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H.P. LOVECRAFT The Complete Omnibus Volume I: 1917-1926

— A Pulp-Lit Omnibus Edition —

By H.P. LOVECRAFT Edited and annotated by FINN J.D. JOHN

Pulp-Lit PRODUCTIONS Corvallis, Oregon Copyright ©2016 by Finn J.D. John.

All rights reserved, with the exception of all text written by Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft and all text and art originally published in , on which copyright protections have expired worldwide. In the spirit of good stewardship of the public domain, no copyright claim is asserted over any of H.P. Lovecraft’s original text or any of the magazine art as presented in this book, including any and all corrections and style changes made to the originals.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Pulp-Lit Productions, Post Office Box 77, Corvallis, OR 97339, or e-mail [email protected].

Second edition: Interactive PDF

ISBN: 978-1-63591-258-6

Dustjacket art:

Dust jacket: Front cover adopted from Harold S. DeLay’s cover illustration for In the Walls of Eryx, by H.P. Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling, for the October 1939 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Back cover adopted from ’s illustration for The Shunned House (see Page 301), in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Cover design by Fiona Mac Daibheid and Natalie L. Conaway.

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http://pulp-lit.com Other Pulp-Lit Productions titles Robert E. Howard’s CONAN the CIMMERIAN BARBARIAN: you might enjoy: •Hardcover (860 pages)

H.P. LOVECRAFT: The Complete •Pulp-sized 7x10 softcover Omnibus, Vol. II: 1927-1935: •E-book •Hardcover (606 pages) •Audiobook (35.1 hours) •Pulp-sized 7x10 softcover •E-book The JOHN CARTER of MARS Trilogy of . •Audiobook (27 hours) •Hardcover (636 pages) FUNGI FROM : THE •6x9 softcover SONNET CYCLE by H.P. Lovecraft. •E-book •Hardcover (102 pages) •Audiobook (19.5 hours) •Pocket-size softcover •E-book of the APES and THE RETURN of TARZAN •Audiobook (1.3 hours) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. SUPERNATURAL HORROR in •6x9 softcover (590 pages) FICTION by H.P. Lovecraft. •E-book •Hardcover (128 pages) •Audiobook (16.5 hours) •Pocket-size softcover •E-book THE LISTENER and OTHER TALES by Algernon Blackwood. •Audiobook (3 hours) •Hardcover (340 pages) •Pocket-size softcover For our full catalog search “Pulp-Lit” on your favorite bookseller's Website, or see •E-book http://pulp-lit.com. •Audiobook (8 hours)

TABLE of CONTENTS. This book is available in other formats: FOREWORD. (audiobook chapter 2)...... xiii Audiobook, e-book, , hardcover. 1917: A change of Literary Style. (audiobook chapter 3)...... 1 . (audiobook chapter 4) ...... 3 . (audiobook chapter 5) ...... 13 A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson. (audiobook ch. 6). . 19

You are reading the complimentary electronic copy of H.P. Lovecraft: The 1918: The GHOSTWRITER. (audiobook chapter 7) ...... 25 Complete Omnibus, Volume I, in the Adobe PDF format — Pulp-Lit Productions’ . (audiobook chapter 8) ...... 27 version of Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature, only including the entire book. Whether you’re here checking it out to see if you might want to own a copy, or doing a quick search, or even retrieving a clean digital copy of one of Lovecraft’s 1919: The GENTLEMAN FICTIONEER. (audiobook ch. 9). . 31 stories for a project of your own — welcome! . (audiobook chapter 10) ...... 33 But, of course, PDF is hardly the most convenient format in which to read a book. Old Bugs. (audiobook chapter 11) ...... 43 Here are a few other options that are available, followed by a link to take you directly The Transition of Juan Romero. (audiobook chapter 12). . . .51 to them: . (audiobook chapter 13)...... 59 • Hardcover multimedia bundle edition (includes audiobook and e-book); . (audiobook chapter 14) ...... 65 • Deluxe 7x10 pulp-magazine-size softcover; The Doom that Came to Sarnath. (audiobook chapter 15) . . .71 • E-book in EPUB and Kindle formats; • Audiobook (35 hours). The Statement of . (audiobook chapter 16) . .77 To learn more about these other formats, please click here to go to the H.P. (audiobook ch. 17) Lovecraft Volume I Book Support Page at http://pulp-lit.com/250.html. 1920: FINDING LIKE-MINDED SOULS. . .83 The Terrible Old Man. (audiobook chapter 18)...... 85 . (audiobook chapter 19)...... 89 Thank you for reading our books! Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family. (audiobook chapter 20) ...... 93 I (ch. 20) . . . . 93 II (ch. 21). . . .97

viii ix

The Cats of Ulthar. (audiobook chapter 22) ...... 103 1923: The Weird Tales Era Begins. (audiobook chapter 50) . . . . 261 From Beyond. (audiobook chapter 23)...... 107 . (audiobook chapter 51)...... 263 CelephaÏs. (audiobook chapter 24)...... 115 The Unnamable. (audiobook chapter 52)...... 281 Nyarlarthotep. (audiobook chapter 25)...... 121 The Festival. (audiobook chapter 53)...... 289 The Temple. (audiobook chapter 26) ...... 125 The Picture in the House. (audiobook chapter 27)...... 137 1924: Failure to Launch. (audiobook chapter 54) ...... 297 The Shunned House. (audiobook chapters 55-59) ...... 301 1921: Unexpectedly an orphan. (audiobook ch. 28)...... 145 I (ch. 55) . . . .301 IV (ch. 58). . . . .314 . (audiobook chapter 29)...... 147 II (ch. 56). . . .305 V (ch. 59) . . . 320 The Quest of Iranon. (audiobook chapter 30) ...... 159 III (ch. 57). . . 309 Ex Oblivione. (audiobook chapter 31) ...... 165 The Moon Bog. (audiobook chapter 32) ...... 167 1925: The Year in Exile. (audiobook chapter 60)...... 325 The Outsider. (audiobook chapter 33)...... 175 . (audiobook chapters 61-67). . . . 327 . (audiobook chapter 34) ...... 181 I (ch.61 ) . . . .327 V (ch. 65) . . . 338 . (audiobook chapter 35). . . . . 187 II (ch. 62). . . .329 VI (ch. 66). . . . .340 , Reanimator. (audiobook chapters 36-41). . . .195 III (ch. 63). . . 332 VII (ch. 67). . .343 I (ch. 36) . . . .195 IV (ch. 39). . . . .208 IV (ch. 64). . . 334 II (ch. 37). . . .199 V (ch. 40) . . . 212 . (audiobook chapter 68) ...... 347 III (ch. 38). . . 204 VI (ch. 41). . . . .216 . (audiobook chapter 69) ...... 355

1922: Crossing New Thresholds. (audiobook ch. 42) ...... 223 1926: Back in Space, Back in Time. (audiobook chapter 70). . . .365 . (audiobook chapter 43)...... 225 . (audiobook chapter 71)...... 367 What the Moon Brings. (audiobook chapter 44)...... 233 The Call of . (audiobook chapters 72-74)...... 375 . (audiobook chapter 45) ...... 235 I. The Horror in Clay (ch. 72)...... 375 The Lurking Fear. (audiobook chapters 46-49)...... 243 II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse (ch. 73). . 381 I. A Shadow on the Chimney (ch. 46) . . . 243 III. The Madness from the Sea (ch. 74) . . . 392 II. A Passer in the Storm (ch. 47) . . . . . 247 Pickman’s Model. (audiobook chapter 75) ...... 401 III. What the Red Glare Meant (ch. 48). . . 250 The Strange High House in the Mist. (audiobook ch. 76) . . 413 IV. The Horror in the Eyes (ch. 49). . . . .254 . (audiobook chapter 77)...... 421 x xi

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. (audiobook ch. 78-83).433 History of the . (audiobook ch. 83) . . . . . 521

Afterword.. (audiobook chapter 84) ...... 523

Appendix. . (audiobook chapter 85) ...... 525 The Alchemist. (audiobook chapter 86)...... 527 Sweet Ermengarde; or, The Heart FOREWORD. of a Country Girl. (audiobook chapter 87 ...... 535 I. A Simple Rustic Maid...... 535 [return to table of contents] II. And the Villain Still Pursued Her. . . .537 III. A Dastardly Act ...... 538 IV. Subtle Villainy...... 538 oward Phillips Lovecraft Lovecraft wrote—not by a long V. The City Chap...... 539 was born on August 10, stretch. It excludes his juvenilia, his VI. Alone in the Great City...... 539 1890—a product of the philosophical ruminations, his VII. Happy Ever Afterward...... 540 VictorianH era. In many ways, he nonfiction writings, his vast collec- remained a Victorian man until his tion of poetry, and, of course his death in 1937. Along the way, he letters. It also excludes (with the produced a body of weird-fiction exception of Through the Gates of the work that, sparse though it is, has Silver Key, in Volume II) works had a tremendous influence on written in collaboration with other 20th- and 21st-century literature. authors, such as Robert Barlow and That body of work is contained , or clients of his ghost- in this two-volume omnibus edition: writing business such as Hazel all of Lovecraft’s prose-fiction Heald and Harry Houdini. output published under his own Taken together, these other writ- name between 1917, when he first ings dwarf the weird-fiction writings turned from the turgid Georgian contained in this edition. His letters poetry that he then favored, until his alone total many times more than death from cancer in 1937. It’s everything else he wrote put important to note, though, that this together; estimates of his total edition includes just Lovecraft’s production range from 30,000 to prose fiction. It is not everything 100,000 letters sent to family xii H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

members, friends, and fellow writers. universe, adds a whole new dimen- tertiary-stage syphilis. If it was, he observe the heavens. He even began Nor are these letters light reading; sion to the enjoyment of his work. was somehow able to avoid trans- publishing two amateur scientific when courting his wife, Sonia And it’s that familiarity that this mitting it to his wife.) Left in the journals, the Scientific Gazette and Greene, he regularly sent her letters edition seeks to make available to family were his mother, an aunt, Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy. in the 40-to-50-page range. Late in the casual reader. and his grandfather, Whipple Van By 1906, at the age of 16, his life, when his circumstances were For readers who are interested Buren Phillips. Lovecraft was writing a monthly really straitened, he actually skipped in a more in-depth treatment of the Whipple took a particular column on astronomy in the daily meals to finance the postage on these life and times of this fascinating interest in young Howard, particu- Providence Evening Tribune. He colossal missives. man, the recent scholarly work of larly as the boy showed great interest continued producing the Rhode What follows is a brief biog- S.T. Joshi is by far the most in literary topics. The old man Island Journal of Astronomy, and he raphy of our author. It is by no means complete—A Dreamer and a provided him with exciting books also had a small printing press, with intended to replace a real, detailed Visionary: H.P. Lovecraft in his Time and told him wild Gothic witch- which he produced cards. biography, but rather to help fit his (Liverpool University Press, 2001; tales, stirring the youngster’s interest But after 1908 or so, he seems stories together into a coherent 422 pages) or, for an even more in horror stories. Despite the loss of to have abruptly ended this phenom- canon, to aid the reader in getting exhaustive treatment, I Am his father, these were wonderful enal of intellectual productivity, familiar with the sequence, circum- Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. times for little Howard, full of people and plunged into a 10-year season stances and context of each of Lovecraft (two-volume set, who loved him and completely free of lethargy. This was just about the Lovecraft’s works as they are Hippocampus Press, 2010; 564 and of any concern about money. time he should have been graduating presented herein. 598 pages, respectively). Also worthy Whipple Phillips had been a from high school; however, instead This is especially helpful in of note is L. Sprague de Camp’s H.P. successful businessman, and the of doing that, he suffered a nervous reading Lovecraft, because Lovecraft: A Biography (Ballantine family lived a comfortable upper- breakdown and dropped out of sight. throughout his career, each of his Books, 1976; 480 pages), which, class life. Biographer S.T. Joshi makes a stories built on his previous work. although somewhat controversial in But just after 1900, Whipple convincing case that this breakdown Sometimes he does this in obvious its approach, is an easier read—more started suffering business reversals. may have been precipitated by ways, as with his increasing devel- conversational and less ivory-tow- Before he could straighten them out, Lovecraft’s realization that his lack opment of and reliance on Outer erish in its storytelling style, and less Whipple died, in 1904. The loss of aptitude for mathematics would Gods—especially Cthulhu and contemptuous of Lovecraft’s pulpier young Howard hard, and the finances make his lifelong goal of becoming Yog-Sothoth—after introducing contemporaries. of his family were hit harder. They a scientist impossible. It may also them in 1925. In other cases the had to move out of the mansion in have had to do with a realization references are more subtle—for he youthful H.P. Lovecraft which they’d lived, the first in a series that his family’s finances wouldn’t instance, the the appearance of was a bright, precocious of economizing moves made neces- allow him to move on to Brown Richard Pickman of “Pickman’s little tyke, who took to sary by ever-dwindling resources. University as he had hoped to do. Model” in The Dream-Quest of Treciting poetry when he was three As a youth, Lovecraft showed Whatever the cause, Lovecraft, Unknown Kadath. and writing it when he was six. great intelligence and promise. He at age 18, went into a half-decade- Lovecraft’s writings were created When he was three, his father seemed destined for an academic long retreat from the world. During in the context both of his life, and developed some kind of psychosis life, perhaps as an astronomy this time, he read voraciously and of a growing fictional universe to and was committed to an insane professor. He read voraciously and omnivorously, and pounded out which his works make contributions, asylum, where he died five years conducted scientific experiments in thousands of lines of poetry in the additions and references throughout later. (Speculation continues to this a basement chemical laboratory. He style of the 1700s. It wasn’t bad his career; being familiar with that day as to whether the cause of this was 13 when he got his first tele- poetry; in fact, as time went on, prac- context, and with it that fictional psychosis might have been scope, and used it to relentlessly tice made it remarkably good, xiv xv H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

although never (by most accounts) Here it is vital to understand circles of friends among amateur- try his hand at the writing of a new truly great. (The Georgian drinking that for a Victorian gentleman (as press enthusiasts contributed kind of . He took his song reproduced in The Vault is a H.P. Lovecraft always styled himself content for each other’s periodicals, first steps toward doing this at the good example of Lovecraft’s best to be), the word “Amateur” meant met up for social events, collaborated age of 27, in 1917. work in this style.) But, be it good something quite different from what on big storytelling projects, fell in or bad, Lovecraft’s poetry of this it conjures today. To Lovecraft, love with one another, squabbled here is one more item that period wasn’t taking him anywhere; “amateur” meant not a mediocre and fought with one another, formed must be addressed in any after all, it was two centuries out of bodger, but rather a gentleman of and re-formed cliques, and generally modern treatment of fashion. leisure engaging in an activity for behaved like what it was: a commu- TLovecraft’s work, and that is his Thus, Lovecraft lumbered along love of knowledge rather than for nity. More specifically, it was a treatment of issues of race and in near-total obscurity for a good hope of gain. Charles Darwin was community of like-minded souls racism. There is no question but five years, reading and producing an amateur naturalist. James Clerk who appreciated Lovecraft, that several of Lovecraft’s works reams and reams of writings that, Maxwell (Lord Kelvin) was an Georgian poetry and all, and made are profoundly informed by the although steadily improving, weren’t amateur physicist. And H.P. him feel welcome and at home. author’s blithe assumption of his marketable—a set of circumstances Lovecraft was now determined to It is to this community that we own northern-European ethnic that will sound very familiar to be an amateur publisher. owe the greatest thanks for having group’s innate superiority to all anyone who’s pursued a bachelor’s By 1915, Lovecraft was pushed Lovecraft out of his stodgy others, and by his free and unre- degree in college. Lovecraft, a life- publishing his own amateur maga- pre-Revolutionary literary rut and flective use of stereotypes of long autodidact, was giving himself zine: The Conservative. It was, natu- into the vanguard of a brand-new remarkable crudeness for cheap his own particular undergraduate rally, a great place to look for twist on the old 19th-century dramatic effect. education, although he surely wasn’t Georgian poetry, if one were inter- Gothic horror story: Weird fiction. There is currently a lively debate self-aware enough to think of it in ested in that sort of thing, along with We especially owe that word of among interested parties over that way. whatever else Lovecraft’s friends thanks to one particular highly whether Lovecraft was “a product of Then, in 1913, he found himself might have had to contribute to the respected member of the amateur- his time,” or whether he was moved to complain in a letter to the title. press community, named W. Paul somehow worse than his contem- editor of the classic Amateur journalism was to the Cook. Cook persuaded Lovecraft to poraries, and therefore deserving of The Argosy about the quality of early 20th century what blogging is publish his best piece of juvenilia, a special condemnation. This argu- stories it had published by inspira- to the early 21st. Indeed, the paral- very promising short story written ment is, upon close examination, tional-romance author Fred Jackson. lels are striking. Amateur journalists when Lovecraft was still in high rather a silly one. Lovecraft’s time The letter sparked a flurry of purchased small and inexpensive school titled “The Alchemist,” in included such characters as Adolf responses from Jackson’s fans, who hand-operated printing presses and United Amateur in late 1916. Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Charles rose to his defense. In the letters produced regular small-run period- (Although this edition specifically Henry Martin, and plenty of much- section of The Argosy, Lovecraft gave icals circulated among friends, just excludes Lovecraft’s juvenilia, loved Americans (Theodore as good as he got, but never let as modern bloggers purchase inex- because of the importance of “The Roosevelt, for one) also subscribed things get nasty; soon he found pensive shared-host Internet Alchemist” in catalyzing Lovecraft’s to racist and eugenicist theories. And himself with several new friends accounts, install Wordpress on them writing career, we have included it those theories were, as Edward Said among those arguing against him. and produce regular columns. The in Appendix A, at the end of this exhaustively demonstrates in his This led to his introduction to the quality and fidelity to deadlines of volume.) 1978 book Orientalism, being hobby that, more than any other amateur-press work varied just as Response to “The Alchemist” presented as legitimate fields of factor, would shape the course of his widely as does the quality of blogs was enthusiastic enough to persuade academic study in at least some life: Amateur journalism. today. And as with blogs today, Lovecraft to set aside his poetry and colleges and universities at the time. xvi xvii H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

Nonetheless, the current reac- career covered by Volume I of this tion against the ethnic chauvinism omnibus collection. During of Lovecraft’s early work demon- Lovecraft’s life, up through 1925 or strates the great and growing aware- so, he was a virtual shut-in being ness of the dark side of vintage weird cared for by his mother and aunts. fiction. These stories are all about In later years, after he had begun his dark, ominous forces we cannot extensive travels around the country understand; in the 1920s, those to visit literary friends and seek out forces were often, in that bleaker and new material for his darksome less-connected world of a century stories, the racism and xenophobia ago, our fellow humans in faraway drains from his stories like water lands whose culture was as yet from a colander. (His marriage to 1917: unknown and therefore potentially , who was Jewish, scary. (The “devil-worshipping” surely also contributed to this change Yazidi, in “The Horror at Red in Lovecraft’s attitude.) This is an A CHANGE of LITERARY STYLE. Hook,” are Exhibit A here.) encouraging pattern, suggesting as This kind of thing really does it does that ignorance and prejudice [return to table of contents] come with the territory—awkward seldom survive the light shone on as it so often is to encounter it them by personal human floating in an otherwise-excellent interactions. story like a horsefly in a glass of .P. Lovecraft was 27 years 4,000-word short story “The Tomb.” Finn J.D. John. Amontillado. The increasing popular old in 1917, when he Although its plot was not up to the awareness of this Achilles heel of turned his literary talents standards of Lovecraft’s later work, January 15, 2016 pre-war fiction is unquestionably a once again to the writing of weird it’s still a whacking great work of Corvallis, Oregon H good thing, so long as it does not fiction after nine years of writing weird fiction, already drenched with lead to the throwing-out of the almost nothing but nonfiction and the layered ambiance of sublime, proverbial baby with the obsolescent poetry. cryptic dread that would soon make bathwater. “I wish I had not dropped its author famous. Probably the best Of particular note, for archaic [fiction] writing in the nine years thing about “The Tomb” is the and offensive notions of race and between 1908 and 1917,” he wrote Georgian poetry which Lovecraft class, are “The Transition of Juan in a letter that year. deftly mixes into it, making it a nice Romero,” “The Street,” “Facts But if a decade of immersion in transition from the old into the new. Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn the style and conventions of the late Lovecraft clearly saw immedi- and his Family,” and “The Horror 1700s hadn’t left Lovecraft with ately that he had found a new literary at Red Hook”; there is also a very much marketable poetry, it turned passion. “The Tomb” was quickly unfortunately-named cat in “The out to have been a fantastic training followed up with one of his most Rats in the Walls.” regimen for the kind of fiction influential tales, if not a particularly It is also worth noting, while writing that would shortly make him famous one— “Dagon.” It is in we’re on this topic, that Lovecraft’s famous—although, alas, never rich. “Dagon” that we first see the “cyclo- xenophobia was at its highest early His first professional-grade pean ruins rising from the depths of in his career—the portion of his work of weird fiction was the the sea” motif, which has become xviii H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

almost a cliché, along with the borrowing of made-up “half-for- gotten myths” of gods of ancient civilizations. Finally, “A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson” was a sort of wry tip of the hat to the Georgian-era phase of earlier times, and Lovecraft used the pseudonym “Humphrey Littlewit, Esq.” when publishing it. These short works— “The Tomb” and “Dagon” especially— were very well received among Lovecraft’s amateur-press colleagues. However, it’s important to remember that at The TOMB. this time, weird fiction was strictly a hobby for Lovecraft—or, more [return to table of contents] accurately, a minor part of a hobby. During 1917, Lovecraft’s primary Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam. preoccupation was with his amateur- —Virgil press activities—publishing, writing nonfiction and hammering out poetry in the style of the 1700s. He n relating the circumstances mental media through which we may have suspected he was onto which have led to my confine- are made conscious of them; but something good, but he had yet to ment within this refuge for the the prosaic materialism of the figure out how important fiction demented, I am aware that my majority condemns as madness the writing would be in his life. I present position will create a flashes of super-sight which pene- natural doubt of the authenticity of trate the common veil of obvious my narrative. It is an unfortunate empiricism. fact that the bulk of humanity is My name is Jervas Dudley, and too limited in its mental vision to from earliest childhood I have been weigh with patience and intelli- a dreamer and a visionary. Wealthy gence those isolated phenomena, beyond the necessity of a commercial seen and felt only by a psychologi- life, and temperamentally unfitted cally sensitive few, which lie outside for the formal studies and social its common experience. Men of recreations of my acquaintances, I broader intellect know that there is have dwelt ever in realms apart from no sharp distinction betwixt the the visible world; spending my youth real and the unreal; that all things and adolescence in ancient and little- appear as they do only by virtue of known books, and in roaming the the delicate individual physical and fields and groves of the region near 2 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • The TOMB

my ancestral home. I do not think ancient granite, weathered and disc- Nature transmutes the sylvan land- death or decay. But in that instant that what I read in these books or oloured by the mists and dampness scape to one vivid and almost homo- of curiosity was born the madly saw in these fields and groves was of generations. Excavated back into geneous mass of green; when the unreasoning desire which has exactly what other boys read and saw the hillside, the structure is visible senses are well-nigh intoxicated with brought me to this hell of confine- there; but of this I must say little, only at the entrance. The door, a the surging seas of moist verdure and ment. Spurred on by a voice which since detailed speech would but ponderous and forbidding slab of the subtly indefinable odours of the must have come from the hideous confirm those cruel slanders upon stone, hangs upon rusted iron hinges, soil and the vegetation. In such soul of the forest, I resolved to enter my intellect which I sometimes over- and is fastened ajar in a queerly surroundings the mind loses its the beckoning gloom in spite of the hear from the whispers of the sinister way by means of heavy iron perspective; time and space become ponderous chains which barred my stealthy attendants around me. It is chains and padlocks, according to a trivial and unreal, and echoes of a passage. In the waning light of day sufficient for me to relate events gruesome fashion of half a century forgotten prehistoric past beat insis- I alternately rattled the rusty imped- without analysing causes. ago. The abode of the race whose tently upon the enthralled conscious- iments with a view to throwing wide I have said that I dwelt apart scions are inurned had once crowned ness. All day I had been wandering the stone door, and essayed to from the visible world, but I have the declivity which holds the tomb, through the mystic groves of the squeeze my slight form through the not said that I dwelt alone. This no but had long since fallen victim to hollow; thinking thoughts I need space already provided; but neither human creature may do; for lacking the flames which sprang up from a not discuss, and conversing with plan met with success. At first the fellowship of the living, he inev- disastrous stroke of lightning. Of the things I need not name. In years a curious, I was now frantic; and when itably draws upon the companion- midnight storm which destroyed this child of ten, I had seen and heard in the thickening twilight I returned ship of things that are not, or are no gloomy mansion, the older inhabi- many wonders unknown to the to my home, I had sworn to the longer, living. Close by my home tants of the region sometimes speak throng; and was oddly aged in certain hundred gods of the grove that at there lies a singular wooded hollow, in hushed and uneasy voices; alluding respects. When, upon forcing my any cost I would some day force an in whose twilight deeps I spent most to what they call “divine wrath” in a way between two savage clumps of entrance to the black chilly depths of my time; reading, thinking and manner that in later years vaguely briers, I suddenly encountered the that seemed calling out to me. The dreaming. Down its moss-covered increased the always strong fascina- entrance of the vault, I had no physician with the iron-grey beard slopes my first steps of infancy were tion which I felt for the forest-dark- knowledge of what I had discovered. who comes each day to my room taken, and around its grotesquely ened sepulchre. One man only had The dark blocks of granite, the door once told a visitor that this decision gnarled oak trees my first fancies of perished in the fire. When the last so curiously ajar, and the funereal marked the beginnings of a pitiful boyhood were woven. Well did I of the Hydes was buried in this place carvings above the arch, arounsed in monomania; but I will leave final come to know the presiding dryads of shade and stillness, the sad urnful me no associations of mournful or judgement to my readers when they of those trees, and often have I of ashes had come from a distant terrible character. Of graves and shall have learnt all. watched their wild dances in the land; to which the family had tombs I knew and imagined much, The months following my struggling beams of waning moon— repaired when the mansion burned but had on account of my peculiar discovery were spent in futile but of these things I must not now down. No one remains to lay flowers temperament been kept from all attempts to force the complicated speak. I will tell only of the lone before the granite portal, and few personal contact with churchyards padlock of the slightly open vault, tomb in the darkest of the hillside care to brave the depressing shadows and cemeteries. The strange stone and in carefully guarded inquiries thickets; the deserted tomb of the which seem to linger strangely about house on the woodland slope was to regarding the nature and history of Hydes, an old and exalted family the water-worn stones. me only a source of interest and the structure. With the traditionally whose last direct descendant had I shall never forget the afternoon speculation; and its cold, damp inte- receptive ears of the small boy, I been laid within its black recesses when first I stumbled upon the half- rior, into which I vainly peered learned much; though an habitual many decades before my birth. hidden house of the dead. It was in through the aperture so tantalisingly secretiveness caused me to tell no The vault to which I refer is an mid-summer, when the alchemy of left, contained for me no hint of one of my information or my resolve. 4 5 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • The TOMB

It is perhaps worth mentioning that which might enable me to unfasten indeed stimulated by the unexpected rhetoric of fifty years ago, seemed I was not at all surprised or terrified the heavily chained door with ease; genealogical discover that my own represented in that shadowy colloquy, on learning of the nature of the vault. but until then I would do better by maternal ancestry possessed at least though it was only later that I My rather original ideas regarding conforming to what seemed the will a slight link with the supposedly noticed the fact. At the time, indeed, life and death had caused me to asso- of Fate. extinct family of the Hydes. Last of my attention was distracted from ciate the cold clay with the breathing Accordingly my watches by the my paternal race, I was likewise the this matter by another phenomenon; body in a vague fashion; and I felt dank portal became less persistent, last of this older and more myste- a phenomenon so fleeting that I that the great sinister family of the and much of my time was spent in rious line. I began to feel that the could not take oath upon its reality. burned-down mansion was in some other though equally strange tomb was mine, and to look forward I barely fancied that as I awoke, a way represented within the stone pursuits. I would sometimes rise very with hot eagerness to the time when light had been hurriedly extin- space I sought to explore. Mumbled quietly in the night, stealing out to I might pass within that stone door guished within the sunken sepulchre. tales of the weird rites and godless walk in those churchyards and places and down those slimy stone steps in I do not think I was either astounded revels of bygone years in the ancient of burial from which I had been kept the dark. I now formed the habit of or panic-stricken, but I know that I hall gave to me a new and potent by my parents. What I did there I listening very intently at the slightly was greatly and permanently interest in the tomb, before whose may not say, for I am not now sure open portal, choosing my favourite changed that night. Upon returning door I would sit for hours at a time of the reality of certain things; but hours of midnight stillness for the home I went with much directness each day. Once I thrust a candle I know that on the day after such a odd vigil. By the time I came of age, to a rotting chest in the attic, wherein within the nearly closed entrance, nocturnal ramble I would often I had made a small clearing in the I found the key which next day but could see nothing save a flight astonish those about me with my thicket before the mould-stained unlocked with ease the barrier I had of damp stone steps leading down- knowledge of topics almost forgotten facade of the hillside, allowing the so long stormed in vain. ward. The odour of the place repelled for many generations. It was after a surrounding vegetation to encircle yet bewitched me. I felt I had known night like this that I shocked the and overhang the space like the walls t was in the soft glow of late it before, in a past remote beyond all community with a queer conceit and rzoof of sylvan bower. This afternoon that I first entered recollection; beyond even my tenancy about the burial of the rich and cele- bower was my temple, the fastened the vault on the abandoned of the body I now possess. brated Squire Brewster, a maker of door my shrine, and here I would lie slope.I A spell was upon me, and my The year after I first beheld the local history who was interred in outstretched on the mossy ground, heart leaped with an exultation I tomb, I stumbled upon a worm-eaten 1711, and whose slate headstone, thinking strange thoughts and can but ill describe. As I closed the translation of Plutarch’s Lives in the bearing a graven skull and cross- dreaming of strange dreams. door behind me and descended the book-filled attic of my home. bones, was slowly crumbling to The night of the first revelation dripping steps by the light of my Reading the life of Theseus, I was power. In a moment of childish was a sultry one. I must have fallen lone candle, I seemed to know the much impressed by that passage imagination I vowed not only that asleep from fatigue, for it was with way; and though the candle sput- telling of the great stone beneath the undertaker, Goodman Simpson, a distinct sense of awakening that I tered with the stifling reek of the which the boyish was to find had stolen the silver-buckled shoes, heard the voices. Of those tones and place, I felt singularly at home in his tokens of destiny whenever he silken hose, and satin small-clothes accents I hesitate to speak; of their the musty, charnel-house air. should become old enough to lift its of the deceased before burial; but quality I will not speak; but I may Looking about me, I beheld many enourmous weight. This legend had that the Squire himself, not fully say that they presented certain marble slabs bearing coffins, or the the effect of dispelling my keenest inanimate, had turned twice in his uncanny differences in vocabulary, remains of coffins. Some of these impatience to enter the vault, for it mound-covered coffin on the day of pronunciation, and mode of utter- were sealed and intact, but others made me feel that the time was not interment. ance. Every shade of New England had nearly vanished, leaving the yet ripe. Later, I told myself, I should But the idea of entering the dialect, from the uncouth syllables silver handles and plates isolated grow to a strength and ingenuity tomb never left my thoughts; being of the Puritan colonists to the precise amidst certain curious heaps of 6 7 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • The TOMB

whitish dust. Upon one plate I read godless cynicism of a Rochester. I Young Harry, propp’d up just as in spite of the fact that it had been the name of Sir Geoffrey Hyde, displayed a peculiar erudition utterly straight as he’s able, unseen and forgotten for many who had come from Sussex in 1640 unlike the fantastic, monkish lore Will soon lose his wig and slip under generations. and died here a few years later. In a over which I had pored in youth; the table; At last came that which I had conspicuous alcove was one fairly and covered the flyleaves of my But fill up your goblets and pass ’em long feared. My parents, alarmed at well-preserved and untenanted books with facile impromptu around — the altered manner and appearance casket, adorned with a single name epigrams which brought up sugges- Better under the table than under the of their only son, commenced to which brought to me both a smile tions of Gay, Prior, and the spright- ground! exert over my movements a kindly and a shudder. An odd impulse liest of Augustan wits and rimesters. So revel and chaff espionage which threatened to result caused me to climb upon the broad One morning at breakfast I came As ye thirstily quaff: in disaster. I had told no one of my slab, extinguish my candle, and lie close to disaster by declaiming in Under six feet of dirt ’tis less easy to visits to the tomb, having guarded down within the vacant box. palpably liquourish accents an effu- laugh! my secret purpose with religious zeal In the grey light of dawn I stag- sion of eighteenth-century The fiend strike me blue! I’m scarce since childhood; but now I was gered from the vault and locked the Bacchanalian mirth; a bit of able to walk, forced to exercise care in threading chain of the door behind me. I was Georgian playfulness never recorded And damn me if I can stand upright the mazes of the wooded hollow, no longer a young man, though but in a book, which ran something like or talk! that I might throw off a possible twenty-one winters had chilled my this: Here, landlord, bid Betty to summon pursuer. My key to the vault I kept bodily frame. Early-rising villagers a chair; suspended from a cord about my who observed my homeward prog- Come hither, my lads, with your I’ll try home for a while, for my wife neck, its presence known only to me. ress looked at me strangely, and tankards of ale, is not there! I never carried out of the sepulchre marvelled at the signs of ribald And drink to the present before it So lend me a hand; any of the things I came upon whilst revelry which they saw in one whose shall fail; I’m not able to stand, within its walls. life was known to be sober and soli- Pile each on your platter a mountain But I’m gay whilst I linger on top of One morning as I emerged from tary. I did not appear before my of beef, the land! the damp tomb and fastened the parents till after a long and refreshing For ’tis eating and drinking that chain of the portal with none too sleep. bring us relief: About this time I conceived my steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent Henceforward I haunted the So fill up your glass, present fear of fire and thunder- thicket the dreaded face of a watcher. tomb each night; seeing, hearing, So life will soon pass; storms. Previously indifferent to such Surely the end was near; for my and doing things I must never reveal. When you’re dead ye’ll ne’er drink to things, I had now an unspeakable bower was discovered, and the objec- My speech, always susceptible to your king or your lass! horror of them; and would retire to tive of my nocturnal journeys environmental influences, was the Anacreon had a red nose, so they say; the innermost recesses of the house revealed. The man did not accost first thing to succumb to the change; But what’s a red nose if ye’re happy whenever the heavens threatened an me, so I hastened home in an effort and my suddenly acquired archaism and gay? electrical display. A favourite haunt to overhear what he might report to of diction was soon remarked upon. Gad split me! I’d rather be red whilst of mine during the day was the my careworn father. Were my Later a queer boldness and reckless- I’m here, ruined cellar of the mansion that had sojourns beyond the chained door ness came into my demeanour, till I Than white as a lily—and dead half burned down, and in fancy I would about to be proclaimed to the world? unconsciously grew to possess the a year! picture the structure as it had been Imagine my delighted astonishment bearing of a man of the world despite So Betty, my miss, in its prime. On one occasion I star- on hearing the spy inform my parent my lifelong seclusion. My formerly Come give me kiss; tled a villager by leading him confi- in cautious whisper that I had spent silent tongue waxed voluble with the In hell there’s no innkeeper’s daughter dently to a shallow sub-cellar, of the night in the bower outside the easy grace of a Chesterfield or the like this! whose existence I seemed to know tomb; my sleep-filmed eyes fixed 8 9 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • The TOMB

upon the crevice where the padlocked Inside the hall were music, laughter, house faded, I found myself simple-minded servitor, for whom portal stood ajar! By what miracle and wine on every hand. Several screaming and struggling madly in I bore a fondness in infancy, and had the watcher been thus deluded? faces I recognised; though I should the arms of two men, one of whom who like me loves the churchyard. I was now convinced that a super- have known them better had they was the spy who had followed me What I have dared relate of my natural agency protected me. Made been shrivelled or eaten away by to the tomb. Rain was pouring down experiences within the vault has bold by this heaven-sent circum- death and decomposition. Amidst a in torrents, and upon the southern brought me only pitying smiles. stance, I began to resume perfect wild and reckless throng I was the horizon were flashes of the lightning My father, who visits me frequently, openness in going to the vault; confi- wildest and most abandoned. Gay that had so lately passed over our declares that at no time did I pass dent that no one could witness my blasphemy poured in torrents from heads. My father, his face lined with the chained portal, and swears that entrance. For a week I tasted to the my lips, and in my shocking sallies sorrow, stood by as I shouted my the rusted padlock had not been full the joys of that charnel conviv- I heeded no law of God, Man, or demands to be laid within the tomb; touched for fifty years when he iality which I must not describe, Nature. Suddenly a peal of thunder, frequently admonishing my captors examined it. He even says that all when the thing happened, and I was resonant even above the din of the to treat me as gently as they could. the village knew of my journeys to borne away to this accursed abode swinish revelry, clave the very roof A blackened circle on the floor of the tomb, and that I was often of sorrow and monotony. and laid a hush of fear upon the the ruined cellar told of a violent watched as I slept in the bower I should not have ventured out boisterous company. Red tongues of stroke from the heavens; and from outside the grim facade, my half- that night; for the taint of thunder flame and searing gusts of heat this spot a group of curious villagers open eyes fixed on the crevice that was in the clouds, and hellish phos- engulfed the house; and the roys- with lanterns were prying a small leads to the interior. Against these phorescence rose from the rank terers, struck with terror at the box of antique workmanship which assertions I have no tangible proof swamp at the bottom of the hollow. descent of a calamity which seemed the thunderbolt had brought to to offer, since my key to the padlock The call of the dead, too, was to transcend the bounds of unguided light. Ceasing my futile and now was lost in the struggle on that different. Instead of the hillside Nature, fled shrieking into the night. objectless writhing, I watched the night of horrors. The strange things tomb, it was the charred cellar on I alone remained, riveted to my seat spectators as they viewed the trea- of the past which I learnt during the crest of the slope whose presiding by a grovelling fear which I had sure-trove, and was permitted to those nocturnal meetings with the daemon beckoned to me with unseen never felt before. And then a second share in their discoveries. The box, dead he dismisses as the fruits of fingers. As I emerged from an inter- horror took possession of my soul. whose fastenings were broken by my lifelong and omnivorous vening grove upon the plain before Burnt alive to ashes, my body the stroke which had unearthed it, browsing amongst the ancient the ruin, I beheld in the misty moon- dispersed by the four winds, I might contained many papers and objects volumes of the family library. Had light a thing I had always vaguely never lie in the tomb of Hydes! Was of value; but I had eyes for one thing it not been for my old servant expected. The mansion, gone for a not my coffin prepared for me? Had alone. It was the porcelain miniature Hiram, I should have by this time century, once more reared its stately I not a right to rest till eternity of a young man in a smartly curled become quite convinced of my height to the raptured vision; every amongst the descendants of Sir bag-wig, and bore the initials “J.H.” madness. window ablaze with the splendour Geoffrey Hyde? Aye! I would claim The face was such that as I gazed, But Hiram, loyal to the last, has of many candles. Up the long drive my heritage of death, even though I might well have been studying my held faith in me, and has done that rolled the coaches of the Boston my soul go seeking through the ages mirror. which impels me to make public at gentry, whilst on foot came a for another corporeal tenement to least a part of my story. A week ago numerous assemblage of powdered represent it on that vacant slab in n the following day I was he burst open the lock which chains exquisites from the neighbouring the alcove of the vault. Jervas Hyde brought to this room with the door of the tomb perpetually mansions. With this throng I should never share the sad fate of the barred windows, but I ajar, and descended with a lantern mingled, though I knew I belonged Palinurus! haveO been kept informed of certain into the murky depths. On a slab in with the hosts rather than the guests. As of the burning things through an aged and an alcove he found an old but empty 10 11 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word “Jervas.” In that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.

DAGON.

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am writing this under an war was then at its very beginning, appreciable mental strain, since and the ocean forces of the Hun had by tonight I shall be no more. not completely sunk to their later Penniless,I and at the end of my degradation; so that our vessel was supply of the drug which alone made legitimate prize, whilst we of makes life endurable, I can bear the her crew were treated with all the torture no longer; and shall cast fairness and consideration due us as myself from this garret window naval prisoners. So liberal, indeed, into the squalid street below. Do was the discipline of our captors, that not think from my slavery to five days after we were taken I morphine that I am a weakling or a managed to escape alone in a small degenerate. When you have read boat with water and provisions for these hastily scrawled pages you a good length of time. may guess, though never fully When I finally found myself realise, why it is that I must have adrift and free, I had but little idea forgetfulness or death. of my surroundings. Never a compe- It was in one of the most open tent navigator, I could only guess and least frequented parts of the vaguely by the sun and stars that I broad Pacific that the packet of was somewhat south of the equator. which I was supercargo fell a victim Of the longitude I knew nothing, to the German sea-raider. The great and no island or coast-line was in

12 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • DAGON

sight. The weather kept fair, and for slime; yet the very completeness of maddening; but I was too much gained the summit of uncounted days I drifted aimlessly the stillness and homogeneity of the concerned with graver things to and looked down the other side into beneath the scorching sun; waiting landscape oppressed me with a mind so slight an evil, and set out an immeasurable pit or canyon, either for some passing ship, or to nauseating fear. boldly for an unknown goal. All day whose black recesses the moon had be cast on the shores of some habit- The sun was blazing down from I forged steadily westward, guided not yet soared high enough to illu- able land. But neither ship nor land a sky which seemed to me almost by a far-away hummock which rose minate. I felt myself on the edge of appeared, and I began to despair in black in its cloudless cruelty; as higher than any other elevation on the world; peering over the rim into my solitude upon the heaving vast- though reflecting the inky marsh the rolling desert. That night I a fathomless chaos of eternal night. nesses of unbroken blue. beneath my feet. As I crawled into encamped, and on the following day Through my terror ran curious remi- the stranded boat I realised that only still travelled toward the hummock, niscences of Paradise Lost, and of he change happened whilst one theory could explain my posi- though that object seemed scarcely Satan’s hideous climb through the I slept. Its details I shall tion. Through some unprecedented nearer than when I had first espied unfashioned realms of darkness. never know; for my volcanic upheaval, a portion of the it. By the fourth evening I attained As the moon climbed higher in Tslumber, though troubled and ocean floor must have been thrown the base of the mound which turned the sky, I began to see that the slopes dream-infested, was continuous. to the surface, exposing regions out to be much higher than it had of the valley were not quite so When at last I awaked, it was to which for innumerable millions of appeared from a distance, an inter- perpendicular as I had imagined. discover myself half sucked into a years had lain hidden under unfath- vening valley setting it out in sharper Ledges and outcroppings of rock slimy expanse of hellish black mire omable watery depths. So great was relief from the general surface. Too afforded fairly easy foot-holds for a which extended about me in the extent of the new land which weary to ascend, I slept in descent, whilst after a drop of a few monotonous undulations as far as I had risen beneath me, that I could of the hill. hundred feet, the declivity became could see, and in which my boat lay not detect the faintest noise of the I know not why my dreams were very gradual. Urged on by an impulse grounded some distance away. surging ocean, strain my ears as I so wild that night; but ere the waning which I cannot definitely analyse, I Though one might well imagine might. Nor were there any sea-fowl and fantastically gibbous moon had scrambled with difficulty down the that my first sensation would be of to prey upon the dead things. risen far above the eastern plain, I rocks and stood on the gentler slope wonder at so prodigious and unex- For several hours I sat thinking was awake in a cold perspiration, beneath, gazing into the Stygian pected a transformation of scenery, or brooding in the boat, which lay determined to sleep no more. Such deeps where no light had yet I was in reality more horrified than upon its side and afforded a slight visions as I had experienced were penetrated. astonished; for there was in the air shade as the sun moved across the too much for me to endure again. All at once my attention was and in the rotting soil a sinister heavens. As the day progressed, the And in the glow of the moon I saw captured by a vast and singular object quality which chilled me to the very ground lost some of its stickiness, how unwise I had been to travel by on the opposite slope, which rose core. The region was putrid with the and seemed likely to dry sufficiently day. Without the glare of the steeply about an hundred yards carcasses of decaying fish, and of for travelling purposes in a short parching sun, my journey would have ahead of me; an object that gleamed other less describable things which time. That night I slept but little, cost me less energy; indeed, I now whitely in the newly bestowed rays I saw protruding from the nasty mud and the next day I made for myself felt quite able to perform the ascent of the ascending moon. That it was of the unending plain. Perhaps I a pack containing food and water, which had deterred me at sunset. merely a gigantic piece of stone, I should not hope to convey in mere preparatory to an overland journey Picking up my pack, I started for the soon assured myself; but I was words the unutterable hideousness in search of the vanished sea and crest of the eminence. conscious of a distinct impression that can dwell in absolute silence possible rescue. I have said that the unbroken that its contour and position were and barren immensity. There was On the third morning I found monotony of the rolling plain was a not altogether the work of Nature. nothing within hearing, and nothing the soil dry enough to walk upon source of vague horror to me; but I A closer scrutiny filled me with in sight save a vast reach of black with ease. The odour of the fish was think my horror was greater when I sensations I cannot express; for 14 15 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • DAGON

despite its enormous magnitude, and spellbound. Plainly visible across the anthropologist, I stood musing believe. Once I sought out a cele- its position in an abyss which had intervening water on account of whilst the moon cast queer reflec- brated ethnologist, and amused yawned at the bottom of the sea their enormous size, were an array tions on the silent channel before him with peculiar questions since the world was young, I of bas-reliefs whose subjects would me. regarding the ancient Philistine perceived beyond a doubt that the have excited the envy of Doré. I Then suddenly I saw it. With legend of Dagon, the Fish-God; strange object was a well-shaped think that these things were only a slight churning to mark its but soon perceiving that he was monolith whose massive bulk had supposed to depict men—at least, a rise to the surface, the thing slid into hopelessly conventional, I did not known the workmanship and certain sort of men; though the crea- view above the dark waters. Vast, press my inquiries. perhaps the worship of living and tures were shewn disporting like Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it It is at night, especially when thinking creatures. fishes in waters of some marine darted like a stupendous of the moon is gibbous and waning, Dazed and frightened, yet not grotto, or paying homage at some nightmares to the monolith, about that I see the thing. I tried morphine; without a certain thrill of the scien- monolithic shrine which appeared which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, but the drug has given only transient tist’s or archaeologist’s delight, I to be under the waves as well. Of the while it bowed its hideous head surcease, and has drawn me into its examined my surroundings more their faces and forms I dare not and gave vent to certain measured clutches as a hopeless slave. So now closely. The moon, now near the speak in detail; for the mere remem- sounds. I think I went mad then. I am to end it all, having written a zenith, shone weirdly and vividly brance makes me grow faint. Of my frantic ascent of the slope full account for the information or above the towering steeps that Grotesque beyond the imagination and cliff, and of my delirious journey the contemptuous amusement of my hemmed in the chasm, and revealed of a Poe or a Bulwer, they were back to the stranded boat, I fellow-men. Often I ask myself if it the fact that a far-flung body of damnably human in general outline remember little. I believe I sang a could not all have been a pure phan- water flowed at the bottom, winding despite webbed hands and feet, great deal, and laughed oddly when tasm—a mere freak of fever as I lay out of sight in both directions, and shockingly wide and flabby lips, I was unable to sing. I have indistinct sun-stricken and raving in the open almost lapping my feet as I stood on glassy, bulging eyes, and other recollections of a great storm some boat after my escape from the the slope. Across the chasm, the features less pleasant to recall. time after I reached the boat; at any German man-of-war. This I ask wavelets washed the base of the Curiously enough, they seemed to rate, I know that I heard peals of myself, but ever does there come Cyclopean monolith; on whose have been chiselled badly out of thunder and other tones which before me a hideously vivid vision surface I could now trace both proportion with their scenic back- Nature utters only in her wildest in reply. I cannot think of the deep inscriptions and crude sculptures. ground; for one of the creatures was moods. sea without shuddering at the name- The writing was in a system of shewn in the act of killing a whale less things that may at this very hieroglyphics unknown to me, and represented as but little larger than hen I came out of the moment be crawling and floundering unlike anything I had ever seen in himself. I remarked, as I say, their shadows I was in a San on its slimy bed, worshipping their books; consisting for the most part grotesqueness and strange size, but Francisco hospital; ancient stone idols and carving their of conventionalised aquatic symbols in a moment decided that they were broughtW thither by the captain of own detestable likenesses on subma- such as fishes, eels, octopi, crusta- merely the imaginary gods of some the American ship which had rine obelisks of water-soaked granite. ceans, molluscs, whales, and the like. primitive fishing or seafaring tribe; picked up my boat in mid-ocean. I dream of a day when they may rise Several characters obviously repre- some tribe whose last descendant In my delirium I had said much, above the billows to drag down in sented marine things which are had perished eras before the first but found that my words had been their reeking talons the remnants of unknown to the modern world, but ancestor of the Piltdown or given scant attention. Of any land puny, war-exhausted mankind—of whose decomposing forms I had Neanderthal Man was born. upheaval in the Pacific, my rescuers a day when the land shall sink, and observed on the ocean-risen plain. Awestruck at this unexpected knew nothing; nor did I deem it the dark ocean floor shall ascend It was the pictorial carving, glimpse into a past beyond the necessary to insist upon a thing amidst universal pandemonium. however, that did most to hold me conception of the most daring which I knew they could not The end is near. I hear a noise 16 17 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!

A REMINISCENCE of DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

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By Humphrey Littlewit, Esq. (pseudonym)

he Privilege of reminis- knowledge of my long years, in order cence, however rambling or to gratifie their taste for authentick tiresome, is one generally Information of an Age with whose Tallow’d to the very aged; indeed, ’tis famous Personages I was on familiar frequently by means of such Terms. Be it then known that I was Recollections that the obscure born on the family Estate in occurrences of History, and the Devonshire, of the 10th day of lesser Anecdotes of the Great, are August, 1690 (or in the new transmitted to Posterity. Gregorian Stile of Reckoning, the Tho’ many of my readers have 20th of August), being therefore now at times observ’d and remark’d a Sort in my 228th year. Coming early to of antique Flow in my Stile of London, I saw as a Child many of Writing, it hath pleased me to pass the celebrated Men of King William’s amongst the Members of this Reign, including the lamented Mr. Generation as a young Man, giving Dryden, who sat much at the Tables out the Fiction that I was born in of Will’s Coffee-House. With Mr. 1890, in America. I am now, however, Addison and Dr. Swift I later became resolv’d to unburthen myself of a very well acquainted, and was an Secret which I have hitherto kept even more familiar Friend to Mr. thro’ Dread of Incredulity; and to Pope, whom I knew and respected impart to the Publick a true till the Day of his Death. But since

18 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • A REMINISCENCE of DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

it is of my more recent Associate, wrinkled, and with more than one Question he puts to me.” Having of the Dissensions and Disruptions the late Dr. Johnson, that I am at Button missing. His Face, too full thus become Friends, we convers’d I observe in the literary and amateur this time desir’d to write; I will pass to be handsom, was likewise marred on many Matters. When, to agree Press Associations of today. This over my Youth for the present. by the Effects of some scrofulous with him, I said I was distrustful of Tranquillity was the more remark- I had first Knowledge of the Disorder; and his Head was contin- the Authenticity of Ossian’s Poems, able, because we had amongst us Doctor in May of the year 1738, tho’ ually rolling about in a sort of Mr. Johnson said: “That, Sir, does Gentlemen of very opposed I did not at that Time meet him. Mr. convulsive way. Of this Infirmity, not do your Understanding partic- Opinions. Dr. Johnson and I, as well Pope had just compleated his indeed, I had known before; having ular Credit; for what all the Town is as many others, were high Tories; Epilogue to his Satires (the Piece heard of it from Mr. Pope, who took sensible of, is no great Discovery for whilst Mr. Burke was a Whig, and beginning: “Not twice a Twelvemonth the Trouble to make particular a Grub-Street Critick to make. You against the American War, many of you appear in Print.”), and had Inquiries. might as well say, you have a strong his Speeches on that Subject having arrang’d for its Publication. On the Being nearly seventy-three, full Suspicion that Milton wrote Paradise been widely publish’d. The least very Day it appear’d, there was also nineteen Years older than Dr. Lost!” congenial Member was one of the publish’d a Satire in Imitation of Johnson (I say Doctor, tho’ his I thereafter saw Johnson very Founders, Sir John Hawkins, who Juvenal, intitul’d “London,” by the Degree came not till two Years after- frequently, most often at Meetings hath since written many misrepre- then unknown Johnson; and this so ward), I naturally expected him to of THE LITERARY CLUB, which sentations of our Society. Sir John, struck the Town, that many have some Regard for my Age; and was founded the next Year by the an eccentrick Fellow, once declin’d Gentlemen of Taste declared, it was was therefore not in that Fear of him, Doctor, together with Mr. Burke, to pay his part of the Reckoning for the Work of a greater Poet than Mr. which others confess’d. On my the parliamentary Orator, Mr. Supper, because ’twas his Custom at Pope. Notwithstanding what some asking him what he thought of my Beauclerk, a Gentleman of Fashion, Home to eat no Supper. Later he Detractors have said of Mr. Pope’s favourable Notice of his Dictionary Mr. Langton, a pious Man and insulted Mr. Burke in so intolerable petty jealousy, he gave the Verses of in The Londoner, my periodical Captain of Militia, Sir J. Reynolds, a Manner, that we all took Pains to his new Rival no small Praise; and Paper, he said: Sir, I possess no the widely known Painter, Dr. shew our Disapproval; after which having learnt thro’ Mr. Richardson Recollection of having perus’d your Goldsmith, the prose and poetick Incident he came no more to our who the Poet was, told me, ‘that Mr. Paper, and have not a great Interest Writer, Dr. Nugent, father-in-law to Meetings. However, he never openly Johnson wou’d soon be deterré’. in the Opinions of the less thoughtful Mr. Burke, Sir John Hawkins, Mr. fell out with the Doctor, and was the I had no personal Acquaintance Part of Mankind.” Being more than Anthony Charmier, and my self. We Executor of his Will; tho’ Mr. with the Doctor till 1763, when I a little piqued at the Incivility of one assembled generally at seven o’clock Boswell and others have Reason to was presented to him at the Mitre whose Celebrity made me solicitous of an Evening, once a Week, at the question the genuineness of his Tavern by Mr. James Boswell, a of his Approbation, I ventur’d to Turk’s-Head, in Gerrard-Street, Attachment. Other and later young Scotchman of excellent retaliate in kind, and told him, I was Soho, till that Tavern was sold and Members of the CLUB were Mr. Family and great Learning, but small surpris’d that a Man of Sense shou’d made into a private Dwelling; after David Garrick, the Actor and early Wit, whose metrical Effusions I had judge the Thoughtfulness of one which Event we mov’d our Friend of Dr. Johnson, Messieurs sometimes revis’d. whose Productions he admitted Gatherings successively to Prince’s Tho. and Jos. Warton, Dr. Adam Dr. Johnson, as I beheld him, never having read. “Why, Sir,” reply’d in Sackville-Street, Le Tellier’s in Smith, Dr. Percy, Author of the was a full, pursy Man, very ill drest, Johnson, “I do not require to become Dover-Street, and Parsloe’s and The Reliques, Mr. Edw. Gibbon, the and of slovenly Aspect. I recall him familiar with a Man’s Writings in Thatched House in St. James’s- Historian, Dr. Burney, the Musician, to have worn a bushy Bob-Wig, order to estimate the Superficiality Street. In these Meetings we Mr. Malone, the Critick, and Mr. untyed and without Powder, and of his Attainments, when he plainly preserv’d a remarkable Degree of Boswell. Mr. Garrick obtain’d much too small for his Head. His shews it by his Eagerness to mention Amity and Tranquillity, which Admittance only with Difficulty; for cloaths were of rusty brown, much his own Productions in the first contrasts very favourably with some the Doctor, notwithstanding his 20 21 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1917 • A REMINISCENCE of DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

great Friendship, was for ever Monsieur Voltaire was ever a Cause At one Time Johnson recited to me without much Logick or Continuity affecting to decry the Stage and all of Annoyance to the Doctor; who some lines by a Servant to the Duke when I endeavour to recall the Past; Things connected with it. Johnson, was deeply orthodox, and who us’d of Leeds, which had so amus’d him, and fear I light upon but few indeed, had a most singular Habit to say of the French Philosopher: that he had got them by Heart. They Incidents which others have not of speaking for Davy when others “Vir est acerrimi Ingenii et paucarum are on the Duke’s Wedding, and so before discuss’d. Shou’d my present were against him, and of arguing Literarum.” much resemble in Quality the Work Recollections meet with Favour, I against him, when others were for Mr. Boswell, a little teazing of other and more recent poetick might later set down some further him. I have no Doubt that he Fellow whom I had known for some Dunces, that I cannot forbear Anecdotes of old Times of which I sincerely lov’d Mr. Garrick, for he Time previously, us’d to make Sport copying them: am the only Survivor. I recall many never alluded to him as he did to of my aukward Manners and things of Sam Johnson and his Club, Foote, who was a very coarse Fellow old-fashion’d Wig and Cloaths. When the Duke of Leeds shall having kept up my Membership in despite his comick Genius. Mr. Once coming in a little the worse marry’d be the Latter long after the Doctor’s Gibbon was none too well lik’d, for for Wine (to which he was addicted) To a fine young Lady of high Quality Death, at which I sincerely mourn’d. he had an odious sneering Way he endeavour’d to lampoon me by How happy will that Gentlewoman I remember how John Burgoyne, which offended even those of us who means of an Impromptu in verse, be Esq., the General, whose Dramatick most admir’d his historical writ on the Surface of the Table; but In his Grace of Leeds’ good Company. and Poetical Works were printed Productions. Mr. Goldsmith, a little lacking the Aid he usually had in his after his Death, was blackballed by Man very vain of his Dress and very Composition, he made a bad gram- I ask’d the Doctor, if he had ever three Votes; probably because of his deficient in Brilliancy of matical Blunder. I told him, he try’d making Sense of this Piece; and unfortunate Defeat in the American Conversation, was my particular shou’d not try to pasquinade the upon his saying he had not, I amus’d War, at Saratoga. Poor John! His Favourite; since I was equally unable Source of his Poesy. At another Time myself with the following Son fared better, I think, and was to shine in the Discourse. He was Bozzy (as we us’d to call him) Amendment of it: made a Baronet. But I am very tired. vastly jealous of Dr. Johnson, tho’ complain’d of my Harshness toward I am old, very old, and it is Time for none the less liking and respecting new Writers in the Articles I prepar’d When Gallant LEEDS auspiciously my Afternoon Nap. him. I remember that once a for The Monthly Review. He said, shall wed Foreigner, a German, I think, was in I push’d every Aspirant off the Slopes The virtuous Fair, of antient Lineage our Company; and that whilst of Parnassus. “Sir,” I reply’d, “you are bred, Goldsmith was speaking, he observ’d mistaken. They who lose their Hold How must the Maid rejoice with the Doctor preparing to utter some- do so from their own Want of conscious Pride thing. Unconsciously looking upon Strength; but desiring to conceal To win so great an Husband to her Goldsmith as a meer Encumbrance their Weakness, they attribute the Side! when compar’d to the greater Man, Absence of Success to the first the Foreigner bluntly interrupted Critick that mentions them.” I am On shewing this to Dr. Johnson, him and incurr’d his lasting Hostility glad to recall that Dr. Johnson he said, “Sir, you have straightened by crying, “Hush, Toctor Shonson upheld me in this Matter. out the Feet, but you have put neither iss going to speak!” Dr. Johnson was second to no Wit nor Poetry into the Lines.” In this luminous Company I was Man in the Pains he took to revise It wou’d afford me Gratification tolerated more because of my Years the bad Verses of others; indeed, ’tis to tell more of my Experiences with than for my Wit or Learning; being said that in the book of poor blind Dr. Johnson and his circle of Wits; no Match at all for the rest. My old Mrs. Williams, there are scarce but I am an old Man, and easily Friendship for the celebrated two lines which are not the Doctor’s. fatigued. I seem to ramble along 22 23

1918:

The GHOSTWRITER.

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lthough H.P. Lovecraft did hobby of amateur journalism would not contribute much to his actually pay him for editorial weird-fiction canon during services—from proofreading manu- 1918,A it was a pivotal year for him. scripts up to and including ghost- This is the year in which he received writing full manuscripts, a service his first payment for his literary for which he charged $2.25 per output (other than a prize won in manuscript page. his youth). His poem “On Receiving Within a year or so, ghost- a Picture of the Marshes of writing, collaboration and editorial Ipswitch,” written the year before, services would become Lovecraft’s was published in The National primary line of work. For the rest of Magazine that year. his career, helping others with their This was also the year in which manuscripts would be his main occu- Lovecraft really rose to prominence pation, with his own work thrown in the small but cultish world of in as a sort of a sideline. His sole amateur press, serving as the 1917- contribution to his own literary 1918 president of the United canon in 1918 was the dreamy ances- Amateur Press Association. tral- story “Polaris.” Also in 1918, Lovecraft discov- ered that the friends and colleagues he had met and made through his

POLARIS.

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nto the north window of my Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly chamber glows the Pole Star afar off in the mysterious east; but with uncanny light. All still the Pole Star leers down from throughI the long hellish hours of the same place in the black vault, blackness it shines there. And in winking hideously like an insane the autumn of the year, when the watching eye which strives to winds from the north curse and convey some strange message, yet whine, and the red-leaved trees of recalls nothing save that it once the swamp mutter things to one had a message to convey. another in the small hours of the Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can morning under the horned waning sleep. moon, I sit by the easement and Well do I remember the night watch that star. Down from the of the great Aurora, when over the heights reels the glittering swamp played the shocking corus- Cassiopeia as the hours wear on, cations of the daemon-light. After while Charles’ Wain lumbers up the beams came clouds, and then I from behind the vapour-soaked slept. swamp trees that sway in the night- And it was under a horned wind. Just before dawn Arcturus waning moon that I saw the city for winks ruddily from above the the first time. Still and somnolent cemetery on the low hillock, and did it lie, on a strange plateau in a H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1918 • POLARIS

hollow betwixt strange peaks. Of Gradually I came to wonder were mighty in the arts of war, and Alone I mounted the tower, for ghastly marble were its walls and its what might be my place in that city knew not the scruples of honour every man of stout body was needed towers, its columns, domes, and pave- on the strange plateau betwixt which held back our tall, grey-eyed in the passes below. My brain was ments. In the marble streets were strange peaks. At first content to men of Lomar from ruthless sore dazed with excitement and marble pillars, the upper parts of view the scene as an all-observant conquest. fatigue, for I had not slept in many which were carven into the images uncorporeal presence, I now desired Alos, my friend, was commander days; yet was my purpose firm, for I of grave bearded men. The air was to define my relation to it, and to of all the forces of the plateau, and loved my native land of Lomar, and warm and stirred not. And overhead, speak my mind amongst the grave in him lay the last hope of our the marble city of Olathoë that lies scarce ten degrees from the zenith, men who conversed each day in the country. On this occasion he spoke betwixt the peaks of Noton and glowed that watching Pole Star. Long public squares. I said to myself, “This of the perils to be faced, and exhorted Kadiphonek. did I gaze on the city, but the day is no dream, for by what means can the men of Olathoë, bravest of the But as I stood in the tower’s came not. When the red Aldebaran, I prove the greater reality of that Lomarians, to sustain the traditions topmost chamber, I beheld the which blinked low in the sky but other life in the house of stone and of their ancestors, who when forced horned waning moon, red and never set, had crawled a quarter of brick south of the sinister swamp to move southward from Zobna sinister, quivering through the the way around the horizon, I saw and the cemetery on the low hillock, before the advance of the great vapours that hovered over the distant light and motion in the houses and where the Pole Star peers into my ice-sheet (even as our descendants valley of Banof. And through an the streets. Forms strangely robed, north window each night?” must some day flee from the land of opening in the roof glittered the pale but at once noble and familiar, walked One night as I listened to the Lomar), valiantly and victoriously Pole Star, fluttering as if alive, and abroad, and under the horned waning discourse in the large square swept aside the hairy, long-armed, leering like a fiend and tempter. moon men talked wisdom in a tongue containing many statues, I felt a cannibal Gnophkehs that stood in Methought its spirit whispered evil which I understood, though it was change; and perceived that I had at their way. To me Alos denied a counsel, soothing me to traitorous unlike any language I had ever last a bodily form. Nor was I a warrior’s part, for I was feeble and somnolence with a damnable rhyth- known. And when the red Aldebaran stranger in the streets of Olathoë, given to strange faintings when mical promise which it repeated over had crawled more than half way which lies on the plateau of Sarkis, subjected to stress and hardships. and over: around the horizon, there were again betwixt the peaks Noton and But my eyes were the keenest in the darkness and silence. Kadiphonek. It was my friend Alos city, despite the long hours I gave Slumber, watcher, till the spheres When I awaked, I was not as I who spoke, and his speech was one each day to the study of the Pnakotic Six and twenty thousand years had been. Upon my memory was that pleased my soul, for it was the manuscripts and the wisdom of the Have revolv’d, and I return graven the vision of the city, and speech of a true man and patriot. Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend, To the spot where now I burn. within my soul had arisen another That night had the news come of desiring not to doom me to inaction, Other stars anon shall rise and vaguer recollection, of whose Daikos’ fall, and of the advance of rewarded me with that duty which To the axis of the skies; nature I was not then certain. the Inutos; squat, hellish, yellow was second nothing in importance. Stars that soothe and stars that bless Thereafter, on the cloudy nights fiends who five years ago appeared To the watch-tower of Thapnen he With a sweet forgetfulness: when I could sleep, I saw the city out of the unknown west to ravage sent me, there to serve as the eyes of Only when my round is o’er often; sometimes under that horned the confines of our kingdom, and our army. Should the Inutos attempt Shall the past disturb thy door. waning moon, and sometimes under finally to besiege our towns. Having to gain by the narrow pass the hot yellow rays of a sun which taken the fortified places at the foot behind the peak Noton, and thereby Vainly did I struggle with my did not set, but which wheeled low of the mountains, their way now lay surprise the garrison, I was to give drowsiness, seeking to connect these around the horizon. And on the clear open to the plateau, unless every the signal of fire which would warn strange words with some lore of the nights the Pole Star leered as never citizen could resist with the strength the waiting soldiers and save the skies which I had learnt from the before. of ten men. For the squat creatures town from immediate disaster. Pnakotic manuscripts. My head, 28 29 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

heavy and reeling, drooped to my from the black vault, winking breast, and when next I looked up it hideously like an insane watching was in a dream; with the Pole Star eye which strives to convey some grinning at me through a window strange message, yet recalls nothing from over the horrible swaying trees save that it once had a message to of a dream-swamp. And I am still convey. dreaming. In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the dream-creatures around me to waken me ere the Inutos steal up the pass behind the peak Noton 1919: and take the citadel by surprise; but these creatures are daemons, for they laugh at me and tell me I am not The GENTLEMAN FICTIONEER. dreaming. They mock me whilst I sleep, and whilst the squat yellow [return to table of contents] foe may be creeping silently upon us. I have failed in my duty and betrayed the marble city of Olathoë; I have proven false to Alos, my friend or Howard Phillips later ran under her by-line. There and commander. But still these Lovecraft, 1919 was a were, and still are, rumors of a love shadows of my dream deride me. remarkably productive year. affair, although no one really knows. They say there is no land of Lomar, HisF budding ghost-writing trade Lovecraft’s high level of output save in my nocturnal imaginings; was bearing fruit, although his best during 1919 is all the more surprising that in those realms where the Pole client was a dreadfully tendentious because that’s the year in which a Star shines high and red Aldebaran and hucksterish pop-psychology rather traumatic event took place: crawls low around the horizon, there writer named David Van Bush, His mother, Sarah Susan “Susie” has been naught save ice and snow author of such titles as Practical Phillips Lovecraft, entered the for thousands of years, and never a Psychology and Sex Life and Grit Butler Hospital for the Insane, the man save squat yellow creatures, and Gumption. Still, business was same mental hospital in which his blighted by the cold, whom they call business, and Bush, unlike most of father had died when Howard was “Esquimaux.” Lovecraft’s clients, paid well and a small boy. The anxiety with which And as I writhe in my guilty promptly. Susie had struggled all her life had agony, frantic to save the city whose Lovecraft also started collabo- reached debilitating proportions, and peril every moment grows, and vainly rating with a poet named Winifred she needed help. She went to her striving to shake off this unnatural Virginia Jackson, a particularly older sister’s house, where she strug- dream of a house of stone and brick attractive divorcée 14 years his senior. gled for a couple months with alter- south of a sinister swamp and a He worked with Jackson on “The nating bouts of hysteria and cemetery on a low hillock; the Pole Crawling Chaos” and, in 1920, “The depression, then checked into the Star, even and monstrous, leers down Green Meadow”—both of which hospital. 30 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

