has been told, no man has yet dared intimate the nature of the
• 4:16:23
  phantasms thus unfolded to the mind, or hint at the direction of the unheard
• 4:16:27
  of roads along whose ornate and exotic course the partaker of the drug is so
• 4:16:33
  irresistibly born. De Quincey was drawn back into Asia, that teeming land of
• 4:16:37
  nebulous shadows, whose hideous antiquity is so impressive that the vast age of the
• 4:16:42
  race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. But farther than
• 4:16:48
  that he dared not go. Those who have gone farther, seldom returned,
• 4:16:52
  and even when they have, they have been either silnent or quite mad.
• 4:16:56
  I took opium once in the year of the plague, when the doctor sought
• 4:17:00
  to deaden the agonies they could not cure. There was an overdose. My
• 4:17:03
  physician was worn out with horror and exertion, and I traveled very far.
• 4:17:08
  Indeed, in the end I returned and lived, but my nights are filled
• 4:17:12
  with strange memories. Nor have I permitted a doctor to give me opium again.
• 4:17:18
  The pain and pounding in my head had been quite unendurable when the drug
• 4:17:21
  was administered. Of the future, I had no heed to escape. Whether
• 4:17:25
  by cure, unconsciousness or death was all that concerned me. I was partly
• 4:17:29
  delirious, so that it is hard to place the exact moment of transition,
• 4:17:33
  but I think the fact must have begun shortly before the pounding ceased to be
• 4:17:37
  painful. As I have said, there was an overdose, so my reactions
• 4:17:40
  were probably far from normal. The sensation of falling curiously, disassociated from the
• 4:17:45
  idea of gravity direction was paramount, though there were subsidiary impressions of unseen throngs
• 4:17:51
  and incalculable profusion, throngs of infinitely divers nature, but all more or less
• 4:17:57
  related to me. Some times it seemed less as though I were falling than
• 4:18:02
  as though the universe or the ages were falling past me. Suddenly my pain
• 4:18:07
  ceased, and I began to associate the pounding with an external rather than internal
• 4:18:11
  force. The falling had ceased, also giving place to a sensation of uneasy,
• 4:18:15
  temporary rest, And when I listened closely, I fancy the pounding was
• 4:18:19
  that of the vast, inscrutable sea, as its sinister colossal breakers lacerated some
• 4:18:25
  desolate shore after a storm of Titanic magnitude. Then I opened my eyes.
• 4:18:30
  For a moment, my surroundings seemed confused, like a projected image hopelessly out
• 4:18:34
  of focus. But gradually I realized my solitary presence in a strange and beautiful
• 4:18:40
  room lighted by many windows. Of the exact nature of the apartment, I
• 4:18:44
  could form no idea, for my thoughts were still from settled. But I
• 4:18:48
  noticed van colored rugs and draperies, elaborately fashioned tables, chairs, ottomans,
• 4:18:52
  and divns, and delicate vases and ornaments which conveyed a suggestion of the exotic,
• 4:18:56
  without actually being alien. These things I noticed, yet they were not
• 4:19:02
  long uppermost in my mind. Slowly, but inabxorbably, crawling upon my consciousness
• 4:19:07
  and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown,
• 4:19:12
  a fear of the greater because I could not analyze it, and seeming to
• 4:19:17
  concern a stealthily approaching menace, not death, but some nameless, unheard of
• 4:19:22
  thing, inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent. And shrank from glancing through the arched
• 4:19:27
  lattice windows that opened so bewilderingly on every hand. Perceiving shutters attached to these
• 4:19:33
  windows, I closed them all, averting my eyes from the exterior as I
• 4:19:36
  did so. Then, employing a flint and steel which I found on one
• 4:19:40
  of the small tables, I lit many candles, reposing the walls in arabesqus
• 4:19:44
  sconces. The added sense of security brought by a closed shutters and artificial light
• 4:19:48
  calmed my nerves to some degree, but I could not shut out the monotonous
• 4:19:52
  pounding. Now that I was calmer, the sound became as fascinated as it
• 4:19:56
  was fearful. I felt a contradictory desire to see seek out its source,
• 4:20:00
  despite my still powerful shrinking. Opening a porterier on the side of the room,
• 4:20:04
  nearing the pounding, I beheld a small and richly draped corridor ending in
• 4:20:08
  a cavern door in large oriel windows. To this window I was irresistibly drawn,
• 4:20:15
  though my ill defined apprehension seemed almost equally bent on holding me back.
• 4:20:19
  As I approached it, I could see a chaotic whirl of waters in the
• 4:20:22
  distance. Then as I attained it and glanced out on all sides, the
• 4:20:26
  stupendous picture of my surroundings burst upon me with full and devastating force. I
• 4:20:33
  beheld such a sight as I had never beheld before, in which no living
• 4:20:37
  person can have seen, save in the delirium of fever or the inferno of
• 4:20:41
  opium. The building stood on a narrow point of land, or what was
• 4:20:44
  now a narrow point of land, fully three hundred feet above what must lately
• 4:20:48
  have been a seething vortex of mad water. On either side of the house
• 4:20:52
  there was a newly washed out precipice of red earth, whilst ahead of me
• 4:20:56
  the hideous waves were still rolling and frightfully eating away the land with ghastly monotony
• 4:21:00
  and deliberation. Out a mile or more. There rose and fell menacing breakers
• 4:21:07
  at least fifty feet in height, and on the far horizon, ghoulish black
• 4:21:10
  clouds of grotesque conchure were resting and brooding, like unwholesome vultures. The waves
• 4:21:15
  were dark and purplish, almost black, and clutched at the yielding red mud
• 4:21:19
  of the bank, as if with uncouth, greedy hands. And could not
• 4:21:23
  but feel that some noxious marine mine had declared a war of extermination upon all
• 4:21:29
  the solid ground, perhaps embedded by the angry sky. Recovering at length from
• 4:21:33
  the stupor into which this unnatural spectacle had thrown me, I realized that my
• 4:21:38
  physical danger was acute. Even whilst I gazed, the bank had lost many
• 4:21:42
  feet, and it could not be long before the house would fall undermined into
• 4:21:48
  this awful pit of lashing waves. Accordingly, I hastened to the opposite side
• 4:21:52
  of the edifice, and, finding a door, emerged at once, unlocking
• 4:21:56
  it after me with a curious key which had hung inside. I now be
• 4:22:00
  held more of the strange region about me, and marked a singular division which
• 4:22:03
  seemed to exist in the hostile ocean and firmament. On each side of the
• 4:22:07
  jutting promontory, different conditions held sway. At my left, as I faced
• 4:22:12
  inland, was a gently heaving sea, with great green waves rolling peacefully in
• 4:22:18
  under a brightly shining sun. Something about that sun's nature and position made me
• 4:22:22
  shudder, but I could not tell then and cannot tell now what it was.
• 4:22:27
  At my right also was the sea, but it was blue, calm,
• 4:22:32
  and only gently undulating, while the sky above it was darker in the
• 4:22:36
  washed out bank, more nearly white than reddish. I now turned my attention
• 4:22:40
  to the land and found occasion for fresh surprise, for the vegetation resembled nothing
• 4:22:45
  I had seen or red about. It was apparently tropical, or at least
• 4:22:48
  subtropical, a conclusion borne out of the intense heat of the air. Sometimes
• 4:22:52
  I thought I could trace strange analogies with the floor of my native land,
• 4:22:57
  fancying the well known plants and shrubs might assume such forms under the radical change
• 4:23:02
  of climate, but that gigantic and omnipresent palm trees were plainly foreign. The
• 4:23:07
  house I had just left was very small, hardly more than a cottage,
• 4:23:11
  but its material was evidently marble and Its architecture was weird and composite, involving
• 4:23:15
  a quaint fusion of western and Eastern forms. At the corners were Corinthian columns,
• 4:23:21
  where the red tiled roof was like that of a Chinese pagoda. From
• 4:23:23
  the door inland there stretched a path of singularly white sand, about four feet
• 4:23:29
  wide, and lined either side with strange palms, unidentifiable flowering shrubs and plants.
• 4:23:36
  It lay towards the side of the promontory, where the sea was blue
• 4:23:37
  in the bank rather whitish. Down this path I felt impelled to flee,
• 4:23:42
  as if pursued by some malignant spirit, from the pounding ocean. At first
• 4:23:48
  it was slightly uphill. Then I reached a gentle crest. Behind me,
• 4:23:52
  I saw the scene I had left, the entire point, with the cottage
• 4:23:53
  in black water, with the green sea on one side and the blue sea
• 4:23:57
  on the other, and a curse unknit aimed and unnameable lowering over all.
• 4:24:03
  I never saw it again, and oft in wonder. After this last look,
• 4:24:07
  I strode ahead and surveyed the inland panorama before me. The path,
• 4:24:12
  as I have intimated, ran along the right hand shore as one went inland,
• 4:24:17
  ahead and to the left, I now viewed a magnificent valley comprising thousands
• 4:24:21
  of acres and covered with a swaying growth of tropical grass. Higher than my
• 4:24:25
  head. Almost at the limit of vision was a colossal palm tree, which
• 4:24:29
  seemed to fascinate and beckon me. By this time, wonder and escape from
• 4:24:33
  the imperiled peninsula had largely dissipated my fear. But as I paused and sank
• 4:24:37
  fatigued to the path, ily digging with my hands into the warm, whitish
• 4:24:41
  golden sand, a new and acute sense of danger seized me. Some terror
• 4:24:48
  in the swishing tall grass seemed added to that of the diabolically pounding sea,
• 4:24:52
  and I started up crying and disjointedly. Tiger, Tiger, Is it tiger?
• 4:24:56
  Beast? Beast? Is it beast that I am afraid of? My
• 4:25:00
  mind wandered back to the ancient and classical story of Tigers, which I had
• 4:25:03
  read. I strove to recall the author, but had difficulty. Then,
• 4:25:07
  in the midst of my fear, I remembered that the tale was by Rudyard
• 4:25:11
  Kipling. Nor did the grotesqueness of deeming him and an ancient author occur to
• 4:25:15
  me. I wished for the volume containing this story, and had almost started
• 4:25:18
  back toward the doomed cottage to procure it when my better sense and the lure
• 4:25:22
  of the palm prevented me. Whether or not I could have resisted the backward
• 4:25:27
  beckoning without the counterfascination of this vast palm tree, I do not know.
• 4:25:33
  This attraction was now dominant, and I left the path and crawled on hands
• 4:25:36
  and knees down the valley's slope. Despite my fears of the grass and of
• 4:25:40
  the serpents it might contain, I resolved to fight for life and reason as
• 4:25:45
  long as possible against all menaces of land or sea, though I sometimes feared
• 4:25:51
  defeat. As the maddening swish of the uncanny grasses joined the still audible and
• 4:25:56
  irritating pounding of the distant breakers, I would frequently paw and put my hands
• 4:26:00
  to my ears for relief, but could never quite shut out the detestable sound.
• 4:26:04
  It was, as it seemed to me only after ages that I finally
• 4:26:07
  dragged myself to the beckoning palm tree and lay quiet beneath its protecting shade.
• 4:26:12
  There now ensued a series of incidents which transported me to the opposite extremes of
• 4:26:17
  ecstasy and horror, incidents which I trembled to recall, and dared not seek
• 4:26:22
  to interpret. No sooner had I crawled beneath the overhanging foliage of the palm,
• 4:26:26
  than there dropped from its branches a young child of such beauty as I
• 4:26:30
  never beheld before. Though ragged and dusty, this being bore the features of
• 4:26:36
  a fawn or demigod, and seemed almost to fuse a radiance in the dense
• 4:26:40
  shadow of the tree. It smiled and extended its hand. But before I
• 4:26:44
  could arise and speak, I heard in the upper air the exquisite melody of
• 4:26:48
  singing notes, high and low, blent with the sublime and etherol harmoniousness.
• 4:26:52
  The sun had by this time sunk below the horizon, and in the twilight
• 4:26:56
  I saw an oriole of lambent light encircled the ta child's head. Then,
• 4:27:00
  in a tone of silver, it addressed me, it is the end.
• 4:27:04
  They have come down through the gloaming from the stars. Now all is over,
• 4:27:08
  and beyond the Erinurian streams we shall dwell blissfully in Tello. As a
• 4:27:14
  child spoke, I beheld a soft radiance through the leaves of the palm tree,
• 4:27:18
  and rising greeted a pair whom I knew to be the chief singers among
• 4:27:21
  those I had heard a god and goddess. They must have been, for
• 4:27:23
  such beauty is not mortal. And they took my hands, saying, come,
• 4:27:29
  child, you have heard the voices, and all is well. In
• 4:27:33
  Tello, beyond the Milky Way and in the Erinurian streams are cities all of
• 4:27:37
  amber and calcidy, and upon their domes of many fescets glistening images of strange
• 4:27:42
  and beautiful stars. Under the ivory bridges of Tello flowed rivers of liquid gold,
• 4:27:48
  bearing the pleasure barges bound for blossomy cytherean of the seven suns. And
• 4:27:53
  in Tello and a Ccytherian abide only youth, beauty, and pleasure. Nor
• 4:27:59
  are any sounds heard, save of laughter, song and the lute. Only
• 4:28:03
  the gods dwell in tellow of the golden rivers. But among them shalt thou
• 4:28:07
  dwell. As I listened enchanted, I suddenly became aware of the change in
• 4:28:11
  my surroundings. The palm tree, so lately overshadowed my exhausting form, was
• 4:28:17
  now some distance to my left and considerably below me. I was obviously floating
• 4:28:22
  in the atmosphere, companion not only by the strange child in the radiant pair,
• 4:28:26
  but by a constantly increasing throng of half luminous, vine crowned youths and
• 4:28:30
  maidens with wind blown hair and joyful countenance. We slowly ascended together, as
• 4:28:36
  if borne on a fragrant breeze which blew not from the earth but from the
• 4:28:40
  golden nebula. And the child whispered in my ear that I must look always
• 4:28:45
  upward to the pathways of light, and never backward to the sphere. I
• 4:28:48
  had just left the youths and maidens, now chanted molifluous coriambics to the accompaniment
• 4:28:53
  of lutes, and I felt enveloped in a peace and happiness more profound than
• 4:28:59
  any I had life imagined, when the intrusion of a single sound altered my
• 4:29:03
  destiny and shattered my soul through the ravishing strains of the singers and the lutinists,
• 4:29:10
  as if in mocking, demonic concord throbbed from gulfs below, the damnable
• 4:29:14
  and detestable pounding of that hideous ocean, as those black breakers beat their message
• 4:29:18
  into my ears, I forgot the words of the child, and looked back
• 4:29:22
  down upon the doom scene from which I thought I had escaped. Down through
• 4:29:26
  the ether, I saw the accursed earth slowly turning, ever turning, with
• 4:29:30
  angry and toe pestuous seas, gnawing at the wild, desolate shores, and
• 4:29:34
  dashing foam against the tottering towers of a deserted cities, and under a ghastly
• 4:29:38
  moon. In their gleam sights I can never describe, sights I can never
• 4:29:42
  forget. Deserts of corpse like clay and jungles of ruin and decadence were once
• 4:29:47
  stretched the populous plains and villages of my native land, and mailstroms of frothing
• 4:29:52
  ocean were once rose the mighty temples of my forefathers. Round the northern pole
• 4:29:56
  streamed a morass of noisome growths in my asthma, vapors hissing before the onslaught
• 4:30:02
  of the ever mounting waves that curled and fretted from the shuddering deep. Then
• 4:30:07
  a rending report claved the night, and athwart the desert of deserts appeared a
• 4:30:11
  smoking rift. Still, the black ocean foamed and gnawed, eating away the
• 4:30:15
  desert on either side. As the rift in the center widened and widened,
• 4:30:19
  there was now no land left but the desert, and still the fuming the
• 4:30:23
  ocean ate and ate all at once. I thought, even the pounding sea
• 4:30:29
  seemed afraid of something, afraid of dark gods of the inner Earth that are
• 4:30:32
  greater than the evil gods of water. But even if it was, it
• 4:30:36
  could not turn back, and the desert had suffered too much from those nightmare
• 4:30:38
  waves to help them. Now, So the ocean ate the last of the
• 4:30:42
  land important to the smoking Gulf, thereby giving up all it had ever conquered.
• 4:30:47
  From the newly flooded lands. It flowed again, uncovering death and decay,
• 4:30:52
  and from its ancient, immemorial bed it tricked them loathsomely, uncovering knighted
• 4:30:56
  secrets of the years when time was young and the gods on born. Above
• 4:31:00
  the waves rose weedy remembered spires. The moon lay pale lilies of light on
• 4:31:04
  dead London, and Paris stood from its damp grave to be sacrificed with star
• 4:31:08
  dust. Then rose spires and monoliths that were weedy but not remembered, terrible
• 4:31:15
  spires and monolis of land that men never knew where lands. There was not
• 4:31:18
  any pounding now, but only the unearthly whirring and hissing of waters tumbling into
• 4:31:23
  the rift. The smoke of that rift had changed his steam and almost hid
• 4:31:27
  the world. As it grew denser and denser, it seared my face and
• 4:31:30
  hands. And when I looked to see how it affected my companions, I
• 4:31:34
  found they had all disappeared. Then very suddenly it ended. I knew no
• 4:31:38
  more till I awakened upon a bed of convalescence, as the cloud esteamed from
• 4:31:45
  the Peutonic Gulf finally concealed the entire surface from my sight. All the firmament
• 4:31:48
  shrieked at a sudden agony of mad reverberations which shook the trembling ether, and
• 4:31:53
  one delirious flash and burst it happened, one blinding, deafening holocaust fire smoke
• 4:32:00
  and thundered at dissolve the whan moon, and it sped outward to the void.
• 4:32:06
  And when the smoke cleared and I sought to look upon the earth,
• 4:32:08
  I beheld against a background of cold, humorous stars, only the dying sun
• 4:32:15
  and the pale, mournful planets searching for their sister end of the crawling Chaos,
• 4:32:22
  the doom that came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. There
• 4:32:29
  is in the land of Manar a vast still lake that is fed by no
• 4:32:33
  stream, and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there
• 4:32:40
  stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath. But Sarnath stands there no
• 4:32:45
  more. It is told that in the immemorial years, when the world was
• 4:32:52
  young, before ever the men of Sarnath came to the land of Manar,
• 4:32:56
  another city stood beside the lake, the gray stone city of Ib, which
• 4:33:02
  was as old as the lake itself, and peopled by beings not pleasing to
• 4:33:06
  behold. Very odd and ugly were these beings, as indeed are most beings
• 4:33:11
  of a world, yet incoit and rudely fashioned. It is written on the
• 4:33:15
  brick cylinders of Pibatharon that the beings of Ib were in hue, as green
• 4:33:22
  as the lake and the mists that rise above it. That they had bulging
• 4:33:26
  eyes, pouting flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice.
• 4:33:33
  It is also written that they descended one night from the moon in a mist.
• 4:33:37
  They and the vast still lake in the gray stone city Ebb. However
• 4:33:42
  this may be, it is certain that they worshiped a sea green stone idol
• 4:33:48
  chiseled in the likeness of Bakhrub, the great water lizard, before which they
• 4:33:53
  danced horribly when the moon was Gibbeus. And it is written in the papyrus
• 4:33:59
  of Illak that one day they discovered fire, and thereafter kindled flames on many
• 4:34:06
  ceremonial occasions. But not much is written of these beings, because they lived
• 4:34:11
  in very ancient times, and man is young and knows but little of the
• 4:34:15
  very ancient living things. After many eons, men came to the land of
• 4:34:22
  Manar, dark shepherd folk with their fleecy flocks, who built Thra the Larneck
• 4:34:27
  and Cadatharon on the winding river Eye. And certain tribes more hardy than the
• 4:34:33
  rest, pushed on to the border of the lake and built Sarnath, at
• 4:34:38
  a spot where precious metals were found in the earth. Not far from the
• 4:34:42
  gray city of Ib did the wandering tribes lay the first stones of Sarnath.
• 4:34:48
  And at the beings of Ib they marveled greatly. But with their marveling was
• 4:34:53
  mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings of such aspect should
• 4:34:59
  walk about the wors the world of men at dusk. Nor did they like
• 4:35:02
  the strange sculptures upon the gray monoliths of Ib. For why those sculptures lingered
• 4:35:07
  so late in the world, even until the coming of men, none can
• 4:35:12
  tell, unless it is because the land of Manar is very still and remote
• 4:35:17
  for most other lands, both of waking and of dream. As the men
• 4:35:22
  of Sarnath beheld more of the beings of Ib, their hate grew, and
• 4:35:27
  it was not less because they found the beings weak and soft as jelly to
• 4:35:32
  the touch of stones and arrows. So one day the young warriors, the
• 4:35:37
  slingers, and the spearmen and the bowmen marched against Ib and slew all the
• 4:35:41
  inhabitants thereof, pushing the queer bodies into the lake with long spears. Because
• 4:35:47
  they did not wish to touch them, and because they did not like the
• 4:35:51
  gray sculptured monoliths of Ib, they cast these also into the lake, wondering
• 4:35:56
  from the greatness of the labor. However, the stones were brought from Afar,
• 4:36:00
  as they must have been, since there is not like them in the
• 4:36:03
  land of Manar or the lands adjacent. Thus, of the very ancient city
• 4:36:10
  of ib Nothing was spared save the sea green stone idol, chiseled in the
• 4:36:15
  likeness of Bahrug, the water lizard. This the young warriors took back with
• 4:36:21
  them as a symbol of conquest over the old gods and beings of and as
• 4:36:25
  a sign of leadership in Manar. But on the night after it was set
• 4:36:30
  up in the temple, a terrible thing must have happened, for weird lights
• 4:36:33
  were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol
• 4:36:37
  gone, and the high priest taranih lying dead, as from some fear unspeakable.
• 4:36:44
  And before he died, Taranish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite in
• 4:36:48
  coarse, shaky strokes, the sign of doom. After Taranish, there were
• 4:36:56
  many high priests in Sarnath, but never was the sea green stone idol found.
• 4:37:02
  And many centuries came and went wherein Sarnath prospered exceedingly, so that only
• 4:37:07
  priests and old women remembered what Tarranish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite.