Lovecraft, although he wrote published in his friends’ amateur- constantly and visited frequently, press journals. never actually entered the hospital itself, meeting her in spaces outside when he came. This apparently stemmed from some sort of fear or dread of such places, possibly a left- over from visits to his father in the 1890s—or, perhaps, a result of some particularly dark fictional plot-developments. The other key event that happened for Lovecraft in 1919 was his discovery, in August of that year, of (Edward J.M.D. BEYOND the WALL of SLEEP. Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany). Lord Dunsany’s work had a colossal [return to table of contents] impact on Lovecraft (second only to that of Edgar Allan Poe), and he What strange, splendid yet terrible experiences came to the poor mountaineer was therewith launched into what in the hours of sleep? is sometimes referred to as his —a story of a supernal being from Algol, the Demon-Star Dunsany period—starting with “The White Ship,” written a few have often wondered if the existence no less important than weeks later, in which Dunsany’s majority of mankind ever physical life, yet separated from influence is unmistakable. pause to reflect upon the occa- that life by an all but impassable In addition to “The White sionally titanic significance of barrier. From my experience I Ship,” Lovecraft put up some of the I dreams, and of the obscure world cannot doubt but that man, when best work of his early career, as well to which they belong. Whilst the lost to terrestrial consciousness, is as some of the worst, in 1919— greater number of our nocturnal indeed sojourning in another and reflecting the fact that he was still visions are perhaps no more than uncorporeal life of far different experimenting with approaches, faint and fantastic reflections of nature from the life we know, and stretching his storytelling muscles, our waking experiences—Freud to of which only the slightest and and finding his style. “Beyond the the contrary with his puerile most indistinct memories linger Wall of Sleep,” “Memory,” “Old symbolism—there are still a certain after waking. From those blurred Bugs,” “The Transition of Juan remainder whose immundane and and fragmentary memories we may Romero,” “The Doom that Came to ethereal character permits of no infer much, yet prove little. We may Sarnath,” “The Street” and “The ordinary interpretation, and whose guess that in dreams life, matter, Statement of Randolph Carter” all vaguely exciting and disquieting and vitality, as the earth knows flew off his pen in that year. effect suggests possible minute such things, are not necessarily However, none of these works helped glimpses into a sphere of mental constant; and that time and space him with his cash flow, as all were 32 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • BEYOND the WALL of SLEEP

do not exist as our waking selves when I first beheld him. Though into a bovine, half-amiable normality courageous of them returned, Slater comprehend them. Sometimes I well above the middle stature, and like that of the other hill-dwellers. was gone, leaving behind an unrecog- believe that this less material life is of somewhat brawny frame, he was As Slater grew older, it appeared, nizable pulp-like thing that had been our truer life, and that our vain given an absurd appearance of harm- his matutinal aberrations had grad- a living man but an hour before. presence on the terraqueous globe less stupidity by the pale, sleepy ually increased in frequency and None of the mountaineers had dared is itself the secondary or merely blueness of his small watery eyes, the violence; till about a month before to pursue him, and it is likely that virtual phenomenon. scantiness of his neglected and his arrival at the institution had they would have welcomed his death It was from a youthful revery never-shaven growth of yellow beard, occurred the shocking tragedy which from the cold; but when several filled with speculations of this sort and the listless drooping of his heavy caused his arrest by the authorities. mornings later they heard his that I arose one afternoon in the nether lip. His age was unknown, One day near noon, after a profound screams from a distant ravine they winter of 1900-01, when to the state since among his kind neither family sleep begun in a whisky debauch at realized that he had somehow psychopathic institution in which I records nor permanent family ties about five of the previous afternoon, managed to survive, and that his served as an intern was brought the exist; but from the baldness of his the man had roused himself most removal in one way or another would man whose case has ever since head in front, and from the decayed suddenly, with ululations so horrible be necessary. Then had followed an haunted me so unceasingly. His condition of his teeth, the head and unearthly that they brought armed searching-party, whose name, as given on the records, was surgeon wrote him down as a man several neighbors to his cabin—a purpose (whatever it may have been Joe Slater, or Slaader, and his appear- of about forty. filthy sty where he dwelt with a originally) became that of a sheriff ’s ance was that of the typical denizen From the medical and court family as indescribable as himself. posse after one of the seldom popular of the Catskill Mountain region; one documents we learned all that could Rushing out into the snow, he had state troopers had by accident of those strange, repellent scions of be gathered of his case: This man, a flung his arms aloft and commenced observed, then questioned, and a primitive Colonial peasant stock vagabond, hunter and trapper, had a series of leaps directly upward in finally joined the seekers. whose isolation for nearly three always been strange in the eyes of the air; the while shouting his deter- centuries in the hilly fastnesses of a his primitive associates. He had mination to reach some “big, big n the third day Slater was little-traveled countryside has caused habitually slept at night beyond the cabin with brightness in the roof and found unconscious in the them to sink to a kind of barbaric ordinary time, and upon waking walls and floor and the loud queer hollow of a tree, and taken degeneracy, rather than advance with would often talk of unknown things music far away.” As two men of toO the nearest jail, where alienists their more fortunately placed in a manner so bizarre as to inspire moderate size sought to restrain him, from Albany examined him as soon brethren of the thickly settled fear even in the hearts of an unimag- he had struggled with maniacal force as his senses returned. To them he districts. Among these odd folk, who inative populace. Not that his form and fury, screaming of his desire and told a simple story. He had, he said, correspond exactly to the decadent of language was at all unusual, for need to find and kill a certain “thing gone to sleep one afternoon about element of “white trash” in the South, he never spoke save in the debased that shines and shakes and laughs.” sundown after drinking much law and morals are non-existent; and patois of his environment; but the At length, after temporarily felling liquor. He had awaked to find their general mental status is prob- tone and tenor of his utterances were one of his detainers with a sudden himself standing bloody-handed in ably below that of any other section of such mysterious wildness, that blow, he had flung himself upon the the snow before his cabin, the of the native American people. none might listen without appre- other in a demoniac ecstasy of mangled corpse of his neighbor Joe Slater, who came to the insti- hension. He himself was generally blood-thirstiness, shrieking fiend- Peter Slader at his feet. Horrified, tution in the vigilant custody of four as terrified and baffled as his audi- ishly that he would “jump high in he had taken to the woods in a state policemen, and who was tors, and within an hour after awak- the air and burn his way through vague effort to escape from the described as a highly dangerous ening would forget all that he had anything that stopped him.” scene of what must have been his character, certainly presented no said, or at least all that had caused Family and neighbors had now crime. Beyond these tidings he evidence of his perilous disposition him to say what he did; relapsing fled in a panic, and when the more seemed to know nothing, nor could 34 35 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • BEYOND the WALL of SLEEP

the expert questioning of his inter- revenge was his paramount desire. man. With due formality Slater was How, I often asked myself, could the rogators bring out a single addi- In order to reach it, he said, he would tried for murder, acquitted on the stolid imagination of a Catskill tional fact. soar through abysses of emptiness, ground of insanity, and committed degenerate conjure up sights whose That night Slater slept quietly, burning every obstacle that stood in to the institution wherein I held so very possession argued a lurking and the next morning he wakened his way. Thus ran his discourse, until humble a post. spark of genius? How could any with no singular feature save a with the greatest suddenness he backwoods dullard have gained so certain alteration of expression. ceased. The fire of madness died have said that I am a constant much as an idea of those glittering Doctor Barnard, who had been from his eyes, and in dull wonder he speculator concerning dream- realms of supernal radiance and watching the patient, thought he looked at his questioners and asked life, and from this you may space about which Slater ranted in noticed in the pale blue eyes a certain why he was bound. Dr. Barnard judgeI of the eagerness with which I his furious delirium? More and more gleam of peculiar quality, and in the unbuckled the leather harness and applied myself to the study of the I inclined to the belief that in the flaccid lips an all but imperceptible did not restore it till night, when he new patient as soon as I had fully pitiful personality who cringed tightening, as if of intelligent deter- succeeded in persuading Slater to ascertained the facts of his case. He before me lay the disordered nucleus mination. But when questioned, don it of his own volition, for his seemed to sense a certain friendli- of something beyond my compre- Slater relapsed into the habitual own good. The man had now ness in me, born no doubt of the hension; something infinitely beyond vacancy of the mountaineer, and only admitted that he sometimes talked interest I could not conceal, and the comprehension of my more reiterated what he had said on the queerly, though he knew not why. the gentle manner in which I ques- experienced but less imaginative preceding day. Within a week two more attacks tioned him. Not that he ever recog- medical and scientific colleagues. On the third morning occurred appeared, but from them the doctors nized me during his attacks, when I And yet I could extract nothing the first of the man’s mental attacks. learned little. On the source of hung breathlessly upon his chaotic definite from the man. The sum of After some show of uneasiness in Slater’s visions they speculated at but cosmic word-pictures; but he all my investigation was, that in a sleep, he burst forth into a frenzy so length, for since he could neither knew me in his quiet hours, when kind of semi-corporeal dream-life powerful that the combined efforts read nor write, and had apparently he would sit by his barred Slater wandered or floated through of four men were needed to bind never heard a legend or fairy-tale, window—weaving baskets of straw resplendent and prodigious valleys, him in a straitjacket. The alienists his gorgeous imagery was quite inex- and willow, and perhaps pining for meadows, gardens, cities, and palaces listened with keen attention to his plicable. That it could not come from the mountain freedom he could of light, in a region unbounded and words, since their curiosity had been any known myth or romance was never again enjoy. His family never unknown to man; that there he was aroused to a high pitch by the made especially clear by the fact that called to see him; probably it had no peasant or degenerate, but a crea- suggestive yet mostly conflicting and the unfortunate lunatic expressed found another temporary head, ture of importance and vivid life, incoherent stories of his family and himself only in his own simple after the manner of decadent moving proudly and dominantly, and neighbors. Slater raved for upward manner. He raved of things he did mountain folk. checked only by a certain deadly of fifteen minutes, babbling in his not understand and could not inter- By degrees I commenced to feel enemy, who seemed to be a being of backwoods dialect of green edifices pret; things which he claimed to an overwhelming wonder at the mad visible yet ethereal structure, and of light, oceans of space, strange have experienced, but which he could and fantastic conceptions of Joe who did not appear to be of human music, and shadowy mountains and not have learned through any normal Slater. The man himself was pitiably shape, since Slater never referred to valleys. But most of all did he dwell or connected narration. The alienists inferior in mentality and language it as a man, or as aught save a thing. upon some mysterious blazing entity soon agreed that abnormal dreams alike; but his glowing, titanic visions, This thing had done Slater some that shook and laughed and mocked were the foundation of the trouble; though described in a barbarous hideous but unnamed wrong, which at him. This vast, vague personality dreams whose vividness could for a disjointed jargon, were assuredly the maniac (if maniac he were) seemed to have done him a terrible time completely dominate the things which only a superior or even yearned to avenge. wrong, and to kill it in triumphant waking mind of this basically inferior exceptional brain could conceive. From the manner in which 36 37 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • BEYOND the WALL of SLEEP

Slater alluded to their dealings, I means of suitable apparatus, and I with great kindness and patience was what aroused me. Chords, vibra- judged that he and the luminous had in my college days prepared a when I told him, but afterward tions, and harmonic ecstasies echoed thing had met on equal terms; that set of transmitting and receiving gave me a nerve-powder and passionately on every hand, while on in his dream existence the man was instruments somewhat similar to the arranged for the half-year’s vaca- my ravished sight burst the stupen- himself a luminous thing of the same cumbrous devices employed in wire- tion on which I departed the next dous spectacle of ultimate beauty. race as his enemy. This impression less telegraphy at that crude, week. Walls, columns, and architraves of was sustained by his frequent refer- pre-radio period. These I had tested That fateful night I was wildly living fire blazed effulgently around ences to flying through space and with a fellow-student, but achieving agitated and perturbed, for despite the spot where I seemed to float in burning all that impeded his prog- no result, had soon packed them the excellent care he had received, air, extending upward to an infinitely ress. Yet these conceptions were away with other scientific odds and Joe Slater was unmistakably dying. high vaulted dome of indescribable formulated in rustic words wholly ends for possible future use. Perhaps it was his mountain freedom splendor. Blending with this display inadequate to convey them, a circum- Now, in my intense desire to that he missed, or perhaps the of palatial magnificence, or rather, stance which drove me to the conclu- probe into the dream-life of Joe turmoil in his brain had grown too supplanting it at times in kaleido- sion that if a true dream world Slater, I sought these instruments acute for his rather sluggish physique; scopic rotation, were glimpses of indeed existed, oral language was not again, and spent several days in but at all events the flame of vitality wide plains and graceful valleys, high its medium for the transmission of repairing them for action. When flickered low in the decadent body. mountains and inviting grottoes, thought. Could it be that the dream they were complete once more I He was drowsy near the end, and as covered with every lovely attribute soul inhabiting this inferior body missed no opportunity for their trial. darkness fell he dropped off into a of scenery which my delighted eyes was desperately struggling to speak At each outburst of Slater’s violence, troubled sleep. could conceive of, yet formed wholly things which the simple and halting I would fit the transmitter to his I did not strap on the strait of some glowing, ethereal plastic tongue of dullness could not utter? forehead and the receiver to my own, jacket as was customary when he entity, which in consistency partook Could it be that I was face to face constantly making delicate adjust- slept, since I saw that he was too as much of spirit as of matter. As I with intellectual emanations which ments for various hypothetical wave- feeble to be dangerous, even if he gazed, I perceived that my own brain would explain the mystery if I could lengths of intellectual energy. I had woke in mental disorder once more held the key to these enchanting but learn to discover and read them? but little notion of how the before passing away. But I did place metamorphoses; for each vista which I did not tell the older physicians of thought-impressions would, if upon his head and mine the two ends appeared to me was the one my these things, for middle age is skep- successfully conveyed, arouse an of my cosmic “radio,” hoping against changing mind most wished to tical, cynical, and disinclined to intelligent response in my brain, but hope for a first and last message from behold. Amidst this elysian realm I accept new ideas. Besides, the head I felt certain that I could detect and the dream world in the brief time dwelt not as a stranger, for each sight of the institution had but lately interpret them. Accordingly I remaining. In the cell with us was and sound was familiar to me; just warned me in his paternal way that continued my experiments, though one nurse, a mediocre fellow who as it had been for uncounted eons I was overworking; that my mind informing no one of their nature. did not understand the purpose of of eternity before, and would be for needed a rest. the apparatus, or think to inquire like eternities to come. It had long been my belief that t was on the twenty-first of into my course. As the hours wore Then the resplendent aura of human thought consists basically of February, 1901, that the thing on I saw his head droop awkwardly my brother of light drew near and atomic or molecular motion, convert- occurred. As I look back across in sleep, but I did not disturb him. held colloquy with me, soul to soul, ible into ether waves of radiant theI years I realize how unreal it I myself, lulled by the rhythmical with silent and perfect interchange energy like heat, light and electricity. seems, and sometimes half wonder breathing of the healthy and the of thought. The hour was one of This belief had early led me to if old Doctor Fenton was not right dying man, must have nodded a little approaching triumph, for was not contemplate the possibility of telep- when he charged it all to my excited later. my fellow-being escaping at last athy or mental communication by imagination. I recall that he listened The sound of weird lyric melody from a degrading periodic bondage; 38 39 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • BEYOND the WALL of SLEEP

escaping for ever, and preparing to had never before been present. The “Joe Slater is dead,” came the “Of the oppressor I cannot follow the accursed oppressor even lips, too, seemed unusual, being soul-petrifying voice of an agency speak. You on earth have unwittingly unto the uttermost fields of ether, tightly compressed, as if by the from beyond the wall of sleep. My felt its distant presence—you who that upon it might be wrought a force of a stronger character than opened eyes sought the couch of pain without knowing idly gave the flaming cosmic vengeance which had been Slater’s. The whole face in curious horror, but the blue eyes blinking beacon the name of the would shake the spheres? We floated finally began to grow tense, and the were still calmly gazing, and the Algol, the Demon-Star. It is to meet thus for a little time, when I perceived head turned restlessly with closed countenance was still intelligently and conquer the oppressor that I a slight blurring and fading of the eyes. animated. “He is better dead, for he have vainly striven for eons, held objects around us, as though some I did not rouse the sleeping was unfit to bear the active intellect back by bodily encumbrances. force were recalling me to earth— nurse, but readjusted the slightly of cosmic entity. His gross body Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing where I least wished to go. The form disarranged headbands of my tele- could not undergo the needed just and blazingly cataclysmic near me seemed to feel a change also, pathic “radio,” intent to catch any adjustments between ethereal life vengeance. Watch me in the sky for it gradually brought its discourse parting message the dreamer might and planet life. He was too much an close by the Demon-Star. toward a conclusion, and itself have to deliver. All at once the head animal, too little a man; yet it is “I cannot speak longer, for the prepared to quit the scene, fading turned sharply in my direction and through his deficiency that you have body of Joe Slater grows cold and from my sight at a rate somewhat the eyes fell open, causing me to stare come to discover me, for the cosmic rigid, and the coarse brains are less rapid than that of the other in blank amazement at what I and planet souls rightly should never ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You have objects. A few more thoughts were beheld. The man who had been Joe meet. He has been my torment and been my only friend on this planet— exchanged, and I knew that the Slater, the Catskill decadent, was diurnal prison for forty-two of your the only soul to sense and seek for luminous one and I were being now gazing at me with a pair of terrestrial years. me within the repellent form which recalled to bondage, though for my luminous, expanding eyes whose “I am an entity like that which lies on this couch. We shall meet brother of light it would be the last blue seemed subtly to have deepened. you yourself become in the freedom again—perhaps in the shining mists time. The sorry planet shell being Neither mania nor degeneracy was of dreamless sleep. I am your brother of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak well-nigh spent, in less than an hour visible in that gaze, and I felt beyond of light, and have floated with you plateau in prehistoric Asia, perhaps my fellow would be free to pursue a doubt that I was viewing a face in the effulgent valleys. It is not in unremembered dreams tonight, the oppressor along the Milky Way behind which lay an active mind of permitted me to tell your waking perhaps in some other form an eon and past the hither stars to the very high order. earth-self of your real self, but we are hence, when the solar system shall confines of infinity. At this juncture my brain all roamers of vast spaces and trav- have been swept away.” became aware of a steady external elers in many ages. Next year I may At this point the thought-waves well-defined shock influence operating upon it. I closed be dwelling in the Egypt which you abruptly ceased, and the pale eyes of separates my final my eyes to concentrate my thoughts call ancient, or in the cruel empire the dreamer—or can I say dead impression of the fading more profoundly, and was rewarded of Tsan Chan which is to come three man?—commenced to glaze fishily. sceneA of light from my sudden and by the positive knowledge that my thousand years hence. You and I have In a half-stupor I crossed over to the somewhat shamefaced awakening long-sought mental message had drifted to the worlds that reel about couch and felt of his wrist, but found and straightening up in my chair as come at last. Each transmitted idea the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the it cold, stiff, and pulseless. The sallow I saw the dying figure on the couch formed rapidly in my mind, and bodies of the insect-philosophers cheeks paled again, and the thick move hesitantly. Joe Slater was though no actual language was that crawl proudly over the fourth lips fell open, disclosing the repul- indeed awaking, though probably employed, my habitual association moon of Jupiter. How little does the sively rotten fangs of the degenerate for the last time. As I looked more of conception and expression was so earth self know life and its extent! Joe Slater. I shivered, pulled a blanket closely, I saw that in the sallow great that I seemed to be receiving How little, indeed, ought it to know over the hideous face, and awakened cheeks shone spots of color which the message in ordinary English. for its own tranquillity! the nurse. Then I left the cell and 40 41 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

went silently to my room. I had an been visible at that point before. instant and unaccountable craving Within twenty-four hours the for a sleep whose dreams I should stranger had become so bright that not remember. it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had visibly faded, and in the he climax? What plain tale course of a few months it was hardly of science can boast of such discernible with the naked eye.” a rhetorical effect? I have Tmerely set down certain things appealing to me as facts, allowing you to construe them as you will. As I have already admitted, my superior, old Doctor Fenton, denies the reality of everything I have related. He vows that I was broken OLD BUGS. down with nervous strain, and badly in need of the long vacation [return to table of contents] on full pay which he so generously gave me. He assures me on his professional honor that Joe Slater An Extemporaneous Sob Story by Marcus Lollius, Proconsul of Gaul was but a low-grade paranoiac, whose fantastic notions must have come from the crude hereditary heehan’s Pool Room, which there. Over and above the fumes folk-tales which circulate in even adorns one of the lesser alleys and sickening closeness rises an the most decadent of communities. in the heart of Chicago’s aroma once familiar throughout All this he tells me—yet I cannot stockyard district, is not a nice the land, but now happily banished forget what I saw in the sky on the S place. Its air, freighted with a thou- to the back streets of life by the night after Slater died. Lest you sand odours such as Coleridge may edict of a benevolent govern- think me a biased witness, another have found at Cologne, too seldom ment—the aroma of strong, wicked pen must add this final testimony, knows the purifying rays of the whiskey—a precious kind of which may perhaps supply the sun; but fights for space with the forbidden fruit indeed in this year climax you expect. I will quote the acrid fumes of unnumbered cheap of grace 1950. following account of the star Nova cigars and cigarettes which dangle Sheehan’s is the acknowledged Persei verbatim from the pages of from the coarse lips of unnumbered centre to Chicago’s subterranean that eminent astronomical human animals that haunt the traffic in liquor and narcotics, and authority, Professor Garrett P. place day and night. But the popu- as such has a certain dignity which Serviss: larity of Sheehan’s remains unim- extends even to the unkempt attachés “On February 22, 1901, a paired; and for this there is a of the place; but there was until lately marvelous new star was discovered reason—a reason obvious to anyone one who lay outside the pale of that by Doctor Anderson of Edinburgh, who will take the trouble to analyse dignity—one who shared the squalor not very far from Algol. No star had the mixed stenches prevailing and filth, but not the importance, of 42 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • OLD BUGS

Sheehan’s. He was called “Old Bugs,” to Old Bugs’ past was a faded photo- he was true to the derelict type— subject, and with a foolish grin he and was the most disreputable object graph which he constantly carried ready to do anything for a nickel or would turn once more to his mop or in a disreputable environment. What about with him—the photograph of a dose of whiskey or hasheesh—but cleaning-rag. he had once been, many tried to a young woman of noble and beau- at rare intervals he shewed the traits guess; for his language and mode of tiful features. This he would some- which earned him his name. Then do not think that many of utterance when intoxicated to a times draw from his tattered pocket, he would try to straighten up, and a Sheehan’s regular patrons will certain degree were such as to excite carefully unwrap from its covering certain fire would creep into the ever forget the day that young wonderment; but what he was, of tissue paper, and gaze upon for sunken eyes. His demeanour would AlfredI Trever came. He was rather presented less difficulty—for “Old hours with an expression of ineffable assume an unwonted grace and even a “find”—a rich and high-spirited Bugs,” in superlative degree, epito- sadness and tenderness. It was not dignity; and the sodden creatures youth who would “go the limit” in mised the pathetic species known as the portrait of one whom an under- around him would sense something anything he undertook—at least, the “bum” or the “down-and-outer.” world denizen would be likely to of superiority—something which that was the verdict of Pete Schultz, Whence he had come, no one could know, but of a lady of breeding and made them less ready to give the Sheehan’s “runner,” who had come tell. One night he had burst wildly quality, garbed in the quaint attire usual kicks and cuffs to the poor butt across the boy at Lawrence College, into Sheehan’s, foaming at the mouth of thirty years before. Old Bugs and drudge. At these times he would in the small town of Appleton, and screaming for whiskey and himself seemed also to belong to the shew a sardonic humour and make Wisconsin. Trever was the son of hasheesh; and having been supplied past, for his nondescript clothing remarks which the folk of Sheehan’s prominent parents in Appleton. in exchange for a promise to perform bore every hallmark of antiquity. He deemed foolish and irrational. But His father, Karl Trever, was an odd jobs, had hung about ever since, was a man of immense height, prob- the spells would soon pass, and once attorney and citizen of distinction, mopping floors, cleaning cuspidors ably more than six feet, though his more Old Bugs would resume his whilst his mother had made an and glasses, and attending to an stooping shoulders sometimes belied eternal floorscrubbing and enviable reputation as a poetess hundred similar menial duties in this fact. His hair, a dirty white and cuspidor-cleaning. under her maiden name of Eleanor exchange for the drink and drugs falling out in patches, was never But for one thing Old Bugs Wing. Alfred was himself a scholar which were necessary to keep him combed; and over his lean face grew would have been an ideal slave to and poet of distinction, though alive and sane. a mangy stubble of coarse beard the establishment—and that one cursed with a certain childish irre- He talked but little, and usually which seemed always to remain at thing was his conduct when young sponsibility which made him an in the common jargon of the under- the bristling stage—never shaven— men were introduced for their first ideal prey for Sheehan’s runner. He world; but occasionally, when yet never long enough to form a drink. The old man would then rise was blond, handsome, and spoiled; inflamed by an unusually generous respectable set of whiskers. His from the floor in anger and excite- vivacious and eager to taste the dose of crude whiskey, would burst features had perhaps been noble ment, muttering threats and warn- several forms of dissipation about forth into strings of incomprehen- once, but were now seamed with the ings, and seeking to dissuade the which he had read and heard. At sible polysyllables and snatches of ghastly effects of terrible dissipation. novices from embarking upon their Lawrence he had been prominent sonorous prose and verse which led At one time—probably in middle course of “seeing life as it is.” He in the mock-fraternity of “Tappa certain habitués to conjecture that life—he had evidently been grossly would sputter and fume, exploding Tappa Keg,” where he was the he had seen better days. One steady fat; but now he was horribly lean, into sesquipedalian admonitions and wildest and merriest of the wild patron—a bank defaulter under the purple flesh hanging in loose strange oaths, and animated by a and merry young roysterers; but cover—came to converse with him pouches under his bleary eyes and frightful earnestness which brought this immature, collegiate frivolity quite regularly, and from the tone of upon his cheeks. Altogether, Old a shudder to more than one drug- did not satisfy him. He knew his discourse ventured the opinion Bugs was not pleasing to look upon. racked mind in the crowded room. deeper vices through books, and he that he had been a writer or professor The disposition of Old Bugs But after a time his alcohol-enfee- now longed to know them at first in his day. But the only tangible clue was as odd as his aspect. Ordinarily bled brain would wander from the hand. Perhaps this tendency toward 44 45 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • OLD BUGS

wildness had been stimulated speeches on various subjects his young victim, “meet my friend feller—booze, coke, or some other somewhat by the repression to connected with belles lettres, and Al Trever, bes’ li’l’ sport up at sorta dope? Yuh can’t ask for nothin’ which he had been subjected at always shewing a genius so remark- Lawrence—tha’s ’n Appleton, we ain’t got.” home; for Mrs. Trever had able that it seemed as if the public Wisconsin, y’ know. Some swell guy, Habitués say that it was at this particular reason for training her must sometime pardon him for his too—’s father’s a big corp’ration point they noticed a cessation in the only child with rigid severity. She past mistakes. His impassioned lawyer up in his burg, ’n ’s mother’s regular, monotonous strokes of the had, in her own youth, been deeply lectures in defence of Villon, Poe, some fiery genius. He wants to see mop. and permanently impressed with Verlaine, and Oscar Wilde were life as she is—wants to know what “I want whiskey—good old-fash- the horror of dissipation by the applied to himself as well, and in the the real lightnin’ juice tastes like—so ioned rye!” exclaimed Trever enthu- case of one to whom she had for a short Indian summer of his glory jus’ remember he’s me friend an’ treat siastically. “I’ll tell you, I’m good and time been engaged. there was talk of a renewed engage- ’im right.” tired of water after reading of the Young Galpin, the fiancé in ment at a certain cultured home on As the names Trever, Lawrence, merry bouts fellows used to have in question, had been one of Appleton’s Park Avenue. But then the blow fell. and Appleton fell on the air, the the old days. I can’t read an most remarkable sons. Attaining A final disgrace, compared to which loafers seemed to sense something Anacreontic without watering at the distinction as a boy through his the others had been as nothing, shat- unusual. Perhaps it was only some mouth—and it’s something a lot wonderful mentality, he won vast tered the illusions of those who had sound connected with the clicking stronger than water that my mouth fame at the University of Wisconsin, come to believe in Galpin’s reform; balls of the pool tables or the rattling waters for!” and at the age of twenty-three and the young man abandoned his glasses that were brought from the “Anacreontic—what’n hell’s returned to Appleton to take up a name and disappeared from public cryptic regions in the rear—perhaps that?” Several hangers-on looked up professorship at Lawrence and to view. Rumour now and then associ- only that, plus some strange rustling as the young man went slightly slip a diamond upon the finger of ated him with a certain “Consul of the dirty draperies at the one beyond their depth. But the bank Appleton’s fairest and most brilliant Hasting” whose work for the stage dingy window—but many thought defaulter under cover explained to daughter. For a season all went and for motionpicture companies that someone in the room had gritted them that Anacreon was a gay old happily, till without warning the attracted a certain degree of atten- his teeth and drawn a very sharp dog who lived many years ago and storm burst. Evil habits, dating from tion because of its scholarly breadth breath. wrote about the fun he had when all a first drink taken years before in and depth; but Hasting soon disap- “Glad to know you, Sheehan,” the world was just like Sheehan’s. woodland seclusion, made them- peared from the public eye, and said Trever in a quiet, well-bred tone. “Let me see, Trever,” continued selves manifest in the young Galpin became only a name for “This is my first experience in a place the defaulter, “didn’t Schultz say your professor; and only by a hurried parents to quote in warning accents. like this, but I am a student of life, mother is a literary person, too?” resignation did he escape a nasty Eleanor Wing soon celebrated her and don’t want to miss any experi- “Yes, damn it,” replied Trever, prosecution for injury to the habits marriage to Karl Trever, a rising ence. There’s poetry in this sort of “but nothing like the old Teian! She’s and morals of the pupils under his young lawyer, and of her former thing, you know—or perhaps you one of those dull, eternal moralisers charge. His engagement broken, admirer retained only enough don’t know, but it’s all the same. that try to take all the joy out of life. Galpin moved east to begin life memory to dictate the naming of “Young feller,” responded the Namby-pamby sort—ever heard of anew; but before long, Appletonians her only son, and the moral guidance proprietor, “ya come tuh th’ right her? She writes under her maiden heard of his dismissal in disgrace of that handsome and headstrong place tuh see life. We got all kinds name of Eleanor Wing.” from New York University, where he youth. Now, in spite of all that guid- here—reel life an’ a good time. The Here it was that Old Bugs had obtained an instructorship in ance, Alfred Trever was at Sheehan’s damn’ government can try tuh make dropped his mop. English. Galpin now devoted his and about to take his first drink. folks good if it wants tuh, but it can’t “Well, here’s yer stuff,” time to the library and lecture plat- “Boss,” cried Schultz, as he stop a feller from hittin’ ’er up when announced Sheehan jovially as a tray form, preparing volumes and entered the vile-smelling room with he feels like it. Whaddya want, of bottles and glasses was wheeled 46 47 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • OLD BUGS

into the room. “Good old rye, an’ as “This is the last time far you, old still—drawing himself up more Trever, and a change came over the fiery as ya kin find anyw’eres in Chi.” bird!” he exclaimed furiously. “When erectly than any denizen of the place youth. After the first start, he The youth’s eyes glistened and a gen’l’man wants tuh take a drink had ever seen him before. “Ave, replaced the tissue wrapping around his nostrils curled at the fumes of the here, by God, he shall, without you Caesar, moriturus te saluto!” he the portrait, as if to shield it from brownish fluid which an attendant interferin’. Now get th’ hell outa here shouted, and dropped to the whis- the sordidness of the place. Then he was pouring out for him. It repelled afore I kick hell outa ya.” key-reeking floor, never to rise again. gazed long and searchingly at the him horribly, and revolted all his But Sheehan had reckoned Subsequent impressions will figure on the floor, noting its great inherited delicacy; but his determi- without scientific knowledge of never leave the mind of young Trever. height, and the aristocratic cast of nation to taste life to the full abnormal psychology and the effects The picture is blurred, but ineradi- features which seemed to appear remained with him, and he main- of nervous stimulus. Old Bugs, cable. Policemen ploughed a way now that the wretched flame of life tained a bold front. But before his obtaining a firmer hold on his mop, through the crowd, questioning had flickered out. No, he said hastily, resolution was put to the test, the began to wield it like the javelin of everyone closely both about the inci- as the question was put to him, he unexpected intervened. Old Bugs, a Macedonian hoplite, and soon dent and about the dead figure on did not know the subject of the springing up from the crouching cleared a considerable space around the floor. Sheehan especially did they picture. It was so old, he added, that position in which he had hitherto himself, meanwhile shouting various ply with inquiries, yet without elic- no one now could be expected to been, leaped at the youth and dashed disconnected bits of quotation, iting any information of value recognise it. from his hands the uplifted glass, among which was prominently concerning Old Bugs. Then the bank But Alfred Trever did not speak almost simultaneously attacking the repeated, “… the sons of Belial, defaulter remembered the picture, the truth, as many guessed when he tray of bottles and glasses with his blown with insolence and wine.” and suggested that it be viewed and offered to take charge of the body mop, and scattering the contents The room became pandemo- filed for identification at police and secure its interment in Appleton. upon the floor in a confusion of nium, and men screamed and howled headquarters. An officer bent reluc- Over the library mantel in his home odoriferous fluid and broken bottles in fright at the sinister being they tantly over the loathsome glassyeyed hung the exact replica of that picture, and tumblers. Numbers of men, or had aroused. Trever seemed dazed form and found the tissue-wrapped and all his life he had known and things which had been men, dropped in the confusion, and shrank to the cardboard, which he passed around loved its original. to the floor and began lapping at the wall as the strife thickened. “He shall among the others. For the gentle and noble features puddles of spilled liquor, but most not drink! He shall not drink!” Thus “Some chicken!” leered a were those of his own mother. remained immovable, watching the roared Old Bugs as he seemed to drunken man as he viewed the beau- unprecedented actions of the run out of—or rise above—quota- tiful face, but those who were sober barroom drudge and derelict. Old tions. Policemen appeared at the did not leer, looking with respect Bugs straightened up before the door, attracted by the noise, but for and abashment at the delicate and astonished Trever, and in a mild and a time they made no move to inter- spiritual features. No one seemed cultivated voice said, “Do not do this vene. Trever, now thoroughly terri- able to place the subject, and all thing. I was like you once, and I did fied and cured forever of his desire wondered that the drug-degraded it. Now I am like—this.” to see life via the vice route, edged derelict should have such a portrait “What do you mean, you closer to the blue-coated newcomers. in his possession—that is, all but the damned old fool?” shouted Trever. Could he but escape and catch a bank defaulter, who was meanwhile “What do you mean by interfering train for Appleton, he reflected, he eyeing the intruding bluecoats rather with a gentleman in his pleasures?” would consider his education in uneasily. He had seen a little deeper Sheehan, now recovering from his dissipation quite complete. beneath Old Bugs’ mask of utter astonishment, advanced and laid a Then suddenly Old Bugs ceased degradation. heavy hand on the old waif ’s shoulder. to wield his javelin and stopped Then the picture was passed to 48 49

The TRANSITION of JUAN ROMERO.

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f the events which took the fact that during my service in place at the Norton Mine India I was more at home amongst on October eighteenth white-bearded native teachers than andO nineteenth, 1894, I have no amongst my brother-officers. I had desire to speak. A sense of duty to delved not a little into odd Eastern science is all that impels me to lore when overtaken by the calami- recall, in the last years of my life, ties which brought about my new scenes and happenings fraught life in America’s vast West—a life with a terror doubly acute because I wherein I found it well to accept a cannot wholly define it. But I name—my present one—which is believe that before I die I should very common and carries no tell what I know of the—shall I say meaning. transition—of Juan Romero. In the summer and autumn of My name and origin need not 1894 I dwelt in the drear expanses be related to posterity; in fact, I fancy of the Cactus Mountains, employed it is better that they should not be, as a common labourer at the cele- for when a man suddenly migrates brated Norton Mine, whose to the States or the Colonies, he discovery by an aged prospector leaves his past behind him. Besides, some years before had turned the what I once was is not in the least surrounding region from a nearly relevant to my narrative; save perhaps unpeopled waste to a seething H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The TRANSITION of JUAN ROMERO

cauldron of sordid life. A cavern of American pioneer, but the ancient speak. It was my last link with a knowledge of extraordinary condi- gold, lying deep beneath a mountain and noble Aztec, whom imagination chapter of my life forever closed, and tions came from others. The charge, lake, had enriched its venerable called to view when the silent peon I valued it highly. Soon I observed heavier perhaps than had been esti- finder beyond his wildest dreams, would rise in the early morning and that the odd-looking Mexican was mated, had seemed to shake the and now formed the seat of extensive gaze in fascination at the sun as it likewise interested; eyeing it with an entire mountain. Windows in tunneling operations on the part of crept above the eastern hills, mean- expression that banished all suspi- shanties on the slope outside were the corporation to which it had while stretching out his arms to the cion of mere covetousness. Its hoary shattered by the shock, whilst finally been sold. Additional grottoes orb as if in the performance of some hieroglyphs seemed to stir some faint miners throughout the nearer had been found, and the yield of rite whose nature he did not himself recollection in his untutored but passages were knocked from their yellow metal was exceedingly great; comprehend. But save for his face, active mind, though he could not feet. Jewel Lake, which lay above so that a mighty and heterogeneous Romero was not in any way sugges- possibly have beheld their like before. the scene of action, heaved as in a army of miners toiled day and night tive of nobility. Ignorant and dirty, Within a few weeks after his advent, tempest. Upon investigation it was in the numerous passages and rock he was at home amongst the other Romero was like a faithful servant seen that a new abyss yawned hollows. The Superintendent, a Mr. brown-skinned Mexicans; having to me; this notwithstanding the fact indefinitely below the seat of the Arthur, often discussed the singu- come (so I was afterward told) from that I was myself but an ordinary blast; an abyss so monstrous that larity of the local geological forma- the very lowest sort of surroundings. miner. Our conversation was neces- no handy line might fathom it, nor tions; speculating on the probable He had been found as a child in a sarily limited. He knew but a few any lamp illuminate it. Baffled, the extent of the chain of caves, and crude mountain hut, the only words of English, while I found my excavators sought a conference estimating the future of the titanic survivor of an epidemic which had Oxonian Spanish was something with the Superintendent, who mining enterprises. He considered stalked lethally by. Near the hut, quite different from the patois of the ordered great lengths of rope to be the auriferous cavities the result of close to a rather unusual rock fissure, peon of New Spain. taken to the pit, and spliced and the action of water, and believed the had lain two skeletons, newly picked lowered without cessation till a last of them would soon be opened. by vultures, and presumably forming he event which I am about bottom might be discovered. It was not long after my arrival the sole remains of his parents. No to relate was unheralded by Shortly afterward the pale-faced and employment that Juan Romero one recalled their identity, and they long premonitions. Though workmen apprised the came to the Norton Mine. One of were soon forgotten by the many. Tthe man Romero had interested Superintendent of their failure. the large herd of unkempt Mexicans Indeed, the crumbling of the adobe me, and though my ring had Firmly though respectfully, they attracted thither from the neigh- hut and the closing of the rock-fis- affected him peculiarly, I think that signified their refusal to revisit the bouring country, he at first attracted sure by a subsequent avalanche had neither of us had any expectation chasm or indeed to work further in attention only because of his features; helped to efface even the scene from of what was to follow when the the mine until it might be sealed. which though plainly of the Red recollection. Reared by a Mexican great blast was set off. Geological Something beyond their experience Indian type, were yet remarkable for cattle-thief who had given him his considerations had dictated an was evidently confronting them, for their light colour and refined confor- name, Juan differed little from his extension of the mine directly so far as they could ascertain, the mation, being vastly unlike those of fellows. downward from the deepest part of void below was infinite. The the average “greaser” or Piute of the The attachment which Romero the subterranean area; and the Superintendent did not reproach locality. It is curious that although manifested toward me was undoubt- belief of the Superintendent that them. Instead, he pondered deeply, he differed so widely from the mass edly commenced through the quaint only solid rock would be encoun- and made plans for the following of Hispanicised and tribal Indians, and ancient Hindoo ring which I tered, had led to the placing of a day. The night shift did not go on Romero gave not the least impres- wore when not engaged in active prodigious charge of dynamite. that evening. sion of Caucasian blood. It was not labour. Of its nature, and manner of With this work Romero and I were At two in the morning a lone the Castilian conquistador or the coming into my possession, I cannot not connected, wherefore our first coyote on the mountain began to 52 53 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The TRANSITION of JUAN ROMERO

howl dismally. From somewhere to describe it was useless—for it was into the ear of some drowsy madly down the rickety ladders. And within the works a dog barked an such that no description is possible. bartender. From the watchman’s frightened as I was, I yet retained answer; either to the coyote—or to Perhaps it was like the pulsing of the cabin, however, gleamed a small enough of my perception to note something else. A storm was gath- engines far down in a great liner, as square of yellow light like a guardian that his speech, when articulate, was ering around the peaks of the range, sensed from the deck, yet it was not eye. I dimly wondered how the not of any sort known to me. Harsh and weirdly shaped clouds scudded so mechanical; not so devoid of the rhythmic sound had affected the but impressive polysyllables had horribly across the blurred patch of element of the life and conscious- watchman; but Romero was moving replaced the customary mixture of celestial light which marked a ness. Of all its qualities, remoteness more swiftly now, and I followed bad Spanish and worse English, and gibbous moon’s attempts to shine in the earth most impressed me. To without pausing. of these, only the oft repeated cry through many layers of cirro-stratus my mind rushed fragments of a As we descended the shaft, the “Huitzilopotchli” seemed in the least vapours. It was Romero’s voice, passage in Joseph Glanvil which Poe sound beneath grew definitely familiar. Later I definitely placed coming from the bunk above, that has quoted with tremendous effect.1 composite. It struck me as horribly that word in the works of a great awakened me, a voice excited and “… the vastness, profundity, and like a sort of Oriental ceremony, with historian2 —and shuddered when tense with some vague expectation unsearchableness of His works, beating of drums and chanting of the association came to me. I could not understand: which have a depth in them greater many voices. I have, as you are aware, The climax of that awful night “Madre de Dios!—el sonido— than the well of Democritus.” been much in India. Romero and I was composite but fairly brief, begin- ese sonido—oiga Vd!—lo oye Vd?— Suddenly Romero leaped from moved without material hesitancy ning just as I reached the final cavern señor, THAT SOUND!” his bunk, pausing before me to gaze through drifts and down ladders; of the journey. Out of the darkness I listened, wondering what at the strange ring on my hand, ever toward the thing that allured immediately ahead burst a final sound he meant. The coyote, the dog, which glistened queerly in every us, yet ever with a pitifully helpless shriek from the Mexican, which was the storm, all were audible; the last flash of lightning, and then staring fear and reluctance. At one time I joined by such a chorus of uncouth named now gaining ascendancy as intently in the direction of the mine fancied I had gone mad—this was sound as I could never hear again the wind shrieked more and more shaft. I also rose, and both of us stood when, on wondering how our way and survive. In that moment it frantically. Flashes of lightning were motionless for a time, straining our was lighted in the absence of lamp seemed as if all the hidden terrors visible through the bunk-house ears as the uncanny rhythm seemed or candle, I realized that the ancient and monstrosities of earth had window. I questioned the nervous more and more to take on a vital ring on my finger was glowing with become articulate in an effort to Mexican, repeating the sounds I had quality. Then without apparent voli- eerie radiance, diffusing a pallid overwhelm the human race. heard: tion we began to move toward the lustre through the damp, heavy air Simultaneously the light from my “—el perro—el viento?” door, whose rattling in the gale held around. ring was extinguished, and I saw a But Romero did not reply. Then a comforting suggestion of earthly It was without warning that new light glimmering from lower he commenced whispering as in awe: reality. The chanting in the depths— Romero, after clambering down one space but a few yards ahead of me. “El ritmo, señor—el ritmo de la for such the sound now seemed to of the many wide ladders, broke into I had arrived at the abyss, which was tierra—THAT THROB DOWN be—grew in volume and distinct- a run and left me alone. Some new now redly aglow, and which had IN THE GROUND!” ness; and we felt irresistibly urged and wild note in the drumming and evidently swallowed up the unfor- And now I also heard; heard and out into the storm and thence to the chanting, perceptible but slightly to tunate Romero. Advancing, I peered shivered and without knowing why. gaping blackness of the shaft. me, had acted on him in a startling over the edge of that chasm which Deep, deep, below me was a sound—a We encountered no living crea- fashion; and with a wild outcry he no line could fathom, and which was rhythm, just as the peon had said— ture, for the men of the night shift forged ahead unguided in the cavern’s now a pandemonium of flickering which, though exceedingly faint, yet had been released from duty, and gloom. I heard his repeated shrieks flame and hideous uproar. At first I dominated even the dog, the coyote, were doubtless at the Dry Gulch before me, as he stumbled awkwardly beheld nothing but a seething blur and the increasing tempest. To seek settlement pouring sinister rumours along the level places and scrambled of luminosity; but then shapes, all 54 55 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The TRANSITION of JUAN ROMERO

infinitely distant, began to detach apprehension the day before. When experience varies from time to time. themselves from the confusion, and I asked the watchman what sounds In broad daylight, and at most I saw—was it Juan Romero?—but he had heard prior to the mighty seasons I am apt to think the greater God! I dare not tell you what I thunder-bolt; he mentioned a coyote, part of it a mere dream; but some- saw!… Some power from heaven, a dog, and the snarling mountain times in the autumn, about two in coming to my aid, obliterated both wind—nothing more. Nor do I the morning when the winds and sights and sounds in such a crash as doubt his word. animals howl dismally, there comes may be heard when two universes Upon the resumption of work, from inconceivable depths below a collide in space. Chaos supervened, Superintendent Arthur called upon damnable suggestion of rhythmical and I knew the peace of oblivion. some especially dependable men to throbbing… and I feel that the tran- I hardly know how to continue, make a few investigations around sition of Juan Romero was a terrible since conditions so singular are the spot where the gulf had appeared. one indeed. involved; but I will do my best, not Though hardly eager, they obeyed, even trying to differentiate betwixt and a deep boring was made. Results 1 Motto of A Descent into the the real and the apparent. When I were very curious. The roof of the Maelstrom awakened, I was safe in my bunk and void, as seen when it was open, was 2 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico the red glow of dawn was visible at not by any means thick; yet now the the window. Some distance away the drills of the investigators met what lifeless body of Juan Romero lay appeared to be a limitless extent of upon a table, surrounded by a group solid rock. Finding nothing else, not of men, including the camp doctor. even gold, the Superintendent aban- The men were discussing the strange doned his attempts; but a perplexed death of the Mexican as he lay look occasionally steals over his asleep; a death seemingly connected countenance as he sits thinking at in some way with the terrible bolt his desk. of lightning which had struck and One other thing is curious. shaken the mountain. No direct Shortly after waking on that morning cause was evident, and an autopsy after the storm, I noticed the unac- failed to show any reason why countable absence of my Hindoo Romero should not be living. ring from my finger. I had prized it Snatches of conversation indicated greatly, yet nevertheless felt a sensa- beyond a doubt that neither Romero tion of relief at its disappearance. If nor I had left the bunk-house during one of my fellow-miners appropri- the night; that neither of us had been ated it, he must have been quite awake during the frightful storm clever in disposing of his booty, for which had passed over the Cactus despite advertisements and a police range. That storm, said men who search, the ring was never seen again. had ventured down the mine shaft, Somehow I doubt if it was stolen by had caused extensive caving-in, and mortal hands, for many strange had completely closed the deep abyss things were taught me in India. which had created so much My opinion of my whole 56 57

The WHITE SHIP.

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am Basil Elton, keeper of the The old captains of the sea came North Point light that my often to my grandfather and told father and grandfather kept him of these things which in turn beforeI me. Far from the shore he told to my father, and my father stands the gray lighthouse, above told to me in the long autumn sunken slimy rocks that are seen evenings when the wind howled when the tide is low, but unseen eerily from the East. And I have read when the tide is high. Past that more of these things, and of many beacon for a century have swept things besides, in the books men the majestic barques of the seven gave me when I was young and filled seas. In the days of my grandfather with wonder. there were many; in the days of my But more wonderful than the father not so many; and now there lore of old men and the lore of books are so few that I sometimes feel is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, strangely alone, as though I were green, gray, white or black; smooth, the last man on our planet. ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean From far shores came those is not silent. All my days have I white-sailed argosies of old; from far watched it and listened to it, and I Eastern shores where warm suns know it well. At first it told to me shine and sweet odors linger about only the plain little tales of calm strange gardens and gay temples. beaches and near ports, but with the H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The WHITE SHIP

years it grew more friendly and know well, and the hours were filled all those mysteries that man has rowers onward in my eagerness to spoke of other things; of things more with soft songs of the oarsmen as striven in vain to fathom.” And I reach the scene. And the bearded strange and more distant in space we glided away into a mysterious looked again, at closer range, and man spoke no word, but watched me and time. Sometimes at twilight the South, golden with the glow of that saw that the city was greater than as we approached the lily-lined gray vapors of the horizon have full, mellow moon. any city I had known or dreamed of shore. Suddenly a wind blowing parted to grant me glimpses of the And when the day dawned, rosy before. Into the sky the spires of its from over the flowery meadows and ways beyond; and sometimes at and effulgent, I beheld the green temples reached, so that no man leafy woods brought a scent at which night the deep waters of the sea have shore of far lands, bright and beau- might behold their peaks; and far I trembled. The wind grew stronger, grown clear and phosphorescent, to tiful, and to me unknown. Up from back beyond the horizon stretched and the air was filled with the lethal, grant me glimpses of the ways the sea rose lordly terraces of verdure, the grim, gray walls, over which one charnel odor of plague-stricken beneath. And these glimpses have tree-studded, and shewing here and might spy only a few roofs, weird towns and uncovered cemeteries. been as often of the ways that were there the gleaming white roofs and and ominous, yet adorned with rich And as we sailed madly away from and the ways that might be, as of colonnades of strange temples. As friezes and alluring sculptures. I that damnable coast the bearded the ways that are; for ocean is more we drew nearer the green shore the yearned mightily to enter this fasci- man spoke at last, saying, “This is ancient than the mountains, and bearded man told me of that land, nating yet repellent city, and Xura, the Land of Pleasures freighted with the memories and the land of Zar, where dwell all the besought the bearded man to land Unattained.” the dreams of Time. dreams and thoughts of beauty that me at the stone pier by the huge So once more the White Ship Out of the South it was that the come to men once and then are carven gate Akariel; but he gently followed the bird of heaven, over White Ship used to come when the forgotten. And when I looked upon denied my wish, saying, “Into warm blessed seas fanned by moon was full and high in the the terraces again I saw that what Thalarion, the City of a Thousand caressing, aromatic breezes. Day after heavens. Out of the South it would he said was true, for among the Wonders, many have passed but day and night after night did we sail, glide very smoothly and silently over sights before me were many things none returned. Therein walk only and when the moon was full we the sea. And whether the sea was I had once seen through the mists daemons and mad things that are no would listen to soft songs of the rough or calm, and whether the wind beyond the horizon and in the phos- longer men, and the streets are white oarsmen, sweet as on that distant was friendly or adverse, it would phorescent depths of ocean. There with the unburied bones of those night when we sailed away from my always glide smoothly and silently, too were forms and more who have looked upon the eidolon far native land. And it was by moon- its sails distant and its long strange splendid than any I had ever known; Lathi, that reigns over the city.” So light that we anchored at last in the tiers of oars moving rhythmically. the visions of young poets who died the White Ship sailed on past the harbor of Sona-Nyl, which is One night I espied upon the deck a in want before the world could learn walls of Thalarion, and followed for guarded by twin headlands of crystal man, bearded and robed, and he of what they had seen and dreamed. many days a southward-flying bird, that rise from the sea and meet in a seemed to beckon me to embark for But we did not set foot upon the whose glossy plumage matched the resplendent arch. This is the Land far unknown shores. Many times sloping meadows of Zar, for it is told sky out of which it had appeared. of Fancy, and we walked to the afterward I saw him under the full that he who treads them may never- Then came we to a pleasant verdant shore upon a golden bridge moon, and ever did he beckon me. more return to his native shore. coast gay with blossoms of every hue, of moonbeams. Very brightly did the moon As the White Ship sailed silently where as far inland as we could see In the Land of Sona-Nyl there shine on the night I answered the away from the templed terraces of basked lovely groves and radiant is neither time nor space, neither call, and I walked out over the waters Zar, we beheld on the distant horizon arbors beneath a meridian sun. From suffering nor death; and there I dwelt to the White Ship on a bridge of ahead the spires of a mighty city; bowers beyond our view came bursts for many aeons. Green are the groves moonbeams. The man who had and the bearded man said to me, of song and snatches of lyric and pastures, bright and fragrant the beckoned now spoke a welcome to “This is Thalarion, the City of a harmony, interspersed with faint flowers, blue and musical the streams, me in a soft language I seemed to Thousand Wonders, wherein reside laughter so delicious that I urged the clear and cool the fountains, and 60 61 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The WHITE SHIP

stately and gorgeous the temples, me, “Beware of those perilous seas tortoise, and here resound the soft summits—which indeed some say castles, and cities of Sona-Nyl. Of wherein men say Cathuria lies. In notes of the singer and the lutanist. reach even to the heavens. And the that land there is no bound, for Sona-Nyl there is no pain or death, And the houses of the cities of bearded man again implored me to beyond each vista of beauty rises but who can tell what lies beyond Cathuria are all palaces, each built turn back, but I heeded him not; for another more beautiful. Over the the basalt pillars of the West?” over a fragrant canal bearing the from the mists beyond the basalt countryside and amidst the splendor Natheless at the next full moon I waters of the sacred Narg. Of marble pillars I fancied there came the notes of cities can move at will the happy boarded the White Ship, and with and porphyry are the houses, and of singers and lutanists; sweeter than folk, of whom all are gifted with the reluctant bearded man left the roofed with glittering gold that the sweetest songs of Sona-Nyl, and unmarred grace and unalloyed happy harbor for untraveled seas. reflects the rays of the sun and sounding mine own praises; the happiness. For the aeons that I dwelt And the bird of heaven flew enhances the splendor of the cities praises of me, who had voyaged far there I wandered blissfully through before, and led us toward the basalt as blissful gods view them from the from the full moon and dwelt in the gardens where quaint pagodas peep pillars of the West, but this time the distant peaks. Fairest of all is the Land of Fancy. So to the sound of from pleasing clumps of bushes, and oarsmen sang no soft songs under palace of the great monarch Dorieb, melody the White Ship sailed into where the white walks are bordered the full moon. In my mind I would whom some say to be a demi-god the mist betwixt the basalt pillars of with delicate blossoms. I climbed often picture the unknown Land of and others a god. High is the palace the West. And when the music gentle hills from whose summits I Cathuria with its splendid groves of Dorieb, and many are the turrets ceased and the mist lifted, we beheld could see entrancing panoramas of and palaces, and would wonder what of marble upon its walls. In its wide not the Land of Cathuria, but a loveliness, with steepled towns nest- new delights there awaited me. halls many multitudes assemble, and swift-rushing resistless sea, over ling in verdant valleys, and with the “Cathuria,” I would say to myself, “is here hang the trophies of the ages. which our helpless barque was borne golden domes of gigantic cities glit- the abode of gods and the land of And the roof is of pure gold, set upon toward some unknown goal. Soon tering on the infinitely distant unnumbered cities of gold. Its forests tall pillars of ruby and azure, and to our ears came the distant thunder horizon. And I viewed by moonlight are of aloe and sandalwood, even as having such carven figures of gods of falling waters, and to our eyes the sparkling sea, the crystal head- the fragrant groves of Camorin, and and heroes that he who looks up to appeared on the far horizon ahead lands, and the placid harbor wherein among the trees flutter gay birds those heights seems to gaze upon the titanic spray of a monstrous cata- lay anchored the White Ship. sweet with song. On the green and the living Olympus. And the floor ract, wherein the oceans of the world flowery mountains of Cathuria stand of the palace is of glass, under which drop down to abysmal nothingness. t was against the full moon one temples of pink marble, rich with flow the cunningly lighted waters of Then did the bearded man say to night in the immemorial year carven and painted glories, and the Narg, gay with gaudy fish not me, with tears on his cheek, “We of Tharp that I saw outlined having in their courtyards cool foun- known beyond the bounds of lovely have rejected the beautiful Land of theI beckoning form of the celestial tains of silver, where purr with Cathuria.” Sona-Nyl, which we may never bird, and felt the first stirrings of ravishing music the scented waters Thus would I speak to myself of behold again. The gods are greater unrest. Then I spoke with the that come from the grotto-born river Cathuria, but ever would the bearded than men, and they have conquered.” bearded man, and told him of my Narg. And the cities of Cathuria are man warn me to turn back to the And I closed my eyes before the new yearnings to depart for remote cinctured with golden walls, and happy shore of Sona-Nyl; for crash that I knew would come, shut- Cathuria, which no man hath seen, their pavements also are of gold. In Sona-Nyl is known of men, while ting out the sight of the celestial bird but which all believe to lie beyond the gardens of these cities are strange none hath ever beheld Cathuria. which flapped its mocking blue the basalt pillars of the West. It is orchids, and perfumed lakes whose And on the thirty-first day that wings over the brink of the torrent. the Land of Hope, and in it shine beds are of coral and amber. At night we followed the bird, we beheld the Out of that crash came darkness, the perfect ideals of all that we the streets and the gardens are lit basalt pillars of the West. Shrouded and I heard the shrieking of men know elsewhere; or at least so men with gay lanthorns fashioned from in mist they were, so that no man and of things which were not men. relate. But the bearded man said to the three-colored shell of the might peer beyond them or see their From the East tempestuous winds 62 63 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS arose, and chilled me as I crouched on the slab of damp stone which had risen beneath my feet. Then as I heard another crash I opened my eyes and beheld myself upon the platform of that lighthouse whence I had sailed so many aeons ago. In the darkness below there loomed the vast blurred outlines of a vessel breaking up on the cruel rocks, and as I glanced out over the waste I saw that the light had failed for the first time since my grandfather had assumed its care. And in the later watches of the The STREET. night, when I went within the tower, I saw on the wall a calendar which [return to table of contents] still remained as when I had left it at the hour I sailed away. With the dawn I descended the tower and looked for wreckage upon the rocks, here be those who say that more, men built cabins on the south but what I found was only this: a things and places have side of the Street. strange dead bird whose hue was as souls, and there be those Up and down the Street walked of the azure sky, and a single shat- Twho say they have not; I dare not grave men in conical hats, who most tered spar, of a whiteness greater say, myself, but I will tell of the of the time carried muskets or than that of the wave-tips or of the Street. fowling pieces. And there were also mountain snow. Men of strength and honour their bonneted wives and sober chil- And thereafter the ocean told fashioned that Street: good valiant dren. In the evening these men with me its secrets no more; and though men of our blood who had come their wives and children would sit many times since has the moon from the Blessed Isles across the sea. about gigantic hearths and read and shone full and high in the heavens, At first it was but a path trodden by speak. Very simple were the things the White Ship from the South bearers of water from the woodland of which they read and spoke, yet came never again. spring to the cluster of houses by the things which gave them courage and beach. Then, as more men came to goodness and helped them by day the growing cluster of houses and to subdue the forest and till the looked about for places to dwell, they fields. And the children would listen built cabins along the north side, and learn of the laws and deeds of cabins of stout oaken logs with old, and of that dear England which masonry on the side toward the they had never seen or could not forest, for many Indians lurked there remember. with fire-arrows. And in a few years There was war, and thereafter

64 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The STREET

no more Indians troubled the Street. twittering bird-song. And behind There was so much ancient lore in raging across the seas; a dynasty had The men, busy with labour, waxed the houses were walled rose-gardens that Street, that the past could not collapsed, and its degenerate subjects prosperous and as happy as they with hedged paths and sundials, easily be forgotten. were flocking with dubious intent knew how to be. And the children where at evening the moon and stars Then came days of evil, when to the Land. Many of these grew up comfortable, and more would shine bewitchingly while many who had known the Street of took lodgings in the battered houses families came from the Mother Land fragrant blossoms glistened with old knew it no more, and many knew that had once known the songs of to dwell on the Street. And the chil- dew. it who had not known it before, and birds and the scent of roses. Then dren’s children, and the newcomers’ So the Street dreamed on, past went away, for their accents were the Western Land itself awoke and children, grew up. The town was now wars, calamities, and change. Once, coarse and strident, and their mien joined the Mother Land in her a city, and one by one the cabins gave most of the young men went away, and faces unpleasing. Their thoughts, titanic struggle for civilization. Over place to houses—simple, beautiful and some never came back. That was too, fought with the wise, just spirit the cities once more floated the old houses of brick and wood, with stone when they furled the old flag and of the Street, so that the Street pined flag, companioned by the new flag, steps and iron railings and fanlights put up a new banner of stripes and silently as its houses fell into decay, and by a plainer, yet glorious trico- over the doors. No flimsy creations stars. But though men talked of great and its trees died one by one, and its lour. But not many flags floated over were these houses, for they were changes, the Street felt them not, for rose-gardens grew rank with weeds the Street, for therein brooded only made to serve many a generation. its folk were still the same, speaking and waste. But it felt a stir of pride fear and hatred and ignorance. Again Within there were carven mantels of the old familiar things in the old one day when again marched forth young men went forth, but not quite and graceful stairs, and sensible, familiar accounts. And the trees still young men, some of whom never as did the young men of those other pleasing furniture, china, and silver, sheltered singing birds, and at came back. These young men were days. Something was lacking. And brought from the Mother Land. evening the moon and stars looked clad in blue. the sons of those young men of other So the Street drank in the down upon dewy blossoms in the With the years, worse fortune days, who did indeed go forth in dreams of a young people and walled rose-gardens. came to the Street. Its trees were all olive-drab with the true spirit of rejoiced as its dwellers became more In time there were no more gone now, and its rose-gardens were their ancestors, went from distant graceful and happy. Where once had swords, three-cornered hats, or peri- displaced by the backs of cheap, ugly places and knew not the Street and been only strength and honour, taste wigs in the Street. How strange new buildings on parallel streets. Yet its ancient spirit. and learning now abode as well. seemed the inhabitants with their the houses remained, despite the Over the seas there was a great Books and paintings and music came walking-sticks, tall beavers, and ravages of the years and the storms victory, and in triumph most of the to the houses, and the young men cropped heads! New sounds came and worms, for they had been made young men returned. Those who had went to the university which rose from the distance—first strange to serve many a generation. New lacked something lacked it no longer, above the plain to the north. In the puffings and shrieks from the river kinds of faces appeared in the Street, yet did fear and hatred and ignorance place of conical hats and small- a mile away, and then, many years swarthy, sinister faces with furtive still brood over the Street; for many swords, of lace and snowy periwigs, later, strange puffings and shrieks eyes and odd features, whose owners had stayed behind, and many there were cobblestones over which and rumblings from other directions. spoke unfamiliar words and placed strangers had come from distance clattered many a blooded horse and The air was not quite so pure as signs in known and unknown char- places to the ancient houses. And rumbled many a gilded coach; and before, but the spirit of the place had acters upon most of the musty the young men who had returned brick sidewalks with horse blocks not changed. The blood and soul of houses. Push-carts crowded the dwelt there no longer. Swarthy and and hitching-posts. their ancestors had fashioned the gutters. A sordid, undefinable stench sinister were most of the strangers, There were in that Street many Street. Nor did the spirit change settled over the place, and the ancient yet among them one might find a trees: elms and oaks and maples of when they tore open the earth to lay spirit slept. few faces like those who fashioned dignity; so that in the summer, the down strange pipes, or when they Great excitement once came to the Street and moulded its spirit. scene was all soft verdure and set up tall posts bearing weird wires. the Street. War and revolution were Like and yet unlike, for there was in 66 67 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The STREET

the eyes of all a weird, unhealthy who on a designated day were to bearing muskets, till it seemed as if night a surprise because of its very glitter as of greed, ambition, vindic- launch an orgy of slaughter for the in its sad sleep the Street must have queer uniformity. It was, indeed, an tiveness, or misguided zeal. Unrest extermination of America and of all some haunting dreams of those other exceedingly singular happening, and treason were abroad amongst an the fine old traditions which the days, when musketbearing men in though after all, a simple one. For evil few who plotted to strike the Street had loved. Handbills and conical hats walked along it from without warning, in one of the small Western Land its death blow, that papers fluttered about filthy gutters; the woodland spring to the cluster hours beyond midnight, all the they might mount to power over its handbills and papers printed in many of houses by the beach. Yet could no ravages of the years and the storms ruins, even as assassins had mounted tongues and in many characters, yet act be performed to check the and the worms came to a tremen- in that unhappy, frozen land from all bearing messages of crime and impending cataclysm, for the swart, dous climax; and after the crash whence most of them had come. rebellion. In these writings the sinister men were old in cunning. there was nothing left standing in And the heart of that plotting was people were urged to tear down the So the Street slept uneasily on, the Street save two ancient chim- in the Street, whose crumbling laws and virtues that our fathers had till one night there gathered in neys and part of a stout brick wall. houses teemed with alien makers of exalted, to stamp out the soul of the Petrovitch’s Bakery, and the Rifkin Nor did anything that had been alive discord and echoed with the plans old America—the soul that was School of Modern Economics, and come alive from the ruins. A poet and speeches of those who yearned bequeathed through a thousand and the Circle Social Club, and Liberty and a traveler, who came with the for the appointed day of blood, flame a half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom, Cafe, and in other places as well, vast mighty crowd that sought the scene, and crime. justice, and moderation. It was said hordes of men whose eyes were big tell odd stories. The poet says that Of the various odd assemblages that the swart men who dwelt in the with horrible triumph and expecta- all through the hours before dawn in the Street, the Law said much but Street and congregated in its rotting tion. Over hidden wires strange he beheld sordid ruins indistinctly could prove little. With great dili- edifices were the brains of a hideous messages traveled, and much was in the glare of the arc-lights; that gence did men of hidden badges revolution, that at their word of said of still stranger messages yet to there loomed above the wreckage linger and listen about such places command many millions of brain- travel; but most of this was not another picture wherein he could as Petrovitch’s Bakery, the squalid less, besotted beasts would stretch guessed till afterward, when the describe moonlight and fair houses Rifkin School of Modern Economics, forth their noisome talons from the Western Land was safe from the and elms and oaks and maples of the Circle Social Club, and the slums of a thousand cities, burning, peril. The men in olive-drab could dignity. And the traveler declares Liberty Cafe. There congregated slaying, and destroying till the land not tell what was happening, or what that instead of the place’s wonted sinister men in great numbers, yet of our fathers should be no more. they ought to do; for the swart, stench there lingered a delicate always was their speech guarded or All this was said and repeated, and sinister men were skilled in subtlety fragrance as of roses in full bloom. in a foreign tongue. And still the old many looked forward in dread to the and concealment. But are not the dreams of poets and houses stood, with their forgotten fourth day of July, about which the And yet the men in olive-drab the tales of travelers notoriously lore of nobler, departed centuries; of strange writings hinted much; yet will always remember that night, false? sturdy Colonial tenants and dewy could nothing be found to place the and will speak of the Street as they There be those who say that rose-gardens in the moonlight. guilt. None could tell just whose tell of it to their grandchildren; for things and places have souls, and Sometimes a lone poet or traveler arrest might cut off the damnable many of them were sent there there be those who say they have would come to view them, and would plotting at its source. Many times toward morning on a mission unlike not; I dare not say, myself, but I have try to picture them in their vanished came bands of blue-coated police to that which they had expected. It was told you of the Street. glory; yet of such travelers and poets search the shaky houses, though at known that this nest of anarchy was there were not many. last they ceased to come; for they old, and that the houses were The rumour now spread widely too had grown tired of law and order, tottering from the ravages of the that these houses contained the and had abandoned all the city to its years and the storms and worms; yet leaders of a vast band of terrorists, fate. Then men in olive-drab came, was the happening of that summer 68 69

The DOOM that CAME to SARNATH.

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here is in the land of Mnar rise above it; that they had bulging a vast still lake that is fed eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious by no stream, and out of ears, and were without voice. It is Twhich no stream flows. Ten thou- also written that they descended one sand years ago there stood by its night from the moon in a mist; they shore the mighty city of Sarnath, and the vast still lake and gray stone but Sarnath stands there no more. city Ib. However this may be, it is It is told that in the immemorial certain that they worshipped a years when the world was young, sea-green stone idol chiseled in the before ever the men of Sarnath came likeness of Bokrug, the great water- to the land of Mnar, another city lizard; before which they danced stood beside the lake; the gray stone horribly when the moon was gibbous. city of Ib, which was old as the lake And it is written in the papyrus of itself, and peopled with beings not Ilarnek, that they one day discovered pleasing to behold. Very odd and fire, and thereafter kindled flames ugly were these beings, as indeed are on many ceremonial occasions. But most beings of a world yet inchoate not much is written of these beings, and rudely fashioned. It is written because they lived in very ancient on the brick cylinders of Kadatheron times, and man is young, and knows that the beings of Ib were in hue as but little of the very ancient living green as the lake and the mists that things. H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The DOOM that CAME to SARNATH

After many eons men came to wondering from the greatness of the and tools for artificers and all houses like them; and travelers from the land of Mnar, dark shepherd folk labor how ever the stones were things of luxury that are known to Thraa and Ilarnek and Kadatheron with their fleecy flocks, who built brought from afar, as they must have the people who dwell along the marveled at the shining domes Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron on been, since there is naught like them winding river Ai and beyond. So wherewith they were surmounted. the winding river Ai. And certain in the land of Mnar or in the lands Sarnath waxed mighty and learned But more marvelous still were tribes, more hardy than the rest, adjacent. and beautiful, and sent forth the palaces and the temples, and the pushed on to the border of the lake Thus of the very ancient city of conquering armies to subdue the gardens made by Zokkar the olden and built Sarnath at a spot where Ib was nothing spared, save the neighboring cities; and in time king. There were many palaces, the precious metals were found in the sea-green stone idol chiseled in the there sat upon a throne in Sarnath last of which were mightier than any earth. likeness of Bokrug, the water-lizard. the kings of all the land of Mnar in Thraa or Ilarnek or Kadatheron. Not far from the gray city of Ib This the young warriors took back and of many lands adjacent. So high were they that one within did the wandering tribes lay the first with them as a symbol of conquest The wonder of the world and might sometimes fancy himself stones of Sarnath, and at the beings over the old gods and beings of Ib, the pride of all mankind was Sarnath beneath only the sky; yet when of Ib they marveled greatly. But with and as a sign of leadership in Mnar. the magnificent. Of polished lighted with torches dipt in the oil their marveling was mixed hate, for But on the night after it was set up desert-quarried marble were its of Dother their walls showed vast they thought it not meet that beings in the temple, a terrible thing must walls, in height three hundred cubits paintings of kings and armies, of a of such aspect should walk about the have happened, for weird lights were and in breadth seventy-five, so that splendor at once inspiring and stupe- world of men at dusk. Nor did they seen over the lake, and in the chariots might pass each other as fying to the beholder. Many were like the strange sculptures upon the morning the people found the idol men drove them along the top. For the pillars of the palaces, all of tinted gray monoliths of Ib, for why those gone and the high-priest Taran-Ish full five hundred stadia did they run, marble, and carven into designs of sculptures lingered so late in the lying dead, as from some fear being open only on the side toward surpassing beauty. And in most of world, even until the coming of men, unspeakable. And before he died, the lake where a green stone sea-wall the palaces the floors were mosaics none can tell; unless it was because Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the kept back the waves that rose oddly of beryl and lapis lazuli and sardonyx the land of Mnar is very still, and altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky once a year at the festival of the and carbuncle and other choice remote from most other lands, both strokes the sign of DOOM. destroying of Ib. In Sarnath were materials, so disposed that the of waking and of dream. fifty streets from the lake to the gates beholder might fancy himself As the men of Sarnath beheld fter Taran-Ish there were of the caravans, and fifty more inter- walking over beds of the rarest more of the beings of Ib their hate many high-priests in secting them. With onyx were they flowers. And there were likewise grew, and it was not less because they Sarnath but never was the paved, save those whereon the horses fountains, which cast scented waters found the beings weak, and soft as Asea-green stone idol found. And and camels and elephants trod, about in pleasing jets arranged with jelly to the touch of stones and many centuries came and went, which were paved with granite. And cunning art. Outshining all others arrows. So one day the young wherein Sarnath prospered exceed- the gates of Sarnath were as many was the palace of the kings of Mnar warriors, the slingers and the ingly, so that only priests and old as the landward ends of the streets, and of the lands adjacent. On a pair spearmen and the bowmen, marched women remembered what each of bronze, and flanked by the of golden crouching lions rested the against Ib and slew all the inhabi- Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the figures of lions and elephants carven throne, many steps above the tants thereof, pushing the queer altar of chrysolite. Betwixt Sarnath from some stone no longer known gleaming floor. And it was wrought bodies into the lake with long spears, and the city of Ilarnek arose a among men. The houses of Sarnath of one piece of ivory, though no man because they did not wish to touch caravan route, and the precious were of glazed brick and chalcedony, lives who knows whence so vast a them. And because they did not like metals from the earth were each having its walled garden and piece could have come. In that palace the gray sculptured monoliths of Ib exchanged for other metals and crystal lakelet. With strange art were there were also many galleries, and they cast these also into the lake; rare cloths and jewels and books they builded, for no other city had many amphitheaters where lions and 72 73 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The DOOM that CAME to SARNATH

men and elephants battled at the Wonderful likewise were the beings, and the memory of those vaults of conquered Pnoth, and pleasure of the kings. Sometimes the gardens made by Zokkar the olden beings and of their elder gods was surrounded by feasting nobles and amphitheaters were flooded with king. In the center of Sarnath they derided by dancers and lutanists hurrying slaves. There were eaten water conveyed from the lake in lay, covering a great space and encir- crowned with roses from the gardens many strange delicacies at that feast; mighty aqueducts, and then were cled by a high wall. And they were of Zokkar. And the kings would look peacocks from the distant hills of enacted stirring sea-fights, or surmounted by a mighty dome of out over the lake and curse the bones Linplan, heels of camels from the combats betwixt swimmers and glass, through which shone the sun of the dead that lay beneath it. Bnazic desert, nuts and spices from deadly marine things. and moon and planets when it was At first the high-priests liked Sydathrian groves, and pearls from Lofty and amazing were the clear, and from which were hung not these festivals, for there had wave-washed Mtal dissolved in the seventeen tower-like temples of fulgent images of the sun and moon descended amongst them queer tales vinegar of Thraa. Of sauces there Sarnath, fashioned of a bright and stars and planets when it was of how the sea-green eikon had were an untold number, prepared by multi-colored stone not known else- not clear. In summer the gardens vanished, and how Taran-Ish had the subtlest cooks in all Mnar, and where. A full thousand cubits high were cooled with fresh odorous died from fear and left a warning. suited to the palate of every feaster. stood the greatest among them, breezes skilfully wafted by fans, and And they said that from their high But most prized of all the viands wherein the high-priests dwelt with in winter they were heated with tower they sometimes saw lights were the great fishes from the lake, a magnificence scarce less than that concealed fires, so that in those beneath the waters of the lake. But each of vast size, and served upon of the kings. On the ground were gardens it was always spring. There as many years passed without golden platters set with rubies and halls as vast and splendid as those of ran little streams over bright pebbles, calamity even the priests laughed diamonds. the palaces; where gathered throngs dividing meads of green and gardens and cursed and joined in the orgies Whilst the king and his nobles in worship of Zo-Kalar and Tamash of many hues, and spanned by a of the feasters. Indeed, had they not feasted within the palace, and viewed and Lobon, the chief gods of Sarnath, multitude of bridges. Many were the themselves, in their high tower, often the crowning dish as it awaited them whose incense-enveloped shrines waterfalls in their courses, and many performed the very ancient and on golden platters, others feasted were as the thrones of monarchs. Not were the hued lakelets into which secret rite in detestation of Bokrug, elsewhere. In the tower of the great like the eikons of other gods were they expanded. Over the streams the water-lizard? And a thousand temple the priests held revels, and those of Zo-Kalar and Tamash and and lakelets rode white swans, whilst years of riches and delight passed in pavilions without the walls the Lobon. For so close to life were they the music of rare birds chimed in over Sarnath, wonder of the world. princes of neighboring lands made that one might swear the graceful with the melody of the waters. In Gorgeous beyond thought was merry. And it was the high-priest bearded gods themselves sat on the ordered terraces rose the green the feast of the thousandth year of Gnai-Kah who first saw the shadows ivory thrones. And up unending steps banks, adorned here and there with the destroying of Ib. For a decade that descended from the gibbous of zircon was the tower-chamber, bowers of vines and sweet blossoms, had it been talked of in the land of moon into the lake, and the wherefrom the high-priests looked and seats and benches of marble and Mnar, and as it drew nigh there came damnable green mists that arose out over the city and the plains and porphyry. And there were many to Sarnath on horses and camels and from the lake to meet the moon and the lake by day; and at the cryptic small shrines and temples where one elephants men from Thraa, Ilarnek, to shroud in a sinister haze the moon and significant stars and might rest or pray to small gods. and Kadetheron, and all the cities towers and the domes of fated planets, and their reflections in the Each year there was celebrated of Mnar and the lands beyond. Sarnath. Thereafter those in the lake, at night. Here was done the in Sarnath the feast of the destroying Before the marble walls on the towers and without the walls beheld very secret and ancient rite in detes- of Ib, at which time wine, song, appointed night were pitched the strange lights on the water, and saw tation of Bokrug, the water-lizard, dancing, and merriment of every pavilions of princes and the tents of that the gray rock Akurion, which and here rested the altar of chrysolite kind abounded. Great honors were travelers. Within his banquet-hall was wont to rear high above it near which bore the Doom-scrawl of then paid to the shades of those who reclined Nargis-Hei, the king, the shore, was almost submerged. Taran-Ish. had annihilated the odd ancient drunken with ancient wine from the And fear grew vaguely yet swiftly, 74 75 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

so that the princes of Ilarnek and of even then only the brave and adven- far Rokol took down and folded turous young men of yellow hair and their tents and pavilions and blue eyes, who are no kin to the men departed, though they scarce knew of Mnar. These men indeed went to the reason for their departing. the lake to view Sarnath; but though Then, close to the hour of they found the vast still lake itself, midnight, all the bronze gates of and the gray rock Akurion which Sarnath burst open and emptied rears high above it near the shore, forth a frenzied throng that black- they beheld not the wonder of the ened the plain, so that all the visiting world and pride of all mankind. princes and travelers fled away in Where once had risen walls of three fright. For on the faces of this throng hundred cubits and towers yet higher, was writ a madness born of horror now stretched only the marshy shore, unendurable, and on their tongues and where once had dwelt fifty were words so terrible that no hearer million of men now crawled the The STATEMENT of RANDOLPH CARTER. paused for proof. Men whose eyes detestable water-lizard. Not even the were wild with fear shrieked aloud mines of precious metal remained. [return to table of contents] of the sight within the king’s DOOM had come to Sarnath. banquet-hall, where through the But half buried in the rushes was windows were seen no longer the spied a curious green idol; an exceed- forms of Nargis-Hei and his nobles ingly ancient idol chiseled in the repeat to you gentlemen, that true that I have for five years been and slaves, but a horde of indescrib- likeness of Bokrug, the great water- your inquisition is fruitless. his closest friend, and a partial sharer able green voiceless things with lizard. That idol, enshrined in the Detain me here for ever if you of his terrible researches into the bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, high temple at Ilarnek, was subse- will;I confine or execute me if you unknown. I will not deny, though and curious ears; things which quently worshipped beneath the must have a victim to propitiate the my memory is uncertain and indis- danced horribly, bearing in their gibbous moon throughout the land illusion you call justice; but I can tinct, that this witness of yours may paws golden platters set with rubies of Mnar. say no more than I have said have seen us together as he says, on and diamonds and containing already. Everything that I can the Gainsville pike, walking toward uncouth flames. And the princes and remember, I have told with perfect Big Cypress Swamp, at half past travelers, as they fled from the candor. Nothing has been distorted eleven on that awful night. That we doomed city of Sarnath on horses or concealed, and if anything bore electric lanterns, spades, and a and camels and elephants, looked remains vague, it is only because of curious coil of wire with attached again upon the mist-begetting lake the dark cloud which has come instruments, I will even affirm; for and saw the gray rock Akurion was over my mind—that cloud and the these things all played a part in the quite submerged. Through all the nebulous nature of the horrors single hideous scene which remains land of Mnar and the land adjacent which brought it upon me. burned into my shaken recollection. spread the tales of those who had Again I say, I do not know what But of what followed, and of the fled from Sarnath, and caravans has become of Harley Warren, reason I was found alone and dazed sought that accursed city and its though I think—almost hope—that on the edge of the swamp next precious metals no more. It was long he is in peaceful oblivion, if there be morning, I must insist that I know ere any travelers went thither, and anywhere so blessed a thing. It is nothing save what I have told you 76 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The STATEMENT of RANDOLPH CARTER

over and over again. You say to me I shuddered at his facial expression silence of centuries. Over the valley’s He did not succeed, and motioned that there is nothing in the swamp on the night before the awful rim a wan, waning crescent moon to me to come to his assistance. or near it which could form the happening, when he talked so inces- peered through the noisome vapors Finally our combined strength loos- setting of that frightful episode. I santly of his theory, why certain that seemed to emanate from ened the stone, which we raised and reply that I knew nothing beyond corpses never decay, but rest firm unheard-of catacombs, and by its tipped to one side. what I saw. Vision or nightmare it and fat in their tombs for a thousand feeble, wavering beams I could The removal of the slab revealed may have been—vision or nightmare years. But I do not fear him now, for distinguish a repellent array of a black aperture, from which rushed I fervently hope it was—yet it is all I suspect that he has known horrors antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs, and an effluence of miasmal gases so that my mind retains of what took beyond my ken. Now I fear for him. mausoleum facades; all crumbling, nauseous that we started back in place in those shocking hours after Once more I say that I have no moss-grown, and moisture-stained, horror. After an interval, however, we left the sight of men. And why clear idea of our object on that night. and partly concealed by the gross we approached the pit again, and Harley Warren did not return, he or Certainly, it had much to do with luxuriance of the unhealthy found the exhalations less unbear- his shade—or some nameless thing something in the book which Warren vegetation. able. Our lanterns disclosed the top I cannot describe—alone can tell. carried with him—that ancient book My first vivid impression of my of a flight of stone steps, dripping As I have said before, the weird in undecipherable characters which own presence in this terrible necrop- with some detestable ichor of the studies of Harley Warren were well had come to him from India a month olis concerns the act of pausing with inner earth, and bordered by moist known to me, and to some extent before—but I swear I do not know Warren before a certain half-oblit- walls encrusted with niter. And now shared by me. Of his vast collection what it was that we expected to find. erated sepulcher and of throwing for the first time my memory records of strange, rare books on forbidden Your witness says he saw us at half down some burdens which we verbal discourse, Warren addressing subjects I have read all that are past eleven on the Gainsville pike, seemed to have been carrying. I now me at length in his mellow tenor written in the languages of which I headed for Big Cypress Swamp. This observed that I had with me an elec- voice; a voice singularly unperturbed am master; but these are few as is probably true, but I have no tric lantern and two spades, whilst by our awesome surroundings. compared with those in languages distinct memory of it. The picture my companion was supplied with a “I’m sorry to have to ask you to I cannot understand. Most, I believe, seared into my soul is of one scene similar lantern and a portable tele- stay on the surface,” he said, “but it are in Arabic; and the fiend-inspired only, and the hour must have been phone outfit. No word was uttered, would be a crime to let anyone with book which brought on the end— long after midnight; for a waning for the spot and the task seemed your frail nerves go down there. You the book which he carried in his crescent moon was high in the known to us; and without delay we can’t imagine, even from what you pocket out of the world—was vaporous heavens. seized our spades and commenced have read and from what I’ve told written in characters whose like I The place was an ancient ceme- to clear away the grass, weeds, and you, the things I shall have to see never saw elsewhere. Warren would tery; so ancient that I trembled at drifted earth from the flat, archaic and do. It’s fiendish work, Carter, never tell me just what was in that the manifold signs of immemorial mortuary. After uncovering the and I doubt if any man without iron- book. As to the nature of our years. It was in a deep, damp hollow, entire surface, which consisted of clad sensibilities could ever see it studies—must I say again that I no overgrown with rank grass, moss, three immense granite slabs, we through and come up alive and sane. longer retain full comprehension? and curious creeping weeds, and stepped back some distance to survey I don’t wish to offend you, and It seems to me rather merciful that filled with a vague stench which my the charnel scene; and Warren Heaven knows I’d be glad enough I do not, for they were terrible idle fancy associated absurdly with appeared to make some mental to have you with me; but the respon- studies, which I pursued more rotting stone. On every hand were calculations. Then he returned to the sibility is in a certain sense mine, and through reluctant fascination than the signs of neglect and decrepitude, sepulcher, and using his spade as a I couldn’t drag a bundle of nerves through actual inclination. Warren and I seemed haunted by the notion lever, sought to pry up the slab lying like you down to probable death or always dominated me, and some- that Warren and I were the first nearest to a stony ruin which may madness. I tell you, you can’t imagine times I feared him. I remember how living creatures to invade a lethal have been a monument in its day. what the thing is really like! But I 78 79 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1919 • The STATEMENT of RANDOLPH CARTER

promise to keep you informed over n the lone silence of that hoary This time my voice did not fail up! I’m coming down!” But at this the telephone of every move—you and deserted city of the dead, me, and I poured into the trans- offer the tone of my auditor changed see I’ve enough wire here to reach my mind conceived the most mitter a flood of excited questions. to a scream of utter despair: to the center of the earth and back!” ghastlyI fantasies and illusions; and Terrified, I continued to repeat, “Don’t! You can’t understand! I can still hear, in memory, those the grotesque shrines and mono- “Warren, what is it? What is it?” It’s too late—and my own fault. Put coolly spoken words; and I can still liths seemed to assume a hideous Once more came the voice of back the slab and run—there’s remember my remonstrances. I personality—a half-sentience. my friend, still hoarse with fear, and nothing else you or anyone can do seemed desperately anxious to Amorphous shadows seemed to now apparently tinged with despair: now!” accompany my friend into those lurk in the darker recesses of the “I can’t tell you, Carter! It’s too The tone changed again, this sepulchral depths, yet he proved weed-choked hollow and to flit as utterly beyond thought—I dare not time acquiring a softer quality, as of inflexibly obdurate. At one time he in some blasphemous ceremonial tell you—no man could know it and hopeless resignation. Yet it remained threatened to abandon the expedi- procession past the portals of the live—Great God! I never dreamed tense through anxiety for me. tion if I remained insistent; a threat mouldering tombs in the hillside; of this!” “Quick—before it’s too late!” which proved effective, since he shadows which could not have Stillness again, save for my now I tried not to heed him; tried to alone held the key to the thing. All been cast by that pallid, peering incoherent torrent of shuddering break through the paralysis which this I can still remember, though I crescent moon. inquiry. Then the voice of Warren held me, and to fulfil my vow to rush no longer know what manner of I constantly consulted my watch in a pitch of wilder consternation: down to his aid. But his next whisper thing we sought. After he had by the light of my electric lantern, “Carter! for the love of God, put found me still held inert in the obtained my reluctant acquiescence and listened with feverish anxiety at back the slab and get out of this if chains of stark horror. in his design, Warren picked up the the receiver of the telephone; but for you can! Quick!—leave everything “Carter—hurry! It’s no use— reel of wire and adjusted the instru- more than a quarter of an hour heard else and make for the outside—it’s you must go—better one than two— ments. At his nod I took one of the nothing. Then a faint clicking came your only chance! Do as I say, and the slab—“ latter and seated myself upon an from the instrument, and I called don’t ask me to explain!” A pause, more clicking, then the aged, discolored gravestone close by down to my friend in a tense voice. I heard, yet was able only to faint voice of Warren: the newly uncovered aperture. Then Apprehensive as I was, I was never- repeat my frantic questions. Around “Nearly over now—don’t make he shook my hand, shouldered the theless unprepared for the words me were the tombs and the darkness it harder—cover up those damned coil of wire, and disappeared within which came up from that uncanny and the shadows; below me, some steps and run for your life—you’re that indescribable ossuary. vault in accents more alarmed and peril beyond the radius of the human losing time—so long, Carter—won’t For a minute I kept sight of the quivering than any I had heard imagination. But my friend was in see you again.” glow of his lantern, and heard the before from Harley Warren. He who greater danger than I, and through Here Warren’s whisper swelled rustle of the wire as he laid it down had so calmly left me a little while my fear I felt a vague resentment into a cry; a cry that gradually rose after him; but the glow soon disap- previously, now called from below that he should deem me capable of to a shriek fraught with all the peared abruptly, as if a turn in the in a shaky whisper more portentous deserting him under such circum- horror of the ages: stone staircase had been encoun- than the loudest shriek: stances. More clicking, and after a “Curse these hellish things— tered, and the sound died away “God! If you could see what I pause a piteous cry from Warren: legions—My God! Beat it! Beat it! almost as quickly. I was alone, yet am seeing!” “Beat it! For God’s sake, put BEAT IT!” bound to the unknown depths by I could not answer. Speechless, back the slab and beat it, Carter!” After that was silence. I know those magic strands whose insulated I could only wait. Then came the Something in the boyish slang not how many interminable eons I surface lay green beneath the strug- frenzied tones again: of my evidently stricken companion sat stupefied; whispering, muttering, gling beams of that waning crescent “Carter, it’s terrible —monstrous unleashed my faculties. I formed and calling, screaming into that tele- moon. —unbelievable!” shouted a resolution, “Warren, brace phone. Over and over again through 80 81 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

those eons I whispered and muttered, And this is what it said: called, shouted, and screamed, “You fool, Warren is DEAD!” “Warren! Warren! Answer me—are you there?” And then there came to me the crowning horror of all—the unbe- lievable, unthinkable, almost unmen- tionable thing. I have said that eons seemed to elapse after Warren shrieked forth his last despairing warning, and that only my own cries now broke the hideous silence. But 1920: after a while there was a further clicking in the receiver, and I strained my ears to listen. Again I called FINDING LIKE-MINDED SOULS.

down, “Warren, are you there?” and [return to table of contents] in answer heard the thing which has brought this cloud over my mind. I do not try, gentlemen, to account for that thing—that voice—nor can I venture to describe it in detail, since .P. Lovecraft’s Lord graced the September 1925 issue of the first words took away my Dunsany-inspired burst Weird Tales—but that sort of success consciousness and created a mental of literary energy carried was still in the future for Lovecraft. blank which reaches to the time of himH into 1920 with some of his In addition to “The Temple,” my awakening in the hospital. Shall most excellent early stories. It was 1920 saw “The Terrible Old Man,” I say that the voice was deep; hollow; quite clear that, although his early “The Tree,” “The Cats of Ulthar,” gelatinous; remote; unearthly; inspiration from the likes of Edgar “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur inhuman; disembodied? What shall Allan Poe and Robert W. Chambers Jermyn and his Family,” “From I say? It was the end of my experi- had not been replaced, it had Beyond,” “Celephaïs,” ence, and is the end of my story. I certainly been augmented. There “Nyarlarthotep,” and “The Picture heard it, and knew no more—heard was a new god in Lovecraft’s in the House” roll off Lovecraft’s it as I sat petrified in that unknown literary pantheon. pen. cemetery in the hollow, amidst the Although Lovecraft wrote a Something else happened in crumbling stones and the falling number of stories in 1920, those 1920 as well. The Hub Club, a tombs, the rank vegetation and the among them that were published Boston amateur-press organization, miasmal vapors—heard it well up that year went out in amateur-press held its convention in July, and from the innermost depths of that magazines such as The United several of its members visited damnable open sepulcher as I Amateur, Tryout and Wolverine. Lovecraft in Providence and talked watched amorphous, necrophagous Some of them would, of course, be him into going. Suddenly, Lovecraft shadows dance beneath an accursed published later on in magazines that found himself not just corresponding waning moon. paid—notably The Temple, which with kindred spirits, but kibbitzing 82 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

with them as well—and the feeling of being a welcome and somewhat celebrated part of a community of like-minded souls was intoxicating for the reclusive and introverted writer. His deadpan humor and spot-on imitation of an 18th-century gentleman was a big hit with this geeky crowd. Lovecraft had found a circle of accepting friends who admired and respected his wit and talents, as he admired and respected theirs. From then on, he was a regular visitor to Hub Club events in Boston. The TERRIBLE OLD MAN.

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t was the design of Angelo his musty and venerable abode. He Ricci and Joe Czanek and is, in truth, a very strange person, Manuel Silva to call on the believed to have been a captain of TerribleI Old Man. This old man East India clipper ships in his day; dwells all alone in a very ancient so old that no one can remember house on Water Street near the sea, when he was young, and so taciturn and is reputed to be both exceed- that few know his real name. Among ingly rich and exceedingly feeble; the gnarled trees in the front yard which forms a situation very attrac- of his aged and neglected place he tive to men of the profession of maintains a strange collection of Messrs. Ricci, Czanek, and Silva, large stones, oddly grouped and for that profession was nothing less painted so that they resemble the dignified than robbery. idols in some obscure Eastern The inhabitants of Kingsport temple. This collection frightens say and think many things about the away most of the small boys who Terrible Old Man which generally love to taunt the Terrible Old Man keep him safe from the attention of about his long white hair and beard, gentlemen like Mr. Ricci and his or to break the small-paned windows colleagues, despite the almost certain of his dwelling with wicked missiles; fact that he hides a fortune of indef- but there are other things which inite magnitude somewhere about frighten the older and more curious 84 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TERRIBLE OLD MAN

folk who sometimes steal up to the Messrs. Ricci, Czanek, and Silva Then they donned masks and knotted cane and smiling hide- house to peer in through the dusty selected the night of April 11th for knocked politely at the weath- ously. Mr. Czanek had never before panes. These folk say that on a table their call. Mr. Ricci and Mr. Silva er-stained oaken door. noticed the colour of that man’s in a bare room on the ground floor were to interview the poor old eyes; now he saw that they were are many peculiar bottles, in each a gentleman, whilst Mr. Czanek aiting seemed very long yellow. small piece of lead suspended pendu- waited for them and their presum- to Mr. Czanek as he lum-wise from a string. And they able metallic burden with a covered fidgeted restlessly in ittle things make consider- say that the Terrible Old Man talks motor-car in Ship Street, by the gate theW covered motor-car by the able excitement in little to these bottles, addressing them by in the tall rear wall of their host’s Terrible Old Man’s back gate in towns, which is the reason such names as Jack, Scar-Face, Long grounds. Desire to avoid needless Ship Street. He was more than thatL Kingsport people talked all Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate explanations in case of unexpected ordinarily tender-hearted, and he that spring and summer about the Ellis, and that whenever he speaks police intrusions prompted these did not like the hideous screams he three unidentifiable bodies, to a bottle the little lead pendulum plans for a quiet and unostentatious had heard in the ancient house just horribly slashed as with many within makes certain definite vibra- departure. after the hour appointed for the cutlasses, and horribly mangled as tions as if in answer. As prearranged, the three adven- deed. Had he not told his colleagues by the tread of many cruel boot- Those who have watched the turers started out separately in order to be as gentle as possible with the heels, which the tide washed in. tall, lean, Terrible Old Man in these to prevent any evil-minded suspi- pathetic old sea-captain? Very And some people even spoke of peculiar conversations, do not watch cions afterward. Messrs. Ricci and nervously he watched that narrow things as trivial as the deserted him again. But Angelo Ricci and Joe Silva met in Water Street by the old oaken gate in the high and ivy-clad motor-car found in Ship Street, or Czanek and Manuel Silva were not man’s front gate, and although they stone wall. Frequently he consulted certain especially inhuman cries, of Kingsport blood; they were of that did not like the way the moon shone his watch, and wondered at the probably of a stray animal or migra- new and heterogeneous alien stock down upon the painted stones delay. Had the old man died before tory bird, heard in the night by which lies outside the charmed circle through the budding branches of the revealing where his treasure was wakeful citizens. But in this idle of New England life and traditions, gnarled trees, they had more hidden, and had a thorough search village gossip the Terrible Old Man and they saw in the Terrible Old important things to think about than become necessary? Mr. Czanek did took no interest at all. He was by Man merely a tottering, almost help- mere idle superstition. They feared not like to wait so long in the dark nature reserved, and when one is less grey-beard, who could not walk it might be unpleasant work making in such a place. Then he sensed a aged and feeble, one’s reserve is without the aid of his knotted cane, the Terrible Old Man loquacious soft tread or tapping on the walk doubly strong. Besides, so ancient a and whose thin, weak hands shook concerning his hoarded gold and inside the gate, heard a gentle sea-captain must have witnessed pitifully. They were really quite sorry silver, for aged sea-captains are fumbling at the rusty latch, and scores of things much more stirring in their way for the lonely, unpopular notably stubborn and perverse. Still, saw the narrow, heavy door swing in the far-off days of his unremem- old fellow, whom everybody shunned, he was very old and very feeble, and inward. And in the pallid glow of bered youth. and at whom all the dogs barked there were two visitors. Messrs. Ricci the single dim street-lamp he singularly. But business is business, and Silva were experienced in the strained his eyes to see what his and to a robber whose soul is in his art of making unwilling persons colleagues had brought out of that profession, there is a lure and a chal- voluble, and the screams of a weak sinister house which loomed so lenge about a very old and very feeble and exceptionally venerable man can close behind. But when he looked, man who has no account at the bank, be easily muffled. So they moved up he did not see what he had and who pays for his few necessities to the one lighted window and heard expected; for his colleagues were at the village store with Spanish gold the Terrible Old Man talking child- not there at all, but only the Terrible and silver minted two centuries ago. ishly to his bottles with pendulums. Old Man leaning quietly on his 86 87

The TREE.

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n a verdant slope of have some hideous kinship to these Mount Maenalus, in weird Panisci; but an old bee-keeper Arcadia, there stands an who lives in the neighboring oliveO grove about the ruins of a cottage told me a different story. villa. Close by is a tomb, once beau- Many years ago, when the hill- tiful with the sublimest sculptures, side villa was new and resplendent, but now fallen into as great decay there dwelt within it the two sculp- as the house. At one end of that tors Kalos and Musides. From Lydia tomb, its curious roots displacing to Neapolis the beauty of their work the time-stained blocks of Pentelic was praised, and none dared say that marble, grows an unnaturally large the one excelled the other in skill. olive tree of oddly repellent shape; The Hermes of Kalos stood in a so like to some grotesque man, or marble shrine in Corinth, and the death-distorted body of a man, that Pallas of Musides surmounted a the country folk fear to pass it at pillar in Athens near the Parthenon. night when the moon shines faintly All men paid homage to Kalos and through the crooked boughs. Musides, and marvelled that no Mount Maenalus is a chosen haunt shadow of artistic jealousy cooled of dreaded Pan, whose queer the warmth of their brotherly companions are many, and simple friendship. swains believe that the tree must But though Kalos and Musides H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TREE

dwelt in unbroken harmony, their ceaseless blows of chisels. Not from ministrations of puzzled physicians gaieties he once had relished. natures were not alike. Whilst each other did Kalos and Musides and of his assiduous friend, he Meanwhile his evenings were spent Musides revelled by night amidst conceal their work, but the sight was desired to be carried often to the beside the tomb of his friend, where the urban gaieties of Tegea, Kalos for them alone. Saving theirs, no eyes grove which he so loved. There he a young olive tree had sprung up would remain at home; stealing away beheld the two divine figures released would ask to be left alone, as if near the sleeper’s head. So swift was from the sight of his slaves into the by skillful blows from the rough wishing to speak with unseen things. the growth of this tree, and so strange cool recesses of the olive grove. There blocks that had imprisoned them Musides ever granted his requests, was its form, that all who beheld it he would meditate upon the visions since the world began. though his eyes filled with visible exclaimed in surprise; and Musides that filled his mind, and there devise At night, as of yore, Musides tears at the thought that Kalos seemed at once fascinated and the forms of beauty which later sought the banquet halls of Tegea should care more for the fauns and repelled. became immortal in breathing whilst Kalos wandered alone in the the dryads than for him. At last the Three years after the death of marble. Idle folk, indeed, said that olive Grove. But as time passed, men end drew near, and Kalos discoursed Kalos, Musides despatched a Kalos conversed with the spirits of observed a want of gaiety in the once of things beyond this life. Musides, messenger to the Tyrant, and it was the grove, and that his statues were sparkling Musides. It was strange, weeping, promised him a sepulchre whispered in the agora at Tegea that but images of the fauns and dryads they said amongst themselves that more lovely than the tomb of the mighty statue was finished. By he met there for he patterned his depression should thus seize one Mausolus; but Kalos bade him speak this time the tree by the tomb had work after no living model. with so great a chance to win art’s no more of marble glories. Only one attained amazing proportions, So famous were Kalos and loftiest reward. Many months passed wish now haunted the mind of the exceeding all other trees of its kind, Musides, that none wondered when yet in the sour face of Musides came dying man; that twigs from certain and sending out a singularly heavy the Tyrant of Syracuse sent to them nothing of the sharp expectancy olive trees in the grove be buried by branch above the apartment in deputies to speak of the costly statue which the situation should arouse. his resting place—close to his head. which Musides labored. As many of Tyche which he had planned for Then one day Musides spoke of And one night, sitting alone in the visitors came to view the prodigious his city. Of great size and cunning the illness of Kalos, after which none darkness of the olive grove, Kalos tree, as to admire the art of the workmanship must the statue be, for marvelled again at his sadness, since died. Beautiful beyond words was sculptor, so that Musides was seldom it was to form a wonder of nations the sculptors’ attachment was known the marble sepulchre which stricken alone. But he did not mind his multi- and a goal of travellers. Exalted to be deep and sacred. Subsequently Musides carved for his beloved tude of guests; indeed, he seemed to beyond thought would be he whose many went to visit Kalos, and indeed friend. None but Kalos himself could dread being alone now that his work should gain acceptance, and noticed the pallor of his face; but have fashioned such bas-reliefs, absorbing work was done. The bleak for this honor Kalos and Musides there was about him a happy serenity wherein were displayed all the splen- mountain wind, sighing through the were invited to compete. Their which made his glance more magical dours of Elysium. Nor did Musides olive grove and the tomb-tree, had brotherly love was well known, and than the glance of Musides who was fail to bury close to Kalos’ head the an uncanny way of forming vaguely the crafty Tyrant surmised that each, clearly distracted with anxiety and olive twigs from the grove. articulate sounds. instead of concealing his work from who pushed aside all the slaves in As the first violence of Musides’ The sky was dark on the evening the other, would offer aid and advice; his eagerness to feed and wait upon grief gave place to resignation, he that the Tyrant’s emissaries came to this charity producing two images his friend with his own hands. labored with diligence upon his Tegea. It was definitely known that of unheard of beauty, the lovelier of Hidden behind heavy curtains stood figure of Tyche. All honour was now they had come to bear away the great which would eclipse even the dreams the two unfinished figures of Tyche, his, since the Tyrant of Syracuse image of Tyche and bring eternal of poets. little touched of late by the sick man would have the work of none save honour to Musides, so their recep- With joy the sculptors hailed and his faithful attendant. him or Kalos. His task proved a vent tion by the proxenoi was of great the Tyrant’s offer, so that in the days As Kalos grew inexplicably for his emotion and he toiled more warmth. As the night wore on a that followed their slaves heard the weaker and weaker despite the steadily each day, shunning the violent storm of wind broke over the 90 91 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

crest of Maenalus, and the men from reached so queerly into the sculp- far Syracuse were glad that they tured sepulchre of Kalos. And their rested snugly in the town. They fear and dismay increased when they talked of their illustrious Tyrant, and searched the fallen apartment, for of of the splendour of his capital and the gentle Musides, and of the exulted in the glory of the statue marvellously fashioned image of which Musides had wrought for him. Tyche, no trace could be discovered. And then the men of Tegea spoke Amidst such stupendous ruin only of the goodness of Musides, and of chaos dwelt, and the representatives his heavy grief for his friend and how of two cities left disappointed; not even the coming laurels of art Syracusans that they had no statue could console him in the absence of to bear home, Tegeans that they had Kalos, who might have worn those no artist to crown. However, the FACTS CONCERNING the LATE laurels instead. Of the tree which Syracusans obtained after a while a grew by the tomb, near the head of very splendid statue in Athens, and ARTHUR JERMYN and his FAMILY. Kalos, they also spoke. The wind the Tegeans consoled themselves by shrieked more horribly, and both the erecting in the agora a marble temple [return to table of contents] Syracusans and the Arcadians prayed commemorating the gifts, virtues, to Aiolos. and brotherly piety of Musides. In the sunshine of the morning But the olive grove still stands, the proxenoi led the Tyrant’s messen- as does the tree growing out of the I. set a memorial to him who had gers up the slope to the abode of the tomb of Kalos, and the old bee-keeper been; for certain papers and a ife is a hideous thing, and sculptor, but the night wind had told me that sometimes the boughs certain boxed object were found from the background done strange things. Slaves’ cries whisper to one another in the night which made men wish to forget. behind what we know of it ascended from a scene of desolation, wind, saying over and over again. Some who knew him do not admit peer daemoniacal hints of truth and no more amidst the olive grove “Oida! Oida!—I know! I know!” L that he ever existed. which make it sometimes a thou- rose the gleaming colonnades of that Arthur Jermyn went out on the sandfold more hideous. Science, vast hall wherein Musides had moor and burned himself after already oppressive with its shocking dreamed and toiled. Lone and seeing the boxed object which had shaken mourned the humble courts revelations, will perhaps be the come from Africa. It was this object, and the lower walls, for upon the ultimate exterminator of our and not his peculiar personal appear- sumptuous greater peristyle had human species—if separate species ance, which made him end his life. fallen squarely the heavy over- we be—for its reserve of unguessed Many would have disliked to live if hanging bough of the strange new horrors could never be borne by possessed of the peculiar features of tree, reducing the stately poem in mortal brains if loosed upon the Arthur Jermyn, but he had been a marble with odd completeness to a world. If we knew what we are, we poet and scholar and had not mound of unsightly ruins. Strangers should do as Sir Arthur Jermyn minded. Learning was in his blood, and Tegeans stood aghast, looking did; and Arthur Jermyn soaked for his great-grandfather, Sir Robert from the wreckage to the great, himself in oil and set fire to his Jermyn, Bt., had been an anthropol- sinister tree whose aspect was so clothing one night. No one placed ogist of note, whilst his great-great- weirdly human and whose roots the charred fragments in an urn or great-grandfather, Sir Wade Jermyn, 92 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • FACTS CONCERNING the LATE ARTHUR JERMYN

was one of the earliest explorers of had gone with him on the third and Wade would speak of such matters begun. After the close of the the Congo region, and had written last, never returning. No one had with a shudderingly uncanny zest, American war he was heard of as eruditely of its tribes, animals, and ever seen her closely, not even the mostly after his third glass at the sailor on a merchantman in the supposed antiquities. Indeed, old Sir servants; for her disposition had been Knight’s Head; boasting of what he African trade, having a kind of repu- Wade had possessed an intellectual violent and singular. During her brief had found in the jungle and of how tation for feats of strength and zeal amounting almost to a mania; stay at Jermyn House she occupied he had dwelt among terrible ruins climbing, but finally disappearing his bizarre conjectures on a prehis- a remote wing, and was waited on known only to him. And finally he one night as his ship lay off the toric white Congolese civilisation by her husband alone. Sir Wade was, had spoken of the living things in Congo coast. earning him much ridicule when his indeed, most peculiar in his solici- such a manner that he was taken to In the son of Sir Philip Jermyn book, Observation on the Several Parts tude for his family; for when he the madhouse. He had shown little the now accepted family peculiarity of Africa, was published. In 1765 this returned to Africa he would permit regret when shut into the barred took a strange and fatal turn. Tall fearless explorer had been placed in no one to care for his young son save room at Huntingdon, for his mind and fairly handsome, with a sort of a madhouse at Huntingdon. a loathsome black woman from moved curiously. Ever since his son weird Eastern grace despite certain Madness was in all the Jermyns, Guinea. Upon coming back, after had commenced to grow out of slight oddities of proportion, Robert and people were glad there were not the death of Lady Jermyn, he himself infancy, he had liked his home less Jermyn began life as a scholar and many of them. The line put forth no assumed complete care of the boy. and less, till at last he had seemed investigator. It was he who first branches, and Arthur was the last of But it was the talk of Sir Wade, to dread it. The Knight’s Head had studied scientifically the vast collec- it. If he had not been, one can not especially when in his cups, which been his headquarters, and when he tion of relics which his mad grand- say what he would have done when chiefly led his friends to deem him was confined he expressed some father had brought from Africa, and the object came. The Jermyns never mad. In a rational age like the eigh- vague gratitude as if for protection. who made the family name as cele- seemed to look quite right—some- teenth century it was unwise for a Three years later he died. brated in ethnology as in exploration. thing was amiss, though Arthur was man of learning to talk about wild Wade Jermyn’s son Philip was a In 1815 Sir Robert married a the worst, and the old family portraits sights and strange scenes under a highly peculiar person. Despite a daughter of the seventh Viscount in Jermyn House showed fine faces Congo moon; of the gigantic walls strong physical resemblance to his Brightholme and was subsequently enough before Sir Wade’s time. and pillars of a forgotten city, crum- father, his appearance and conduct blessed with three children, the Certainly, the madness began with bling and vine-grown, and of damp, were in many particulars so coarse eldest and youngest of whom were Sir Wade, whose wild stories of silent, stone steps leading intermi- that he was universally shunned. never publicly seen on account of Africa were at once the delight and nably down into the darkness of Though he did not inherit the deformities in mind and body. terror of his few friends. It showed abysmal treasure-vaults and incon- madness which was feared by some, Saddened by these family misfor- in his collection of trophies and spec- ceivable catacombs. Especially was he was densely stupid and given to tunes, the scientist sought relief in imens, which were not such as a it unwise to rave of the living things brief periods of uncontrollable work, and made two long expeditions normal man would accumulate and that might haunt such a place; of violence. In frame he was small, but in the interior of Africa. In 1849 his preserve, and appeared strikingly in creatures half of the jungle and half intensely powerful, and was of second son, Nevil, a singularly repel- the Oriental seclusion in which he of the impiously aged city—fabulous incredible agility. Twelve years after lent person who seemed to combine kept his wife. The latter, he had said, creatures which even a Pliny might succeeding to his title he married the surliness of Philip Jermyn with was the daughter of a Portuguese describe with scepticism; things that the daughter of his gamekeeper, a the hauteur of the Brightholmes, ran trader whom he had met in Africa; might have sprung up after the great person said to be of gypsy extraction, away with a vulgar dancer, but was and did not like English ways. She, apes had overrun the dying city with but before his son was born joined pardoned upon his return in the with an infant son born in Africa, the walls and the pillars, the vaults the navy as a common sailor, following year. He came back to had accompanied him back from the and the weird carvings. Yet after he completing the general disgust Jermyn House a widower with an second and longest of his trips, and came home for the last time Sir which his habits and misalliance had infant son, Alfred, who was one day 94 95 H.P. 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to be the father of Arthur Jermyn. attempts at suicide and a stubborn The gorilla was off its guard, but not had possessed a subtly odd and Friends said that it was this refusal to utter an articulate sound, for long, and before anything could repellent cast, but Arthur’s case was series of griefs which unhinged the died of apoplexy in the second year be done by the regular trainer, the very striking. It is hard to say just mind of Sir Robert Jermyn, yet it of his confinement. body which had belonged to a what he resembled, but his expres- was probably merely a bit of African Sir Alfred Jermyn was a baronet baronet was past recognition. sion, his facial angle, and the length folklore which caused the disaster. before his fourth birthday, but his of his arms gave a thrill of repul- The elderly scholar had been tastes never matched his title. At sion to those who met him for the collecting legends of the Onga tribes twenty he had joined a band of II. first time. near the field of his grandfather’s music-hall performers, and at thir- rthur Jermyn was the son It was the mind and character and his own explorations, hoping in ty-six had deserted his wife and child of Sir Alfred Jermyn and a of Arthur Jermyn which atoned for some way to account for Sir Wade’s to travel with an itinerant American music-hall singer of his aspect. Gifted and learned, he wild tales of a lost city peopled by circus. His end was very revolting. Aunknown origin. When the took highest honours at Oxford and strange hybrid creatures. A certain Among the animals in the exhibition husband and father deserted his seemed likely to redeem the intel- consistency in the strange papers of with which he travelled was a huge family, the mother took the child to lectual fame of his family. Though his ancestor suggested that the bull gorilla of lighter colour than the Jermyn House, where there was of poetic rather than scientific madman’s imagination might have average; a surprisingly tractable beast none left to object to her presence. temperament, he planned to continue been stimulated by native myths. On of much popularity with the She was not without notions of the work of his forefathers in African October 19, 1852, the explorer performers. With this gorilla Alfred what a nobleman’s dignity should ethnology and antiquities, utilising Samuel Seaton called at Jermyn Jermyn was singularly fascinated, be, and saw to it that her son the truly wonderful though strange House with a manuscript of notes and on many occasions the two received the best education which collection of Sir Wade. With his collected among the Ongas, believing would eye each other for long periods limited money could provide. The fanciful mind he thought often of that certain legends of a gray city of through the intervening bars. family resources were now sadly the prehistoric civilisation in which white apes ruled by a white god Eventually Jermyn asked and slender, and Jermyn House had the mad explorer had so implicitly might prove valuable to the ethnol- obtained permission to train the fallen into woeful disrepair, but believed, and would weave tale after ogist. In his conversation he probably animal, astonishing audiences and young Arthur loved the old edifice tale about the silent jungle city supplied many additional details; the fellow performers alike with his and all its contents. He was not like mentioned in the latter’s wilder notes nature of which will never be known, success. One morning in Chicago, any other Jermyn who had ever and paragraphs. For the nebulous since a hideous series of tragedies as the gorilla and Alfred Jermyn were lived, for he was a poet and a utterances concerning a nameless, suddenly burst into being. When Sir rehearsing an exceedingly clever dreamer. Some of the neighbouring unsuspected race of jungle hybrids Robert Jermyn emerged from his boxing match, the former delivered families who had heard tales of old he had a peculiar feeling of mingled library he left behind the strangled a blow of more than the usual force, Sir Wade Jermyn’s unseen terror and attraction, speculating on corpse of the explorer, and before he hurting both the body and the Portuguese wife declared that her the possible basis of such a fancy, could be restrained, had put an end dignity of the amateur trainer. Of Latin blood must be showing itself; and seeking to obtain light among to all three of his children; the two what followed, members of “The but most persons merely sneered at the more recent data gleaned by his who were never seen, and the son Greatest Show On Earth” do not his sensitiveness to beauty, attrib- great-grandfather and Samuel who had run away. Nevil Jermyn like to speak. They did not expect to uting it to his music-hall mother, Seaton amongst the Ongas. died in the successful defence of his hear Sir Alfred Jermyn emit a shrill, who was socially unrecognised. In 1911, after the death of his own two-year-old son, who had inhuman scream, or to see him seize The poetic delicacy of Arthur mother, Sir Arthur Jermyn deter- apparently been included in the old his clumsy antagonist with both Jermyn was the more remarkable mined to pursue his investigations man’s madly murderous scheme. Sir hands, dash it to the floor of the cage, because of his uncouth personal to the utmost extent. Selling a Robert himself, after repeated and bite fiendishly at its hairy throat. appearance. Most of the Jermyns portion of his estate to obtain the 96 97 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • FACTS CONCERNING the LATE ARTHUR JERMYN

requisite money, he outfitted an over the city together, but when they discussed with all the native chiefs permitted such an effacement, and expedition and sailed for the Congo. had a son, all three went away. Later of the region, but it remained for a decided that the husband’s insanity Arranging with the Belgian author- the god and princess had returned, European to improve on the data was the prime cause. His great- ities for a party of guides, he spent and upon the death of the princess offered by old Mwanu. M. Verhaeren, great-great-grandmother, he a year in the Onga and Kahn country, her divine husband had mummified Belgian agent at a trading-post on recalled, was said to have been the finding data beyond the highest of the body and enshrined it in a vast the Congo, believed that he could daughter of a Portuguese trader in his expectations. Among the Kaliris house of stone, where it was not only locate but obtain the stuffed Africa. No doubt her practical heri- was an aged chief called Mwanu, worshipped. Then he departed alone. goddess, of which he had vaguely tage and superficial knowledge of who possessed not only a highly The legend here seemed to present heard; since the once mighty the Dark Continent had caused her retentive memory, but a singular three variants. According to one N’bangus were now the submissive to flout Sir Wade’s tales of the inte- degree of intelligence and interest story, nothing further happened save servants of King Albert’s govern- rior, a thing which such a man would in old legends. This ancient that the stuffed goddess became a ment, and with but little persuasion not be likely to forgive. She had died confirmed every tale which Jermyn symbol of supremacy for whatever could be induced to part with the in Africa, perhaps dragged thither had heard, adding his own account tribe might possess it. It was for this gruesome deity they had carried off. by a husband determined to prove of the stone city and the white apes reason that the N’bangus carried it When Jermyn sailed for England, what he had told. But as Jermyn as it had been told to him. off. A second story told of a god’s therefore, it was with the exultant indulged in these reflections he could According to Mwanu, the gray return and death at the feet of his probability that he would within a not but smile at their futility, a city and the hybrid creatures were enshrined wife. A third told of the few months receive a priceless century and a half after the death of no more, having been annihilated by return of the son, grown to ethnological relic confirming the both his strange progenitors. the warlike N’bangus many years manhood—or apehood or godhood, wildest of his great-great-great- In June, 1913, a letter arrived ago. This tribe, after destroying most as the case might be—yet uncon- grandfather’s narratives—that is, the from M. Verhaeren, telling of the of the edifices and killing the live scious of his identity. Surely the wildest which he had ever heard. finding of the stuffed goddess. It beings, had carried off the stuffed imaginative blacks had made the Countrymen near Jermyn House was, the Belgian averred, a most goddess which had been the object most of whatever events might lie had perhaps heard wilder tales extraordinary object; an object quite of their quest; the white ape-goddess behind the extravagant legendry. handed down from ancestors who beyond the power of a layman to which the strange beings worshipped, Of the reality of the jungle city had listened to Sir Wade around the classify. Whether it was human or and which was held by Congo tradi- described by old Sir Wade, Arthur tables of the Knight’s Head. simian only a scientist could deter- tion to be the form of one who had Jermyn had no further doubt; and Arthur Jermyn waited very mine, and the process of determina- reigned as a princess among these was hardly astonished when early in patiently for the expected box from tion would be greatly hampered by beings. Just what the white apelike 1912 he came upon what was left of M. Verhaeren, meanwhile studying its imperfect condition. Time and creatures could have been, Mwanu it. Its size must have been exagger- with increased diligence the manu- the Congo climate are not kind to had no idea, but he thought they ated, yet the stones lying about scripts left by his mad ancestor. He mummies; especially when their were the builders of the ruined city. proved that it was no mere Negro began to feel closely akin to Sir preparation is as amateurish as Jermyn could form no conjecture, village. Unfortunately no carvings Wade, and to seek relics of the latter’s seemed to be the case here. Around but by close questioning obtained a could be found, and the small size personal life in England as well as the creature’s neck had been found very picturesque legend of the stuffed of the expedition prevented opera- of his African exploits. Oral accounts a golden chain bearing an empty goddess. tions toward clearing the one visible of the mysterious and secluded wife locket on which were armorial The ape-princess, it was said, passageway that seemed to lead had been numerous, but no tangible designs; no doubt some hapless trav- became the consort of a great white down into the system of vaults which relic of her stay at Jermyn House eller’s keepsake, taken by the god who had come out of the West. Sir Wade had mentioned. The white remained. Jermyn wondered what N’bangus and hung upon the For a long time they had reigned apes and the stuffed goddess were circumstance had prompted or goddess as a charm. In commenting 98 99 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • FACTS CONCERNING the LATE ARTHUR JERMYN

on the contour of the mummy’s face, front door he seemed to think of these: the arms on the golden locket M. Verhaeren suggested a whimsical something, and turned back in his about the creature’s neck were the comparison; or rather, expressed a flight, finally disappearing down the Jermyn arms, and the jocose sugges- humorous wonder just how it would stairs to the cellar. The servants were tion of M. Verhaeren about certain strike his corespondent, but was too utterly dumbfounded, and watched resemblance as connected with the much interested scientifically to at the head of the stairs, but their shrivelled face applied with vivid, waste many words in levity. The master did not return. A smell of oil ghastly, and unnatural horror to none stuffed goddess, he wrote, would was all that came up from the regions other than the sensitive Arthur arrive duly packed about a month below. After dark a rattling was Jermyn, great-great-great-grandson after receipt of the letter. heard at the door leading from the of Sir Wade Jermyn and an unknown The boxed object was delivered cellar into the courtyard; and a wife. Members of the Royal at Jermyn House on the afternoon stable-boy saw Arthur Jermyn, glis- Anthropological Institute burned of August 3, 1913, being conveyed tening from head to foot with oil the thing and threw the locket into immediately to the large chamber and redolent of that fluid, steal a well, and some of them do not which housed the collection of furtively out and vanish on the black admit that Arthur Jermyn ever African specimens as arranged by moor surrounding the house. Then, existed. Sir Robert and Arthur. What ensued in an exaltation of supreme horror, can best be gathered from the tales everyone saw the end. A spark of servants and from things and appeared on the moor, a flame arose, papers later examined. Of the various and a pillar of human fire reached tales, that of aged Soames, the family to the heavens. The house of Jermyn butler, is most ample and coherent. no longer existed. According to this trustworthy man, The reason why Arthur Jermyn’s Sir Arthur Jermyn dismissed charred fragments were not collected everyone from the room before and buried lies in what was found opening the box, though the instant afterward, principally the thing in sound of hammer and chisel showed the box. The stuffed goddess was a that he did not delay the operation. nauseous sight, withered and eaten Nothing was heard for some time; away, but it was clearly a mummified just how long Soames cannot exactly white ape of some unknown species, estimate, but it was certainly less less hairy than any recorded variety, than a quarter of an hour later that and infinitely nearer mankind— the horrible scream, undoubtedly in quite shockingly so. Detailed Jermyn’s voice, was heard. description would be rather Immediately afterward Jermyn unpleasant, but two salient particu- emerged from the room, rushing lars must be told, for they fit in frantically toward the front of the revoltingly with certain notes of Sir house as if pursued by some hideous Wade Jermyn’s African expeditions enemy. The expression on his face, and with the Congolese legends of a face ghastly enough in repose, was the white god and the ape-princess. beyond description. When near the The two particulars in question are 100 101

The CATS of ULTHAR.

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t is said that in Ulthar, which cats of their neighbors. Why they lies beyond the river Skai, no did this I know not; save that many man may kill a cat; and this I hate the voice of the cat in the night, canI verily believe as I gaze upon and take it ill that cats should run him who sitteth purring before the stealthily about yards and gardens fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close at twilight. But whatever the reason, to strange things which men this old man and woman took plea- cannot see. He is the soul of antique sure in trapping and slaying every Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from cat which came near to their hovel; forgotten cities in Meroe and and from some of the sounds heard Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s after dark, many villagers fancied lords, and heir to the secrets of that the manner of slaying was hoary and sinister Africa. The exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks did not discuss such things with the her language; but he is more ancient old man and his wife; because of the than the Sphinx, and remembers habitual expression on the withered that which she hath forgotten. faces of the two, and because their In Ulthar, before ever the cottage was so small and so darkly burgesses forbade the killing of cats, hidden under spreading oaks at the there dwelt an old cotter and his wife back of a neglected yard. In truth, who delighted to trap and slay the much as the owners of cats hated H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The CATS of ULTHAR

these odd folk, they feared them one can find great relief in the lively the cats away in revenge for the their saucers of milk was exceedingly more; and instead of berating them antics of a black kitten. So the boy killing of Menes’ kitten; and cursed curious. And for two whole days the as brutal assassins, merely took care whom the dark people called Menes the caravan and the little boy. But sleek, lazy cats of Ulthar would touch that no cherished pet or mouser smiled more often than he wept as Nith, the lean notary, declared that no food, but only doze by the fire or should stray toward the remote hovel he sat playing with his graceful the old cotter and his wife were more in the sun. under the dark trees. When through kitten on the steps of an oddly likely persons to suspect; for their It was fully a week before the some unavoidable oversight a cat painted wagon. hatred of cats was notorious and villagers noticed that no lights were was missed, and sounds heard after On the third morning of the increasingly bold. Still, no one durst appearing at dusk in the windows dark, the loser would lament impo- wanderers’ stay in Ulthar, Menes complain to the sinister couple; even of the cottage under the trees. Then tently; or console himself by thanking could not find his kitten; and as he when little Atal, the innkeeper’s son, the lean Nith remarked that no one Fate that it was not one of his chil- sobbed aloud in the market-place vowed that he had at twilight seen had seen the old man or his wife dren who had thus vanished. For the certain villagers told him of the old all the cats of Ulthar in that accursed since the night the cats were away. people of Ulthar were simple, and man and his wife, and of sounds yard under the trees, pacing very In another week the burgomaster knew not whence it is all cats first heard in the night. And when he slowly and solemnly in a circle decided to overcome his fears and came. heard these things his sobbing gave around the cottage, two abreast, as call at the strangely silent dwelling One day a caravan of strange place to meditation, and finally to if in performance of some unheard-of as a matter of duty, though in so wanderers from the South entered prayer. He stretched out his arms rite of beasts. The villagers did not doing he was careful to take with the narrow cobbled streets of Ulthar. toward the sun and prayed in a know how much to believe from so him Shang the blacksmith and Thul Dark wanderers they were, and tongue no villager could understand; small a boy; and though they feared the cutter of stone as witnesses. And unlike the other roving folk who though indeed the villagers did not that the evil pair had charmed the when they had broken down the frail passed through the village twice try very hard to understand, since cats to their death, they preferred door they found only this: two every year. In the market-place they their attention was mostly taken up not to chide the old cotter till they cleanly picked human skeletons on told fortunes for silver, and bought by the sky and the odd shapes the met him outside his dark and repel- the earthen floor, and a number of gay beads from the merchants. What clouds were assuming. It was very lent yard. singular beetles crawling in the was the land of these wanderers none peculiar, but as the little boy uttered So Ulthar went to sleep in vain shadowy corners. could tell; but it was seen that they his petition there seemed to form anger; and when the people awak- There was subsequently much were given to strange prayers, and overhead the shadowy, nebulous ened at dawn—behold! every cat was talk among the burgesses of Ulthar. that they had painted on the sides figures of exotic things; of hybrid back at his accustomed hearth! Large Zath, the coroner, disputed at length of their wagons strange figures with creatures crowned with horn-flanked and small, black, grey, striped, yellow with Nith, the lean notary; and human bodies and the heads of cats, disks. Nature is full of such illusions and white, none was missing. Very Kranon and Shang and Thul were hawks, rams and lions. And the to impress the imaginative. sleek and fat did the cats appear, and overwhelmed with questions. Even leader of the caravan wore a head- That night the wanderers left sonorous with purring content. The little Atal, the innkeeper’s son, was dress with two horns and a curious Ulthar, and were never seen again. citizens talked with one another of closely questioned and given a sweet- disk betwixt the horns. And the householders were troubled the affair, and marveled not a little. meat as reward. They talked of the There was in this singular when they noticed that in all the Old Kranon again insisted that it old cotter and his wife, of the caravan caravan a little boy with no father or village there was not a cat to be was the dark folk who had taken of dark wanderers, of small Menes mother, but only a tiny black kitten found. From each hearth the familiar them, since cats did not return alive and his black kitten, of the prayer of to cherish. The plague had not been cat had vanished; cats large and from the cottage of the ancient man Menes and of the sky during that kind to him, yet had left him this small, black, grey, striped, yellow and and his wife. But all agreed on one prayer, of the doings of the cats on small furry thing to mitigate his white. Old Kranon, the burgomaster, thing: that the refusal of all the cats the night the caravan left, and of sorrow; and when one is very young, swore that the dark folk had taken to eat their portions of meat or drink what was later found in the cottage 104 105 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

under the dark trees in the repellent yard. And in the end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hatheg and discussed by travelers in Nir; namely, that in Ulthar no man may kill a cat.

From BEYOND.

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orrible beyond concep- creature. It is not pleasant to see a tion was the change stout man suddenly grown thin, which had taken place in and it is even worse when the baggy myH best friend, Crawford skin becomes yellowed or grayed, Tillinghast. I had not seen him the eyes sunken, circled, and uncan- since that day, two months and a nily glowing, the forehead veined half before, when he told me and corrugated, and the hands toward what goal his physical and tremulous and twitching. And if metaphysical researches were added to this there be a repellent leading; when he had answered my unkemptness, a wild disorder of awed and almost frightened dress, a bushiness of dark hair white remonstrances by driving me from at the roots, and an unchecked his laboratory and his house in a growth of white beard on a face burst of fanatical rage. I had known once clean-shaven, the cumulative that he now remained mostly shut effect is quite shocking. But such in the attic laboratory with that was the aspect of Crawford accursed electrical machine, eating Tilllinghast on the night his half little and excluding even the serv- coherent message brought me to ants, but I had not thought that a his door after my weeks of exile; brief period of ten weeks could so such was the specter that trembled alter and disfigure any human as it admitted me, candle in hand,

106 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • From BEYOND

and glanced furtively over its life which lie close at hand yet can the small circle of candle light, and seemed to be receiving no current; shoulder as if fearful of unseen never be detected with the senses we I sickened at the hollow, altered voice for I recalled that in its experimental things in the ancient, lonely house have. I have always believed that such of my host. I wished the servants stage it had sputtered and purred set back from Benevolent Street. strange, inaccessible worlds exist at were about, and did not like it when when in action. In reply to my ques- That Crawford Tillinghast our very elbows, and now I believe he said they had all left three days tion Tillinghast mumbled that this should ever have studied science and I have found a way to break down previously. It seemed strange that permanent glow was not electrical philosophy was a mistake. These the barriers. I am not joking. Within old Gregory, at least, should desert in any sense that I could things should be left to the frigid twenty-four hours that machine near his master without telling as tried a understand. and impersonal investigator, for they the table will generate waves acting friend as I. It was he who had given He now seated me near the offer two equally tragic alternatives on unrecognized sense organs that me all the information I had of machine, so that it was on my right, to the man of feeling and action; exist in us as atrophied or rudimen- Tillinghast after I was repulsed in and turned a switch somewhere despair, if he fail in his quest, and tary vestiges. Those waves will open rage. below the crowning cluster of glass terrors unutterable and unimag- up to us many vistas unknown to Yet I soon subordinated all my bulbs. The usual sputtering began, inable if he succeed. Tillinghast had man and several unknown to fears to my growing curiosity and turned to a whine, and terminated once been the prey of failure, solitary anything we consider organic life. fascination. Just what Crawford in a drone so soft as to suggest a and melancholy; but now I knew, We shall see that at which dogs howl Tillinghast now wished of me I return to silence. Meanwhile the with nauseating fears of my own, in the dark, and that at which cats could only guess, but that he had luminosity increased, waned again, that he was the prey of success. I had prick up their ears after midnight. some stupendous secret or discovery then assumed a pale, outrè colour or indeed warned him ten weeks before, We shall see these things, and other to impart, I could not doubt. Before blend of colours which I could when he burst forth with his tale of things which no breathing creature I had protested at his unnatural neither place nor describe. Tillinghast what he felt himself about to has yet seen. We shall overleap time, pryings into the unthinkable; now had been watching me, and noted discover. He had been flushed and space, and dimensions, and without that he had evidently succeeded to my puzzled expression. excited then, talking in a high and bodily motion peer to the bottom of some degree I almost shared his “Do you know what that is?” he unnatural, though always pedantic, creation.” spirit, terrible though the cost of whispered, “That is ultra-violet.” He voice. When Tillinghast said these victory appeared. Up through the chuckled oddly at my surprise. “You “What do we know,” he had said, things I remonstrated, for I knew dark emptiness of the house I thought ultra-violet was invisible, “of the world and the universe about him well enough to be frightened followed the bobbing candle in the and so it is—but you can see that us? Our means of receiving impres- rather than amused; but he was a hand of this shaking parody of man. and many other invisible things now. sions are absurdly few, and our fanatic, and drove me from the The electricity seemed to be turned “Listen to me! The waves from notions of surrounding objects house. Now he was no less a fanatic, off, and when I asked my guide he that thing are waking a thousand infinitely narrow. We see things only but his desire to speak had conquered said it was for a definite reason. sleeping senses in us; senses which as we are constructed to see them, his resentment, and he had written “It would be too much… I would we inherit from aeons of evolution and can gain no idea of their absolute me imperatively in a hand I could not dare,” he continued to mutter. I from the state of detached electrons nature. With five feeble senses we scarcely recognize. As I entered the especially noted his new habit of to the state of organic humanity. I pretend to comprehend the bound- abode of the friend so suddenly muttering, for it was not like him to have seen the truth, and I intend to lessly complex cosmos, yet other metamorphosed to a shivering talk to himself. We entered the labo- show it to you. Do you wonder how beings with wider, stronger, or gargoyle, I became infected with the ratory in the attic, and I observed it will seem? I will tell you.” Here different range of senses might not terror which seemed stalking in all that detestable electrical machine, Tillinghast seated himself directly only see very differently the things the shadows. The words and beliefs glowing with a sickly, sinister violet opposite me, blowing out his candle we see, but might see and study expressed ten weeks before seemed luminosity. It was connected with a and staring hideously into my eyes. whole worlds of matter, energy, and bodied forth in the darkness beyond powerful chemical battery, but “Your existing sense-organs—ears 108 109 H.P. 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first, I think—will pick up many of Then from the farthermost regions sympathetic vibrations. It must have always remember. I seemed for an the impressions, for they are closely of remoteness, the sound softly been frightful—I could hear the instant to behold a patch of strange connected with the dormant organs. glided into existence. It was infinitely screams up here in spite of all I was night sky filled with shining, Then there will be others. You have faint, subtly vibrant, and unmistak- seeing and hearing from another revolving spheres, and as it receded heard of the pineal gland? I laugh at ably musical, but held a quality of direction, and later it was rather I saw that the glowing suns formed the shallow endocrinologist, fellow- surpassing wildness which made its awful to find those empty heaps of a constellation or galaxy of settled dupe and fellow-parvenu of the impact feel like a delicate torture of clothes around the house. Mrs. shape; this shape being the distorted Freudian. That gland is the great my whole body. I felt sensations like Updike’s clothes were close to the face of Crawford Tillinghast. At sense organ of organs—I have found those one feels when accidentally front hall switch—that’s how I know another time I felt the huge animate out. It is like sight in the end, and scratching ground glass. she did it. It got them all. But so long things brushing past me and occa- transmits visual pictures to the brain. Simultaneously there developed as we don’t move we’re fairly safe. sionally walking or drifting through If you are normal, that is the way something like a cold draught, which Remember we’re dealing with a my supposedly solid body, and you ought to get most of it… I mean apparently swept past me from the hideous world in which we are prac- thought I saw Tillinghast look at get most of the evidence from direction of the distant sound. As I tically helpless… Keep still!” them as though his better trained beyond.” waited breathlessly I perceived that The combined shock of the senses could catch them visually. I I looked about the immense attic both sound and wind were increasing; revelation and of the abrupt recalled what he had said of the room with the sloping south wall, the effect being to give me an odd command gave me a kind of paral- pineal gland, and wondered what he dimly lit by rays which the everyday notion of myself as tied to a pair of ysis, and in my terror my mind again saw with this preternatural eye. eye cannot see. The far corners were rails in the path of a gigantic opened to the impressions coming Suddenly I myself became all shadows and the whole place took approaching locomotive. I began to from what Tillinghast called possessed of a kind of augmented on a hazy unreality which obscured speak to Tillinghast, and as I did so “beyond.” I was now in a vortex of sight. Over and above the luminous its nature and invited the imagina- all the unusual impressions abruptly sound and motion, with confused and shadowy chaos arose a picture tion to symbolism and phantasm. vanished. I saw only the man, the pictures before my eyes. I saw the which, though vague, held the During the interval that Tillinghast glowing machines, and the dim blurred outlines of the room, but elements of consistency and perma- was long silent I fancied myself in apartment. Tillinghast was grinning from some point in space there nence. It was indeed somewhat some vast incredible temple of long- repulsively at the revolver which I seemed to be pouring a seething familiar, for the unusual part was dead gods; some vague edifice of had almost unconsciously drawn, but column of unrecognizable shapes or superimposed upon the usual terres- innumerable black stone columns from his expression I was sure he clouds, penetrating the solid roof at trial scene much as a cinema view reaching up from a floor of damp had seen and heard as much as I, if a point ahead and to the right of me. may be thrown upon the painted slabs to a cloudy height beyond the not a great deal more. I whispered Then I glimpsed the temple-like curtain of a theater. I saw the attic range of my vision. The picture was what I had experienced and he bade effect again, but this time the pillars laboratory, the electrical machine, very vivid for a while, but gradually me to remain as quiet and receptive reached up into an aerial ocean of and the unsightly form of Tillinghast gave way to a more horrible concep- as possible. light, which sent down one blinding opposite me; but of all the space tion; that of utter, absolute solitude “Don’t move,” he cautioned, “for beam along the path of the cloudy unoccupied by familiar objects not in infinite, sightless, soundless space. in these rays we are able to be seen column I had seen before. After that one particle was vacant. Indescribable There seemed to be a void, and as well as to see. I told you the the scene was almost wholly kalei- shapes both alive and otherwise were nothing more, and I felt a childish servants left, but I didn’t tell you how. doscopic, and in the jumble of sights, mixed in disgusting disarray, and fear which prompted me to draw It was that thick-witted house- sounds, and unidentified sense-im- close to every known thing were from my hip pocket the revolver I keeper—she turned on the lights pressions I felt that I was about to whole worlds of alien, unknown carried after dark since the night I downstairs after I had warned her dissolve or in some way lose the solid entities. It likewise seemed that all was held up in East Providence. not to, and the wires picked up form. One definite flash I shall the known things entered into the 110 111 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • From BEYOND

composition of other unknown The machine droned detestably. are—very different. Disintegration on me when I am weary. What things and vice versa. Foremost “You think those floundering is quite painless, I assure you—but prevents me from believing the among the living objects were inky, things wiped out the servants? Fool, I want you to see them. I almost saw doctor is one simple fact—that the jellyfish monstrosities which flabbily they are harmless! But the servants them, but I knew how to stop. You police never found the bodies of quivered in harmony with the vibra- are gone, aren’t they? You tried to are curious? I always knew you were those servants whom they say tions from the machine. They were stop me; you discouraged me when no scientist. Trembling, eh. Crawford Tillinghast murdered. present in loathsome profusion, and I needed every drop of encourage- Trembling with anxiety to see the I saw to my horror that they over- ment I could get; you were afraid of ultimate things I have discovered. lapped; that they were semi-fluid the cosmic truth, you damned Why don’t you move, then? Tired? and capable of passing through one coward, but now I’ve got you! What Well, don’t worry, my friend, for they another and through what we know swept up the servants? What made are coming… Look, look, curse you, as solids. These things were never them scream so loud?… Don’t know, look… it’s just over your left still, but seemed ever floating about eh! You’ll know soon enough. Look shoulder… ” with some malignant purpose. at me—listen to what I say—do you What remains to be told is very Sometimes they appeared to devour suppose there are really any such brief, and may be familiar to you one another, the attacker launching things as time and magnitude? Do from the newspaper accounts. The itself at its victim and instanta- you fancy there are such things as police heard a shot in the old neously obliterating the latter from form or matter? I tell you, I have Tillinghast house and found us sight. Shudderingly I felt that I knew struck depths that your little brain there—Tillinghast dead and me what had obliterated the unfortunate can’t picture. I have seen beyond the unconscious. They arrested me servants, and could not exclude the bounds of infinity and drawn down because the revolver was in my hand, thing from my mind as I strove to demons from the stars… I have but released me in three hours, after observe other properties of the newly harnessed the shadows that stride they found it was apoplexy which visible world that lies unseen around from world to world to sow death had finished Tillinghast and saw that us. But Tillinghast had been and madness… Space belongs to me, my shot had been directed at the watching me and was speaking. do you hear? Things are hunting me noxious machine which now lay “You see them? You see them? now—the things that devour and hopelessly shattered on the labora- You see the things that float and flop dissolve—but I know how to elude tory floor. I did not tell very much about you and through you every them. It is you they will get, as they of what I had seen, for I feared the moment of your life? You see the got the servants… Stirring, dear sir? coroner would be skeptical; but from creatures that form what men call I told you it was dangerous to move, the evasive outline I did give, the the pure air and the blue sky? Have I have saved you so far by telling you doctor told me that I had undoubt- I not succeeded in breaking down to keep still—saved you to see more edly been hypnotized by the vindic- the barrier; have I not shown you sights and to listen to me. If you had tive and homicidal madman. worlds that no other living men have moved, they would have been at you I wish I could believe that doctor. seen?” I heard his scream through long ago. Don’t worry, they won’t It would help my shaky nerves if I the horrible chaos, and looked at the hurt you. They didn’t hurt the could dismiss what I now have to wild face thrust so offensively close servants—it was the seeing that think of the air and the sky about to mine. His eyes were pits of flame, made the poor devils scream so. My and above me. I never feel alone or and they glared at me with what I pets are not pretty, for they come out comfortable, and a hideous sense of now saw was overwhelming hatred. of places where aesthetic standards pursuit sometimes comes chillingly 112 113

CELEPHAÏS.