• 4:37:14
  Betwixt Sarnath and the city of Ilarnac arose a caravan route and the precious metals
• 4:37:19
  from the earth were exchanged for other metals and rare cloths, and jewels,
• 4:37:25
  and books and tools for artificers, and all things of luxury that are known
• 4:37:30
  to the people who dwell along the winding river eye and beyond. So Sarnath
• 4:37:36
  waxed mighty and learned and beautiful, and sent forth conquering armies to subdue the
• 4:37:41
  neighboring cities. And in time there sat upon a throne in Sarnath, the
• 4:37:48
  kings of all the land of Manar, and of many lands adjacent. The
• 4:37:55
  wonder of the world, and the pride of all mankind was Sarnath, the
• 4:37:59
  magnificent of polished desert. Quarried marble. Were its walls in height three hundred
• 4:38:04
  cubits and in breadth seventy five, so that chariots might pass each other as
• 4:38:10
  men drove them along the top. For full five hundred stadia did they run,
• 4:38:15
  being open only on the side toward the lake, where a green stone
• 4:38:18
  sea wall kept back the waves that rose oddly once a year at the festival
• 4:38:23
  of the Destroying Ibb. In Sarnath were fifty streets from the lake to the
• 4:38:29
  gates of the caravans, and fifty more intersecting them with onyx were they paved,
• 4:38:34
  save those whereupon the horses and camels and elephants trod, which were paved
• 4:38:38
  with granite. And the gates of Sarnath were as many as the landward ends
• 4:38:44
  of the streets, each of bronze and flanked by the figures of lions and
• 4:38:48
  elephants carven from some stone no longer known among men. The houses of Sarnath
• 4:38:55
  were of glazed brick and chalcedoni, each having its walled garden and crystal lakelet
• 4:39:03
  with strange art where they builded, for no other city had houses like them,
• 4:39:07
  And travelers from Thra and a Larnac and Kadatharon marveled at the shining domes,
• 4:39:14
  wherewith they were surmounted. But more marvelous still were the palaces, and
• 4:39:19
  the temples and the gardens made by Zokhar, the olden king. There were
• 4:39:23
  many palaces, the last of which were mightier than any in Thra, were
• 4:39:29
  a Larnac or Cadatharon. So high were they that one within might sometimes fancy
• 4:39:33
  himself beneath only the sky. Yet when lighted with torches dipped in the oil
• 4:39:38
  of doth, their walls showed vast paintings of kings and armies of a splendor
• 4:39:45
  at once inspiring and stupefying to the beholder. Many were the pillars of the
• 4:39:49
  palaces, all of tinted marble and carbon into designs of surpassing beauty. And
• 4:39:56
  in most of the palaces the floors were mosaics of beryl, lapis, lazuli
• 4:40:00
  and sardonyx, and carbuncle and other choice materials, so disposed that the beholder
• 4:40:06
  might fancy himself walking over beds of the rarest flowers. And there were likewise
• 4:40:11
  fountains which cast scented waters about in pleasing jets arranged with cunning art. Outshining
• 4:40:18
  all others was the Palace of the Kings of Manar and of the lands adjacent
• 4:40:23
  on a pair of golden crouching lions rested the throne, many steps above the
• 4:40:29
  gleaming floor, and it was wrot of one piece of ivory. Though no
• 4:40:33
  man lives, who knows whence so vast a peace could have come in that
• 4:40:37
  palace. There were also many galleries and many amphitheaters, where lions and men
• 4:40:42
  and elephants battled at the pleasure of the kings. Sometimes the amphitheaters were flooded
• 4:40:48
  with water conveyed from the lake in mighty aqueducts, and then were enacted stirring
• 4:40:53
  sea fights, where combats betwixt swimmers and deadly marine things. Lofty and amazing
• 4:41:02
  were the seventeen towerlike temples of Sarnath, fashioned of a bright, multi colored
• 4:41:07
  stone not known elsewhere a full thousand cubits high stood the greatest among them,
• 4:41:14
  wherein the high priests dwelt with a magnificence scarce less than that of the kings.
• 4:41:19
  On the ground were halls as vast and splendid as those of the palaces,
• 4:41:25
  where gathered throngs in worship of Zoe Khalar and Tamash and Loban, the
• 4:41:30
  chief gods of Sarnath, whose incense enveloped shrines were as the thrones of monarchs.
• 4:41:37
  Not like the icons of other gods were those of Zoe Khalar and Tamash
• 4:41:41
  and Loban, For so close to life were they that one might swear the
• 4:41:45
  graceful bearded gods themselves sat on the ivory thrones and up und ending steps of
• 4:41:52
  Zirkhon was the tower chamber, wherefrom the high priests looked out over the city
• 4:41:57
  in the plains and the lake by day, and at the cryptic moon and
• 4:42:02
  significant stars and planets and their reflections in the lake at night. Here was
• 4:42:07
  done the very secret and ancient right in detestation of Bakhrug the water lizard.
• 4:42:12
  And here rested the altar of chrysolite, which bore the doomed scrawl of taran
• 4:42:18
  Ish. Wonderful. Likewise were the gardens made by Zokar, the olden king,
• 4:42:26
  in the center of Sarnath. They lay covering a great space and encircled
• 4:42:30
  by a high wall, and they were surmounted by a mighty dome of glass,
• 4:42:36
  through which shone the sun and moon and planets when it was clear,
• 4:42:40
  and from which were hung full gent images of the Sun and moon and stars
• 4:42:45
  and planets when it was not clear. In summer, the gardens were cooled
• 4:42:49
  with fresh odorous breezes wafted by fans, and in winter they were heated with
• 4:42:56
  concealed fires, so that in those gardens it was all always spring. There
• 4:43:02
  ran little streams over bright pebbles, dividing needs of green, and gardens of
• 4:43:07
  many hues, and spanned by a multitude of bridges. Many were the waterfalls
• 4:43:11
  in their courses, and many were the hued lakelets into which they expanded.
• 4:43:18
  Over the streams and lakelets rode white swans, whilst the music of rare birds
• 4:43:22
  chimed in with the melody of the waters. In order to terraces rose the
• 4:43:27
  green banks adorned here and there with bowers of vines and sweet blossoms, and
• 4:43:33
  seats and benches of marble and porphyry, And there were many small shrines and
• 4:43:38
  temples where one might rest or pray to the small gods. Each year there
• 4:43:45
  was celebrated in Sarnath the feast of the Destroying of Ib, at which time
• 4:43:49
  wine, song, dancing, and merriment of every kind abounded. Great honors
• 4:43:55
  were laid to the shades of those who had annihilated the odd ancient beings,
• 4:44:00
  and the memory of those beings and of their elder gods was derided by dancers
• 4:44:04
  and lutinists, crowned with roses from the gardens of Zokhar, and the kings
• 4:44:10
  would look out over the lake and curse the bones of the dead that lay
• 4:44:14
  beneath it. At first, the high priests liked not these festivals, for
• 4:44:21
  there had descended among them queer tales of how the sea green icon had vanished,
• 4:44:26
  and how Taranish had died from fear and left a warning. And they
• 4:44:30
  said that from their high tower they sometimes saw lights beneath the waters of the
• 4:44:34
  lake. But as many years passed without calamity, even the priests laughed and
• 4:44:40
  cursed and joined in the orgies of the feasters. Indeed, had they not
• 4:44:45
  themselves in their high tower, often performed the very ancient and secret rite and
• 4:44:51
  detestation of Bahkrug the water lizard. And a thousand years of riches and delight
• 4:44:56
  passed over Sarnath. Wonder of the world, gorgeous beyond thought was the feast
• 4:45:03
  of the thousandth year of the destroying of Ib. For a decade had it
• 4:45:07
  been talked of in the land of Manar. And as it drew nigh,
• 4:45:11
  there came to Sarnath on horses and camels and elephants, men from Thra,
• 4:45:17
  the Larnek and Cadatharon, and all the cities of Manar and the lands beyond.
• 4:45:22
  Before the marble walls on the appointed night were pitched the pavilions of princes
• 4:45:27
  and the tents of travelers. Within his banquet hall reclined Nargesese high, the
• 4:45:33
  king, drunken with ancient wine from the vaults of conquered Panath, and surrounded
• 4:45:40
  by feasting nobles and hurrying slaves. There were eaten many strange delicacies of that
• 4:45:45
  feast. Peacocks from the distant hills of Linplan, heels of camels from the
• 4:45:51
  Banazac desert, nuts and spices from Sindathrian groves, and pearls from wave washed
• 4:45:59
  matal dissolved in the vinegar of Thra. Of sauces there were an untold number
• 4:46:04
  prepared by the subtlest cooks in all Manar, and suited the palate of every
• 4:46:10
  feaster. But most prized of all the Vayans were the great fishes from the
• 4:46:15
  lake, each of vast size and served upon golden platters set with rubies and
• 4:46:22
  diamonds. Whilst the king and his nobles feasted within the palace and viewed the
• 4:46:30
  crowning dish as it awaited them on golden platters, others feasted elsewhere. In
• 4:46:36
  the tower of the Great Temple, the priests held revels, and in pavilions
• 4:46:41
  without the walls. The princes of neighboring lands made merry. And it was
• 4:46:45
  the high priest Genai Kha who first saw the shadows that descended from the gibbous
• 4:46:52
  moon into the lake, and the damnable green mists that rose from the lake
• 4:46:56
  to meet the moon and to shroud in a sinister haze the towers and the
• 4:47:02
  domes of fated Sarnath. Thereafter, those in the towers and without the walls
• 4:47:08
  beheld strange lights on the water, and saw that the gray rock Acurion,
• 4:47:15
  which was wont to rear high above it near the shore, was almost submerged,
• 4:47:21
  and fear grew vaguely yet swiftly, so that the princes of a Larnek
• 4:47:26
  and of far Rochal took down and folded their tents and pavilions, and departed,
• 4:47:30
  though they scarce knew the reason for their departing. Then, close to
• 4:47:37
  the hour of midnight, all the bronze gates of Sarnath burst open and emptied
• 4:47:42
  forth a frenzied throng that blackened the plain, so that all the visiting princes
• 4:47:48
  and travelers fled away in fright. For on the faces of this throng was
• 4:47:52
  writ a madness born of horror unendurable, and on their tongues were words so
• 4:47:57
  terrible that no hue irror paused for proof. Men whose eyes were wild with
• 4:48:03
  fears, shrieked aloud of the sight within the King's banquet hall, where through
• 4:48:08
  the windows were seen no longer the forms of Nargis High and his nobles and
• 4:48:14
  slaves, but a horde of indescribable green, voiceless things with bulging eyes,
• 4:48:19
  pouting flabby lips, and curious ears, things which danced horribly, bearing in
• 4:48:26
  their paws golden plates set with rubies and diamonds, and containing uncouth flames.
• 4:48:32
  And the princes and travelers, as they fled from the doomed city of Sarnath
• 4:48:37
  on horses and camels and elephants, looked back again upon the mist beginning lake,
• 4:48:41
  and saw the gray rock Courion was quite submerged. Through all the land
• 4:48:48
  of Manar and the land adjacent spread the tales of those who had fled from
• 4:48:52
  Sarnath, and caravans sought that a cursed city and its precious metals no more.
• 4:48:59
  It was long ere any travel went thither, and even then only the
• 4:49:03
  brave and adventurous young men of yellow hair and blue eyes, who were no
• 4:49:08
  kin to the men of Manar. These men indeed went to the lake to
• 4:49:14
  view Sarnath But though they found the vast still lake itself, and the gray
• 4:49:18
  rock of Courion, which rears high above it near the shore, they beheld
• 4:49:23
  not the wonder of the world in the pride of all mankind. Where once
• 4:49:29
  had risen walls of three hundred cubits and hours yet higher, now stretched only
• 4:49:34
  the marshy shore, where once had dwelt fifty million men now crawled the detestable
• 4:49:41
  water lizard. Not even the mines of precious metal remained. Doom had come
• 4:49:48
  to Sarnath, But half buried in the rushes was spy the curious green Idol,
• 4:49:56
  an exceedingly ancient idol, chiseled in the likeness of Bachhrug, the great
• 4:50:02
  water lizard that Idol enshrined in the high temple at Olarnek was subsequently worshiped beneath
• 4:50:08
  the gibus moon throughout the land of Manar, and of the doom that came
• 4:50:17
  to Sarnath the music of Erik Zan by H. P. Lovecraft. I
• 4:50:22
  have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never again
• 4:50:26
  found the Rue d'orlseais. These maps have not been modern maps alone, for
• 4:50:32
  I know that names change. I have on the contrary, dealt deeply into
• 4:50:36
  all the antiquities of the place, and have personally explored every region of whatever
• 4:50:41
  name which could possibly answer to the street I knew as the Rue d'orseat.
• 4:50:45
  But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot
• 4:50:48
  find the house, the street, or even the locality where. During the
• 4:50:52
  last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university,
• 4:50:56
  I heard the music of Erik Zan that my memory is broken. I do
• 4:51:00
  not wonder for my health, physical and mental, was gravely disturbed throughout the
• 4:51:06
  period of my residence in the Rue d'orcais, and I recall that I took
• 4:51:08
  none of my few acquaintances there, but that I cannot find the place again.
• 4:51:12
  It is both singular and perplexing, for it was within a half hour's
• 4:51:15
  walk of the university and was distinguished by peculiarities which could hardly be forgotten by
• 4:51:21
  any one who had been there. I have never met a person who has
• 4:51:25
  seen Rue d'orseais. The Rue d'orcais lay across a dark river, bordered by
• 4:51:30
  precipitous brick blear windowed warehouses, and spanned by a ponderous bridge of dark stone.
• 4:51:36
  It was always shadowy along that river, as if the smoke of neighboring
• 4:51:38
  factories shut out the sun perpetually. The river was also odorous, with evil
• 4:51:44
  stenches, which I have never smelled elsewhere, and which may some day help
• 4:51:48
  me to find it, since I should recognize them at once. Beyond the
• 4:51:52
  bridge were narrow, cobbled streets with rails, and then came the ascent,
• 4:51:56
  at first gradual but incredibly steep. As the Rue D'orcaies was reached. I
• 4:52:00
  have never seen another street as narrow and steep as the Rue d'horse. It
• 4:52:06
  was almost a cliff, closed to all vehicles, consisting in several places of
• 4:52:10
  flights of steps, and ending at the top in a lofty ivied wall.
• 4:52:15
  Its pathing was irregular, sometimes stone slabs, sometimes cobblestones, and sometimes bare
• 4:52:22
  earth was struggling greenish gray vegetation. The houses were tall, peaked roofed,
• 4:52:26
  incredibly old and crazily leaning backward forward and sideways, occasionally an opposite pair,
• 4:52:33
  both leaning forward, almost met across the street like an arch, and certainly
• 4:52:37
  they kept most of the light from the ground below. There were a few
• 4:52:41
  overhead bridges from house to house across the street. The inhabitants of that street
• 4:52:45
  impressed me peculiarly. At first I thought it was because they were all silent
• 4:52:49
  and reticent, but later I decided it was because they were all very old.
• 4:52:55
  I do not know how I came to live on such a street,
• 4:52:56
  but I was not myself when I moved there. I had been living in
• 4:53:00
  many poor places, always evicted for want of money, until at last I
• 4:53:03
  came upon that tottering house in the Rue d'Orsay, kept by the paralytic Brandeaux.
• 4:53:10
  It was the third house from the top of the street, and by
• 4:53:12
  far the tallest of them all. My room was on the fifth story,
• 4:53:17
  the only inhabited room there, since the house was almost empty. On the
• 4:53:21
  night I arrived, I heard strange music from the peaked garret overhead, and
• 4:53:26
  the next day asked old Blandeaux about it. He told me it was an
• 4:53:29
  old German viol player, a strange dumb man who signed his name as Eirik
• 4:53:33
  Zan, and who played evenings in a cheap theater orchestra, adding that Zan's
• 4:53:38
  desire to play in the night after his return from the theater was the reason
• 4:53:41
  he had chosen this lofty and isolated garret room, whose single gable window was
• 4:53:47
  the only point on the street from which one could look over the terminating wall
• 4:53:51
  at the declivity and panorama beyond. Thereafter, I heard Zan every night,
• 4:53:55
  and although he kept me awake, I was haunted by the weirdness of his
• 4:53:59
  music. Knowing little of the art myself, I was yet certain that none
• 4:54:03
  of his harmonies had any relation to music I had heard before, and concluded
• 4:54:07
  that he was a composer of highly original genius. The longer I listened,
• 4:54:11
  the more I was fascinated, until after a week I resolved to make the
• 4:54:15
  old man's acquaintance. One night, as he was returning from his work,
• 4:54:18
  I intercepted Jan in the hallway and told him that I would like to know
• 4:54:22
  him and be with him when he played. He was a small, lean,
• 4:54:26
  bent person, with shabby clothes, blue eyes, grotesque satire like face,
• 4:54:30
  and nearly bald head, and at my first words seemed both angered and
• 4:54:34
  frightened. My obvious friendliness, however, finally melted him, and he grudgingly
• 4:54:38
  motioned for me to follow him up the dark, creaking and rickety attic stairs
• 4:54:44
  his room. One of only two in the steeply pitched carrot was on the
• 4:54:47
  west side, toward the high wall that formed the upper end of the street.
• 4:54:51
  Its size was very great, and seemed the greater because of its extraordinary
• 4:54:55
  barrenness and neglect of furniture. There was only a narrow iron bedstead, a
• 4:55:00
  dingy washstand, a small table, a large bookcase, an iron music rack,
• 4:55:04
  and three old fashioned chairs. Sheets of music were piled in disorder about
• 4:55:10
  the floor. The walls were of bare boards and had probably never known plaster,
• 4:55:15
  whilst the abundance of dust and cobwebs made the place seem more deserted than
• 4:55:18
  inhabited. Evidently, erik Zan's world of beauty lay in some far cosmos of
• 4:55:25
  the imagination. Motioning me to sit down, the dumb man closed the door,
• 4:55:30
  turned the large wooden bolt, and lighted a candle to augment the one
• 4:55:33
  he had brought with him. He now removed his vial from its moth eaten
• 4:55:37
  covering, and taking it, seated himself in the least uncomfortable of the chairs.
• 4:55:41
  He did not employ the music rack, but offering no choice and playing
• 4:55:45
  from memory, enchanted me for over an hour. With strains I had never
• 4:55:48
  heard before, strains which must have been of his own devising to describe their
• 4:55:52
  exact nature as impossible for one unversed in music. They were a kind of
• 4:55:56
  fugue with recurrent passages of the most cap devating quality, but to me were
• 4:56:02
  notable for the absence of any of the weird notes I had overheard from my
• 4:56:04
  room below. On other occasions, those haunting notes I had remembered, and
• 4:56:08
  had often hummed and whistled inaccurately to myself. So when the player at length
• 4:56:12
  laid down his bow, I asked him if he would render some of them.
• 4:56:17
  As I began my request, the wrinkled, satire like face lost the
• 4:56:19
  bored placidity it had possessed during the playing, and seemed to show the same
• 4:56:23
  curious mixture of anger and fright which I had noticed when first I accosted the
• 4:56:27
  old man. For a moment, I was inclined to use persuasion, regarding
• 4:56:32
  rather lightly the whims of senility, and even tried to awaken my host's weirder
• 4:56:36
  mood by whistling a few of the strains to which I had listened the night
• 4:56:38
  before. But I did not pursue this course for more than a moment,
• 4:56:42
  for when the dumb musician recognized the whistled air, his face grew suddenly distorted
• 4:56:48
  with an expression wholly beyond analysis, and his long, cold, bony right
• 4:56:52
  hand reached out to stop my mouth and silence the crude imitation. As he
• 4:56:57
  did this, he further demonstrated his eccentricity by casting a startled glance toward the
• 4:57:03
  lone curtained window, as if fearful of some intruder, a glance doubly absurd,
• 4:57:07
  since the garret stood high and inaccessible above all the adjacent roofs, this
• 4:57:11
  window being the only point on the steep street, as the concierge had told
• 4:57:15
  me, from which one could see over the wall at the summit. The
• 4:57:18
  old man's glance brought Blandeau's remark to my mind, and with a certain capriciousness,
• 4:57:23
  I felt a wish to look out over the wide and dizzying panorama of
• 4:57:26
  moonlit roofs and city lights beyond the hill top, which, of all the
• 4:57:30
  dwellers in the Rue d'orse, only this crabbed musician could see. I moved
• 4:57:36
  toward the window, and would have drawn aside the nondescript curtains, when,
• 4:57:38
  with a frightened rage even greater than before, the dumb lodger was upon me
• 4:57:42
  again, this time motioning with his head toward the door, as he nervously
• 4:57:47
  strove to drag me thither with both hands. Now thoroughly disgusted with my host,
• 4:57:52
  I ordered him to release me and told him I would go at Once.
• 4:57:56
  His clutch relaxed, and as he saw my disgust and offense, his
• 4:57:59
  own anenger seemed to subside. He tightened his relaxing grip, but this time
• 4:58:03
  in a friendly manner, forcing me into a chair, then with an appearance
• 4:58:07
  of wistfulness, crossing to the littered table, where he wrote many words with
• 4:58:11
  a pencil. In the labored French of a foreigner, Zhan said that he
• 4:58:15
  was old, lonely, and afflicted with strange fears and nervous disorders connected with
• 4:58:19
  his music and with other things. He had enjoyed my listening to his music,
• 4:58:25
  and wished I would come again and not mind his eccentricities. But he
• 4:58:27
  could not play to another his weird harmonies, and could not bear hearing them
• 4:58:32
  from another, nor could he bear having anything in his room touched by another.
• 4:58:37
  He had not known until our hallway conversation that I could overhear his playing
• 4:58:40
  in my room, and now asked me if I would arrange with Blandeaux to
• 4:58:42
  take a lower room where I could not hear him in the night. He
• 4:58:45
  would, he wrote, defray the difference in rent. As I sat deciphering
• 4:58:49
  the execrable French, I felt more lenient toward the old man. He was
• 4:58:55
  a victim of physical and nervous suffering, as was I, and my metaphysical
• 4:58:59
  studies had taught me kindness. In the silence, there came a slight sound
• 4:59:03
  from the window. The shutter must have rattled in the night wind, and
• 4:59:07
  for some reason I started almost as violently as did Erik Zohan. So when
• 4:59:11
  I had finished reading, I shook my host by the hand and departed as
• 4:59:14
  a friend. The next day, Blendou gave me a more expensive room on
• 4:59:18
  the third floor, between the apartments of an aged money lender and the room
• 4:59:22
  of a respectable upholsterer. There was no one on the fourth floor. It
• 4:59:26
  was not long before I found that Zan's eagerness for my company was not as
• 4:59:30
  great as it had seemed. While he was persuading me to move down from
• 4:59:33
  the fifth story. He did not ask me to call on him, and
• 4:59:36
  when I did call, he appeared uneasy and played listlessly. This was always
• 4:59:40
  at night. In the day he slept and would admit no one. My
• 4:59:44
  liking for him did not grow. Though the attic room and the weird music
• 4:59:48
  seemed to hold an odd fascination for me. I had a curious desire to
• 4:59:52
  look out of that window, over the wall, and down the unseen slope
• 4:59:56
  at the glittering roofs and spires which must lie outspread there. Once I went
• 5:00:00
  up to the garret during theater hours when Zan was away, but the door
• 5:00:03
  was locked. What I did succeed in doing was to overhear the nocturnal playing
• 5:00:08
  of the dumb old man. At first I would tiptoe up to my old
• 5:00:12
  fifth floor. Then I grew bold enough to climb the last creaking staircase to
• 5:00:18
  the peaked garret. There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with
• 5:00:22
  the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread,
• 5:00:27
  the dread of vague wonder and brooding mystery. It was not that the
• 5:00:32
  sounds were hideous, for they were not, but that they held vibrations suggesting
• 5:00:36
  nothing on this globe of earth, and that at certain intervals they assumed a
• 5:00:38
  symphonic quality which I could hardly conceive as produced by one player. Certainly,
• 5:00:45
  Eric Zhon was a genius of wild power. As the weeks passed, the
• 5:00:48
  playing grew wilder, whilst the old musician acquired an increasing haggardness and furtiveness.