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n a dream Kuranes saw the city dreams. What he wrote was laughed in the valley, and the seacoast at by those to whom he showed it, beyond, and the snowy peak so that after a time he kept his writ- overlookingI the sea, and the gaily ings to himself, and finally ceased to painted galleys that sail out of the write. harbour toward distant regions The more he withdrew from the where the sea meets the sky. In a world about him, the more wonderful dream it was also that he came by became his dreams; and it would his name of Kuranes, for when have been quite futile to try to awake he was called by another describe them on paper. Kuranes was name. not modern, and did not think like Perhaps it was natural for him others who wrote. Whilst they strove to dream a new name; for he was the to strip from life its embroidered last of his family, and alone among robes of myth and to show in naked the indifferent millions of London, ugliness the foul thing that is reality, so there were not many to speak to Kuranes sought for beauty alone. him and to remind him who he had When truth and experience failed been. His money and lands were to reveal it, he sought it in fancy and gone, and he did not care for the illusion, and found it on his very ways of the people about him, but doorstep, amid the nebulous memo- preferred to dream and write of his ries of childhood tales and dreams. H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • CELEPHAÏS

There are not many persons who long grass, and the window-panes one summer afternoon very long ago, old, nor were the marble walls disc- know what wonders are opened to on either side broken or filmily when he had slipt away from his oloured, nor the polished bronze them in the stories and visions of staring. Kuranes had not lingered, nurse and let the warm sea-breeze statues upon them tarnished. And their youth; for when as children we but had plodded on as though lull him to sleep as he watched the Kuranes saw that he need not listen and dream, we think but half- summoned toward some goal. He clouds from the cliff near the village. tremble lest the things he knew be formed thoughts, and when as men dared not disobey the summons for He had protested then, when they vanished; for even the sentries on we try to remember, we are dulled fear it might prove an illusion like had found him, waked him, and the ramparts were the same, and still and prosaic with the poison of life. the urges and aspirations of waking carried him home, for just as he was as young as he remembered them. But some of us awake in the night life, which do not lead to any goal. aroused he had been about to sail in When he entered the city, past the with strange phantasms of enchanted Then he had been drawn down a a golden galley for those alluring bronze gates and over the onyx pave- hills and gardens, of fountains that lane that led off from the village regions where the sea meets the sky. ments, the merchants and camel- sing in the sun, of golden cliffs over- street toward the channel cliffs, and And now he was equally resentful drivers greeted him as if he had never hanging murmuring seas, of plains had come to the end of things, to of awaking, for he had found his been away; and it was the same at that stretch down to sleeping cities the precipice and the abyss where all fabulous city after forty weary years. the turquoise temple of Nath- of bronze and stone, and of shadowy the village and all the world fell But three nights afterward Horthath, where the orchid- companies of heroes that ride capar- abruptly into the unechoing empti- Kuranes came again to Celephaïs. wreathed priests told him that there isoned white horses along the edges ness of infinity, and where even the As before, he dreamed first of the is no time in Ooth-Nargai, but only of thick forests; and then we know sky ahead was empty and unlit by village that was asleep or dead, and perpetual youth. Then Kuranes that we have looked back through the crumbling moon and the peering of the abyss down which one must walked through the Street of Pillars the ivory gates into that world of stars. Faith had urged him on, over float silently; then the rift appeared to the seaward wall, where gathered wonder which was ours before we the precipice and into the gulf, where again, and he beheld the glittering the traders and sailors, and strange were wise and unhappy. he had floated down, down, down; minarets of the city, and saw the men from the regions where the sea Kuranes came very suddenly past dark, shapeless, undreamed graceful galleys riding at anchor in meets the sky. There he stayed long, upon his old world of childhood. He dreams, faintly glowing spheres that the blue harbour, and watched the gazing out over the bright harbour had been dreaming of the house may have been partly dreamed gingko trees of Mount Aran swaying where the ripples sparkled beneath where he had been born; the great dreams, and laughing winged things in the sea-breeze. But this time he an unknown sun, and where rode stone house covered with ivy, where that seemed to mock the dreamers was not snatched away, and like a lightly the galleys from far places thirteen generations of his ancestors of all the worlds. Then a rift seemed winged being settled gradually over over the water. And he gazed also had lived, and where he had hoped to open in the darkness before him, a grassy hillside ’til finally his feet upon Mount Aran rising regally to die. It was moonlight, and he had and he saw the city of the valley, rested gently on the turf. He had from the shore, its lower slopes green stolen out into the fragrant summer glistening radiantly far, far below, indeed come back to the Valley of with swaying trees and its white night, through the gardens, down with a background of sea and sky, Ooth-Nargai and the splendid city summit touching the sky. the terraces, past the great oaks of and a snowcapped mountain near of Celephaïs. More than ever Kuranes wished the park, and along the long white the shore. Down the hill amid scented to sail in a galley to the far places of road to the village. The village Kuranes had awakened the very grasses and brilliant flowers walked which he had heard so many strange seemed very old, eaten away at the moment he beheld the city, yet he Kuranes, over the bubbling Naraxa tales, and he sought again the captain edge like the moon which had knew from his brief glance that it on the small wooden bridge where who had agreed to carry him so long commenced to wane, and Kuranes was none other than Celephaïs, in he had carved his name so many ago. He found the man, Athib, wondered whether the peaked roofs the Valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond years ago, and through the whis- sitting on the same chest of spice he of the small houses hid sleep or the Tanarian Hills where his spirit pering grove to the great stone had sat upon before, and Athib death. In the streets were spears of had dwelt all the eternity of an hour bridge by the city gate. All was as of seemed not to realize that any time 116 117 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • CELEPHAÏS

had passed. Then the two rowed to leaders, and in the wildest part of lain since King Kynaratholis came Celephaïs to bear him thither forever. a galley in the harbour, and giving this hilly country, so remote that few home from his conquests to find the Handsome knights they were, orders to the oarmen, commenced men could ever have seen it, he found vengeance of the gods. astride roan horses and clad in to sail out into the billowy Cerenarian a hideously ancient wall or causeway So Kuranes sought fruitlessly for shining armour with tabards of Sea that leads to the sky. For several of stone zigzagging along the ridges the marvellous city of Celephaïs and cloth-of-gold curiously emblazoned. days they glided undulatingly over and valleys; too gigantic ever to have its galleys that sail to Serannian in So numerous were they, that Kuranes the water, till finally they came to risen by human hands, and of such the sky, meanwhile seeing many almost mistook them for an army, the horizon, where the sea meets the a length that neither end of it could wonders and once barely escaping but they were sent in his honour; sky. Here the galley paused not at be seen. Beyond that wall in the grey from the high-priest not to be since it was he who had created all, but floated easily in the blue of dawn he came to a land of quaint described, which wears a yellow Ooth-Nargai in his dreams, on the sky among fleecy clouds tinted gardens and cherry trees, and when silken mask over its face and dwells which account he was now to be with rose. And far beneath the keel the sun rose he beheld such beauty all alone in a prehistoric stone appointed its chief god for evermore. Kuranes could see strange lands and of red and white flowers, green monastery in the cold desert plateau Then they gave Kuranes a horse and rivers and cities of surpassing beauty, foliage and lawns, white paths, of Leng. In time he grew so impa- placed him at the head of the caval- spread indolently in the sunshine diamond brooks, blue lakelets, carven tient of the bleak intervals of day cade, and all rode majestically which seemed never to lessen or bridges, and red-roofed pagodas, that that he began buying drugs in order through the downs of Surrey and disappear. At length Athib told him he for a moment forgot Celephaïs to increase his periods of sleep. onward toward the region where that their journey was near its end, in sheer delight. But he remembered Hasheesh helped a great deal, and Kuranes and his ancestors were born. and that they would soon enter the it again when he walked down a once sent him to a part of space It was very strange, but as the riders harbour of Serannian, the pink white path toward a red-roofed where form does not exist, but where went on they seemed to gallop back marble city of the clouds, which is pagoda, and would have questioned glowing gases study the secrets of through time; for whenever they built on that ethereal coast where the people of this land about it, had existence. And a violet-coloured gas passed through a village in the the west wind flows into the sky; but he not found that there were no told him that this part of space was twilight they saw only such houses as the highest of the city’s carven people there, but only birds and bees outside what he had called infinity. and villagers as Chaucer or men towers came into sight there was a and butterflies. On another night The gas had not heard of planets before him might have seen, and sound somewhere in space, and Kuranes walked up a damp stone and organisms before, but identified sometimes they saw knights on Kuranes awaked in his London spiral stairway endlessly, and came Kuranes merely as one from the horseback with small companies of garret. to a tower window overlooking a infinity where matter, energy, and retainers. When it grew dark they For many months after that mighty plain and river lit by the full gravitation exist. Kuranes was now travelled more swiftly, till soon they Kuranes sought the marvellous city moon; and in the silent city that very anxious to return to mina- were flying uncannily as if in the air. of Celephaïs and its sky-bound spread away from the river bank he ret-studded Celephaïs, and increased In the dim dawn they came upon galleys in vain; and though his thought he beheld some feature or his doses of drugs; but eventually he the village which Kuranes had seen dreams carried him to many gorgeous arrangement which he had known had no more money left, and could alive in his childhood, and asleep or and unheard-of places, no one whom before. He would have descended buy no drugs. Then one summer day dead in his dreams. It was alive now, he met could tell him how to find and asked the way to Ooth-Nargai he was turned out of his garret, and and early villagers curtsied as the Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian had not a fearsome aurora sputtered wandered aimlessly through the horsemen clattered down the street Hills. One night he went flying over up from some remote place beyond streets, drifting over a bridge to a and turned off into the lane that ends dark mountains where there were the horizon, showing the ruin and place where the houses grew thinner in the abyss of dreams. Kuranes had faint, lone campfires at great antiquity of the city, and the stag- and thinner. And it was there that previously entered that abyss only at distances apart, and strange, shaggy nation of the reedy river, and the fulfillment came, and he met the night, and wondered what it would herds with tinkling bells on the death lying upon that land, as it had cortege of knights come from look like by day; so he watched 118 119 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

anxiously as the column approached its brink. Just as they galloped up the rising ground to the precipice a golden glare came somewhere out of the west and hid all the landscape in effulgent draperies. The abyss was a seething chaos of roseate and ceru- lean splendour, and invisible voices sang exultantly as the knightly entourage plunged over the edge and floated gracefully down past glit- tering clouds and silvery corusca- tions. Endlessly down the horsemen floated, their chargers pawing the aether as if galloping over golden NYARLARTHOTEP. sands; and then the luminous vapours spread apart to reveal a [return to table of contents] greater brightness, the brightness of the city Celephaïs, and the sea coast beyond, and the snowy peak over- looking the sea, and the gaily painted yarlathotep… the crawling between the stars swept chill currents galleys that sail out of the harbour chaos… I am the last… I that made men shiver in dark and toward distant regions where the sea will tell the audient lonely places. There was a daemoniac meets the sky. void….N alteration in the sequence of the And Kuranes reigned thereafter I do not recall distinctly when seasons—the autumn heat lingered over Ooth-Nargai and all the neigh- it began, but it was months ago. The fearsomely, and everyone felt that boring regions of dream, and held general tension was horrible. To a the world and perhaps the universe his court alternately in Celephaïs season of political and social upheaval had passed from the control of and in the cloud-fashioned was added a strange and brooding known gods or forces to that of gods Serannian. He reigns there still, and apprehension of hideous physical or forces which were unknown. will reign happily for ever, though danger; a danger widespread and And it was then that below the cliffs at the all-embracing, such a danger as may came out of Egypt. channel tides played mockingly with be imagined only in the most terrible Who he was, none could tell, but he the body of a tramp who had stum- phantasms of the night. I recall that was of the old native blood and bled through the half-deserted the people went about with pale and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin village at dawn; played mockingly, worried faces, and whispered warn- knelt when they saw him, yet could and cast it upon the rocks by ivy-cov- ings and prophecies which no one not say why. He said he had risen up ered Trevor Towers, where a notably dared consciously repeat or acknowl- out of the blackness of twenty-seven fat and especially offensive million- edge to himself that he had heard. centuries, and that he had heard aire brewer enjoys the purchased A sense of monstrous guilt was upon messages from places not on this atmosphere of extinct nobility. the land, and out of the abysses planet. Into the lands of civilisation 120 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • NYARLARTHOTEP

came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, never been taken before yet which moon, for when we began to depend to linger was slight. As if beckoned and sinister, always buying strange shewed only in the eyes. And I heard on its light we drifted into curious by those who had gone before, I half- instruments of glass and metal and it hinted abroad that those who involuntary marching formations floated between the titanic snow- combining them into instruments knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights and seemed to know our destinations drifts, quivering and afraid, into the yet stranger. He spoke much of the which others saw not. though we dared not think of them. sightless vortex of the sciences—of electricity and It was in the hot autumn that I Once we looked at the pavement unimaginable. psychology—and gave exhibitions went through the night with the and found the blocks loose and Screamingly sentient, dumbly of power which sent his spectators restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; displaced by grass, with scarce a line delirious, only the gods that were away speechless, yet which swelled through the stifling night and up the of rusted metal to shew where the can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow his fame to exceeding magnitude. endless stairs into the choking room. tramways had run. And again we writhing in hands that are not hands, Men advised one another to see And shadowed on a screen, I saw saw a tram-car, lone, windowless, and whirled blindly past ghastly Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And hooded forms amidst ruins, and dilapidated, and almost on its side. midnights of rotting creation, where Nyarlathotep went, rest yellow evil faces peering from behind When we gazed around the horizon, corpses of dead worlds with sores vanished; for the small hours were fallen monuments. And I saw the we could not find the third tower by that were cities, charnel winds that rent with the screams of nightmare. world battling against blackness; the river, and noticed that the silhou- brush the pallid stars and make them Never before had the screams of against the waves of destruction from ette of the second tower was ragged flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague nightmare been such a public ultimate space; whirling, churning, at the top. Then we split up into ghosts of monstrous things; half- problem; now the wise men almost struggling around the dimming, narrow columns, each of which seen columns of unsanctified temples wished they could forbid sleep in the cooling sun. Then the sparks played seemed drawn in a different direc- that rest on nameless rocks beneath small hours, that the shrieks of cities amazingly around the heads of the tion. One disappeared in a narrow space and reach up to dizzy vacua might less horribly disturb the pale, spectators, and hair stood up on end alley to the left, leaving only the echo above the spheres of light and dark- pitying moon as it glimmered on whilst shadows more grotesque than of a shocking moan. Another filed ness. And through this revolting green waters gliding under bridges, I can tell came out and squatted on down a weed-choked subway graveyard of the universe the muffled, and old steeples crumbling against the heads. And when I, who was entrance, howling with a laughter maddening beating of drums, and a sickly sky. colder and more scientific than the that was mad. My own column was thin, monotonous whine of blasphe- I remember when Nyarlathotep rest, mumbled a trembling protest sucked toward the open country, and mous flutes from inconceivable, came to my city—the great, the old, about “imposture” and “static elec- presently I felt a chill which was not unlighted chambers beyond Time; the terrible city of unnumbered tricity,” Nyarlathotep drove us all of the hot autumn; for as we stalked the detestable pounding and piping crimes. My friend had told me of out, down the dizzy stairs into the out on the dark moor, we beheld whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, him, and of the impelling fascination damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. around us the hellish moon-glitter and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous and allurement of his revelations, I screamed aloud that I was not of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, and I burned with eagerness to afraid; that I never could be afraid; snows, swept asunder in one direc- mindless gargoyles whose soul is explore his uttermost mysteries. My and others screamed with me for tion only, where lay a gulf all the Nyarlathotep. friend said they were horrible and solace. We swore to one another that blacker for its glittering walls. The impressive beyond my most fevered the city was exactly the same, and column seemed very thin indeed as imaginings; and what was thrown still alive; and when the electric it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I on a screen in the darkened room lights began to fade we cursed the lingered behind, for the black rift in prophesied things none but company over and over again, and the green-litten snow was frightful, Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and laughed at the queer faces we made. and I thought I had heard the rever- in the sputter of his sparks there was I believe we felt something berations of a disquieting wail as my taken from men that which had coming down from the greenish companions vanished; but my power 122 123

The TEMPLE.

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(Manuscript found on the coast of survive to accomplish in person, Yucutan) since the circumstances surrounding me are as menacing as n August 20, 1917, I, Karl they are extraordinary, and involve Heinrich, Graf von not only the hopeless crippling of Altberg-Ehrenstein, the U-29, but the impairment of Lieutenant-CommanderO in the my iron German will in a manner Imperial German Navy and in most disastrous. charge of the submarine U-29, On the afternoon of June 18, as deposit this bottle and record in reported by wireless to the U-61, the Atlantic Ocean at a point to me bound for Kiel, we torpedoed the unknown but probably about N. British freighter Victory, New York Latitude 20 degrees, W. Longitude to Liverpool, in N. Latitude 45 35 degrees, where my ship lies disa- degrees 16 minutes, W. Longitude bled on the ocean floor. I do so 28 degrees 34 minutes; permitting because of my desire to set certain the crew to leave in boats in order unusual facts before the public; a to obtain a good cinema view for the thing I shall not in all probability admiralty records. The ship sank H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TEMPLE

quite picturesquely, bow first, the they gazed steadily and mockingly In the early evening we rose to went about his duties silently. stem rising high out of the water at Schmidt and Zimmer, who were the surface, and found the sea less In the week that followed we whilst the hull shot down perpen- bent over the corpse. Boatswain heavy. The smoke of a battleship was were all very nervous, watching for dicularly to the bottom of the sea. Muller, an elderly man who would on the northern horizon, but our the Dacia. The tension was aggra- Our camera missed nothing, and I have known better had he not been distance and ability to submerge vated by the disappearance of Muller regret that so fine a reel of film a superstitious Alsatian swine, made us safe. What worried us more and Zimmer, who undoubtedly should never reach Berlin. After that became so excited by this impression was the talk of Boatswain Muller, committed suicide as a result of the we sank the lifeboats with our guns that he watched the body in the which grew wilder as night came on. fears which had seemed to harass and submerged. water; and swore that after it sank a He was in a detestably childish state, them, though they were not observed When we rose to the surface little it drew its limbs into a swim- and babbled of some illusion of dead in the act of jumping overboard. I about sunset, a seaman’s body was ming position and sped away to the bodies drifting past the undersea was rather glad to be rid of Muller, found on the deck, hands gripping south under the waves. Kienze and portholes; bodies which looked at for even his silence had unfavorably the railing in curious fashion. The I did not like these displays of him intensely, and which he recog- affected the crew. Everyone seemed poor fellow was young, rather dark, peasant ignorance, and severely nized in spite of bloating as having inclined to be silent now, as though and very handsome; probably an reprimanded the men, particularly seen dying during some of our victo- holding a secret fear. Many were ill, Italian or Greek, and undoubtedly Muller. rious German exploits. And he said but none made a disturbance. of the Victory’s crew. He had evidently The next day a very troublesome that the young man we had found Lieutenant Kienze chafed under the sought refuge on the very ship which situation was created by the indis- and tossed overboard was their strain, and was annoyed by the had been forced to destroy his own— position of some of the crew. They leader. This was very gruesome and merest trifle—such as the school of one more victim of the unjust war were evidently suffering from the abnormal, so we confined Muller in dolphins which gathered about the of aggression which the English nervous strain of our long voyage, irons and had him soundly whipped. U-29 in increasing numbers, and the pig-dogs are waging upon the and had had bad dreams. Several The men were not pleased at his growing intensity of that southward Fatherland. Our men searched him seemed quite dazed and stupid; and punishment, but discipline was current which was not on our chart. for souvenirs, and found in his coat after satisfying myself that they were necessary. We also denied the request It at length became apparent pocket a very odd bit of ivory carved not feigning their weakness, I of a delegation headed by Seaman that we had missed the Dacia alto- to represent a youth’s head crowned excused them from their duties. The Zimmer, that the curious carved gether. Such failures are not with laurel. My fellow-officer, sea was rather rough, so we descended ivory head be cast into the sea. uncommon, and we were more Lieutenant Kienze, believed that the to a depth where the waves were less On June 20, Seaman Bohin and pleased than disappointed, since our thing was of great age and artistic troublesome. Here we were compar- Schmidt, who had been ill the day return to Wilhelmshaven was now value, so took it from the men for atively calm, despite a somewhat before, became violently insane. I in order. At noon June 28 we turned himself. How it had ever come into puzzling southward current which regretted that no physician was northeastward, and despite some the possession of a common sailor we could not identify from our included in our complement of offi- rather comical entanglements with neither he nor I could imagine. oceanographic charts. The moans of cers, since German lives are precious; the unusual masses of dolphins, were As the dead man was thrown the sick men were decidedly but the constant ravings of the two soon under way. overboard there occurred two inci- annoying; but since they did not concerning a terrible curse were most The explosion in the engine dents which created much distur- appear to demoralize the rest of the subversive of discipline, so drastic room at 2 a.m. was wholly a surprise. bance amongst the crew. The fellow’s crew, we did not resort to extreme steps were taken. The crew accepted No defect in the machinery or care- eyes had been closed; but in the measures. It was our plan to remain the event in a sullen fashion, but it lessness in the men had been noticed, dragging of his body to the rail they where we were and intercept the seemed to quiet Muller; who there- yet without warning the ship was were jarred open, and many seemed liner Dacia, mentioned in informa- after gave us no trouble. In the racked from end to end with a to entertain a queer delusion that tion from agents in New York. evening we released him, and he colossal shock. Lieutenant Kienze 126 127 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TEMPLE

hurried to the engine room, finding awaited developments until we real- seemed paralyzed and inefficient, as much on the subject in the books I the fuel-tank and most of the mech- ized that we must either submerge one might expect of a soft, womanish had carried with me for spare anism shattered, and Engineers or be swamped in the mounting Rhinelander. I shot all six men, for moments. I could not help observing, Raabe and Schneider instantly killed. waves. Our air pressure and elec- it was necessary, and made sure that however, the inferior scientific Our situation had suddenly become tricity were diminishing, and we none remained alive. knowledge of my companion. His grave indeed; for though the chem- wished to avoid all unnecessary use We expelled the bodies through mind was not Prussian, but given to ical air regenerators were intact, and of our slender mechanical resources; the hatches and were alone imaginings and speculations which though we could use the devices for but in this case there was no choice. in the U-29. Kienze seemed very have no value. The fact of our coming raising and submerging the ship and We did not descend far, and when nervous, and drank heavily. It was death affected him curiously, and he opening the hatches as long as after several hours the sea was calmer, decided that we remain alive as long would frequently pray in remorse compressed air and storage batteries we decided to return to the surface. as possible, using the large stock of over the men, women, and children might hold out, we were powerless Here, however, a new trouble devel- provisions and chemical supply of we had sent to the bottom; forgetting to propel or guide the submarine. To oped; for the ship failed to respond oxygen, none of which had suffered that all things are noble which serve seek rescue in the life-boats would to our direction in spite of all that from the crazy antics of those swine- the German state. After a time he be to deliver ourselves into the hands the mechanics could do. As the men hound seamen. Our compasses, became noticeably unbalanced, of enemies unreasonably embittered grew more frightened at this depth gauges, and other delicate gazing for hours at his ivory image against our great German nation, undersea imprisonment, some of instruments were ruined; so that and weaving fanciful stories of the and our wireless had failed ever since them began to mutter again about henceforth our only reckoning would lost and forgotten things under the the Victory affair to put us in touch Lieutenant Kienze’s ivory image, but be guess work, based on our watches, sea. Sometimes, as a psychological with a fellow U-boat of the Imperial the sight of an automatic pistol the calendar, and our apparent drift experiment, I would lead him on in Navy. calmed them. We kept the poor as judged by any objects we might the wanderings, and listen to his From the hour of the accident devils as busy as we could, tinkering spy through the portholes or from endless poetical quotations and tales till July 2 we drifted constantly to at the machinery even when we the conning tower. Fortunately we of sunken ships. I was very sorry for the south, almost without plans and knew it was useless. had storage batteries still capable of him, for I dislike to see a German encountering no vessel. Dolphins Kienze and I usually slept at long use, both for interior lighting suffer; but he was not a good man still encircled the U-29, a somewhat different times; and it was during and for the searchlight. We often to die with. For myself I was proud, remarkable circumstance considering my sleep, about 5 a.m., July 4, that cast a beam around the ship, but saw knowing how the Fatherland would the distance we had covered. On the the general mutiny broke loose. The only dolphins, swimming parallel to revere my memory and how my sons morning of July 2 we sighted a six remaining pigs of seamen, our own drifting course. I was scien- would be taught to be men like me. warship flying American colors, and suspecting that we were lost, had tifically interested in those dolphins; On August 9, we espied the the men became very restless in their suddenly burst into a mad fury at for though the ordinary Delphinus ocean floor, and sent a powerful desire to surrender. Finally our refusal to surrender to the Yankee delphis is a cetacean mammal, unable beam from the searchlight over it. It Lieutenant Menze had to shoot a battleship two days before, and were to subsist without air, I watched one was a vast undulating plain, mostly seaman named Traube, who urged in a delirium of cursing and destruc- of the swimmers closely for two covered with seaweed, and strewn this un-German act with especial tion. They roared like the animals hours, and did not see him alter his with the shells of small mollusks. violence. This quieted the crew for they were, and broke instruments submerged condition. Here and there were slimy objects the time, and we submerged unseen. and furniture indiscriminately; With the passage of time Kienze of puzzling contour, draped with The next afternoon a dense flock screaming about such nonsense as and I decided that we were still weeds and encrusted with barnacles, of sea-birds appeared from the south, the curse of the ivory image and the drifting south, meanwhile sinking which Kienze declared must be and the ocean began to heave dark dead youth who looked at them deeper and deeper. We noted the ancient ships lying in their graves. ominously. Closing our hatches, we and swam away. Lieutenant Kienze marine fauna and flora, and read He was puzzled by one thing, a peak 128 129 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TEMPLE

of solid matter, protruding above the his ivory image from the table, pock- of hair for his family in Germany in I perceived that the drifting of the oceanbed nearly four feet at its apex; eted it, and seized my arm in an case I should be rescued, but again U-29 was less rapid. As I swung the about two feet thick, with flat sides effort to drag me up the compan- he gave me that strange laugh. So as beam around to the south, I noticed and smooth upper surfaces which ionway to the deck. In a moment I he climbed the ladder I went to the that the ocean floor ahead fell away met at a very obtuse angle. I called understood that he meant to open levers and, allowing proper time-in- in a marked declivity, and bore curi- the peak a bit of outcropping rock, the hatch and plunge with me into tervals, operated the machinery ously regular blocks of stone in but Kienze thought he saw carvings the water outside, a vagary of suicidal which sent him to his death. After certain places, disposed as if in accor- on it. After a while he began to and homicidal mania for which I I saw that he was no longer in the dance with definite patterns. The shudder, and turned away from the was scarcely prepared. As I hung boat I threw the searchlight around boat did not at once descend to scene, as if frightened; yet could give back and attempted to soothe him the water in an effort to obtain a last match the greater ocean depth, so I no explanation save that he was over- he grew more violent, saying: “Come glimpse of him since I wished to was soon forced to adjust the search- come with the vastness, darkness, now—do not wait until later; it is ascertain whether the water-pressure light to cast a sharply downward remoteness, antiquity, and mystery better to repent and be forgiven than would flatten him as it theoretically beam. Owing to the abruptness of of the oceanic abysses. His mind was to defy and be condemned.” Then I should, or whether the body would the change a wire was disconnected, tired, but I am always a German, and tried the opposite of the soothing be unaffected, like those extraordi- which necessitated a delay of many was quick to notice two things: that plan, and told him he was mad— nary dolphins. I did not, however, minutes for repairs; but at length the the U-29 was standing the deep-sea pitifully demented. But he was succeed in finding my late light streamed on again, flooding the pressure splendidly, and that the unmoved, and cried: “If I am mad, companion, for the dolphins were marine valley below me. peculiar dolphins were still about us, it is mercy. May the gods pity the massed thickly and obscuringly I am not given to emotion of even at a depth where the existence man who in his callousness can about the conning tower. any kind, but my amazement was of high organisms is considered remain sane to the hideous end! That evening I regretted that I very great when I saw what lay impossible by most naturalists. That Come and be mad whilst he still had not taken the ivory image revealed in that electrical glow. And I had previously overestimated our calls with mercy!” surreptitiously from poor Kienze’s yet as one reared in the best Kultur depth, I was sure; but none the less This outburst seemed to relieve pocket as he left, for the memory of of Prussia, I should not have been we must still have been deep enough a pressure in his brain; for as he it fascinated me. I could not forget amazed, for geology and tradition to make these phenomena remark- finished he grew much milder, asking the youthful, beautiful head with its alike tell us of great transpositions able. Our southward speed, as gauged me to let him depart alone if I would leafy crown, though I am not by in oceanic and continental areas. by the ocean floor, was about as I not accompany him. My course at nature an artist. I was also sorry that What I saw was an extended and had estimated from the organisms once became clear. He was a German, I had no one with whom to converse. elaborate array of ruined edifices; all passed at higher levels. but only a Rhinelander and a Kienze, though not my mental equal, of magnificent though unclassified It was at 3:15 PM., August 12, commoner; and he was now a poten- was much better than no one. I did architecture, and in various stages of that poor Kienze went wholly mad. tially dangerous madman. By not sleep well that night, and preservation. Most appeared to be He had been in the conning tower complying with his suicidal request wondered exactly when the end of marble, gleaming whitely in the using the searchlight when I saw I could immediately free myself from would come. Surely, I had little rays of the searchlight, and the him bound into the library compart- one who was no longer a companion enough chance of rescue. general plan was of a large city at ment where I sat reading, and his but a menace. I asked him to give The next day I ascended to the the bottom of a narrow valley, with face at once betrayed him. I will me the ivory image before he went, conning tower and commenced the numerous isolated temples and villas repeat here what he said, underlining but this request brought from him customary searchlight explorations. on the steep slopes above. Roofs were the words he emphasized: “He is such uncanny laughter that I did not Northward the view was much the fallen and columns were broken, but calling! He is calling! I hear him! repeat it. Then I asked him if he same as it had been all the four days there still remained an air of imme- We must go!” As he spoke he took wished to leave any keepsake or lock since we had sighted the bottom, but morially ancient splendor which 130 131 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TEMPLE

nothing could efface. the figures of Bacchanals in relief. door of the rock-hewn temple; and waxed still more insistent, a great Confronted at last with the Foremost of all are the great columns after a time I turned off the current, disappointment befell me; for I Atlantis I had formerly deemed and friezes, both decorated with conscious of the need of conserving found that the materials needed to largely a myth, I was the most eager sculptures of inexpressible beauty; power. The rays were now percep- replenish the portable light had of explorers. At the bottom of that obviously portraying idealized tibly dimmer than they had been perished in the mutiny of those pigs valley a river once had flowed; for as pastoral scenes and processions of during the weeks of drifting. And as in July. My rage was unbounded, yet I examined the scene more closely I priests and priestesses bearing if sharpened by the coming depri- my German sense forbade me to beheld the remains of stone and strange ceremonial devices in adora- vation of light, my desire to explore venture unprepared into an utterly marble bridges and sea-walls, and tion of a radiant god. The art is of the watery secrets grew. I, a German, black interior which might prove the terraces and embankments once the most phenomenal perfection, should be the first to tread those lair of some indescribable marine verdant and beautiful. In my enthu- largely Hellenic in idea, yet strangely eon-forgotten ways! monster or a labyrinth of passages siasm I became nearly as idiotic and individual. It imparts an impression I produced and examined a from whose windings I could never sentimental as poor Kienze, and was of terrible antiquity, as though it deep-sea diving suit of jointed metal, extricate myself. All I could do was very tardy in noticing that the south- were the remotest rather than the and experimented with the portable to turn on the waning searchlight of ward current had ceased at last, immediate ancestor of Greek art. light and air regenerator. Though I the U-29, and with its aid walk up allowing the U-29 to settle slowly Nor can I doubt that every detail of should have trouble in managing the the temple steps and study the exte- down upon the sunken city as an this massive product was fashioned double hatches alone, I believed I rior carvings. The shaft of light airplane settles upon a town of the from the virgin hillside rock of our could overcome all obstacles with entered the door at an upward angle, upper earth. I was slow, too, in real- planet. It is palpably a part of the my scientific skill and actually walk and I peered in to see if I could izing that the school of unusual valley wall, though how the vast about the dead city in person. glimpse anything, but all in vain. Not dolphins had vanished. interior was ever excavated I cannot On August 16 I effected an exit even the roof was visible; and though In about two hours the boat imagine. Perhaps a cavern or series from the U-29, and laboriously made I took a step or two inside after rested in a paved plaza close to the of caverns furnished the nucleus. my way through the ruined and testing the floor with a staff, I dared rocky wall of the valley. On one side Neither age nor submersion has mud-choked streets to the ancient not go farther. Moreover, for the first I could view the entire city as it corroded the pristine grandeur of river. I found no skeletons or other time in my life I experienced the sloped from the plaza down to the this awful fane—for fane indeed it human remains, but gleaned a wealth emotion of dread. I began to realize old river-bank; on the other side, in must be—and today after thousands of archeological lore from sculptures how some of poor Kienze’s moods startling proximity, I was confronted of years it rests untarnished and invi- and coins. Of this I cannot now had arisen, for as the temple drew by the richly ornate and perfectly olate in the endless night and silence speak save to utter my awe at a me more and more, I feared its preserved facade of a great building, of an ocean-chasm. culture in the full noon of glory when aqueous abysses with a blind and evidently a temple, hollowed from I cannot reckon the number of cave-dwellers roamed Europe and mounting terror. Returning to the the solid rock. Of the original work- hours I spent in gazing at the sunken the Nile flowed unwatched to the submarine, I turned off the lights manship of this titanic thing I can city with its buildings, arches, statues, sea. Others, guided by this manu- and sat thinking in the dark. only make conjectures. The facade, and bridges, and the colossal temple script if it shall ever be found, must Electricity must now be saved for of immense magnitude, apparently with its beauty and mystery. Though unfold the mysteries at which I can emergencies. covers a continuous hollow recess; I knew that death was near, my curi- only hint. I returned to the boat as Saturday the 18th I spent in total for its windows are many and widely osity was consuming; and I threw my electric batteries grew feeble, darkness, tormented by thoughts and distributed. In the center yawns a the searchlight beam about in eager resolved to explore the rock temple memories that threatened to over- great open door, reached by an quest. The shaft of light permitted on the following day. come my German will. Kienze had impressive flight of steps, and me to learn many details, but refused On the 17th, as my impulse to gone mad and perished before surrounded by exquisite carvings like to show anything within the gaping search out the mystery of the temple reaching this sinster remnant of a 132 133 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The TEMPLE

past unwholesomely remote, and had hastens to explain the singular and organism capable of emitting such It is well that the reader accept advised me to go with him. Was, the complex by the primitive shortcut luminosity. nothing which follows as objective indeed, Fate preserving my reason of supernaturalism. The coincidence But before I could investigate truth, for since the events transcend only to draw me irresistibly to an was strange, but I was too sound a there came a third impression which natural law, they are necessarily the end more horrible and unthinkable reasoner to connect circumstances because of its irrationality caused me subjective and unreal creations of my than any man has dreamed of? which admit of no logical connec- to doubt the objectivity of anything overtaxed mind. When I attained Clearly, my nerves were sorely taxed, tion, or to associate in any uncanny my senses might record. It was an the conning tower I found the sea and I must cast off these impressions fashion the disastrous events which aural delusion; a sensation of in general far less luminous than I of weaker men. had led from the Victory affair to rhythmic, melodic sound as of some had expected. There was no animal I could not sleep Saturday night, my present plight. Feeling the need wild yet beautiful chant or choral or vegetable phosphorescence about, and turned on the lights regardless of more rest, I took a sedative and hymn, coming from the outside and the city that sloped down to the of the future. It was annoying that secured some more sleep. My nervous through the absolutely sound-proof river was invisible in blackness. the electricity should not last out the condition was reflected in my dreams, hull of the U-29. Convinced of my What I did see was not spectacular, air and provisions. I revived my for I seemed to hear the cries of psychological and nervous abnor- not grotesque or terrifying, yet it thoughts of euthanasia, and exam- drowning persons, and to see dead mality, I lighted some matches and removed my last vestige of trust in ined my automatic pistol. Toward faces pressing against the portholes poured a stiff dose of sodium bromide my consciousness. For the door and morning I must have dropped asleep of the boat. And among the dead solution, which seemed to calm me windows of the undersea temple with the lights on, for I awoke in faces was the living, mocking face of to the extent of dispelling the illusion hewn from the rocky hill were vividly darkness yesterday afternoon to find the youth with the ivory image. of sound. But the phosphorescence aglow with a flickering radiance, as the batteries dead. I struck several I must be careful how I record remained, and I had difficulty in from a mighty altar-flame far within. matches in succession, and desper- my awakening today, for I am repressing a childish impulse to go Later incidents are chaotic. As I ately regretted the improvidence unstrung, and much hallucination is to the porthole and seek its source. stared at the uncannily lighted door which had caused us long ago to use necessarily mixed with fact. It was horribly realistic, and I could and windows, I became subject to up the few candles we carried. Psychologically my case is most soon distinguish by its aid the the most extravagant visions— After the fading of the last interesting, and I regret that it cannot familiar objects around me, as well visions so extravagant that I cannot match I dared to waste, I sat very be observed scientifically by a compe- as the empty sodium bromide glass even relate them. I fancied that I quietly without a light. As I consid- tent German authority. Upon of which I had had no former visual discerned objects in the temple; ered the inevitable end my mind ran opening my eyes my first sensation impression in its present location. objects both stationary and moving; over preceding events, and developed was an overmastering desire to visit This last circumstance made me and seemed to hear again the unreal a hitherto dormant impression the rock temple; a desire which grew ponder, and I crossed the room and chant that had floated to me when which would have caused a weaker every instant, yet which I automat- touched the glass. It was indeed in first I awaked. And over all rose and more superstitious man to ically sought to resist through some the place where I had seemed to see thoughts and fears which centered shudder. The head of the radiant god emotion of fear which operated in it. Now I knew that the light was in the youth from the sea and the in the sculptures on the rock temple the reverse direction. Next there either real or part of an hallucination ivory image whose carving was is the same as that carven bit of ivory came to me the impression of light so fixed and consistent that I could duplicated on the frieze and columns which the dead sailor brought from amidst the darkness of dead batteries, not hope to dispel it, so abandoning of the temple before me. I thought the sea and which poor Kienze and I seemed to see a sort of phos- all resistance I ascended to the of poor Kienze, and wondered where carried back into the sea. phorescent glow in the water through conning tower to look for the lumi- his body rested with the image he I was a little dazed by this coin- the porthole which opened toward nous agency. Might it not actually had carried back into the sea. He had cidence, but did not become terrified. the temple. This aroused my curi- be another U-boat, offering possi- warned me of something, and I had It is only the inferior thinker who osity, for I knew of no deep-sea bilities of rescue? not heeded—but he was a 134 135 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

soft-headed Rhinelander who went mad at troubles a Prussian could bear with ease. The rest is very simple. My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now become an inexplicable and imperious command which ulti- mately cannot be denied. My own German will no longer controls my acts, and volition is henceforward possible only in minor matters. Such madness it was which drove Kienze to his death, bare-headed and unpro- tected in the ocean; but I am a Prussian and a man of sense, and will The PICTURE in the HOUSE. use to the last what little will I have. When first I saw that I must go, I [return to table of contents] prepared my diving suit, helmet, and air regenerator for instant donning, and immediately commenced to write this hurried chronicle in the earchers after horror haunt elements of strength, solitude, hope that it may some day reach the strange, far places. For them grotesqueness and ignorance world. I shall seal the manuscript in are the catacombs of combine to form the perfection of a bottle and entrust it to the sea as I SPtolemais, and the carven mausolea the hideous. leave the U-29 for ever. of the nightmare countries. They Most horrible of all sights are I have no fear, not even from the climb to the moonlit towers of the little unpainted wooden houses prophecies of the madman Kienze. ruined Rhine castles, and falter remote from travelled ways, usually What I have seen cannot be true, down black cobwebbed steps squatted upon some damp grassy and I know that this madness of my beneath the scattered stones of slope or leaning against some own will at most lead only to suffo- forgotten cities in Asia. The gigantic outcropping of rock. Two cation when my air is gone. The light haunted wood and the desolate hundred years and more they have in the temple is a sheer delusion, and mountain are their shrines, and leaned or squatted there, while the I shall die calmly like a German, in they linger around the sinister vines have crawled and the trees have the black and forgotten depths. This monoliths on uninhabited islands. swelled and spread. They are almost demoniac laughter which I hear as But the true epicure in the hidden now in lawless luxuriances I write comes only from my own terrible, to whom a new thrill of of green and guardian shrouds of weakening brain. So I will carefully unutterable ghastliness is the chief shadow; but the small-paned don my suit and walk boldly up the end and justification of existence, windows still stare shockingly, as if steps into the primal shrine, that esteems most of all the ancient, blinking through a lethal stupor silent secret of unfathomed waters lonely farmhouses of backwoods which wards off madness by dulling and uncounted years. New England; for there the dark the memory of unutterable things. 136 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The PICTURE in the HOUSE

In such houses have dwelt exposure. I had been travelling for desertion. Therefore instead of the uniform air of archaism as generations of strange people, whose some time amongst the people of trying the door I knocked, feeling displayed in every visible detail. Most like the world has never seen. Seized the Miskatonic Valley in quest of as I did so a trepidation I could of the houses in this region I had with a gloomy and fanatical belief certain genealogical data; and from scarcely explain. As I waited on the found rich in relics of the past, but which exiled them from their kind, the remote, devious, and problem- rough, mossy rock which served as here the antiquity was curiously their ancestors sought the wilderness atical nature of my course, had a door-step, I glanced at the neigh- complete; for in all the room I could for freedom. There the scions of a deemed it convenient to employ a boring windows and the panes of not discover a single article of defi- conquering race indeed flourished bicycle despite the lateness of the the transom above me, and noticed nitely post-revolutionary date. Had free from the restrictions of their season. Now I found myself upon that although old, rattling, and the furnishings been less humble, fellows, but cowered in an appalling an apparently abandoned road which almost opaque with dirt, they were the place would have been a collec- slavery to the dismal phantasms of I had chosen as the shortest cut to not broken. The building, then, must tor’s paradise. their own minds. Divorced from the , overtaken by the storm at still be inhabited, despite its isolation As I surveyed this quaint apart- enlightenment of civilization, the a point far from any town, and and general neglect. However, my ment, I felt an increase in that aver- strength of these Puritans turned confronted with no refuge save the rapping evoked no response, so after sion first excited by the bleak exterior into singular channels; and in their antique and repellent wooden repeating the summons I tried the of the house. Just what it was that I isolation, morbid self-repression, and building which blinked with bleared rusty latch and found the door unfas- feared or loathed, I could by no struggle for life with relentless windows from between two huge tened. Inside was a little vestibule means define; but something in the Nature, there came to them dark leafless elms near the foot of a rocky with walls from which the plaster whole atmosphere seemed redolent furtive traits from the prehistoric hill. Distant though it is from the was falling, and through the doorway of unhallowed age, of unpleasant depths of their cold Northern heri- remnant of a road, this house none came a faint but peculiarly hateful crudeness, and of secrets which tage. By necessity practical and by the less impressed me unfavorably odor. I entered, carrying my bicycle, should be forgotten. I felt disinclined philosophy stern, these folks were the very moment I espied it. Honest, and closed the door behind me. to sit down, and wandered about not beautiful in their sins. Erring as wholesome structures do not stare Ahead rose a narrow staircase, examining the various articles which all mortals must, they were forced at travellers so slyly and hauntingly, flanked by a small door probably I had noticed. The first object of my by their rigid code to seek conceal- and in my genealogical researches I leading to the cellar, while to the left curiosity was a book of medium size ment above all else; so that they came had encountered legends of a century and right were closed doors leading lying upon the table and presenting to use less and less taste in what they before which biased me against to rooms on the ground floor. such an antediluvian aspect that I concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, places of this kind. Yet the force of Leaning my cycle against the marvelled at beholding it outside a staring houses in the backwoods can the elements was such as to over- wall I opened the door at the left, museum or library. It was bound in tell all that has lain hidden since the come my scruples, and I did not and crossed into a small low-ceiled leather with metal fittings, and was early days, and they are not commu- hesitate to wheel my machine up the chamber but dimly lighted by its two in an excellent state of preservation; nicative, being loath to shake off the weedy rise to the closed door which dusty windows and furnished in the being altogether an unusual sort of drowsiness which helps them forget. seemed at once so suggestive and barest and most primitive possible volume to encounter in an abode so Sometimes one feels that it would secretive. way. It appeared to be a kind of lowly. When I opened it to the title be merciful to tear down these I had somehow taken it for sitting-room, for it had a table and page my wonder grew even greater, houses, for they must often dream. granted that the house was aban- several chairs, and an immense fire- for it proved to be nothing less rare It was to a time-battered edifice doned, yet as I approached it I was place above which ticked an antique than Pigafetta’s account of the of this description that I was driven not so sure, for though the walks clock on a mantel. Books and papers Congo region, written in Latin from one afternoon in November, 1896, were indeed overgrown with weeds, were very few, and in the prevailing the notes of the sailor Lopex and by a rain of such chilling copiousness they seemed to retain their nature a gloom I could not readily discern printed at Frankfurt in 1598. I had that any shelter was preferable to little too well to argue complete the titles. What interested me was often heard of this work, with its 138 139 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The PICTURE in the HOUSE

curious illustrations by the brothers walker had just awakened from a clothing consisted I could hardly tell, no one never heerd on ’im sence—” De Bry, hence for a moment forgot sound sleep, and listened with less for it seemed to me no more than a here the old man lapsed into a kind my uneasiness in my desire to turn surprise as the footsteps sounded on mass of tatters surmounting a pair of chuckle, and made no explanation the pages before me. The engravings the creaking stairs. The tread was of high, heavy boots; and his lack of when I questioned him. He seemed were indeed interesting, drawn heavy, yet seemed to contain a cleanliness surpassed description. to be in an aboundingly good humor, wholly from imagination and care- curious quality of cautiousness; a The appearance of this man, and yet to possess those eccentricities less descriptions, and represented quality which I disliked the more the instinctive fear he inspired, which one might guess from his negroes with white skins and because the tread was heavy. When prepared me for something like grooming. For some time he rambled Caucasian features; nor would I soon I had entered the room I had shut enmity; so that I almost shuddered on with an almost feverish geniality, have closed the book had not an the door behind me. Now, after a through surprise and a sense of when it struck me to ask him how exceedingly trivial circumstance moment of silence during which the uncanny incongruity when he he came by so rare a book as upset my tired nerves and revived walker may have been inspecting my motioned me to a chair and addressed Pigafetta’s “Regnum Congo.” The my sensation of disquiet. What bicycle in the hall, I heard a fumbling me in a thin, weak voice full of effect of this volume had not left me, annoyed me was merely the persistent at the latch and saw the paneled fawning respect and ingratiating and I felt a certain hesitancy in way in which the volume tended to portal swing open again. hospitality. His speech was very speaking of it, but curiosity over- fall open of itself at Plate XII, which In the doorway stood a person curious, an extreme form of Yankee mastered all the vague fears which represented in gruesome detail a of such singular appearance that I dialect I had thought long extinct; had steadily accumulated since my butcher’s shop of the cannibal should have exclaimed aloud but for and I studied it closely as he sat first glimpse of the house. To my Anziques. I experienced some shame the restraints of good breeding. Old, down opposite me for relief, the question did not seem an at my susceptibility to so slight a white-bearded, and ragged, my host conversation. awkward one, for the old man thing, but the drawing nevertheless possessed a countenance and “Ketched in the rain, be ye?” he answered freely and volubly. disturbed me, especially in connec- physique which inspired equal greeted. “Glad ye was nigh the “Oh, that Afriky book? Cap’n tion with some adjacent passages wonder and respect. His height haouse en’ hed the sense ta come Ebenezer Holt traded me thet in descriptive of Anzique gastronomy. could not have been less than six right in. I calc’late I was alseep, else ’sixty-eight—him as was kilt in the I had turned to a neighboring feet, and despite a general air of age I’d a heerd ye—I ain’t as young as I war.” Something about the name of shelf and was examining its meagre and poverty he was stout and uster be, an’ I need a paowerful sight Ebenezer Holt caused me to look literary contents—an eighteenth powerful in proportion. His face, o’ naps naowadays. Trav’lin fur? I up sharply. I had encountered it in century Bible, a “Pilgrim’s Progress” almost hidden by a long beard which hain’t seed many folks ’long this rud my genealogical work, but not in any of like period, illustrated with grew high on the cheeks, seemed sence they tuk off the Arkham stage.” record since the Revolution. I grotesque woodcuts and printed by abnormally ruddy and less wrinkled I replied that I was going to wondered if my host could help me the almanack-maker Isaiah Thomas, than one might expect; while over a Arkham, and apologized for my rude in the task at which I was laboring, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather’s high forehead fell a shock of white entry into his domicile, whereupon and resolved to ask him about it later “Magnalia Christi Americana,” and hair little thinned by the years. His he continued. on. He continued. a few other books of evidently equal blue eyes, though a trifle bloodshot, “Glad ta see ye, young Sir—new “Ebenezer was on a Salem age—when my attention was aroused seemed inexplicably keen and faces is scurce arount here, an’ I hain’t merchantman for years, an’ picked by the unmistakable sound of burning. But for his horrible got much ta cheer me up these days. up a sight o’ queer stuff in every port. walking in the room overhead. At unkemptness the man would have Guess yew hail from Bosting, don’t He got this in London, I guess—he first astonished and startled, consid- been as distinguished-looking as he ye? I never ben thar, but I kin tell a uster like ter buy things at the shops. ering the lack of response to my was impressive. This unkemptness, taown man when I see ’im—we hed I was up ta his haouse onct, on the recent knocking at the door, I imme- however, made him offensive despite one fer deestrick schoolmaster in hill, tradin’ hosses, when I see this diately afterward concluded that the his face and figure. Of what his ’eighty-four, but he quit suddent an’ book. I relished the picters, so he 140 141 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1920 • The PICTURE in the HOUSE

give it in on a swap. ’Tis a queer these here critters looks like monkeys, bein’ chopped up gives me a tickle approaching thunder quite unusual book—here, leave me git on my or half monkeys an’ half men, but I every time I look at ’im—I hev ta for the season. Once a terrific flash spectacles—” The old man fumbled never heerd o’ nothin’ like this un.” keep lookin’ at ’im—see whar the and peal shook the frail house to its among his rags, producing a pair of Here he pointed to a fabulous crea- butcher cut off his feet? Thar’s his foundations, but the whisperer dirty and amazingly antique glasses ture of the artist, which one might head on thet bench, with one arm seemed not to notice it. with small octagonal lenses and steel describe as a sort of dragon with the side of it, an’ t’other arm’s on the “Killin’ sheep was kinder more bows. Donning these, he reached for head of an alligator. other side o’ the meat block.” fun—but d’ye know, ’twan’t quite the volume on the table and turned “But naow I’ll show ye the best As the man mumbled on in his satisfyin’. Queer haow a cravin’ gits the pages lovingly. un—over here nigh the middle—” shocking ecstasy the expression on a holt on ye—As ye love the “Ebenezer cud read a leetle o’ The old man’s speech grew a trifle his hairy, spectacled face became Almighty, young man, don’t tell this-’tis Latin—but I can’t. I had thicker and his eyes assumed a indescribable, but his voice sank nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet two er three schoolmasters read me brighter glow; but his fumbling rather than mounted. My own sensa- picter begun to make me hungry fer a bit, and Passon Clark, him they say hands, though seemingly clumsier tions can scarcely be recorded. All victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy— got draownded in the pond—kin than before, were entirely adequate the terror I had dimly felt before here, set still, what’s ailin’ ye?—I yew make anything outen it?” I told to their mission. The book fell open, rushed upon me actively and vividly, didn’t do nothin’, only I wondered him that I could, and translated for almost of its own accord and as if and I knew that I loathed the ancient haow ’twud be ef I did—They say his benefit a paragraph near the from frequent consultation at this and abhorrent creature so near me meat makes blood an’ flesh, an’ gives beginning. If I erred, he was not place, to the repellent twelfth plate with an infinite intensity. His ye new life, so I wondered ef ’twudn’t scholar enough to correct me; for he showing a butcher’s shop amongst madness, or at least his partial make a man live longer an’ longer ef seemed childishly pleased at my the Anzique cannibals. My sense of perversion, seemed beyond dispute. ’twas more the same—” But the English version. His proximity was restlessness returned, though I did He was almost whispering now, with whisperer never continued. The becoming rather obnoxious, yet I not exhibit it. The especially bizarre a huskiness more terrible than a interruption was not produced by saw no way to escape without thing was that the artist had made scream, and I trembled as I listened. my fright, nor by the rapidly offending him. I was amused at the his Africans look like white men— “As I says, ’tis queer haow picters increasing storm amidst whose fury childish fondness of this ignorant the limbs and quarters hanging sets ye thinkin’. D’ye know, young I was presently to open my eyes on old man for the pictures in a book about the walls of the shop were Sir, I’m right sot on this un here. a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. he could not read, and wondered ghastly, while the butcher with his Arter I got the book off Eb I uster It was produced by a very simple how much better he could read the axe was hideously incongruous. But look at it a lot, especial when I’d though somewhat unusual few books in English which adorned my host seemed to relish the view heerd Passon Clark rant o’ Sundays happening. the room. This revelation of as much as I disliked it. in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin’ The open book lay flat between simplicity removed much of the “What d’ye think o’ this—ain’t funny—here, young Sir, don’t git us, with the picture staring repul- ill-defined apprehension I had felt, never see the like hereabouts, eh? skeert—all I done was ter look at sively upward. As the old man whis- and I smiled as my host rambled on: When I see this I telled Eb Holt, the picter afore I kilt the sheep for pered the words “more the same” a “Queer haow picters kin set a ‘That’s suthin’ ta stir ye up an’ make market—killin’ sheep was kinder tiny splattering impact was heard, body thinkin’. Take this un here near yer blood tickle.’ When I read in more fun arter lookin’ at it—” The and something showed on the the front. Hey yew ever seed trees Scripter about slayin’—like them tone of the old man now sank very yellowed paper of the upturned like thet, with big leaves a floppin’ Midianites was slew—I kinder think low, sometimes becoming so faint volume. I thought of the rain and of over an’ daown? And them men— things, but I ain’t got no picter of it. that his words were hardly audible. a leaky roof, but rain is not red. On them can’t be niggers—they dew Here a body kin see all they is to I listened to the rain, and to the the butcher’s shop of the Anzique beat all. Kinder like Injuns, I guess, it—I s’pose ’tis sinful, but ain’t we all rattling of the bleared, small-paned cannibals a small red spattering glis- even ef they be in Afriky. Some o’ born an’ livin’ in sin?—Thet feller windows, and marked a rumbling of tened picturesquely, lending 142 143 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it, and stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it neces- sary; saw it and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek 1921: or move, but merely shut my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting UNEXPECTEDLY an ORPHAN. that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion [return to table of contents] which alone saved my mind.

he year of 1921 brought chance to share such triumphs with much of the wonderful and Susie Lovecraft. In May of that year, the awful to young H.P. she went under the surgeon’s knife TLovecraft. On the one hand, his for gall-bladder surgery. All seemed new Boston friends were the best to go well—but within just a few thing that could have happened to days she was in terrible and growing the shy, secluded H.P. This was pain. also the year in which Lovecraft Finally, on May 24, Sarah Susan first met, at a Hub Club event, the Phillips Lovecraft succumbed to a tall, striking woman who would growing infection in her gall blad- later become his wife: fellow der—a common enough occurrence weird-fiction writer Sonia Haft in those dark pre-antibiotic days. Greene. In February he gave a Howard was devastated. He speech at the Hub Club, in which retreated to his room and for several he told them, to great applause, of months did little other than write the joy that amateur journalism letters and pen maudlin ruminations had brought into his life; and he about the futility of life. Eventually, was able to proudly report this though, his friends and aunts brought enthusiastic reception back to his him around. On June 9, he called on still-hospitalized mother. a new member of his amateur-press But he would not long have the association, a retired professor

144 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

named Miss M.A. Little, and the In addition to Herbert West, next month he emerged from his Reanimator, Lovecraft’s 1921 shell a little more with another trip weird-fiction output under his own to the Hub Club in Boston. name included “The Nameless City,” Finally, late in the year, a fellow “The Quest of Iranon,” “Ex amateur-press enthusiast, G.J. Oblivione,” “The Moon Bog,” “The Houtain, contracted with him for a Outsider,” “The Other Gods,” and series of weird tales at $5 each. “The Music of Erich Zann.” Houtain was going to make the jump to professional magazine publishing, and wanted some good stuff to go with his new spicy humor magazine, called (rather racily, as this was in the early days of Prohibition) Home Brew. The NAMELESS CITY. The result was “Herbert West, Reanimator” —Lovecraft’s first [return to table of contents] contracted work of weird fiction, which hit the pages of Home Brew in January of the following year. “Herbert West, Reanimator” has a hen I drew nigh the the first stones of Memphis were campy quality to it that grows nameless city I knew it laid, and while the bricks of Babylon stronger as the story goes on, which was accursed. I was were yet unbaked. There is no legend leads biographer S.T. Joshi to suggest travelingW in a parched and terrible so old as to give it a name, or to recall that, although it may not have started valley under the moon, and afar I that it was ever alive; but it is told out as a self-parody, it had become saw it protruding uncannily above of in whispers around campfires and one by the time Lovecraft wrote the the sands as parts of a corpse may muttered about by grandams in the last instalment. It was, after all, protrude from an ill-made grave. tents of sheiks so that all the tribes appearing in a humor magazine. Fear spoke from the age-worn shun it without wholly knowing why. When in Rome, right? stones of this hoary survivor of the It was of this place that Abdul Another thing happened to deluge, this great-grandfather of Alhazred the mad poet dreamed the Lovecraft in 1921 as well… or, the eldest pyramid; and a viewless night before he sang his unexplained perhaps, started to happen. His aura repelled me and bade me couplet: correspondence with Sonia Greene retreat from antique and sinister continued to blossom, and late that secrets that no man should see, and That is not dead which can eternal year she came to Providence to see no man else had dared to see. lie, him. Their acquaintance slowly Remote in the desert of Araby And with strange aeons even death started to become more serious, and lies the nameless city, crumbling and may die. by the end of 1921 one might almost inarticulate, its low walls nearly say that the two were dating, albeit hidden by the sands of uncounted I should have known that the in a non-romantic way. ages. It must have been thus before Arabs had good reason for shunning 146 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The NAMELESS CITY

the nameless city, the city told of in or inscription to tell of these men, wondered at the sources of its great- that my torch showed only part of strange tales but seen by no living if men they were, who built this city ness. To myself I pictured all the it at a time. I shuddered oddly in man, yet I defied them and went into and dwelt therein so long ago. The spendours of an age so distant that some of the far corners; for certain the untrodden waste with my camel. antiquity of the spot was unwhole- Chaldaea could not recall it, and altars and stones suggested forgotten I alone have seen it, and that is why some, and I longed to encounter thought of Sarnath the Doomed, rites of terrible, revolting and inex- no other face bears such hideous some sign or device to prove that the that stood in the land of Mnar when plicable nature and made me wonder lines of fear as mine; why no other city was indeed fashioned by mankind was young, and of Ib, that what manner of men could have man shivers so horribly when the mankind. There were certain propor- was carven of grey stone before made and frequented such a temple. night wind rattles the windows. tions and dimensions in the ruins mankind existed. When I had seen all that the place When I came upon it in the ghastly which I did not like. I had with me All at once I came upon a place contained, I crawled out again, avid stillness of unending sleep it looked many tools, and dug much within where the bedrock rose stark through to find what the temples might yield. at me, chilly from the rays of a cold the walls of the obliterated edifices; the sand and formed a low cliff; and Night had now approached, yet moon amidst the desert’s heat. And but progress was slow, and nothing here I saw with joy what seemed to the tangible things I had seen made as I returned its look I forgot my significant was revealed. When night promise further traces of the ante- curiosity stronger than fear, so that triumph at finding it, and stopped and the moon returned I felt a chill diluvian people. Hewn rudely on the I did not flee from the long moon- still with my camel to wait for the wind which brought new fear, so that face of the cliff were the unmistak- cast shadows that had daunted me dawn. I did not dare to remain in the city. able facades of several small, squat when first I saw the nameless city. For hours I waited, till the east And as I went outside the antique rock houses or temples; whose inte- In the twilight I cleared another grew grey and the stars faded, and walls to sleep, a small sighing sand- riors might preserve many secrets of aperture and with a new torch the grey turned to roseate light edged storm gathered behind me, blowing ages too remote for calculation, crawled into it, finding more vague with gold. I heard a moaning and over the grey stones though the though sandstorms had long effaced stones and symbols, though nothing saw a storm of sand stirring among moon was bright and most of the any carvings which may have been more definite than the other temple the antique stones though the sky desert still. outside. had contained. The room was just was clear and the vast reaches of I awakened just at dawn from a Very low and sand-choked were as low, but much less broad, ending desert still. Then suddenly above the pageant of horrible dreams, my ears all the dark apertures near me, but I in a very narrow passage crowded desert’s far rim came the blazing ringing as from some metallic peal. cleared on with my spade and with obscure and cryptical shrines. edge of the sun, seen through the I saw the sun peering redly through crawled through it, carrying a torch About these shrines I was prying tiny sandstorm which was passing the last gusts of a little sandstorm to reveal whatever mysteries it might when the noise of a wind and my away, and in my fevered state I that hovered over the nameless city, hold. When I was inside I saw that camel outside broke through the fancied that from some remote depth and marked the quietness of the rest the cavern was indeed a temple, and stillness and drew me forth to see there came a crash of musical metal of the landscape. Once more I beheld plain signs of the race that what could have frightened the beast. to hail the fiery disc as Memnon ventured within those brooding had lived and worshiped before the The moon was gleaming vividly hails it from the banks of the Nile. ruins that swelled beneath the sand desert was a desert. Primitive altars, over the primitive ruins, lighting a My ears rang and my imagination like an ogre under a coverlet, and pillars, and niches, all curiously low, dense cloud of sand that seemed seethed as I led my camel slowly again dug vainly for relics of the were not absent; and though I saw blown by a strong but decreasing across the sand to that unvocal place; forgotten race. At noon I rested, and no sculptures or frescoes, there were wind from some point along the cliff that place which I alone of living in the afternoon I spent much time many singular stones clearly shaped ahead of me. I knew it was this chilly, men had seen. tracing the walls and bygone streets, into symbols by artificial means. The sandy wind which had disturbed the In and out amongst the shape- and the outlines of the nearly lowness of the chiseled chamber was camel and was about to lead him to less foundations of houses and places vanished buildings. I saw that the very strange, for I could hardly kneel a place of better shelter when I I wandered, finding never a carving city had been mighty indeed, and upright; but the area was so great chanced to glance up and saw that 148 149 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The NAMELESS CITY

there was no wind atop the cliff. This beyond. Here I could stand quite moment before advancing through sentences from Alhazred the mad astonished me and made me fearful upright, but saw that the stones and the portal and commencing to climb Arab, paragraphs from the apocry- again, but I immediately recalled the altars were as low as those in the cautiously down the steep passage, phal nightmares of Damascus, and sudden local winds that I had seen other temples. On the walls and roof feet first, as though on a ladder. infamous lines from the delirious and heard before at sunrise and I beheld for the first time some traces Image du Monde of Gauthier de sunset, and judged it was a normal of the pictorial art of the ancient t is only in the terrible phan- Metz. I repeated queer extracts, and thing. I decided it came from some race, curious curling streaks of paint tasms of drugs or delirium that muttered of Afrasiab and the rock fissure leading to a cave, and that had almost faded or crumbled any other man can have such a daemons that floated with him down watched the troubled sand to trace away; and on two of the altars I saw descentI as mine. The narrow the Oxus; later chanting over and it to its source; soon perceiving that with rising excitement a maze of passage led infinitely down like over again a phrase from one of Lord it came from the black orifice of a well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. some hideous haunted well, and Dunsany’s tales— “The unreve- temple a long distance south of me, As I held my torch aloft it seemed the torch I held above my head berate blackness of the abyss.” Once almost out of sight. Against the to me that the shape of the roof was could not light the unknown when the descent grew amazingly choking sand-cloud I plodded too regular to be natural, and I depths toward which I was steep I recited something in sing- toward this temple, which as I neared wondered what the prehistoric crawling. I lost track of the hours song from Thomas Moore until I it loomed larger than the rest, and cutters of stone had first worked and forgot to consult my watch, feared to recite more: shewed a doorway far less clogged upon. Their engineering skill must though I was frightened when I with caked sand. I would have have been vast. thought of the distance I must have A reservoir of darkness, black entered had not the terrific force of Then a brighter flare of the been traversing. There were As witches’ cauldrons are, when fill’d the icy wind almost quenched my fantastic flame showed that form changes of direction and of steep- With moon-drugs in th’ eclipse torch. It poured madly out of the which I had been seeking, the ness; and once I came to a long, distill’d dark door, sighing uncannily as it opening to those remoter abysses low, level passage where I had to Leaning to look if foot might pass ruffled the sand and spread among whence the sudden wind had blown; wriggle my feet first along the Down thro’ that chasm, I saw, the weird ruins. Soon it grew fainter and I grew faint when I saw that it rocky floor, holding torch at arm’s beneath, and the sand grew more and more was a small and plainly artificial door length beyond my head. The place As far as vision could explore, still, till finally all was at rest again; chiseled in the solid rock. I thrust was not high enough for kneeling. The jetty sides as smooth as glass, but a presence seemed stalking my torch within, beholding a black After that were more of the steep Looking as if just varnish’d o’er among the spectral stones of the city, tunnel with the roof arching low over steps, and I was still scrambling With that dark pitch the Seat of and when I glanced at the moon it a rough flight of very small, numerous down interminably when my Death seemed to quiver as though mirrored and steeply descending steps. I shall failing torch died out. I do not Throws out upon its slimy shore. in unquiet waters. I was more afraid always see those steps in my dreams, think I noticed it at the time, for than I could explain, but not enough for I came to learn what they meant. when I did notice it I was still Time had quite ceased to exist to dull my thirst for wonder; so as At the time I hardly knew whether holding it above me as if it were when my feet again felt a level floor, soon as the wind was quite gone I to call them steps or mere footholds ablaze. I was quite unbalanced with and I found myself in a place slightly crossed into the dark chamber from in a precipitous descent. My mind that instinct for the strange and the higher than the rooms in the two which it had come. was whirling with mad thoughts, unknown which had made me a smaller temples now so incalculably This temple, as I had fancied and the words and warning of Arab wanderer upon earth and a haunter far above my head. I could not quite from the outside, was larger than prophets seemed to float across the of far, ancient, and forbidden places. stand, but could kneel upright, and either of those I had visited before; desert from the land that men know In the darkness there flashed in the dark I shuffled and crept and was presumably a natural cavern to the nameless city that men dare before my mind fragments of my hither and thither at random. I soon since it bore winds from some region not know. Yet I hesitated only for a cherished treasury of daemonic lore; knew that I was in a narrow passage 150 151 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The NAMELESS CITY

whose walls were lined with cases of crudity like the temples in the city which had lived when the nameless them. It was all vividly weird and wood having glass fronts. As in that above, but a monument of the most city was alive. To crown their realistic, and its connection with the Palaeozoic and abysmal place I felt magnificent and exotic art. Rich, grotesqueness, most of them were awesome descent I had made was of such things as polished wood and vivid, and daringly fantastic designs gorgeously enrobed in the costliest unmistakable. I even recognized the glass I shuddered at the possible and pictures formed a continuous of fabrics, and lavishly laden with passages. implications. The cases were appar- scheme of mural paintings whose ornaments of gold, jewels, and As I crept along the corridor ently ranged along each side of the lines and colours were beyond unknown shining metals. toward the brighter light I saw later passage at regular intervals, and were description. The cases were of a The importance of these stages of the painted epic—the oblong and horizontal, hideously strange golden wood, with fronts of crawling creatures must have been leave-taking of the race that had like coffins in shape and size. When exquisite glass, and containing the vast, for they held first place among dwelt in the nameless city and the I tried to move two or three for mummified forms of creatures the wild designs on the frescoed valley around for ten million years; further examination, I found that outreaching in grotesqueness the walls and ceiling. With matchless the race whose souls shrank from they were firmly fastened. most chaotic dreams of man. skill had the artist drawn them in a quitting scenes their bodies had I saw that the passage was a long To convey any idea of these world of their own, wherein they had known so long where they had one, so floundered ahead rapidly in monstrosities is impossible. They cities and gardens fashioned to suit settled as nomads in the earth’s a creeping run that would have were of the reptile kind, with body their dimensions; and I could not youth, hewing in the virgin rock seemed horrible had any eye watched lines suggesting sometimes the croc- help but think that their pictured those primal shrines at which they me in the blackness; crossing from odile, sometimes the seal, but more history was allegorical, perhaps had never ceased to worship. Now side to side occasionally to feel of often nothing of which either the shewing the progress of the race that that the light was better I studied my surroundings and be sure the naturalist or the palaeontologist ever worshiped them. These creatures, I the pictures more closely and, walls and rows of cases still stretched heard. In size they approximated a said to myself, were to men of the remembering that the strange on. Man is so used to thinking visu- small man, and their fore-legs bore nameless city what the she-wolf was reptiles must represent the unknown ally that I almost forgot the darkness delicate and evident feet curiously to Rome, or some totem-beast is to men, pondered upon the customs of and pictured the endless corridor of like human hands and fingers. But a tribe of Indians. the nameless city. Many things were wood and glass in its low-studded strangest of all were their heads, Holding this view, I could trace peculiar and inexplicable. The civi- monotony as though I saw it. And which presented a contour violating roughly a wonderful epic of the lization, which included a written then in a moment of indescribable all known biological principles. To nameless city; the tale of a mighty alphabet, had seemingly risen to a emotion I did see it. nothing can such things be well seacoast metropolis that ruled the higher order than those immeasur- Just when my fancy merged into compared—in one flash I thought world before Africa rose out of the ably later civilizations of Egypt and real sight I cannot tell; but there of comparisons as varied as the cat, waves, and of its struggles as the sea Chaldaea, yet there were curious came a gradual glow ahead, and all the bullfrog, the mythic Satyr, and shrank away, and the desert crept omissions. I could, for example, find at once I knew that I saw the dim the human being. Not Jove himself into the fertile valley that held it. I no pictures to represent deaths or outlines of a corridor and the cases, had had so colossal and protuberant saw its wars and triumphs, its trou- funeral customs, save such as were revealed by some unknown subter- a forehead, yet the horns and the bles and defeats, and afterwards its related to wars, violence, and plagues; ranean phosphorescence. For a little noselessness and the alligator-like terrible fight against the desert when and I wondered at the reticence while all was exactly as I had imag- jaw placed the things outside all thousands of its people—here repre- shown concerning natural death. It ined it, since the glow was very faint; established categories. I debated for sented in allegory by the grotesque was as though an ideal of immor- but as I mechanically kept stumbling a time on the reality of the mummies, reptiles—were driven to chisel their tality had been fostered as a cheering ahead into the stronger light I real- half suspecting they were artificial way down though the rocks in some illusion. ized that my fancy had been but idols; but soon decided they were marvelous manner to another world Still nearer the end of the feeble. This hall was no relic of indeed some palaeogean species whereof their prophets had told passage was painted scenes of the 152 153 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The NAMELESS CITY

utmost picturesqueness and extrav- was glad that beyond this place the As I lay still with closed eyes, painting, mine was the only human agance: contrasted views of the grey walls and ceiling were bare. free to ponder, many things I had form amidst the many relics and nameless city in its desertion and As I viewed the pageant of mural lightly noted in the frescoes came symbols of the primordial life. growing ruin, and of the strange new history I had approached very closely back to me with new and terrible But as always in my strange and realm of paradise to which the race to the end of the low-ceiled hall, and significance—scenes representing roving existence, wonder soon drove had hewed its way through the stone. was aware of a gate through which the nameless city in its heyday—the out fear; for the luminous abyss and In these views the city and the desert came all of the illuminating phos- vegetations of the valley around it, what it might contain presented a valley were shewn always by moon- phorescence. Creeping up to it, I and the distant lands with which its problem worthy of the greatest light, golden nimbus hovering over cried aloud in transcendent amaze- merchants traded. The allegory of explorer. That a weird world of the fallen walls, and half-revealing ment at what lay beyond; for instead the crawling creatures puzzled me mystery lay far down that flight of the splendid perfection of former of other and brighter chambers there by its universal prominence, and I peculiarly small steps I could not times, shown spectrally and elusively was only an illimitable void of wondered that it would be so closely doubt, and I hoped to find there by the artist. The paradisal scenes uniform radiance, such one might followed in a pictured history of such those human memorials which the were almost too extravagant to be fancy when gazing down from the importance. In the frescoes the painted corridor had failed to give. believed, portraying a hidden world peak of Mount Everest upon a sea nameless city had been shewn in The frescoes had pictured unbeliev- of eternal day filled with glorious of sunlit mist. Behind me was a proportions fitted to the reptiles. I able cities, and valleys in this lower cities and ethereal hills and valleys. passage so cramped that I could not wondered what its real proportions realm, and my fancy dwelt on the At the very last I thought I saw signs stand upright in it; before me was and magnificence had been, and rich and colossal ruins that awaited of an artistic anticlimax. The paint- an infinity of subterranean reflected a moment on certain oddi- me. ings were less skillful, and much effulgence. ties I had noticed in the ruins. I My fears, indeed, concerned the more bizarre than even the wildest Reaching down from the passage thought curiously of the lowness of past rather than the future. Not even of the earlier scenes. They seemed into the abyss was the head of a steep the primal temples and of the under- the physical horror of my position to record a slow decadence of the flight of steps—small numerous ground corridor, which were doubt- in that cramped corridor of dead ancient stock, coupled with a steps like those of black passages I less hewn thus out of deference to reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, growing ferocity toward the outside had traversed—but after a few feet the reptile deities there honoured; miles below the world I knew and world from which it was driven by the glowing vapours concealed though it perforce reduced the faced by another world of eerie light the desert. The forms of the people— everything. Swung back open against worshipers to crawling. Perhaps the and mist, could match the lethal always represented by the sacred the left-hand wall of the passage was very rites here involved crawling in dread I felt at the abysmal antiquity reptiles—appeared to be gradually a massive door of brass, incredibly imitation of the creatures. No reli- of the scene and its soul. An ancient- wasting away, though their spirit as thick and decorated with fantastic gious theory, however, could easily ness so vast that measurement is shewn hovering above the ruins by bas-reliefs, which could if closed explain why the level passages in that feeble seemed to leer down from the moonlight gained in proportion. shut the whole inner world of light awesome descent should be as low primal stones and rock-hewn Emaciated priests, displayed as away from the vaults and passages as the temples—or lower, since one temples of the nameless city, while reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the of rock. I looked at the step, and for cold not even kneel in it. As I the very latest of the astounding upper air and all who breathed it; the nonce dared not try them. I thought of the crawling creatures, maps in the frescoes shewed oceans and one terrible final scene shewed touched the open brass door, and whose hideous mummified forms and continents that man has a primitive-looking man, perhaps a could not move it. Then I sank prone were so close to me, I felt a new throb forgotten, with only here and there pioneer of ancient Irem, the City of to the stone floor, my mind aflame of fear. Mental associations are some vaguely familiar outlines. Of Pillars, torn to pieces by members with prodigious reflections which curious, and I shrank from the idea what could have happened in the of the elder race. I remember how not even a death-like exhaustion that except for the poor primitive geological ages since the paintings the Arabs fear the nameless city, and could banish. man torn to pieces in the last ceased and the death-hating race 154 155 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The NAMELESS CITY

resentfully succumbed to decay, no which had indeed revealed the babbling over and over that unex- corridor—a nightmare horde of man might say. Life had once teemed hidden tunnels to me. I looked at plainable couplet of the mad Arab rushing devils; hate distorted, in these caverns and in the luminous my watch and saw that sunrise was Alhazred, who dreamed of the grotesquely panoplied, half trans- realm beyond; now I was alone with near, so I braced myself to resist the nameless city: parent devils of a race no man might vivid relics, and I trembled to think gale that was sweeping down to its mistake—the crawling reptiles of of the countless ages through which cavern home as it had swept forth That is not dead which can eternal the nameless city. these relics had kept a silent deserted at evening. My fear again waned lie, And as the wind died away I was vigil. low, since a natural phenomenon And with strange aeons even death plunged into the ghoul-pooled dark- Suddenly there came another tends to dispel broodings over the may die. ness of earth’s bowels; for behind the burst of that acute fear which had unknown. last of the creatures the great brazen intermittently seized me ever since More and more madly poured Only the grim brooding desert door clanged shut with a deafening I first saw the terrible valley and the the shrieking, moaning night wind gods know what really took place— peal of metallic music whose rever- nameless city under a cold moon, into the gulf of the inner earth. I what indescribable struggles and berations swelled out to the distant and despite my exhaustion I found dropped prone again and clutched scrambles in the dark I endured or world to hail the rising sun as myself starting frantically to a sitting vainly at the floor for fear of being what Abaddon guided me back to Memnon hails it from the banks of posture and gazing back along the swept bodily through the open gate life, where I must always remember the Nile. black corridor toward the tunnels into the phosphorescent abyss. Such and shiver in the night wind till that rose to the outer world. My fury I had not expected, and as I oblivion—or worse—claims me. sensations were like those which grew aware of an actual slipping of Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was had made me shun the nameless city my form toward the abyss I was the thing—too far beyond all the at night, and were as inexplicable as beset by a thousand new terrors of ideas of man to be believed except they were poignant. In another apprehension and imagination. The in the silent damnable small hours moment, however, I received a still malignancy of the blast awakened of the morning when one cannot greater shock in the form of a defi- incredible fancies; once more I sleep. nite sound—the first which had compared myself shudderingly to I have said that the fury of the broken the utter silence of these the only human image in that rushing blast was infernal—caco- tomb-like depths. It was a deep, low frightful corridor, the man who was daemoniacal—and that its voices moaning, as of a distant throng of torn to pieces by the nameless race, were hideous with the pent-up condemned spirits, and came from for in the fiendish clawing of the viciousness of desolate eternities. the direction in which I was staring. swirling currents there seemed to Presently these voices, while still Its volume rapidly grew, till it soon abide a vindictive rage all the chaotic before me, seemed to my reverberated frightfully through the stronger because it was largely beating brain to take articulate form low passage, and at the same time I impotent. I think I screamed fran- behind me; and down there in the became conscious of an increasing tically near the last—I was almost grave of unnumbered aeon-dead draught of cold air, likewise flowing mad—of the howling wind-wraiths. antiquities, leagues below the from the tunnels and the city above. I tried to crawl against the murderous dawn-lit world of men, I heard the The touch of this air seemed to invisible torrent, but I could not ghastly cursing and snarling of restore my balance, for I instantly even hold my own as I was pushed strange-tongued fiends. Turning, I recalled the sudden gusts which had slowly and inexorably toward the saw outlined against the luminous risen around the mouth of the abyss unknown world. Finally reason must aether of the abyss what could not each sunset and sunrise, one of have wholly snapped; for I fell be seen against the dusk of the 156 157

The QUEST of IRANON.