• 5:00:53
  Pitiful to behold. He now refused to admit me at any time, and
• 5:00:57
  shunned me whenever we met on the stairs. Then one night, as I
• 5:01:02
  listened at the door, I heard the shrieking vial swell into a chaotic babble
• 5:01:07
  of sound, a pandemonium which would led me to doubt my own shaking sanity,
• 5:01:11
  had there not come from behind that barred portal, a piteous proof that
• 5:01:15
  the horror was real, the awful, inarticulate cry which only a mute can
• 5:01:18
  utter, and which rises only in moments of the most terrible fear or anguish.
• 5:01:23
  I knocked repeatedly at the door, but received no response. Afterward,
• 5:01:29
  I waited in the black hallway, shivering with cold and fear, till I
• 5:01:32
  heard the poor musician's feeble effort to rise from the floor by the aid of
• 5:01:36
  a chair. Believing him just conscious after a fainting fit, I renewed my
• 5:01:41
  rapping at the same time calling out my name reassuringly. I heard Zan stumble
• 5:01:45
  to the window and close both shutter and sash, then stumbled to the door,
• 5:01:49
  which he falteringly unfastened to admit me. This time his delight at having
• 5:01:55
  me present was real, for his distorted face gleamed with relief while he clutched
• 5:01:59
  at my coat as a child clutches at its mother's skirts. Shaking pathetically.
• 5:02:03
  The old man forced me into a chair whilst he sank into another, beside
• 5:02:07
  which his viol and beau lay carelessly on the floor. He sat for some
• 5:02:11
  time inactive, nodding oddly, but having a paradoxical suggestion of intense and frightened
• 5:02:17
  listening. Subsequently, he seemed to be satisfied, and, crossing to a
• 5:02:22
  chair by the table, wrote a brief note, handed it to me,
• 5:02:25
  and returned to the table, where he began to write rapidly and incessantly.
• 5:02:29
  The note implored me, in the name of mercy and for the sake of
• 5:02:32
  my own curiosity, to wait where I was while he prepared a full account
• 5:02:36
  in German, of all the marvels and terrors which beset him. I waited,
• 5:02:40
  and the dumb man's pencil flew. It was perhaps an hour later,
• 5:02:44
  while I still waited, and while the old musician's feverishly written sheets still continued
• 5:02:48
  to pile up, that I saw Zan start as from the hint of a
• 5:02:52
  horrible shock. Unmistakably, he was looking at the curtained window and listening shudderingly.
• 5:02:59
  Then, and I half fancied, I heard a sound myself, though
• 5:03:02
  it was not a horrible sound, but rather an exquisitely low and infinitely distant
• 5:03:07
  musical note, suggesting a player in one of the neighboring houses, or in
• 5:03:11
  some abode beyond the lofty wall over which I had never been able to look
• 5:03:15
  upon Zhan, the effect was terrible, for dropping his pencil suddenly, he
• 5:03:19
  rose, seized his vial, and commenced to rend the night with the wildest
• 5:03:23
  playing I had ever heard from his beau, save when listening at the barred
• 5:03:26
  door. It would be useless to describe the playing of Eric Zoh on that
• 5:03:30
  dreadful night. It was more horrible than anything I had ever overheard, because
• 5:03:34
  I could now see the expression of his face, and I could realize that
• 5:03:38
  this time the motive was stark fear. He was trying to make a noise,
• 5:03:44
  to ward something off or drown something out. What I could not imagine
• 5:03:48
  awesome, though I felt it must be. The playing grew fantastic, daneous,
• 5:03:52
  and hysterical, yet kept to the last the qualities of supreme genius,
• 5:03:56
  which I knew this strange old man possessed. I recognized the air. It
• 5:04:02
  was a wild Hungarian dance popular in the theaters, and I reflected for a
• 5:04:04
  moment that this was the first time I had ever heard Zan play the work
• 5:04:08
  of another composer. Louder and Louder, Wilder and Wilder mounted the shrieking and
• 5:04:14
  whining of that desperate vial. The player was dripping with an uncanny perspiration and
• 5:04:19
  twisted like a monkey, always looking frantically at the curtained window. In his
• 5:04:23
  frenzied strains, I could almost see shadowy satyrs and bacchanals dancing and whirling insanely
• 5:04:30
  through seething abysses of clouds and smoke and lightning. And then I thought I
• 5:04:33
  heard a shriller, steadier note that was not from the vial, A calm,
• 5:04:37
  deliberate, purposeful mocking note from far away in the west. At this
• 5:04:42
  juncture, the shutter began to rattle in a howling night wind, which had
• 5:04:45
  sprung up outside, as if in answer to the mad playing within. Zhon's
• 5:04:49
  screaming vial now outdid itself, emitting sounds I had never thought a vial could
• 5:04:55
  emit. The shutter rattled more loudly, unfastened, and commenced slamming agains the
• 5:05:00
  window. Then the glass broke shiveringly under the persistent impacts, and the chill
• 5:05:04
  wind rushed in, making the candles sputter and rustling the sheets of paper on
• 5:05:08
  the table where Jan had begun to write out his horrible secret. I looked
• 5:05:12
  at Zan and saw that he was past conscious observation. His blue eyes were
• 5:05:17
  bulging, glassy, and sightless, and the frantic playing had become a blind,
• 5:05:22
  mechanical, unrecognizable orgy that no pen could even suggest. A sudden gust
• 5:05:27
  stronger than the others caught up the manuscript and bore it toward the window.
• 5:05:32
  I followed the flying sheets in desperation, but they were gone before I reached
• 5:05:34
  the demolished panes. Then I remembered my old wish to gaze from this window,
• 5:05:41
  the only window in the Rue d'usset from which one might see the slope
• 5:05:44
  beyond the wall and the city outspread beneath. It was very dark, but
• 5:05:48
  the city's lights always burned, and I expected to see them there amidst the
• 5:05:52
  rain and the wind. Yet when I looked from that highest of all gabled
• 5:05:56
  windows, looked, while the candles sputtered and the insane vile howled with the
• 5:06:00
  night wind, I saw no city spread below, and no friendly lights gleamed
• 5:06:06
  from remembered streets, but only the blackness of space, illimitable, unimagined space,
• 5:06:11
  alive with motion and music, and having no semblance of anything on Earth.
• 5:06:15
  And as I stood there, looking in terror, the wind blew out
• 5:06:18
  both candles in that ancient peaked garret, leaving me in savage and impenetrable darkness,
• 5:06:25
  with chaos and pandemonium before me, and the demon madness of that night
• 5:06:29
  baying vile behind me. I staggered back in the dark without the means of
• 5:06:33
  striking a light, crashing against the table, overturning a chair, and finally
• 5:06:37
  groping my way to the place where the blackness screamed with shocking music. To
• 5:06:42
  save myself and eric'sh on I could at least try whatever the powers opposed to
• 5:06:47
  me. Once I thought, some chill thing brushed me and I screamed,
• 5:06:51
  but my scream could not be heard above that hideous vial. Suddenly, out
• 5:06:56
  of the blackness, the madly sawing bow struck me, and I knew I
• 5:06:57
  was close to the player. I felt ahead, touched the back of Zan's
• 5:07:02
  chair, and then found and shook his shoulder in an effort to bring him
• 5:07:06
  to his senses. He did not respond, and still the vile shrieked on
• 5:07:10
  without slackening. I moved my hand to his head, whose mechanical nodding I
• 5:07:14
  was able to stop, and shouted in his ear that we must both flee
• 5:07:18
  from the unknown things of the night. But he neither answered me nor abated
• 5:07:22
  the frenzy of his unutterable music, while all through the garret, strange currents
• 5:07:26
  of wind seemed to dance in the darkness and babble. When my hand touched
• 5:07:30
  his ear, I shuddered, though I knew not why, knew not why
• 5:07:33
  till I felt the still face the ice cold stiffened, unbreathing face, whose
• 5:07:40
  glassy eyes bulged uselessly into the void. And then, by some miracle,
• 5:07:45
  finding the door and the large wooden bolt, I plunged wildly away from that
• 5:07:48
  glassy eyed thing in the dark, and from the ghoulish howling of that accursed
• 5:07:52
  vial, whose fury increased even as I plunged, leaping, floating, flying
• 5:07:59
  down those ends less stairs, through the dark house, racing mindlessly out into
• 5:08:03
  the narrow, steep and ancient street of steps and tottering houses, clattering down
• 5:08:07
  steps and over cobbles, to the lower streets and the putrid canyon walled river,
• 5:08:11
  panting across the great dark bridge to the broader, healthier streets and boulevards.
• 5:08:15
  We know all these are terrible impressions that linger with me, and I
• 5:08:19
  recall that there was no wind, and that the moon was out, and
• 5:08:22
  that all the lights of the city twinkled. Despite my most careful searches and
• 5:08:27
  investigations, I have never since been able to find the Rue d'orse. But
• 5:08:33
  I'm not wholly sorry, either for this or for the loss in undreamable abysses
• 5:08:38
  of the closely written sheets, which alone could have explained the music of erikxon
• 5:08:45
  end of the music of erik Xon. The Nameless City by H. P.
• 5:08:48
  Lovecraft. When I drew nigh the Nameless City, I knew it was
• 5:08:52
  a cursed I was traveling in a parched and terrible valley under the moon,
• 5:08:56
  and afar I saw it protruding uncannia above the sands, as parts of a
• 5:09:02
  corpse may protrude from an ill, mad grave. Fear spoke from the age
• 5:09:07
  worn stones of this hoary survivor of the deluge. This great grandfather of the
• 5:09:11
  Eldest Pyramid and of uless Ara, repelled me and bade me retreat form antique
• 5:09:17
  and sinister secrets that no man should see, and no man else had dared
• 5:09:22
  to see. Remote in the desert of Arabi lies the Nameless City, crumbling
• 5:09:27
  and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages.
• 5:09:33
  It must have been thus before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and
• 5:09:37
  while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. There is no legend so old
• 5:09:42
  as to give it a name, or to recall that it was ever alive.
• 5:09:47
  But it is told of in whispers around camp fires, and muttered about
• 5:09:51
  by grand ma'ams in the tents of sheikhs, so that all tribes shun it
• 5:09:56
  without wholly knowing why. It was of this place that Abdul Alhazred, the
• 5:10:02
  mad poet dreamed of the night before he sang his unexplained couplet that is not
• 5:10:07
  dead, which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may
• 5:10:11
  die. I should have known that the Arabs had good reason for shunning the
• 5:10:15
  nameless city, the city told of in strange tales, but seen by no
• 5:10:19
  living man. Yet I defied them and went into the untrodden waste with my
• 5:10:25
  camel. I alone have seen it. And that is why no other face
• 5:10:27
  bears such hideous lines of fear as mine, why no other man shivers so
• 5:10:32
  horribly when the night wind rattles the windows. When I came upon it in
• 5:10:37
  the ghastly stillness of unending sleep, it looked at me, chilly from the
• 5:10:42
  rays of a cold moon amidst the desert's heat. And as I returned its
• 5:10:47
  look, I forgot my triumph at finding it, and stopped still with my
• 5:10:52
  camel to wait for the dawn. For hours, I waited till the east
• 5:10:56
  grew gray and the stars faded, and the gray turned to ROSI at lfe
• 5:11:00
  edged with gold, I heard a moaning and saw a storm of sand stirring
• 5:11:04
  among the antique stones, though the sky was clear and the vast reaches of
• 5:11:08
  desert still. Then, suddenly, above the desert's far rim came the blazing
• 5:11:14
  edge of the sun, seen through the tiny sand storm, which was passing
• 5:11:17
  away. And in my fevered state, I fancied that from some remote depth
• 5:11:21
  there came a crash of musical metal to hail the fiery disk, as Memnon
• 5:11:26
  hails it from the banks of the nile. My ears rang and my imagination
• 5:11:30
  seethed as I led my camel slowly across the sand to that unvocal place,
• 5:11:36
  that place which I alone of living men, had seen in and out amongst
• 5:11:41
  the shapeless foundations of houses and places, I wandered, finding never a carving
• 5:11:47
  or inscription to tell of these men, if men they were, who built
• 5:11:49
  this city and dwelt therein so long ago. The antiquity of the spot was
• 5:11:56
  unwholesome, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the
• 5:12:00
  city was indeed fashioned by mankind. There were certain proportions and dimensions in the
• 5:12:06
  ruins, which I did not like. I had with me many tools and
• 5:12:08
  dug much within the walls of the obliterated edifices, but progress was slow and
• 5:12:14
  nothing significant was revealed. When night and the moon returned, I felt a
• 5:12:18
  chill wind, which brought new fear, so that I did not dare to
• 5:12:22
  remain in the city. And as I went outside the antique walls to sleep,
• 5:12:26
  a small, sighing sand storm gathered behind me, blowing over the gray
• 5:12:30
  stones. Though the moon was bright and most of the desert still. I
• 5:12:34
  awakened just at dawn from a pageant of horrible dreams, my ears ringing as
• 5:12:40
  from some metallic peel. I saw the sun peering redly through the last gusts
• 5:12:45
  of a little sand storm that hovered over the nameless city and marked the quietness
• 5:12:48
  of the rest of the landscape. Once more, I ventured within those brooding
• 5:12:53
  ruins that swelled beneath the sand like an ogre under a coverlet, and again
• 5:12:59
  dug vainly for relics of the forgotten race. At noon, I rested,
• 5:13:03
  and in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and bygone streets,
• 5:13:07
  and the outlines of the nearly vanished buildings. I saw that the city had
• 5:13:11
  been mighty, indeed, and wondered at the sources of its greatness. To
• 5:13:17
  myself, I pictured all the splendors of an age so distant that Chaldea could
• 5:13:21
  not recall it, and thought of Sarnath, the doomed that stood in the
• 5:13:25
  land of nar when mankind was young, and of ib that was carbon of
• 5:13:29
  gray stone before mankind existed. All at once I came upon a place where
• 5:13:33
  the bed rock rose stark through the sand and formed a low cliff. And
• 5:13:38
  here I saw with joy what seemed to promise further traces of the Antediluvian people.
• 5:13:44
  Hewn rudely on the face of the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several
• 5:13:48
  small squat rock houses or temples, whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages
• 5:13:53
  too remote for calculation, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have
• 5:13:59
  been outside. Very low and sand choked were all the dark apertures near me.
• 5:14:03
  But I cleared one with my spade and crawled through it, carrying a
• 5:14:07
  torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might hold. When I was inside, I
• 5:14:11
  saw that the cavern was indeed a temple, and beheld plain signs of the
• 5:14:15
  race that had lived and worshiped before the desert was a desert. Primitive altars,
• 5:14:19
  pillars, and niches, all curiously low, were not absent, and
• 5:14:23
  though I saw no sculptures or frescoes, there were many singular stones clearly shaped
• 5:14:29
  into symbols by artificial means. The lowness of the chiseled chamber was very strange,
• 5:14:34
  for I could hardly kneel upright, but the area was so great that
• 5:14:37
  my torch showed only part of it at a time. I shuddered oddly in
• 5:14:42
  some of the far corners, for certain altars and stones suggested forgotten rites of
• 5:14:47
  terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature, and made me wonder what manner of men
• 5:14:52
  could have made and frequented such a temple. When I had seen all that
• 5:14:56
  the place contained, I crawled out again, avid to find what the temples
• 5:14:59
  might yield. Night had now approached. Yet the tangible things I had seen
• 5:15:03
  made curiosity stronger than fear, so that I did not flee from the long
• 5:15:07
  mooncast shadows that had daunted me when I first saw the nameless city in the
• 5:15:11
  twilight, I cleared another aperture, and with a new torch, crawled into
• 5:15:15
  it, finding more vague stones and cymbals, though nothing more definite than the
• 5:15:19
  other temple had contained. The room was just as low, but much less
• 5:15:23
  broad, ending in a very narrow passage crowded with obscure and cryptical shrines.
• 5:15:30
  About these shrines, I was prying when the noise of a wind and my
• 5:15:33
  camel outside broke through the stillness and drew me forth to see what could have
• 5:15:37
  frightened the beast. The moon was gleaming vividly over the primitive ruins, lighting
• 5:15:41
  a dense cloud of sand that seemed blown by a strong but decreasing wind from
• 5:15:45
  some point along the cliff ahead of me. I knew it was this chilly,
• 5:15:48
  sandy wind which had disturbed the camel, and was about to lead him
• 5:15:52
  to a place of better shelter, when I chanced to glance up and saw
• 5:15:55
  that there was no wind atop the cliff. This astonished me and made me
• 5:15:59
  fearfully again, but I immediately recalled the sudden local winds that I had seen
• 5:16:03
  and heard before at sunrise and sunset, and judged it was a normal thing.
• 5:16:07
  I decided it came from some rock fissure leading to a cave, and
• 5:16:11
  watched the troubled sand to trace it to its source. Soon perceiving that it
• 5:16:15
  came from the black orifice of a temple a long distance south of me,
• 5:16:18
  almost out of sight. Against the choking sand cloud, I plodded toward this
• 5:16:23
  temple, which, as I neared it loomed larger than the rest, and
• 5:16:26
  shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. I would have entered,
• 5:16:30
  had not the terrific force of the icy wind almost quenched my torch. It
• 5:16:34
  poured madly out of the dark door, sighing uncannily as it ruffled the sand
• 5:16:40
  and spread among the weird ruins. Soon it grew fainter, and the sand
• 5:16:42
  grew more and more still, till finally all was at rest again. But
• 5:16:48
  a presence seemed stalking among the spectral stones of the city, and when I
• 5:16:52
  glanced at the moon, it seemed to quiver, as though mirrored in unquiet
• 5:16:55
  waters. I was more afraid than I could explain, but not enough to
• 5:17:00
  dull my thirst for wonder. So as soon as the wind was quite gone,
• 5:17:03
  I crossed into the dark chamber from which it had come. This temple,
• 5:17:07
  as I had fancied from the outside, was larger than either of those
• 5:17:11
  I had visited before, and was presumably a natural cavern, since it bore
• 5:17:15
  winds from some region beyond. Here. I could stand quite upright, but
• 5:17:19
  saw that the stones and altars were as low as those in the other temples.
• 5:17:23
  On the walls and roof I beheld for the first time some traces of
• 5:17:27
  the pictorial art of the ancient race, curious curling streaks of paint that had
• 5:17:32
  almost faded or crumbled away, And on two of the altars I saw,
• 5:17:36
  with rising excitement, a maze of well fashioned curvilinear carvings. As I held
• 5:17:41
  my torch aloft, it seemed to me that the shape of the roof was
• 5:17:44
  too regular to be natural, and I wondered what the prehistoric cutters of stone
• 5:17:48
  had first worked upon. Their engineering skill must have been vast. Then a
• 5:17:52
  brighter flare of the fantastic flame showed that form which I had been seeking,
• 5:17:56
  the opening to those remoter abysses. Whence the sudden wind had blown, and
• 5:18:00
  I grew faint when I saw that it was a small and plainly artificial door
• 5:18:04
  chiseled in the solid rock. I thrust my torch within, beholding a black
• 5:18:08
  tunnel with the roof, arching low over a rough flight of very small,
• 5:18:12
  numerous and steeply descending steps. I shall always see those steps in my dreams,
• 5:18:18
  for I came to learn what they meant. At the time, I
• 5:18:22
  hardly knew whether to call them steps or mere footholds. In a precipitous descent.
• 5:18:26
  My mind was whirling with mad thoughts, and the words and warning of
• 5:18:32
  Arab prophets seemed to float across the desert, from the land that men know
• 5:18:36
  to the nameless city that men dare not know. Yet. I hesitated only
• 5:18:40
  for a moment before advancing through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the
• 5:18:45
  steep passage feet first, as though on a ladder. It is only in
• 5:18:48
  the terrible phantasms of drugs or delirium that any other man can have such a
• 5:18:52
  descent as mine. The narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous, haunted
• 5:18:57
  well, and the torch I held above my head could not light the unknown
• 5:19:02
  depths towards which I was crawling. I lost track of the hours and forgot
• 5:19:06
  to consult my watch, though I was frightened when I thought of the distance
• 5:19:08
  I must have been traversing. There were changes of direction and of steepness,
• 5:19:12
  and once I came to a long, low level passage where I had to
• 5:19:17
  wriggle my feet first along the rocky floor, holding torch at arm's length beyond
• 5:19:21
  my head. The place was not high enough for kneeling. After that were
• 5:19:25
  more of the steep steps, and I was still scrambling down interminably. When
• 5:19:29
  my failing torch died out. I do not think I noticed it at the
• 5:19:33
  time, for when I did notice it, I was still holding it above
• 5:19:36
  me, as if it were a blaze. I was quite unbalanced with that
• 5:19:38
  instinct for the strange and the unknown, which had made me a wanderer upon
• 5:19:42
  earth and a haunter of far ancient and forbidden places. In the darkness,
• 5:19:47
  there flashed before my mind fragments of my cherished treasury of Damonic lore, sentences
• 5:19:52
  from Al Hazred, the mad Arab, paragraphs from the apocryphal Nightmares of Damascus,
• 5:19:57
  and infamous lines from the deliri Us image DuMond of Gautiered Demitz. I
• 5:20:03
  repeated queer extracts and muttered of afrasiab and the damons that floated with him down
• 5:20:07
  the Oxus, later chanting over and over again a phrase from one of Lord
• 5:20:12
  Dunzani's tales, the unreverberate blackness of the Abyss. Once, when the descent
• 5:20:18
  grew amazingly steep, I recited something in sing song from Thomas Moore, until
• 5:20:22
  I feared to recite more. A reservoir of darkness, black as which as
• 5:20:27
  cauldrons are when filled with moon drugs in the eclipse, distilled. Leaning to
• 5:20:33
  look, a foot might pass down through that chasm, I saw beneath,
• 5:20:37
  as far as vision could explore, the jetty sides, as smooth as glass,
• 5:20:42
  looking as if just varnished, or with that dark pitch the seat of
• 5:20:47
  death throws out upon its slimy shore. Time had quite ceased to exist when
• 5:20:53
  my feet again felt a level floor, and I found myself in a place
• 5:20:57
  slightly higher than the rooms in the two smaller temples, now so incalculably far
• 5:21:03
  above my head. I could not quite stand, but could kneel upright,
• 5:21:07
  and in the dark eyes shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. I
• 5:21:11
  soon knew that I was in a narrow passage whose walls were lined with cases
• 5:21:15
  of wood having glass fronts. As in that paleozoic and abysmal place, I
• 5:21:19
  felt of such things as polished wood and glass. I shuddered at the possible
• 5:21:23
  implications. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the passage at regular
• 5:21:29
  intervals, and were oblong and horizontal, hideously like coffins in shape and size.
• 5:21:33
  When I tried to move two or three for further examination, I found
• 5:21:37
  that they were firmly fastened. I saw that the passage was a long one,
• 5:21:41
  so floundered ahead rapidly, in a creeping run that would have seemed horrible
• 5:21:44
  had any eye watched me in the blackness, crossing from side to side occasionally
• 5:21:48
  to feel of my surroundings and be sure that the walls and rows of cases
• 5:21:52
  still stretched on. Man is so used to thinking visually that I almost forgot
• 5:21:56
  the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood and glass in its low studded
• 5:22:00
  monotony as though I saw it, And then, in a moment of indescribable
• 5:22:04
  emotion, I did see it, just when my fancy merged into real sight.