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nto the granite city of Teloth that I sing in gardens when the wandered the youth, vine- moon is tender and the west wind crowned, his yellow hair glis- stirs the lotus-buds.” Itening with myrrh and his purple When the men of Teloth heard robe torn with briers of the moun- these things they whispered to one tain Sidrak that lies across the another; for though in the granite antique bridge of stone. The men city there is no laughter or song, the of Teloth are dark and stern, and stern men sometimes look to the dwell in square houses, and with Karthian hills in the spring and frowns they asked the stranger think of the lutes of distant Oonai whence he had come and what whereof travellers have told. And were his name and fortune. So the thinking thus, they bade the stranger youth answered: stay and sing in the square before “I am Iranon, and come from the Tower of Mlin, though they liked Aira, a far city that I recall only dimly not the colour of his tattered robe, but seek to find again. I am a singer nor the myrrh in his hair, nor his of songs that I learned in the far city, chaplet of vine-leaves, nor the youth and my calling is to make beauty in his golden voice. At evening with the things remembered of Iranon sang, and while he sang an childhood. My wealth is in little old man prayed and a blind man said memories and dreams, and in hopes he saw a nimbus over the singer’s H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The QUEST of IRANON

head. But most of the men of Teloth the pale flowers under the trees. And pleasing?” But the archon was sullen thither shouldst thou go and thou yawned, and some laughed and some sometimes at sunset I would climb and did not understand, and rebuked wouldst sing and have men listen to went to sleep; for Iranon told nothing the long hilly street to the citadel the stranger. thee. Let us leave the city of Teloth useful, singing only his memories, and the open place, and look down “Thou art a strange youth, and and fare together among the hills of his dreams, and his hopes. upon Aira, the magic city of marble I like not thy face nor thy voice. The spring. Thou shalt shew me the ways “I remember the twilight, the and beryl, splendid in a robe of words thou speakest are blasphemy, of travel and I will attend thy songs moon, and soft songs, and the golden flame. for the gods of Teloth have said that at evening when the stars one by one window where I was rocked to sleep. “Long have I missed thee, Aira, toil is good. Our gods have promised bring dreams to the minds of And through the window was the for I was but young when we went us a haven of light beyond death, dreamers. And peradventure it may street where the golden lights came, into exile; but my father was thy where shall be rest without end, and be that Oonai the city of lutes and and where the shadows danced on King and I shall come again to thee, crystal coldness amidst which none dancing is even the fair Aira thou houses of marble. I remember the for it is so decreed of Fate. All shall vex his mind with thought or seekest, for it is told that thou hast square of moonlight on the floor, through seven lands have I sought his eyes with beauty. Go thou then not known Aira since the old days, that was not like any other light, and thee, and some day shall I reign over to Athok the cobbler or be gone out and a name often changeth. Let us the visions that danced on the moon- thy groves and gardens, thy streets of the city by sunset. All here must go to Oonai, O Iranon of the golden beams when my mother sang to me. and palaces, and sing to men who serve, and song is folly.” head, where men shall know our And too, I remember the sun of shall know whereof I sing, and laugh So Iranon went out of the stable longings and welcome us as brothers, morning bright above the many-co- not nor turn away. For I am Iranon, and walked over the narrow stone nor even laugh or frown at what we loured hills in summer, and the who was a Prince in Aira.” streets between the gloomy square say.” And Iranon answered: sweetness of flowers borne on the That night the men of Teloth house of granite, seeking something “Be it so, small one; if any in this south wind that made the trees sing. lodged the stranger in a stable, and green, for all was of stone. On the stone place yearn for beauty he must “Oh Aira, city of marble and in the morning an archon came to faces of men were frowns, but by the seek the mountains and beyond, and beryl, how many are thy beauties! him and told him to go to the shop stone embankment along the slug- I would not leave thee to pine by the How I loved the warm and fragrant of Athok the cobbler, and be appren- gish river Zuro sat a young boy with sluggish Zuro. But think not that groves across the hyaline Nithra, and ticed to him. sad eyes gazing into the waters to delight and understanding dwell just the falls of the tiny Kra that flowed “But I am Iranon, a singer of spy green budding branches washed across the Karthian hills, or in any though the verdant valley! In those songs, “ he said, “and have no heart down from the hills by the freshets. spot thou canst find in a day’s, or a groves and in the vale the children for the cobbler’s trade.” And the boy said to him: year’s, or a lustrum’s journey. Behold, wove wreaths for one another, and “All in Teloth must toil,” replied “Art thou not indeed he of when I was small like thee I dwelt at dusk I dreamed strange dreams the archon, “for that is the law.” Then whom the archons tell, who seekest in the valley of Narthos by the frigid under the yath-trees on the moun- said Iranon: a far city in a fair land? I am Romnod, Xari, where none would listen to my tain as I saw below me the lights of “Wherefore do ye toil; is it not and born of the blood of Teloth, but dreams; and I told myself that when the city, and the curving Nithra that ye may live and be happy? And am not old in the ways of the granite older I would go to Sinara on the reflecting a ribbon of stars. if ye toil only that ye may toil more, city, and yearn daily for the warm southern slope, and sing to smiling “And in the city were the palaces when shall happiness find you? Ye groves and the distant lands of dromedary-men in the marketplace. of veined and tinted marble, with toil to live, but is not life made of beauty and song. Beyond the But when I went to Sinara I found golden domes and painted walls, and beauty and song? And if ye suffer Karthian hills lieth Oonai, the city the dromedary-men all drunken and green gardens with cerulean pools no singers among you, where shall of lutes and dancing, which men ribald, and saw that their songs were and crystal fountains. Often I played be the fruits of your toil? Toil without whisper of and say is both lovely and not as mine, so I travelled in a barge in the gardens and waded in the song is like a weary journey without terrible.Thither would I go were I down the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren. pools, and lay and dreamed among an end. Were not death more old enough to find the way, and And the soldiers at Jaren laughed at 160 161 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The QUEST of IRANON

me and drove me out, so that I spoke deeply instead of shrilly, When dawn came Iranon looked flute-players from Drinen in the wandered to many cities. I have seen though Iranon was always the about with dismay, for the domes of East, and after that the revellers Stethelos that is below the great same, and decked his golden hair Oonai were not golden in the sun, threw their roses not so much at cataract, and have gazed on the with vines and fragrant resins but grey and dismal. And the men Iranon as at the dancers and flute- marsh where Sarnath once stood. I found in the woods. So it came to of Oonai were pale with revelling, players. And day by day that Romnod have been to Thraa, Ilarnek, and pass that Romnod seemed older and dull with wine, and unlike the who had been a small boy in granite Kadatheron on the winding river Ai, than Iranon, though he had been radient men of Aira. But because the Teloth grew coarser and redder with and have dwelt long in Olathoe in very small when Iranon had found people had thrown him blossoms wine, till he dreamed less and less, the land of Lomar. But though I him watching for green budding and acclaimed his sings Iranon and listened with less delight to the have had listeners sometimes, they branches in Teloth beside the slug- stayed on, and with him Romnod, songs of Iranon. But though Iranon have ever been few. and I know that gish stone-banked Zuro. who liked the revelry of the town was sad, he ceased not to sing, and welcome shall wait me only in Aira, Then one night when the moon and wore in his dark hair roses and at evening told again of his dreams the city of marble and beryl where was full the travellers came to a myrtle. Often at night Iranon sang of Aira, the city of marble and beryl. my father once ruled as King. So for mountain crest and looked down to the revellers, but he was always as Then one night the reddened and Aira shall we seek, though it were upon the myriad lights of Oonai. before, crowned only in the vine of fattened Romnod snorted heavily well to visit distant and lute-blessed Peasants had told them they were the mountains and remembering the amidst the poppied silks of his Oonai across the Karthian hills, near, and Iranon knew that this was marble streets of Aira and the hyaline banquet-couch and died writhing, which may indeed be Aira, though not his native city of Aira. The lights Nithra. In the frescoed halls of the whilst Iranon, pale and slender, sang I think not. Aira’s beauty is past of Oonai were not like those of Aira; Monarch did he sing, upon a crystal to himself in a far corner. And when imagining, and none can tell of it for they were harsh and glaring, dais raised over a floor that was a Iranon had wept over the grave of without rapture, whilist of Oonai while the lights of Aira shine as mirror, and as he sang, he brought Romnod and strewn it with green the camel-drivers whisper softly and magically as shone the pictures to his hearers till the floor branches, such as Romnod used to leeringly.” moonlight on the floor by the seemed to reflect old, beautiful, and love, he put aside his silks and gauds window where Iranon’s mother once half-remembered things instead of and went forgotten out of Oonai the t the sunset Iranon and rocked him to sleep with song. But the wine-reddened feasters who city of lutes and dancing clad only small Romnod went forth Oonai was a city of lutes and dancing, pelted him with roses. And the King in the ragged purple in which he had from Teloth, and for long so Iranon and Romnod went down bade him put away his tattered come, and garlanded with fresh vines Awandered amidst the green hills the steep slope that they might find purple, and clothed him in satin and from the mountains. and cool forests. The way was men to whom songs and dreams cloth-of-gold, with rings of green Into the sunset wandered Iranon, rough and obscure, and never did would bring pleasure. And when jade and bracelets of tinted ivory, seeking still for his native land and they seem nearer to Oonai the city they were come into the town they and lodged him in a gilded and for men who would understand his of lutes and dancing; but in the found rose-wreathed revellers bound tapestried chamber on a bed of sweet songs and dreams. In all the cities of dusk as the stars came out Iranon from house to house and leaning carven wood with canopies and Cydathria and in the lands beyond would sing of Aira and its beauties from windows and balconies, who coverlets of flower-embroidered silk. the Bnazie desert gay-faced children and Romnod would listen, so that listened to the songs of Iranon and Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the city laughed at his olden songs and they were both happy after a tossed him flowers and applauded of lutes and dancing. tattered robe of purple; but Iranon fashion. They ate plentifully of when he was done. Then for a It is not known how long Iranon stayed ever young, and wore wreaths fruit and red berries, and marked moment did Iranon believe he had tarried in Oonai, but one day the upon his golden head whilst he sang not the passing of time, but many found those who thought and felt King brought to the palace some of Aira, delight of the past and hope years must have slipped away. Small even as he, though the town was not wild whirling dancers from the of the future. Romnod was now not so small, and a hundredth as fair as Aira. Liranian desert, and dusky So came he one night to the 162 163 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

squalid cot of an antique shepherd, knew him from his birth. Nor was bent and dirty, who kept flocks on a there ever a marble city of Aira, or stony slope above a quicksand marsh. those who could delight in strange To this man Iranon spoke, as to so songs, save in the dreams of mine many others: old playmate Iranon who is gone.” “Canst thou tell me where I may And in the twilight, as the stars find Aira, the city of marble and came out one by one and the moon beryl, where flows the hyaline Nithra cast on the marsh a radiance like that and where the falls of the tiny Kra which a child sees quivering on the sing to the verdant valleys and hills floor as he is rocked to sleep at forested with yath trees?” and the evening, there walked into the lethal shepherd, hearing, looked long and quicksands a very old man in tattered strangely at Iranon, as if recalling purple, crowned with withered vine- something very far away in time, and leaves and gazing ahead as if upon noted each line of the stranger’s face, the golden domes of a fair city where EX OBLIVIONE. and his golden hair, and his crown dreams are understood. That night of vine-leaves. But he was old, and something of youth and beauty died [return to table of contents] shook his head as he replied: in the elder world. “O stranger, I have indeed heard the name of Aira, and the other names thou hast spoken, but they hen the last days were And once I walked through a come to me from afar down the upon me, and the ugly golden valley that led to shadowy waste of long years. I heard them in trifles of existence groves and ruins, and ended in a my youth from the lips of a playmate, beganW to drive me to madness like mighty wall green with antique a beggar’s boy given to strange the small drops of water that vines, and pierced by a little gate of dreams, who would weave long tales torturers let fall ceaselessly upon bronze. about the moon and the flowers and one spot of their victim’s body, I Many times I walked through the west wind. We used to laugh at loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. that valley, and longer and longer him, for we knew him from his birth In my dreams I found a little of the would I pause in the spectral half- though he thought himself a King’s beauty I had vainly sought in life, light where the giant trees squirmed son. He was comely, even as thou, and wandered through old gardens and twisted grotesquely, and the grey but full of folly and strangeness; and and enchanted woods. ground stretched damply from trunk he ran away when small to find those Once when the wind was soft to trunk, sometimes disclosing the who would listen gladly to his songs and scented I heard the south calling, mould-stained stones of buried and dreams. How often hath he sung and sailed endlessly and languorously temples. And always the goal of my to me of lands that never were, and under strange stars. fancies was the mighty vine-grown things that never can be! Of Aira Once when the gentle rain fell wall with the little gate of bronze did he speak much; of Aira and the I glided in a barge down a sunless therein. river Nithra, and the falls of the tiny stream under the earth till I reached After a while, as the days of Kra. There would he ever say he once another world of purple twilight, waking became less and less bearable dwelt as a Prince, though here we iridescent arbours, and undying roses. from their greyness and sameness, I 164 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

would often drift in opiate peace forever into the unknown land; for through the valley and the shadowy doubt and secrecy are the lure of groves, and wonder how I might lures, and no new horror can be more seize them for my eternal dwell- terrible than the daily torture of the ing-place, so that I need no more commonplace. So when I learned of crawl back to a dull world stript of the drug which would unlock the interest and new colours. And as I gate and drive me through, I resolved looked upon the little gate in the to take it when next I awaked. mighty wall, I felt that beyond it lay Last night I swallowed the drug a dream-country from which, once and floated dreamily into the golden it was entered, there would be no valley and the shadowy groves; and return. when I came this time to the antique So each night in sleep I strove wall, I saw that the small gate of to find the hidden latch of the gate bronze was ajar. From beyond came in the ivied antique wall, though it a glow that weirdly lit the giant The MOON BOG. was exceedingly well hidden. And I twisted trees and the tops of the would tell myself that the realm buried temples, and I drifted on [return to table of contents] beyond the wall was not more lasting songfully, expectant of the glories of merely, but more lovely and radiant the land from whence I should never as well. return. Then one night in the dream- But as the gate swung wider and omewhere, to what remote scenes. Men of his blood had once city of Zakarion I found a yellowed the sorcery of the drug and the and fearsome region I know ruled over Kilderry and built and papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream pushed me through, I knew not, Denys Barry has gone. I dwelt in the castle, but those days dream-sages who dwelt of old in that that all sights and glories were at an Swas with him the last night he lived were very remote, so that for gener- city, and who were too wise ever to end; for in that new realm was among men, and heard his screams ations the castle had been empty and be born in the waking world. Therein neither land nor sea, but only the when the thing came to him; but decaying. After he went to Ireland, were written many things concerning white void of unpeopled and illim- all the peasants and police in Barry wrote me often, and told me the world of dream, and among them itable space. So, happier than I had County Meath could never find how under his care the gray castle was lore of a golden valley and a ever dared hope to be, I dissolved him, or the others, though they was rising tower by tower to its sacred grove with temples, and a high again into that native infinity of searched long and far. And now I ancient splendor, how the ivy was wall pierced by a little bronze gate. crystal oblivion from which the shudder when I hear the frogs climbing slowly over the restored When I saw this lore, I knew that it daemon Life had called me for one piping in swamps, or see the moon walls as it had climbed so many touched on the scenes I had haunted, brief and desolate hour. in lonely places. centuries ago, and how the peasants and I therefore read long in the I had known Denys Barry well blessed him for bringing back the yellowed papyrus. in America, where he had grown old days with his gold from over the Some of the dream-sages wrote rich, and had congratulated him sea. But in time there came troubles, gorgeously of the wonders beyond when he bought back the old castle and the peasants ceased to bless him, the irrepassable gate, but others told by the bog at sleepy Kilderry. It was and fled away instead as from a of horror and disappointment. I from Kilderry that his father had doom. And then he sent a letter and knew not which to believe, yet come, and it was there that he wished asked me to visit him, for he was longed more and more to cross to enjoy his wealth among ancestral lonely in the castle with no one to 166 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MOON BOG

speak to save the new servants and when the servants left he replaced and when I heard them I did not my dreams. But when I awaked next laborers he had brought from the them likewise. But it was lonely wonder that Denys Barry had morning I felt it had all been a North. among strangers, so Barry had asked refused to listen. He had, however, dream, for the visions I had seen The bog was the cause of all me to come. a great interest in antiquities, and were more wonderful than any sound these troubles, as Barry told me the When I heard the fears which proposed to explore the bog thor- of wild pipes in the night. Influenced night I came to the castle. I had had driven the people from Kilderry, oughly when it was drained. The by the legends that Barry had related, reached Kilderry in the summer I laughed as loudly as my friend had white ruins on the islet he had often my mind had in slumber hovered sunset, as the gold of the sky lighted laughed, for these fears were of the visited, but though their age was around a stately city in a green valley, the green of the hills and groves and vaguest, wildest, and most absurd plainly great, and their contour very where marble streets and statues, the blue of the bog, where on a far character. They had to do with some little like that of most ruins in villas and temples, carvings and islet a strange olden ruin glistened preposterous legend of the bog, and Ireland, they were too dilapidated to inscriptions, all spoke in certain spectrally. That sunset was very a grim guardian spirit that dwelt in tell the days of their glory. Now the tones the glory that was Greece. beautiful, but the peasants at the strange olden ruin on the far islet work of drainage was ready to begin, When I told this dream to Barry we Ballylough had warned me against I had seen in the sunset. There were and the laborers from the North had both laughed; but I laughed the it and said that Kilderry had become tales of dancing lights in the dark of were soon to strip the forbidden bog louder, because he was perplexed accursed, so that I almost shuddered the moon, and of chill winds when of its green moss and red heather, about his laborers from the North. to see the high turrets of the castle the night was warm; of wraiths in and kill the tiny shell-paved stream- For the sixth time they had all over- gilded with fire. Barry’s motor had white hovering over the waters, and lets and quiet blue pools fringed with slept, waking very slowly and dazedly, met me at the Ballylough station, of an imagined city of stone deep rushes. and acting as if they had not rested, for Kilderry is off the railway. The down below the swampy surface. But After Barry had told me these although they were known to have villagers had shunned the car and foremost among the weird fancies, things I was very drowsy, for the gone early to bed the night before. the driver from the North, but had and alone in its absolute unanimity, travels of the day had been wearying That morning and afternoon I whispered to me with pale faces was that of the curse awaiting him and my host had talked late into the wandered alone through the when they saw I was going to who should dare to touch or drain night. A man-servant showed me to sun-gilded village and talked now Kilderry. And that night, after our the vast reddish morass. There were my room, which was in a remote and then with idle laborers, for Barry reunion, Barry told me why. secrets, said the peasants, which must tower overlooking the village and was busy with the final plans for The peasants had gone from not be uncovered; secrets that had the plain at the edge of the bog, and beginning his work of drainage. The Kilderry because Denys Barry was lain hidden since the plague came the bog itself; so that I could see laborers were not as happy as they to drain the great bog. For all his to the children of Partholan in the from my windows in the moonlight might have been, for most of them love of Ireland, America had not left fabulous years beyond history. In the the silent roofs from which the peas- seemed uneasy over some dream him untouched, and he hated the Book of Invaders it is told that these ants had fled and which now shel- which they had had, yet which they beautiful wasted space where peat sons of the Greeks were all buried tered the laborers from the North, tried in vain to remember. I told might be cut and land opened up. at Tallaght, but old men in Kilderry and too, the parish church with its them of my dream, but they were The legends and superstitions of said that one city was overlooked antique spire, and far out across the not interested till I spoke of the Kilderry did not move him, and he save by its patron moon-goddess; so brooding bog the remote olden ruin weird sounds I thought I had heard. laughed when the peasants first that only the wooded hills buried it on the islet gleaming white and spec- Then they looked oddly at me, and refused to help, and then cursed him when the men of Nemed swept tral. Just as I dropped to sleep I said that they seemed to remember and went away to Ballylough with down from Scythia in their thirty fancied I heard faint sounds from weird sounds, too. their few belongings as they saw his ships. the distance; sounds that were wild In the evening Barry dined with determination. In their place he sent Such were the idle tales which and half musical, and stirred me with me and announced that he would for laborers from the North, and had made the villagers leave Kilderry, a weird excitement which colored begin the drainage in two days. I was 168 169 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MOON BOG

glad, for although I disliked to see me, and I had to do or see something. occasion contented myself with those disappearances which were the moss and the heather and the How could I have suspected the questioning the laborers, who slept known to all men after it was over. little streams and lakes depart, I had thing I was to behold? very late and recalled nothing of the I retired early and full of dread, and a growing wish to discern the ancient There in the moonlight that previous night save misty dreams of for a long time could not sleep in secrets the deep-matted peat might flooded the spacious plain was a shrill sounds. This matter of the the uncanny silence of the tower. It hide. And that night my dreams of spectacle which no mortal, having spectral piping harassed me greatly, was very dark, for although the sky piping flutes and marble peristyles seen it, could ever forget. To the and I wondered if the crickets of was clear the moon was now well came to a sudden and disquieting sound of reedy pipes that echoed autumn had come before their time in the wane, and would not rise till end; for upon the city in the valley over the bog there glided silently and to vex the night and haunt the the small hours. I thought as I lay I saw a pestilence descend, and then eerily a mixed throng of swaying visions of men. Later in the day I there of Denys Barry, and of what a frightful avalanche of wooded figures, reeling through such a revel watched Barry in the library poring would befall that bog when the day slopes that covered the dead bodies as the Sicilians may have danced to over his plans for the great work came, and found myself almost in the streets and left unburied only Demeter in the old days under the which was to begin on the morrow, frantic with an impulse to rush out the temple of Artemis on the high harvest moon beside the Cyane. The and for the first time felt a touch of into the night, take Barry’s car, and peak, where the aged moon-priestess wide plain, the golden moonlight, the same kind of fear that had driven drive madly to Ballylough out of Cleis lay cold and silent with a crown the shadowy moving forms, and the peasants away. For some the menaced lands. But before my of ivory on her silver head. above all the shrill monotonous unknown reason I dreaded the fears could crystallize into action I I have said that I awaked piping, produced an effect which thought of disturbing the ancient had fallen asleep, and gazed in suddenly and in alarm. For some almost paralyzed me; yet I noted bog and its sunless secrets, and dreams upon the city in the valley, time I could not tell whether I was amidst my fear that half of these pictured terrible sights lying black cold and dead under a shroud of waking or sleeping, for the sound of tireless mechanical dancers were the under the unmeasured depth of hideous shadow. flutes still rang shrilly in my ears; laborers whom I had thought asleep, age-old peat. That these secrets Probably it was the shrill piping but when I saw on the floor the icy whilst the other half were strange should be brought to light seemed that awaked me, yet that piping was moonbeams and the outlines of a airy beings in white, half-indeter- injudicious, and I began to wish for not what I noticed first when I latticed gothic window, I decided I minate in nature, but suggesting pale an excuse to leave the castle and the opened my eyes. I was lying with my must be awake and in the castle of wistful naiads from the haunted village. I went so far as to talk casu- back to the east window overlooking Kilderry. Then I heard a clock from fountains of the bog. I do not know ally to Barry on the subject, but did the bog, where the waning moon some remote landing below strike how long I gazed at this sight from not dare continue after he gave his would rise, and therefore expected the hour of two, and knew I was the lonely turret window before I resounding laugh. So I was silent to see light cast on the opposite wall awake. Yet still there came that dropped suddenly in a dreamless when the sun set fulgently over the before me; but I had not looked for monstrous piping from afar; wild, swoon, out of which the high sun of far hills, and Kilderry blazed all red such a sight as now appeared. Light weird airs that made me think of morning aroused me. and gold in a flame that seemed a indeed glowed on the panels ahead, some dance of fauns on distant My first impulse on awaking was portent. but it was not any light that the Maenalus. It would not let me sleep, to communicate all my fears and moon gives. Terrible and piercing and in impatience I sprang up and observations to Denys Barry, but as hether the events of was the shaft of ruddy refulgence paced the floor. Only by chance did I saw the sunlight glowing through that night were of that streamed through the gothic I go to the north window and look the latticed east window I became reality or illusion I window, and the whole chamber was out upon the silent village and the sure that there was no reality in what shallW never ascertain. Certainly brilliant with a splendor intense and plain at the edge of the bog. I had I thought I had seen. I am given to they transcend anything we dream unearthly. My immediate actions no wish to gaze abroad, for I wanted strange fantasms, yet am never weak of in nature and the universe; yet in were peculiar for such a situation, to sleep; but the flutes tormented enough to believe in them; so on this no normal fashion can I explain but it is only in tales that a man does 170 171 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MOON BOG

the dramatic and foreseen thing. see the village and the plain at the and gracefully the naiads reached not be written of, and which makes Instead of looking out across the bog edge of the bog. There my eyes the water and melted one by one me faint as I think of them. All I can toward the source of the new light, dilated again with a wild wonder as into the ancient bog; while the line say is that they came from something I kept my eyes from the window in great as if I had not just turned from of followers, never checking their I had known as a friend. panic fear, and clumsily drew on my a scene beyond the pale of nature, speed, splashed awkwardly after At some time during this clothing with some dazed idea of for on the ghastly red-litten plain them and vanished amidst a tiny shocking period the cold wind and escape. I remember seizing my was moving a procession of beings vortex of unwholesome bubbles the screaming must have roused me, revolver and hat, but before it was in such a manner as none ever saw which I could barely see in the scarlet for my next impression is of racing over I had lost them both without before save in nightmares. light. And as the last pathetic strag- madly through inky rooms and corri- firing the one or donning the other. Half gliding, half floating in the gler, the fat cook, sank heavily out dors and out across the courtyard After a time the fascination of the air, the white-clad bog-wraiths were of sight in that sullen pool, the flutes into the hideous night. They found red radiance overcame my fright, and slowly retreating toward the still and the drums grew silent, and the me at dawn wandering mindless near I crept to the east window and waters and the island ruin in fantastic blinding red rays from the ruins Ballylough, but what unhinged me looked out whilst the maddening, formations suggesting some ancient snapped instantaneously out, leaving utterly was not any of the horrors I incessant piping whined and rever- and solemn ceremonial dance. Their the village of doom lone and desolate had seen or heard before. What I berated through the castle and over waving translucent arms, guided by in the wan beams of a new-risen muttered about as I came slowly out all the village. the detestable piping of those unseen moon. of the shadows was a pair of fantastic Over the bog was a deluge of flutes, beckoned in uncanny rhythm My condition was now one of incidents which occurred in my flaring light, scarlet and sinister, and to a throng of lurching laborers who indescribable chaos. Not knowing flight: incidents of no significance, pouring from the strange olden ruin followed doglike with blind, brain- whether I was mad or sane, sleeping yet which haunt me unceasingly on the far islet. The aspect of that less, floundering steps as if dragged or waking, I was saved only by a when I am alone in certain marshy ruin I can not describe—I must have by a clumsy but resistless demon- merciful numbness. I believe I did places or in the moonlight. been mad, for it seemed to rise will. As the naiads neared the bog, ridiculous things such as offering As I fled from that accursed majestic and undecayed, splendid without altering their course, a new prayers to Artemis, Latona, Demeter, castle along the bog’s edge I heard and column-cinctured, the flame-re- line of stumbling stragglers Persephone, and Plouton. All that I a new sound: common, yet unlike flecting marble of its entablature zigzagged drunkenly out of the castle recalled of a classic youth came to any I had heard before at Kilderry. piercing the sky like the apex of a from some door far below my my lips as the horrors of the situation The stagnant waters, lately quite temple on a mountain-top. Flutes window, groped sightiessly across roused my deepest superstitions. I devoid of animal life, now teemed shrieked and drums began to beat, the courtyard and through the inter- felt that I had witnessed the death with a horde of slimy enormous frogs and as I watched in awe and terror vening bit of village, and joined the of a whole village, and knew I was which piped shrilly and incessantly I thought I saw dark saltant forms floundering column of laborers on alone in the castle with Denys Barry, in tones strangely out of keeping silhouetted grotesquely against the the plain. Despite their distance whose boldness had brought down with their size. They glistened vision of marble and effulgence. The below me I at once knew they were a doom. As I thought of him, new bloated and green in the moon- effect was titanic—altogether the servants brought from the North, terrors convulsed me, and I fell to beams, and seemed to gaze up at the unthinkable—and I might have for I recognized the ugly and the floor; not fainting, but physically fount of light. I followed the gaze of stared indefinitely had not the sound unwieldy form of the cook, whose helpless. Then I felt the icy blast one very fat and ugly frog, and saw of the piping seemed to grow very absurdness had now become from the east window where the the second of the things which drove stronger at my left. Trembling with unutterably tragic. The flutes piped moon had risen, and began to hear my senses away. a terror oddly mixed with ecstasy, I horribly, and again I heard the the shrieks in the castle far below Stretching directly from the crossed the circular room to the beating of the drums from the direc- me. Soon those shrieks had attained strange olden ruin on the far islet to north window from which I could tion of the island ruin. Then silently a magnitude and quality which can the waning moon, my eyes seemed 172 173 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

to trace a beam of faint quivering radiance having no reflection in the waters of the bog. And upward along that pallid path my fevered fancy pictured a thin shadow slowly writhing; a vague contorted shadow struggling as if drawn by unseen demons. Crazed as I was, I saw in that awful shadow a monstrous resemblance—a nauseous, unbeliev- able caricature—a blasphemous effigy of him who had been Denys Barry.

The OUTSIDER.

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nhappy is he to whom the and infinitely horrible, full of dark memories of childhood passages and having high ceilings bring only fear and sadness. where the eye could find only UWretched is he who looks back cobwebs and shadows. The stones upon lone hours in vast and dismal in the crumbling corridors seemed chambers with brown hangings always hideously damp, and there and maddening rows of antique was an accursed smell everywhere, books, or upon awed watches in as of the piled-up corpses of dead twilight groves of grotesque, generations. It was never light, so gigantic, and vine-encumbered that I used sometimes to light trees that silently wave twisted candles and gaze steadily at them branches far aloft. Such a lot the for relief, nor was there any sun gods gave to me—to me, the dazed, outdoors, since the terrible trees the disappointed; the barren, the grew high above the topmost acces- broken. And yet I am strangely sible tower. There was one black content and cling desperately to tower which reached above the trees those sere memories, when my into the unknown outer sky, but that mind momentarily threatens to was partly ruined and could not be reach beyond to the other. ascended save by a well-nigh impos- I know not where I was born, sible climb up the sheer wall, stone save that the castle was infinitely old by stone.

174 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The OUTSIDER

I must have lived years in this world beyond the endless forests. hand for a window embrasure, that the moon and stars of which I had place, but I cannot measure the time. Once I tried to escape from the I might peer out and above, and try read. But on every hand I was disap- Beings must have cared for my forest, but as I went farther from the to judge the height I had once pointed; since all that I found were needs, yet I cannot recall any person castle the shade grew denser and the attained. vast shelves of marble, bearing except myself, or anything alive but air more filled with brooding fear; All at once, after an infinity of odious oblong boxes of disturbing the noiseless rats and bats and so that I ran frantically back lest I awesome, sightless, crawling up that size. More and more I reflected, and spiders. I think that whoever nursed lose my way in a labyrinth of nighted concave and desperate precipice, I wondered what hoary secrets might me must have been shockingly aged, silence. felt my head touch a solid thing, and abide in this high apartment so many since my first conception of a living So through endless twilights I I knew I must have gained the roof, aeons cut off from the castle below. person was that of somebody mock- dreamed and waited, though I knew or at least some kind of floor. In the Then unexpectedly my hands came ingly like myself, yet distorted, shriv- not what I waited for. Then in the darkness I raised my free hand and upon a doorway, where hung a portal elled, and decaying like the castle. shadowy solitude my longing for tested the barrier, finding it stone of stone, rough with strange chisel- To me there was nothing grotesque light grew so frantic that I could rest and immovable. Then came a deadly ling. Trying it, I found it locked; but in the bones and skeletons that no more, and I lifted entreating circuit of the tower, clinging to what- with a supreme burst of strength I strewed some of the stone crypts hands to the single black ruined ever holds the slimy wall could give; overcame all obstacles and dragged deep down among the foundations. tower that reached above the forest till finally my testing hand found the it open inward. As I did so there I fantastically associated these things into the unknown outer sky. And at barrier yielding, and I turned upward came to me the purest ecstasy I have with everyday events, and thought last I resolved to scale that tower, fall again, pushing the slab or door with ever known; for shining tranquilly them more natural than the coloured though I might; since it were better my head as I used both hands in my through an ornate grating of iron, pictures of living beings which I to glimpse the sky and perish, than fearful ascent. There was no light and down a short stone passageway found in many of the mouldy books. to live without ever beholding day. revealed above, and as my hands of steps that ascended from the From such books I learned all that In the dank twilight I climbed went higher I knew that my climb newly found doorway, was the I know. No teacher urged or guided the worn and aged stone stairs till I was for the nonce ended; since the radiant full moon, which I had never me, and I do not recall hearing any reached the level where they ceased, slab was the trapdoor of an aperture before seen save in dreams and in human voice in all those years—not and thereafter clung perilously to leading to a level stone surface of vague visions I dared not call even my own; for although I had small footholds leading upward. greater circumference than the lower memories. read of speech, I had never thought Ghastly and terrible was that dead, tower, no doubt the floor of some Fancying now that I had attained to try to speak aloud. My aspect was stairless cylinder of rock; black, lofty and capacious observation the very pinnacle of the castle, I a matter equally unthought of, for ruined, and deserted, and sinister chamber. I crawled through carefully, commenced to rush up the few steps there were no mirrors in the castle, with startled bats whose wings made and tried to prevent the heavy slab beyond the door; but the sudden and I merely regarded myself by no noise. But more ghastly and from falling back into place, but veiling of the moon by a cloud caused instinct as akin to the youthful terrible still was the slowness of my failed in the latter attempt. As I lay me to stumble, and I felt my way figures I saw drawn and painted in progress; for climb as I might, the exhausted on the stone floor I heard more slowly in the dark. It was still the books. I felt conscious of youth darkness overhead grew no thinner, the eerie echoes of its fall, hoped very dark when I reached the because I remembered so little. and a new chill as of haunted and when necessary to pry it up again. grating—which I tried carefully and Outside, across the putrid moat venerable mould assailed me. I shiv- Believing I was now at prodi- found unlocked, but which I did not and under the dark mute trees, I ered as I wondered why I did not gious height, far above the accursed open for fear of falling from the would often lie and dream for hours reach the light, and would have branches of the wood, I dragged amazing height to which I had about what I read in the books; and looked down had I dared. I fancied myself up from the floor and fumbled climbed. Then the moon came out. would longingly picture myself that night had come suddenly upon about for windows, that I might look Most demoniacal of all shocks amidst gay crowds in the sunny me, and vainly groped with one free for the first time upon the sky, and is that of the abysmally unexpected 176 177 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The OUTSIDER

and grotesquely unbelievable. where only occasional ruins bespoke occurred immediately one of the a merry company to a herd of delir- Nothing I had before undergone the ancient presence of a forgotten most terrifying demonstrations I had ious fugitives. could compare in terror with what road. Once I swam across a swift ever conceived. Scarcely had I I cannot even hint what it was I now saw; with the bizarre marvels river where crumbling, mossy crossed the sill when there descended like, for it was a compound of all that sight implied. The sight itself masonry told of a bridge long upon the whole company a sudden that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, was as simple as it was stupefying, vanished. and unheralded fear of hideous abnormal, and detestable. It was the for it was merely this: instead of a intensity, distorting every face and ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, dizzying prospect of treetops seen ver two hours must have evoking the most horrible screams and dissolution; the putrid, dripping from a lofty eminence, there passed before I reached from nearly every throat. Flight was eidolon of unwholesome revelation, stretched around me on the level what seemed to be my universal, and in the clamour and the awful baring of that which the through the grating nothing less goal,O a venerable ivied castle in a panic several fell in a swoon and were merciful earth should always hide. than the solid ground, decked and thickly wooded park, maddeningly dragged away by their madly fleeing God knows it was not of this diversified by marble slabs and familiar, yet full of perplexing companions. Many covered their world—or no longer of this world— columns, and overshadowed by an strangeness to me. I saw that the eyes with their hands, and plunged yet to my horror I saw in its eaten- ancient stone church, whose ruined moat was filled in, and that some of blindly and awkwardly in their race away and bone-revealing outlines a spire gleamed spectrally in the the well-known towers were to escape, overturning furniture and leering, abhorrent travesty on the moonlight. demolished, whilst new wings stumbling against the walls before human shape; and in its mouldy, Half unconscious, I opened the existed to confuse the beholder. they managed to reach one of the disintegrating apparel an unspeak- grating and staggered out upon the But what I observed with chief many doors. able quality that chilled me even white gravel path that stretched away interest and delight were the open The cries were shocking; and as more. in two directions. My mind, stunned windows—gorgeously ablaze with I stood in the brilliant apartment I was almost paralysed, but not and chaotic as it was, still held the light and sending forth sound of alone and dazed, listening to their too much so to make a feeble effort frantic craving for light; and not even the gayest revelry. Advancing to vanishing echoes, I trembled at the towards flight; a backward stumble the fantastic wonder which had one of these I looked in and saw an thought of what might be lurking which failed to break the spell in happened could stay my course. I oddly dressed company indeed; near me unseen. At a casual inspec- which the nameless, voiceless neither knew nor cared whether my making merry, and speaking tion the room seemed deserted, but monster held me. My eyes bewitched experience was insanity, dreaming, brightly to one another. I had never, when I moved towards one of the by the glassy orbs which stared or magic; but was determined to gaze seemingly, heard human speech alcoves I thought I detected a pres- loathsomely into them, refused to on brilliance and gaiety at any cost. before and could guess only vaguely ence there—a hint of motion beyond close; though they were mercifully I knew not who I was or what I was, what was said. Some of the faces the golden-arched doorway leading blurred, and showed the terrible or what my surroundings might be; seemed to hold expressions that to another and somewhat similar object but indistinctly after the first though as I continued to stumble brought up incredibly remote room. As I approached the arch I shock. I tried to raise my hand to along I became conscious of a kind recollections, others were utterly began to perceive the presence more shut out the sight, yet so stunned of fearsome latent memory that alien. clearly; and then, with the first and were my nerves that my arm could made my progress not wholly fortu- I now stepped through the low last sound I ever uttered—a ghastly not fully obey my will. The attempt, itous. I passed under an arch out of window into the brilliantly lighted ululation that revolted me almost as however, was enough to disturb my that region of slabs and columns, room, stepping as I did so from my poignantly as its noxious cause—I balance; so that I had to stagger and wandered through the open single bright moment of hope to my beheld in full, frightful vividness the forward several steps to avoid falling. country; sometimes following the blackest convulsion of despair and inconceivable, indescribable, and As I did so I became suddenly and visible road, but sometimes leaving realization. The nightmare was quick unmentionable monstrosity which agonizingly aware of the nearness of it curiously to tread across meadows to come, for as I entered, there had by its simple appearance changed the carrion thing, whose hideous 178 179 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

hollow breathing I half fancied I amongst the catacombs of could hear. Nearly mad, I found Nephren-Ka in the sealed and myself yet able to throw out a hand unknown valley of Hadoth by the to ward off the foetid apparition Nile. I know that light is not for me, which pressed so close; when in one save that of the moon over the rock cataclysmic second of cosmic night- tombs of Neb, nor any gaiety save marishness and hellish accident my the unnamed feasts of Nitokris fingers touched the rotting beneath the Great Pyramid; yet in outstretched paw of the monster my new wildness and freedom I beneath the golden arch. almost welcome the bitterness of I did not shriek, but all the alienage. fiendish ghouls that ride the night- For although nepenthe has wind shrieked for me as in that same calmed me, I know always that I am second there crashed down upon my an outsider; a stranger in this century mind a single fleeting avalanche of and among those who are still men. The OTHER GODS.

soul-annihilating memory. I knew This I have known ever since I [return to table of contents] in that second all that had been; I stretched out my fingers to the remembered beyond the frightful abomination within that great gilded castle and the trees, and recognized frame; stretched out my fingers and the altered edifice in which I now touched a cold and unyielding stood; I recognized, most terrible of surface of polished glass. top the tallest of earth’s coming of men. They are grown all, the unholy abomination that peaks dwell the gods of stern, and where once they suffered stood leering before me as I with- earth, and suffer not man men to displace them, they now drew my sullied fingers from its own. Ato tell that he hath looked upon forbid men to come; or coming, to But in the cosmos there is balm them. Lesser peaks they once depart. It is well for men that they as well as bitterness, and that balm inhabited; but ever the men from know not of Kadath in the cold is nepenthe. In the supreme horror the plains would scale the slopes of waste; else they would seek injudi- of that second I forgot what had rock and snow, driving the gods to ciously to scale it. horrified me, and the burst of black higher and higher mountains till Sometimes when earth’s gods memory vanished in a chaos of now only the last remains. When are homesick they visit in the still of echoing images. In a dream I fled they left their old peaks they took the night the peaks where once they from that haunted and accursed pile, with them all signs of themselves, dwelt, and weep softly as they try to and ran swiftly and silently in the save once, it is said, when they left play in the olden way on remem- moonlight. When I returned to the a carven image on the face of the bered slopes. Men have felt the tears churchyard place of marble and went mountain which they called of the gods on white-capped Thurai, down the steps I found the stone Ngranek. though they have thought it rain; trap-door immovable; but I was not But now they have betaken and have heard the sighs of the gods sorry, for I had hated the antique themselves to unknown Kadath in in the plaintive dawn-winds of castle and the trees. Now I ride with the cold waste where no man treads, Lerion. In cloud-ships the gods are the mocking and friendly ghouls on and are grown stern, having no wont to travel, and wise cotters have the night-wind, and play by day higher peak whereto to flee at the legends that keep them from certain 180 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The OTHER GODS

high peaks at night when it is cloudy, days. Often the gods of earth visit the air grew thin, and the sky slope above in the clouded moon- for the gods are not lenient as of old. Hatheg-Kla in their ships of clouds, changed color, and the climbers light. Barzai forged very far ahead, In Ulthar, which lies beyond the casting pale vapors over the slopes found it hard to breathe; but still and seemed despite his age to climb river Skai, once dwelt an old man as they dance reminiscently on the they toiled up and up, marveling at more easily than Atal; fearing not avid to behold the gods of earth; a summit under a clear moon. The the strangeness of the scene and the steepness that began to grow too man deeply learned in the seven villagers of Hatheg say it is ill to thrilling at the thought of what great for any save a strong and cryptical books of Hsan, and familiar climb the Hatheg-Kla at any time, would happen on the summit when dauntless man, nor pausing at wide with the Pnakotic Manuscripts of and deadly to climb it by night when the moon was out and the pale black chasms that Atal could scarce distant and frozen Lomar. His name pale vapors hide the summit and the vapours spread around. For three leap. And so they went up wildly was Barzai the Wise, and the moon; but Barzai heeded them not days they climbed higher and higher over rocks and gulfs, slipping and villagers tell of how he went up a when he came from neighboring toward the roof of the world; then stumbling, and sometimes awed at mountain on the night of the strange Ulthar with the young priest Atal, they camped to wait for the clouding the vastness and horrible silence of eclipse. who was his disciple. Atal was only of the moon. bleak ice pinnacles and mute granite Barzai knew so much of the gods the son of an innkeeper, and was For four nights no clouds came, steeps. that he could tell of their comings sometimes afraid; but Barzai’s father and the moon shone down cold Very suddenly Barzai went out and goings, and guessed so many of had been a landgrave who dwelt in through the thin mournful mist of Atal’s sight, scaling a hideous cliff their secrets that he was deemed half an ancient castle, so he had no around the silent pinnacle. Then on that seemed to bulge outward and a god himself. It was he who wisely common superstition in his blood, the fifth night, which was the night block the path for any climber not advised the burgesses of Ulthar when and only laughed at the fearful of the full moon, Barzai saw some inspired of earth’s gods. Atal was far they passed their remarkable law cotters. dense clouds far to the north, and below, and planning what he should against the slaying of cats, and who Barzai and Atal went out of stayed up with Atal to watch them do when he reached the place, when first told the young priest Atal where Hatheg into the stony desert despite draw near. Thick and majestic they curiously he noticed that the light it is that black cats go at midnight the prayers of peasants, and talked sailed, slowly and deliberately had grown strong, as if the cloudless on St. John’s Eve. Barzai was learned of earth’s gods by their campfires at onward; ranging themselves round peak and moonlit meetingplace of in the lore of the earth’s gods, and night. Many days they traveled, and the peak high above the watchers, the gods were very near. And as he had gained a desire to look upon from afar saw lofty Hatheg-Kla with and hiding the moon and the summit scrambled on toward the bulging their faces. He believed that his great his aureole of mournful mist. On the from view. For a long hour the cliff and litten sky he felt fears more secret knowledge of gods could thirteenth day they reached the watchers gazed, whilst the vapours shocking than any he had known shield him from their wrath, so mountain’s lonely base, and Atal swirled and the screen of clouds grew before. Then through the high mists resolved to go up to the summit of spoke of his fears. But Barzai was thicker and more restless. Barzai was he heard the voice of Barzai shouting high and rocky Hatheg-Kla on a old and learned and had no fears, so wise in the lore of earth’s gods, and wildly in delight: night when he knew the gods would led the way up the slope that no man listened hard for certain sounds, but “I have heard the gods. I have be there. had scaled since the time of Sansu, Atal felt the chill of the vapours and heard earth’s gods singing in revelry Hatheg-Kla is far in the stony who is written of with fright in the the awe of the night, and feared on Hatheg-Kla! The voices of earth’s desert beyond Hatheg, for which it moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts. much. And when Barzai began to gods are known to Barzai the is named, and rises like a rock statue The way was rocky, and made climb higher and beckon eagerly, it Prophet! The mists are thin and the in a silent temple. Around its peak perilous by chasms, cliffs, and falling was long before Atal would follow. moon is bright, and I shall see the the mists play always mournfully, for stones. Later it grew cold and snowy; So thick were the vapours that gods dancing wildly on Hatheg-Kla mists are the memories of the gods, and Barzai and Atal often slipped the way was hard, and though Atal that they loved in youth. The wisdom and the gods loved Hatheg-Kla and fell as they hewed and plodded followed at last, he could scarce see of Barzai hath made him greater when they dwelt upon it in the old upward with staves and axes. Finally the gray shape of Barzai on the dim than earth’s gods, and against his will 182 183 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The OTHER GODS

their spells and barriers are as naught; have turned to laughter, and the rock when he did climb Hatheg-Kla Barzai will behold the gods, the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into in the youth of the world. Yet when proud gods, the secret gods, the gods the black heavens whither I am the men of Ulthar and Nir and of earth who spurn the sight of man!” plunging… Hei! Hei! At last! In the Hatheg crushed their fears and Atal could not hear the voices dim light I behold the gods of earth!” scaled that haunted steep by day in Barzai heard, but he was now close And now Atal, slipping dizzily search of Barzai the Wise, they to the bulging cliff and scanning it up over inconceivable steeps, heard found graven in the naked stone of for footholds. Then he heard Barzai’s in the dark a loathsome laughing, the summit a curious and cyclopean voice grow shriller and louder: mixed with such a cry as no man else symbol fifty cubits wide, as if the “The mist is very thin, and the ever heard save in the Phlegethon rock had been riven by some titanic moon casts shadows on the slope; of unrelatable nightmares; a cry chisel. And the symbol was like to the voices of earth’s gods are high wherein reverberated the horror and one that learned men have discerned and wild, and they fear the coming anguish of a haunted lifetime packed in those frightful parts of the of Barzai the Wise, who is greater into one atrocious moment: Pnakotic Manuscripts which were than they… The moon’s light flickers, “The other gods! The other too ancient to be read. This they as earth’s gods dance against it; I gods! The gods of the outer hells found. shall see the dancing forms of the that guard the feeble gods of earth!… Barzai the Wise they never gods that leap and howl in the Look away… Go back… Do not see! found, nor could the holy priest Atal moonlight… The light is dimmer Do not see! The vengeance of the ever be persuaded to pray for his and the gods are afraid… ” infinite abysses… That cursed, that soul’s repose. Moreover, to this day Whilst Barzai was shouting damnable pit… Merciful gods of the people of Ulthar and Nir and these things Atal felt a spectral earth, I am falling into the sky!” Hatheg fear eclipses, and pray by change in all the air, as if the laws of And as Atal shut his eyes and night when pale vapors hide the earth were bowing to greater laws; stopped his ears and tried to hump mountain-top and the moon. And for though the way was steeper than downward against the frightful pull above the mists on Hatheg-Kla, ever, the upward path was now from unknown heights, there earth’s gods sometimes dance remi- grown fearsomely easy, and the resounded on Hatheg-Kla that niscently; for they know they are bulging cliff proved scarce an terrible peal of thunder which safe, and love to come from unknown obstacle when he reached it and slid awaked the good cotters of the plains Kadath in ships of clouds and play perilously up its convex face. The and the honest burgesses of Hatheg, in the olden way, as they did when light of the moon had strangely Nir and Ulthar, and caused them to earth was new and men not given to failed, and as Atal plunged upward behold through the clouds that the climbing of inaccessible places. through the mists he heard Barzai strange eclipse of the moon that no the Wise shrieking in the shadows: book ever predicted. And when the “The moon is dark, and the gods moon came out at last Atal was safe dance in the night; there is terror in on the lower snows of the mountain the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk without sight of earth’s gods, or of an eclipse foretold in no books of the other gods. men or of earth’s gods… There is Now it is told in the moldy unknown magic on Hatheg-Kla, for Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu the screams of the frightened gods found naught but wordless ice and 184 185

The MUSIC of ERICH ZANN.

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have examined maps of the city do not wonder; for my health, phys- with the greatest care, yet have ical and mental, was gravely disturbed never again found the Rue throughout the period of my resi- d’Auseil.I These maps have not dence in the Rue d’Auseil, and I been modern maps alone, for I recall that I took none of my few know that names change. I have, on acquaintances there. But that I the contrary, delved deeply into all cannot find the place again is both the antiquities of the place, and singular and perplexing; for it was have personally explored every within a half-hour’s walk of the region, of whatever name, which university and was distinguished by could possibly answer to the street peculiarities which could hardly be I knew as the Rue d’Auseil. But forgotten by any one who had been despite all I have done, it remains there. I have never met a person who an humiliating fact that I cannot has seen the Rue d’Auseil. find the house, the street, or even The Rue d’Auseil lay across a the locality, where, during the last dark river bordered by precipitous months of my impoverished life as brick blear-windowed warehouses a student of metaphysics at the and spanned by a ponderous bridge university, I heard the music of of dark stone. It was always shadowy Erich Zann. along that river, as if the smoke of That my memory is broken, I neighboring factories shut out the H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MUSIC of ERICH ZANN

sun perpetually. The river was also in the Rue d’Auseil kept by the para- lean, bent person, with shabby heard before; strains which must odorous with evil stenches which I lytic Blandot. It was the third house clothes, blue eyes, grotesque, satyr- have been of his own devising. To have never smelled elsewhere, and from the top of the street, and by far like face, and nearly bald head; and describe their exact nature is impos- which may some day help me to find the tallest of them all. at my first words seemed both sible for one unversed in music. They it, since I should recognize them at My room was on the fifth story; angered and frightened. My obvious were a kind of fugue, with recurrent once. Beyond the bridge were narrow the only inhabited room there, since friendliness, however, finally melted passages of the most captivating cobbled streets with rails; and then the house was almost empty. On the him; and he grudgingly motioned quality, but to me were notable for came the ascent, at first gradual, but night I arrived I heard strange music to me to follow him up the dark, the absence of any of the weird notes incredibly steep as the Rue d’Auseil from the peaked garret overhead, creaking and rickety attic stairs. His I had overheard from my room below was reached. and the next day asked old Blandot room, one of only two in the steeply on other occasions. I have never seen another street about it. He told me it was an old pitched garret, was on the west side, Those haunting notes I had as narrow and steep as the Rue d’Au- German viol-player, a strange dumb toward the high wall that formed remembered, and had often hummed seil. It was almost a cliff, closed to man who signed his name as Erich the upper end of the street. Its size and whistled inaccurately to myself, all vehicles, consisting in several Zann, and who played evenings in was very great, and seemed the so when the player at length laid places of flights of steps, and ending a cheap theater orchestra; adding greater because of its extraordinary down his bow I asked him if he at the top in a lofty ivied wall. Its that Zann’s desire to play in the night barrenness and neglect. Of furniture would render some of them. As I paving was irregular, sometimes after his return from the theater was there was only a narrow iron began my request the wrinkled satyr- stone slabs, sometimes cobblestones, the reason he had chosen this lofty bedstead, a dingy wash-stand, a small like face lost the bored placidity it and sometimes bare earth with and isolated garret room, whose table, a large bookcase, an iron had possessed during the playing, struggling greenish-grey vegetation. single gable window was the only music-rack, and three old-fashioned and seemed to show the same curious The houses were tall, peaked-roofed, point on the street from which one chairs. Sheets of music were piled in mixture of anger and fright which I incredibly old, and crazily leaning could look over the terminating wall disorder about the floor. The walls had noticed when first I accosted backward, forward, and sidewise. at the declivity and panorama were of bare boards, and had prob- the old man. For a moment I was Occasionally an opposite pair, both beyond. ably never known plaster; whilst the inclined to use persuasion, regarding leaning forward, almost met across Thereafter I heard Zann every abundance of dust and cobwebs rather lightly the whims of senility; the street like an arch; and certainly night, and although he kept me made the place seem more deserted and even tried to awaken my host’s they kept most of the light from the awake, I was haunted by the weird- than inhabited. Evidently Erich weirder mood by whistling a few of ground below. There were a few ness of his music. Knowing little of Zann’s world of beauty lay in some the strains to which I had listened overhead bridges from house to the art myself, I was yet certain that far cosmos of the imagination. the night before. But I did not pursue house across the street. none of his harmonies had any rela- Motioning me to sit down, the this course for more than a moment; The inhabitants of that street tion to music I had heard before; and dumb man closed the door, turned for when the dumb musician recog- impressed me peculiarly. At first I concluded that he was a composer the large wooden bolt, and lighted nized the whistled air his face grew thought it was because they were all of highly original genius. The longer a candle to augment the one he had suddenly distorted with an expres- silent and reticent; but later decided I listened, the more I was fascinated, brought with him. He now removed sion wholly beyond analysis, and his it was because they were all very old. until after a week I resolved to make his viol from its motheaten covering, long, cold, bony right hand reached I do not know how I came to live on the old man’s acquaintance. and taking it, seated himself in the out to stop my mouth and silence such a street, but I was not myself One night as he was returning least uncomfortable of the chairs. the crude imitation. As he did this when I moved there. I had been from his work, I intercepted Zann He did not employ the music-rack, he further demonstrated his eccen- living in many poor places, always in the hallway and told him that I but, offering no choice and playing tricity by casting a startled glance evicted for want of money; until at would like to know him and be with from memory, enchanted me for over toward the lone curtained window, last I came upon that tottering house him when he played. He was a small, an hour with strains I had never as if fearful of some intruder—a 188 189 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MUSIC of ERICH ZANN

glance doubly absurd, since the connected with his music and with to move down from the fifth story. to behold. He now refused to admit garret stood high and inaccessible other things. He had enjoyed my He did not ask me to call on him, me at any time, and shunned me above all the adjacent roofs, this listening to his music, and wished I and when I did call he appeared whenever we met on the stairs. window being the only point on the would come again and not mind his uneasy and played listlessly. This was Then one night as I listened at steep street, as the concierge had told eccentricities. But he could not play always at night—in the day he slept the door, I heard the shrieking viol me, from which one could see over to another his weird harmonies, and and would admit no one. My liking swell into a chaotic babel of sound; the wall at the summit. could not bear hearing them from for him did not grow, though the a pandemonium which would have The old man’s glance brought another; nor could he bear having attic room and the weird music led me to doubt my own shaking Blandot’s remark to my mind, and anything in his room touched by seemed to hold an odd fascination sanity had there not come from with a certain capriciousness I felt a another. He had not known until for me. I had a curious desire to look behind that barred portal a piteous wish to look out over the wide and our hallway conversation that I could out of that window, over the wall proof that the horror was real—the dizzying panorama of moonlit roofs overhear his playing in my room, and down the unseen slope at the awful, inarticulate cry which only a and city lights beyond the hilltop, and now asked me if I would arrange glittering roofs and spires which mute can utter, and which rises only which of all the dwellers in the Rue with Blandot to take a lower room must lie outspread there. Once I in moments of the most terrible fear d’Auseil only this crabbed musician where I could not hear him in the went up to the garret during theater or anguish. I knocked repeatedly at could see. I moved toward the night. He would, he wrote, defray hours, when Zann was away, but the the door, but received no response. window and would have drawn aside the difference in rent. door was locked. Afterward I waited in the black the nondescript curtains, when with As I sat deciphering the What I did succeed in doing was hallway, shivering with cold and fear, a frightened rage even greater than execrable French, I felt more lenient to overhear the nocturnal playing of till I heard the poor musician’s feeble before, the dumb lodger was upon toward the old man. He was a victim the dumb old man. At first I would effort to rise from the floor by the me again; this time motioning with of physical and nervous suffering, as tip-toe up to my old fifth floor, then aid of a chair. Believing him just his head toward the door as he was I; and my metaphysical studies I grew bold enough to climb the last conscious after a fainting fit, I nervously strove to drag me thither had taught me kindness. In the creaking staircase to the peaked renewed my rapping, at the same with both hands. Now thoroughly silence there came a slight sound garret. There in the narrow hall, time calling out my name reassur- disgusted with my host, I ordered from the window—the shutter must outside the bolted door with the ingly. I heard Zann stumble to the him to release me, and told him I have rattled in the night wind, and covered keyhole, I often heard window and close both shutter and would go at once. His clutch relaxed, for some reason I started almost as sounds which filled me with an inde- sash, then stumble to the door, which and as he saw my disgust and offense, violently as did Erich Zann. So when finable dread—the dread of vague he falteringly unfastened to admit his own anger seemed to subside. I had finished reading, I shook my wonder and brooding mystery. It was me. This time his delight at having He tightened his relaxing grip, but host by the hand, and departed as a not that the sounds were hideous, me present was real; for his distorted this time in a friendly manner, friend. for they were not; but that they held face gleamed with relief while he forcing me into a chair; then with The next day Blandot gave me vibrations suggesting nothing on this clutched at my coat as a child an appearance of wistfulness crossing a more expensive room on the third globe of earth, and that at certain clutches at its mother’s skirts. to the littered table, where he wrote floor, between the apartments of an intervals they assumed a symphonic Shaking pathetically, the old many words with a pencil, in the aged money-lender and the room of quality which I could hardly conceive man forced me into a chair whilst labored French of a foreigner. a respectable upholsterer. There was as produced by one player. Certainly, he sank into another, beside which The note which he finally no one on the fourth floor. Erich Zann was a genius of wild his viol and bow lay carelessly on the handed me was an appeal for toler- It was not long before I found power. As the weeks passed, the floor. He sat for some time inactive, ance and forgiveness. Zann said that that Zann’s eagerness for my playing grew wilder, whilst the old nodding oddly, but having a para- he was old, lonely, and afflicted with company was not as great as it had musician acquired an increasing doxical suggestion of intense and strange fears and nervous disorders seemed while he was persuading me haggardness and furtiveness pitiful frightened listening. Subsequently 190 191 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • The MUSIC of ERICH ZANN

he seemed to be satisfied, and this time the motive was stark fear. broke shiveringly under the persistent chaos and pandemonium before me, crossing to a chair by the table wrote He was trying to make a noise; to impacts, and the chill wind rushed and the demon madness of that a brief note, handed it to me, and ward something off or drown some- in, making the candles sputter and night-baying viol behind me. returned to the table, where he began thing out—what, I could not imagine, rustling the sheets of paper on the I staggered back in the dark, to write rapidly and incessantly. The awesome though I felt it must be. table where Zann had begun to write without the means of striking a light, note implored me in the name of The playing grew fantastic, delirious, out his horrible secret. I looked at crashing against the table, over- mercy, and for the sake of my own and hysterical, yet kept to the last Zann, and saw that he was past turning a chair, and finally groping curiosity, to wait where I was while the qualities of supreme genius conscious observation. His blue eyes my way to the place where the black- he prepared a full account in German which I knew this strange old man were bulging, glassy and sightless, ness screamed with shocking music. of all the marvels and terrors which possessed. I recognized the air—it and the frantic playing had become To save myself and Erich Zann I beset him. I waited, and the dumb was a wild Hungarian dance popular a blind, mechanical, unrecognizable could at least try, whatever the man’s pencil flew. in the theaters, and I reflected for a orgy that no pen could even suggest. powers opposed to me. Once I It was perhaps an hour later, moment that this was the first time A sudden gust, stronger than the thought some chill thing brushed while I still waited and while the old I had ever heard Zann play the work others, caught up the manuscript me, and I screamed, but my scream musician’s feverishly written sheets of another composer. and bore it toward the window. I could not be heard above that still continued to pile up, that I saw Louder and louder, wilder and followed the flying sheets in desper- hideous viol. Suddenly out of the Zann start as from the hint of a wilder, mounted the shrieking and ation, but they were gone before I blackness the madly sawing bow horrible shock. Unmistakably he was whining of that desperate viol. The reached the demolished panes. Then struck me, and I knew I was close to looking at the curtained window and player was dripping with an uncanny I remembered my old wish to gaze the player. I felt ahead, touched the listening shudderingly. Then I half perspiration and twisted like a from this window, the only window back of Zann’s chair, and then found fancied I heard a sound myself; monkey, always looking frantically in the Rue d’Auseil from which one and shook his shoulder in an effort though it was not a horrible sound, at the curtained window. In his fren- might see the slope beyond the wall, to bring him to his senses. but rather an exquisitely low and zied strains I could almost see and the city outspread beneath. It He did not respond, and still the infinitely distant musical note, shadowy satyrs and bacchanals was very dark, but the city’s lights viol shrieked on without slackening. suggesting a player in one of the dancing and whirling insanely always burned, and I expected to see I moved my hand to his head, whose neighboring houses, or in some through seething abysses of clouds them there amidst the rain and wind. mechanical nodding I was able to abode beyond the lofty wall over and smoke and lightning. And then Yet when I looked from that highest stop, and shouted in his ear that we which I had never been able to look. I thought I heard a shriller, steadier of all gable windows, looked while must both flee from the unknown Upon Zann the effect was terrible, note that was not from the viol; a the candles sputtered and the insane things of the night. But he neither for, dropping his pencil, suddenly he calm, deliberate, purposeful, mocking viol howled with the night-wind, I answered me nor abated the frenzy rose, seized his viol, and commenced note from far away in the West. saw no city spread below, and no of his unutterable music, while all to rend the night with the wildest At this juncture the shutter friendly lights gleamed from remem- through the garret strange currents playing I had ever heard from his began to rattle in a howling night bered streets, but only the blackness of wind seemed to dance in the dark- bow save when listening at the wind which had sprung up outside of space illimitable; unimagined ness and babel. When my hand barred door. as if in answer to the mad playing space alive with motion and music, touched his ear I shuddered, though It would be useless to describe within. Zann’s screaming viol now and having no semblance of anything I knew not why—knew not why till the playing of Erich Zann on that outdid itself emitting sounds I had on earth. And as I stood there I felt the still face; the ice-cold, stiff- dreadful night. It was more horrible never thought a viol could emit. The looking in terror, the wind blew out ened, unbreathing face whose glassy than anything I had ever overheard, shutter rattled more loudly, unfas- both the candles in that ancient eyes bulged uselessly into the void. because I could now see the expres- tened, and commenced slamming peaked garret, leaving me in savage And then, by some miracle, finding sion of his face, and could realize that against the window. Then the glass and impenetrable darkness with the door and the large wooden bolt, 192 193 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

I plunged wildly away from that glassy-eyed thing in the dark, and from the ghoulish howling of that accursed viol whose fury increased even as I plunged. Leaping, floating, flying down those endless stairs through the dark house; racing mindlessly out into the narrow, steep, and ancient street of steps and tottering houses; clattering down steps and over cobbles to the lower streets and the putrid canyon- walled river; panting across the great dark bridge to the broader, healthier streets and boulevards we know; all HERBERT WEST, Reanimator. these are terrible impressions that linger with me. And I recall that [return to table of contents] there was no wind, and that the moon was out, and that all the lights of the city twinkled. To be dead, to be truly dead, must be glorious. There are far worse things awaiting man than death. Despite my most careful searches —Count Dracula and investigations, I have never since been able to find the Rue d’Auseil. gone and the spell is broken, the But I am not wholly sorry; either for Part I. actual fear is greater. Memories and this or for the loss in undreamable f Herbert West, who was possibilities are ever more hideous abysses of the closely-written sheets my friend in college and than realities. which alone could have explained in after life, I can speak The first horrible incident of our the music of Erich Zann. onlyO with extreme terror. This acquaintance was the greatest shock terror is not due altogether to the I ever experienced, and it is only with sinister manner of his recent disap- reluctance that I repeat it. As I have pearance, but was engendered by said, it happened when we were in the whole nature of his life-work, the medical school where West had and first gained its acute form more already made himself notorious than seventeen years ago, when we through his wild theories on the were in the third year of our course nature of death and the possibility at the of overcoming it artificially. His Medical School in Arkham. While views, which were widely ridiculed he was with me, the wonder and by the faculty and by his fellow-stu- diabolism of his experiments fasci- dents, hinged on the essentially nated me utterly, and I was his mechanistic nature of life; and closest companion. Now that he is concerned means for operating the 194 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

organic machinery of mankind by in, a corpse fully equipped with eyes, and a soft voice, and it was were always a nuisance—even the calculated chemical action after the organs may with suitable measures uncanny to hear him dwelling on small guinea-pig bodies from the failure of natural processes. In his be set going again in the peculiar the relative merits of Christchurch slight clandestine experiments in experiments with various animating fashion known as life. That the Cemetery and the potter’s field. We West’s room at the boardinghouse. solutions, he had killed and treated psychic or intellectual life might be finally decided on the potter’s field, We followed the local death-no- immense numbers of rabbits, guin- impaired by the slight deterioration because practically every body in tices like ghouls, for our specimens ea-pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys, till of sensitive brain-cells which even Christchurch was embalmed, a thing demanded particular qualities. What he had become the prime nuisance a short period of death would be apt of course ruinous to West’s we wanted were corpses interred of the college. Several times he had to cause, West fully realised. It had researches. soon after death and without artifi- actually obtained signs of life in at first been his hope to find a I was by this time his active and cial preservation; preferably free animals supposedly dead; in many reagent which would restore vitality enthralled assistant, and helped him from malforming disease, and cases violent signs. But he soon saw before the actual advent of death, make all his decisions, not only certainly with all organs present. that the perfection of his process, if and only repeated failures on animals concerning the source of bodies but Accident victims were our best hope. indeed possible, would necessarily had shewn him that the natural and concerning a suitable place for our Not for many weeks did we hear of involve a lifetime of research. It like- artificial life-motions were incom- loathsome work. It was I who anything suitable; though we talked wise became clear that, since the patible. He then sought extreme thought of the deserted Chapman with morgue and hospital authori- same solution never worked alike on freshness in his specimens, injecting farmhouse beyond Meadow Hill, ties, ostensibly in the college’s different organic species, he would his solutions into the blood imme- where we fitted up on the ground interest, as often as we could without require human subjects for further diately after the extinction of life. It floor an operating room and a labo- exciting suspicion. We found that and more specialised progress. It was was this circumstance which made ratory, each with dark curtains to the college had first choice in every here that he first came into conflict the professors so carelessly sceptical, conceal our midnight doings. The case, so that it might be necessary with the college authorities, and was for they felt that true death had not place was far from any road, and in to remain in Arkham during the debarred from future experiments occurred in any case. They did not sight of no other house, yet precau- summer, when only the limited by no less a dignitary than the dean stop to view the matter closely and tions were none the less necessary, summer-school classes were held. In of the medical school himself—the reasoningly. since rumours of strange lights, the end, though, luck favoured us; learned and benevolent Dr. Allan It was not long after the faculty started by chance nocturnal roamers, for one day we heard of an almost Halsey, whose work in behalf of the had interdicted his work that West would soon bring disaster on our ideal case in the potter’s field; a stricken is recalled by every old resi- confided to me his resolution to get enterprise. It was agreed to call the brawny young workman drowned dent of Arkham. fresh human bodies in some manner, whole thing a chemical laboratory only the morning before in Summer’s I had always been exceptionally and continue in secret the experi- if discovery should occur. Gradually Pond, and buried at the town’s tolerant of West’s pursuits, and we ments he could no longer perform we equipped our sinister haunt of expense without delay or embalming. frequently discussed his theories, openly. To hear him discussing ways science with materials either That afternoon we found the new whose ramifications and corollaries and means was rather ghastly, for at purchased in Boston or quietly grave, and determined to begin work were almost infinite. Holding with the college we had never procured borrowed from the college—mate- soon after midnight. Haeckel that all life is a chemical anatomical specimens ourselves. rials carefully made unrecognisable It was a repulsive task that we and physical process, and that the Whenever the morgue proved inad- save to expert eyes—and provided undertook in the black small hours, so-called “soul” is a myth, my friend equate, two local negroes attended spades and picks for the many burials even though we lacked at that time believed that artificial reanimation to this matter, and they were seldom we should have to make in the cellar. the special horror of graveyards of the dead can depend only on the questioned. West was then a small, At the college we used an incinerator, which later experiences brought to condition of the tissues; and that slender, spectacled youth with deli- but the apparatus was too costly for us. We carried spades and oil dark unless actual decomposition has set cate features, yellow hair, pale blue our unauthorised laboratory. Bodies lanterns, for although electric torches 196 197 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

were then manufactured, they were dead man of the ideal kind, ready disposing of his ghastly prize. We into the starred abyss of the rural not as satisfactory as the tungsten for the solution as prepared according had that afternoon dug a grave in night. I think we screamed ourselves contrivances of today. The process to the most careful calculations and the cellar, and would have to fill it as we stumbled frantically toward of unearthing was slow and sordid— theories for human use. The tension by dawn—for although we had fixed the town, though as we reached the it might have been gruesomely poet- on our part became very great. We a lock on the house, we wished to outskirts we put on a semblance of ical if we had been artists instead of knew that there was scarcely a chance shun even the remotest risk of a restraint—just enough to seem like scientists—and we were glad when for anything like complete success, ghoulish discovery. Besides, the body belated revellers staggering home our spades struck wood. When the and could not avoid hideous fears at would not be even approximately from a debauch. pine box was fully uncovered, West possible grotesque results of partial fresh the next night. So taking the We did not separate, but scrambled down and removed the animation. Especially were we solitary acetylene lamp into the adja- managed to get to West’s room, lid, dragging out and propping up apprehensive concerning the mind cent laboratory, we left our silent where we whispered with the gas up the contents. I reached down and and impulses of the creature, since guest on the slab in the dark, and until dawn. By then we had calmed hauled the contents out of the grave, in the space following death some bent every energy to the mixing of ourselves a little with rational theo- and then both toiled hard to restore of the more delicate cerebral cells a new solution; the weighing and ries and plans for investigation, so the spot to its former appearance. might well have suffered deteriora- measuring supervised by West with that we could sleep through the The affair made us rather nervous, tion. I, myself, still held some curious an almost fanatical care. day—classes being disregarded. But especially the stiff form and vacant notions about the traditional “soul” The awful event was very that evening two items in the paper, face of our first trophy, but we of man, and felt an awe at the secrets sudden, and wholly unexpected. I wholly unrelated, made it again managed to remove all traces of our that might be told by one returning was pouring something from one impossible for us to sleep. The old visit. When we had patted down the from the dead. I wondered what test-tube to another, and West was deserted Chapman house had inex- last shovelful of earth, we put the sights this placid youth might have busy over the alcohol blast-lamp plicably burned to an amorphous specimen in a canvas sack and set seen in inaccessible spheres, and which had to answer for a Bunsen heap of ashes; that we could under- out for the old Chapman place what he could relate if fully restored burner in this gasless edifice, when stand because of the upset lamp. beyond Meadow Hill. to life. But my wonder was not over- from the pitch-black room we had Also, an attempt had been made to On an improvised dissect- whelming, since for the most part I left there burst the most appalling disturb a new grave in the potter’s ing-table in the old farmhouse, by shared the materialism of my friend. and daemoniac succession of cries field, as if by futile and spadeless the light of a powerful acetylene He was calmer than I as he forced a that either of us had ever heard. Not clawing at the earth. That we could lamp, the specimen was not very large quantity of his fluid into a vein more unutterable could have been not understand, for we had patted spectral looking. It had been a sturdy of the body’s arm, immediately the chaos of hellish sound if the pit down the mould very carefully. and apparently unimaginative youth binding the incision securely. itself had opened to release the agony And for seventeen years after of wholesome plebeian type—large- The waiting was gruesome, but of the damned, for in one inconceiv- that West would look frequently over framed, grey-eyed, and brown- West never faltered. Every now and able cacophony was centered all the his shoulder, and complain of fancied haired—a sound animal without then he applied his stethoscope to supernal terror and unnatural despair footsteps behind him. Now he has psychological subtleties, and prob- the specimen, and bore the negative of animate nature. Human it could disappeared. ably having vital processes of the results philosophically. After about not have been—it is not in man to simplest and healthiest sort. Now, three-quarters of an hour without make such sounds—and without a with the eyes closed, it looked more the least sign of life he disappoint- thought of our late employment or Part II. asleep than dead; though the expert edly pronounced the solution inad- its possible discovery, both West and shall never forget that hideous test of my friend soon left no doubt equate, but determined to make the I leaped to the nearest window like summer sixteen years ago, on that score. We had at last what most of his opportunity and try one stricken animals; overturning tubes, when like a noxious afrite from West had always longed for—a real change in the formula before lamp, and retorts, and vaulting madly theI halls of Eblis typhoid stalked 198 199 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

leeringly through Arkham. It is by not been quite fresh enough; it is supremely great work; a work which And then had come the scourge, that satanic scourge that most obvious that to restore normal he could of course conduct to suit grinning and lethal, from the night- recall the year, for truly terror mental attributes a body must be himself in later years, but which he mare caverns of Tartarus. West and brooded with bat-wings over the very fresh indeed; and the burning wished to begin while still possessed I had graduated about the time of piles of coffins in the tombs of of the old house had prevented us of the exceptional facilities of the its beginning, but had remained for Christchurch Cemetery; yet for me from burying the thing. It would university. That the tradition-bound additional work at the summer there is a greater horror in that have been better if we could have elders should ignore his singular school, so that we were in Arkham time—a horror known to me alone known it was underground. results on animals, and persist in when it broke with full daemoniac now that Herbert West has After that experience West had their denial of the possibility of rean- fury upon the town. Though not as disappeared. dropped his researches for some imation, was inexpressibly disgusting yet licenced physicians, we now had West and I were doing time; but as the zeal of the born and almost incomprehensible to a our degrees, and were pressed fran- post-graduate work in summer scientist slowly returned, he again youth of West’s logical temperament. tically into public service as the classes at the medical school of became importunate with the college Only greater maturity could help numbers of the stricken grew. The Miskatonic University, and my faculty, pleading for the use of the him understand the chronic mental situation was almost past manage- friend had attained a wide notoriety dissecting-room and of fresh human limitations of the “professor-doctor” ment, and deaths ensued too because of his experiments leading specimens for the work he regarded type—the product of generations of frequently for the local undertakers toward the revivification of the dead. as so overwhelmingly important. His pathetic Puritanism; kindly, consci- fully to handle. Burials without After the scientific slaughter of pleas, however, were wholly in vain; entious, and sometimes gentle and embalming were made in rapid uncounted small animals the freakish for the decision of Dr. Halsey was amiable, yet always narrow, intol- succession, and even the Christchurch work had ostensibly stopped by order inflexible, and the other professors erant, custom-ridden, and lacking in Cemetery receiving tomb was of our sceptical dean, Dr. Allan all endorsed the verdict of their perspective. Age has more charity crammed with coffins of the unem- Halsey; though West had continued leader. In the radical theory of rean- for these incomplete yet high-souled balmed dead. This circumstance was to perform certain secret tests in his imation they saw nothing but the characters, whose worst real vice is not without effect on West, who dingy boarding-house room, and immature vagaries of a youthful timidity, and who are ultimately thought often of the irony of the had on one terrible and unforgettable enthusiast whose slight form, yellow punished by general ridicule for their situation—so many fresh specimens, occasion taken a human body from hair, spectacled blue eyes, and soft intellectual sins—sins like yet none for his persecuted its grave in the potter’s field to a voice gave no hint of the super- Ptolemaism, Calvinism, anti-Dar- researches! We were frightfully over- deserted farmhouse beyond Meadow normal—almost diabolical—power winism, anti-Nietzscheism, and worked, and the terrific mental and Hill. of the cold brain within. I can see every sort of Sabbatarianism and nervous strain made my friend brood I was with him on that odious him now as he was then—and I sumptuary legislation. West, young morbidly. occasion, and saw him inject into shiver. He grew sterner of face, but despite his marvellous scientific But West’s gentle enemies were the still veins the elixir which he never elderly. And now Sefton acquirements, had scant patience no less harassed with prostrating thought would to some extent restore Asylum has had the mishap and with good Dr. Halsey and his erudite duties. College had all but closed, life’s chemical and physical processes. West has vanished. colleagues; and nursed an increasing and every doctor of the medical It had ended horribly—in a delirium West clashed disagreeably with resentment, coupled with a desire to faculty was helping to fight the of fear which we gradually came to Dr. Halsey near the end of our last prove his theories to these obtuse typhoid plague. Dr. Halsey in partic- attribute to our own overwrought undergraduate term in a wordy worthies in some striking and ular had distinguished himself in nerves—and West had never after- dispute that did less credit to him dramatic fashion. Like most youths, sacrificing service, applying his ward been able to shake off a than to the kindly dean in point of he indulged in elaborate daydreams extreme skill with whole-hearted maddening sensation of being courtesy. He felt that he was need- of revenge, triumph, and final energy to cases which many others haunted and hunted. The body had lessly and irrationally retarded in a magnanimous forgiveness. shunned because of danger or 200 201 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

apparent hopelessness. Before a a public affair, for the dean had surely burnt as soon as possible in the capa- daemon-soul of the plague itself. month was over the fearless dean been a public benefactor. After the cious fireplace. To the police we both Eight houses were entered by a had become a popular hero, though entombment we were all somewhat declared ignorance of our late nameless thing which strewed red he seemed unconscious of his fame depressed, and spent the afternoon companion’s identity. He was, West death in its wake—in all, seventeen as he struggled to keep from at the bar of the Commercial House; nervously said, a congenial stranger maimed and shapeless remnants of collapsing with physical fatigue and where West, though shaken by the whom we had met at some down- bodies were left behind by the voice- nervous exhaustion. West could not death of his chief opponent, chilled town bar of uncertain location. We less, sadistic monster that crept withhold admiration for the forti- the rest of us with references to his had all been rather jovial, and West abroad. A few persons had half seen tude of his foe, but because of this notorious theories. Most of the and I did not wish to have our it in the dark, and said it was white was even more determined to prove students went home, or to various pugnacious companion hunted and like a malformed ape or anthro- to him the truth of his amazing duties, as the evening advanced; but down. pomorphic fiend. It had not left doctrines. Taking advantage of the West persuaded me to aid him in That same night saw the begin- behind quite all that it had attacked, disorganisation of both college work “making a night of it.” West’s land- ning of the second Arkham horror— for sometimes it had been hungry. and municipal health regulations, he lady saw us arrive at his room about the horror that to me eclipsed the The number it had killed was four- managed to get a recently deceased two in the morning, with a third man plague itself. Christchurch Cemetery teen; three of the bodies had been body smuggled into the university between us; and told her husband was the scene of a terrible killing; a in stricken homes and had not been dissecting-room one night, and in that we had all evidently dined and watchman having been clawed to alive. my presence injected a new modifi- wined rather well. death in a manner not only too On the third night frantic bands cation of his solution. The thing Apparently this acidulous hideous for description, but raising of searchers, led by the police, actually opened its eyes, but only matron was right; for about 3 a.m. a doubt as to the human agency of captured it in a house on Crane stared at the ceiling with a look of the whole house was aroused by cries the deed. The victim had been seen Street near the Miskatonic campus. soul-petrifying horror before coming from West’s room, where alive considerably after midnight— They had organised the quest with collapsing into an inertness from when they broke down the door, they the dawn revealed the unutterable care, keeping in touch by means of which nothing could rouse it. West found the two of us unconscious on thing. The manager of a circus at the volunteer telephone stations, and said it was not fresh enough—the the blood-stained carpet, beaten, neighbouring town of Bolton was when someone in the college district hot summer air does not favour scratched, and mauled, and with the questioned, but he swore that no had reported hearing a scratching at corpses. That time we were almost broken remnants of West’s bottles beast had at any time escaped from a shuttered window, the net was caught before we incinerated the and instruments around us. Only an its cage. Those who found the body quickly spread. On account of the thing, and West doubted the advis- open window told what had become noted a trail of blood leading to the general alarm and precautions, there ability of repeating his daring misuse of our assailant, and many wondered receiving tomb, where a small pool were only two more victims, and the of the college laboratory. how he himself had fared after the of red lay on the concrete just outside capture was effected without major The peak of the epidemic was terrific leap from the second story the gate. A fainter trail led away casualties. The thing was finally reached in August. West and I were to the lawn which he must have toward the woods, but it soon gave stopped by a bullet, though not a almost dead, and Dr. Halsey did die made. There were some strange out. fatal one, and was rushed to the local on the 14th. The students all garments in the room, but West The next night devils danced on hospital amidst universal excitement attended the hasty funeral on the upon regaining consciousness said the roofs of Arkham, and unnatural and loathing. 15th, and bought an impressive they did not belong to the stranger, madness howled in the wind. For it had been a man. This wreath, though the latter was quite but were specimens collected for Through the fevered town had crept much was clear despite the nauseous overshadowed by the tributes sent bacteriological analysis in the course a curse which some said was greater eyes, the voiceless simianism, and by wealthy Arkham citizens and by of investigations on the transmission than the plague, and which some the daemoniac savagery. They the municipality itself. It was almost of germ diseases. He ordered them whispered was the embodied dressed its wound and carted it to 202 203 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

the asylum at Sefton, where it beat to relieve our poverty by setting up as patients with the local physicians. motions anew after they had been its head against the walls of a padded as general practitioners, we took We chose our house with the greatest stopped by the thing we call death, cell for sixteen years—until the great care not to say that we chose care, seizing at last on a rather but had encountered the most recent mishap, when it escaped our house because it was fairly well run-down cottage near the end of ghastly obstacles. The solution had under circumstances that few like to isolated, and as near as possible to Pond Street; five numbers from the to be differently compounded for mention. What had most disgusted the potter’s field. closest neighbour, and separated different types—what would serve the searchers of Arkham was the Reticence such as this is seldom from the local potter’s field by only for guinea-pigs would not serve for thing they noticed when the without a cause, nor indeed was ours; a stretch of meadow land, bisected human beings, and different human monster’s face was cleaned—the for our requirements were those by a narrow neck of the rather dense specimens required large mocking, unbelievable resemblance resulting from a life-work distinctly forest which lies to the north. The modifications. to a learned and self-sacrificing unpopular. Outwardly we were distance was greater than we wished, The bodies had to be exceed- martyr who had been entombed but doctors only, but beneath the surface but we could get no nearer house ingly fresh, or the slight decompo- three days before—the late Dr. Allan were aims of far greater and more without going on the other side of sition of brain tissue would render Halsey, public benefactor and dean terrible moment—for the essence of the field, wholly out of the factory perfect reanimation impossible. of the medical school of Miskatonic Herbert West’s existence was a quest district. We were not much Indeed, the greatest problem was to University. amid black and forbidden realms of displeased, however, since there were get them fresh enough—West had To the vanished Herbert West the unknown, in which he hoped to no people between us and our sinister had horrible experiences during his and to me the disgust and horror uncover the secret of life and restore source of supplies. The walk was a secret college researches with corpses were supreme. I shudder tonight as to perpetual animation the grave- trifle long, but we could haul our of doubtful vintage. The results of I think of it; shudder even more than yard’s cold clay. Such a quest silent specimens undisturbed. partial or imperfect animation were I did that morning when West demands strange materials, among Our practice was surprisingly much more hideous than were the muttered through his bandages, them fresh human bodies; and in large from the very first—large total failures, and we both held fear- “Damn it, it wasn’t quite fresh order to keep supplied with these enough to please most young doctors, some recollections of such things. enough!” indispensable things one must live and large enough to prove a bore Ever since our first daemoniac quietly and not far from a place of and a burden to students whose real session in the deserted farmhouse informal interment. interest lay elsewhere. The mill- on Meadow Hill in Arkham, we had Part III. West and I had met in college, hands were of somewhat turbulent felt a brooding menace; and West, t is uncommon to fire all six and I had been the only one to inclinations; and besides their many though a calm, blond, blue-eyed shots of a revolver with great sympathise with his hideous exper- natural needs, their frequent clashes scientific automaton in most respects, suddenness when one would iments. Gradually I had come to be and stabbing affrays gave us plenty often confessed to a shuddering probablyI be sufficient, but many his inseparable assistant, and now to do. But what actually absorbed sensation of stealthy pursuit. He half things in the life of Herbert West that we were out of college we had our minds was the secret laboratory felt that he was followed—a psycho- were uncommon. It is, for instance, to keep together. It was not easy to we had fitted up in the cellar—the logical delusion of shaken nerves, not often that a young physician find a good opening for two doctors laboratory with the long table under enhanced by the undeniably leaving college is obliged to conceal in company, but finally the influence the electric lights, where in the small disturbing fact that at least one of the principles which guide his of the university secured us a practice hours of the morning we often our reanimated specimens was still selection of a home and office, yet in Bolton—a factory town near injected West’s various solutions into alive—a frightful carnivorous thing that was the case with Herbert Arkham, the seat of the college. The the veins of the things we dragged in a padded cell at Sefton. Then West. When he and I obtained our Bolton Worsted Mills are the largest from the potter’s field. West was there was another—our first—whose degrees at the medical school of in the Miskatonic Valley, and their experimenting madly to find some- exact fate we had never learned. Miskatonic University, and sought polyglot employees are never popular thing which would start man’s vital We had fair luck with specimens 204 205 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

in Bolton—much better than in silent black form on the floor. The result was wearily anticli- About seven o’clock in the evening Arkham. We had not been settled a The match had been between mactic. Ghastly as our prize she had died, and her frantic husband week before we got an accident Kid O’Brien—a lubberly and now appeared, it was wholly unresponsive had made a frightful scene in his victim on the very night of burial, quaking youth with a most un-Hi- to every solution we injected in its efforts to kill West, whom he wildly and made it open its eyes with an bernian hooked nose—and Buck black arm; solutions prepared from blamed for not saving her life. amazingly rational expression before Robinson, “The Harlem Smoke.” experience with white specimens Friends had held him when he drew the solution failed. It had lost an The negro had been knocked out, only. So as the hour grew danger- a stiletto, but West departed amidst arm—if it had been a perfect body and a moment’s examination shewed ously near to dawn, we did as we had his inhuman shrieks, curses and we might have succeeded better. us that he would permanently remain done with the others—dragged the oaths of vengeance. In his latest Between then and the next January so. He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing across the meadows to the affliction the fellow seemed to have we secured three more; one total thing, with abnormally long arms neck of the woods near the potter’s forgotten his child, who was still failure, one case of marked muscular which I could not help calling fore field, and buried it there in the best missing as the night advanced. There motion, and one rather shivery legs, and a face that conjured up sort of grave the frozen ground was some talk of searching the thing—it rose of itself and uttered thoughts of unspeakable Congo would furnish. The grave was not woods, but most of the family’s a sound. Then came a period when secrets and tom-tom poundings very deep, but fully as good as that friends were busy with the dead luck was poor; interments fell off, under an eerie moon. The body must of the previous specimen—the thing woman and the screaming man. and those that did occur were of have looked even worse in life—but which had risen of itself and uttered Altogether, the nervous strain upon specimens either too diseased or too the world holds many ugly things. a sound. In the light of our dark West must have been tremendous. maimed for use. We kept track of all Fear was upon the whole pitiful lanterns we carefully covered it with Thoughts of the police and of the the deaths and their circumstances crowd, for they did not know what leaves and dead vines, fairly certain mad Italian both weighed heavily. with systematic care. the law would exact of them if the that the police would never find it We retired about eleven, but I One March night, however, we affair were not hushed up; and they in a forest so dim and dense. did not sleep well. Bolton had a unexpectedly obtained a specimen were grateful when West, in spite of The next day I was increasingly surprisingly good police force for so which did not come from the potter’s my involuntary shudders, offered to apprehensive about the police, for a small a town, and I could not help field. In Bolton the prevailing spirit get rid of the thing quietly—for a patient brought rumours of a fearing the mess which would ensue of Puritanism had outlawed the sport purpose I knew too well. suspected fight and death. West had if the affair of the night before were of boxing—with the usual result. There was bright moonlight still another source of worry, for he ever tracked down. It might mean Surreptitious and ill-conducted over the snowless landscape, but we had been called in the afternoon to the end of all our local work—and bouts among the mill-workers were dressed the thing and carried it home a case which ended very threaten- perhaps prison for both West and common, and occasionally profes- between us through the deserted ingly. An Italian woman had become me. I did not like those rumours of sional talent of low grade was streets and meadows, as we had hysterical over her missing child—a a fight which were floating about. imported. This late winter night carried a similar thing one horrible lad of five who had strayed off early After the clock had struck three the there had been such a match; night in Arkham. We approached in the morning and failed to appear moon shone in my eyes, but I turned evidently with disastrous results, the house from the field in the rear, for dinner—and had developed over without rising to pull down the since two timorous Poles had come took the specimen in the back door symptoms highly alarming in view shade. Then came the steady rattling to us with incoherently whispered and down the cellar stairs, and of an always weak heart. It was a very at the back door. entreaties to attend to a very secret prepared it for the usual experiment. foolish hysteria, for the boy had I lay still and somewhat dazed, and desperate case. We followed Our fear of the police was absurdly often run away before; but Italian but before long heard West’s rap on them to an abandoned barn, where great, though we had timed our trip peasants are exceedingly supersti- my door. He was clad in dress- the remnants of a crowd of fright- to avoid the solitary patrolman of tious, and this woman seemed as ing-gown and slippers, and had in ened foreigners were watching a that section. much harassed by omens as by facts. his hands a revolver and an electric 206 207 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

flashlight. From the revolver I knew one. West had never fully succeeded had risen violently, beaten us both that he was thinking more of the Part IV. because he had never been able to to unconsciousness, and run amuck crazed Italian than of the police. he scream of a dead man secure a corpse sufficiently fresh. in a shocking way before it could be “We’d better both go,” he whis- gave to me that acute and What he wanted were bodies from placed behind asylum bars; still pered. “It wouldn’t do not to answer added horror of Dr. which vitality had only just departed; another, a loathsome African it anyway, and it may be a patient—it THerbert West which harassed the bodies with every cell intact and monstrosity, had clawed out of its would be like one of those fools to latter years of our companionship. capable of receiving again the shallow grave and done a deed— try the back door.” It is natural that such a thing as a impulse toward that mode of motion West had had to shoot that object. So we both went down the stairs dead man’s scream should give called life. There was hope that this We could not get bodies fresh on tiptoe, with a fear partly justified horror, for it is obviously, not a second and artificial life might be enough to shew any trace of reason and partly that which comes only pleasing or ordinary occurrence; made perpetual by repetitions of the when reanimated, so had perforce from the soul of the weird small but I was used to similar experi- injection, but we had learned that created nameless horrors. It was hours. The rattling continued, ences, hence suffered on this occa- an ordinary natural life would not disturbing to think that one, perhaps growing somewhat louder. When sion only because of a particular respond to the action. To establish two, of our still lived—that we reached the door I cautiously circumstance. And, as I have the artificial motion, natural life thought haunted us shadowingly, till unbolted it and threw it open, and implied, it was not of the dead man must be extinct—the specimens finally West disappeared under as the moon streamed revealingly himself that I became afraid. must be very fresh, but genuinely frightful circumstances. But at the down on the form silhouetted there, Herbert West, whose associate dead. time of the scream in the cellar labo- West did a peculiar thing. Despite and assistant I was, possessed scien- The awesome quest had begun ratory of the isolated Bolton cottage, the obvious danger of attracting tific interests far beyond the usual when West and I were students at our fears were subordinate to our notice and bringing down on our routine of a village physician. That the Miskatonic University Medical anxiety for extremely fresh speci- heads the dreaded police investiga- was why, when establishing his prac- School in Arkham, vividly conscious mens. West was more avid than I, so tion—a thing which after all was tice in Bolton, he had chosen an for the first time of the thoroughly that it almost seemed to me that he mercifully averted by the relative isolated house near the potter’s field. mechanical nature of life. That was looked half-covetously at any very isolation of our cottage—my friend Briefly and brutally stated, West’s seven years before, but West looked healthy living physique. suddenly, excitedly, and unnecessarily sole absorbing interest was a secret scarcely a day older now—he was It was in July, 1910, that the bad emptied all six chambers of his study of the phenomena of life and small, blond, clean-shaven, soft- luck regarding specimens began to revolver into the nocturnal visitor. its cessation, leading toward the voiced, and spectacled, with only an turn. I had been on a long visit to For that visitor was neither reanimation of the dead through occasional flash of a cold blue eye to my parents in Illinois, and upon my Italian nor policeman. Looming injections of an excitant solution. tell of the hardening and growing return found West in a state of hideously against the spectral moon For this ghastly experimenting it was fanaticism of his character under the singular elation. He had, he told me was a gigantic misshapen thing not necessary to have a constant supply pressure of his terrible investigations. excitedly, in all likelihood solved the to be imagined save in night- of very fresh human bodies; very Our experiences had often been problem of freshness through an mares—a glassy-eyed, ink-black fresh because even the least decay hideous in the extreme; the results approach from an entirely new apparition nearly on all fours, covered hopelessly damaged the brain struc- of defective reanimation, when angle—that of artificial preservation. with bits of mould, leaves, and vines, ture, and human because we found lumps of graveyard clay had been I had known that he was working foul with caked blood, and having that the solution had to be galvanised into morbid, unnatural, on a new and highly unusual between its glistening teeth a snow- compounded differently for different and brainless motion by various embalming compound, and was not white, terrible, cylindrical object types of organisms. Scores of rabbits modifications of the vital solution. surprised that it had turned out well; terminating in a tiny hand. and guinea-pigs had been killed and One thing had uttered a but until he explained the details I treated, but their trail was a blind nerve-shattering scream; another was rather puzzled as to how such a 208 209 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

compound could help in our work, it clear that he was unknown in have no effect if any of the original working of consciousness to bodily since the objectionable staleness of Bolton, and a search of his pockets vitality were present. As West phenomena; consequently he looked the specimens was largely due to subsequently revealed him to be one proceeded to take preliminary steps, for no revelation of hideous secrets delay occurring before we secured Robert Leavitt of St. Louis, appar- I was impressed by the vast intricacy from gulfs and caverns beyond them. This, I now saw, West had ently without a family to make of the new experiment; an intricacy death’s barrier. I did not wholly clearly recognised; creating his instant inquiries about his disap- so vast that he could trust no hand disagree with him theoretically, yet embalming compound for future pearance. If this man could not be less delicate than his own. Forbidding held vague instinctive remnants of rather than immediate use, and restored to life, no one would know me to touch the body, he first injected the primitive faith of my forefathers; trusting to fate to supply again some of our experiment. We buried our a drug in the wrist just beside the so that I could not help eyeing the very recent and unburied corpse, as materials in a dense strip of woods place his needle had punctured when corpse with a certain amount of awe it had years before when we obtained between the house and the potter’s injecting the embalming compound. and terrible expectation. Besides—I the negro killed in the Bolton prize- field. If, on the other hand, he could This, he said, was to neutralise the could not extract from my memory fight. At last fate had been kind, so be restored, our fame would be bril- compound and release the system to that hideous, inhuman shriek we that on this occasion there lay in the liantly and perpetually established. a normal relaxation so that the rean- heard on the night we tried our first secret cellar laboratory a corpse So without delay West had injected imating solution might freely work experiment in the deserted farm- whose decay could not by any possi- into the body’s wrist the compound when injected. Slightly later, when house at Arkham. bility have begun. What would which would hold it fresh for use a change and a gentle tremor seemed Very little time had elapsed happen on reanimation, and whether after my arrival. The matter of the to affect the dead limbs, West stuffed before I saw the attempt was not to we could hope for a revival of mind presumably weak heart, which to my a pillow-like object violently over be a total failure. A touch of colour and reason, West did not venture to mind imperilled the success of our the twitching face, not withdrawing came to cheeks hitherto chalk-white, predict. The experiment would be a experiment, did not appear to trouble it until the corpse appeared quiet and spread out under the curiously landmark in our studies, and he had West extensively. He hoped at last and ready for our attempt at reani- ample stubble of sandy beard. West, saved the new body for my return, to obtain what he had never obtained mation. The pale enthusiast now who had his hand on the pulse of so that both might share the spec- before—a rekindled spark of reason applied some last perfunctory tests the left wrist, suddenly nodded tacle in accustomed fashion. and perhaps a normal, living for absolute lifelessness, withdrew significantly; and almost simultane- West told me how he had creature. satisfied, and finally injected into the ously a mist appeared on the mirror obtained the specimen. It had been So on the night of July 18, 1910, left arm an accurately measured inclined above the body’s mouth. a vigorous man; a well-dressed Herbert West and I stood in the amount of the vital elixir, prepared There followed a few spasmodic stranger just off the train on his way cellar laboratory and gazed at a during the afternoon with a greater muscular motions, and then an to transact some business with the white, silent figure beneath the care than we had used since college audible breathing and visible motion Bolton Worsted Mills. The walk dazzling arc-light. The embalming days, when our feats were new and of the chest. I looked at the closed through the town had been long, and compound had worked uncannily groping. I cannot express the wild, eyelids, and thought I detected a by the time the traveller paused at well, for as I stared fascinatedly at breathless suspense with which we quivering. Then the lids opened, our cottage to ask the way to the the sturdy frame which had lain two waited for results on this first really shewing eyes which were grey, calm, factories, his heart had become weeks without stiffening, I was fresh specimen—the first we could and alive, but still unintelligent and greatly overtaxed. He had refused a moved to seek West’s assurance that reasonably expect to open its lips in not even curious. stimulant, and had suddenly dropped the thing was really dead. This assur- rational speech, perhaps to tell of In a moment of fantastic whim dead only a moment later. The body, ance he gave readily enough; what it had seen beyond the unfath- I whispered questions to the as might be expected, seemed to reminding me that the reanimating omable abyss. reddening ears; questions of other West a heaven-sent gift. In his brief solution was never used without West was a materialist, believing worlds of which the memory might conversation the stranger had made careful tests as to life, since it could in no soul and attributing all the still be present. Subsequent terror 210 211 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

drove them from my mind, but I tow-head fiend—keep that damned gone to Ottawa and through a School at Arkham. It was in those think the last one, which I repeated, needle away from me!” colleague’s influence secured a college days that he had begun his was: “Where have you been?” I do medical commission as Major, I terrible experiments, first on small not yet know whether I was answered could not resist the imperious animals and then on human bodies or not, for no sound came from the Part V. persuasion of one determined that shockingly obtained. There was a well-shaped mouth; but I do know any men have related I should accompany him in my usual solution which he injected into the that at that moment I firmly thought hideous things, not capacity. veins of dead things, and if they were the thin lips moved silently, forming mentioned in print, When I say that Dr. West was fresh enough they responded in syllables which I would have vocal- Mwhich happened on the battlefields avid to serve in battle, I do not mean strange ways. He had had much ised as “only now” if that phrase had of the Great War. Some of these to imply that he was either naturally trouble in discovering the proper possessed any sense or relevancy. At things have made me faint, others warlike or anxious for the safety of formula, for each type of organism that moment, as I say, I was elated have convulsed me with devas- civilisation. Always an ice-cold intel- was found to need a stimulus espe- with the conviction that the one tating nausea, while still others lectual machine; slight, blond, blue- cially adapted to it. Terror stalked great goal had been attained; and have made me tremble and look eyed, and spectacled; I think he him when he reflected on his partial that for the first time a reanimated behind me in the dark; yet despite secretly sneered at my occasional failures; nameless things resulting corpse had uttered distinct words the worst of them I believe I can martial enthusiasms and censures of from imperfect solutions or from impelled by actual reason. In the next myself relate the most hideous supine neutrality. There was, bodies insufficiently fresh. A certain moment there was no doubt about thing of all—the shocking, the however, something he wanted in number of these failures had the triumph; no doubt that the solu- unnatural, the unbelievable horror embattled Flanders; and in order to remained alive—one was in an tion had truly accomplished, at least from the shadows. secure it had had to assume a military asylum while others had vanished— temporarily, its full mission of In 1915 I was a physician with exterior. What he wanted was not a and as he thought of conceivable yet restoring rational and articulate life the rank of First Lieutenant in a thing which many persons want, but virtually impossible eventualities he to the dead. But in that triumph Canadian regiment in Flanders, one something connected with the pecu- often shivered beneath his usual there came to me the greatest of all of many Americans to precede the liar branch of medical science which stolidity. horrors—not horror of the thing that government itself into the gigantic he had chosen quite clandestinely West had soon learned that spoke, but of the deed that I had struggle. I had not entered the army to follow, and in which he had absolute freshness was the prime witnessed and of the man with on my own initiative, but rather as achieved amazing and occasionally requisite for useful specimens, and whom my professional fortunes were a natural result of the enlistment of hideous results. It was, in fact, had accordingly resorted to frightful joined. the man whose indispensable assis- nothing more or less than an abun- and unnatural expedients in body- For that very fresh body, at last tant I was—the celebrated Boston dant supply of freshly killed men in snatching. In college, and during our writhing into full and terrifying surgical specialist, Dr. Herbert West. every stage of dismemberment. early practice together in the factory consciousness with eyes dilated at Dr. West had been avid for a chance Herbert West needed fresh town of Bolton, my attitude toward the memory of its last scene on earth, to serve as surgeon in a great war, bodies because his life-work was the him had been largely one of fasci- threw out its frantic hands in a life and when the chance had come, he reanimation of the dead. This work nated admiration; but as his boldness and death struggle with the air, and carried me with him almost against was not known to the fashionable in methods grew, I began to develop suddenly collapsing into a second my will. There were reasons why I clientele who had so swiftly built up a gnawing fear. I did not like the way and final dissolution from which could have been glad to let the war his fame after his arrival in Boston; he looked at healthy living bodies; there could be no return, screamed separate us; reasons why I found the but was only too well known to me, and then there came a nightmarish out the cry that will ring eternally practice of medicine and the who had been his closest friend and session in the cellar laboratory when in my aching brain: companionship of West more and sole assistant since the old days in I learned that a certain specimen had “Help! Keep off, you cursed little more irritating; but when he had Miskatonic University Medical been a living body when he secured 212 213 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

it. That was the first time he had physiological systems; and achieved were of a less public and philan- aeroplane piloted by the intrepid ever been able to revive the quality some hideous preliminary results in thropic kind, requiring many expla- Lieut. Ronald Hill, only to be shot of rational thought in a corpse; and the form of never-dying, artificially nations of sounds which seemed down when directly over his desti- his success, obtained at such a loath- nourished tissue obtained from the peculiar even amidst that babel of nation. The fall had been spectacular some cost, had completely hardened nearly hatched eggs of an indescrib- the damned. Among these sounds and awful; Hill was unrecognisable him. able tropical reptile. Two biological were frequent revolver-shots—surely afterward, but the wreck yielded up Of his methods in the inter- points he was exceedingly anxious not uncommon on a battlefield, but the great surgeon in a nearly decap- vening five years I dare not speak. I to settle—first, whether any amount distinctly uncommon in an hospital. itated but otherwise intact condition. was held to him by sheer force of of consciousness and rational action Dr. West’s reanimated specimens West had greedily seized the lifeless fear, and witnessed sights that no be possible without the brain, were not meant for long existence thing which had once been his friend human tongue could repeat. proceeding from the spinal cord and or a large audience. Besides human and fellow-scholar; and I shuddered Gradually I came to find Herbert various nerve-centres; and second, tissue, West employed much of the when he finished severing the head, West himself more horrible than whether any kind of ethereal, intan- reptile embryo tissue which he had placed it in his hellish vat of pulpy anything he did—that was when it gible relation distinct from the mate- cultivated with such singular results. reptile-tissue to preserve it for future dawned on me that his once normal rial cells may exist to link the It was better than human material experiments, and proceeded to treat scientific zeal for prolonging life had surgically separated parts of what for maintaining life in organless the decapitated body on the oper- subtly degenerated into a mere has previously been a single living fragments, and that was now my ating table. He injected new blood, morbid and ghoulish curiosity and organism. All this research work friend’s chief activity. In a dark joined certain veins, arteries, and secret sense of charnel picturesque- required a prodigious supply of corner of the laboratory, over a queer nerves at the headless neck, and ness. His interest became a hellish freshly slaughtered human flesh— incubating burner, he kept a large closed the ghastly aperture with and perverse addiction to the repel- and that was why Herbert West had covered vat full of this reptilian cell- engrafted skin from an unidentified lently and fiendishly abnormal; he entered the Great War. matter, which multiplied and grew specimen which had borne an offi- gloated calmly over artificial The phantasmal, unmentionable puffily and hideously. cer’s uniform. I knew what he monstrosities which would make thing occurred one midnight late in On the night of which I speak wanted—to see if this highly organ- most healthy men drop dead from March, 1915, in a field hospital we had a splendid new specimen—a ised body could exhibit, without its fright and disgust; he became, behind behind the lines of St. Eloi. I wonder man at once physically powerful and head, any of the signs of mental life his pallid intellectuality, a fastidious even now if it could have been other of such high mentality that a sensi- which had distinguished Sir Eric Baudelaire of physical experi- than a daemoniac dream of delirium. tive nervous system was assured. It Moreland Clapham-Lee. Once a ment—a languid Elagabalus of the West had a private laboratory in an was rather ironic, for he was the student of reanimation, this silent tombs. east room of the barn-like temporary officer who had helped West to his trunk was now gruesomely called Dangers he met unflinchingly; edifice, assigned him on his plea that commission, and who was now to upon to exemplify it. crimes he committed unmoved. I he was devising new and radical have been our associate. Moreover, I can still see Herbert West think the climax came when he had methods for the treatment of hith- he had in the past secretly studied under the sinister electric light as he proved his point that rational life erto hopeless cases of maiming. the theory of reanimation to some injected his reanimating solution can be restored, and had sought new There he worked like a butcher in extent under West. Major Sir Eric into the arm of the headless body. worlds to conquer by experimenting the midst of his gory wares—I could Moreland Clapham-Lee, D.S.O., The scene I cannot describe—I on the reanimation of detached parts never get used to the levity with was the greatest surgeon in our divi- should faint if I tried it, for there is of bodies. He had wild and original which he handled and classified sion, and had been hastily assigned madness in a room full of classified ideas on the independent vital prop- certain things. At times he actually to the St. Eloi sector when news of charnel things, with blood and lesser erties of organic cells and nerve- did perform marvels of surgery for the heavy fighting reached head- human debris almost ankle-deep on tissue separated from natural the soldiers; but his chief delights quarters. He had come in an the slimy floor, and with hideous 214 215 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

reptilian abnormalities sprouting, the building in a cataclysm of long been too extensive to admit of especially sensitive brain and espe- bubbling, and baking over a winking German shell-fire—who can gainsay perfect secrecy; but the final cially vigorous physique. Toward the bluish-green spectre of dim flame in it, since West and I were the only soul-shattering catastrophe held last I became acutely afraid of West, a far corner of black shadows. proved survivors? West liked to think elements of daemoniac phantasy for he began to look at me that way. The specimen, as West repeat- that before his recent disappearance, which make even me doubt the People did not seem to notice his edly observed, had a splendid but there were times when he could reality of what I saw. glances, but they noticed my fear; nervous system. Much was expected not; for it was queer that we both I was West’s closest friend and and after his disappearance used that of it; and as a few twitching motions had the same hallucination. The only confidential assistant. We had as a basis for some absurd began to appear, I could see the hideous occurrence itself was very met years before, in medical school, suspicions. feverish interest on West’s face. He simple, notable only for what it and from the first I had shared his West, in reality, was more afraid was ready, I think, to see proof of his implied. terrible researches. He had slowly than I; for his abominable pursuits increasingly strong opinion that The body on the table had risen tried to perfect a solution which, entailed a life of furtiveness and consciousness, reason, and person- with a blind and terrible groping, injected into the veins of the newly dread of every shadow. Partly it was ality can exist independently of the and we had heard a sound. I should deceased, would restore life; a labour the police he feared; but sometimes brain—that man has no central not call that sound a voice, for it was demanding an abundance of fresh his nervousness was deeper and more connective spirit, but is merely a too awful. And yet its timbre was corpses and therefore involving the nebulous, touching on certain inde- machine of nervous matter, each not the most awful thing about it. most unnatural actions. Still more scribable things into which he had section more or less complete in Neither was its message—it had shocking were the products of some injected a morbid life, and from itself. In one triumphant demonstra- merely screamed, “Jump, Ronald, for of the experiments—grisly masses which he had not seen that life tion West was about to relegate the God’s sake, jump!” The awful thing of flesh that had been dead, but that depart. He usually finished his mystery of life to the category of was its source. West waked to a blind, brainless, experiments with a revolver, but a myth. The body now twitched more For it had come from the large nauseous animation. These were the few times he had not been quick vigorously, and beneath our avid eyes covered vat in that ghoulish corner usual results, for in order to reawaken enough. There was that first spec- commenced to heave in a frightful of crawling black shadows. the mind it was necessary to have imen on whose rifled grave marks way. The arms stirred disquietingly, specimens so absolutely fresh that of clawing were later seen. There was the legs drew up, and various muscles no decay could possibly affect the also that Arkham professor’s body contracted in a repulsive kind of Part VI. delicate brain-cells. which had done cannibal things writhing. Then the headless thing hen Dr. Herbert West This need for very fresh corpses before it had been captured and threw out its arms in a gesture which disappeared a year ago, had been West’s moral undoing. thrust unidentified into a madhouse was unmistakably one of despera- the Boston police They were hard to get, and one awful cell at Sefton, where it beat the walls tion—an intelligent desperation questionedW me closely. They day he had secured his specimen for sixteen years. Most of the other apparently sufficient to prove every suspected that I was holding some- while it was still alive and vigorous. possibly surviving results were things theory of Herbert West. Certainly, thing back, and perhaps suspected A struggle, a needle, and a powerful less easy to speak of—for in later the nerves were recalling the man’s graver things; but I could not tell alkaloid had transformed it to a very years West’s scientific zeal had last act in life; the struggle to get free them the truth because they would fresh corpse, and the experiment had degenerated to an unhealthy and of the falling aeroplane. not have believed it. They knew, succeeded for a brief and memorable fantastic mania, and he had spent What followed, I shall never indeed, that West had been moment; but West had emerged his chief skill in vitalising not entire positively know. It may have been connected with activities beyond with a soul calloused and seared, and human bodies but isolated parts of wholly an hallucination from the the credence of ordinary men; for a hardened eye which sometimes bodies, or parts joined to organic shock caused at that instant by the his hideous experiments in the glanced with a kind of hideous and matter other than human. It had sudden and complete destruction of reanimation of dead bodies had calculating appraisal at men of become fiendishly disgusting by the 216 217 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

time he disappeared; many of the that we two were the only survivors. new timidity conquered his natural face was handsome to the point of experiments could not even be He used to make shuddering conjec- curiosity, and he betrayed his degen- radiant beauty, but had shocked the hinted at in print. The Great War, tures about the possible actions of a erating fibre by ordering the masonry superintendent when the hall light through which both of us served as headless physician with the power left intact and plastered over. Thus fell on it—for it was a wax face with surgeons, had intensified this side of of reanimating the dead. it remained till that final hellish eyes of painted glass. Some nameless West. West’s last quarters were in a night; part of the walls of the secret accident had befallen this man. A In saying that West’s fear of his venerable house of much elegance, laboratory. I speak of West’s deca- larger man guided his steps; a repel- specimens was nebulous, I have in overlooking one of the oldest bury- dence, but must add that it was a lent hulk whose bluish face seemed mind particularly its complex nature. ing-grounds in Boston. He had purely mental and intangible thing. half eaten away by some unknown Part of it came merely from knowing chosen the place for purely symbolic Outwardly he was the same to the malady. The speaker had asked for of the existence of such nameless and fantastically aesthetic reasons, last—calm, cold, slight, and yellow- the custody of the cannibal monster monsters, while another part arose since most of the interments were haired, with spectacled blue eyes and committed from Arkham sixteen from apprehension of the bodily of the colonial period and therefore a general aspect of youth which years years before; and upon being refused, harm they might under certain of little use to a scientist seeking very and fears seemed never to change. gave a signal which precipitated a circumstances do him. Their disap- fresh bodies. The laboratory was in He seemed calm even when he shocking riot. The fiends had beaten, pearance added horror to the situa- a sub-cellar secretly constructed by thought of that clawed grave and trampled, and bitten every attendant tion—of them all, West knew the imported workmen, and contained looked over his shoulder; even when who did not flee; killing four and whereabouts of only one, the pitiful a huge incinerator for the quiet and he thought of the carnivorous thing finally succeeding in the liberation asylum thing. Then there was a more complete disposal of such bodies, or that gnawed and pawed at Sefton of the monster. Those victims who subtle fear—a very fantastic sensa- fragments and synthetic mockeries bars. could recall the event without tion resulting from a curious exper- of bodies, as might remain from the The end of Herbert West began hysteria swore that the creatures had iment in the Canadian army in 1915. morbid experiments and unhallowed one evening in our joint study when acted less like men than like unthink- West, in the midst of a severe battle, amusements of the owner. During he was dividing his curious glance able automata guided by the had reanimated Major Sir Eric the excavation of this cellar the between the newspaper and me. A wax-faced leader. By the time help Moreland Clapham-Lee, D.S.O., a workmen had struck some exceed- strange headline item had struck at could be summoned, every trace of fellow-physician who knew about ingly ancient masonry; undoubtedly him from the crumpled pages, and the men and of their mad charge his experiments and could have connected with the old bury- a nameless titan claw had seemed to had vanished. duplicated them. The head had been ing-ground, yet far too deep to corre- reach down through sixteen years. From the hour of reading this removed, so that the possibilities of spond with any known sepulchre Something fearsome and incredible item until midnight, West sat almost quasi-intelligent life in the trunk therein. After a number of calcula- had happened at Sefton Asylum fifty paralysed. At midnight the doorbell might be investigated. Just as the tions West decided that it repre- miles away, stunning the neighbour- rang, startling him fearfully. All the building was wiped out by a German sented some secret chamber beneath hood and baffling the police. In the servants were asleep in the attic, so shell, there had been a success. The the tomb of the Averills, where the small hours of the morning a body I answered the bell. As I have told trunk had moved intelligently; and, last interment had been made in of silent men had entered the the police, there was no wagon in unbelievable to relate, we were both 1768. I was with him when he grounds, and their leader had aroused the street, but only a group of sickeningly sure that articulate studied the nitrous, dripping walls the attendants. He was a menacing strange-looking figures bearing a sounds had come from the detached laid bare by the spades and mattocks military figure who talked without large square box which they depos- head as it lay in a shadowy corner of of the men, and was prepared for the moving his lips and whose voice ited in the hallway after one of them the laboratory. The shell had been gruesome thrill which would attend seemed almost ventriloquially had grunted in a highly unnatural merciful, in a way—but West could the uncovering of centuried grave-se- connected with an immense black voice, “Express—prepaid.” They filed never feel as certain as he wished, crets; but for the first time West’s case he carried. His expressionless out of the house with a jerky tread, 218 219 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1921 • HERBERT WEST, Reanimator

and as I watched them go I had an electric lights went out and I saw madman or a murderer—probably odd idea that they were turning outlined against some phosphores- I am mad. But I might not be mad toward the ancient cemetery on cence of the nether world a horde if those accursed tomb-legions had which the back of the house abutted. of silent toiling things which only not been so silent. When I slammed the door after insanity—or worse—could create. them West came downstairs and Their outlines were human, semi- looked at the box. It was about two human, fractionally human, and not feet square, and bore West’s correct human at all—the horde was name and present address. It also grotesquely heterogeneous. They bore the inscription, “From Eric were removing the stones quietly, Moreland Clapham-Lee, St. Eloi, one by one, from the centuried wall. Flanders.” Six years before, in And then, as the breach became large Flanders, a shelled hospital had enough, they came out into the labo- fallen upon the headless reanimated ratory in single file; led by a talking trunk of Dr. Clapham-Lee, and upon thing with a beautiful head made of the detached head which— wax. A sort of mad-eyed monstrosity perhaps—had uttered articulate behind the leader seized on Herbert sounds. West. West did not resist or utter a West was not even excited now. sound. Then they all sprang at him His condition was more ghastly. and tore him to pieces before my Quickly he said, “It’s the finish—but eyes, bearing the fragments away let’s incinerate—this.” We carried into that subterranean vault of fabu- the thing down to the laboratory— lous abominations. West’s head was listening. I do not remember many carried off by the wax-headed leader, particulars—you can imagine my who wore a Canadian officer’s state of mind—but it is a vicious lie uniform. As it disappeared I saw that to say it was Herbert West’s body the blue eyes behind the spectacles which I put into the incinerator. We were hideously blazing with their both inserted the whole unopened first touch of frantic, visible emotion. wooden box, closed the door, and Servants found me unconscious started the electricity. Nor did any in the morning. West was gone. The sound come from the box, after all. incinerator contained only uniden- It was West who first noticed tifiable ashes. Detectives have ques- the falling plaster on that part of the tioned me, but what can I say? The wall where the ancient tomb masonry Sefton tragedy they will not connect had been covered up. I was going to with West; not that, nor the men run, but he stopped me. Then I saw with the box, whose existence they a small black aperture, felt a ghoulish deny. I told them of the vault, and wind of ice, and smelled the charnel they pointed to the unbroken plaster bowels of a putrescent earth. There wall and laughed. So I told them no was no sound, but just then the more. They imply that I am either a 220 221

1922:

CROSSING NEW THRESHOLDS.

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he start of 1922 saw young fictional mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, H.P. Lovecraft in the which likely has better name recog- middle of one of the most nition than Lovecraft himself— Tproductive phases of his life. He made its literary debut, in “The was in the middle of the series of Hound.” In “Hypnos,” written in commissioned stories later titled March of that year, Lovecraft “Herbert West, Reanimator.” reaches something of a pinnacle of Although the publisher had dark dream-cycle bleakness. become remarkably tardy with his In April of 1922, at the invita- payments for each episode, tion of his not-quite-yet-girlfriend, payment did eventually come, and Sonia Greene, Lovecraft came to when the assignment ended, he New York City for the first time; was commissioned to start another Sonia and various other amateur- serial in Home Brew magazine— press cronies had assured him it was which became “The Lurking Fear.” the place to come to level up his He contributed copiously to the professional writing career. He didn’t journals and publications of his come to stay, not at first; it was more amateur-press friends. Also, 1922 of a scouting trip. He joined several was the year in which the other amateur-press writers there, Necronomicon—the fictional book along with a young weird-fiction of black magic penned by the newbie named . H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

Lovecraft and Hub Club missed him greatly, and hinted of a colleague Samuel Loveman stayed hoped-for marriage proposal down in Greene’s apartment while she the line. demurely stayed in a neighbor’s guest room, and they explored the big city for days. In 1922, Lovecraft also discov- ered , the fellow weird-fictioneer and stunningly gifted poet from northern California, whose artwork would feature in later stories and who would later become, with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, one of the “Three Musketeers of Weird Tales.” HYPNOS. Something else happened to Lovecraft in 1922, too. He had [return to table of contents] bestowed upon him what he claimed was his first kiss, from Sonia Greene, Apropos of sleep, that sinister adventure of all our nights, we may say that under rather astonishing (not to men go to bed daily with an audacity that would be incomprehensible if we mention goofily romantic) circum- did not know that it is the result of ignorance of the danger. stances. He had helped her with a —Baudelaire story plot (for the story that would become “The Horror at Martin’s ay the merciful gods, if which may yet be mine! Beach,” published under Sonia’s indeed there be such, We met, I recall, in a railway by-line in the November 1923 issue guard those hours when station, where he was the center of of Weird Tales). She stayed up all Mno power of the will, or drug that a crowd of the vulgarly curious. He night hashing it out, and the next the cunning of man devises, can was unconscious, having fallen in a morning, upon reading her synopsis, keep me from the chasm of sleep. kind of convulsion which imparted Lovecraft was so enthusiastic about Death is merciful, for there is no to his slight black-clad body a it that the exhausted, punchy Sonia return therefrom, but with him strange rigidity. I think he was then forgot herself so much as to throw who has come back out of the approaching forty years of age, for her arms around him and kiss him. nethermost chambers of night, there were deep lines in the face, wan Lovecraft, of course, turned beet red haggard and knowing, peace rests and hollow-cheeked, but oval and with fright and embarrassment and nevermore. Fool that I was to actually beautiful; and touches of disconcertedness, but it was pretty plunge with such unsanctioned gray in the thick, waving hair and clear that he liked it. frensy into mysteries no man was small full beard which had once been For her part, Sonia was thor- meant to penetrate; fool or god of the deepest black. His brow oughly charmed. After Lovecraft that he was—my only friend, who was white as the marble of Pentelicus, returned to Providence, she confided led me and went before me, and and of a height and breadth almost in several close friends that she who in the end passed into terrors god-like. 224 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • HYPNOS

I said to myself, with all the to common men, and but once or best convey the general character of his tongue, and which made me burn ardor of a sculptor, that this man was twice in the lifetime of imaginative our experiences by calling them the paper and look affrightedly out a faun’s statue out of antique Hellas, men. The cosmos of our waking plungings or soarings; for in every of the window at the spangled night dug from a temple’s ruins and knowledge, born from such an period of revelation some part of our sky. I will hint—only hint—that he brought somehow to life in our universe as a bubble is born from the minds broke boldly away from all had designs which involved the stifling age only to feel the chill and pipe of a jester, touches it only as that is real and present, rushing aeri- rulership of the visible universe and pressure of devastating years. And such a bubble may touch its sardonic ally along shocking, unlighted, and more; designs whereby the earth and when he opened his immense, source when sucked back by the jest- fear-haunted abysses, and occasion- the stars would move at his sunken, and wildly luminous black er’s whim. Men of learning suspect ally tearing through certain well- command, and the destinies of all eyes I knew he would be thenceforth it little and ignore it mostly. Wise marked and typical obstacles living things be his. I affirm—I my only friend—the only friend of men have interpreted dreams, and describable only as viscous, uncouth swear—that I had no share in these one who had never possessed a friend the gods have laughed. One man clouds of vapors. extreme aspirations. Anything my before—for I saw that such eyes with Oriental eyes has said that all In these black and bodiless friend may have said or written to must have looked fully upon the time and space are relative, and men flights we were sometimes alone and the contrary must be erroneous, for grandeur and the terror of realms have laughed. But even that man sometimes together. When we were I am no man of strength to risk the beyond normal consciousness and with Oriental eyes has done no more together, my friend was always far unmentionable spheres by which reality; realms which I had cherished than suspect. I had wished and tried ahead; I could comprehend his pres- alone one might achieve success. in fancy, but vainly sought. So as I to do more than suspect, and my ence despite the absence of form by There was a night when winds drove the crowd away I told him he friend had tried and partly succeeded. a species of pictorial memory from unknown spaces whirled us must come home with me and be Then we both tried together, and whereby his face appeared to me, irresistibly into limitless vacum my teacher and leader in unfathomed with exotic drugs courted terrible golden from a strange light and beyond all thought and entity. mysteries, and he assented without and forbidden dreams in the tower frightful with its weird beauty, its Perceptions of the most madden- speaking a word. Afterward I found studio chamber of the old manor- anomalously youthful cheeks, its ingly untransmissible sort thronged that his voice was music—the music house in hoary Kent. burning eyes, its Olympian brow, upon us; perceptions of infinity of deep viols and of crystalline Among the agonies of these and its shadowing hair and growth which at the time convulsed us with spheres. We talked often in the night, after days is that chief of torments— of beard. joy, yet which are now partly lost to and in the day, when I chiseled busts inarticulateness. What I learned and Of the progress of time we kept my memory and partly incapable of of him and carved miniature heads saw in those hours of impious explo- no record, for time had become to presentation to others. Viscous in ivory to immortalize his different ration can never be told—for want us the merest illusion. I know only obstacles were clawed through in expressions. of symbols or suggestions in any that there must have been something rapid succession, and at length I felt Of our studies it is impossible language. I say this because from first very singular involved, since we came that we had been borne to realms of to speak, since they held so slight a to last our discoveries partook only at length to marvel why we did not greater remoteness than any we had connection with anything of the of the nature of sensations; sensa- grow old. Our discourse was unholy, previously known. world as living men conceive it. They tions correlated with no impression and always hideously ambitious—no My friend was vastly in advance were of that vaster and more which the nervous system of normal god or demon could have aspired to as we plunged into this awesome appalling universe of dim entity and humanity is capable of receiving. discoveries and conquest like those ocean of virgin aether, and I could consciousness which lies deeper than They were sensations, yet within which we planned in whispers. I see the sinister exultation on his matter, time, and space, and whose them lay unbelievable elements of shiver as I speak of them, and dare floating, luminous, too-youthful existence we suspect only in certain time and space—things which at not be explicit; though I will say that memory-face. Suddenly that face forms of sleep—those rare dreams bottom possess no distinct and defi- my friend once wrote on paper a became dim and quickly disappeared, beyond dreams which come never nite existence. Human utterance can wish which he dared not utter with and in a brief space I found myself 226 227 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • HYPNOS

projected against an obstacle which was right, I soon learned from the Midwinter evenings seemed distant city noises muffled by fog I could not penetrate. It was like the unutterable fear which engulfed me least dreadful to him. Only after two and space; and, worst of all, the deep, others, yet incalculably denser; a whenever consciousness lapsed. years did I connect this fear with steady, sinister breathing of my sticky clammy mass, if such terms After each short and inevitable anything in particular; but then I friend on the couch—a rhythmical can be applied to analogous qualities sleep I seemed older, whilst my began to see that he must be looking breathing which seemed to measure in a non-material sphere. friend aged with a rapidity almost at a special spot on the celestial vault moments of supernal fear and agony I had, I felt, been halted by a shocking. It is hideous to see wrin- whose position at different times for his spirit as it wandered in barrier which my friend and leader kles form and hair whiten almost corresponded to the direction of his spheres forbidden, unimagined, and had successfully passed. Struggling before one’s eyes. Our mode of life glance—a spot roughly marked by hideously remote. anew, I came to the end of the drug- was now totally altered. Heretofore the constellation Corona Borealis. The tension of my vigil became dream and opened my physical eyes a recluse so far as I know—his true We now had a studio in London, oppressive, and a wild train of trivial to the tower studio in whose oppo- name and origin never having passed never separating, but never discussing impressions and associations site corner reclined the pallid and his lips—my friend now became the days when we had sought to thronged through my almost still unconscious form of my fellow frantic in his fear of solitude. At plumb the mysteries of the unreal unhinged mind. I heard a clock strike dreamer, weirdly haggard and wildly night he would not be alone, nor world. We were aged and weak from somewhere—not ours, for that was beautiful as the moon shed gold- would the company of a few persons our drugs, dissipations, and nervous not a striking clock—and my morbid green light on his marble features. calm him. His sole relief was overstrain, and the thinning hair and fancy found in this a new start- Then, after a short interval, the obtained in revelry of the most beard of my friend had become ing-point for idle wanderings. form in the corner stirred; and may general and boisterous sort; so that snow-white. Our freedom from long Clocks—time—space—infinity— pitying heaven keep from my sight few assemblies of the young and gay sleep was surprising, for seldom did and then my fancy reverted to the and sound another thing like that were unknown to us. we succumb more than an hour or locale as I reflected that even now, which took place before me. I cannot Our appearance and age seemed two at a time to the shadow which beyond the roof and the fog and the tell you how he shrieked, or what to excite in most cases a ridicule had now grown so frightful a menace. rain and the atmosphere, Corona vistas of unvisitable hells gleamed which I keenly resented, but which Then came one January of fog Borealis was rising in the northeast. for a second in black eyes crazed my friend considered a lesser evil and rain, when money ran low and Corona Borealis, which my friend with fright. I can only say that I than solitude. Especially was he drugs were hard to buy. My statues had appeared to dread, and whose fainted, and did not stir till he afraid to be out of doors alone when and ivory heads were all sold, and I scintillant semicircle of stars must himself recovered and shook me in the stars were shining, and if forced had no means to purchase new mate- even now be glowing unseen through his frensy for someone to keep away to this condition he would often rials, or energy to fashion them even the measureless abysses of aether. the horror and desolation. glance furtively at the sky as if had I possessed them. We suffered All at once my feverishly sensitive That was the end of our volun- hunted by some monstrous thing terribly, and on a certain night my ears seemed to detect a new and tary searchings in the caverns of therein. He did not always glance at friend sank into a deep-breathing wholly distinct component in the dream. Awed, shaken, and the same place in the sky—it seemed sleep from which I could not awaken soft medley of drug-magnified portentous, my friend who had been to be a different place at different him. I can recall the scene now—the sounds—a low and damnably insis- beyond the barrier warned me that times. On spring evenings it would desolate, pitch-black garret studio tent whine from very far away; we must never venture within those be low in the northeast. In the under the eaves with the rain beating droning, clamoring, mocking, calling, realms again. What he had seen, he summer it would be nearly overhead. down; the ticking of our lone clock; from the northeast. dared not tell me; but he said from In the autumn it would be in the the fancied ticking of our watches But it was not that distant whine his wisdom that we must sleep as northwest. In winter it would be in as they rested on the dressing-table; which robbed me of my faculties and little as possible, even if drugs were the east, but mostly if in the small the creaking of some swaying shutter set upon my soul such a seal of fright necessary to keep us awake. That he hours of morning. in a remote part of the house; certain as may never in life be removed; not 228 229 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • HYPNOS

that which drew the shrieks and of shrieking epilepsy which brought friend; the friend who led me on to excited the convulsions which caused the lodgers and the police. Never madness and wreckage; a godlike lodgers and police to break down could I tell, try as I might, what it head of such marble as only old the door. It was not what I heard, actually was that I saw; nor could Hellas could yield, young with the but what I saw; for in that dark, the still face tell, for although it must youth that is outside time, and with locked, shuttered, and curtained have seen more than I did, it will beauteous bearded face, curved, room there appeared from the black never speak again. But always I shall smiling lips, Olympian brow, and northeast corner a shaft of horrible guard against the mocking and insa- dense locks waving and poppy- red-gold light—a shaft which bore tiate Hypnos, lord of sleep, against crowned. They say that that haunting with it no glow to disperse the dark- the night sky, and against the mad memory-face is modeled from my ness, but which streamed only upon ambitions of knowledge and own, as it was at twenty-five; but the recumbent head of the troubled philosophy. upon the marble base is carven a sleeper, bringing out in hideous Just what happened is unknown, single name in the letters of duplication the luminous and for not only was my own mind Attica—HYPNOS. strangely youthful memory-face as unseated by the strange and hideous I had known it in dreams of abysmal thing, but others were tainted with space and unshackled time, when a forgetfulness which can mean my friend had pushed behind the nothing if not madness. They have barrier to those secret, innermost said, I know not for what reason, and forbidden caverns of that I never had a friend; but that nightmare. art, philosophy, and insanity had And as I looked, I beheld the filled all my tragic life. The lodgers head rise, the black, liquid, and deep- and police on that night soothed me, sunken eyes open in terror, and the and the doctor administered some- thin, shadowed lips part as if for a thing to quiet me, nor did anyone scream too frightful to be uttered. see what a nightmare event had There dwelt in that ghastly and flex- taken place. My stricken friend ible face, as it shone bodiless, lumi- moved them to no pity, but what nous, and rejuvenated in the they found on the couch in the blackness, more of stark, teeming, studio made them give me a praise brain-shattering fear than all the rest which sickened me, and now a fame of heaven and earth has ever revealed which I spurn in despair as I sit for to me. hours, bald, gray-bearded, shriveled, No word was spoken amidst the palsied, drug-crazed, and broken, distant sound that grew nearer and adoring and praying to the object nearer, but as I followed the memo- they found. ry-face’s mad stare along that cursed For they deny that I sold the last shaft of light to its source, the source of my statuary, and point with ecstasy whence also the whining came, I, at the thing which the shining shaft too, saw for an instant what it saw, of light left cold, petrified, and and fell with ringing ears in that fit unvocal. It is all that remains of my 230 231

WHAT the MOON BRINGS.

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hate the moon—I am afraid of lotos-blossoms fluttered one by one it—for when it shines on in the opiate night-wind and certain scenes familiar and dropped despairingly into the stream, lovedI it sometimes makes them swirling away horribly under the unfamiliar and hideous. arched, carven bridge, and staring It was in the spectral summer back with the sinister resignation of when the moon shone down on the calm, dead faces. old garden where I wandered; the And as I ran along the shore, spectral summer of narcotic flowers crushing sleeping flowers with heed- and humid seas of foliage that bring less feet and maddened ever by the wild and many-coloured dreams. fear of unknown things and the lure And as I walked by the shallow of the dead faces, I saw that the crystal stream I saw unwonted garden had no end under that moon; ripples tipped with yellow light, as for where by day the walls were, there if those placid waters were drawn on stretched now only new vistas of in resistless currents to strange trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, oceans that are not in the world. stone idols and pagodas, and bend- Silent and sparkling, bright and ings of the yellow-litten stream past baleful, those moon-cursed waters grassy banks and under grotesque hurried I knew not whither; whilst bridges of marble. And the lips of from the embowered banks white the dead lotos-faces whispered sadly, H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

and bade me follow, nor did I cease forgotten spot had all the flesh of my steps till the stream became a the churchyards gathered for puffy river, and joined amidst marshes of sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon. swaying reeds and beaches of Over these horrors the evil gleaming sand the shore of a vast moon now hung very low, but the and nameless sea. puffy worms of the sea need no Upon that sea the hateful moon moon to feed by. And as I watched shone, and over its unvocal waves the ripples that told of the writhing weird perfumes breeded. And as I of worms beneath, I felt a new chill saw therein the lotos-faces vanish, I from afar out whither the condor longed for nets that I might capture had flown, as if my flesh had caught them and learn from them the secrets a horror before my eyes had seen it. which the moon had brought upon Nor had my flesh trembled the night. But when that moon went without cause, for when I raised my over to the west and the still tide eyes I saw that the waters had ebbed The HOUND. ebbed from the sullen shore, I saw very low, shewing much of the vast in that light old spires that the waves reef whose rim I had seen before. [return to table of contents] almost uncovered, and white And when I saw that the reef was columns gay with festoons of green but the black basalt crown of a seaweed. And knowing that to this shocking eikon whose monstrous sunken place all the dead had come, forehead now shone in the dim n my tortured ears there sounds where even the joys of romance and I trembled and did not wish again moonlight and whose vile hooves unceasingly a nightmare whir- adventure soon grow stale, St. John to speak with the lotos-faces. must paw the hellish ooze miles ring and flapping, and a faint and I had followed enthusiastically Yet when I saw afar out in the below, I shrieked and shrieked lest distantI baying as of some gigantic every aesthetic and intellectual sea a black condor descend from the the hidden face rise above the waters, hound. It is not dream—it is not, I movement which promised respite sky to seek rest on a vast reef, I would and lest the hidden eyes look at me fear, even madness—for too much from our devastating ennui. The fain have questioned him, and asked after the slinking away of that leering has already happened to give me enigmas of the symbolists and the him of those whom I had known and treacherous yellow moon. these merciful doubts. ecstasies of the pre-Raphaelites all when they were alive. This I would And to escape this relentless St. John is a mangled corpse; I were ours in their time, but each new have asked him had he not been so thing I plunged gladly and unhesi- alone know why, and such is my mood was drained too soon, of its far away, but he was very far, and tantly into the stinking shallows knowledge that I am about to blow diverting novelty and appeal. could not be seen at all when he drew where amidst weedy walls and out my brains for fear I shall be Only the somber philosophy of nigh that gigantic reef. sunken streets fat sea-worms feast mangled in the same way. Down the decadents could help us, and this So I watched the tide go out upon the world’s dead. unlit and illimitable corridors of we found potent only by increasing under that sinking moon, and saw eldritch phantasy sweeps the black, gradually the depth and diabolism gleaming the spires, the towers, and shapeless Nemesis that drives me to of our penetrations. Baudelaire and the roofs of that dead, dripping city. self-annihilation. Huysmans were soon exhausted of And as I watched, my nostrils tried May heaven forgive the folly and thrills, till finally there remained for to close against the perfume-con- morbidity which led us both to so us only the more direct stimuli of quering stench of the world’s dead; monstrous a fate! Wearied with the unnatural personal experiences and for truly, in this unplaced and commonplaces of a prosaic world; adventures. It was this frightful 234 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The HOUND

emotional need which led us even- Niches here and there contained care. An inappropriate hour, a jarring definitely place. As we heard this tually to that detestable course which skulls of all shapes, and heads lighting effect, or a clumsy manip- suggestion of baying we shuddered, even in my present fear I mention preserved in various stages of disso- ulation of the damp sod, would remembering the tales of the peas- with shame and timidity—that lution. There one might find the almost totally destroy for us that antry; for he whom we sought had hideous extremity of human outrage, rotting, bald pates of famous ecstatic titillation which followed centuries before been found in this the abhorred practice of noblemen, and the flesh and radi- the exhumation of some ominous, self same spot, torn and mangled by grave-robbing. antly golden heads of new-buried grinning secret of the earth. Our the claws and teeth of some unspeak- I cannot reveal the details of our children. quest for scenes and piquant able beast. shocking expedition, or catalogue Statues and painting there were, conditions was feverish and insa- I remember how we delved in even partly the worst of the trophies all of fiendish subjects and some tiate—St John was always the leader, the ghoul’s grave with our spades, adorning the nameless museum in executed by St. John and myself. A and he it was who led the way at last and how we thrilled at the picture which we jointly dwelt, alone and locked portfolio, bound in tanned to that mocking, accursed spot which of ourselves, the grave, the pale servantless. Our museum was a blas- human skin, held certain unknown brought us our hideous and inevi- watching moon, the horrible phemous, unthinkable place, where and unnameable drawings which it table doom. shadows, the grotesque trees, the with the satanic taste of neurotic was rumored Goya had perpetrated By what malign fatality were we titanic bats, the antique church, the virtuosi we had assembled an but dared not acknowledge. There lured to that terrible Holland dancing death-fires, the sickening universe of terror and a secret room, were nauseous musical instruments, churchyard? I think it was the dark odors, the gently moaning night- far, far, underground; where huge stringed, brass, wood-wind, on which rumor and legendry, the tales of one wind, and the strange, half-heard winged daemons carven of basalt St. John and I sometimes produced buried for five centuries, who had directionless baying of whose objec- and onyx vomited from wide grin- dissonances of exquisite morbidity himself been a ghoul in his time and tive existence we could scarcely be ning mouths weird green and orange and cacodaemoniacal ghastliness; had stolen a potent thing from a sure. light, and hidden pneumatic pipes whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony mighty sepulchre. I can recall the Then we struck a substance ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of cabinets reposed the most incredible scene in these final moments—the harder than the damp mould, and death the line of red charnel things and unimaginable variety of tomb- pale autumnal moon over the graves, beheld a rotting oblong box crusted hand in hand woven in voluminous loot ever assembled by human casting long horrible shadows; the with mineral deposits from the long black hangings. Through these pipes madness and perversity. It is of this grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to undisturbed ground. It was incred- came at will the odors our moods loot in particular that I must not meet the neglected grass and the ibly tough and thick, but so old that most craved; sometimes the scent of speak. Thank God I had the courage crumbling slabs; the vast legions of we finally pried it open and feasted pale funeral lilies; sometimes the to destroy it long before I thought strangely colossal bats that flew our eyes on what it held. narcotic incense of imagined Eastern of destroying myself! against the moon; the antique ivied Much—amazingly much—was shrines of the kingly dead, and some- The predatory excursions on church pointing a huge spectral left of the object despite the lapse of times—how I shudder to recall it!— which we collected our unmention- finger at the livid sky; the phospho- five hundred years. The skeleton, the frightful, soul-upheaving able treasures were always artistically rescent insects that danced like though crushed in places by the jaws stenches of the uncovered grave. memorable events. We were no death-fires under the yews in a of the thing that had killed it, held Around the walls of this repel- vulgar ghouls, but worked only under distant corner; the odors of mould, together with surprising firmness, lent chamber were cases of antique certain conditions of mood, land- vegetation, and less explicable things and we gloated over the clean white mummies alternating with comely, scape, environment, weather, season, that mingled feebly with the night- skull and its long, firm teeth and its lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and and moonlight. These pastimes were wind from over far swamps and seas; eyeless sockets that once had glowed cured by the taxidermist’s art, and to us the most exquisite form of and, worst of all, the faint deep- with a charnel fever like our own. In with headstones snatched from the aesthetic expression, and we gave toned baying of some gigantic hound the coffin lay an amulet of curious oldest churchyards of the world. their details a fastidious technical which we could neither see nor and exotic design, which had 236 237 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The HOUND

apparently been worn around the and cavern-eyed face of its owner in our ears the faint far baying we and articulate chatter. Whether we sleeper’s neck. It was the oddly and closed up the grave as we found thought we had heard in the Holland were mad, dreaming, or in our senses, conventionalised figure of a it. As we hastened from the abhor- churchyard. The jade amulet now we did not try to determine. We only crouching winged hound, or sphinx rent spot, the stolen amulet in St. reposed in a niche in our museum, realized, with the blackest of appre- with a semi-canine face, and was John’s pocket, we thought we saw and sometimes we burned a strangely hensions, that the apparently disem- exquisitely carved in antique Oriental the bats descend in a body to the scented candle before it. We read bodied chatter was beyond a doubt fashion from a small piece of green earth we had so lately rifled, as if much in Alhazred’s Necronomicon in the Dutch language. jade. The expression of its features seeking for some cursed and unholy about its properties, and about the After that we lived in growing was repellent in the extreme, savoring nourishment. But the autumn moon relation of ghosts’ souls to the objects horror and fascination. Mostly we at once of death, bestiality and shone weak and pale, and we could it symbolized; and were disturbed held to the theory that we were malevolence. Around the base was not be sure. by what we read. jointly going mad from our life of an inscription in characters which So, too, as we sailed the next day Then terror came. unnatural excitements, but some- neither St. John nor I could identify; away from Holland to our home, we times it pleased us more to dramatize and on the bottom, like a maker’s thought we heard the faint distant n the night of September ourselves as the victims of some seal, was graven a grotesque and baying of some gigantic hound in 24, 19—, I heard a knock creeping and appalling doom. Bizarre formidable skull. the background. But the autumn at my chamber door. manifestations were now too frequent Immediately upon beholding wind moaned sad and wan, and we FancyingO it St. John’s, I bade the to count. Our lonely house was this amulet we knew that we must could not be sure. knocker enter, but was answered seemingly alive with the presence of possess it; that this treasure alone Less than a week after our return only by a shrill laugh. There was no some malign being whose nature we was our logical pelf from the centu- to England, strange things began to one in the corridor. When I aroused could not guess, and every night that ried grave. Even had its outlines been happen. We lived as recluses; devoid St. John from his sleep, he professed daemoniac baying rolled over the unfamiliar we would have desired it, of friends, alone, and without entire ignorance of the event, and wind-swept moor, always louder and but as we looked more closely we servants in a few rooms of an ancient became as worried as I. It was the louder. On October 29 we found in saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. manor-house on a bleak and unfre- night that the faint, distant baying the soft earth underneath the library Alien it indeed was to all art and quented moor; so that our doors over the moor became to us a window a series of footprints utterly literature which sane and balanced were seldom disturbed by the knock certain and dreaded reality. impossible to describe. They were as readers know, but we recognized it of the visitor. Four days later, whilst we were baffling as the hordes of great bats as the thing hinted of in the Now, however, we were troubled both in the hidden museum, there which haunted the old manor-house forbidden Necronomicon of the mad by what seemed to be a frequent came a low, cautious scratching at in unprecedented and increasing Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly fumbling in the night, not only the single door which led to the numbers. soul-symbol of the corpse-eating around the doors but around the secret library staircase. Our alarm The horror reached a culmina- cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central windows also, upper as well as lower. was now divided, for, besides our fear tion on November 18, when St. John, Asia. All too well did we trace the Once we fancied that a large, opaque of the unknown, we had always walking home after dark from the sinister lineaments described by the body darkened the library window entertained a dread that our grisly dismal railway station, was seized by old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, when the moon was shining against collection might be discovered. some frightful carnivorous thing and he wrote, drawn from some obscure it, and another time we thought we Extinguishing all lights, we torn to ribbons. His screams had supernatural manifestation of the heard a whirring or flapping sound proceeded to the door and threw it reached the house, and I had hastened souls of those who vexed and gnawed not far off. On each occasion inves- suddenly open; whereupon we felt to the terrible scene in time to hear at the dead. tigation revealed nothing, and we an unaccountable rush of air, and a whir of wings and see a vague black Seizing the green jade object, we began to ascribe the occurrences to heard, as if receding far away, a queer cloudy thing silhouetted against the gave a last glance at the bleached imagination which still prolonged combination of rustling, tittering, rising moon. 238 239 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The HOUND