• 5:22:10
  I cannot tell, but there came a gradual glow ahead, and all
• 5:22:12
  at once I knew that I saw the dim outlines of a corridor and cases
• 5:22:17
  revealed by some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. For a little while, all was exactly
• 5:22:22
  as I had imagined it, since the glow was very faint. But as
• 5:22:26
  I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the stronger light, I realized that my fancy
• 5:22:32
  had been but feeble. This hall was no relic of crudity, like the
• 5:22:36
  temples in the city above, but a monument of the most magnificent and exotic
• 5:22:41
  art. Rich, vivid and daringly fantastic designs and pictures formed a continuous scheme
• 5:22:47
  of mural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond description. The cases were of
• 5:22:52
  a strange golden wood, with fronts of exquisite glass, and containing the mummified
• 5:22:56
  forms of creatures, outreaching and grotesque buskness the most chaotic dreams of man.
• 5:23:03
  To convey any idea of these monstrosities is impossible. They were of the reptile
• 5:23:07
  kind, with body lines suggesting sometimes the crocodile, sometimes the seal, but
• 5:23:11
  more often nothing of which either the naturalist or the paleontologist ever heard. In
• 5:23:18
  size, they approximated a small man, and their fore legs bore delicate and
• 5:23:22
  evident feet, curiously like human hands and fingers. But strangest of all were
• 5:23:26
  their heads, which presented a contour of violating all known biological principles to nothing.
• 5:23:32
  Can such things be well compared? In one flash, I thought of
• 5:23:36
  comparisons as varied as the cat, the bullfrog, the mythics satyr, and
• 5:23:40
  the human being. Not Jove himself had had so colossal and protuberant a forehead.
• 5:23:45
  Yet the horns, and the noselessness, and the alligator like jaw placed
• 5:23:48
  things outside all established categories. I debated for a time on the reality of
• 5:23:53
  the mummies, half suspecting they were artificial idols, but soon decided they were
• 5:23:57
  indeed some Paleogeneans species which had lived when the nameless city was alive. To
• 5:24:03
  crown their grotesqueness, most of them were gorgeously enrobed in the costliest of fabrics
• 5:24:08
  and lavishly laden with ornaments of gold, jewels and unknown shining metals. The
• 5:24:14
  importance of these crawling creatures must have been vast, for they held first place
• 5:24:18
  among the wild designs on the frescoed walls and ceiling with matchless skill, had
• 5:24:22
  the artists drawn them in a world of their own, wherein they had cities
• 5:24:26
  and gardens fashioned to suit their dimensions. And I could not help but think
• 5:24:30
  that their pictured history was allegorical, perhaps shewing the progress of the race that
• 5:24:34
  worshiped them. These creatures, I said to myself, were to men of
• 5:24:37
  the Nameless City, what the she wolf was to Rome, or some totem
• 5:24:41
  beast is to a tribe of Indians. Holding this view, I could trace
• 5:24:45
  roughly a wonderful epoch of the Nameless City, the tale of a mighty sea
• 5:24:49
  coast metropolis that ruled the world before Africa rose out of the waves, and
• 5:24:53
  of its struggles as the sea shrank away and the desert crept into the fertile
• 5:24:57
  valley that held it. I saw its wars and triumphs, its troubles and
• 5:25:02
  its defeats, and afterwards its terrible fight against the desert, when thousands of
• 5:25:07
  its people here represented an allegory by the grotesque reptiles were driven to chisel their
• 5:25:11
  way down through the rocks in some marvelous manner to another world whereof their prophets
• 5:25:15
  had told them it was all vividly weird and realistic, and its connection with
• 5:25:19
  the awesome descent I had made was unmistakable. I even recognized the passages as
• 5:25:26
  I crept along the corridor toward the brighter light. I saw stages of the
• 5:25:30
  painted epoch, the leave taking of the race that had dwelt in the nameless
• 5:25:33
  City and the valley around for ten million years, the race whose souls shrank
• 5:25:37
  from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long, where they had settled as
• 5:25:41
  nomads in the Earth's youth, hewing in the version rock, those primal shrines
• 5:25:45
  at which they had never ceased to worship. Now that the light was better,
• 5:25:49
  I studied the pictures more closely, and, remembering that the strange reptiles
• 5:25:53
  must represent the unknown men, pondered upon the customs of the Nameless City.
• 5:25:59
  Many things were peculiar and inexplicable. The civilization, which included a written alphabet,
• 5:26:03
  had seemingly risen to a higher order than those immeasurably later civilizations of Egypt
• 5:26:08
  and Chaldea. Yet there were curious omissions. I could, for example,
• 5:26:12
  find no pictures to represent deaths or funeral customs, save such as were related
• 5:26:18
  to wars, violence and plagues, and I wondered at the retians shown concerning
• 5:26:22
  natural death. It was as though an ideal of immortality had been fostered as
• 5:26:26
  a cheering illusion. Still nearer the end of the passage was painted scenes of
• 5:26:33
  the utmost Picturesqueness and extravagance contrasted views of the nameless city in its desertion and
• 5:26:38
  growing ruin, and of the strange new realm of paradise to which the race
• 5:26:42
  had hewed its way through the stone. In these views, the city and
• 5:26:47
  the desert valley were soon always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the fallen
• 5:26:52
  walls, and half revealing the splendid perfection of former times. Shown spectrally and
• 5:26:56
  elusively by the artist. The paradise scenes were almost too extravagant to be believed,
• 5:27:03
  portraying a hidden world of eternal day, filled with glorious cities and ethereal
• 5:27:07
  hills and valleys. At the very last I thought I saw signs of an
• 5:27:11
  artistic anti climax. The paintings were less skillful and much more bizarre than even
• 5:27:15
  the wildest of the earlier scenes. They seemed to record a slow decadence of
• 5:27:21
  the ancient stock, coupled with a growing ferocity toward the outside world, from
• 5:27:25
  which it was driven by the desert. The forms of the people, always
• 5:27:29
  represented by the sacred reptiles, appeared to be gradually wasting away, though their
• 5:27:33
  spirit, as shown hovering above the ruins by moonlight, gained in proportion.
• 5:27:37
  Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and
• 5:27:42
  all who breathed it, and one terrible final scene showed a primitive looking man,
• 5:27:48
  perhaps a pioneer of ancient eram the city of Pillars torn to pieces by
• 5:27:52
  members of the elder race. I remember how the Arabs feared the nameless city,
• 5:27:56
  and was glad that beyond this place, the gray walls and ceiling were
• 5:28:00
  bare. As I viewed the pageant of mural history, I had approached very
• 5:28:03
  closely to the end of the low sealed hall, and was aware of a
• 5:28:07
  gait through which came all of the illuminating phosphorescence creeping up to it. I
• 5:28:11
  cried aloud in transcendent amazement at what lay beyond, For instead of other and
• 5:28:17
  brighter chambers, there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance such as one
• 5:28:21
  might fancy when gazing down from the peak of Mount Everest upon a sea of
• 5:28:26
  sunlit mist. Behind me was a passage so cramped that I could not stand
• 5:28:30
  upright in it. Before me was an infinity of subterranean effulgence. Reaching down
• 5:28:37
  from the passage into the abyss was the head of a steep flight of steps,
• 5:28:41
  small numerous steps like those of black passages I had traversed. But after
• 5:28:45
  a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. Swung back open. Against the
• 5:28:51
  left hand wall of the passage was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick
• 5:28:56
  and decorated with fantastic bar reliefs, which could have closed shut the whole inner
• 5:29:00
  world of light away from the vaults and passages of rock. I looked at
• 5:29:04
  the step, and for the gnance dared not to try them. I touched
• 5:29:08
  the open brass door and could not move it. Then I sank prone to
• 5:29:12
  the stone floor. My mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a deathlike
• 5:29:18
  exhaustion could vanish. As I lay still with closed eyes, free to ponder,
• 5:29:25
  many things I had lightly noted in the frescoes came back to me with
• 5:29:29
  new and terrible significance scenes representing the nameless city in its heyday, the vegetations
• 5:29:34
  of the valley around it, and the distant lands with which its merchants traded.
• 5:29:40
  The allegory of the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and
• 5:29:44
  I wondered that it would be so closely followed in a pictured history of such
• 5:29:48
  importance. In the frescoes, the nameless city had been shown in proportions fitted
• 5:29:52
  to the reptiles. I wondered what its real proportions and magnificence had been,
• 5:29:57
  and reflected a moment on certain oddities I had noticed in the ruins. I
• 5:30:02
  thought curiously of the lowness of the primal temples and of the underground corridor,
• 5:30:07
  which were doubtless hewn thus out of deference to the reptile deities there honored,
• 5:30:11
  though it perforce reduced the worshippers to crawling. Perhaps the very rites here involved
• 5:30:15
  crawling in imitation of the creatures. No religious theory, however, could easily
• 5:30:21
  explain why the level passages in that awesome descent should be as low as the
• 5:30:25
  temples or lower, since one could not even kneel in it, as I
• 5:30:29
  thought of the crawling creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me,
• 5:30:33
  I felt a new throb of fear. Mental associations are curious, and
• 5:30:37
  I shrank from the idea that, except for the poor primitive man torn to
• 5:30:40
  pieces in the last painting, mine was the only human form amidst the many
• 5:30:44
  relics and symbols of the primordial life. But as always in my strange and
• 5:30:49
  roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear for the luminous abyss and what it
• 5:30:53
  might contain presented a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. That a weird world
• 5:30:59
  of mystery lay far down that flight of peculiarly small steps, I could not
• 5:31:03
  doubt, and I hoped to find there those human memorials which the painted corridor
• 5:31:07
  had failed to give. The frescoes it pictured unbelievable cities and valleys in this
• 5:31:12
  lower realm, and my fancy dwelt on the rich and colossal ruins that awaited
• 5:31:18
  me. My fears indeed concerned the past rather than the future, not even
• 5:31:22
  the physical horror of my position in that cramped corridor of dead reptiles and antediluvian
• 5:31:27
  frescoes. Miles below the world I knew, and faced by another world of
• 5:31:32
  eerie light and mist, could match the lethal dread I felt at the abysmal
• 5:31:36
  antiquity of the scene and its soul. An ancientness so vast that measurement is
• 5:31:41
  feeble, seemed to leer down from the primal stones and rock hewn temples of
• 5:31:45
  the Nameless city, while the very latest of the astounding maps in the frescoes
• 5:31:51
  shewed oceans and continents that man has forgotten, with only here and there some
• 5:31:55
  vaguely familiar outlines of what could have happened in the geological ages since the paintings
• 5:32:00
  ceased and the death hating race resentfully succumbed to decay. No man might say
• 5:32:06
  life had once teemed in these caverns and in the luminous realm beyond. Now
• 5:32:11
  I was alone with vivid relics, and I trembled to think of the countless
• 5:32:15
  ages through which these relics had kept a silent, deserted vigil. Suddenly there
• 5:32:19
  came another burst of that acute fear which had intermittently seized me ever since I
• 5:32:23
  first saw the terrible valley and the Nameless city under a cold moon, and
• 5:32:27
  despite my exhaustion, I found myself starting frantically to a sitting posture and gazing
• 5:32:33
  back along the black corridor toward the tunnels that rose to the outer world.
• 5:32:36
  My sensations were like those which had made me shun the nameless city at night,
• 5:32:40
  and were as inexplicable as they were poignant. In another moment, however,
• 5:32:44
  I received a still greater shock, in the form of a definite sound,
• 5:32:47
  the first which had broken the utter silence of these tomblike depths. It
• 5:32:52
  was a deep, low moaning, as of a distant throng of condemned spirits,
• 5:32:56
  and came from the direction in which I was staring. Its volume rapidly
• 5:33:00
  grew till it soon reverberated rightfully through the low passage, and at the same
• 5:33:04
  time I became conscious of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from
• 5:33:08
  the tunnels and the city above. The touch of this air seemed to restore
• 5:33:12
  my balance, for I instantly recalled the sudden gusts which had risen around the
• 5:33:17
  mouth of the Abyss each sunset and sunrise, one of which had indeed revealed
• 5:33:22
  the hidden tunnels to me. I looked at my watch and saw that sunrise
• 5:33:25
  was near, so bracing myself to resist the gale that was sweeping down to
• 5:33:29
  its cavern home. As it had swept forth at evening, My fear again
• 5:33:33
  waned low, since a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the unknown,
• 5:33:37
  More and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind into the gulf of
• 5:33:41
  the inner Earth. I dropped prone again and clutched vainly at the floor for
• 5:33:45
  fear of being swept bodily through the open gate into the phosphorescent abyss. Such
• 5:33:51
  fury I had not expected, And as I grew aware of an actual slipping
• 5:33:55
  of my form toward the abyss, I was beset by a thousand new terrors,
• 5:33:59
  apprehension and imagination. The malignancy of the blast awakened incredible fancies. Once
• 5:34:04
  more, I compared myself shudderingly to the only human image in that frightful corridor,
• 5:34:10
  the man who was torn to pieces by the nameless race. For in
• 5:34:12
  the fiendish clawing of the swirling currents, there seemed to abide a vindictive rage,
• 5:34:18
  all the stronger because it was largely impotent. I think I screamed frantically
• 5:34:22
  near the last, I was almost mad of the howling wind raiths. I
• 5:34:26
  tried to crawl against the murderous, invisible torrent, but I could not even
• 5:34:30
  hold my own as I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the unknown world.
• 5:34:34
  Finally, reason must have wholly snapped, for I fell babbling over and over
• 5:34:38
  that unexplainable couplet of the mad arab al hazard, who dreamed of the nameless
• 5:34:44
  city that is not dead, which can eternal lie, and with strange eons
• 5:34:49
  even death may die only the grim, brooding desert. Gods know what really
• 5:34:55
  took place, what indescribable struggles and scrambles in the dark I endured, or
• 5:35:00
  what Abadon had guided me back to life, where I must always remember and
• 5:35:04
  shiver in the night wind till oblivion or worse claims me. Monstrous, unnatural,
• 5:35:11
  colossal was the thing too far beyond all the ideas of man to be
• 5:35:15
  believed except in the silent, damnable small hours of the morning when one cannot
• 5:35:19
  sleep. I have said that the fury of the rushing blast was infernal,
• 5:35:22
  cacodaemoniacal, and that its voices were hideous with the pent up viciousness of desolate
• 5:35:29
  eternities. Presently, these voices, while still chaotic before me, seemed to
• 5:35:33
  my beating brain, to take articulate form behind me, and down there,
• 5:35:37
  in the grave of unnumbered eon, dead antiquities, leagues below the dawn lit
• 5:35:41
  world of men, I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange tongued fiends.
• 5:35:47
  Turning, I saw outlined against the luminous ether of the abyss, what
• 5:35:51
  could not be seen against the dusk of the corridor, a nightmare horde of
• 5:35:56
  rushing devils hate, distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a ray
• 5:36:00
  snow man might mistake the crawling reptiles of the nameless City. And as the
• 5:36:06
  wind died away, I was plunged into the ghoul pooled darkness of the Earth's
• 5:36:10
  bowls. For behind the last of the creatures, the great brazen door clanged
• 5:36:15
  shut with a deafening peal of metallic music, whose reverberations swelled out to the
• 5:36:19
  distant world to hail the rising sun, as Memnon hails it from the banks
• 5:36:25
  of the nile end of the Nameless City. The picture in the House by
• 5:36:32
  H. P. Lovecraft searches after horror, haunt strange far places. For
• 5:36:40
  them are the catacombs of Ptolemais and the carven Mausolea of the Nightmare Countries.
• 5:36:45
  They climbed to the mooned towers of ruined rhine castles, and faltered down the
• 5:36:51
  black cobweb steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities. In Asia, the
• 5:36:57
  haunted wood and the dizzilate mountains are the shrines, and they linger around the
• 5:37:03
  sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to
• 5:37:10
  whom a new thrill of on a terrible ghastliness is the chief vent and justification
• 5:37:15
  of existence as teams. Most of all the ancient lonely farmhouses of Bywoods,
• 5:37:21
  New England. For there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grottesquless and
• 5:37:26
  ignorance combine to form the perfection of the ideas. Most horrible of all sides
• 5:37:34
  are the little, unpainted wooden houses, remote from traveled ways, usually squatted
• 5:37:41
  upon some damp, grassy slope or leaning against some giantic outcropping of rock.
• 5:37:47
  Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines
• 5:37:52
  have crawled, and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden
• 5:37:56
  now in lawless luxurances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow. But the small
• 5:38:03
  paned windows still star shockingly, as if blinking through a little stupper which was
• 5:38:10
  of madness. By dulling the memory of una, terrible things in such houses
• 5:38:17
  have dweled generations of strange people, whose like the world has never seen,
• 5:38:22
  sized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from their kind, Their
• 5:38:27
  ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the science of a conquering race indeed
• 5:38:36
  flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery
• 5:38:41
  to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Diversed from the enlightenment of civilization,
• 5:38:48
  the strength of the Spuritans turned into singular channels, and in their isolation
• 5:38:55
  morbid self repression and struggle for life with relentless nature. There came to them
• 5:39:00
  dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of the cold northern heritage. By necessity,
• 5:39:07
  practical and by philosophy's turn, these folks were not beautiful in their sins,
• 5:39:14
  airing as all morsels must. They were forced by their rigid coat to
• 5:39:18
  seek concealment above all else, so that they came to use less and less
• 5:39:23
  taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in
• 5:39:30
  the Beckwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days, and
• 5:39:36
  they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drownsiness which helps them
• 5:39:41
  forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses,
• 5:39:48
  for they must often dream. It was to a time better tedifice of
• 5:39:53
  this description that I was driven one afternoon in November eighteen ninety six by a
• 5:40:00
  rain of such chilling copuousness that any shelter was preferable to exposure. I had
• 5:40:06
  been traveling for some time amongst the people of the Miscatholic Valley in quest of
• 5:40:11
  certain genealogical data, and from the remote, devious and problematical nature of my
• 5:40:18
  curse, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle, despite the lateness of
• 5:40:22
  the season. Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had
• 5:40:29
  chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham, overtaken by the storm, at a
• 5:40:33
  point far from any town, and confronted with no refuge save the antique and
• 5:40:40
  repellent wooden building, which blinked with blurred windows from between two huge leafless elms,
• 5:40:45
  near the foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it is from the
• 5:40:51
  remnant of a road. This house none the less impressed me unfavorably. The
• 5:40:56
  very moment I espied, honest, all, someome structures do not stare at
• 5:41:02
  travelers so slyly and huntingly. And in my genealogical researches I had encountered legends
• 5:41:08
  of a century before which biased me against places of this kind. Yet the
• 5:41:15
  force of the elements was such as to overcome my scruples, and I did
• 5:41:19
  not hesitate to wheel my machine up to with the rise to the closed door,
• 5:41:25
  which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive. I had somehow taken it
• 5:41:32
  for granted that the house was abandoned, Yet as I approached it, I
• 5:41:37
  was not so sure, For though the walks were indeed overground with weeds,
• 5:41:41
  they seemed to retain their nature a little too well to argue complete desertion.
• 5:41:48
  Therefore, instead of trying the door, I knocked, feeling as I did
• 5:41:52
  so at reputation I could scarcely explain. As I waited on the rough mossy
• 5:41:57
  rock which served as a door, I glanced at the neighboring windows and the
• 5:42:03
  panes of the transom above me, and noticed that although all the rattling and
• 5:42:07
  almost opa with dirt, they were not broken. The building then must still
• 5:42:14
  be inhabited, despite its isolation and general neglect. However, my wrapping evoked
• 5:42:22
  no response, so after repeating the summons, I tried the rusty latch and
• 5:42:26
  found the door unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the
• 5:42:33
  plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odor.
• 5:42:41
  I entered, carrying my bicycle and closed the door. Behind me,
• 5:42:45
  I had rose and narrow staircase flanked by a small door, probably leading to
• 5:42:49
  a cellar, while to the left and right were closed doors leaning two rooms
• 5:42:55
  on the ground floor. Leaning my cycle against the wall, I opened the
• 5:43:00
  door at the left and crossed into a small, low sailed tumber, but
• 5:43:04
  dimly lighted by its two dusty windows, and furnished in the barest and most
• 5:43:10
  primitive possible way. It appeared to be a kind of sitting room, for
• 5:43:15
  it had a table and several chairs, and an immense fireplace, above which
• 5:43:21
  ticked an antique clock on the mantel. Books and papers were very few,
• 5:43:26
  and in the prevailing gloom, I could not readily discern the titles. What
• 5:43:32
  interested me was the uniform air of archism, as displayed in every visible detail.
• 5:43:38
  Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in relics of
• 5:43:42
  the past, but here the antiquity was curiously complete. For in all the
• 5:43:48
  room I could not discover a single article of definitely post revolutionary date. Had
• 5:43:56
  the furnishings been less humble, the place would have been a collector paradise.
• 5:44:02
  As I surveyed this quiet apartment, I felt an increase in de aversion,
• 5:44:07
  first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that
• 5:44:11
  I felt or loth, I could by no means define, But something in
• 5:44:18
  the whole atmosphere seemed redolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant crudeness, and of
• 5:44:23
  secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down, and wondered
• 5:44:30
  about examining the various articles which I had noticed. The First object of my
• 5:44:37
  curiosity was a book of medium size, lying upon the table, and presenting
• 5:44:42
  such an antidiluval aspect that I marveled at beholding it outside a museum or library.
• 5:44:51
  It was bound in leather with metal fittings, and was in an excellent
• 5:44:55
  state of preservation, being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in an
• 5:45:00
  abode so lowly. When I opened it to the title page, my wonder
• 5:45:06
  grew even greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta's account
• 5:45:11
  of the Congo Region, written in Latin from the notes of the Sailor Lopex
• 5:45:18
  and printed at Frankfort in fifteen ninety eight. I had often heard of this
• 5:45:22
  work, with its curious illustrations by the Brother's debry. Hence, for a
• 5:45:29
  moment forgot my uneasiness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The
• 5:45:33
  engravings were indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descriptions, and represented
• 5:45:41
  Negroes with white skins and Caucasian features. Nor would I soon have closed the
• 5:45:48
  book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my sensation
• 5:45:53
  of the quiet. What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the
• 5:46:00
  volume tended to fall open of itself at plate twelfth, which represented in gruesome
• 5:46:06
  detail a butcher's Shop of the Cannibal and six. I experienced some shame at
• 5:46:11
  my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me,
• 5:46:18
  especially in connection with some adjusting passages descriptive on an six gastronomy. I had
• 5:46:25
  turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its minger literary contents, an eighteenth
• 5:46:30
  century Bible, a Pilgrim's Progress of like period, illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and
• 5:46:37
  printed by the almanac maker Isiah Thomas, the Rotting Bulk of Cotton, Mother's
• 5:46:44
  Magnalia Christiana Americana, and a few other books of evidently equal age. When
• 5:46:49
  my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room overhead.