My friend was dying when I that what had befallen St. John must at the unfriendly sky, and the night- as of some gigantic hound, and I saw spoke to him, and he could not soon befall me. wind howled maniacally from over that it held in its gory filthy claw the answer coherently. All he could do The next day I carefully wrapped frozen swamps and frigid seas. The lost and fateful amulet of green jade, was to whisper, “The amulet—that the green jade amulet and sailed for baying was very faint now, and it I merely screamed and ran away damned thing—” Holland. What mercy I might gain ceased altogether as I approached idiotically, my screams soon Then he collapsed, an inert mass by returning the thing to its silent, the ancient grave I had once violated, dissolving into peals of hysterical of mangled flesh. sleeping owner I knew not; but I felt and frightened away an abnormally laughter. I buried him the next midnight that I must try any step conceivably large horde of bats which had been Madness rides the star-wind… in one of our neglected gardens, and logical. What the hound was, and hovering curiously around it. claws and teeth sharpened on centu- mumbled over his body one of the why it had pursued me, were ques- I know not why I went thither ries of corpses… dripping death devilish rituals he had loved in life. tions still vague; but I had first heard unless to pray, or gibber out insane astride a bacchanale of bats from And as I pronounced the last daemo- the baying in that ancient church- pleas and apologies to the calm white nigh-black ruins of buried temples niac sentence I heard afar on the yard, and every subsequent event thing that lay within; but, whatever of Belial…. Now, as the baying of moor the faint baying of some including St. John’s dying whisper my reason, I attacked the half frozen that dead fleshless monstrosity grows gigantic hound. The moon was up, had served to connect the curse with sod with a desperation partly mine louder and louder, and the stealthy but I dared not look at it. And when the stealing of the amulet. and partly that of a dominating will whirring and flapping of those I saw on the dim-lighted moor a Accordingly I sank into the nether- outside myself. Excavation was much accursed web-wings circles closer wide, nebulous shadow sweeping most abysses of despair when, at an easier than I expected, though at one and closer, I shall seek with my from mound to mound, I shut my inn in Rotterdam, I discovered that point I encountered a queer inter- revolver the oblivion which is my eyes and threw myself face down thieves had despoiled me of this sole ruption; when a lean vulture darted only refuge from the unnamed and upon the ground. When I arose, means of salvation. down out of the cold sky and pecked unnameable. trembling, I know not how much The baying was loud that frantically at the grave-earth until I later, I staggered into the house and evening, and in the morning I read killed him with a blow of my spade. made shocking obeisances before the of a nameless deed in the vilest Finally I reached the rotting oblong enshrined amulet of green jade. quarter of the city. The rabble were box and removed the damp nitrous Being now afraid to live alone in terror, for upon an evil tenement cover. This is the last rational act I in the ancient house on the moor, I had fallen a red death beyond the ever performed. departed on the following day for foulest previous crime of the neigh- For crouched within that centu- London, taking with me the amulet borhood. In a squalid thieves’ den an ried coffin, embraced by a close- after destroying by fire and burial the entire family had been torn to shreds packed nightmare retinue of huge, rest of the impious collection in the by an unknown thing which left no sinewy, sleeping bats, was the bony museum. But after three nights I trace, and those around had heard thing my friend and I had robbed; heard the baying again, and before all night a faint, deep, insistent note not clean and placid as we had seen a week was over felt strange eyes as of a gigantic hound. it then, but covered with caked blood upon me whenever it was dark. One So at last I stood again in the and shreds of alien flesh and hair, evening as I strolled on Victoria unwholesome churchyard where a and leering sentiently at me with Embankment for some needed air, pale winter moon cast hideous phosphorescent sockets and sharp I saw a black shape obscure one of shadows and leafless trees drooped ensanguined fangs yawning twist- the reflections of the lamps in the sullenly to meet the withered, frosty edly in mockery of my inevitable water. A wind, stronger than the grass and cracking slabs, and the doom. And when it gave from those night-wind, rushed by, and I knew ivied church pointed a jeering finger grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay 240 241

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village because of the reporters who I. still lingered about after the eldritch panic of a month before—the night- the shadow on the chimney. mare creeping death. Later, I here was thunder in the air thought, they might aid me; but I on the night I went to the did not want them then. Would to deserted mansion atop God I had let them share the search, TTempest Mountain to find the that I might not have had to bear lurking fear. I was not alone, for the secret alone so long; to bear it foolhardiness was not then mixed alone for fear the world would call with that love of the grotesque and me mad or go mad itself at the the terrible which has made my demon implications of the thing. career a series of quests for strange Now that I am telling it anyway, lest horrors in literature and in life. the brooding make me a maniac, I With me were two faithful and wish I had never concealed it. For I, muscular men for whom I had sent and I only, know what manner of when the time came; men long fear lurked on that spectral and deso- associated with me in my ghastly late mountain. explorations because of their pecu- In a small motor-car we covered liar fitness. the miles of primeval forest and hill We had started quietly from the until the wooded ascent checked it. H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

The country bore an aspect more since it is a prime topic in the simple tale of the squatters. Grandmothers talons; yet no visible trail led away than usually sinister as we viewed it discourse of the poor mongrels who told strange myths of the Martense from the carnage. That some hideous by night and without the accustomed sometimes leave their valleys to trade spectre; myths concerning the animal must be the cause, everyone crowds of investigators, so that we handwoven baskets for such primi- Martense family itself, its queer quickly agreed; nor did any tongue were often tempted to use the acet- tive necessities as they cannot shoot, hereditary dissimilarity of eyes, its now revive the charge that such ylene headlight despite the attention raise, or make. long, unnatural annals, and the cryptic deaths formed merely the it might attract. It was not a whole- The lurking fear dwelt in the murder which had cursed it. sordid murders common in decadent some landscape after dark, and I shunned and deserted Martense The terror which brought me to communities. That charge was believe I would have noticed its mansion, which crowned the high the scene was a sudden and revived only when about twenty-five morbidity even had I been ignorant but gradual eminence whose liability portentous confirmation of the of the estimated population were of the terror that stalked there. Of to frequent thunderstorms gave it mountaineers’ wildest legends. One found missing from the dead; and wild creatures there were none—they the name of Tempest Mountain. For summer night, after a thunderstorm even then it was hard to explain the are wise when death leers close. The over a hundred years the antique, of unprecedented violence, the coun- murder of fifty by half that number. ancient lightning-scarred trees grove-circled stone house had been tryside was aroused by a squatter But the fact remained that on a seemed unnaturally large and the subject of stories incredibly wild stampede which no mere delusion summer night a bolt had come out twisted, and the other vegetation and monstrously hideous; stories of could create. The pitiful throngs of of the heavens and left a dead village unnaturally thick and feverish, while a silent colossal creeping death natives shrieked and whined of the whose corpses were horribly curious mounds and hummocks in which stalked abroad in summer. unnamable horror which had mangled, chewed, and clawed. the weedy, fulgurite-pitted earth With whimpering insistence the descended upon them, and they were The excited countryside imme- reminded me of snakes and dead squatters told tales of a demon which not doubted. They had not seen it, diately connected the horror with men’s skulls swelled to gigantic seized lone wayfarers after dark, but had heard such cries from one the haunted Martense mansion, proportions. either carrying them off or leaving of their hamlets that they knew a though the localities were over three Fear had lurked on Tempest them in a frightful state of gnawed creeping death had come. miles apart. The troopers were more Mountain for more than a century. dismemberment; while sometimes In the morning citizens and state skeptical, including the mansion This I learned at once from news- they whispered of blood trails toward troopers followed the shuddering only casually in their investigations, paper accounts of the catastrophe the distant mansion. Some said the mountaineers to the place where and dropping it altogether when they which first brought the region to the thunder called the lurking fear out they said the death had come. Death found it thoroughly deserted. world’s notice. The place is a remote, of its habitation, while others said was indeed there. The ground under Country and village people, however, lonely elevation in that part of the the thunder was its voice. one of the squatter’s villages had canvassed the place with infinite Catskills where Dutch civilization No one outside the backwoods caved in after a lightning stroke, care; overturning everything in the once feebly and transiently pene- had believed these varying and destroying several of the malodorous house, sounding ponds and brooks, trated, leaving behind as it receded conflicting stories, with their inco- shanties; but upon this property beating down bushes, and ransacking only a few mined mansions and a herent, extravagant descriptions of damage was superimposed an the nearby forests. All was in vain; degenerate squatter population the hall-glimpsed fiend; yet not a organic devastation which paled it the death that had come had left no inhabiting pitiful hamlets on isolated farmer or villager doubted that the to insignificance. Of a possible trace save destruction itself. slopes. Normal beings seldom visited Martense mansion was ghoulishly seventy-five natives who had inhab- By the second day of the search the locality till the state police were haunted. Local history forbade such ited this spot, not one living spec- the affair was fully treated by the formed, and even now only infre- a doubt, although no ghostly imen was visible. The disordered newspapers, whose reporters overran quent troopers patrol it. The fear, evidence was ever found by such earth was covered with blood and Tempest Mountain. They described however, is an old tradition investigators as had visited the human debris bespeaking too vividly it in much detail, and with many throughout the neighboring villages; building after some especially vivid the ravages of demon teeth and interviews to elucidate the horror’s 244 245 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

history as told by local grandams. I murder looms so great in the rural o’clock, when in spite of the sinister reverberated. There was no light, but followed the accounts languidly at legends. I felt subtly that the apart- house, the unprotected window, and I knew from the empty space at my first, for I am a connoisseur in ment of this ancient victim was best the approaching thunder and light- right that Tobey was gone, God horrors; but after a week I detected for my purposes. The chamber, ning, I felt singularly drowsy. I was alone knew whither. Across my chest an atmosphere which stirred me measuring about twenty feet square, between my two companions, still lay the heavy arm of the sleeper oddly, so that on August 5th, 1921, contained like the other rooms some George Bennett being toward the at my left. I registered among the reporters who rubbish which had once been furni- window and William Tobey toward Then came the devastating crowded the hotel at Lefferts ture. It lay on the second story, on the fireplace. Bennett was asleep, stroke of lightning which shook the Corners, nearest village to Tempest the southeast corner of the house, having apparently felt the same whole mountain, lit the darkest Mountain and acknowledged head- and had an immense east window anomalous drowsiness which crypts of the hoary grove, and splin- quarters of the searchers. Three and narrow south window, both affected me, so I designated Tobey tered the patriarch of the twisted weeks more, and the dispersal of the devoid of panes or shutters. Opposite for the next watch although even he trees. In the demon flash of a reporters left me free to begin a the large window was an enormous was nodding. It is curious how monstrous fireball the sleeper started terrible exploration based on the Dutch fireplace with scriptural tiles intently I had been watching the up suddenly while the glare from minute inquiries and surveying with representing the prodigal son, and fireplace. beyond the window threw his which I had meanwhile busied opposite the narrow window was a The increasing thunder must shadow vividly upon the chimney myself. spacious bed built into the wall. have affected my dreams, for in the above the fireplace from which my So on this summer night, while As the tree-muffled thunder brief time I slept there came to me eyes had never strayed. That I am distant thunder rumbled, I left a grew louder, I arranged my plan’s apocalyptic visions. Once I partly still alive and sane, is a marvel I silent motor-car and tramped with details. First I fastened side by side awaked, probably because the sleeper cannot fathom. I cannot fathom it, two armed companions up the last to the ledge of the large window toward the window had restlessly for the shadow on that chimney was mound-covered reaches of Tempest three rope ladders which I had flung an arm across my chest. I was not that of George Bennett or of any Mountain, casting the beams of an brought with me. I knew they not sufficiently awake to see whether other human creature, but a blas- electric torch on the spectral grey reached a suitable spot on the grass Tobey was attending to his duties as phemous abnormality from hell’s walls that began to appear through outside, for I had tested them. Then sentinel, but felt a distinct anxiety nethermost craters; a nameless, giant oaks ahead. In this morbid the three of us dragged from another on that score. Never before had the shapeless abomination which no night solitude and feeble shifting room a wide four-poster bedstead, presence of evil so poignantly mind could fully grasp and no pen illumination, the vast boxlike pile crowding it laterally against the oppressed me. Later I must have even partly describe. In another displayed obscure hints of terror window. Having strewn it with fir dropped asleep again, for it was out second I was alone in the accursed which day could not uncover; yet I boughs, all now rested on it with of a phantasmal chaos that my mind mansion, shivering and gibbering. did not hesitate, since I had come drawn automatics, two relaxing while leaped when the night grew hideous George Bennett and William Tobey with fierce resolution to test an idea. the third watched. From whatever with shrieks beyond anything in my had left no trace, not even of a I believed that the thunder called direction the demon might come, former experience or imagination. struggle. They were never heard of the death-demon out of some fear- our potential escape was provided. In that shrieking the inmost soul again. some secret place; and be that demon If it came from within the house, we of human fear and agony clawed solid entity or vaporous pestilence, had the window ladders; if from hopelessly and insanely at the ebony I meant to see it. outside the door and the stairs. We gates of oblivion. I awoke to red II. I had thoroughly searched the did not think, judging from prece- madness and the mockery of diab- ruin before, hence knew my plan dent, that it would pursue us far even olism, as farther and farther down a passer in the storm. well; choosing as the seat of my vigil at worst. inconceivable vistas that phobic and the old room of Jan Martense, whose I watched from midnight to one crystalline anguish retreated and 246 247 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

or days after that hideous picked them, and left me for the operations at the Martense mansion but guided by the frequent flashes experience in the forest- last?… Drowsiness is so stifling, and until we might become fortified with of lightning and by our minute swathed mansion I lay nerv- dreams are so horrible…. more detailed historical and knowledge of the hamlet we soon Fously exhausted in my hotel room In a short time I realised that I geographical data. On his initiative reached the least porous cabin of the at Lefferts Corners. I do not must tell my story to someone or we combed the countryside for infor- lot, an heterogeneous combination remember exactly how I managed break down completely. I had already mation regarding the terrible of logs and boards whose still existing to reach the motor-car, start it, and decided not to abandon the quest Martense family, and discovered a door and single tiny window both slip unobserved back to the village; for the lurking fear, for in my rash man who possessed a marvelously faced Maple Hill. Barring the door for I retain no distinct impression ignorance it seemed to me that illuminating ancestral diary. We also after us against the fury of the wind save of wild-armed titan trees, uncertainty was worse than enlight- talked at length with such of the and rain, we put in place the crude demoniac mutterings of thunder, enment, however terrible the latter mountain mongrels as had not fled window shutter which our frequent and Charonian shadows athwart might prove to be. Accordingly I from the terror and confusion to searches had taught us where to find. the low mounds that dotted and resolved in my mind the best course remoter slopes, and again scanned It was dismal sitting there on rickety streaked the region. to pursue; whom to select for my for dens and caves, but all without boxes in the pitchy darkness, but we As I shivered and brooded on confidences, and how to track down result. And yet, as I have said, vague smoked pipes and occasionally the casting of that brain-blasting the thing which had obliterated two new fears hovered menacingly over flashed our pocket lamps about. Now shadow, I knew that I had at last men and cast a nightmare shadow. us, as if giant bat-winged gryphons and then we could see the lightning pried out one of earth’s supreme My chief acquaintances at looked on transcosmic gulfs. through cracks in the wall; the after- horrors—one of those nameless Lefferts Corners had been the As the afternoon advanced, it noon was so incredibly dark that each blights of outer voids whose faint affable reporters, of whom several became increasingly difficult to see; flash was extremely vivid. demon scratchings we sometimes had still remained to collect final and we heard the rumble of a thun- The stormy vigil reminded me hear on the farthest rim of space, yet echoes of the tragedy. It was from derstorm gathering over Tempest shudderingly of my ghastly night on from which our own finite vision has these that I determined to choose a Mountain. This sound in such a Tempest Mountain. My mind turned given us a merciful immunity. The colleague, and the more I reflected locality naturally stirred us, though to that odd question which had kept shadow I had seen, I hardly dared the more my preference inclined less than it would have done at night. recurring ever since the nightmare to analyse or identify. Something toward one Arthur Munroe, a dark, As it was, we hoped desperately that thing had happened; and again I had lain between me and the window lean man of about thirty-five, whose the storm would last until well after wondered why the demon, that night, but I shuddered whenever education, taste, intelligence, and dark; and with that hope turned from approaching the three watchers I could not cast off the instinct to temperament all seemed to mark our aimless hillside searching toward either from the window or the inte- classify it. If it had only snarled, or him as one not bound to conven- the nearest inhabited hamlet to rior, had begun with the men on each bayed, or laughed titteringly—even tional ideas and experiences. gather a body of squatters as helpers side and left the middle man till the that would have relieved the abysmal On an afternoon in early in the investigation. Timid as they last, when the titan fireball had hideousness. But it was so silent. It September, Arthur Munroe listened were, a few of the younger men were scared it away. Why had it not taken had rested a heavy arm or foreleg on to my story. I saw from the beginning sufficiently inspired by our protective its victims in natural order, with my chest.… that he was both interested and leadership to promise such help. myself second, from whichever direc- Obviously it was organic, or had sympathetic, and when I had finished We had hardly more than turned, tion it had approached? With what once been organic… Jan Martense, he analysed and discussed the thing however, when there descended such manner of far-reaching tentacles did whose room I had invaded, was with the greatest shrewdness and a blinding sheet of torrential rain it prey? Or did it know that I was buried in the grave-yard near the judgement. His advice, moreover, was that shelter became imperative. The the leader, and saved me for a fate mansion… I must find Bennett and eminently practical; for he recom- extreme, almost nocturnal darkness worse than that of my Tobey, if they lived… why had it mended a postponement of of the sky caused us to stumble badly, companions? 248 249 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

In the midst of these reflections, abysms of the night that broods cataclysmic stature in my imagina- local tradition I had unearthed in as if dramatically arranged to inten- beyond time. tion; a quest which the fate of Arthur search with Arthur Munroe, that the sify them, there fell nearby a terrific For Arthur Munroe was dead. Munroe made me vow to keep silent ghost was that of Jan Martense, who bolt of lightning followed by the And on what remained of his chewed and solitary. died in 1762. This is why I was sound of sliding earth. At the same and gouged head there was no longer The scene of my excavations digging idiotically in his grave. time the wolfish wind rose to demo- a face. would alone have been enough to The Martense mansion was niac crescendos of ululation. We unnerve any ordinary man. Baleful built in 1670 by Gerrit Martense, a were sure that the one tree on Maple primal trees of unholy size, age, and wealthy New Amsterdam merchant Hill had been struck again, and III. grotesqueness leered above me like who disliked the changing order Munroe rose from his box and went the pillars of some hellish Druidic under British rule, and had to the tiny window to ascertain the what the red glare meant. temple, muffling the thunder, constructed this magnificent domi- damage. When he took down the n the tempest-racked hushing the clawing wind, and cile on a remote woodland summit shutter the wind, and rain howled night of November 8, admitting but little rain. Beyond the whose untrodden solitude and deafeningly in, so that I could not 1921, with a lantern scarred trunks in the background, unusual scenery pleased him. The hear what he said; but I waited while which cast charnel shadows, I stood illumined by faint flashes of filtered only substantial disappointment he leaned out and tried to fathom O lightning, rose the damp ivied stones encountered in this site was that digging alone and idiotically in the Nature’s pandemonium. grave of Jan Martense. I had begun of the deserted mansion, while which concerned the prevalence of Gradually a calming of the wind to dig in the afternoon, because a somewhat nearer was the abandoned violent thunderstorms in summer. and dispersal of the unusual dark- thunderstorm was brewing, and Dutch garden whose walks and beds When selecting the hill and building ness told of the storm’s passing. I now that it was dark and the storm were polluted by a white, fungous, his mansion, Mynheer Martense had had hoped it would last into the had burst above the maniacally foetid, over-nourished vegetation laid these frequent natural outbursts night to help our quest, but a furtive thick foliage I was glad. that never saw full daylight. And to some peculiarity of the year; but sunbeam from a knothole behind I believe that my mind was nearest of all was the graveyard, in time he perceived that the locality me removed the likelihood of such partly unhinged by events since where deformed trees tossed insane was especially liable to such a thing. Suggesting to Munroe that August 5th; the demon shadow in branches as their roots displaced phenomena. At length, having found we had better get some light even the mansion, the general strain and unhallowed slabs and sucked venom these storms injurious to his head, if more showers came, I unbarred disappointment, and the thing that from what lay below. Now and then, he fitted up a cellar into which he and opened the crude door. The occurred at the hamlet in an October beneath the brown pall of leaves that could retreat from their wildest ground outside was a singular mass storm. After that thing I had dug a rotted and festered in the antedilu- pandemonium. of mud and pools, with fresh heaps grave for one whose death I could vian forest darkness, I could trace Of Gerrit Martense’s descen- of earth from the slight landslide; not understand. I knew that others the sinister outlines of some of those dants less is known than of himself; but I saw nothing to justify the could not understand either, so let low mounds which characterized the since they were all reared in hatred interest which kept my companion them think Arthur Munroe had lightning-pierced region. of the English civilisation, and silently leaning out the window. wandered away. They searched, but History had led me to this trained to shun such of the colonists Crossing to where he leaned, I found nothing. The squatters might archaic grave. History, indeed, was as accepted it. Their life was exceed- touched his shoulder; but he did not have understood, but I dared not all I had after everything else ended ingly secluded, and people declared move. Then, as I playfully shook frighten them more. I myself seemed in mocking Satanism. I now believed that their isolation had made them him and turned him around, I felt strangely callous. That shock at the that the lurking fear was no material heavy of speech and comprehension. the strangling tendrils of a cancerous mansion had done something to my being, but a wolf-fanged ghost that In appearance all were marked by a horror whose roots reached into brain, and I could think only of the rode the midnight lightning. And I peculiar inherited dissimilarity of illimitable pasts and fathomless quest for a horror now grown to believed, because of the masses of eyes; one generally being blue and 250 251 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

the other brown. Their social at the Martense mansion. Meanwhile there grew up about to find—I only felt that I was digging contacts grew fewer and fewer, till Determined to visit Jan in person, the mansion and the mountain a in the grave of a man whose ghost at last they took to intermarrying he went into the mountains on body of diabolic legendry. The place stalked by night. with the numerous menial class horseback. His diary states that he was avoided with doubled assidu- It is impossible to say what about the estate. Many of the reached Tempest Mountain on ousness, and invested with every monstrous depth I had attained crowded family degenerated, moved September 20, finding the mansion whispered myth tradition could when my spade, and soon my feet, across the valley, and merged with in great decrepitude. The sullen, supply. It remained unvisited till broke through the ground beneath. the mongrel population which was odd-eyed Martenses, whose unclean 1816, when the continued absence The event, under the circumstances, later to produce the pitiful squatters. animal aspect shocked him, told him of lights was noticed by the squatters. was tremendous; for in the existence The rest had stuck sullenly to their in broken gutterals that Jan was dead. At that time a party made investi- of a subterranean space here, my mad ancestral mansion, becoming more He had, they insisted, been struck gations, finding the house deserted theories had terrible confirmation. and more clannish and taciturn, yet by lightning the autumn before; and and partly in ruins. My slight fall had extinguished the developing a nervous responsiveness now lay buried behind the neglected There were no skeletons about, lantern, but I produced an electric to the frequent thunderstorms. sunken gardens. They showed the so that departure rather than death pocket lamp and viewed the small Most of this information visitor the grave, barren and devoid was inferred. The clan seemed to horizontal tunnel which led away reached the outside world through of markers. Something in the have left several years before, and indefinitely in both directions. It was young Jan Martense, who from some Martenses’ manner gave Gifford a improvised penthouses showed how amply large enough for a man to kind of restlessness joined the colo- feeling of repulsion and suspicion, numerous it had grown prior to its wriggle through; and though no sane nial army when news of the Albany and a week later he returned with migration. Its cultural level had person would have tried at that time, Convention reached Tempest spade and mattock to explore the fallen very low, as proved by decaying I forgot danger, reason, and cleanli- Mountain. He was the first of sepulchral spot. He found what he furniture and scattered silverware ness in my single-minded fever to Gerrit’s descendants to see much of expected—a skull crushed cruelly as which must have been long aban- unearth the lurking fear. Choosing the world; and when he returned in if by savage blows—so returning to doned when its owners left. But the direction toward the house, I 1760 after six years of campaigning, Albany he openly charged the though the dreaded Martenses were scrambled recklessly into the narrow he was hated as an outsider by his Martenses with the murder of their gone, the fear of the haunted house burrow; squirming ahead blindly and father, uncles, and brothers, in spite kinsman. continued; and grew very acute when rapidly, and flashing but seldom the of his dissimilar Martense eyes. No Legal evidence was lacking, but new and arose among lamp I kept before me. longer could he share the peculiar- the story spread rapidly round the the mountain decadents. There it What language can describe the ities and prejudices of the Martenses, countryside; and from that time the stood; deserted, feared, and linked spectacle of a man lost in infinitely while the very mountain thunder- Martenses were ostracised by the with the vengeful ghost of Jan abysmal earth; pawing, twisting, storms failed to intoxicate him as world. No one would deal with them, Martense. There it still stood on the wheezing; scrambling madly through they had before. Instead, his and their distant manor was shunned night I dug in Jan Martense’s grave. sunken convolutions of immemorial surroundings depressed him; and he as an accursed place. Somehow they I have described my protracted blackness without an idea of time, frequently wrote to a friend in managed to live on independently digging as idiotic, and such it indeed safety, direction, or definite object? Albany of plans to leave the paternal by the product of their estate, for was in object and method. The coffin There is something hideous in it, roof. occasional lights glimpsed from of Jan Martense had soon been but that is what I did. I did it for so In the spring of 1763 Jonathan far-away hills attested their unearthed—it now held only dust long that life faded to a far memory, Gifford, the Albany friend of Jan continued presence. These lights and nitre—but in my fury to exhume and I became one with the moles Martense, became worried by his were seen as late as 1810, but toward his ghost I delved irrationally and and grubs of nighted depths. Indeed, correspondent’s silence; especially in the last they became very clumsily down beneath where he it was only by accident that after view of the conditions and quarrels infrequent. had lain. God knows what I expected interminable writhings I jarred my 252 253 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

forgotten electric lamp alight, so that Cyclopean rage it tore through the IV. ultimately a mad craving to plunge it shone eerily along the burrow of soil above that damnable pit, into the very earth of the accursed caked loam that stretched and curved blinding and deafening me, yet not the horror in the eyes. region, and with bare hands dig out ahead. wholly reducing me to a coma. In the death that leered from every here can be nothing normal I had been scrambling in this the chaos of sliding, shifting earth inch of the poisonous soil. in the mind of one who, way for some time, so that my I clawed and floundered helplessly As soon as possible I visited the knowing what I knew of battery had burned very low, when till the rain on my head steadied me grave of Jan Martense and dug vainly the horrors of Tempest Mountain, the passage suddenly inclined and I saw that I had come to the T where I had dug before. Some exten- would seek alone for the fear that sharply upward, altering my mode surface in a familiar spot; a steep sive cave-in had obliterated all trace lurked there. That at least two of of progress. And as I raised my unforested place on the southwest of the underground passage, while the fear’s embodiments were glance it was without preparation slope of the mountain. Recurrent the rain had washed so much earth destroyed, formed but a slight that I saw glistening in the distance sheet lightnings illumed the tumbled back into the excavation that I could guarantee of mental and physical two demoniac reflections of my ground and the remains of the not tell how deeply I had dug that safety in this Acheron of multiform expiring lamp; two reflections curious low hummock which had other day. I likewise made a difficult diabolism; yet I continued my quest glowing with a baneful and unmis- stretched down from the wooded trip to the distant hamlet where the with even greater zeal as events and takable effulgence, and provoking higher slope, but there was nothing death-creature had been burnt, and revelations became more maddeningly nebulous memories. I in the chaos to show my place of was little repaid for my trouble. In monstrous. When, two days after stopped automatically, though egress from the lethal catacomb. My the ashes of the fateful cabin I found my frightful crawl through that lacking the brain to retreat. The eyes brain was as great a chaos as the several bones, but apparently none crypt of the eyes and claw, I learned approached, yet of the thing that earth, and as a distant red glare burst of the monster’s. The squatters said that a thing had malignly hovered bore them I could distinguish only on the landscape from the south I the thing had had only one victim; twenty miles away at the same a claw. But what a claw! Then far hardly realised the horror I had been but in this I judged them inaccurate, instant the eyes were glaring at me, overhead I heard a faint crashing through. since besides the complete skull of I experienced virtual convulsions of which I recognized. It was the wild But when two days later the a human being, there was another fright. But that fright was so mixed thunder of the mountain, raised to squatters told me what the red glare bony fragment which seemed with wonder and alluring hysteric fury—I must have been meant, I felt more horror than that certainly to have belonged to a grotesqueness, that it was almost a crawling upward for some time, so which the mould-burrow and the human skull at some time. Though pleasant sensation. Sometimes, in that the surface was now quite near. claw and eyes had given; more the rapid drop of the monster had the throes of a nightmare when And as the muffled thunder clat- horror because of the overwhelming been seen, no one could say just what unseen powers whirl one over the tered, those eyes still stared with implications. In a hamlet twenty the creature was like; those who had roofs of strange dead cities toward vacuous viciousness. miles away an orgy of fear had glimpsed it called it simply a devil. the grinning chasm of Nis, it is a Thank God I did not then know followed the bolt which brought me Examining the great tree where it relief and even a delight to shriek what it was, else I should have died. above ground, and a nameless thing had lurked, I could discern no wildly and throw oneself volun- But I was saved by the very thunder had dropped from an overhanging distinctive marks. I tried to find tarily along with the hideous vortex that had summoned it, for after a tree into a weak-roofed cabin. It had some trail into the black forest, but of dream-doom into whatever hideous wait there burst from the done a deed, but the squatters had on this occasion could not stand the bottomless gulf may yawn. And so unseen outside sky one of those fired the cabin in frenzy before it sight of those morbidly large boles, it was with the walking nightmare frequent mountainward bolts whose could escape. It had been doing that or of those vast serpent-like roots of Tempest Mountain; the aftermath I had noticed here and deed at the very moment the earth that twisted so malevolently before discovery that two monsters had there as gashes of disturbed earth caved in on the thing with the claw they sank into the earth. haunted the spot gave me and fulgurites of various sizes. With and eyes. My next step was to reexamine 254 255 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

with microscopic care the deserted became attracted by something at the mansion… they took Bennett pocket-light or to try to assemble a hamlet where death had come most singular in the nature and arrange- and Tobey first… on each side of band of squatters for the quest, was abundantly, and where Arthur ment of a certain topographical us… ” Then I was digging frantically interrupted after a time by a sudden Munroe had seen something he element. Without having any exact into the mound which had stretched rush of wind from the outside which never lived to describe. Though my knowledge of geology, I had from nearest me; digging desperately, shiv- blew out the candle and left me in vain previous searches had been the first been interested in the odd eringly, but almost jubilantly; digging stark blackness. The moon no longer exceedingly minute, I now had new mounds and hummocks of the and at last shrieking aloud with some shone through the chinks and aper- data to test; for my horrible grave- region. I had noticed that they were unplaced emotion as I came upon a tures above me, and with a sense of crawl convinced me that at least one pretty widely distributed around tunnel or burrow just like the one fateful alarm I heard the sinister and of the phases of the monstrosity had Tempest Mountain, though less through which I had crawled on the significant rumble of approaching been an underground creature. This numerous on the plain than near the other demoniac night. thunder. A confusion of associated time, on the 14th of November, my hilltop itself, where prehistoric glaci- After that I recall running, spade ideas possessed my brain, leading me quest concerned itself mostly with ation had doubtless found feebler in hand; a hideous run across moon- to grope back toward the farthest the slopes of Cone Mountain and opposition to its striking and litten, mound-marked meadows and corner of the cellar. My eyes, however, Maple Hill where they overlook the fantastic caprices. Now, in the light through diseased, precipitous abysses never turned away from the horrible unfortunate hamlet, and I gave of that low moon which cast long of haunted hillside forest; leaping opening at the base of the chimney; particular attention to the loose earth weird shadows, it struck me forcibly screaming, panting, bounding toward and I began to get glimpses of the of the landslide region on the latter that the various points and lines of the terrible Martense mansion. I crumbling bricks and unhealthy eminence. the mound system had a peculiar recall digging unreasonably in all weeds as faint glows of lightning The afternoon of my search relation to the summit of Tempest parts of the brier-choked cellar; penetrated the weeds outside and brought nothing to light, and dusk Mountain. That summit was unde- digging to find the core and centre illumined the chinks in the upper came as I stood on Maple Hill niably a centre from which the lines of that malignant universe of wall. Every second I was consumed looking down at the hamlet and or rows of points radiated indefi- mounds. And then I recall how I with a mixture of fear and curiosity. across the valley to Tempest nitely and irregularly, as if the laughed when I stumbled on the What would the storm call forth—or Mountain. There had been a unwholesome Martense mansion passageway; the hole at the base of was there anything left for it to call? gorgeous sunset, and now the moon had thrown visible tentacles of terror. the old chimney, where the thick Guided by a lightning flash I settled came up, nearly full and shedding a The idea of such tentacles gave me weeds grew and cast queer shadows myself down behind a dense clump silver flood over the plain, the distant an unexplained thrill, and I stopped in the light of the lone candle I had of vegetation, through which I could mountainside, and the curious low to analyse my reason for believing happened to have with me. What see the opening without being seen. mounds that rose here and there. It these mounds glacial phenomena. still remained down in that hell-hive, If heaven is merciful, it will some was a peaceful Arcadian scene, but The more I analysed the less I lurking and waiting for the thunder day efface from my consciousness knowing what it hid I hated it. I believed, and against my newly to arouse it, I did not know. Two had the sight that I saw, and let me live hated the mocking moon, the hypo- opened mind there began to beat been killed; perhaps that had finished my last years in peace. I cannot sleep critical plain, the festering mountain, grotesque and horrible analogies it. But still there remained that at night now, and have to take opiates and those sinister mounds. based on superficial aspects and upon burning determination to reach the when it thunders. The thing came Everything seemed to me tainted my experience beneath the earth. innermost secret of the fear, which abruptly and unannounced; a demon, with a loathsome contagion, and Before I knew it I was uttering fren- I had once more come to deem defi- ratlike scurrying from pits remote inspired by a noxious alliance with zied and disjointed words to myself: nite, material, and organic. and unimaginable, a hellish panting distorted hidden powers. “My God!… Molehills… the My indecisive speculation and stifled grunting, and then from Presently, as I gazed abstractedly damned place must be honey- whether to explore the passage alone that opening beneath the chimney at the moonlit panorama, my eye combed… how many… that night and immediately with my a burst of multitudinous and leprous 256 257 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1922 • The LURKING FEAR

life—a loathsome night-spawned chasing one another through endless, cannot see a well or a subway flood of organic corruption more ensanguined corridors of purple entrance without shuddering… devastatingly hideous than the fulgurous sky… formless phantasms why cannot the doctors give me blackest conjurations of mortal and kaleidoscopic mutations of a something to make me sleep, or madness and morbidity. Seething, ghoulish, remembered scene; forests truly calm my brain when it stewing, surging, bubbling like of monstrous over-nourished oaks thunders? serpents’ slime it rolled up and out with serpent roots twisting and What I saw in the glow of flash- of that yawning hole, spreading like sucking unnamable juices from an light after I shot the unspeakable a septic contagion and streaming earth verminous with millions of straggling object was so simple that from the cellar at every point of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles almost a minute elapsed before I egress—streaming out to scatter groping from underground nuclei of understood and went delirious. The through the accursed midnight polypous perversion… insane light- object was nauseous; a filthy whitish forests and strew fear, madness, and ning over malignant ivied walls and gorilla thing with sharp yellow fangs death. demon arcades choked with fungous and matted fur. It was the ultimate God knows how many there vegetation… Heaven be thanked for product of mammalian degeneration; were—there must have been thou- the instinct which led me uncon- the frightful outcome of isolated sands. To see the stream of them in scious to places where men dwell; to spawning, multiplication, and that faint intermittent lightning was the peaceful village that slept under cannibal nutrition above and below shocking. When they had thinned the calm stars of clearing skies. the ground; the embodiment of all out enough to be glimpsed as sepa- the snarling and chaos and grinning rate organisms, I saw that they were had recovered enough in a fear that lurk behind life. It had dwarfed, deformed hairy devils or week to send to Albany for a looked at me as it died, and its eyes apes—monstrous and diabolic cari- gang of men to blow up the had the same odd quality that catures of the monkey tribe. They MartenseI mansion and the entire marked those other eyes which had were so hideously silent; there was top of Tempest Mountain with stared at me underground and hardly a squeal when one of the last dynamite, stop up all the discover- excited cloudy recollections. One eye stragglers turned with the skill of able mound-burrows, and destroy was blue, the other brown. They were long practice to make a meal in certain over-nourished trees whose the dissimilar Martense eyes of the accustomed fashion of a weaker very existence seemed an insult to old legends, and I knew in one inun- companion. Others snapped up what sanity. I could sleep a little after dating cataclysm of voiceless horror it left and ate with slavering relish. they had done this, but true rest what had become of that vanished Then, in spite of my daze of fright will never come as long as I family, the terrible and thun- and disgust, my morbid curiosity remember that nameless secret of der-crazed house of Martense. triumphed; and as the last of the the lurking fear. The thing will monstrosities oozed up alone from haunt me, for who can say the that nether world of unknown night- extermination is complete, and that mare, I drew my automatic pistol analogous phenomena do not exist and shot it under cover of the all over the world? Who can, with thunder. my knowledge, think of the earth’s Shrieking, slithering, torrential unknown caverns without a night- shadows of red viscous madness mare dread of future possibilities? I 258 259

1923:

The WEIRD TALES ERA BEGINS.

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or H.P. Lovecraft and his 1923; but he dropped the project fans, 1923 was a real after the July issue that year, and red-letter year. That was the never resumed it. He also claimed yearF that saw the launch of Weird he was quitting amateur jour- Tales—the legendary pulp maga- nalism—not for the first time—but zine that would become his most continued attending meetings and important and widely circulated contributing to friends’ journals. He (and best paying) outlet. Lovecraft’s also, in the middle of the year, agreed friends persuaded him to reach out to serve as editor of the United to Weird Tales’ editor, Edwin F. Amateur Press Association (of which Baird, and he did so—writing Sonia had been elected President)—a Baird a truly awful and self-depre- post he would hold until mid-1925. cating cover letter that would have Also in 1923, Lovecraft met gotten anybody else’s resume young Clifford Eddy, a fellow dumped in the trash. Luckily, Baird Providence resident and weird-fic- was familiar with Lovecraft’s work tion writer. The two of them became already, and was very pleased to good friends, and Lovecraft shared hear from him. some of his ghostwriting jobs with Lovecraft was still publishing Eddy; he also collaborated with the his own amateur-press magazine, younger writer on some articles for The Conservative, at the start of Weird Tales, including one (published H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

the following year) that may have move to New York permanently, to saved the magazine from an early be near Sonia and to further his business failure. It was titled “The writing career. Loved Dead,” and told the story of Lovecraft’s weird-fiction writ- a psychotic funeral director obsessed ings of 1923 included one of his with corpses. It strongly hints at best-known works, “The Rats in the necrophilia, and ends with the Walls,” as well as “The Unnamable” funeral director’s suicide. This dark and “The Festival,” and plenty of story sparked widespread outrage ghostwriting jobs and collaborations and resulted in sales of the title being with Clifford Eddy, Sonia Greene, temporarily banned in the state of and others. Indiana; it firmly established Weird Tales as the Aleister Crowley of pulp magazines, crowning it with a dark aura of repellent fascination that The RATS in the WALLS. ensured strong if secretive future sales for the next decade. On the [return to table of contents] other hand, it left Weird Tales’ edito- rial staff nearly petrified with fear of offending state censorship authori- ties, and for the next decade anything n 16 July 1923, I moved as a murderer, the estate had reverted even slightly off-color—including into Exham Priory after to the crown, nor had the accused some of Lovecraft’s best stories— the last workman had man made any attempt to exculpate ended up on the spike. finishedO his labours. The restora- himself or regain his property. In the summer of 1923, tion had been a stupendous task, Shaken by some horror greater than Lovecraft discovered the weird-fic- for little had remained of the that of conscience or the law, and tion writings of Arthur Machen, deserted pile but a shell-like ruin; expressing only a frantic wish to who was to be the third major yet because it had been the seat of exclude the ancient edifice from his literary influence on his writing style. my ancestors, I let no expense deter sight and memory, Walter de la Poer, Meanwhile, Lovecraft’s relation- me. The place had not been inhab- eleventh Baron Exham, fled to ship with Sonia Greene deepened, ited since the reign of James the Virginia and there founded the and by the end of the year he was First, when a tragedy of intensely family which by the next century openly courting her—although, of hideous, though largely unex- had become known as Delapore. course, she had to take more of a plained, nature had struck down Exham Priory had remained leading role in that courtship than the master, five of his children, and untenanted, though later allotted to is usual, owing to his inexperience several servants; and driven forth the estates of the Norrys family and and bashfulness. He wrote to her under a cloud of suspicion and much studied because of its pecu- constantly, and the letters he sent terror the third son, my lineal liarly composite architecture; an sometimes topped 50 pages. By the progenitor and the only survivor of architecture involving Gothic towers end of the year, Lovecraft had the abhorred line. resting on a Saxon or Romanesque decided to leave Providence and With this sole heir denounced substructure, whose foundation in 262 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

turn was of a still earlier order or to his eldest son for posthumous motherless boy of ten. It was this resolved to divert my remaining years blend of orders—Roman, and even opening. The glories we cherished boy who reversed the order of family with my new possession. Visiting Druidic or native Cymric, if legends were those achieved since the information, for although I could Anchester in December, I was enter- speak truly. This foundation was a migration; the glories of a proud give him only jesting conjectures tained by Capt. Norrys, a plump, very singular thing, being merged and honourable, if somewhat about the past, he wrote me of some amiable young man who had thought on one side with the solid limestone reserved and unsocial Virginia line. very interesting ancestral legends much of my son, and secured his of the precipice from whose brink During the war our fortunes when the late war took him to assistance in gathering plans and the priory overlooked a desolate were extinguished and our whole England in 1917 as an aviation anecdotes to guide in the coming valley three miles west of the village existence changed by the burning of officer. Apparently the Delapores restoration. Exham Priory itself I of Anchester. Carfax, our home on the banks of had a colourful and perhaps sinister saw without emotion, a jumble of Architects and antiquarians the James. My grandfather, advanced history, for a friend of my son’s, Capt. tottering mediaeval ruins covered loved to examine this strange relic in years, had perished in that incen- Edward Norrys of the Royal Flying with lichens and honeycombed with of forgotten centuries, but the diary outrage, and with him the Corps, dwelt near the family seat at rooks’ nests, perched perilously upon country folk hated it. They had hated envelope that had bound us all to Anchester and related some peasant a precipice, and denuded of floors it hundreds of years before, when my the past. I can recall that fire today superstitions which few novelists or other interior features save the ancestors lived there, and they hated as I saw it then at the age of seven, could equal for wildness and incred- stone walls of the separate towers. it now, with the moss and mould of with the federal soldiers shouting, ibility. Norrys himself, of course, did As I gradually recovered the abandonment on it. I had not been the women screaming, and the not take them so seriously; but they image of the edifice as it had been a day in Anchester before I knew I negroes howling and praying. My amused my son and made good when my ancestors left it over three came of an accursed house. And this father was in the army, defending material for his letters to me. It was centuries before, I began to hire week workmen have blown up Richmond, and after many formal- this legendry which definitely turned workmen for the reconstruction. In Exham Priory, and are busy obliter- ities my mother and I were passed my attention to my transatlantic every case I was forced to go outside ating the traces of its foundations. through the lines to join him. heritage, and made me resolve to the immediate locality, for the When the war ended we all purchase and restore the family seat Anchester villagers had an almost he bare statistics of my moved north, whence my mother which Norrys showed to Alfred in unbelievable fear and hatred of the ancestry I had always had come; and I grew to manhood, its picturesque desertion, and offered place. The sentiment was so great known, together with the middle age, and ultimate wealth as to get for him at a surprisingly that it was sometimes communicated Tfact that my first American fore- a stolid Yankee. Neither my father reasonable figure, since his own to the outside labourers, causing bear had come to the colonies nor I ever knew what our hereditary uncle was the present owner. numerous desertions; whilst its scope under a strange cloud. Of details, envelope had contained, and as I I bought Exham Priory in 1918, appeared to include both the priory however, I had been kept wholly merged into the greyness of but was almost immediately and its ancient family. ignorant through the policy of reti- Massachusetts business life I lost all distracted from my plans of resto- My son had told me that he was cence always maintained by the interest in the mysteries which ration by the return of my son as a somewhat avoided during his visits Delapores. Unlike our planter evidently lurked far back in my maimed invalid. During the two because he was a de la Poer, and I neighbours, we seldom boasted of family tree. Had I suspected their years that he lived I thought of now found myself subtly ostracized crusading ancestors or other medi- nature, how gladly I would have left nothing but his care, having even for a like reason until I convinced aeval and Renaissance heroes; nor Exham Priory to its moss, bats and placed my business under the direc- the peasants how little I knew of my was any kind of tradition handed cobwebs! tion of partners. heritage. Even then they sullenly down except what may have been My father died in 1904, but In 1921, as I found myself disliked me, so that I had to collect recorded in the sealed envelope left without any message to leave to me, bereaved and aimless, a retired most of the village traditions through before the Civil War by every squire or to my only child, Alfred, a manufacturer no longer young, I the mediation of Norrys. What the 264 265 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

people could not forgive, perhaps, Saxons added to what remained of were the barons and their direct Randolph Delapore of Carfax who was that I had come to restore a the temple, and gave it the essential heirs; at least, most was whispered went among the negroes and became symbol so abhorrent to them; for, outline it subsequently preserved, about these. If of healthier inclina- a voodoo priest after he returned rationally or not, they viewed Exham making it the centre of a cult feared tions, it was said, an heir would early from the Mexican War. Priory as nothing less than a haunt through half the heptarchy. About and mysteriously die to make way I was much less disturbed by the of fiends and . 1000 A.D. the place is mentioned for another more typical scion. There vaguer tales of wails and howlings Piecing together the tales which in a chronicle as being a substantial seemed to be an inner cult in the in the barren, windswept valley Norrys collected for me, and supple- stone priory housing a strange and family, presided over by the head of beneath the limestone cliff; of the menting them with the accounts of powerful monastic order and the house, and sometimes closed graveyard stenches after the spring several savants who had studied the surrounded by extensive gardens except to a few members. rains; of the floundering, squealing ruins, I deduced that Exham Priory which needed no walls to exclude a Temperament rather than ancestry white thing on which Sir John stood on the site of a prehistoric frightened populace. It was never was evidently the basis of this cult, Clave’s horse had trod one night in temple, a Druidical or ante-Druid- destroyed by the Danes, though after for it was entered by several who a lonely field; and of the servant who ical thing which must have been the Norman Conquest it must have married into the family. Lady had gone mad at what he saw in the contemporary with Stonehenge. declined tremendously, since there Margaret Trevor from Cornwall, priory in the full light of day. These That indescribable rites had been was no impediment when Henry the wife of Godfrey, the second son of things were hackneyed spectral lore, celebrated there, few doubted, and Third granted the site to my ancestor, the fifth baron, became a favourite and I was at that time a pronounced there were unpleasant tales of the Gilbert de la Poer, First Baron bane of children all over the coun- sceptic. The accounts of vanished transference of these rites into the Exham, in 1261. tryside, and the daemon heroine of peasants were less to be dismissed, Cybele worship which the Romans Of my family before this date a particularly horrible old ballad not though not especially significant in had introduced. there is no evil report, but something yet extinct near the Welsh border. view of mediaeval custom. Prying Inscriptions still visible in the strange must have happened then. Preserved in balladry, too, though curiosity meant death, and more sub-cellar bore such unmistakable In one chronicle there is a reference not illustrating the same point, is the than one severed head had been letters as “DIV… OPS… MAGNA to a de la Poer as “cursed of God in hideous tale of Lady Mary de la Poer, publicly shown on the bastions— MAT…,” sign of the Magna Mater 1307,” whilst village legendry had who shortly after her marriage to now effaced—around Exham Priory. whose dark worship was once vainly nothing but evil and frantic fear to the Earl of Shrewsfield was killed A few of the tales were exceed- forbidden to Roman citizens. tell of the castle that went up on the by him and his mother, both of the ingly picturesque, and made me wish Anchester had been the camp of the foundations of the old temple and slayers being absolved and blessed I had learnt more of the comparative third Augustan legion, as many priory. The fireside tales were of the by the priest to whom they confessed mythology in my youth. There was, remains attest, and it was said that most grisly description, all the ghast- what they dared not repeat to the for instance, the belief that a legion the temple of Cybele was splendid lier because of their frightened reti- world. of bat-winged devils kept witches’ and thronged with worshippers who cence and cloudy evasiveness. They These myths and ballads, typical sabbath each night at the priory—a performed nameless ceremonies at represented my ancestors as a race as they were of crude superstition, legion whose sustenance might the bidding of a Phrygian priest. of hereditary daemons beside whom repelled me greatly. Their persistence, explain the disproportionate abun- Tales added that the fall of the old Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de and their application to so long a dance of coarse vegetables harvested religion did not end the orgies at the Sade would seem the veriest tyros, line of my ancestors, were especially in the vast gardens. And, most vivid temple, but that the priests lived on and hinted whisperingly at their annoying; whilst the imputations of of all, there was the dramatic epic of in the new faith without real change. responsibility for the occasional monstrous habits proved unpleas- the rats—the scampering army of Likewise was it said that the rites disappearances of villagers through antly reminiscent of the one known obscene vermin which had burst did not vanish with the Roman several generations. scandal of my immediate forebears— forth from the castle three months power, and that certain among the The worst characters, apparently, the case of my cousin, young after the tragedy that doomed it to 266 267 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

desertion—the lean, filthy, ravenous although Exham Priory was medi- escaped honoured, unharmed, and cat, whose moods I know so well, army which had swept all before it aevally fitted, its interior was in truth undisguised to Virginia; the general was undoubtedly alert and anxious and devoured fowl, cats, dogs, hogs, wholly new and free from old vermin whispered sentiment being that he to an extent wholly out of keeping sheep, and even two hapless human and old ghosts alike. had purged the land of an immemo- with his natural character. He roved beings before its fury was spent. As I have said, I moved in on 16 rial curse. What discovery had from room to room, restless and Around that unforgettable rodent July 1923. My household consisted prompted an act so terrible, I could disturbed, and sniffed constantly army a whole separate cycle of myths of seven servants and nine cats, of scarcely even conjecture. Walter de about the walls which formed part revolves, for it scattered among the which latter species I am particularly la Poer must have known for years of the Gothic structure. I realize how village homes and brought curses fond. My eldest cat, “Nigger-Man,” the sinister tales about his family, so trite this sounds—like the inevitable and horrors in its train. was seven years old and had come that this material could have given dog in the , which always Such was the lore that assailed with me from my home in Bolton, him no fresh impulse. Had he, then, growls before his master sees the me as I pushed to completion, with Massachusetts; the others I had witnessed some appalling ancient sheeted figure—yet I cannot consis- an elderly obstinacy, the work of accumulated whilst living with Capt. rite, or stumbled upon some frightful tently suppress it. restoring my ancestral home. It must Norrys’ family during the restoration and revealing symbol in the priory The following day a servant not be imagined for a moment that of the priory. or its vicinity? He was reputed to complained of restlessness among these tales formed my principal For five days our routine have been a shy, gentle youth in all the cats in the house. He came psychological environment. On the proceeded with the utmost placidity, England. In Virginia he seemed not to me in my study, a lofty west room other hand, I was constantly praised my time being spent mostly in the so much hard or bitter as harassed on the second storey, with groined and encouraged by Capt. Norrys and codification of old family data. I had and apprehensive. He was spoken of arches, black oak panelling, and a the antiquarians who surrounded now obtained some very circumstan- in the diary of another gentleman Gothic window overlooking and aided me. When the task was tial accounts of the final tragedy and adventurer, Francis Harley of the limestone cliff and desolate done, over two years after its flight of Walter de la Poer, which I Bellview, as a man of unexampled valley; and even as he spoke I saw commencement, I viewed the great conceived to be the probable contents justice, honour, and delicacy. the jetty form of Nigger-Man rooms, wainscoted walls, vaulted of the hereditary paper lost in the creeping along the west wall and ceilings, mullioned windows, and fire at Carfax. It appeared that my n 22 July occurred the scratching at the new panels which broad staircases with a pride which ancestor was accused with much first incident which, overlaid the ancient stone. fully compensated for the prodigious reason of having killed all the other though lightly dismissed expense of the restoration. members of his household, except atO the time, takes on a preternatural drowsed away the noontime, Every attribute of the Middle four servant confederates, in their significance in relation to later and in the afternoon called Ages was cunningly reproduced and sleep, about two weeks after a events. It was so simple as to be again on Capt. Norrys, who the new parts blended perfectly with shocking discovery which changed almost negligible, and could not becameI exceedingly interested in the original walls and foundations. his whole demeanour, but which, possibly have been noticed under what I told him. The odd inci- The seat of my fathers was complete, except by implication, he disclosed the circumstances; for it must be dents—so slight yet so curious— and I looked forward to redeeming to no one save perhaps the servants recalled that since I was in a appealed to his sense of the at last the local fame of the line who assisted him and afterwards fled building practically fresh and new picturesque and elicited from him a which ended in me. I could reside beyond reach. except for the walls, and surrounded number of reminiscenses of local here permanently, and prove that a This deliberate slaughter, which by a well-balanced staff of servi- ghostly lore. We were genuinely de la Poer (for I had adopted again included a father, three brothers, and tors, apprehension would have perplexed at the presence of rats, the original spelling of the name) two sisters, was largely condoned by been absurd despite the locality. and Norrys lent me some traps and need not be a fiend. My comfort was the villagers, and so slackly treated What I afterward remembered Paris Green, which I had the serv- perhaps augmented by the fact that, by the law that its perpetrator is merely this—that my old black ants place in strategic localities 268 269 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

when I returned. a warming-pan that rested near, and I now heard steps in the corridor, was Roman—not the debased I retired early, being very sleepy, lifted one section to see what lay and in another moment two servants Romanesque of the bungling Saxons, but was harassed by dreams of the beneath. There was nothing but the pushed open the massive door. They but the severe and harmonious clas- most horrible sort. I seemed to be patched stone wall, and even the cat were searching the house for some sicism of the age of the Caesars; looking down from an immense had lost his tense realization of unknown source of disturbance indeed, the walls abounded with height upon a twilit grotto, knee- abnormal presences. When I exam- which had thrown all the cats into inscriptions familiar to the antiquar- deep with filth, where a white- ined the circular trap that had been a snarling panic and caused them to ians who had repeatedly explored bearded daemon swineherd drove placed in the room, I found all of the plunge precipitately down several the place—things like “P. GETAE. about with his staff a flock of openings sprung, though no trace flights of stairs and squat, yowling, PROP… TEMP… DONA…” and fungous, flabby beasts whose appear- remained of what had been caught before the closed door to the “L. PRAEG… VS… PONTIFI… ance filled me with unutterable and had escaped. sub-cellar. I asked them if they had ATYS…” loathing. Then, as the swineherd Further sleep was out of the heard the rats, but they replied in The reference to Atys made me paused and nodded over his task, a question, so lighting a candle, I the negative. And when I turned to shiver, for I had read Catullus and mighty swarm of rats rained down opened the door and went out in the call their attention to the sounds in knew something of the hideous rites on the stinking abyss and fell to gallery towards the stairs to my study, the panels, I realized that the noise of the Eastern god, whose worship devouring beasts and man alike. Nigger-Man following at my heels. had ceased. was so mixed with that of Cybele. From this terrific vision I was Before we had reached the stone With the two men, I went down Norrys and I, by the light of lanterns, abruptly awakened by the motions steps, however, the cat darted ahead to the door of the sub-cellar, but tried to interpret the odd and nearly of Nigger-Man, who had been of me and vanished down the ancient found the cats already dispersed. effaced designs on certain irregularly sleeping as usual across my feet. This flight. As I descended the stairs Later I resolved to explore the crypt rectangular blocks of stone generally time I did not have to question the myself, I became suddenly aware of below, but for the present I merely held to be altars, but could make source of his snarls and hisses, and sounds in the great room below; made a round of the traps. All were nothing of them. We remembered of the fear which made him sink his sounds of a nature which could not sprung, yet all were tenantless. that one pattern, a sort of rayed sun, claws into my ankle, unconscious of be mistaken. Satisfying myself that no one had was held by students to imply a their effect; for on every side of the The oak-panelled walls were heard the rats save the felines and non-Roman origin suggesting that chamber the walls were alive with alive with rats, scampering and me, I sat in my study till morning, these altars had merely been adopted nauseous sound—the verminous milling whilst Nigger-Man was thinking profoundly and recalling by the Roman priests from some slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats. racing about with the fury of a every scrap of legend I had unearthed older and perhaps aboriginal temple There was now no aurora to show baffled hunter. Reaching the bottom, concerning the building I inhabited. on the same site. On one of these the state of the arras—the fallen I switched on the light, which did I slept some in the forenoon, leaning blocks were some brown stains section of which had been replaced— not this time cause the noise to back in the one comfortable library which made me wonder. The largest, but I was not too frightened to subside. The rats continued their chair which my mediaeval plan of in the centre of the room, had certain switch on the light. riot, stampeding with such force and furnishing could not banish. Later features on the upper surface which As the bulbs leapt into radiance distinctness that I could finally I telephoned to Capt. Norrys, who indicated its connection with fire— I saw a hideous shaking all over the assign to their motions a definite came over and helped me explore probably burnt offerings. tapestry, causing the somewhat pecu- direction. These creatures, in the sub-cellar. Such were the sights in that liar designs to execute a singular numbers apparently inexhaustible, Absolutely nothing untoward crypt before whose door the cats dance of death. This motion disap- were engaged in one stupendous was found, although we could not howled, and where Norrys and I now peared almost at once, and the sound migration from inconceivable repress a thrill at the knowledge that determined to pass the night. with it. Springing out of bed, I poked heights to some depth conceivably this vault was built by Roman hands. Couches were brought down by the at the arras with the long handle of or inconceivably below. Every low arch and massive pillar servants, who were told not to mind 270 271 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

any nocturnal actions of the cats, and scream. But I did not remember I thought I was hearing, my ears gave to the tessellated floor. He did not Nigger-Man was admitted as much myself till later. Ultimate horror me the last fading impression of find anything, and was about to for help as for companionship. We often paralyses memory in a merciful scurrying; which had retreated still abandon his efforts when I noticed decided to keep the great oak way. downward, far underneath this a trivial circumstance which made door—a modern replica with slits Norrys waked me when the deepest of sub-cellars till it seemed me shudder, even though it implied for ventilation—tightly closed; and, phenomena began. Out of the same as if the whole cliff below were nothing more than I had already with this attended to, we retired with frightful dream I was called by his riddled with questing rats. Norrys imagined. lanterns still burning to await what- gentle shaking and his urging to was not as sceptical as I had antici- I told him of it, and we both ever might occur. listen to the cats. Indeed, there was pated, but instead seemed profoundly looked at its almost imperceptible much to listen to, for beyond the moved. He motioned to me to notice manifestation with the fixedness of he vault was very deep in closed door at the head of the stone that the cats at the door had ceased fascinated discovery and acknowl- the foundations of the steps was a veritable nightmare of their clamour, as if giving up the rats edgment. It was only this—that the priory, and undoubtedly far feline yelling and clawing, whilst for lost; whilst Nigger-Man had a flame of the lantern set down near Tdown on the face of the beetling Nigger-Man, unmindful of his burst of renewed restlessness, and the altar was slightly but certainly limestone cliff overlooking the kindred outside, was running excit- was clawing frantically around the flickering from a draught of air waste valley. That it had been the edly round the bare stone walls, in bottom of the large stone altar in the which it had not before received, and goal of the scuffling and unexplain- which I heard the same babel of centre of the room, which was nearer which came indubitably from the able rats I could not doubt, though scurrying rats that had troubled me Norrys’ couch than mine. crevice between floor and altar where why, I could not tell. As we lay the night before. My fear of the unknown was at Norrys was scraping away the there expectantly, I found my vigil An acute terror now rose within this point very great. Something lichens. occasionally mixed with half- me, for here were anomalies which astounding had occurred, and I saw We spent the rest of the night formed dreams from which the nothing normal could well explain. that Capt. Norrys, a younger, stouter, in the brilliantly-lighted study, uneasy motions of the cat across These rats, if not the creatures of a and presumably more naturally nervously discussing what we should my feet would rouse me. madness which I shared with the materialistic man, was affected fully do next. The discovery that some These dreams were not whole- cats alone, must be burrowing and as much as myself—perhaps because vault deeper than the deepest known some, but horribly like the one I had sliding in Roman walls I had thought of his lifelong and intimate famil- masonry of the Romans underlay had the night before. I saw again the to be solid limestone blocks… unless iarity with local legend. We could this accursed pile, some vault unsus- twilit grotto, and the swineherd with perhaps the action of water through for the moment do nothing but pected by the curious antiquarians his unmentionable fungous beasts more than seventeen centuries had watch the old black cat as he pawed of three centuries, would have been wallowing in filth, and as I looked eaten winding tunnels which rodent with decreasing fervour at the base sufficient to excite us without any at these things they seemed nearer bodies had worn clear and ample… of the altar, occasionally looking up background of the sinister. As it was, and more distinct—so distinct that But even so, the spectral horror was and mewing to me in that persuasive the fascination became two-fold; and I could almost observe their features. no less; for if these were living manner which he used when he we paused in doubt whether to Then I did observe the flabby vermin why did not Norrys hear wished me to perform some favour abandon our search and quit the features of one of them—and awak- their disgusting commotion? Why for him. priory forever in superstitious ened with such a scream that did he urge me to watch Nigger-Man Norrys now took a lantern close caution, or to gratify our sense of Nigger-Man started up, whilst Capt. and listen to the cats outside, and to the altar and examined the place adventure and brave whatever Norrys, who had not slept, laughed why did he guess wildly and vaguely where Nigger-Man was pawing; horrors might await us in the considerably. Norrys might have at what could have aroused them? silently kneeling and scraping away unknown depths. laughed more—or perhaps less—had By the time I had managed to the lichens of the centuries which By morning we had compro- he known what it was that made me tell him, as rationally as I could, what joined the massive pre-Roman block mised, and decided to go to London 272 273 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

to gather a group of archaeologists awaiting which I assigned well-ap- paid to the momentous central altar, that there was light ahead; not any and scientific men fit to cope with pointed rooms to all my guests. and within an hour Sir William mystic phosphorescence, but a the mystery. It should be mentioned I myself retired in my own tower Brinton had caused it to tilt back- filtered daylight which could not that before leaving the sub-cellar we chamber, with Nigger-Man across ward, balanced by some unknown come except from unknown fissures had vainly tried to move the central my feet. Sleep came quickly, but species of counterweight. in the cliff that over-looked the altar which we now recognized as hideous dreams assailed me. There There now lay revealed such a waste valley. That such fissures had the gate to a new pit of nameless was a vision of a Roman feast like horror as would have overwhelmed escaped notice from outside was fear. What secret would open the that of Trimalchio, with a horror in us had we not been prepared. hardly remarkable, for not only is gate, wiser men than we would have a covered platter. Then came that Through a nearly square opening in the valley wholly uninhabited, but to find. damnable, recurrent thing about the the tiled floor, sprawling on a flight the cliff is so high and beetling that During many days in London swineherd and his filthy drove in the of stone steps so prodigiously worn only an aeronaut could study its Capt. Norrys and I presented our twilit grotto. Yet when I awoke it that it was little more than an face in detail. A few steps more, facts, conjectures, and legendary was full daylight, with normal sounds inclined plane at the centre, was a and our breaths were literally anecdotes to five eminent authori- in the house below. The rats, living ghastly array of human or semi- snatched from us by what we saw; ties, all men who could be trusted or spectral, had not troubled me; and human bones. Those which retained so literally that Thornton, the to respect any family disclosures Nigger-Man was still quietly asleep. their collocation as skeletons showed psychic investigator, actually which future explorations might On going down, I found that the attitudes of panic fear, and over all fainted in the arms of the dazed develop. We found most of them same tranquillity had prevailed else- were the marks of rodent gnawing. men who stood behind him. little disposed to scoff but, instead, where; a condition which one of the The skulls denoted nothing short of Norrys, his plump face utterly intensely interested and sincerely assembled servants—a fellow named utter idiocy, cretinism, or primitive white and flabby, simply cried out sympathetic. It is hardly necessary Thornton, devoted to the psychic— semi-apedom. inarticulately; whilst I think that to name them all, but I may say that rather absurdly laid to the fact that Above the hellishly littered steps what I did was to gasp or hiss, and they included Sir William Brinton, I had now been shown the thing arched a descending passage seem- cover my eyes. whose excavations in the Troad which certain forces had wished to ingly chiselled from the solid rock, The man behind me—the only excited most of the world in their show me. and conducting a current of air. This one of the party older than I— day. As we all took the train for All was now ready, and at 11 a.m. current was not a sudden and noxious croaked the hackneyed “My God!” Anchester I felt myself poised on our entire group of seven men, rush as from a closed vault, but a in the most cracked voice I ever the brink of frightful revelations, a bearing powerful electric search- cool breeze with something of fresh- heard. Of seven cultivated men, only sensation symbolized by the air of lights and implements of excavation, ness in it. We did not pause long, Sir William Brinton retained his mourning among the many went down to the sub-cellar and but shiveringly began to clear a composure, a thing the more to his Americans at the unexpected death bolted the door behind us. passage down the steps. It was then credit because he led the party and of the President on the other side Nigger-Man was with us, for the that Sir William, examining the must have seen the sight first. of the world. investigators found no occasion to hewn walls, made the odd observa- It was a twilit grotto of enor- On the evening of 7 August we depise his excitability, and were tion that the passage, according to mous height, stretching away farther reached Exham Priory, where the indeed anxious that he be present in the direction of the strokes, must than any eye could see; a subterra- servants assured me that nothing case of obscure rodent manifesta- have been chiselled from beneath. neous world of limitless mystery and unusual had occurred. The cats, even tions. We noted the Roman inscrip- horrible suggestion. There were old Nigger-Man, had been perfectly tions and unknown altar designs only must be very deliberate now, buildings and other architectural placid, and not a trap in the house briefly, for three of the savants had and choose my words. After remains—in one terrified glance I had been sprung. We were to begin already seen them, and all knew their ploughing down a few steps saw a weird pattern of tumuli, a exploring on the following day, characteristics. Prime attention was amidstI the gnawed bones we saw savage circle of monoliths, a 274 275 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

low-domed Roman ruin, a sprawling revelation after revelation, and trying expected that—but it was too much boundless depth of midnight cavern Saxon pile, and an early English to keep for the nonce from thinking to see familiar English implements where no ray of light from the cliff edifice of wood—but all these were of the events which must have taken in such a place, and to read familiar could penetrate. We shall never dwarfed by the ghoulish spectacle place there three hundred, or a thou- English graffiti there, some as recent know what sightless Stygian worlds presented by the general surface of sand, or two thousand or ten thou- as 1610. I could not go in that yawn beyond the little distance we the ground. For yards about the steps sand years ago. It was the building—that building whose went, for it was decided that such extended an insane tangle of human antechamber of hell, and poor daemon activities were stopped only secrets are not good for mankind. bones, or bones at least as human as Thornton fainted again when Trask by the dagger of my ancestor Walter But there was plenty to engross us those on the steps. Like a foamy sea told him that some of the skeleton de la Poer. close at hand, for we had not gone they stretched, some fallen apart, but things must have descended as quad- What I did venture to enter was far before the searchlights showed others wholly or partly articulated rupeds through the last twenty or the low Saxon building whose oaken that accursed infinity of pits in which as skeletons; these latter invariably more generations. door had fallen, and there I found a the rats had feasted, and whose in postures of daemoniac frenzy, Horror piled on horror as we terrible row of ten stone cells with sudden lack of replenishment had either fighting off some menace or began to interpret the architectural rusty bars. Three had tenants, all driven the ravenous rodent army first clutching other forms with cannibal remains. The quadruped things— skeletons of high grade, and on the to turn on the living herds of starving intent. with their occasional recruits from bony forefinger of one I found a seal things, and then to burst forth from When Dr. Trask, the anthropol- the biped class—had been kept in ring with my own coat-of-arms. Sir the priory in that historic orgy of ogist, stopped to classify the skulls, stone pens, out of which they must William found a vault with far older devastation which the peasants will he found a degraded mixture which have broken in their last delirium of cells below the Roman chapel, but never forget. utterly baffled him. They were hunger or rat-fear. There had been these cells were empty. Below them God! those carrion black pits of mostly lower than the Piltdown man great herds of them, evidently was a low crypt with cases of formally sawed, picked bones and opened in the scale of evolution, but in every fattened on the coarse vegetables arranged bones, some of them skulls! Those nightmare chasms case definitely human. Many were whose remains could be found as a bearing terrible parallel inscriptions choked with the pithecanthropoid, of higher grade, and a very few were sort of poisonous ensilage at the carved in Latin, Greek, and the Celtic, Roman, and English bones the skulls of supremely and sensi- bottom of the huge stone bins older tongue of Phyrgia. of countless unhallowed centuries! tively developed types. All the bones than Rome. I knew now why my Meanwhile, Dr. Trask had Some of them were full, and none were gnawed, mostly by rats, but ancestors had had such excessive opened one of the prehistoric tumuli, can say how deep they had once somewhat by others of the half- gardens—would to heaven I could and brought to light skulls which been. Others were still bottomless human drove. Mixed with them were forget! The purpose of the herds I were slightly more human than a to our searchlights, and peopled by many tiny bones of rats—fallen did not have to ask. gorilla’s, and which bore indescrib- unnamable fancies. What, I thought, members of the lethal army which Sir William, standing with his ably ideographic carvings. Through of the hapless rats that stumbled into closed the ancient epic. searchlight in the Roman ruin, trans- all this horror my cat stalked unper- such traps amidst the blackness of I wonder that any man among lated aloud the most shocking ritual turbed. Once I saw him monstrously their quests in this grisly Tartarus? us lived and kept his sanity through I have ever known; and told of the perched atop a mountain of bones, Once my foot slipped near a that hideous day of discovery. Not diet of the antediluvian cult which and wondered at the secrets that horribly yawning brink, and I had a Hoffman nor Huysmans could the priests of Cybele found and might lie behind his yellow eyes. moment of ecstatic fear. I must have conceive a scene more wildly incred- mingled with their own. Norrys, Having grasped to some slight been musing a long time, for I could ible, more frenetically repellent, or used as he was to the trenches, could degree the frightful revelations of not see any of the party but plump more Gothically grotesque than the not walk straight when he came out this twilit area—an area so hideously Capt. Norrys. Then there came a twilit grotto through which we seven of the English building. It was a foreshadowed by my recurrent sound from that inky, boundless, staggered; each stumbling on butcher shop and kitchen—he had dream—we turned to that apparently farther distance that I thought I 276 277 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The RATS in the WALLS

knew; and I saw my old black cat Thornton, I’ll teach you to faint at dart past me like a winged Egyptian what my family do!… ’Sblood, thou god, straight into the illimitable gulf stinkard, I’ll learn ye how to gust… of the unknown. But I was not far wolde ye swynke me thilke wys?… behind, for there was no doubt after Magna Mater! Magna Mater!… another second. It was the eldritch Atys… Dia ad aghaidh’s ad aodaun… scurrying of those fiend-born rats, agus bas dunarch ort! Dhonas ’s always questing for new horrors, and dholas ort, agus leat-sa!… Ungl determined to lead me on even unto unl… rrlh… chchch… those grinning caverns of earth’s This is what they say I said when centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad they found me in the blackness after faceless god, howls blindly in the three hours; found me crouching in darkness to the piping of two amor- the blackness over the plump, half- phous idiot flute-players. eaten body of Capt. Norrys, with my My searchlight expired, but still own cat leaping and tearing at my I ran. I heard voices, and yowls, and throat. Now they have blown up echoes, but above all there gently Exham Priory, taken my Nigger-Man rose that impious, insidious scur- away from me, and shut me into this rying; gently rising, rising, as a stiff barred room at Hanwell with fearful bloated corpse gently rises above an whispers about my heredity and oily river that flows under the endless experience. Thornton is in the next onyx bridges to a black, putrid sea. room, but they prevent me from Something bumped into me— talking to him. They are trying, too, something soft and plump. It must to suppress most of the facts have been the rats; the viscous, gelat- concerning the priory. When I speak inous, ravenous army that feast on of poor Norrys they accuse me of the dead and the living…. Why this hideous thing, but they must shouldn’t rats eat a de la Poer as a de know that I did not do it. They must la Poer eats forbidden things?… The know it was the rats; the slithering war ate my boy, damn them all… scurrying rats whose scampering will and the Yanks ate Carfax with flames never let me sleep; the daemon rats and burnt Grandsire Delapore and that race behind the padding in this the secret. .. . No, no, I tell you, I am room and beckon me down to greater not that daemon swineherd in the horrors than I have ever known; the twilit grotto! It was not Edward rats they can never hear; the rats, the Norrys’ fat face on that flabby rats in the walls. fungous thing! Who says I am a de la Poer? He lived, but my boy died!… Shall a Norrys hold the land of a de la Poer?… It’s voodoo, I tell you… that spotted snake… Curse you, 278 279 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

The UNNAMABLE.