• 5:46:56
  At first astonished and startled considering the lack of response to my recent knocking at
• 5:47:03
  the door, I immediately afterward concluded that the walker had just awakened from a
• 5:47:07
  sound sleep, and listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking
• 5:47:14
  stairs. The tread was heavy, yet seemed to contain a curious quality of
• 5:47:19
  consciousness, a quality which I disliked more because the tread was heavy. When
• 5:47:26
  I had entered the room, I had shut the door behind me. Now,
• 5:47:30
  after a moment of silence, during which the walker might have been inspecting
• 5:47:34
  my bicycle in the hall, I heard a fumbling at the latch, and
• 5:47:40
  saw the ponnelled portal swing open again. In the doorway stood a person of
• 5:47:45
  such singular appearance that I should have exclaimed aloud, but for the restraints of
• 5:47:51
  good breeding. Old white birded and racked. My host possessed a countenance and
• 5:47:56
  physic which inspired equal wonder respect. His height could not have been less than
• 5:48:03
  six feet, and despite a general air of agent poverty, he was stout
• 5:48:08
  and powerful in proportion. His face, almost hidden by a long bird which
• 5:48:15
  grew high on the cheeks, seemed abnormally rudy and less wrinkled than one might
• 5:48:19
  expect, while over a high forehead fell a shock of white hair. Little
• 5:48:25
  fainted by the ears. His blue eyes, though waterreeful bloodshot, seemed inexplicably
• 5:48:32
  keen and burning. But for his horrible uncampteness. The man would have been
• 5:48:37
  as distinguished looking as he was impressive. This uncampteness, however, made him
• 5:48:42
  offensive despite his face and figure. Of what his clothing consisted I could hardly
• 5:48:49
  tell, for it seemed to me no more than a mass of tatters surmounting
• 5:48:53
  a pair of high, heavy boots, and his lack of cleanliness surpassed the
• 5:48:59
  square. The appearance of this man and the instinctive fear he inspired, prepared
• 5:49:06
  me for something like enmity, so that I almost shuddered through surprise and a
• 5:49:11
  sense of uncanny incongruity. When he motioned me to a chair and addressed me
• 5:49:15
  in a thin, weak voice, full of forming respect and ingratiating hospitality.
• 5:49:22
  His speech was very curious, an extreme form of Yankee dialect I had for
• 5:49:27
  long extinct, and I studied it closely. As he sat down opposite me
• 5:49:33
  for conversation, catching the rain beer, he greeted glad he was neigh the
• 5:49:40
  house and had the sense to come right in. I calculate I was asleep,
• 5:49:44
  else i'd hear you. I ain't as young as I asked to be,
• 5:49:48
  and I need a powerful sight on aps nowadays, traveling for I hain't
• 5:49:52
  seed many folks long this route, since they took off the Ukham stage.
• 5:50:00
  I replied that I was going to Achham and apologize for my rude entry into
• 5:50:03
  his domicile. Whereupon he continued, glad to see a young sir. New
• 5:50:10
  faces is scarce around here, and I hain't got much to cheer me up
• 5:50:14
  these days. Guess you hail from busting, don't you. I never bander,
• 5:50:18
  but I can't tell a town man when I see him. We had
• 5:50:22
  one fair district schoolmaster in eighty four, but he quit sudden, and no
• 5:50:26
  one never heard on himself. Here. The old man lapsed into a kind
• 5:50:32
  of chuckle, and by no explanation when I questioned him. He seems to
• 5:50:37
  be in an abandingly good humor, yet too possess though eccentrics, which one
• 5:50:41
  might guess from his grooming. For some time he rumbled on with an almost
• 5:50:48
  featherish genality. When it struck me to ask him how he came by so
• 5:50:52
  rare a book, I speak of Fatta's Regnum Congo. The effect of this
• 5:50:59
  volume had not left me, and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of
• 5:51:03
  it, But curiosity overmastered all the very fears, which had steadily accumulated since
• 5:51:10
  my first glimpse of this house. To my relief, the question did not
• 5:51:15
  seem an awkward one, for the old man answered freely and volubly. Oh,
• 5:51:21
  that a freaky book. Captain Ebenezer Holt treated me that in sixty eight
• 5:51:26
  him as was killed in the war. Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt
• 5:51:32
  cost me to look up sharply. I had encountered it in my genealogical work,
• 5:51:37
  but not in any record since the Revolution. I wondered if my host
• 5:51:42
  could help me in the task at which I was laboring, and resolved to
• 5:51:47
  ask him about it later on. He continued, Ebenezer was on Salem merchantman
• 5:51:53
  for years, and picked up a sight of queer stuff in every port.
• 5:51:57
  He got this in London, I guess he asked Elector buy things at the
• 5:52:02
  shops. I was up to his house host on the hill, treading horses.
• 5:52:07
  When I see this book. I relished their pictures, so he gave
• 5:52:11
  it in on a swap. This a queer book. Here, Leave me
• 5:52:15
  get on my spectacles. The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a
• 5:52:21
  pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses with small octagonal lenss and steel bows.
• 5:52:29
  Donning these, he reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages
• 5:52:33
  lovingly. Ebenezer could read a little or these this Latin, but I can't.
• 5:52:38
  I had two or three schoolmasters read me a bit, and passing Clark,
• 5:52:44
  hemed. They said, got drowned in the pond. Can you make
• 5:52:48
  anything out in it? I told him that I could, and translated for
• 5:52:52
  his benefit a paragraph near the beginning. If I ered, he was not
• 5:52:56
  scholar enough to correct me, for his seemed childishly pleased at my English version.
• 5:53:03
  His proximity was becoming rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape
• 5:53:08
  without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old
• 5:53:14
  man for the pictures in a book he could not read, and wondered how
• 5:53:18
  much better he could read the few books in English which had earned the room.
• 5:53:23
  This revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill defined apprehension I had felt,
• 5:53:30
  and I smiled as my host rambled on, queer, how pictures can
• 5:53:34
  set up on the thinking Take this on here near the front. Hey,
• 5:53:38
  you ever see trees like that with big leaves? Of flopping over and down.
• 5:53:44
  And them men, them can't be niggers. They do bit all kinder
• 5:53:48
  like Injuns, I guess, even if they be in Afriki. Some of
• 5:53:52
  these here creatures looks like monkeys or half monkeys and half men. But I
• 5:53:57
  never heard on nothing like this one. Here he pointed to a fable squitter
• 5:54:03
  of the artist, which one might describe as a sort of dragon with the
• 5:54:07
  head of an alligator. But now I'll show you the bestun over here neither
• 5:54:14
  middle. The old man's speed grew out trifle thicker, and his eyes assumed
• 5:54:19
  a brighter glow, But his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before,
• 5:54:25
  were entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open on most of its
• 5:54:30
  own occurred, and as if from frequent consultation at this place, to the
• 5:54:36
  Repellent's twelve plates showing a butcher's shop amongst the nsick cannibals, my sense of
• 5:54:41
  restlessness returned, though I did not exhibit it. The especially bizarre thing was
• 5:54:48
  that the artists had made his Afrikaans look like white men. The limbs and
• 5:54:53
  quarters hanging about the walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with
• 5:54:59
  his eggs and was hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view
• 5:55:04
  as much as I disliked it. What do you think of this? And
• 5:55:10
  never seeing they like hereabouts? Hey? When I see this, I telled
• 5:55:15
  Ephrald, that's something to steer ye up and make you a blood tickle.
• 5:55:19
  When I read the scripture about slaying like the midianis was slu I kinder think
• 5:55:26
  things, but I ain't got no picture of it here A body can see
• 5:55:30
  all they is to see. I suppose it's sinful, but ain't we all
• 5:55:33
  born and living in sin? That fella being chopped up gives me a tickle
• 5:55:38
  every time I look at him. I hate I keep looking at him.
• 5:55:42
  See where the butcher cut off his feet toiss his head on that bench with
• 5:55:47
  one arm side of it and tother arms on the other side or the mid
• 5:55:51
  block. As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy, the expression on
• 5:55:56
  his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted.
• 5:56:03
  My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly
• 5:56:10
  felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loved
• 5:56:15
  the ancient and abharent creature so near me with an infinite intensity. His madness,
• 5:56:22
  or at least his partial perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost
• 5:56:27
  whispering now with a huskiness more terrible than a scream. And I trembled as
• 5:56:33
  I listened, as I says, tis queer. How pictures set a thinking.
• 5:56:38
  Do you know, young sir, I'm right sat on this on here.
• 5:56:42
  After I got the book of eb I asked her look at it a
• 5:56:47
  lot, especially when I had heard passing Clark ran on Sundays in his big
• 5:56:51
  wig. Almost I tried something funny here, young say, don't get scared.
• 5:56:56
  All I done was to look at her picture afore I killed the ship
• 5:57:00
  for market. Killing sheep was kinder more fond Arthur looking at it. The
• 5:57:06
  tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that
• 5:57:11
  his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain and to the rattling
• 5:57:15
  of the blurred small paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder,
• 5:57:22
  quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and pills shook the frail
• 5:57:26
  house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it. Killing
• 5:57:33
  sheep was kinder, more fun. But you know twn't quite satisfying, queer,
• 5:57:38
  how a craving gets a halt on? Yet as you loved the almighty
• 5:57:42
  young men, don't tell nobody, but I swear to the rug out her
• 5:57:47
  picture began to make me hungry for victuals. I couldn't rise near by here,
• 5:57:52
  sit still? What's inning here? I didn't do nothing, Only I
• 5:57:56
  wondered how twould be if I did. They said it makes blood and flesh
• 5:58:00
  and gives ye new life. So I wondered if it wouldn't make a man
• 5:58:04
  live longer and longer if it was more the same. But the whisperer never
• 5:58:10
  continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly
• 5:58:15
  increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky
• 5:58:21
  solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple, though somewhat
• 5:58:26
  unusual happening. The open book lay flat between us, with the picture starring
• 5:58:33
  repulsively upward. As the old man whispered the words more the same. A
• 5:58:40
  tiny splattering impact was heard, and something showed on the yellowed paper of the
• 5:58:45
  upturned volume. I thought of the rain, and of a leaky roof.
• 5:58:51
  But rain is not red. On the butcher's shop of the unsick canniballs,
• 5:58:56
  a small red, spattering glistened picture, riskly lending vividness to the horror of
• 5:59:02
  the engraving. The old man saw it and stopped whispering, even before my
• 5:59:07
  expression of horror made it necessary. Saw it and glanced quickly towards the floor
• 5:59:14
  of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance,
• 5:59:18
  and beheld just above us, on the loose plaster of the ancient sinning a
• 5:59:23
  large, irregular spot of wet crimson, which seemed to spread even as I
• 5:59:30
  viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes.
• 5:59:36
  A moment later came the Titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts blasting at a cursed house
• 5:59:41
  of an a terrible secrets, and bringing the oblivion, which alone saved my
• 5:59:48
  mind, and of the picture in the house. The statement of Randolph Carter
• 5:59:56
  by H. P. Lovecraft. Again, I say, I do not
• 6:00:00
  know what has become of Harley, worn though I think, almost hope that
• 6:00:03
  he is in peaceful oblivion, if there be anywhere so blessed a thing.
• 6:00:08
  It is true that I have for five years been his closest friend, and
• 6:00:11
  a partial share of his terrible researches into the unknown. I will not deny,
• 6:00:17
  though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this witness of yours may
• 6:00:21
  have seen us together, as he says on the Gainesville Pike, walking toward
• 6:00:25
  Big Cypress Swamp at half past eleven, on that awful night, that we
• 6:00:30
  bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil of wire with attached instruments.
• 6:00:33
  I will even affirm for these things all played a part in the single
• 6:00:37
  hideous scene which remains buried in my shaken recollection. But of what fouled,
• 6:00:42
  and of the reason I was found alone in days on the edge of the
• 6:00:45
  swamp next morning, I must insist that I know nothing save what I was
• 6:00:49
  told Over and over again. You say to me that there is nothing in
• 6:00:53
  the swamp or nearer it which I could form the setting of that awful episode.
• 6:01:00
  I reply that I knew nothing beyond what I saw, vision or nightmare.
• 6:01:03
  It may have been vision or nightmare. I fervently hope it was.
• 6:01:07
  Yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place in those shocking
• 6:01:11
  hours after we left the sight of men, and why Harley Warn did not
• 6:01:15
  return, he or his shade, or some nameless thing I cannot describe alone
• 6:01:19
  can tell. As I have said before, the weird studies of Harley Worn
• 6:01:25
  were well known to me, and to some extent shared by me. Of
• 6:01:29
  his vast collection of strange, rare books on forbidden subjects, I have read
• 6:01:32
  all that are written in the languages of which I am master, but these
• 6:01:36
  are few as compared with those languages I can understand. Most, I believe,
• 6:01:41
  are in Arabic, and the fiend inspired book which brought on the end.
• 6:01:45
  The book which he carried in his pocket out of this world, was
• 6:01:48
  written in characters whose like I never saw elsewhere. Warren would never tell me
• 6:01:52
  just what was in the book. As to the natures of our studies,
• 6:01:56
  must I say again that I no longer retain full comprehension. It seems to
• 6:02:00
  me rather merciful that I do not, for they were terrible studies which I
• 6:02:03
  pursued more through reluctant fascination than through actual inclination. Warren always dominated me,
• 6:02:11
  and sometimes I feared him. I remember how I shuddered at his facial expressions
• 6:02:15
  on the night before the awful happenings, when he talked so incessantly of his
• 6:02:18
  theory why certain corpses never decay, but rest firm and fat in their tomb
• 6:02:23
  for a thousand years. But I do not fear him now, for I
• 6:02:27
  suspect that he has known horrors beyond my ken. Now I fear for him
• 6:02:34
  once more. I say that I have no clear idea of our object on
• 6:02:37
  that night. Certainly it had much to do with something in the book which
• 6:02:41
  Warren carried with him, that ancient book in undecipherable characters, which had come
• 6:02:47
  to him from India a month before, But I swear I do not know
• 6:02:51
  what it was. We expected to find. Your witness says he saw us
• 6:02:53
  at half past eleven on the Gainesville Pike, headed for Big Cypress Swamp.
• 6:02:59
  This is probably true, but I have no distinct memory of it. The
• 6:03:03
  picture seared into my souls once seen only, and the hour must have been
• 6:03:07
  long after midnight, for a waning crescent moon was high in the vaporous heavens
• 6:03:12
  The place was an ancient cemetery, so ancient that I trembled at the manifold
• 6:03:17
  signs of immemorial years. It was in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown
• 6:03:22
  with rank grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds, and filled with a
• 6:03:26
  vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdedly with riding stone. On every hand
• 6:03:33
  were the signs of neglect and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted by the notion
• 6:03:37
  that Worn and I were the first living creatures to invade a lethal silence of
• 6:03:41
  centuries. Over the valley's rim, A waning crescent moon peered through the noisome
• 6:03:45
  vapors that seemed to emanate from unheard of catacombs, and by its feeble wavering
• 6:03:52
  beams, I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs,
• 6:03:56
  and mausoleum facades, all crumbling, moss grown and moisture stained, and
• 6:04:02
  partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation. My first vivid impression
• 6:04:10
  of my own presence in this terrible necropolis concerns the act of pausing with Warren
• 6:04:14
  before a certain half obliterated sepulcher, and of throwing down some burdens which we
• 6:04:18
  seemed to have been carrying. I now observed that I had with me an
• 6:04:22
  electric lantern and two spades, whilst my companion was supplied with a similar lantern
• 6:04:27
  and a portable telephone outfit. No word was uttered for the spot, and
• 6:04:33
  the tasks seemed known to us, and without delay we seized our spades and
• 6:04:37
  commenced to clear away the grass weeds and drifted earth from the flat archaic mortuary.
• 6:04:41
  After uncovering the entire scene, which consisted of three immense granite slabs,
• 6:04:47
  we stepped back some distance to survey the carnal scene, and Warren appeared to
• 6:04:52
  make some mental calculations. Then he returned to the sepulcher, and using a
• 6:04:56
  spade as a lever, sought to pry up the slab lying near to the
• 6:05:00
  stony ruin, which may have been a monumented in stay. He did not
• 6:05:03
  succeed in motion to me to come to his assistance. Finally, our combined
• 6:05:08
  strength loosened the stone, which we raised and tipped to one side. The
• 6:05:14
  removal of the slab revealed a black aperture from which rushed an affluence of miasmal
• 6:05:18
  gases so nauseous that we started back in horror. After an interval, however,
• 6:05:23
  we approached the pit again and found the exhalations less unbearable. Our lanterns
• 6:05:30
  disclosed the top of a flight of stone steps, dripping with some detestable ichor
• 6:05:34
  of the inner earth, and bordered by moist walls encrusted with niter. And
• 6:05:40
  now, for the first time, my memory records verbal discourse Warren addressing me
• 6:05:45
  at length in his mellow tenor voice, a voice singularly unperturbed by our awesome
• 6:05:49
  surroundings. I am sorry to have to ask you to stay on the surface,
• 6:05:53
  he said, but it be a crime to let anyone with your frail
• 6:05:57
  nerves go down there. You can imagine, even from what you've read and
• 6:06:00
  what I've told you, the things I shall have to see and do.
• 6:06:04
  It's fiendish work, Carter, and I doubt if any man with ironclad sensibilities
• 6:06:10
  could ever see it through and come up alive and saying. I don't wish
• 6:06:14
  to offend you, and heaven knows, I'd be glad enough to have you
• 6:06:15
  with me. But the responsibility is in a certain sense mine, and I
• 6:06:21
  couldn't drag a bundle of nerves like you down to probable death or madness.
• 6:06:25
  I tell you you can't imagine what the thing is really like, but I
• 6:06:29
  promised to keep you informed over the telephone of every move you see. I've
• 6:06:33
  enough wire here to reach the center of the earth and back. I can
• 6:06:37
  still hear in memory those coolly spoken words, and I can still remember my
• 6:06:41
  remonstrances. I seemed desperately anxious to accompany my friend into those sepulcurl depths,
• 6:06:47
  yet he proved inflexibly obdurate. At one time he threatened to abandon the expedition
• 6:06:52
  if I remained insistent, a threat which proved effective, since he alone held
• 6:06:56
  the key to the thing. All this I can remember, though I know
• 6:07:00
  no longer know what manner of thing we sought. After he had obtained my
• 6:07:03
  reluctant acquiescence in his design, Warren picked up the reel of wire and adjusted
• 6:07:07
  the instruments at his nod. I took one of the latter and seated myself
• 6:07:11
  upon an aged, discolored gravestone close by the newly uncovered aperture. Then he
• 6:07:17
  shook my hand, shouldered the coil of wire and disappeared within that indescribable ossuary.
• 6:07:23
  For a minute, I kept the sight of the glow of his lantern,
• 6:07:26
  and heard the rustle of the wire as he laid it down after him.
• 6:07:30
  For the glow soon disappeared abruptly, as if a turn in the stone
• 6:07:33
  staircase had been encountered, and the sound died away almost as quickly. I
• 6:07:37
  was alone, yet, bound to the unknown depths by those magic strands,
• 6:07:41
  whose insulated surface lay green beneath the struggling beams of that waning crescent moon.
• 6:07:48
  I constantly consulted my watch by the light of my electric lantern, and listened
• 6:07:52
  with feverish anxiety at the receiver of the telephone, But for more than a
• 6:07:56
  quarter of an hour heard nothing. Then a faint clicking came from the instrument,
• 6:08:00
  and I called down to my friend with a tense voice. Apprehensive as
• 6:08:03
  I was, I was nevertheless unprepared for the words which came up from the
• 6:08:07
  uncanny vault in accents more alarmed and quivering than any I had heard before from
• 6:08:11
  Harley Warren. He who was so calmly left me a little while previously,
• 6:08:18
  now called from below in a shaky whisper, more portentous than the loudest shriek.
• 6:08:23
  God, if you could see what I am seeing, I could not
• 6:08:26
  answer, speechless, I could only wait. Then came the frenzied tones again,
• 6:08:32
  Carter, it's terrible, monstrous, unbelievable. This time my voice did
• 6:08:36
  not fail me, and I poured into the transmitter of a flood of excited
• 6:08:38
  questions. Terrified, I continue to repeat, Warn, what is it?
• 6:08:42
  What is it? Once more came the voice of my friend, still hoarse
• 6:08:47
  with fear and now apparently tinged with despair. I can't tell you, Carter,
• 6:08:52
  it's too utterly beyond thought. I dare not tell you. No man
• 6:08:55
  could know it and live. Great God, I never dreamed of this stillness
• 6:08:59
  again, save for my now incoherent torrent of shuddering inquiry. Then the voice
• 6:09:03
  of Warn, in a pitch of wilder consternation, Carter, for the love
• 6:09:07
  of God, put back the slab and get out of this. If you
• 6:09:08
  can quick leave everything else and make for the outside, it's your only chance.
• 6:09:12
  Do as I say, and don't ask me to explain. I heard
• 6:09:18
  it was able only to repeat my frantic questions. Around me were the tombs
• 6:09:22
  and the darkness, and the shadows below me some peril beyond the radius of
• 6:09:25
  the human imagination. But my friend was in greater danger than I, and
• 6:09:30
  through my fear I felt a vague resentment that he should deem me capable of
• 6:09:33
  deserting him under such circumstances. More clicking, and after a pause of piteous
• 6:09:38
  cry from warn, beat it, for God's sake, put back the slab
• 6:09:41
  and beat it. Carter. Something in the boyish slang of my evidently stricken
• 6:09:47
  companion unleashed my faculties. I formed and shouted a resolution, warn, brace
• 6:09:52
  yourself on coming down. But at this offered, the tone of my auditor
• 6:09:56
  changed to a scream of utter despair. Don't you can't understand it's too late
• 6:10:00
  in my own fault. Put back the slab and run. There's nothing else
• 6:10:04
  you worthy one can do now. The tone changed again, this time acquiring
• 6:10:07
  a softer quality as of hopeless resignation, yet it remained tense through anxiety for
• 6:10:14
  me quick before it's too late. I tried not to heed him, tried
• 6:10:19
  to break through the prowl sits which held me, and to fulfill my vow
• 6:10:22
  to rush down to his aid. But his next whisper found me and still
• 6:10:26
  held inert in the chain of stark horror. Carter, hurry, it's no
• 6:10:32
  use. You must go better one than two. The slab a pause,
• 6:10:38
  more clicking than the faint voice of Warren nearly over. Now, don't make
• 6:10:44
  it harder, Cover up those damned steps and run for your life. You're
• 6:10:47
  losing time so long, Carter won't see you again. Here. Warren's whispers
• 6:10:52
  swelled into a cry, a cry that gradually rose to a shriek, fraught
• 6:10:56
  with all the horrors of the ages. Cursed, these allish things, legions,
• 6:11:00
  my god, beat it, beat it, beat it. After that
• 6:11:06
  was silence. I know not how many interminable eons I sat, stupefied,
• 6:11:11
  whispering, muttering, calling, screaming into that telephone over and over again.
• 6:11:15
  Through those eons I whispered and muttered, called, shouted and screamed. Warrened,
• 6:11:19
  Warren, answer me, are you there? And then there came to
• 6:11:23
  me the crowning horror of all the unbelievable, unthinkable, almost unmentionable thing I
• 6:11:30
  have said. That eons seemed to elapse after Warren shrieked forth his last despairing
• 6:11:33
  warning, and that only my own cries now broke the hideous silence. But
• 6:11:38
  after a while there was a further clicking in the receiver, and I strained
• 6:11:42
  my ears to listen again. I called down, warn, are you there?
• 6:11:47
  And an answer heard the thing which had brought this cloud over my mind.
• 6:11:51
  I do not try, it, gentlemen, to account for that thing,
• 6:11:53
  that voice, nor can I venture to describe it in detail, since
• 6:11:57
  the first words took away my conscious business and created a mental blank which reaches
• 6:12:03
  the time of my awakening in the hospital. Shall I say that the voice
• 6:12:07
  was deep, hollow, gelatinous, remote, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied.
• 6:12:15
  What shall I say? It was the end of my experience, and is
• 6:12:18
  the end of my story. I heard it and knew no more. Heard
• 6:12:23
  it, as I said, petrified in the unknown cemetery, in the hollow
• 6:12:26
  amidst the crumbling stones and the falling tombs, the rank vegetation, the miasma
• 6:12:30
  vapors, heard it well up from the innermost steps of that damnable open sepple
• 6:12:36
  curves. I watched amorphous, necrophagious shadows dance beneath an incursed, waning moon.
• 6:12:41
  And this is what it said, you fool, Warren is dead.
• 6:12:48
  End of the statement of Randolph Carter The Street by H. P. Lovecraft.
• 6:12:56
  There be those who say that things in places have souls, and there
• 6:13:00
  be those who say they have not. I dare not say myself, but
• 6:13:04
  I will tell of the street. Men of strength and honor fashioned that street,
• 6:13:11
  good valiant men of our blood, who had come from the blessed isles
• 6:13:15
  across the sea. At first it was but a path trodden by bearers of
• 6:13:18
  water from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach. Then
• 6:13:23
  as more men came to the growing cluster of houses and looked about for places
• 6:13:29
  to dwell, they built cabins along the north side, cabins of stout oaken
• 6:13:33
  logs with masonry on the side toward the forest. For many Indians lurked there
• 6:13:38
  with fire arrows, and in a few years more men built cabins on the
• 6:13:42
  south side of the street. Up and down the street walked grave men in
• 6:13:48
  conical hats, who most of the time carried muskets or fowling pieces, and
• 6:13:53
  there were also their bonneted wives and sober children. In the evening, these
• 6:13:59
  men, with their wives and children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and
• 6:14:03
  speak. Very simple were the things of which they read and spoke, yet
• 6:14:07
  things which gave them courage and goodness, and helped them by day to subdue
• 6:14:11
  the forests and till the fields, And the children would listen and learn of
• 6:14:15
  the laws and deeds of old, and of that dear England which they had
• 6:14:19
  never seen or could not remember. There was war, and thereafter no more
• 6:14:26
  Indians troubled the street. The men, busy with labor waxed, prosperous and
• 6:14:30
  as happy as they knew how to be, And the children grew up comfortable,
• 6:14:34
  And more families came from the motherland to dwell on the street, and
• 6:14:38
  the children's children and the newcomer's children grew up. The town was now a
• 6:14:45
  city, and one by one the cabins gave place to houses, simple beautiful
• 6:14:49
  houses of brick and wood, with stone steps and iron railings and fan lights
• 6:14:55
  over the doors. No flimsy creations were these houses, for they were made
• 6:15:00
  to serve many a generation. Within there were carbon mantles and graceful stairs,
• 6:15:04
  and sensible, pleasing furniture, China and silver brought from the motherland. So
• 6:15:11
  the street drank in the dreams of a young people, and rejoiced as its
• 6:15:15
  dwellers became more graceful and happy. Where once had been only strength and honor,
• 6:15:21
  taste and learning now abode as well. Books and painting and music came
• 6:15:26
  to the houses, and the young men went to the university, which rose
• 6:15:30
  above the plain to the north. In the place of conical hats and small
• 6:15:33
  swords of lace and snowy periwigs, there were cobblestones over which clattered many a
• 6:15:38
  blooded horse, and rumbled many a gilded coach, and brick sidewalks with horse
• 6:15:45
  blocks and hitching posts. There were in that street many trees, elms,
• 6:15:51
  and oaks, and maples of dignity, so that in the summer the scene
• 6:15:55
  was all soft, verdure and twittering birds song. Behind the houses were walled
• 6:16:00
  rose gardens with hedged paths and sundials, where at evening the moon and stars
• 6:16:06
  would shine bewitchingly, while fragrant blossoms glistened with dew. So the street dreamed
• 6:16:12
  on past wars, calamities, and change. Once most of the young men
• 6:16:18
  went away, and some never came back. That was when they furled the
• 6:16:23
  old flag and put up a new banner. Of stripes and stars. But
• 6:16:27
  though men talked of great changes, the street felt them not, for its
• 6:16:33
  folk were still the same, speaking of the old familiar things and the old
• 6:16:37
  familiar accounts, And the trees still sheltered singing birds, and at evening the
• 6:16:44
  moon and stars looked down upon dewy blossoms in the walled rose gardens. In
• 6:16:51
  time, there were no more swords, three cornered hats, or periwigs in
• 6:16:55
  the street. How strange seemed the inhabitants, with their walking sticks, tall
• 6:17:00
  beavers, and cropped heads. New sounds came from the distance, first the
• 6:17:06
  strange puffings and shrieks from the river a mile away, and then many years
• 6:17:11
  later, strange puffings and shrieks and rumblings from other directions. The air was
• 6:17:17
  not quite so pure as before, but the spirit of the place had not
• 6:17:21
  changed. The blood and soul of their ancestors had fashioned the street. Nor
• 6:17:27
  did the spirit change when they tore open the earth to lay down strange pipes,
• 6:17:32
  or when they set up tall posts bearing weird wires. There was so
• 6:17:37
  much ancient lore in that street that the past could not easily be forgotten.
• 6:17:45
  Then came the days of evil, when many who had known the street of
• 6:17:48
  old knew it no more, and many knew it who had not known it
• 6:17:52
  before, and went away. For their accents were coarse and strident, and
• 6:17:57
  their mien and faces unpleasing. Their thoughts, too, fought with the wise,
• 6:18:03
  just spirit of the street, so that the street pined silently as its
• 6:18:07
  houses fell into decay, and its trees died one by one, and its
• 6:18:12
  rose gardens grew rank with weeds and waste. But it felt a stir of
• 6:18:18
  pride one day when again marched forth young men, some of whom never came
• 6:18:22
  back. These young men were clad in blue. With the years, worse
• 6:18:29
  fortune came to the street. Its trees were all gone now, and its
• 6:18:33
  rose gardens were displaced by the backs of cheap, ugly new buildings on parallel
• 6:18:37
  streets. Yet the houses remained despite the ravages of the years and the storms
• 6:18:44
  and worms, for they had been made to serve many a generation. New
• 6:18:48
  kinds of faces appeared in the street, swarthy, sinister faces with furtive eyes
• 6:18:52
  and odd features, whose owners spoke in unfamiliar words and placed signs in no
• 6:19:00
  and unknown characters upon most of the musty houses. Push carts crowded the gutters.
• 6:19:07
  A sordid, undefinable stench settled over the place, and the ancient spirit
• 6:19:11
  slept. Great excitement once came to the street. War and revolution were raging
• 6:19:18
  across the seas. A dynasty had collapsed, and its degenerate subjects were flocking
• 6:19:23
  with dubious intent to the Western Land. Many of these took lodgings in the
• 6:19:27
  battered houses that had once known the songs of birds and the scent of roses.
• 6:19:33
  Then the Western Land itself awoke and joined the Motherland in her titanic struggle
• 6:19:37
  for civilization. Over the cities once more floated the old flag, companioned by
• 6:19:45
  the new flag, and by a plainer, yet glorious try color. But
• 6:19:49
  not many flags floated over the street, for therein brooded only fear and hatred
• 6:19:56
  and ignorance. Again, young men went forth, but not quite as did
• 6:20:00
  the young men of those other days. Something was lacking. And the sons
• 6:20:06
  of those young men of other days, who did indeed go forth in olive
• 6:20:08
  drab, with the true spirit of their ancestors, went from distant places and
• 6:20:15
  knew not the street and its ancient spirit. Over the seas. There was
• 6:20:19
  a great victory, and in triumph. Most of the young men returned.
• 6:20:25
  Those who had lacked something lacked it no longer. Yet did fear and hatred
• 6:20:30
  and ignorance still brood over the street, For many had stayed behind, and
• 6:20:36
  many strangers had come from distant places to the ancient houses, And the young
• 6:20:41
  men who had returned dwelt there no longer. Swarthy and sinister were most of
• 6:20:47
  the strangers. Yet among them one might find a few faces like those who
• 6:20:51
  fashioned the street and molded its spirit. Like and yet unlike, for there
• 6:20:57
  was in the eyes of all a weird unhealth, the glitter as of greed,
• 6:21:02
  ambition, vindictiveness, or misguided zeal. Unrest and treason were abroad amongst
• 6:21:08
  an evil few who plotted to strike the Western land its death blow, that
• 6:21:12
  they might mount to power over its ruins, even as assassins had mounted in
• 6:21:18
  that unhappy, frozen land from whence most of them had come. And the
• 6:21:22
  heart of that plotting was in the street, whose crumbling houses teemed with alien
• 6:21:27
  markers of discord, and echoed with the plans and speeches of those who yearned
• 6:21:32
  for the appointed day of blood, flame and crime. Of the various odd
• 6:21:37
  assemblages in the street. The law said much, but could prove little.
• 6:21:42
  With great diligence. Did men of hidden badges linger and listen about such places
• 6:21:47
  as Petrovitch's Bakery, the Swallid Rifkin School of Modern Economics, the Circle Social
• 6:21:53
  Club, and the Liberty Cafe. There congregated sinister men in great numbers.
• 6:22:00
  Yet always was their speech guarded or in a foreign tongue. And still the
• 6:22:04
  old houses stood with their forgotten lore of nobler departed sentries, of sturdy colonial
• 6:22:11
  tenants and dewey rose gardens. In the moonlight. Sometimes a lone poet or
• 6:22:18
  traveler would come to view them, and would try to picture them in their
• 6:22:21
  vanished glory. Yet of such travelers and poets there were not many. The
• 6:22:29
  rumor now spread widely that these houses contained the leaders of a vast band of
• 6:22:33
  terrorists, who, on a designated day were to launch an orgy of slaughter
• 6:22:37
  for the extermination of America and of all the fine old traditions which the street
• 6:22:42
  had loved. Handbills and papers flooded about filthy gutters. Handbills and papers printed
• 6:22:48
  in many tongues and in many characters, yet all bearing messages of crime and
• 6:22:52
  rebellion. In these writings, the people were urged to tear down the laws
• 6:22:56
  and virtues that our fathers had exalted, to stamp out the soul of the
• 6:23:00
  old America, the soul that was bequeathed through a thousand and a half years
• 6:23:06
  of Anglo saxon freedom, justice, and moderation. It was said that the
• 6:23:11
  swart men who dwelt in the street and congregated in its rotting edifices, were
• 6:23:15
  the brains of a hideous revolution, that at their word of command, many
• 6:23:19
  millions of brainless, besotted beasts would stretch forth their noisome talons from the slums
• 6:23:26
  of a thousand cities, burning, slaying, and destroying, till the land
• 6:23:30
  of our fathers should be no more. All this was said and repeated,
• 6:23:34
  and many looked forward in dread to the fourth day of July, about which
• 6:23:38
  the strange writings hinted much. Yet could nothing be found to place the guilt.
• 6:23:45
  None could tell just whose arrest might cut off the damnable plodding at its
• 6:23:49
  source. Many times came bands of blue coated police to search the shaky houses,
• 6:23:56
  though at last they ceased to come, for they too had grown tired
• 6:24:00
  of law and order, and had abandoned all the city to its fate.
• 6:24:04
  Then men in all of Drab came bearing muskets, till it seemed as if
• 6:24:10
  in its sad sleep the street must have had some haunting dreams of those other
• 6:24:14
  days when musket bearing men in conical hats walked along it from the woodland spring
• 6:24:18
  to the cluster of houses by the beach. Yet could no act be performed
• 6:24:23
  to check the impending clatyclysm For the Swartz Sinister men were old and cunning,
• 6:24:30
  so the street slept uneasily on till one night there gathered in Petrovitch's Bakery,
• 6:24:37
  and the Riffkin School of Modern Economics, and the Circle Social Club and Liberty
• 6:24:41
  Cafe, and in other places as well, vast hordes of men whose eyes
• 6:24:47
  were big with horrible triumph and expectation over hidden wires, Strange messages traveled,
• 6:24:55
  and much was said of still stranger messages yet to travel. Most of this
• 6:25:00
  was not guessed till afterward, when the western land was safe from the peril.
• 6:25:04
  The men in all of Drab could not tell what was happening or what
• 6:25:07
  they ought to do. For the Swart Sinister men were skilled in subtlety and
• 6:25:11
  concealment. And yet the men in all of drab will always remember that night,
• 6:25:18
  and will speak of the street as they tell it to their grandchildren.
• 6:25:22
  For many of them were sent there toward morning on a mission unlike that which
• 6:25:25
  they had expected. It was known that this nest of anarchy was old,
• 6:25:30
  and that the houses were tottering from the ravages of the years and the storms
• 6:25:33
  and the worms. Yet was the happening of that summer night a surprise because
• 6:25:38
  of its very queer uniformity. It was indeed an exceedingly singular happening, though
• 6:25:45
  after all a simple one. For without warning, in one of the small
• 6:25:49
  hours beyond midnight, all the ravages of the years, and the storms and
• 6:25:55
  the worms came to a tremendous climax. And after the crash there was no
• 6:26:00
  thing left standing in the street save two ancient chimneys and part of a stout
• 6:26:04
  brick wall. Nor did anything that had been alive come alive from the ruins.
• 6:26:12
  A poet and traveler who came with the mighty crowd that sought the scene
• 6:26:17
  tell odd stories. The poet says that all through the hours before dawn he
• 6:26:22
  beheld sordid ruins, indistinctly in the glare of the arc lights that there loomed
• 6:26:27
  above the wreckage. Another picture, wherein he could describe moonlight and fair houses,
• 6:26:33
  and elms and oaks and maples of dignity. And the traveler declares that
• 6:26:38
  instead of the place's wanted stench, there lingered a delicate fragrance, as of
• 6:26:42
  roses in full bloom. But are not the dreams of poets and the tales
• 6:26:48
  of travelers notoriously false? There be those who say that things and places have
• 6:26:55
  souls, and there be those who say they have not. I dare not
• 6:26:59
  say, but I have told you of the street, end of the Street,
• 6:27:07
  The Terrible Old Man by H. P. Lovecraft. It was the
• 6:27:11
  design of Angelo Ricki, and Joe Chesnik and Manuel Silva to call on the
• 6:27:15
  terrible old Man. This old man dwells all alone in the very ancient house
• 6:27:21
  on Walter Street, near the sea, and is reputed to be both exceedingly
• 6:27:23
  rich and exceedingly feeble, which forms a situation very attractive to men of the
• 6:27:27
  profession of mesers shah Nek and Silva. That profession was nothing less dignified than
• 6:27:33
  robbery. The inhabitants of Kingsport say and think many things about the terrible old
• 6:27:37
  Man, which generally keep him safe from the attention of gentlemen like mister Rickey
• 6:27:41
  and his colleagues, despite the almost certain fact that he hides a fortune of
• 6:27:45
  indefinite magnitude somewhere about his musty and venerable abode. He is, in truth
• 6:27:49
  a very strange person, believed to have been a captain of East India Clippers
• 6:27:53
  ships in his day, so old that no one can remember when he was
• 6:27:57
  young, and so taciturn that few knew his real name. Among the gnarled
• 6:28:03
  trees in the front yard of his aged and neglected place, he maintains a
• 6:28:07
  strange collection of large stones, oddly grouped and painted so that they resemble the
• 6:28:11
  idols in some obscure eastern temple. This collection frightens away most of the small
• 6:28:17
  boys, who love to taunt the terrible old man about his long white hair
• 6:28:21
  and beard, or to break the small paned windows of his dwelling with wicked
• 6:28:26
  missiles. But there are other things which frightened the older and more curious folks
• 6:28:30
  sometimes steal up to the house to peer through the dusty panes. These folks
• 6:28:34
  say that on a table in a bare room on the ground floor are many
• 6:28:38
  peculiar bottles, in each a small piece of lead suspended pendulum wise from a
• 6:28:44
  string. And they say that the terrible old Man talks to these bottles,
• 6:28:48
  addressing them by such names as Scarface, Long Tom, Spanish, Joe Peters,
• 6:28:52
  and Mate Ellis, and that whenever he speaks to the bottle, the
• 6:28:56
  little lead pendulum within makes certain definite vibrations, as if in answer, those
• 6:29:02
  who have watched the tall, lean, terrible old man in these peculiar conversations
• 6:29:06
  do not watch him again. But Angelo Ricky, and Joe Chanik and Manuel
• 6:29:10
  Silva were not of the Kingsport blood. They were of that new and heterogeneous
• 6:29:15
  alien stock which lies outside the charmed circle of New England life and traditions.
• 6:29:19
  And they saw the terrible old man merely tottering, almost helpless gray beard,
• 6:29:23
  who could not walk without the aid of his knotted cain, and whose thin,
• 6:29:27
  weak hands show pitifully. They were really quite sorry in their way for
• 6:29:32
  the lonely, unpopular old fellow, whom everybody shunned, and at whom all
• 6:29:36
  the dog barked singularly. But business is business, and who a robber whose
• 6:29:40
  soul is in the profession. There is a lure and a challenge about a
• 6:29:42
  very old and very feeble man who has no account at the bank, and
• 6:29:47
  who pays for his few necessities at the village store with Spanish gold and silver
• 6:29:51
  minted two centuries ago. Mezzers Ricky, John Neck and Silva selected the night
• 6:29:56
  of April eleventh for their call. Mister Ricky and Missus were to interview the
• 6:30:00
  old gentleman whilst mister Chawnik waited for them and their presumable metallic burden with a
• 6:30:06
  covered motor car in Ship Street by the gate in the tall rear wall of
• 6:30:10
  their host's grounds. Desired to avoid deedless explanations in the case of unexpected police
• 6:30:15
  intrusions prompted these plans for a quiet and unostenious departure. As pre arranged,
• 6:30:21
  these three adventurers started out separately in order to prevent any evil minded suspicions.
• 6:30:25
  Afterward, Messner Ricky and Silva met in Water Street by the old man's front
• 6:30:30
  gate, and although they did not like the way the moon shone down upon
• 6:30:33
  the painted stones of the budding branches of the gnarled trees. They had more
• 6:30:37
  important things to think about than mere idle superstition. They feared it might be
• 6:30:41
  unpleasant work making the terrible old man loquacious concerning his hoarded gold and silver,
• 6:30:47
  For HC. Captains are notably stubborn and perverse. Still, he was very
• 6:30:51
  old and very feeble, and there were two visitors. Mes Ricky and Silva
• 6:30:56
  were experienced in the art of making unwilling person voluble, and the screams of
• 6:31:00
  a weak and exceptionally venerable man can be easily muffled. So they moved up
• 6:31:06
  to the one lighted window and heard the terrible old man talking childleshly to his
• 6:31:10
  bottles with pendulums. Then they donned masks and knocked politely at the weather stained
• 6:31:15
  oaken door. Waiting seemed very long to mister Chawnik as he fidgeted bristlessly in
• 6:31:21
  the covered motor car by the terrible old Man's back gate in Ship Street.
• 6:31:25
  He was more than ordinarily tender hearted, and he did not like the hideous
• 6:31:29
  screams he had heard in the ancient house just after the hour appointed for the
• 6:31:33
  deed. Had he not told his colleagues to be as gentle as possible with
• 6:31:37
  the pathetic old sea captain. Very nervously, he watched that narrow oaken gate
• 6:31:41
  in the high and ivory clad stone wall. Frequently. He consulted his watch
• 6:31:47
  and wondered at the delay. Had the old man died before revealing where his
• 6:31:52
  treasure was hidden, and had a thorough search become necessary. Mister Chawnik did
• 6:31:56
  not like to wait so long in the dark in such a place. Then
• 6:32:00
  he sensed a soft tread or tapping on the walk inside the gate, but
• 6:32:03
  a gentle fumbling at the rusty latch, and saw the narrow, heavy door
• 6:32:07
  swing inward, and in the pallid glow of the single dim street lamp,
• 6:32:11
  he strained his eyes to see what his colleagues had brought out of that sinister
• 6:32:15
  house which loomed so close behind. But when he looked, he did not
• 6:32:19
  see what he had expected, for his colleagues were not there at all,
• 6:32:22
  but only the terrible old man, leaning quietly on his knotted cane and smiling
• 6:32:26
  hideously. Mister Chaunick had never before noticed the color of the man's eyes.
• 6:32:33
  Now he saw that they were yellow. Little things met considerable excitement in our
• 6:32:37
  little towns, which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring and
• 6:32:41
  summer about the three unidentifal bodies, horribly slashed as with many cutlasses, and
• 6:32:45
  horribly mangled, as by the tread of many cruel boot heels which the tide
• 6:32:49
  washed in. And some people even spoke of things as trivial as the deserted
• 6:32:53
  motor car found in ship Street, or certain especially inhuman cries, probably of
• 6:32:59
  a stray animal or migratory bird, heard in the night by the wakeful citizens.
• 6:33:03
  But in this idle village gossip, the terrible old Man took no interest
• 6:33:07
  at all. He was, by nature reserved, and when one is aged
• 6:33:11
  and feeble, one's reserve is dubly strong. Besides, so ancient a sea
• 6:33:17
  captain must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far off days
• 6:33:21
  of his unremembered youth, and of the terrible old man. The tomb by
• 6:33:27
  H. P. Lovecraft cetibus utsaltem placidus in morte quiescam and in a peaceful
• 6:33:37
  grave my corpse repose Virgil in relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement
• 6:33:47
  within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will
• 6:33:51
  create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate
• 6:33:56
  fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh
• 6:34:00
  with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive
• 6:34:07
  few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that
• 6:34:15
  there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal, that all things
• 6:34:19
  appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media
• 6:34:26
  through which we are made conscious of them. But the prosaic materialism of the
• 6:34:30
  majority condemns as madness the flashes of supersight which penetrate the common veil of obvious
• 6:34:37
  empiricism. My name is Jervis Dudley, and from earliest childhood I have been
• 6:34:42
  a dreamer and a visionary, wealthy beyond the necessity of a commercial life,
• 6:34:48
  and temperamentally unfitted for the formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances. I
• 6:34:53
  have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world, spending my youth and
• 6:34:59
  adolescent since in ancient and little known books and in roaming the fields and groves
• 6:35:03
  of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I
• 6:35:07
  read in those books or saw in those fields and groves was exactly what other
• 6:35:12
  boys read and saw there. But of this I must say little, since
• 6:35:17
  detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders. Upon my intellect, which I
• 6:35:22
  sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me, It is sufficient
• 6:35:27
  for me to relate events without analyzing causes. I have said that I dwelt
• 6:35:33
  apart from the visible world, but I have not said that I dwelt alone.
• 6:35:38
  This no human creature may do, for lacking the fellowship of the living,
• 6:35:42
  he inevitably draws upon the companionship of things that are not or are no
• 6:35:48
  longer living. Close by my home there lies a singular wooded hollow, in
• 6:35:52
  whose twilight deeps. I spent much of my time, reading, thinking,
• 6:35:57
  and dreaming. Down its moss covered slopes, my first steps of infancy were
• 6:36:03
  taken, and around its grotesquely gnarled oak trees, my first fancies of boyhood
• 6:36:07
  were woven. Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees,
• 6:36:14
  And often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of waning
• 6:36:18
  moon. But of these things I must not now speak. I will tell
• 6:36:22
  only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets. The deserted
• 6:36:27
  tomb of the hides an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been
• 6:36:33
  laid within its black recesses many decades before my birth. The vault to which
• 6:36:38
  I refer is an ancient granite, weathered and discolored by the mists and dampness
• 6:36:44
  of generations. Excavated back into the hillside. The structure is visible only at
• 6:36:48
  the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone, hangs
• 6:36:55
  upon rusted iron hinges, and is fastened a jar in a queerly sinister way
• 6:36:59
  by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks. According to a gruesome fashion of
• 6:37:03
  half a century ago, the abode of the race whose scions are inured had
• 6:37:10
  once crowned the declivity which holds the tomb, but had long since fallen victim
• 6:37:14
  to the flames which sprang up from a disastrous stroke of lightning of the midnight
• 6:37:18
  storm, which destroyed this gloomy mansion. The older inhabitants of the region sometimes
• 6:37:23
  speak in hushed and uneasy voices, alluding to what they call divine wrath,
• 6:37:30
  in a manner that, in later years vaguely increased the always strong fascination which
• 6:37:34
  I felt for the forest darkened sepulcher. One man only had perished in the
• 6:37:40
  fire when the last of the hides was buried in this place of shade and
• 6:37:44
  stillness. The sad urnful of ashes had come from a distant land to which
• 6:37:48
  the family had repaired when the mansion burned down. No one remains to lay
• 6:37:53
  flowers before the granite portal, and few care to brave the depressing shadows which
• 6:37:57
  seemed to linger strangely about the water worn stones. I shall never forget the
• 6:38:03
  afternoon I first stumbled upon the half hidden House of the Dead. It was
• 6:38:07
  in midsummer when the alchemy of nature transmutes the Sylvan landscape to one vivid and
• 6:38:14
  almost homogeneous mass of green. When the senses are well nigh intoxicated with the
• 6:38:19
  surging seas of moist verdure and the subtly indefinable odors of the soil and the
• 6:38:25
  vegetation in such surroundings, the mind loses its perspective. Time and space become
• 6:38:30
  trivial and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten, prehistoric past beat insistently upon
• 6:38:37
  the enthralled consciousness. All day I had been wandering through the mystic groves of
• 6:38:42
  the Hollow, thinking thoughts I need not discuss, and conversing with things I
• 6:38:47
  need not name. In years a child of ten, I had seen and
• 6:38:52
  heard many wonders unknown to the throng, and was oddly aged in certain respects.
• 6:38:57
  When, upon forcing my way between two savage clumps of briars, I
• 6:39:03
  suddenly encountered the entrance of the vault. I had no knowledge of what I
• 6:39:07
  had discovered. The dark blocks of granite, the door so curiously ajar,
• 6:39:12
  and the funereal carvings above the arch aroused in me. No associations of mournful
• 6:39:18
  or terrible character of graves and tombs. I knew and imagined much, but
• 6:39:22
  had, on account of my peculiar temperament, been kept from all personal contact
• 6:39:27
  with churchyards and cemeteries. The strange stone house on the Woodland slope was to
• 6:39:33
  me only a source of interest and speculation, and its cold, damp interior
• 6:39:37
  into which I vainly peered through the aperture so tantalizingly left contained for me no
• 6:39:44
  hint of death of decay. But in that instant of curiosity was borne the
• 6:39:48
  madly unreasoning desire which has brought me to this hell of confinement. Spurred on
• 6:39:53
  by a voice which must have come from the hideous soul of the forest,
• 6:39:59
  I resolved to enter the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous chains which barred
• 6:40:03
  my passage. In the waning light of day, I alternately rattled the rusty
• 6:40:07
  impediments with a view to throwing wide the stone door, and essayed to squeeze
• 6:40:11
  my slight form through the space already provided. But neither plan met with success.
• 6:40:18
  At first curious, I was not frantic, and when in the thickening
• 6:40:22
  twilight I returned to my home, I had sworn to the hundred gods of
• 6:40:26
  the grove that at any cost I would someday force an entrance to the black,
• 6:40:30
  chilly depths that seemed calling out to me. The physician with the iron
• 6:40:34
  gray beard, who comes each day to my room, once told a visitor
• 6:40:37
  that this decision marked the beginnings of a pitiful monomania. But I will leave
• 6:40:44
  final judgment to my readers when they shall have learnt. All the months following
• 6:40:49
  my discovery were spent in futile attempts to force the complicated padlock of the slightly
• 6:40:53
  opened vault, and in carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history of the
• 6:40:59
  structure. With the traditionally receptive ears of the small boy, I learned much,
• 6:41:04
  though an habitual secretiveness caused me to tell no one of my information or
• 6:41:10
  my resolve. It is perhaps worth mentioning that I was not at all surprised
• 6:41:14
  or terrified on learning of the nature of the vault. My rather original ideas
• 6:41:18
  regarding life and death had caused me to associate the cold clay with the breathing
• 6:41:23
  body in a vague fashion, and I felt that the great sinister family of
• 6:41:29
  the burned down mansion was in some way represented within the stone space I sought
• 6:41:33
  to explore. Mumbled tales of the weird rites and godless revels of bygone years
• 6:41:38
  in the ancient hall gave to me a new and potent interest in the tomb,
• 6:41:42
  before whose door I would sit for hours at a time each day.
• 6:41:47
  Once I thrust a candle within the nearly closed entrance, but could see nothing
• 6:41:52
  save a flight of damp stone steps leading downward. The odor of the place
• 6:41:56
  repelled yet bewitched me. I felt I had known in a past remote beyond
• 6:42:02
  all recollection, beyond even my tendency of the body I now possess. The
• 6:42:07
  year after I first beheld the tomb, I stumbled upon a worm eaten translation
• 6:42:12
  of Plutarch's lives in the book filled attic of my home. Reading the Life
• 6:42:18
  of Theseus, I was much impressed by that passage telling of the great stone
• 6:42:22
  beneath which the boyish hero was to find his tokens of destiny whenever he should
• 6:42:26
  become old enough to lift its enormous weight. This legend had the effect of
• 6:42:32
  dispelling my keenest impatience to enter the vault, for it made me feel that
• 6:42:36
  the time was not yet ripe. Later, I told myself I should grow
• 6:42:40
  to a strength and ingenuity which might enable me to unfasten the heavily chained door
• 6:42:45
  with ease. But until then I would do better by conforming to what seemed
• 6:42:51
  the will of fate. Accordingly, my watches by the dank portal became less
• 6:42:56
  persistent, and much of my time was spent in other, though equally strics
• 6:43:00
  pursuits. I would sometimes rise very quietly in the night, stealing out to
• 6:43:03
  walk in those churchyards and places of burial from which I had been kept by
• 6:43:07
  my parents. What I did there I may not say, for I am
• 6:43:11
  not now sure of the reality of certain things. But I know that on
• 6:43:15
  the day after such a nocturnal ramble I would often astonish those about me with
• 6:43:21
  my knowledge of topics almost forgotten for many centuries. It was after a night
• 6:43:25
  like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of
• 6:43:29
  the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster, a maker of local history who was interred
• 6:43:33
  in seventeen eleven, and whose slate headstone bearing a graven skull and crossbones,
• 6:43:38
  was slowly crumbling to powder. In a moment of childish imagination, I vowed
• 6:43:45
  not only that the undertaker, Goodman Simpson, had stolen the silver buckled shoes,
• 6:43:49
  silken hose, and satin small clothes of the deceased before burial, but
• 6:43:53
  that the Squire himself, not fully inanimate, had turned twice in his mound
• 6:43:59
  covered caps on the day of interment. But the idea of entering the tomb
• 6:44:04
  never left my thoughts, being indeed stimulated by the unexpected genealogical discovery that my
• 6:44:11
  own maternal ancestry possessed at least a slight link with the supposedly extinct family of
• 6:44:17
  the Hides. Last of my paternal race, I was likewise the last of
• 6:44:21
  this older and more mysterious line. I began to feel that the tomb was
• 6:44:26
  mine, and to look forward with hot eagerness to the time when I might
• 6:44:30
  pass within that stone door and down those slimy stone steps in the dark.
• 6:44:34
  I now formed the habit of listening very intently at the slightly open portal,
• 6:44:40
  choosing my favorite hours of midnight stillness for the odd vigil. By the time
• 6:44:45
  I came of age, I had made a small clearing in the thicket before
• 6:44:48
  the mold stained facade of the hillside, allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle and
• 6:44:53
  overhang the space like the walls and roof of a Sylvan bower. This bower
• 6:44:59
  was my temple, the fastened door my shrine, and here I would lie
• 6:45:03
  outstretched on the mossy ground, thinking strange thoughts and dreaming of strange dreams.
• 6:45:11
  The night of the first Revelation was a sultry one. I must have fallen
• 6:45:15
  asleep from fatigue, for it was with a distinct sense of awakening that I
• 6:45:18
  heard the voices of those tones and accents. I hesitate to speak of their
• 6:45:23
  quality. I will not speak, but I may say that they presented certain
• 6:45:29
  uncanny differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and mode of utterance. Every shade of
• 6:45:34
  New England dialect, from the uncouth syllables of the Puritan colonists to the precise
• 6:45:41
  rhetoric of fifty years ago, seemed represented in that shadowy colloquy. Though it
• 6:45:45
  was only later that I noticed the fact. At the time, indeed,
• 6:45:49
  my attention was distracted from this matter by another phenomenon, a phenomenon so fleeting
• 6:45:56
  that I could not take oath upon its reality. I barely fancied that as
• 6:46:00
  I awoke, a light had been hurriedly extinguished within the sunken sepulcher. I
• 6:46:07
  do not think I was either astounded or panic stricken, but I know that
• 6:46:11
  I was greatly and permanently changed that night. Upon returning home, I went
• 6:46:15
  with much directness to a rotting chest in the attic, wherein I found the
• 6:46:19
  key, which next day unlocked with ease the barrier I had so long stormed
• 6:46:23
  in vain. It was in the soft glow of late afternoon that I first
• 6:46:29
  entered the vault on the abandoned slope. A spell was upon me, and
• 6:46:33
  my heart leapt with an exultation I can but ill describe. As I closed
• 6:46:37
  the door behind me and descended the dripping steps by the light of my lone
• 6:46:41
  candle, I seemed to know the way, and though the candle sputtered with
• 6:46:47
  the stifling reek of the place, I felt singularly at home in the musty
• 6:46:51
  charnel house air. Looking about me, I beheld many marble slabs bearing coffins,
• 6:46:56
  or the remains of coffins. Some of these were sealed and intact,
• 6:47:00
  but others had nearly vanished, leaving the silver handles and plates isolated amidst certain
• 6:47:07
  curious heaps of whitish dust. Upon one plate I read the name of Sir
• 6:47:11
  Jeffrey Hyde, who had come from Sussex in sixteen forty and died here a
• 6:47:15
  few years later. In a conspicuous alcove was one fairly well preserved and untenanted
• 6:47:22
  casket, adorned with a single name which brought to me both a smile and
• 6:47:26
  a shudder. An odd impulse caused me to climb upon the broad slab,
• 6:47:32
  extinguish my candle, and lie down within the vacant box. In the gray
• 6:47:37
  light of dawn, I staggered from the vault and locked the chain of the
• 6:47:41
  door behind me. I was no longer a young man, though, but
• 6:47:45
  twenty one winters had chilled my bodily frame. Early rising villagers who observed my
• 6:47:49
  homeward progress looked at me strangely and marveled at the signs of ribaled revelry which
• 6:47:55
  they saw in one whose life was known to be sober and solitary. I
• 6:48:00
  did not appear before my parents till after a long and refreshing sleep. Henceforward
• 6:48:07
  I haunted the tomb each night, seeing, hearing, and doing things I
• 6:48:11
  must never reveal. My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences, was the
• 6:48:18
  first thing to succumb to the change, and my suddenly acquired archaism of diction
• 6:48:22
  was soon remarked upon. Later, a queer boldness and recklessness came into my
• 6:48:27
  demeanor, till I unconsciously grew to possess the bearing of a man of the
• 6:48:33
  world. Despite my lifelong seclusion, my formerly silent tongue waxed voluble with the
• 6:48:38
  easy grace of a Chesterfield or the godless cynicism of a Rochester. I displayed
• 6:48:44
  a peculiar erudition, utterly unlike the fantastic Monkish lore over which I had poured
• 6:48:49
  in youth, and covered the fly leaves of my books with facile, impromptu
• 6:48:53
  epigrams which brought up suggestions of gay prior and the spritelst of Augustine wits and
• 6:49:00
  rhymesters. One morning, at breakfast, I came close to disaster by declaiming
• 6:49:04
  impalpably licorice accents and effusion of eighteenth century back an alien mirth, a bit
• 6:49:11
  of Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book, which ran something like this,
• 6:49:17
  Come hither, my lads, with your tankers of veil, and drink to
• 6:49:19
  the present beef. It shall fail. Pile each on your platter a mountain
• 6:49:23
  of beef forts, eating and drinking that brings us relief. So fill up
• 6:49:29
  your glass so life will soon pass. When you're dead, you'll never drink
• 6:49:32
  to your king of your lass. Anacreon had a red nose, so they
• 6:49:37
  say, But what's a red nose if you're happy and gay? God split
• 6:49:41
  me. I'd rather be read whilst I'm here than white as a lily undead
• 6:49:45
  half a year. So Betty, my miss, come give me a kiss.
• 6:49:49
  In hell, there's no innkeeper's daughter like this. Young Harry, propped
• 6:49:53
  up just as straight as he's able, will soon lose his wig and slip
• 6:49:57
  under the table. But fill up your goblets and pass them around. Better
• 6:50:03
  under the table than under the ground. So revel and chaff as you thusterly.
• 6:50:07
  Quaff under six feet of dirt is less easy to laugh. The fiend
• 6:50:14
  struck me blue. I'm scarce able to walk, and dammy if I can
• 6:50:17
  stand upright, all talk here land a bid Betty to summon a chair.
• 6:50:22
  I'll try home for a while, for my wife is not there, so
• 6:50:25
  lend me a hand. I'm not able to stand, but I'm gay whilst
• 6:50:27
  I linger on top of a land. About this time I conceived my present
• 6:50:34
  fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously indifferent to such things, I had now
• 6:50:41
  an unspeakable horror of them, and would retire to the innermost recesses of the
• 6:50:45
  house whenever the heavens threatened an electrical display. A favorite haunt of mine during
• 6:50:49
  the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down, and
• 6:50:53
  in fancy, I would picture the structure as it had been in its prime.
• 6:50:57
  On one occasion, I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a
• 6:51:03
  shallow sub cellar, of whose existence I seemed to know, in spite of
• 6:51:07
  the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations. At last
• 6:51:12
  came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered
• 6:51:18
  manner and appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements,
• 6:51:22
  a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one
• 6:51:26
  of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal
• 6:51:30
  since childhood. But now I was forced to exercise a care in threading the
• 6:51:34
  mazes of the woodland hollow that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My
• 6:51:40
  key to the vault I kept suspended from a cord about my neck, its
• 6:51:44
  presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulcher any of
• 6:51:48
  the things I came upon whilst within its walls. One morning. As I
• 6:51:53
  emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with none too
• 6:51:57
  steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher.
• 6:52:03
  Surely the end was near, for my bower was discovered and the objective
• 6:52:08
  of my nocturnal journeys revealed. The man did not accost me, so I
• 6:52:12
  hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my careworn father.
• 6:52:18
  Were my sojourns beyond the chain door about to be proclaimed to the world.
• 6:52:22
  Imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parent in cautious whisper
• 6:52:29
  that I had spent the night in the bower outside the tomb. My sleep
• 6:52:33
  filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood. Ajar by what
• 6:52:40
  miracle had the watcher been thus deluded? I was now convinced that a supernatural
• 6:52:45
  agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven sent circumstance, I began to
• 6:52:51
  resume perfect openness in going to the vault, confident that no one could witness
• 6:52:56
  my entrance. For a week, I tasted to the full of that charnel
• 6:53:00
  conviviality, which I must not describe. When the thing happened and I was
• 6:53:04
  borne away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony, I should not have
• 6:53:11
  ventured out that night, for the taint of thunder was in the clouds,
• 6:53:15
  and hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow.
• 6:53:19
  The call of the dead, too was different. Instead of the hillside tomb,
• 6:53:25
  it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope, whose presiding
• 6:53:27
  Damon beckoned to me with unseen fingers. As I emerged from an intervening grove
• 6:53:33
  upon the plain before the ruin, I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing
• 6:53:37
  I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century once more
• 6:53:42
  reared its stately height to the raptured vision, every window ablaze with the splendor
• 6:53:48
  of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the coaches of the Boston gentry,
• 6:53:52
  whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisites from the neighboring mansions.
• 6:53:59
  With this throng I mingled, though I knew I belonged with the hosts
• 6:54:03
  rather than the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter, and whine
• 6:54:07
  on every hand, several faces I recognized, though I should have known them
• 6:54:12
  better, had they been shriveled or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amid
• 6:54:17
  a wild and reckless throng, I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay
• 6:54:22
  blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips and in my shocking sallies. I heeded
• 6:54:26
  no law of God, man or nature. Suddenly a peal of thunder resonant
• 6:54:33
  even above the din of the Swinish revelry clave the very roof, and laid
• 6:54:37
  a hush of fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing
• 6:54:41
  gusts of heat engulfed the house, and the roisterers, struck with terror at
• 6:54:47
  the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided nature,
• 6:54:51
  fled shrieking into the night. I alone remained riveted to my seat by a
• 6:54:56
  groveling fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took
• 6:55:00
  possession of my soul, Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the
• 6:55:04
  four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hides was not
• 6:55:10
  my coffin prepared for me. Had I not a right to rest till eternity
• 6:55:14
  among the descendants of Sir Jeoffrey Hyde, ay, I would claim my heritage
• 6:55:18
  of death, even though my soul goes seeking through the ages for another corporeal
• 6:55:22
  tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault.
• 6:55:27
  Jervis Hide should never share the sad fate of Pallinurus. As the phantom of
• 6:55:33
  the burning House faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms
• 6:55:38
  of two men, one of whom was the spy who had followed me to
• 6:55:41
  the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon
• 6:55:47
  were flashes of the lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My
• 6:55:52
  father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my demands
• 6:55:56
  to be laid within the tomb, frequently had monishing my captors to treat me
• 6:56:00
  as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined
• 6:56:04
  cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens, and from this spot a
• 6:56:10
  group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship,
• 6:56:15
  which the thunderbolt had brought to light. Ceasing my feudile and now objectless writhing,
• 6:56:22
  I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure trove, and was permitted
• 6:56:26
  to share in their discoveries. The box, whose fastenings were broken by the
• 6:56:30
  stroke, which had unearthed it contained many papers and objects of value, But
• 6:56:36
  I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a
• 6:56:40
  young man in a smartly curled bag wig, and bore the initials j H.
• 6:56:45
  The face was such that as I gazed, I might well have been
• 6:56:49
  studying my mirror. On the following day, I was brought to this room
• 6:56:55
  with the barred windows. But I had been kept informed of certain things through
• 6:56:59
  an age and simple minded servitor, for whom I bore a fondness in infancy,
• 6:57:03
  and who, like me, loves the churchyard. What I have dared
• 6:57:07
  relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My
• 6:57:12
  father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass
• 6:57:17
  the chained portal, and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for
• 6:57:21
  fifty years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew
• 6:57:25
  of my journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched as I
• 6:57:27
  slept in the bower outside the grim facade, my half open eyes fixed on
• 6:57:33
  the crevice that leads to the interior. Against these assertions, I have no
• 6:57:37
  tangible proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was lost in the
• 6:57:41
  struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I
• 6:57:45
  learned during those nocturnal meetings with the dead he dismisses as the fruits of my
• 6:57:49
  lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it
• 6:57:56
  not been for my old servant Hireum, I should have by this time been
• 6:58:00
  quite convinced of my madness. But Hiram, loyal to the last, has
• 6:58:04
  held faith in me and has done that which impels me to make public at
• 6:58:08
  least a part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock
• 6:58:12
  which changed the door of the tomb perpetually Ajar, and descended with a lantern
• 6:58:18
  into the murky depths on a slab. In an alcove, he found an
• 6:58:22
  old but empty coffin, whose tarnished plate bears the single word Jervis. In
• 6:58:29
  that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.
• 6:58:34
  This is the end of the tomb The Tree by H. P. Lovecraft.
• 6:58:41
  On a verdant slope of Mount Manelis in Arcadia, there stands an olive
• 6:58:45
  grove about the ruins of a villa. Close by is a tomb, once
• 6:58:51
  beautiful with the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as the
• 6:58:56
  house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots, deplacing the
• 6:59:00
  time stained blocks of pan hellic marble, grows an unnaturally large olive tree of
• 6:59:06
  oddly repellent shape, so like to some grotesque man or death distorted body of
• 6:59:12
  a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at night when the
• 6:59:17
  moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Menelus is a chosen haunt of
• 6:59:22
  dreaded pan whose queer companions are many and simple Swains. Believe that the tree
• 6:59:29
  must have some hideous kinship to these weird Panishee. But an old beekeeper who
• 6:59:34
  lives in the neighboring cottage, told me a different story. Many years ago,
• 6:59:41
  when the hillside villa was new and resplendent, there dwelt within it the
• 6:59:45
  two sculptors, Calos and Musides, from Lydia to Neapolis. The beauty of
• 6:59:52
  their work was praised, and none dared say that one excelled the other in
• 6:59:56
  skill. The hermes of Calos stood in a marble shrine in Corinth, and
• 7:00:03
  the palace of Muzides surmounted a pillar in Athens near the Parthenon. All men
• 7:00:10
  paid homage to Calos and Muzides and marveled that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled
• 7:00:15
  the warmth of their brotherly friendship. But though Calos and Musides dwelt in unbroken
• 7:00:22
  harmony, their natures were not alike. While Musides reveled by night amidst the
• 7:00:29
  urban gaieties of Tegea, Calos would remain at home, stealing away from the
• 7:00:33
  sight of his slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he
• 7:00:37
  would meditate upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devised the forms
• 7:00:42
  of beauty which later became immortal. In breathing marble idle folk indeed said that
• 7:00:48
  Calos conversed with the spirits of the grove, and that his statues were but
• 7:00:53
  images of the fawns and dryads he met there, For he patterned his work
• 7:00:57
  after no living model. So famous were Calos and Musides that none wondered when
• 7:01:03
  the Tyrant of Syracuse sent them deputies to speak of the costly statue of tych
• 7:01:11
  which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning workmanship must
• 7:01:15
  the statue be, for it was to form a wonder of nations and a
• 7:01:19
  goal of travelers. Exalted beyond thought. Would be he whose work should gain
• 7:01:25
  acceptance, And for this honor, Calos and Muzides were invited to compete.
• 7:01:30
  Their brotherly love was well known, and the crafty tyrants surmised that each,
• 7:01:36
  instead of concealing his work from the other, would offer aiden advice. This
• 7:01:41
  charity producing two images of unheard of beauty, the lovelier of which would eclipse
• 7:01:45
  even the dreams of poets. With joy, the sculptors hailed the Tyrant's offer,
• 7:01:52
  so that in the days that followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of
• 7:01:56
  chisels, not from each other, did Calous and Musides conceal their work,
• 7:02:02
  but the sight was for them alone, saving theirs. No eyes beheld the
• 7:02:07
  two divine figures, released by skillful blows from the rough blocks that had imprisoned
• 7:02:11
  them since the world began at night. As of yore, Musides sought the
• 7:02:18
  banquet halls of Tegea, whilst Calos wandered alone in the olive grove. But
• 7:02:22
  as time passed, men observed a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Musides.
• 7:02:29
  It was strange, they said amongst themselves, that depressions should thus seize
• 7:02:33
  one with so great a chance to win art's loftiest rewards. Many months passed,
• 7:02:40
  yet in the sour face of Musides came nothing of the sharp expectancy which
• 7:02:45
  the situation should arouse. Then one day Musidi spoke of the illness of Calos,
• 7:02:51
  after which none marveled again at his sadness, since the sculptor's attachment was
• 7:02:56
  known to be deep and sacred. Subsequently, many went to visit Calos,
• 7:03:02
  and indeed noticed the pallor of his face, But there was about him a
• 7:03:06
  happy serenity which made his glance more magical than the glance of Musides, who
• 7:03:11
  was clearly distracted with anxiety, and who pushed aside all the slaves in his
• 7:03:15
  eagerness to feed and wait upon his friend. With his own hands. Hidden
• 7:03:19
  behind heavy curtains, stood the two unfinished figures of Taichi, little touched of
• 7:03:25
  late by the sick man and his faithful attendant. As Calos grew inexplicably weaker
• 7:03:30
  and weaker, despite the ministrations of puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend,
• 7:03:36
  he desired to be carried often to the grove which he so loved. There
• 7:03:41
  he would ask to be left alone, as if wishing to speak with unseen
• 7:03:45
  things. Musides ever granted his requests, though his eyes filled with visible tears
• 7:03:51
  at the thought that Calos should care more for the fawns and the dryads than
• 7:03:55
  for him. At last, the end drew near, and kan Telos discoursed
• 7:04:00
  of things beyond this life. Musides, weeping, promised him a sepulcher more
• 7:04:06
  lovely than the tomb of Mausolus, but Calos bade him speak no more of
• 7:04:11
  marble glories. Only one wish now haunted the mind of the dying man,
• 7:04:17
  that twigs from certain olive trees in the grove be buried by his resting place
• 7:04:21
  close to his head, and one night, sitting alone in the darkness of
• 7:04:26
  the olive grove, Calos died. Beautiful. Beyond words was the marble sepulcher
• 7:04:32
  which stricken Muzides carved for his beloved friend. None but Calos himself could have
• 7:04:37
  fashioned such bas reliefs, wherein were displayed all the splendors of Elysium. Nor
• 7:04:42
  did Muzides fail to bury close to calos head the olive twigs from the grove.
• 7:04:49
  As the first violence of Muzidi's grief gave place to resignation, he labored
• 7:04:55
  with diligence upon his figure of Tyche. All honor was now his, since
• 7:05:00
  as the tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of none save him or Chlos.
• 7:05:03
  His task proved e vent for his emotion, and he toiled more steadily
• 7:05:07
  each day, shunning the gaieties he had once relished. Meanwhile, his evenings
• 7:05:12
  were spent beside the tomb of his friend, where a young olive tree had
• 7:05:17
  sprung up near the sleeper's head. So swift was the growth of this tree,
• 7:05:22
  and so strange was its form, that all who beheld it exclaimed in
• 7:05:26
  surprise, and Musides seemed at once fascinated and repelled. Three years after the
• 7:05:33
  death of Calos, Musides dispatched a messenger to the Tyrant, and it was
• 7:05:37
  whispered in the Agora of Tegea that the mighty statue was finished. By this
• 7:05:44
  time, the tree by the tomb had attained amazing proportions, exceeding all other
• 7:05:48
  trees of its kind, and sending out a singularly heavy branch above the apartment
• 7:05:52
  in which Musides labored. As many visitors came to view the prodigious tree as
• 7:05:59
  to admire the arts of the sculptor, so that Muzides was seldom alone,
• 7:06:03
  but he did not mind his multitude of guests. Indeed, he seemed to
• 7:06:07
  dread being alone now that his absorbing work was done. The bleak mountain wind
• 7:06:12
  sighing through the olive grove, and the tomb tree had an uncanny way of
• 7:06:17
  forming vaguely articulate sounds. The sky was dark on the evening that the Tyrants
• 7:06:22
  emissaries came to Tegea. It was definitely known that they had come to bear
• 7:06:27
  away the great image of Tyche and bring eternal honor to Musides. So their
• 7:06:33
  reception by the Proxenoe was of great warmth. As the night wore on,
• 7:06:38
  a violent storm of wind broke over the crest of Manelis, and the men
• 7:06:44
  from far Syracuse were glad that they rested snugly in the town. They talked
• 7:06:48
  of their illustrious tyrant and of the splendor of his capital, and exulted in
• 7:06:53
  the glory of the statue which Musides had wrought for them. And then the
• 7:06:57
  men of Tigaeus s of the goodness of Musides, and of his heavy grief
• 7:07:03
  for his friend, and how not even the coming laurels of art could console
• 7:07:07
  him in the absence of Calos, who might have worn those laurels instead of
• 7:07:12
  the tree which grew by the tomb near the head of Calos. They also
• 7:07:15
  spoke, The wind shrieked more horribly, and both the Syracusans and the Arcadians
• 7:07:22
  prayed to Alos. In the sunshine of the morning, the Proxenoi led the
• 7:07:29
  tyrant's messengers up the slope to the abode of the sculptor. But the night
• 7:07:33
  wind had done strange things. Slaves cries ascended from a scene of desolation,
• 7:07:40
  and no more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of the vast hall,
• 7:07:44
  wherein Musides had dreamed and toiled, lone and shaken, mourned the humble
• 7:07:49
  courts in the lower walls, For upon the sumptuous greater peristyle had fallen squarely
• 7:07:56
  the heavy overhanging bough of the strange new tree, reducing the stately poem in
• 7:08:00
  marble with odd completeness to a mound of unsightly ruins. Strangers and Taijians stood
• 7:08:07
  aghast, looking from the wreckage to the great sinister tree, whose aspect was
• 7:08:14
  so weirdly human, and whose roots reached so queerly into the sculptured sepulcher of
• 7:08:18
  Caelos, And their fear and dismay increased when they searched the fallen apartment for
• 7:08:25
  of the gentle Musides and of the marvelously fashioned image of Tyche. No trace
• 7:08:30
  could be discovered amidst such stupendous ruin. Only chaos dwelt, and the representatives
• 7:08:37
  of two cities left disappointed, Syracusians that they had no statue home to bear,
• 7:08:44
  and Tajeans that they had no artists to crown. However, the Syracusans
• 7:08:49
  obtained after a while a very splendid statue in Athens, and the Tajeans consoled
• 7:08:56
  themselves by erecting in the Agora a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues,
• 7:09:02
  and brotherly piety of New Zides. But the olive groves still stands, as
• 7:09:08
  does the tree growing out of the tomb of Calos. And the old bee
• 7:09:11
  keeper told me that sometimes the boughs whisper to one another in the night wind,
• 7:09:18
  saying over and over again, oida, Oida, I know, I
• 7:09:22
  know, end of the tree. The White Ship by H. P.
• 7:09:30
  Lovecraft. I am Basil Elton, keeper of the North Point Light that my
• 7:09:40
  father and grandfather kept before me. Far from the shore stands the Gray Lighthouse,
• 7:09:47
  above sunken slimy rocks that are seen when the tide is low, but
• 7:09:49
  unseen when the tide is high. Past that beacon. For a century have
• 7:09:56
  swept the majestic barks of the Seven Seas. In the days of my grandfather
• 7:10:02
  there were many. In the days of my father not so many, And
• 7:10:07
  now there are so few that I sometimes feel strangely alone, as though I
• 7:10:11
  were the last man on our planet. From far shores came those white sailed
• 7:10:18
  argaces of old from far eastern shores, where warm suns shine and sweet odors
• 7:10:25
  linger about strange gardens and gay temples. The old captains of the sea came
• 7:10:33
  often to my grandfather and told him of these things, which in turn he
• 7:10:37
  told to my father, and my father told to me in the long autumn
• 7:10:41
  evenings, when the wind howled eerily from the east. And I have read
• 7:10:48
  more of these things, and of many things besides, in the books men
• 7:10:52
  gave me when I was young and filled with wonder But more wonderful than the
• 7:11:00
  lore of old men and the lore of books, is the secret lore of
• 7:11:04
  ocean, blue green, gray, white, or black, smooth, ruffled
• 7:11:12
  or mountainous. That ocean is not silent. All my days have I watched
• 7:11:21
  it and listened to it, and I know it well. At first it
• 7:11:27
  told to me only the plain little tales of calm beaches and near ports.
• 7:11:34
  But with the years it grew more friendly and spoke of other things, of
• 7:11:40
  things more strange and more distant in time and space. Sometimes at twilight,
• 7:11:48
  the gray vapors of the horizon have parted to grant me glimpses of the ways
• 7:11:52
  beyond, and sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea have grown clear
• 7:11:59
  and phosphorescent to grant me glimpses of the ways beneath. And these glimpses have
• 7:12:06
  been as often of the ways that were and the ways that might be,
• 7:12:11
  as of the ways that are. For ocean is more ancient than the mountains,
• 7:12:17
  and freighted with the memories and the dreams of time. Out of the
• 7:12:25
  south, it was that the white ship used to come when the moon was
• 7:12:29
  full and high in the heavens. Out of the south. It would glide
• 7:12:34
  very smoothly and silently over the sea, And whether the sea was rough or
• 7:12:41
  calm, and whether the wind was friendly or adverse, it would always glide
• 7:12:47
  smoothly and silently, its sails distant, and its long, strange tears of
• 7:12:53
  oars moving rhythmically. One night I asked bid upon the deck a man bearded
• 7:13:03
  and robed, and he seemed to beckon me to embark for far unknown shores.
• 7:13:10
  Many times afterward I saw him under the full moon, and never did
• 7:13:15
  he beckon me. Very brightly did the moon shine on the night. I
• 7:13:22
  answered the call, and I walked out over the waters to the white ship
• 7:13:29
  on a bridge of moonbeams. The man who had beckoned now spoke a welcome
• 7:13:34
  to me in a soft language I seemed to know well, And the hours
• 7:13:40
  were filled with soft songs of the oarsmen. As we glided away into a
• 7:13:45
  mysterious south, golden with the glow of that full, mellow moon. And
• 7:13:52
  when the day dawned, rosy and effulgent, I beheld the green shore of
• 7:13:57
  far Lands, bright and beautiful, and to me unknown up from the sea
• 7:14:04
  rose lordly terraces of verture, tree studded and showing here and there the gleaming
• 7:14:11
  white roofs and colonnades of strange temples. As we drew nearer the green shore,
• 7:14:18
  the bearded man told me of that land, the land of Czar,
• 7:14:22
  where dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and
• 7:14:27
  then are forgotten. And when I looked upon the terraces again, I saw
• 7:14:33
  that what he said was true. For among the sites before me were many
• 7:14:38
  things I had once seen through the mists beyond the horizon. And in the
• 7:14:44
  phosphorescent depths of ocean, there too were forms and fantasies more splendid than any
• 7:14:51
  I had ever known. The visions of young poets who died in Wont before
• 7:14:56
  the world could learn of what they had seen Entrey. But we did not
• 7:15:03
  set foot upon the sloping meadows of Czar, for it is told that he
• 7:15:07
  who treads them may never more return to his native shore. As the white
• 7:15:14
  ship sailed silently away from the templed terraces of Czar, we beheld on the
• 7:15:19
  distant horizon ahead the spires of a mighty city. And the bearded man said
• 7:15:25
  to me, this is the Lian, the city of a thousand wonders,
• 7:15:30
  wherein reside all those mysteries that man has striven in vain to fathom. And
• 7:15:37
  I looked again at closer range, and saw that the city was greater than
• 7:15:42
  any city I had known or dreamed of before. Into the sky the spires
• 7:15:48
  of its temples reached so that no man might behold their peaks, And far
• 7:15:53
  back beyond the horizon stretched the grim, gray walls, over which one might
• 7:15:59
  spy only a few roofs. Weird and ominous, yet adorned with rich friezes
• 7:16:07
  and alluring sculptures. I yearned mightily to enter this fascinating yet repellent city,
• 7:16:15
  and besought the bearded man to land me at the stone pier by the huge
• 7:16:19
  carbon gate Aciel. But he gently denied my wish, saying, into Thalarian,
• 7:16:29
  the city of a thousand wonders, many have passed, but none returned.
• 7:16:34
  Therein walk on the demons and mad things that are no longer men,
• 7:16:41
  and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon
• 7:16:45
  the idol Unlathi that reigns over the city. So the white ship sailed on
• 7:16:52
  past the walls of Thalarian, and followed for many days a southward flying bird,
• 7:16:57
  whose glossy plumage matched the sky out of which it had appeared. Then
• 7:17:07
  came we to a pleasant coast, gay with blossoms of every hue, where
• 7:17:11
  as far inland as we could see vast lovely groves and ragent arbors beneath the
• 7:17:17
  meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of
• 7:17:25
  lyric harmony, interspersed with faint laughter, so delicious that I urged the rowers
• 7:17:30
  onward in my eagerness to reach the scene. And the bearded man spoke no
• 7:17:37
  word, but watched me as we approached the lily lined shore. Suddenly a
• 7:17:45
  wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which
• 7:17:49
  I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the
• 7:17:56
  lethal charnel odor of plague stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. And as we sailed
• 7:18:03
  madly away from that damnable coast, the bearded man spoke at last, saying,
• 7:18:10
  this is Sura, the land of pleasures unattained. So once more the
• 7:18:18
  white ship followed the bird of Heaven over warm, blessed seas, fanned by
• 7:18:22
  caressing aromatic breezes. Day after day, and night after night did we sail,
• 7:18:30
  And when the moon was full, we would listen to soft songs of
• 7:18:33
  the oarsmen, sweet as on that distant night when we sailed away from my
• 7:18:38
  far native land. And it was by moonlight that we anchored at last in
• 7:18:45
  the harbor of Sunna Nil, which is guarded by twin headlands of crystal that
• 7:18:52
  rise from the sea and meet in a resplendent arch. This is the land
• 7:18:57
  of fancy. And we walked to the verdant shore upon a golden bridge of
• 7:19:03
  moonbeams. In the land of Sonnannil, there is neither time nor space,
• 7:19:12
  neither suffering nor death. And there I dwelt for many eons. Green are
• 7:19:19
  the groves and pastures, bright and fragrant, the flowers blue and musical,
• 7:19:25
  the streams clear and cool, the fountains and stately and gorgeous. The temples,
• 7:19:30
  castles and cities of Sonanil of that land there is no bound, for
• 7:19:38
  beyond each vista of beauty rises another more beautiful over the countryside, and amidst
• 7:19:45
  the splendor of cities can move at will, the happy folk, of whom
• 7:19:49
  all are gifted with unmarred grace and unalloyed happiness. For the eons I dwelt.
• 7:19:59
  There, I wandered blissfully through gardens, where quaint pagodas peep from pleasing
• 7:20:03
  clumps of bushes, and where the white walks are bordered with delicate blossoms.
• 7:20:11
  I climbed gentle hills, from whose summits I could see entrancing panoramas of loveliness,
• 7:20:17
  with steeple towns nestling in verdant valleys, and with the golden domes of
• 7:20:22
  gigantic cities glittering on the infinitely distant horizon. And I viewed by moonlight,
• 7:20:29
  the sparkling Sea, the crystal headlands, and the placid Harbor, wherein lay
• 7:20:34
  anchored the White Ship. It was against the full moon one night in the
• 7:20:42
  immemorial year of Tharp that I saw outlined the beckoning form of the celestial bird,
• 7:20:49
  and felt the first stirrings of unrest. Then I spoke with the bearded
• 7:20:56
  man and told him of my new yearnings to depart for remote Cathuria, which
• 7:21:02
  no man hath seen, but which all believed to lie beyond the basalt pillars
• 7:21:06
  of the west. It is the land of hope, and in it shine
• 7:21:11
  the perfect ideals of all that we know elsewhere, or at least some men
• 7:21:17
  relate. But the bearded Man said to me, beware of those perilous seas,
• 7:21:25
  wherein men say Cathuria lies in sooner n ill there is no pain or
• 7:21:33
  death. But who can tell what lies beyond the basalt pillars of the west.
• 7:21:41
  Nevertheless, at the next full moon, I bordered the White Ship,
• 7:21:45
  and with the reluctant bearded Man, left the happy harbor for untraveled seas,
• 7:21:53
  And the bird of Heaven flew before and led us toward the basalt pillars of
• 7:21:59
  the West. But this time, the oarsmen sang no soft songs under the
• 7:22:04
  full moon. In my mind, I would often picture the unknown land of
• 7:22:11
  Cathuria, with its splendid groves and palaces, and would wonder what new delights
• 7:22:17
  there awaited me. Kathuria, I would say to myself, is the abode
• 7:22:22
  of gods and the land of unnumbered cities of gold. Its forests are of
• 7:22:27
  aloe and sandalwood, even as the fragrant groves of camorin, and among the
• 7:22:33
  trees flutter gay birds, sweet with song. On the green and flowery mountains
• 7:22:38
  of Cathuria stand temples of pink marble, rich with carven and painted glories,
• 7:22:44
  and having in their courtyards cool fountains of silver, where purr with ravishing music.
• 7:22:49
  The scented waters that come from the grotto born river narg And the cities
• 7:22:56
  of Cathuria are cinctured with golden walls and their paved and also are of gold.
• 7:23:02
  In the gardens of these cities are strange orchids and perfumed lakes, whose
• 7:23:06
  beds are of coral and amber. At night, the streets and the gardens
• 7:23:11
  are lit with gray lanterns fashioned from the three colored shell of the tortoise,
• 7:23:17
  and here resound the soft notes of the singer and the lutinist. And the
• 7:23:22
  houses of the cities of Cathuria are all palaces, each built over a fragrant
• 7:23:27
  canal bearing the waters of the sacred narg of Marble and porphyry are the houses,
• 7:23:34
  and rooved with glittering gold that reflects the rays of the sun and enhances
• 7:23:41
  the splendor of the cities as blissful gods view them from the distant peaks.
• 7:23:45
  Fairest of all is the palace of the great monarch Dorip, whom some say
• 7:23:51
  to be a demigod and others a god. High is the palace of dorieb
• 7:23:56
  and many are the turrets of marble upon its walls. In its wide halls,
• 7:24:03
  many multitudes assemble, and here hang the trophies of the ages. And
• 7:24:07
  the roof is of pure gold, set upon tall pillars of ruby and azure,
• 7:24:14
  and having such carven figures of gods and heroes, that he who looks
• 7:24:17
  up to those heights seems to gaze upon the living Olympus. And the floor
• 7:24:22
  of the palace is of glass, under which flow the cunningly lighted waters of
• 7:24:29
  the Narg Gay with gaudy fish, not known beyond the bounds of lovely Cathuria.
• 7:24:38
  Thus would I speak to myself of Cathuria. But ever would the bearded
• 7:24:42
  man warn me to turn back to the happy shore of Sonanil. For Sonnanil
• 7:24:49
  is known of men, while none hath ever beheld Cathuria. And on the
• 7:24:57
  thirty first day the we followed the bird, we beheld the basalt pillars of
• 7:25:03
  the west, shrouded in mist. They were so that no man might peer
• 7:25:08
  beyond them or see their summits, which indeed some say reach even to the
• 7:25:14
  heavens. And the bearded man again implored me to turn back. But I
• 7:25:19
  heeded him not, for from the mists beyond the basalt pillars I fancied,
• 7:25:25
  there came the notes of singers and lutenists, sweeter than the sweetest songs of
• 7:25:30
  son Anil, and sounding mine own praises, the praises of me, who
• 7:25:37
  had voyaged far from the full moon and dwelt in the land of fancy.
• 7:25:45
  So to the sound of melody, the white ship sailed into the mist betwixt
• 7:25:49
  the basalt pillars of the West. And when the music ceased and the mist
• 7:25:56
  lifted, we beheld not the land of Cathuria, but a swift, rushing,
• 7:26:03
  restless sea over which our helpless bark was borne towards some unknown goal.
• 7:26:12
  Soon to our ears came the distant thunder of falling waters, and to our
• 7:26:18
  eyes appeared on the far horizon ahead the titanic spray of a monstrous cataract,
• 7:26:25
  wherein the oceans of the world dropped down to abysmal nothingness. Then did the
• 7:26:33
  bearded man say to me, with tears on his cheek, we have rejected
• 7:26:38
  the beautiful land of Sun and Nil, which we may never behold again.
• 7:26:45
  The gods are greater than men, and they have conquered. And I closed
• 7:26:52
  my eyes before the crash that I knew would come, shutting out the sight
• 7:26:57
  of the celestial bird, which flapped its mocking blue wings over the brink of
• 7:27:03
  the torrent. Out of that crash came darkness, and I heard the shrieking
• 7:27:10
  of men and of things which were not men. From the east, tempestuous
• 7:27:18
  winds arose and chilled me as I crouched on the slab of damp stone which
• 7:27:22
  had risen beneath my feet. Then, as I heard another crash, I
• 7:27:30
  opened my eyes and beheld myself upon the platform of that lighthouse, whence I
• 7:27:36
  had sailed so many eons ago. In the darkness below. There loomed the
• 7:27:42
  vast, blurred outlines of a vessel breaking up on the cruel rocks. And
• 7:27:49
  as I glanced out over the waist, I saw that the light had failed
• 7:27:52
  for the first time since my grandfather had assumed its care. And in the
• 7:28:00
  later watches of the night, when I went within the tower, I saw
• 7:28:04
  on the wall a calender which still remained as when I had left it in
• 7:28:08
  the hour I sailed away with the dawn. I descended the tower and looked
• 7:28:15
  for wreckage upon the rocks. But what I found was only this, a
• 7:28:22
  strange dead bird, whose hue was as of the azure sky, and a
• 7:28:27
  single shattered spar of a whiteness greater than that of the wave tips or of
• 7:28:34
  the mountain snow. And thereafter the ocean told me its secrets no more.
• 7:28:44
  And though many time since has the moon shone full and high in the heavens,
• 7:28:49
  the white ship from the South never came again. And the white ship
• 7:29:00
  up by H. P. Lovecraft