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e were sitting on a constant talk about “unnamable” dilapidated seven- and “unmentionable” things was a teenth-century tomb in very puerile device, quite in keeping theW late afternoon of an autumn with my lowly standing as an day at the old burying ground in author. I was too fond of ending Arkham, and speculating about the my stories with sights or sounds unnamable. Looking toward the which paralyzed my heroes’ facul- giant willow in the cemetery, whose ties and left them without courage, trunk had nearly engulfed an words, or associations to tell what ancient, illegible slab, I had made a they had experienced. We know fantastic remark about the spectral things, he said, only through our and unmentionable nourishment five senses or our intuitions; where- which the colossal roots must be fore it is quite impossible to refer to sucking from that hoary, charnel any object or spectacle which earth; when my friend chided me cannot be clearly depicted by the for such nonsense and told me that solid definitions of fact or the since no interments had occurred correct doctrines of theology— there for over a century, nothing preferably those of the could possibly exist to nourish the Congregationalist, with whatever tree in other than an ordinary modifications tradition and Sir manner. Besides, he added, my Arthur Conan Doyle may supply. 280 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The UNNAMABLE

With this friend, Joel Manton, that nothing can be really “unnam- intelligence of generations? And he had scoffed the most. I had often languidly disputed. He able.” It didn’t sound sensible to him. since spirit, in order to cause all the My tale had been called The was principal of the East High Though I well realized the manifestations attributed to it, Attic Window, and appeared in the School, born and bred in Boston and futility of imaginative and metaphys- cannot be limited by any of the laws January, 1922, issue of Whispers. In sharing New England’s self-satisfied ical arguments against the compla- of matter, why is it extravagant to a good many places, especially the deafness to the delicate overtones of cency of an orthodox sun-dweller, imagine psychically living dead South and the Pacific coast, they life. It was his view that only our something in the scene of this after- things in shapes—or absences of took the magazines off the stands at normal, objective experiences possess noon colloquy moved me to more shapes—which must for human the complaints of silly milk-sops; any esthetic significance, and that it than usual contentiousness. The spectators be utterly and appallingly but New England didn’t get the thrill is the province of the artist not so crumbling slate slabs, the patriarchal “unnamable”? “Common sense” in and merely shrugged its shoulders much to rouse strong emotion by trees, and the centuried gambrel reflecting on these subjects, I assured at my extravagance. The thing, it was action, ecstasy, and astonishment, as roofs of the witch-haunted old town my friend with some warmth, is averred, was biologically impossible to maintain a placid interest and that stretched around, all combined merely a stupid absence of imagina- to start with; merely another of those appreciation by accurate, detailed to rouse my spirit in defense of my tion and mental flexibility. crazy country mutterings which transcripts of everyday affairs. work; and I was soon carrying my Twilight had now approached, Cotton Mather had been gullible Especially did he object to my preoc- thrusts into the enemy’s own country. but neither of us felt any wish to enough to dump into his chaotic cupation with the mystical and the It was not, indeed, difficult to begin cease speaking. Manton seemed Magnalia Christi Americana, and so unexplained; for although believing a counter-attack, for I knew that Joel unimpressed by my arguments, and poorly authenticated that even he in the supernatural much more fully Manton actually half clung to many eager to refute them, having that had not ventured to name the locality than I, he would not admit that it is old-wives’ superstitions which confidence in his own opinions where the horror occurred. And as sufficiently commonplace for literary sophisticated people had long which had doubtless caused his to the way I amplified the bare treatment. That a mind can find its outgrown; beliefs in the appearance success as a teacher; whilst I was too jotting of the old mystic—that was greatest pleasure in escapes from the of dying persons at distant places, sure of my ground to fear defeat. The quite impossible, and characteristic daily treadmill, and in original and and in the impressions left by old dusk fell, and lights faintly gleamed of a flighty and notional scribbler! dramatic recombinations of images faces on the windows through which in some of the distant windows, but Mather had indeed told of the thing usually thrown by habit and fatigue they had gazed all their lives. To we did not move. Our seat on the as being born, but nobody but a into the hackneyed patterns of actual credit these whisperings of rural tomb was very comfortable, and I cheap sensationalist would think of existence, was something virtually grandmothers, I now insisted, argued knew that my prosaic friend would having it grow up, look into people’s incredible to his clear, practical, and a faith in the existence of spectral not mind the cavernous rift in the windows at night, and be hidden in logical intellect. With him all things substances on the earth apart from ancient, root-disturbed brickwork the attic of a house, in flesh and in and feelings had fixed dimensions, and subsequent to their material close behind us, or the utter black- spirit, till someone saw it at the properties, causes, and effects; and counterparts. It argued a capability ness of the spot brought by the inter- window centuries later and couldn’t although he vaguely knew that the of believing in phenomena beyond vention of a tottering, deserted describe what it was that turned his mind sometimes holds visions and all normal notions; for if a dead man seventeenth-century house between hair gray. All this was flagrant trash- sensations of far less geometrical, can transmit his visible or tangible us and the nearest lighted road. iness, and my friend Manton was classifiable, and workable nature, he image half across the world, or down There in the dark, upon that riven not slow to insist on that fact. believed himself justified in drawing the stretch of the centuries, how can tomb by the deserted house, we Then I told him what I had an arbitrary line and ruling out of it be absurd to suppose that deserted talked on about the “unnamable” and found in an old diary kept between court all that cannot be experienced houses are full of queer sentient after my friend had finished his 1706 and 1723, unearthed among and understood by the average things, or that old graveyards teem scoffing I told him of the awful family papers not a mile from where citizen. Besides, he was almost sure with the terrible, unbodied evidence behind the story at which we were sitting; that, and the certain 282 283 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The UNNAMABLE

reality of the scars on my ancestor’s This much he baldly told, yet without that attic door was strong. Then they frightful than anything organic could chest and back which the diary a hint of what came after. Perhaps stopped hoping when the horror be; apparitions of gigantic bestial described. I told him, too, of the fears he did not know, or perhaps he knew occurred at the parsonage, leaving forms sometimes visible and some- of others in that region, and how and did not dare to tell. Others knew, not a soul alive or in one piece. times only tangible, which floated they were whispered down for gener- but did not dare to tell—there is no With the years the legends take about on moonless nights and ations; and how no mythical madness public hint of why they whispered on a spectral character—I suppose haunted the old house, the crypt came to the boy who in 1793 entered about the lock on the door to the the thing, if it was a living thing, behind it, and the grave where a an abandoned house to examine attic stairs in the house of a childless, must have died. The memory had sapling had sprouted beside an illeg- certain traces suspected to be there. broken, embittered old man who had lingered hideously—all the more ible slab. Whether or not such appa- It had been an eldritch thing— put up a blank slate slab by an hideous because it was so secret. ritions had ever gored or smothered no wonder sensitive students shudder avoided grave, although one may During this narration my friend people to death, as told in uncorrob- at the Puritan age in Massachusetts. trace enough evasive legends to Manton had become very silent, and orated traditions, they had produced So little is known of what went on curdle the thinnest blood. I saw that my words had impressed a strong and consistent impression; beneath the surface—so little, yet It is all in that ancestral diary I him. He did not laugh as I paused, and were yet darkly feared by very such a ghastly festering as it bubbles found; all the hushed innuendoes but asked quite seriously about the aged natives, though largely forgotten up putrescently in occasional and furtive tales of things with a boy who went mad in 1793, and who by the last two generations—perhaps ghoulish glimpses. The blemished eye seen at windows in had presumably been the hero of my dying for lack of being thought terror is a horrible ray of light on the night or in deserted meadows fiction. I told him why the boy had about. Moreover, so far as esthetic what was stewing in men’s crushed near the woods. Something had gone to that shunned, deserted theory was involved, if the psychic brains, but even that is a trifle. There caught my ancestor on a dark valley house, and remarked that he ought emanations of human creatures be was no beauty, no freedom—we can road, leaving him with marks of to be interested, since he believed grotesque distortions, what coherent see that from the architectural and horns on his chest and of apelike that windows latent images of those representation could express or household remains, and the claws on his back; and when they who had sat at them. The boy had portray so gibbous and infamous a poisonous sermons of the cramped looked for prints in the trampled gone to look at the windows of that nebulosity as the specter of a malign, divines. And inside that rusted iron dust they found the mixed marks of horrible attic, because of tales of chaotic perversion, itself a morbid straitjacket lurked gibbering split hooves and vaguely anthropoid things seen behind them, and had blasphemy against nature? Molded hideousness, perversion, and diab- paws. Once a post-rider said he saw come back screaming maniacally. by the dead brain of a hybrid night- olism. Here, truly, was the apotheosis an old man chasing and calling to a Manton remained thoughtful as mare, would not such a vaporous of The Unnamable. frightful loping, nameless thing on I said this, but gradually reverted to terror constitute in all loathsome Cotton Mather, in that demo- Meadow Hill in the thinly moonlit his analytical mood. He granted for truth the exquisitely, the shriekingly niac sixth book which no one should hours before dawn, and many the sake of argument that some unnamable? read after dark, minced no words as believed him. Certainly, there was unnatural monster had really existed, The hour must now have grown he flung forth his anathema. Stern strange talk one night in 1710 when but reminded me that even the most very late. A singularly noiseless bat as a Jewish prophet, and laconically the childless, broken old man was morbid perversion of nature need brushed by me, and I believe it un-amazed as none since his day buried in the crypt behind his own not be unnamable or scientifically touched Manton also, for although could be, he told of the beast that house in sight of the blank slate slab. indescribable. I admired his clearness I could not see him I felt him raise had brought forth what was more They never unlocked that attic door, and persistence, and added some his arm. Presently he spoke. than beast but less than man—the but left the whole house as it was, further revelations I had collected “But is that house with the attic thing with the blemished eye—and dreaded and deserted. When noises among the old people. Those later window still standing and deserted?” of the screaming drunken wretch came from it, they whispered and spectral legends, I made plain, related “Yes,” I answered, “I have seen that hanged for having such an eye. shivered; and hoped that the lock on to monstrous apparitions more it.” 284 285 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The UNNAMABLE

“And did you find anything other grave without an inscription— and plaster; but I had mercifully had half expected— there—in the attic or anywhere else?” the whole thing must be a bit fainted before I could learn what it “No—it wasn’t that way at all. “There were some bones up terrible.” meant. It was everywhere—a gelatin—a under the eaves. They may have been “You did see it—until it got Manton, though smaller than I, slime yet it had shapes, a thousand what that boy saw—if he was sensi- dark.” is more resilient; for we opened our shapes of horror beyond all memory. tive he wouldn’t have needed My friend was more wrought eyes at almost the same instant, There were eyes—and a blemish. It anything in the window-glass to upon than I had suspected, for at despite his greater injuries. Our was the pit—the maelstrom—the unhinge him. If they all came from this touch of harmless theatricalism couches were side by side, and we ultimate abomination. Carter, it was the same object it must have been he started neurotically away from knew in a few seconds that we were the unnamable!” an hysterical, delirious monstrosity. me and actually cried out with a sort in St. Mary’s Hospital. Attendants It would have been blasphemous to of gulping gasp which released a were grouped about in tense curi- leave such bones in the world, so I strain of previous repression. It was osity, eager to aid our memory by went back with a sack and took them an odd cry, and all the more terrible telling us how we came there, and to the tomb behind the house. There because it was answered. For as it we soon heard of the farmer who was an opening where I could dump was still echoing, I heard a creaking had found us at noon in a lonely field them in. Don’t think I was a fool— sound through the pitchy blackness, beyond Meadow Hill, a mile from you ought to have seen that skull. It and knew that a lattice window was the old burying ground, on a spot had four-inch horns, but a face and opening in that accursed old house where an ancient slaughterhouse is jaw something like yours and mine.” beside us. And because all the other reputed to have stood. Manton had At last I could feel a real shiver frames were long since fallen, I knew two malignant wounds in the chest, run through Manton, who had that it was the grisly glassless frame and some less severe cuts or gougings moved very near. But his curiosity of that demoniac attic window. in the back. I was not so seriously was undeterred. Then came a noxious rush of hurt, but was covered with welts and “And what about the noisome, frigid air from that same contusions of the most bewildering window-panes?” dreaded direction, followed by a character, including the print of a “They were all gone. One piercing shriek just beside me on split hoof. It was plain that Manton window had lost its entire frame, and that shocking rifted tomb of man knew more than I, but he told in all the others there was not a trace and monster. In another instant I nothing to the puzzled and inter- of glass in the little diamond aper- was knocked from my gruesome ested physicians till he had learned tures. They were that kind—the old bench by the devilish threshing of what our injuries were. Then he said lattice windows that went out of use some unseen entity of titanic size we were the victims of a vicious before 1700. I don’t believe they’ve but undetermined nature; knocked bull—though the animal was a diffi- had any glass for a hundred years or sprawling on the root-clutched mold cult thing to place and account for. more—maybe the boy broke ’em if of that abhorrent graveyard, while After the doctors and nurses had he got that far; the legend doesn’t from the tomb came such a stifled left, I whispered an awe-struck say.” uproar of gasping and whirring that question: Manton was reflecting again. my fancy peopled the rayless gloom “Good God, Manton, but what “I’d like to see that house, Carter. with Miltonic legions of the was it? Those scars—was it like Where is it? Glass or no glass, I must misshapen damned. There was a that?” explore it a little. And the tomb vortex of withering, ice-cold wind, And I was too dazed to exult where you put those bones, and the and then the rattle of loose bricks when he whispered back a thing I 286 287

The FESTIVAL.

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Efficiunt Daemones, ut quae non sunt, sic tamen quasi sint, conspicienda hominibus exhibeant. (Devils so work that things which are not appear to men as if they were real.) —Lactantius

was far from home, and the hearts it is older than Bethlehem spell of the eastern sea was and Babylon, older than Memphis upon me. In the twilight I and mankind. It was the Yuletide, heardI it pounding on the rocks, and I had come at last to the ancient and I knew it lay just over the hill sea town where my people had dwelt where the twisting willows writhed and kept festival in the elder time against the clearing sky and the when festival was forbidden; where first stars of evening. And because also they had commanded their sons my fathers had called me to the old to keep festival once every century, town beyond, I pushed on through that the memory of primal secrets the shallow, new-fallen snow along might not be forgotten. Mine were the road that soared lonely up to an old people, and were old even where Aldebaran twinkled among when this land was settled three the trees, on toward the very hundred years before. And they were ancient town I had never seen but strange, because they had come as often dreamed of. dark furtive folk from opiate It was the Yuletide, that men call southern gardens of orchids, and Christmas though they know in their spoken another tongue before they H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The FESTIVAL

learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed They had hanged four kinsmen of eager to knock at the door of my reassured me; and though he made fishers. And now they were scattered, mine for witchcraft in 1692, but I people, the seventh house on the left signs that he was dumb, he wrote a and shared only the rituals of did not know just where. in Green Lane, with an ancient quaint and ancient welcome with mysteries that none living could As the road wound down the peaked roof and jutting second the stylus and wax tablet he carried. understand. I was the only one who seaward slope I listened for the storey, all built before 1650. He beckoned me into a low, came back that night to the old merry sounds of a village at evening, There were lights inside the candle-lit room with massive fishing town as legend bade, for only but did not hear them. Then I house when I came upon it, and I exposed rafters and dark, stiff, sparse the poor and the lonely remember. thought of the season, and felt that saw from the diamond window- furniture of the seventeenth century. Then beyond the hill’s crest I these old Puritan folk might well panes that it must have been kept The past was vivid there, for not an saw Kingsport outspread frostily in have Christmas customs strange to very close to its antique state. The attribute was missing. There was a the gloaming; snowy Kingsport with me, and full of silent hearthside upper part overhung the narrow cavernous fireplace and a spin- its ancient vanes and steeples, ridge- prayer. So after that I did not listen grass-grown street and nearly met ning-wheel at which a bent old poles and chimney-pots, wharves for merriment or look for wayfarers, the over-hanging part of the house woman in loose wrapper and deep and small bridges, willow-trees and but kept on down past the hushed opposite, so that I was almost in a poke-bonnet sat back toward me, graveyards; endless labyrinths of lighted farmhouses and shadowy tunnel, with the low stone doorstep silently spinning despite the festive steep, narrow, crooked streets, and stone walls to where the signs of wholly free from snow. There was season. An indefinite dampness dizzy church-crowned central peak ancient shops and sea taverns creaked no sidewalk, but many houses had seemed upon the place, and I that time durst not touch; ceaseless in the salt breeze, and the grotesque high doors reached by double flights marvelled that no fire should be mazes of colonial houses piled and knockers of pillared doorways glis- of steps with iron railings. It was an blazing. The high-backed settle scattered at all angles and levels like tened along deserted unpaved lanes odd scene, and because I was strange faced the row of curtained windows a child’s disordered blocks; antiquity in the light of little, curtained to New England I had never known at the left, and seemed to be occu- hovering on grey wings over windows. its like before. Though it pleased me, pied, though I was not sure. I did winter-whitened gables and gambrel I had seen maps of the town, and I would have relished it better if not like everything about what I saw, roofs; fanlights and small-paned knew where to find the home of my there had been footprints in the and felt again the fear I had had. windows one by one gleaming out people. It was told that I should be snow, and people in the streets, and This fear grew stronger from what in the cold dusk to join Orion and known and welcomed, for village a few windows without drawn had before lessened it, for the more the archaic stars. And against the legend lives long; so I hastened curtains. I looked at the old man’s bland face rotting wharves the sea pounded; through Back Street to Circle Court, When I sounded the archaic the more its very blandness terrified the secretive, immemorial sea out of and across the fresh snow on the one iron knocker I was half afraid. Some me. The eyes never moved, and the which the people had come in the full flagstone pavement in the town, fear had been gathering in me, skin was too much like wax. Finally elder time. to where Green Lane leads off perhaps because of the strangeness I was sure it was not a face at all, but Beside the road at its crest a still behind the Market House. The old of my heritage, and the bleakness of a fiendishly cunning mask. But the higher summit rose, bleak and wind- maps still held good, and I had no the evening, and the queerness of flabby hands, curiously gloved, wrote swept, and I saw that it was a bury- trouble; though at Arkham they the silence in that aged town of genially on the tablet and told me I ing-ground where black gravestones must have lied when they said the curious customs. And when my must wait a while before I could be stuck ghoulishly through the snow trolleys ran to this place, since I saw knock was answered I was fully led to the place of the festival. like the decayed fingernails of a not a wire overhead. Snow would afraid, because I had not heard any Pointing to a chair, table, and gigantic corpse. The printless road have hid the rails in any case. I was footsteps before the door creaked pile of books, the old man now left was very lonely, and sometimes I glad I had chosen to walk, for the open. But I was not afraid long, for the room; and when I sat down to thought I heard a distant horrible white village had seemed very beau- the gowned, slippered old man in read I saw that the books were hoary creaking as of a gibbet in the wind. tiful from the hill; and now I was the doorway had a bland face that and mouldy, and that they included 290 291 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The FESTIVAL

old Morryster’s wild Marvels of dressed in a loose antique costume, stomachs that seemed abnormally to look at the outside world as the Science, the terrible Saducismus and sat down on that very bench, so pulpy; but seeing never a face and churchyard phosphorescence cast a Triumphatus of Joseph Glanvil, that I could not see him. It was hearing never a word. Up, up, up, the sickly glow on the hilltop pavement. published in 1681, the shocking certainly nervous waiting, and the eery columns slithered, and I saw And as I did so I shuddered. For Daemonolatreja of Remigius, printed blasphemous book in my hands that all the travellers were converging though the wind had not left much in 1595 at Lyons, and worst of all, made it doubly so. When eleven as they flowed near a sort of focus snow, a few patches did remain on the unmentionable Necronomicon of struck, however, the old man stood of crazy alleys at the top of a high the path near the door; and in that the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, in up, glided to a massive carved chest hill in the centre of the town, where fleeting backward look it seemed to Olaus Wormius’ forbidden Latin in a corner, and got two hooded perched a great white church. I had my troubled eyes that they bore no translation; a book which I had never cloaks; one of which he donned, and seen it from the road’s crest when I mark of passing feet, not even mine. seen, but of which I had heard the other of which he draped round looked at Kingsport in the new dusk, monstrous things whispered. No one the old woman, who was ceasing her and it had made me shiver because he church was scarce spoke to me, but I could hear the monotonous spinning. Then they Aldebaran had seemed to balance lighted by all the lanthorns creaking of signs in the wind outside, both started for the outer door; the itself a moment on the ghostly spire. that had entered it, for and the whir of the wheel as the woman lamely creeping, and the old There was an open space around Tmost of the throng had already bonneted old woman continued her man, after picking up the very book the church; partly a churchyard with vanished. They had streamed up silent spinning, spinning. I thought I had been reading, beckoning me spectral shafts, and partly a half- the aisle between the high pews to the room and the books and the as he drew his hood over that paved square swept nearly bare of the trap-door of the vaults which people very morbid and disquieting, unmoving face or mask. snow by the wind, and lined with yawned loathsomely open just but because an old tradition of my We went out into the moonless unwholesomely archaic houses before the pulpit, and were now fathers had summoned me to strange and tortuous network of that incred- having peaked roofs and overhanging squirming noiselessly in. I followed feastings, I resolved to expect queer ibly ancient town; went out as the gables. Death-fires danced over the dumbly down the foot-worn steps things. So I tried to read, and soon lights in the curtained windows tombs, revealing gruesome vistas, and into the dark, suffocating crypt. became tremblingly absorbed by disappeared one by one, and the Dog though queerly failing to cast any The tail of that sinuous line of something I found in that accursed Star leered at the throng of cowled, shadows. Past the churchyard, where night-marchers seemed very Necronomicon; a thought and a legend cloaked figures that poured silently there were no houses, I could see horrible, and as I saw them wrig- too hideous for sanity or conscious- from every doorway and formed over the hill’s summit and watch the gling into a venerable tomb they ness, but I disliked it when I fancied monstrous processions up this street glimmer of stars on the harbour, seemed more horrible still. Then I I heard the closing of one of the and that, past the creaking signs and though the town was invisible in the noticed that the tomb’s floor had windows that the settle faced, as if antediluvian gables, the thatched dark. Only once in a while a lantern an aperture down which the throng it had been stealthily opened. It had roofs and diamond-paned windows; bobbed horribly through serpentine was sliding, and in a moment we seemed to follow a whirring that was threading precipitous lanes where alleys on its way to overtake the were all descending an ominous not of the old woman’s spin- decaying houses overlapped and throng that was now slipping staircase of rough-hewn stone; a ning-wheel. This was not much, crumbled together; gliding across speechlessly into the church. I waited narrow spiral staircase damp and though, for the old woman was spin- open courts and churchyards where till the crowd had oozed into the peculiarly odorous, that wound ning very hard, and the aged clock the bobbing lanthorns made eldritch black doorway, and till all the strag- endlessly down into the bowels of had been striking. After that I lost drunken constellations. glers had followed. The old man was the hill past monotonous walls of the feeling that there were persons Amid these hushed throngs I pulling at my sleeve, but I was deter- dripping stone blocks and crum- on the settle, and was reading followed my voiceless guides; jostled mined to be the last. Crossing the bling mortar. It was a silent, intently and shudderingly when the by elbows that seemed preternatu- threshold into the swarming temple shocking descent, and I observed old man came back booted and rally soft, and pressed by chests and of unknown darkness, I turned once after a horrible interval that the 292 293 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1923 • The FESTIVAL

walls and steps were changing in water, and saw the cloaked throngs writings of my forefathers. Then the seize an animal and ride like the rest. nature, as if chiseled out of the solid forming a semicircle around the old man made a signal to the half- I saw when I staggered to my feet rock. What mainly troubled me blazing pillar. It was the Yule-rite, seen flute-player in the darkness, that the amorphous flute-player had was that the myriad footfalls made older than man and fated to survive which player thereupon changed its rolled out of sight, but that two of no sound and set up no echoes. him; the primal rite of the solstice feeble drone to a scarce louder drone the beasts were patiently standing After more aeons of descent I and of spring’s promise beyond the in another key; precipitating as it by. As I hung back, the old man saw some side passages or burrows snows; the rite of fire and evergreen, did so a horror unthinkable and produced his stylus and tablet and leading from unknown recesses of light and music. unexpected. At this horror I sank wrote that he was the true deputy blackness to this shaft of nighted And in the stygian grotto I saw nearly to the lichened earth, trans- of my fathers who had founded the mystery. Soon they became exces- them do the rite, and adore the sick fixed with a dread not of this or any Yule worship in this ancient place; sively numerous, like impious cata- pillar of flame, and throw into the world, but only of the mad spaces that it had been decreed I should combs of nameless menace; and their water handfuls gouged out of the between the stars. come back, and that the most secret pungent odour of decay grew quite viscous vegetation which glittered Out of the unimaginable black- mysteries were yet to be performed. unbearable. I knew we must have green in the chlorotic glare. I saw ness beyond the gangrenous glare of He wrote this in a very ancient hand, passed down through the mountain this, and I saw something amor- that cold flame, out of the tartarean and when I still hesitated he pulled and beneath the earth of Kingsport phously squatted far away from the leagues through which that oily river from his loose robe a seal ring and itself, and I shivered that a town light, piping noisomely on a flute; rolled uncanny, unheard, and unsus- a watch, both with my family arms, should be so aged and maggoty with and as the thing piped I thought I pected, there flopped rhythmically to prove that he was what he said. subterraneous evil. heard noxious muffled flutterings in a horde of tame, trained, hybrid But it was a hideous proof, because Then I saw the lurid shim- the foetid darkness where I could winged things that no sound eye I knew from old papers that that mering of pale light, and heard the not see. But what frightened me could ever wholly grasp, or sound watch had been buried with my insidious lapping of sunless waters. most was that flaming column; brain ever wholly remember. They great-great-great-great-grandfather Again I shivered, for I did not like spouting volcanically from depths were not altogether crows, nor moles, in 1698. the things that the night had profound and inconceivable, casting nor buzzards, nor ants, nor Presently the old man drew back brought, and wished bitterly that no no shadows as healthy flame should, bats, nor decomposed human beings; his hood and pointed to the family forefather had summoned me to this and coating the nitrous stone with but something I cannot and must resemblance in his face, but I only primal rite. As the steps and the a nasty, venomous verdigris. For in not recall. They flopped limply along, shuddered, because I was sure that passage grew broader, I heard all that seething combustion no half with their webbed feet and half the face was merely a devilish waxen another sound, the thin, whining warmth lay, but only the clamminess with their membranous wings; and mask. The flopping animals were mockery of a feeble flute; and of death and corruption. as they reached the throng of cele- now scratching restlessly at the suddenly there spread out before me The man who had brought me brants the cowled figures seized and lichens, and I saw that the old man the boundless vista of an inner now squirmed to a point directly mounted them, and rode off one by was nearly as restless himself. When world—a vast fungous shore litten beside the hideous flame, and made one along the reaches of that one of the things began to waddle by a belching column of sick greenish stiff ceremonial motions to the semi- unlighted river, into pits and galleries and edge away, he turned quickly to flame and washed by a wide oily river circle he faced. At certain stages of of panic where poison springs feed stop it; so that the suddenness of his that flowed from abysses frightful the ritual they did grovelling obei- frightful and undiscoverable motion dislodged the waxen mask and unsuspected to join the blackest sance, especially when he held above cataracts. from what should have been his gulfs of immemorial ocean. his head that abhorrent Necronomicon The old spinning woman had head. And then, because that night- Fainting and gasping, I looked he had taken with him; and I shared gone with the throng, and the old mare’s position barred me from the at that unhallowed Erebus of titan all the obeisances because I had been man remained only because I had stone staircase down which we had toadstools, leprous fire and slimy summoned to this festival by the refused when he motioned me to come, I flung myself into the oily 294 295 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

underground river that bubbled agreed I had better get any somewhere to the caves of the sea; harassing obsessions off my mind. flung myself into that putrescent So I read that hideous chapter, juice of earth’s inner horrors before and shuddered doubly because it was the madness of my screams could indeed not new to me. I had seen it bring down upon me all the charnel before, let footprints tell what they legions these pest-gulfs might might; and where it was I had seen conceal. it were best forgotten. There was no one—in waking hours—who could t the hospital they told me remind me of it; but my dreams are I had been found half- filled with terror, because of phrases frozen in Kingsport I dare not quote. I dare quote only 1924: AHarbour at dawn, clinging to the one paragraph, put into such English drifting spar that accident sent to as I can make from the awkward save me. They told me I had taken Low Latin. FAILURE to LAUNCH. the wrong fork of the hill road the “The nethermost caverns,” wrote [return to table of contents] night before, and fallen over the the mad Arab, “are not for the fath- cliffs at Orange Point; a thing they oming of eyes that see; for their deduced from prints found in the marvels are strange and terrific. snow. There was nothing I could Cursed the ground where dead say, because everything was wrong. thoughts live new and oddly bodied, ineteen-twenty-four was Pharaohs,” by Harry Houdini— Everything was wrong, with the and evil the mind that is held by no something of a high point whom Lovecraft had met and struck broad windows showing a sea of head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, in H.P. Lovecraft’s life. up a friendship with early that year. roofs in which only about one in that happy is the tomb where no But,N looking back on the year from Meanwhile, Sonia had taken five was ancient, and the sound of wizard hath lain, and happy the town its end, the poor fellow may have some of Lovecraft’s work samples trolleys and motors in the streets at night whose wizards are all ashes. wondered if all the great things to the offices of a friend, Gertrude below. They insisted that this was For it is of old rumour that the soul that had filled the first half of the Tucker, who published a general-in- Kingsport, and I could not deny it. of the devil-bought hastes not from year were some kind of cynical terest magazine called The Reading When I went delirious at hearing his charnel clay, but fats and instructs set-up for the bitter disappoint- Lamp, at which he hoped to get a that the hospital stood near the old the very worm that gnaws; till out ments to follow. regular job as a reviewer. Tucker was churchyard on Central Hill, they of corruption horrid life springs, and Within the first month or two enthusiastic, and proposed also that sent me to St. Mary’s Hospital in the dull scavengers of earth wax of 1924, Lovecraft and Sonia Greene Lovecraft should write a nonfiction Arkham, where I could have better crafty to vex it and swell monstrous became engaged to marry. They book covering witchcraft and care. I liked it there, for the doctors to plague it. Great holes secretly are followed through on their plans haunted houses in New England, were broad-minded, and even lent digged where earth’s pores ought to almost immediately, tying the knot which she would represent to me their influence in obtaining the suffice, and things have learnt to on March 3; but there wasn’t much publishers as his agent. Things were carefully sheltered copy of walk that ought to crawl.” time for a honeymoon, because the looking very positive. Alhazred’s objectionable manuscript for a ghostwriting job Lovecraft clearly enjoyed Necronomicon from the library of was due at Weird Tales, and Lovecraft married life, at least at first. Sonia, Miskatonic University. They said was scrambling to get it ready. It was concerned about his gaunt frame, something about a “psychosis” and a story titled “In the Tomb of the embarked upon a plan to fatten him 296 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

up a bit, and by the end of the year man like him—had been a cruel accepted a job offer at a department had him up from 140 to 190 pounds. tease, and he was paid off with a store in Cincinnati. On the last day But things were already starting merchandise credit at a bookstore of 1924, she left for her new job in to go wrong for Lovecraft. In May, which he tried, unsuccessfully, to that city, leaving Lovecraft behind editor left Weird Tales; redeem for cash. in New York to continue his job the publisher, J.C. Henneberger, was By this time, Lovecraft’s other search. left scrambling to keep the magazine iron in the fire had long gone cold With all the drama and upheaval, going, and looking for a new editor. as well. For reasons unknown, it’s not surprising that Lovecraft So he reached out to Lovecraft, Gertrude Tucker had decided not to produced only one story in 1924— suggesting that he might take over hire him as a reviewer for The one written while Sonia was in the as editor of Weird Tales. Lovecraft Reading Lamp, and for good measure hospital recovering from her nervous responded with his customary diffi- had left him high and dry on the breakdown. This was “The Shunned dence, no doubt expecting the nonfiction book project, which he’d House,” a tale pulled from local publisher to press the case a little; put considerable time and effort into. Providence legend. The most inter- but Henneberger wasn’t used to This wouldn’t have been a big esting thing about “The Shunned dealing with Lovecraft, and appar- problem if not for the fact that Sonia, House” is Lovecraft’s dexterous ently assumed the cool response was apparently in an effort to find a line mixing of real history and actual a hint that the writer was not inter- of work that required less travel and legendry with made-up bits, to ested. (On the other hand, it’s let her be home with her new generate an unusual horror story— entirely possible that he really was husband more, had quit her $10,000- one that feels as if it just might be not interested; Weird Tales was a-year job and opened a hat store. true. This technique of mixing fact known to be in a shaky financial This move turned out to be a disaster. with fiction in artful ways would condition.) By the end of the year, it had failed; become a very important tool in In any case, before this commu- on top of that, she lost her other Lovecraft’s fiction kit for the rest of nication tangle could be sorted out, investments in a bank failure. his life, and would lead to the one the magazine’s creditors took over So starting in July, Lovecraft he’s perhaps best known for—the operations and placed Farnsworth canvassed the city looking for literary creation of the shared universal Wright in the editorship. Lovecraft work. But his combination of lack mythology that’s come to be known would have a less cordial relationship of employment experience and diffi- as the , used by with Wright than he’d had with his dent, self-deprecating style kept him several different writers to give all predecessor. relentlessly unemployed, fully depen- their stories greater verisimilitude. Ex-publisher Henneberger then dent on the meager earnings from announced plans to launch a new his ghostwriting business and from magazine, Ghost Stories, and hired his wife. The pressure on Sonia was Lovecraft at $40 a week as editor. tremendous, and in October she For two months, Lovecraft was left checked into a hospital with what hanging, engaged but unpaid, while turned out to be psychosomatic the publisher sought financial symptoms of extreme stress—essen- backing to launch his title. Finally, tially, a panic attack. in November, he admitted defeat. After leaving the hospital, with Lovecraft’s job—a dream job for a no other prospects at hand, Sonia 298 299

The SHUNNED HOUSE.

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I. led northward along the same street to Mrs. Whitman’s home rom even the greatest of and the neighboring hillside horrors irony is seldom churchyard of St. John’s, whose absent. Sometimes it enters hidden expanse of Eighteenth directly into the composition of the F Century gravestones had for him a events, while sometimes it relates peculiar fascination. only to their fortuitous position Now the irony is this. In this among persons and places. The walk, so many times repeated, the latter sort is splendidly exemplified world’s greatest master of the terrible by a case in the ancient city of and the bizarre was obliged to pass Providence, where in the late forties a particular house on the eastern side Edgar Allan Poe used to sojourn of the street; a dingy, antiquated often during his unsuccessful structure perched on the abruptly wooing of the gifted poetess, Mrs. rising side hill, with a great unkempt Whitman. Poe generally stopped at yard dating from a time when the the Mansion House in Benefit region was partly open country. It Street—the renamed Golden Ball does not appear that he ever wrote Inn whose roof has sheltered or spoke of it, nor is there any Washington, Jefferson, and evidence that he even noticed it. And Lafayette—and his favorite walk yet that house, to the two persons in H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

possession of certain information, giving the deep cellar a street unhealthy, perhaps because of the weakness he may have naturally had. equals or outranks in horror the frontage with door and one window dampness and fungous growths in And those who did not die displayed wildest of the genius who so above ground, close to the new line the cellar, the general sickish smell, in varying degree a type of anemia often passed it unknowingly, and of public travel. When the sidewalk the drafts of the hallways, or the or consumption, and sometimes a stands starkly leering as a symbol of was laid out a century ago the last quality of the well and pump water. decline of the mental faculties, which all that is unutterably hideous. of the intervening space was These things were bad enough, and spoke ill for the salubriousness of The house was—and for that removed; and Poe in his walks must these were all that gained belief the building. Neighboring houses, it matter still is—of a kind to attract have seen only a sheer ascent of dull among the persons whom I knew. must be added, seemed entirely free the attention of the curious. gray brick flush with the sidewalk Only the notebooks of my anti- from the noxious quality. Originally a farm or semifarm and surmounted at a height of ten quarian uncle, Doctor Elihu This much I knew before my building, it followed the average feet by the antique shingled bulk of Whipple, revealed to me at length insistent questioning led my uncle New England colonial lines of the the house proper. the darker, vaguer surmises which to show me the notes which finally middle Eighteenth Century—the The farm-like ground extended formed an undercurrent of folklore embarked us both on our hideous prosperous peaked-roof sort, with back very deeply up the hill, almost among old-time servants and investigation. In my childhood the two stories and dormerless attic, and to Wheaton Street. The space south humble folk; surmises which never shunned house was vacant, with with the Georgian doorway and of the house, abutting on Benefit travelled far, and which were largely barren, gnarled and terrible old trees, interior panelling dictated by the Street, was of course greatly above forgotten when Providence grew to long, queerly pale grass and night- progress of taste at that time. It faced the existing sidewalk level, forming be a metropolis with a shifting marishly misshapen weeds in the south, with one gable end buried to a terrace bounded by a high bank modern population. high terraced yard where birds never the lower windows in the eastward wall of damp, mossy stone pierced The general fact is, that the lingered. We boys used to overrun rising hill, and the other exposed to by a steep flight of narrow steps house was never regarded by the the place, and I can still recall my the foundations toward the street. which led inward between canyon- solid part of the community as in youthful terror not only at the Its construction, over a century and like surfaces to the upper region of any real sense “haunted.” There were morbid strangeness of this sinister a half ago, had followed the grading mangy lawn, rheumy brick walks, no widespread tales of rattling vegetation, but at the eldritch atmo- and straightening of the road in that and neglected gardens whose chains, cold currents of air, extin- sphere and odor of the dilapidated especial vicinity; for Benefit Street— dismantled cement urns, rusted guished lights, or faces at the window. house, whose unlocked front door at first called Back Street—was laid kettles fallen from tripods of knotty Extremists sometimes said the house was often entered in quest of shud- out as a lane winding amongst the sticks, and similar paraphernalia set was “unlucky,” but that is as far as ders. The small-paned windows were graveyards of the first settlers, and off the weather-beaten front door even they went. What was really largely broken, and a nameless air of straightened only when the removal with its broken fanlight, rotting Ionic beyond dispute is that a frightful desolation hung round the precar- of the bodies to the North Burial pilasters, and wormy triangular proportion of persons died there; or ious panelling, shaky interior shut- Ground made it decently possible pediment. more accurately, had died there, since ters, peeling wall-paper, falling to cut through the old family plots. after some peculiar happenings over plaster, rickety staircases, and such At the start, the western wall hat I heard in my youth sixty years ago the building had fragments of battered furniture as had lain some twenty feet up a about the shunned become deserted through the sheer still remained. The dust and cobwebs precipitous lawn from the roadway; house was merely that impossibility of renting it. These added their touch of the fearful; and but a widening of the street at about peopleW died there in alarmingly persons were not all cut off suddenly brave indeed was the boy who would the time of the Revolution sheared great numbers. That, I was told, by any one cause; rather did it seem voluntarily ascend the ladder to the off most of the intervening space, was why the original owners had that their vitality was insidiously attic, a vast raftered length lighted exposing the foundations so that a moved out some twenty years after sapped, so that each one died the only by small blinking windows in brick basement wall had to be made, building the place. It was plainly sooner from whatever tendency to the gable ends, and filled with a 302 303 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

massed wreckage of chests, chairs, subtler thing we often thought we in the damp, low-ceiled library with and spinning-wheels which infinite detected—a very strange thing II. the musty white panelling, heavy years of deposit had shrouded and which was, however, merely sugges- ot till my adult years did carved overmantel and small-paned, festooned into monstrous and hellish tive at most. I refer to a sort of cloudy my uncle set before me vine-shaded windows, were the relics shapes. whitish pattern on the dirt floor—a the notes and data which and records of his ancient family, But after all, the attic was not vague, shifting deposit of mold or heN had collected concerning the among which were many dubious the most terrible part of the house. niter which we sometimes thought shunned house. Doctor Whipple allusions to the shunned house in It was the dank, humid cellar which we could trace amidst the sparse was a sane, conservative physician Benefit Street. That pest spot lies somehow exerted the strongest fungous growths near the huge fire- of the old school, and for all his not far distant—for Benefit runs repulsion on us, even though it was place of the basement kitchen. Once interest in the place was not eager edgewise just above the court house wholly above ground on the street in a while it struck us that this patch to encourage young thoughts along the precipitous hill up which side, with only a thin door and bore an uncanny resemblance to a toward the abnormal. His own the first settlement climbed. window-pierced brick wall to sepa- doubled-up human figure, though view, postulating simply a building When, in the end, my insistent rate it from the busy sidewalk. We generally no such kinship existed, and location of markedly unsani- pestering and maturing years evoked scarcely knew whether to haunt it and often there was no whitish tary qualities, had nothing to do from my uncle the hoarded lore I in spectral fascination, or to shun it deposit whatever. with abnormality; but he realized sought, there lay before me a strange for the sake of our souls and our On a certain rainy afternoon that the very picturesqueness which enough chronicle. Long-winded, sanity. For one thing, the bad odor when this illusion seemed phenom- aroused his own interest would in a statistical, and drearily genealogical of the house was strongest there; and enally strong, and when, in addition, boy’s fanciful mind take on all as some of the matter was, there ran for another thing, we did not like I had fancied I glimpsed a kind of manner of gruesome imaginative through it a continuous thread of the white fungous growths which thin, yellowish, shimmering exhala- associations. brooding, tenacious horror and occasionally sprang up in rainy tion rising from the nitrous pattern The doctor was a bachelor; a preternatural malevolence which summer weather from the hard earth toward the yawning fireplace, I spoke white-haired, clean-shaven, impressed me even more than it had floor. Those fungi, grotesquely like to my uncle about the matter. He old-fashioned gentleman, and a local impressed the good doctor. Separate the vegetation in the yard outside, smiled at this odd conceit, but it historian of note, who had often events fitted together uncannily, and were truly horrible in their outlines; seemed that his smile was tinged broken a lance with such controver- seemingly irrelevant details held detestable parodies of toadstools and with reminiscence. Later I heard that sial guardians of tradition as Sidney mines of hideous possibilities. A new Indian-pipes, whose like we had a similar notion entered into some S. Rider and Thomas W. Bicknell. and burning curiosity grew in me, never seen in any other situation. of the wild ancient tales of the He lived with one man-servant in a compared to which my boyish curi- They rotted quickly, and at one stage common folk—a notion likewise Georgian homestead with knocker osity was feeble and inchoate. became slightly phosphorescent; so alluding to ghoulish, wolfish shapes and iron-railed steps, balanced eerily The first revelation led to an that nocturnal passers-by sometimes taken by smoke from the great on the steep ascent of North Court exhaustive research, and finally to spoke of witch-fires glowing behind chimney, and queer contours Street beside the ancient brick court that shuddering quest which proved the broken panes of the fetor- assumed by certain of the sinuous and colony house where his grand- so disastrous to myself and mine. spreading windows. tree-roots that thrust their way into father—a cousin of that celebrated For at the last my uncle insisted on We never—even in our wildest the cellar through the loose privateersman, Captain Whipple, joining the search I had commenced, Halloween moods—visited this foundation-stones. who burnt His Majesty’s armed and after a certain night in that cellar by night, but in some of our schooner Gaspee in 1772—had house he did not come away with daytime visits could detect the phos- voted in the legislature on May 4, me. I am lonely without that gentle phorescence, especially when the day 1776, for the independence of the soul whose long years were filled was dark and wet. There was also a Rhode Island Colony. Around him only with honor, virtue, good taste, 304 305 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

benevolence, and learning. I have ran along the side of the hill above In 1768 she fell victim to a mild form of the most uncomfortable super- reared a marble urn to his memory crowded Cheapside—was all that of insanity, and was thereafter stitions. As lately as 1892 an Exeter in St. John’s churchyard—the place could be wished, and the building confined to the upper part of the community exhumed a dead body that Poe loved—the hidden grove did justice to the location. It was the house; her elder maiden sister, Mercy and ceremoniously burnt its heart of giant willows on the hill, where best that moderate means could Dexter, having moved in to take in order to prevent certain alleged tombs and headstones huddle quietly afford, and Harris hastened to move charge of the family. Mercy was a visitations injurious to the public between the hoary bulk of the church in before the birth of a fifth child plain, raw-boned woman of great health and peace, and one may and the houses and bank walls of which the family expected. That strength; but her health visibly imagine the point of view of the Benefit Street. child, a boy, came in December; but declined from the time of her advent. same section in 1768. Ann’s tongue The history of the house, was stillborn. Nor was any child to She was greatly devoted to her was perniciously active, and within opening amidst a maze of dates, be born alive in that house for a unfortunate sister, and had an espe- a few months Mercy discharged revealed no trace of the sinister either century and a half. cial affection for her only surviving her, filling her place with a faithful about its construction or about the The next April, sickness occurred nephew, William, who from a sturdy and amiable Amazon from prosperous and honorable family among the children, and Abigail and infant had become a sickly, spindling Newport, Maria Robbins. who built it. Yet from the first a taint Ruth died before the month was lad. In this year the servant Mehitabel Meanwhile poor Rhoby Harris, of calamity, soon increased to boding over. Doctor Job Ives diagnosed the died, and the other servant, Preserved in her madness, gave voice to dreams significance, was apparent. My trouble as some infantile fever, Smith, left without coherent expla- and imaginings of the most hideous uncle’s carefully compiled record though others declared it was more nation—or at least, with only some sort. At times her screams became began with the building of the struc- of a mere wasting-away or decline. wild tales and a complaint that he insupportable, and for long periods ture in 1763, and followed the theme It seemed, in any event, to be conta- disliked the smell of the place. For she would utter shrieking horrors with an unusual amount of detail. gious; for Hannah Bowen, one of a time Mercy could secure no more which necessitated her son’s tempo- The shunned house, it seems, was the two servants, died of it in the help, since the seven deaths and case rary residence with his cousin, Peleg first inhabited by William Harris following June. Eli Lideason, the of madness, all occurring within five Harris, in Presbyterian Lane near and his wife Rhoby Dexter, with other servant, constantly complained years’ space, had begun to set in the new college building. The boy their children, Elkanah, born in of weakness; and would have motion the body of fireside rumor would seem to improve after these 1755; Abigail, born in 1757; William, returned to his father’s farm in which later became so bizarre. visits, and had Mercy been as wise Jr., born in 1759; and Ruth, born in Rehoboth but for a sudden attach- Ultimately, however, she obtained as she was well-meaning, she would 1761. Harris was a substantial ment for Mehitabel Pierce, who was new servants from out of town; Ann have let him live permanently with merchant and seaman in the West hired to succeed Hannah. He died White, a morose woman from that Peleg. Just what Mrs. Harris cried India trade, connected with the firm the next year—a sad year indeed, part of North Kingstown now set out in her fits of violence, tradition of Obadiah Brown and his nephews. since it marked the death of William off as the township of Exeter, and a hesitates to say; or rather, presents After Brown’s death in 1761, the Harris himself, enfeebled as he was capable Boston man named Zenas such extravagant accounts that they new firm of Nicholas Brown & by the climate of Martinique, where Low. nullify themselves through sheer Company made him master of the his occupation had kept him for absurdity. Certainly it sounds absurd brig Prudence, Providence-built, of considerable periods during the t was Ann White who first to hear that a woman educated only 120 tons, thus enabling him to erect preceding decade. gave definite shape to the in the rudiments of French often the new homestead he had desired The widowed Rhoby Harris sinister idle talk. Mercy should shouted for hours in a coarse and ever since his marriage. never recovered from the shock of haveI known better than to hire idiomatic form of that language, or The site he had chosen—a her husband’s death, and the passing anyone from the Nooseneck Hill that the same person, alone and recently straightened part of the new of her first-born Elkanah two years country, for that remote bit of guarded, complained wildly of a and fashionable Back Street, which later was the final blow to her reason. backwoods was then, as now, a seat staring thing which bit and chewed 306 307 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

at her. In 1772 the servant Zenas thoroughly convinced of the radi- caused by the then diminishing fever obtaining tenants. The horror has died, and when Mrs. Harris heard cally unhealthful nature of his abode, epidemic. They said the place had a gone. of it she laughed with a shocking now took steps toward quitting it febrile smell. delight utterly foreign to her. The and closing it for ever. Securing Dutee himself thought little of next year she herself died, and was temporary quarters for himself and the house, for he grew up to be a III. laid to rest in the North Burial his wife at the newly opened Golden privateersman, and served with t may well be imagined how Ground beside her husband. Ball Inn, he arranged for the building distinction on the Vigilant under powerfully I was affected by Upon the outbreak of trouble of a new and finer house in Captain Cahoone in the War of the annals of the Harrises. In with Great Britain in 1775, William Westminster Street, in the growing 1812. He returned unharmed, thisI continuous record there Harris, despite his scant sixteen part of the town across the Great married in 1814, and became a seemed to me to brood a persistent years and feeble constitution, Bridge. There, in 1785, his son father on that memorable night of evil beyond anything in nature as I managed to enlist in the Army of Dutee was born; and there the September 23, 1815, when a great had known it, an evil clearly Observation under General Greene; family dwelt till the encroachments gale drove the waters of the bay over connected with the house and not and from that time on enjoyed a of commerce drove them back across half the town, and floated a tall sloop with the family. This impression steady rise in health and prestige. In the river and over the hill to Angell well up Westminster Street so that was confirmed by my uncle’s less 1780, as a captain in the Rhode Street, in the newer East Side resi- its masts almost tapped the Harris systematic array of miscellaneous Island forces in New Jersey under dence district, where the late Archer windows in symbolic affirmation data—legends transcribed from Colonel Angell, he met and married Harris built his sumptuous but that the new boy, Welcome, was a servant gossip, cuttings from the Phebe Hetfield of Elizabethtown, hideous French-roofed mansion in seaman’s son. papers, copies of death certificates whom he brought to Providence 1876. William and Phebe both Welcome did not survive his by fellow-physicians, and the like. upon his honorable discharge in the succumbed to the yellow fever father, but lived to perish gloriously All of this material I cannot hope following year. epidemic of 1797, but Dutee was at Fredericksburg in 1862. Neither to give, for my uncle was a tireless The young soldier’s return was brought up by his cousin Rathbone he nor his son Archer knew of the antiquarian and very deeply inter- not a thing of unmitigated happi- Harris, Peleg’s son. shunned house as other than a ested in the shunned house; but I ness. The house, it is true, was still Rathbone was a practical man, nuisance almost impossible to may refer to several dominant in good condition; and the street had and rented the Benefit Street house rent—perhaps on account of the points which earn notice by their been widened and changed in name despite William’s wish to keep it mustiness and sickly odor of recurrence through many reports from Back Street to Benefit Street. vacant. He considered it an obliga- unkempt old age. Indeed, it never from diverse sources. For example, But Mercy Dexter’s once robust tion to his ward to make the most was rented after a series of deaths the servant gossip was practically frame had undergone a sad and of all the boy’s property, nor did he culminating in 1861, which the unanimous in attributing to the curious decay, so that she was now concern himself with the deaths and excitement of the war tended to fungous and malodorous cellar of a stooped and pathetic figure with illnesses which caused so many throw into obscurity. Carrington the house a vast supremacy in evil hollow voice and disconcerting changes of tenants, or the steadily Harris, last of the male line, knew influence. There had been serv- pallor—qualities shared to a singular growing aversion with which the it only as a deserted and somewhat ants—Ann White especially—who degree by the one remaining servant house was generally regarded. It is picturesque center of legend until I would not use the cellar kitchen, Maria. In the autumn of 1782 Phebe likely that he felt only vexation when, told him my experience. He had and at least three well-defined Harris gave birth to a still-born in 1804, the town council ordered meant to tear it down and build an legends bore upon the queer quasi- daughter, and on the fifteenth of the him to fumigate the place with apartment house on the site, but human or diabolic outlines assumed next May Mercy Dexter took leave sulfur, tar, and gum camphor on after my account decided to let it by tree-roots and patches of mold of a useful, austere, and virtuous life. account of the much-discussed stand, install plumbing, and rent it. in that region. These latter narra- William Harris, at last deaths of four persons, presumably Nor has he yet had any difficulty in tives interested me profoundly, on 308 309 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

account of what I had seen in my lacking in blood; and the obscure people, for the ill-smelling and confessed themselves as frankly boyhood, but I felt that most of the passages of poor Rhoby Harris’s widely shunned house could now be baffled and ignorant as I. Archer significance had in each case been ravings, where she complained of rented to no others—would babble knew nothing, and all that Miss largely obscured by additions from the sharp teeth of a glassy-eyed, maledictions in French, a language Harris could say was that an old the common stock of local ghost half-visible presence. they could not possibly have studied allusion her grandfather, Dutee lore. Free from unwarranted super- to any extent. It made one think of Harris, had heard of might have shed Ann White, with her Exeter stitition though I am, these things poor Rhoby Harris nearly a century a little light. The old seaman, who superstition, had promulgated the produced in me an odd sensation, before, and so moved my uncle that had survived his son Welcome’s most extravagant and at the same which was intensified by a pair of he commenced collecting historical death in battle by two years, had not time most consistent tale, alleging widely separated newspaper cuttings data on the house after listening, himself known the legend, but that there must lie buried beneath relating to deaths in the shunned some time subsequent to his return recalled that his earliest nurse, the the house one of those — house—one from the Providence from the war, to the first-hand ancient Maria Robbins, seemed the dead who retain their bodily Gazette and Country-Journal of April account of Doctors Chase and darkly aware of something that form and live on the blood or breath 12, 1815, and the other from the Whitmarsh. Indeed, I could see that might have lent a weird significance of the living—whose hideous legions Daily Transcript and Chronicle of my uncle had thought deeply on the to the French raving of Rhoby send their preying shapes or spirits October 27, 1845—each of which subject, and that he was glad of my Harris, which she had so often heard abroad by night. To destroy a vampire detailed an appallingly grisly circum- own interest—an open-minded and during the last days of that hapless one must, the grandmothers say, stance whose duplication was sympathetic interest which enabled woman. Maria had been at the exhume it and burn its heart, or at remarkable. It seems that in both him to discuss with me matters at shunned house from 1769 till the least drive a stake through that instances the dying person, in 1815 which others would merely have removal of the family in 1783, and organ; and Ann’s dogged insistence a gentle old lady named Stafford and laughed. His fancy had not gone so had seen Mercy Dexter die. Once on a search under the cellar had been in 1845 a schoolteacher of middle far as mine, but he felt that the place she hinted to the child Dutee of a prominent in bringing about her age named Eleazar Durfee, became was rare in its imaginative potenti- somewhat peculiar circumstance in discharge. transfigured in a horrible way, glaring alities, and worthy of note as an Mercy’s last moments, but she had Her tales, however, commanded glassily and attempting to bite the inspiration in the field of the soon forgotten all about it save that a wide audience, and were the more throat of the attending physician. grotesque and . it was something peculiar. The readily accepted because the house Even more puzzling, though, was For my part, I was disposed to granddaughter, moreover, recalled indeed stood on land once used for the final case which put an end to take the whole subject with profound even this much with difficulty. She burial purposes. To me their interest the renting of the house—a series seriousness, and began at once not and her brother were not so much depended less on this circumstance of anemia deaths preceded by only to review the evidence, but to interested in the house as was than on the peculiarly appropriate progressive madnesses wherein the accumulate as much more as I could. Archer’s son Carrington, the present way in which they dovetailed with patient would craftily attempt the I talked with the elderly Archer owner, with whom I talked after my certain other things—the complaint lives of his relatives by incisions in Harris, then owner of the house, experience. of the departing servant Preserved the neck or wrist. many times before his death in 1916; Smith, who had preceded Ann and This was in 1860 and 1861, and obtained from him and his still aving exhausted the never heard of her, that something when my uncle had just begun his surviving maiden sister Alice an Harris family of all the “sucked his breath” at night; the medical practise; and before leaving authentic corroboration of all the information it could death-certificates of the fever victims for the front he heard much of it family data my uncle had collected. furnish,H I turned my attention to of 1804, issued by Doctor Chad from his elder professional colleagues. When, however, I asked them what early town records and deeds with Hopkins, and showing the four The really inexplicable thing was the connection with France or its a zeal more penetrating than that deceased persons all unaccountably way in which the victims—ignorant language the house could have, they which my uncle had occasionally 310 311 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

shown in the same work. What I of my weird and heterogeneous Andros could quell. But their ardent wondered how many of those who wished was a comprehensive reading—and I feverishly studied Protestantism—too ardent, some had known the legends realized that history of the site from its very the platting of the locality as it had whispered—and their evident additional link with the terrible settlement in 1636—or even been before the cutting through and distress when virtually driven from which my wider reading had given before, if any Narragansett Indian partial straightening of Back Street the village down the bay, had moved me; that ominous item in the annals legend could be unearthed to between 1747 and 1758. I found the sympathy of the town fathers. of morbid horror which tells of the supply the data. I found, at the what I had half expected, that where Here the strangers had been granted creature Jacques Roulet, of Caude, start, that the land had been part of the shunned house now stood the a haven; and the swarthy Étienne who in 1598 was condemned to the long strip of home lot granted Roulets had laid out their graveyard Roulet, less apt at agriculture than death as a demoniac but afterward originally to John Throckmorton; behind a one-story-and-attic cottage, at reading queer books and drawing saved from the stake by the Paris one of many similar strips begin- and that no record of any transfer of queer diagrams, was given a clerical Parliament and shut in a madhouse. ning at the Town Street beside the graves existed; the document, indeed, post in the warehouse at Pardon He had been found covered with river and extending up over the hill ended in much confusion, and I was Tillinghast’s wharf, far south in blood and shreds of flesh in a wood, to a line roughly corresponding forced to ransack both the Rhode Town Street. There had, however, shortly after the killing and rending with the modern Hope Street. The Island Historical Society and been a riot of some sort later on— of a boy by a pair of wolves. One Throckmorton lot had later, of Shepley Library before I could find perhaps forty years later, after old wolf was seen to lope away unhurt. course, been much subdivided; and a local door which the name of Roulet’s death—and no one seemed Surely a pretty hearthside tale, with I became very assiduous in tracing Étienne Roulet would unlock. In the to hear of the family after that. a queer significance as to name and that section through which Back or end I did find something; something For a century and more, it place; but I decided that the Benefit Street was later run. It had, of such vague but monstrous import appeared, the Roulets had been well Providence gossips could not have as rumor indeed said, been the that I set about at once to examine remembered and frequently generally known of it. Had they Throckmorton graveyard; but as I the cellar of the shunned house itself discussed as vivid incidents in the known, the coincidence of names examined the records more care- with a new and excited quiet life of a New England seaport. would have brought some drastic fully, I found that the graves had all minuteness. Étienne’s son Paul, a surly fellow and frightened action—indeed, been transferred at an early date to The Roulets, it seemed, had whose erratic conduct had probably might not its limited whispering the North Burial Ground on the come in 1696 from East Greenwich, provoked the riot which wiped out have precipitated the final riot which Pawtucket West Road. down the west shore of Narragansett the family, was particularly a source erased the Roulets from the town? Then suddenly I came—by a Bay. They were Huguenots from of speculation; and though rare piece of chance, since it was not Canude, and had encountered much Providence never shared the witch- now visited the accursed place in the main body of records and opposition before the Providence craft panics of her Puritan neighbors, with increased frequency; might easily have been missed— selectmen allowed them to settle in it was freely intimated by old wives studying the unwholesome upon something which aroused my the town. Unpopularity had dogged that his prayers were neither uttered vegetationI of the garden, exam- keenest eagerness, fitting in as it did them in East Greenwich, whither at the proper time nor directed ining all the walls of the building, with several of the queerest phases they had come in 1686, after the toward the proper object. All this and poring over every inch of the of the affair. It was the record of a revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had undoubtedly formed the basis earthen cellar floor. Finally, with lease, in 1697, of a small tract of and rumor said that the cause of of the legend known by old Maria Carrington Harris’s permission, I ground to an Étienne Roulet and dislike extended beyond mere racial Robbins. What relation it had to the fitted a key to the disused door wife. At last the French element had and national prejudice, or the land French ravings of Rhoby Harris and opening from the cellar directly appeared—that, and another deeper disputes which involved other other inhabitants of the shunned upon Benefit Street, preferring to element of horror which the name French settlers with the English in house, imagination or future have a more immediate access to conjured up from the darkest recesses rivalries which not even Governor discovery alone could determine. I the outside world than the dark 312 313 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

stairs, ground-floor hall, and front the dampness seemed to develop the ground floor; and having a key both gross and ridiculous. We were door could give. There, where vague and shocking suggestions of to the outside cellar door, were not, as I have said, in any sense child- morbidity lurked most thickly, I form, gradually trailing off into prepared to leave our expensive and ishly superstitious, but scientific searched and poked during long nebulous decay and passing up into delicate apparatus—which we had study and reflection had taught us afternoons when the sunlight the blackness of the great chimney obtained secretly and at great that the known universe of three filtered in through the cobwebbed with a fetor in its wake. It was truly cost—as many days as our vigils dimensions embraces the merest above-ground windows, and a horrible, and the more so to me might be protracted. It was our fraction of the whole cosmos of sense of security glowed from the because of what I knew of the spot. design to sit up together till very substance and energy. In this case an unlocked door which placed me Refusing to flee, I watched it fade— late, and then watch singly till overwhelming preponderance of only a few feet from the placid and as I watched I felt that it was in dawn in two-hour stretches, myself evidence from numerous authentic sidewalk outside. Nothing new turn watching me greedily with eyes first and then my companion; the sources pointed to the tenacious rewarded my efforts—only the more imaginable than visible. When inactive member resting on the cot. existence of certain forces of great same depressing mustiness and I told my uncle about it he was The natural leadership with power and, so far as the human point faint suggestions of noxious odors greatly aroused; and after a tense which my uncle procured the instru- of view is concerned, exceptional and nitrous outlines on the floor— hour of reflection, arrived at a defi- ments from the laboratories of malignancy. To say that we actually and I fancy that many pedestrians nite and drastic decision. Weighing Brown University and the Cranston believed in vampires or werewolves must have watched me curiously in his mind the importance of the Street Armory, and instinctively would be a carelessly inclusive state- through the broken panes. matter, and the significance of our assumed direction of our venture, ment. Rather must it be said that we At length, upon a suggestion of relation to it, he insisted that we both was a marvelous commentary on the were not prepared to deny the possi- my uncle’s, I decided to try the spot test—and if possible destroy—the potential vitality and resilience of a bility of certain unfamiliar and nocturnally; and one stormy horror of the house by a joint night man of eighty-one. Elihu Whipple unclassified modifications of vital midnight ran the beams of an electric or nights of aggressive vigil in that had lived according to the hygienic force and attenuated matter; existing torch over the moldy floor with its musty and fungus-cursed cellar. laws he had preached as a physician, very infrequently in three-dimen- uncanny shapes and distorted, and but for what happened later sional space because of its more inti- half-phosphorescent fungi. The would be here in full vigor today. mate connection with other spatial place had dispirited me curiously IV. Only two persons suspected what units, yet close enough to the that evening, and I was almost n Wednesday, June 25, did happen—Carrington Harris and boundary of our own to furnish us prepared when I saw—or thought I 1919, after a proper noti- myself; I had to tell Harris because occasional manifestations which we, saw—amidst the whitish deposits a fication of Carrington he owned the house and deserved for lack of a proper vantage-point, particularly sharp definition of the HarrisO which did not include to know what had gone out of it. may never hope to understand. “huddled form” I had suspected from surmises as to what we expected to Then too, we had spoken to him in In short, it seemed to my uncle boyhood. Its clearness was aston- find, my uncle and I conveyed to advance of our quest; and I felt after and me that an incontrovertible array ishing and unprecedented—and as the shunned house two camp chairs my uncle’s going that he would of facts pointed to some lingering I watched I seemed to see again the and a folding camp cot, together understand and me in some influence in the shunned house; thin, yellowish, shimmering exhala- with some scientific mechanism of vitally necessary public explanations. traceable to one or another of the tion which had startled me on that greater weight and intricacy. These He turned very pale, but agreed to ill-favored French settlers of two rainy afternoon so many years before. we placed in the cellar during the help me, and decided that it would centuries before, and still operative Above the anthropomorphic day, screening the windows with now be safe to rent the house. through rare and unknown laws of patch of mold by the fireplace it rose; paper and planning to return in the To declare that we were not atomic and electronic motion. That a subtle, sickish, almost luminous evening for our first vigil. We had nervous on that rainy night of the family of Roulet had possessed vapor which as it hung trembling in locked the door from the cellar to watching would be an exaggeration an abnormal affinity for outer circles 314 315 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

of entity—dark spheres which for might encounter the thing. No sane and to the spot before the fireplace We had, as in my own former normal folk hold only repulsion and person had ever seen it, and few had where the mold had taken strange explorations, left the door to the terror—their recorded history ever felt it definitely. It might be pure shapes. That suggestive patch, by street unlocked, so that a direct and seemed to prove. Had not, then, the energy—a form ethereal and outside the way, was only faintly visible practical path of escape might lie riots of those bygone seventeen-thir- the realm of substance—or it might when we placed our furniture and open in case of manifestations ties set moving certain kinetic be partly material; some unknown instruments, and when we returned beyond our power to deal with. It patterns in the morbid brain of one and equivocal mass of plasticity, that evening for the actual vigil. For was our idea that our continued or more of them—notably the capable of changing at will to nebu- a moment I half doubted that I had nocturnal presence would call forth sinister Paul Roulet—which lous approximations of the solid, ever seen it in the more definitely whatever malign entity lurked there; obscurely survived the bodies liquid, gaseous, or tenuously unpar- limned form—but then I thought and that being prepared, we could murdered and buried by the mob, ticled states. The anthropomorphic of the legends. dispose of the thing with one or the and continued to function in some patch of mold on the floor, the form Our cellar vigil began at ten other of our provided means as soon multiple-dimensioned space along of the yellowish vapor, and the curva- p.m., daylight saving time, and as it as we had recognized and observed the original lines of force determined ture of the tree-roots in some of the continued we found no promise of it sufficiently. How long it might by a frantic hatred of the encroaching old tales, all argued at least a remote pertinent developments. A weak, require to evoke and extinguish the community? and reminiscent connection with the filtered glow from the rain-harassed thing, we had no notion. It occurred Such a thing was surely not a human shape; but how representative street-lamps outside, and a feeble to us, too, that our venture was far physical or biochemical impossibility or permanent that similarity might phosphorescence from the detestable from safe; for in what strength the in the light of a newer science which be, none could say with any kind of fungi within, showed the dripping thing might appear no one could includes the theories of relativity and certainty. stone of the walls, from which all tell. But we deemed the game worth intra-atomic action. One might traces of whitewash had vanished; the hazard, and embarked on it alone easily imagine an alien nucleus of e had devised two the dank, fetid and mildew-tainted and unhesitatingly; conscious that substance or energy, formless or weapons to fight it; a hard earth floor with its obscene the seeking of outside aid would only otherwise, kept alive by impercep- large and specially fungi; the rotting remains of what expose us to ridicule and perhaps tible or immaterial subtractions from fittedW Crookes tube operated by had been stools, chairs, and tables, defeat our entire purpose. Such was the life-force or bodily tissue and powerful storage batteries and and other more shapeless furniture; our frame of mind as we talked—far fluids of other and more palpably provided with peculiar screens and the heavy planks and massive beams into the night, till my uncle’s growing living things into which it penetrates reflectors, in case it proved intan- of the ground floor overhead; the drowsiness made me remind him to and with whose fabric it sometimes gible and opposable only by vigor- decrepit plank door leading to bins lie down for his two-hour sleep. completely merges itself. It might ously destructive ether radiations; and chambers beneath other parts Something like fear chilled me be actively hostile, or it might be and a pair of military flame- of the house; the crumbling stone as I sat there in the small hours dictated merely by blind motives of throwers of the sort used in the staircase with ruined wooden hand- alone—I say alone, for one who sits self-preservation. In any case such a World War, in case it proved partly rail; and the crude and cavernous by a sleeper is indeed alone, perhaps monster must of necessity be in our material and susceptible of mechan- fireplace of blackened brick where more alone than he can realize. My scheme of things an anomaly and an ical destruction—for like the super- rusted iron fragments revealed the uncle breathed heavily, his deep intruder, whose extirpation forms a stitious Exeter rustics, we were past presence of hooks, and irons, inhalations and exhalations accom- primary duty with every man not an prepared to burn the thing’s heart spit, crane, and a door to the Dutch panied by the rain outside, and punc- enemy to the world’s life, health, and out if heart existed to burn. All this oven—these things, and our austere tuated by another nerve-wracking sanity. aggressive mechanism we set in the cot and camp chairs, and the heavy sound of distant dripping water What baffled us was our utter cellar in positions carefully arranged and intricate destructive machinery within—for the house was repul- ignorance of the aspect in which we with reference to the cot and chairs, we had brought. sively damp even in dry weather, and 316 317 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

in this storm positively swamp-like. agitation, and seemed not at all char- my uncle seized my hand and began as if half expecting not to be believed, I studied the loose, antique masonry acteristic of him. His habitual to relate a dream whose nucleus of when he declared that of the strange of the walls in the fungus-light and expression was one of kindly and significance I could only surmise faces many had unmistakably borne the feeble rays which stole in from well-bred calm, whereas now a with a kind of awe. the features of the Harris family. And the street through the screened variety of emotions seemed strug- He had, he said, floated off from all the while there was a personal window; and once, when the noisome gling within him. I think, on the a very ordinary series of dream-pic- sensation of choking, as if some atmosphere of the place seemed whole, that it was this variety which tures into a scene whose strangeness pervasive presence had spread itself about to sicken me, I opened the chiefly disturbed me. My uncle, as was related to nothing he had ever through his body and sought to door and looked up and down the he gasped and tossed in increasing read. It was of this world, and yet possess itself of his vital processes. street, feasting my eyes on familiar perturbation and with eyes that had not of it—a shadowy geometrical I shuddered at the thought of sights and my nostrils on wholesome now started open, seemed not one confusion in which could be seen those vital processes, worn as they air. Still nothing occurred to reward but many men, and suggested a elements of familiar things in most were by eighty-one years of contin- my watching; and I yawned repeat- curious quality of alienage from unfamiliar and perturbing combi- uous functioning, in conflict with edly, fatigue getting the better of himself. nations. There was a suggestion of unknown forces of which the apprehension. All at once he commenced to queerly disordered pictures super- youngest and strongest system might Then the stirring of my uncle mutter, and I did not like the look imposed one upon another; an well be afraid; but in another in his sleep attracted my notice. He of his mouth and teeth as he spoke. arrangement in which the essentials moment reflected that dreams are had turned restlessly on the cot The words were at first indistin- of time as well as of space seemed only dreams, and that these uncom- several times during the latter half guishable, and then—with a tremen- dissolved and mixed in the most fortable visions could be, at most, no of the first hour, but now he was dous start—I recognized something illogical fashion. In this kaleido- more than my uncle’s reaction to the breathing with unusual irregularity, about them which filled me with icy scopic vortex of phantasmal images investigations and expectations occasionally heaving a sigh which fear till I recalled the breadth of my were occasional snap-shots, if one which had lately filled our minds to held more than a few of the qualities uncle’s education and the intermi- might use the term, of singular clear- the exclusion of all else. of a choking moan. nable translations he had made from ness but unaccountable Conversation, also, soon tended I turned my electric flashlight anthropological and antiquarian heterogeneity. to dispel my sense of strangeness; on him and found his face averted; articles in the Revue des Deux Once my uncle thought he lay and in time I yielded to my yawns so rising and crossing to the other Mondes. For the venerable Elihu in a carelessly dug open pit, with a and took my turn at slumber. My side of the cot, I again flashed the Whipple was muttering in French, crowd of angry faces framed by uncle seemed now very wakeful, and light to see if he seemed in any pain. and the few phrases I could distin- straggling locks and three-cornered welcomed his period of watching What I saw unnerved me most guish seemed connected with the hats frowning down on him. Again even though the nightmare had surprisingly, considering its relative darkest myths he had ever adapted he seemed to be in the interior of a aroused him far ahead of his alotted triviality. It must have been merely from the famous Paris magazine. house—an old house, apparently— two hours. the association of any odd circum- Suddenly a perspiration broke but the details and inhabitants were Sleep seized me quickly, and I stance with the sinister nature of our out on the sleeper’s forehead, and he constantly changing, and he could was at once haunted with dreams of location and mission, for surely the leaped abruptly up, half awake. The never be certain of the faces or the the most disturbing kind. I felt, in circumstance was not in itself jumble of French changed to a cry furniture, or even of the room itself, my visions, a cosmic and abysmal frightful or unnatural. It was merely in English, and the hoarse voice since doors and windows seemed in loneness; with hostility surging from that my uncle’s facial expression, shouted excitedly, “My breath, my just as great a state of flux as the all sides upon some prison where I disturbed no doubt by the strange breath!” Then the awakening became presumably more mobile objects. It lay confined. I seemed bound and dreams which our situation complete, and with a subsidence of was queer—damnably queer—and gagged, and taunted by the echoing prompted, betrayed considerable facial expression to the normal state my uncle spoke almost sheepishly, yells of distant multitudes who 318 319 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

thirsted for my blood. My uncle’s the place. My mind, as alert as my Whipple—who with blackening and identity as only madness can face came to me with less pleasant senses, recognized the gravely decaying features leered and gibbered conceive. He was at once a devil and association than in waking hours, unusual; and almost automatically at me, and reached out dripping a multitude, a charnel-house and a and I recall many futile struggles and I leaped up and turned about to claws to rend me in the fury which pageant. Lit by the mixed and uncer- attempts to scream. It was not a grasp the destructive instruments this horror had brought. tain beams, that gelatinous face pleasant sleep, and for a second I was which we had left trained on the It was a sense of routine which assumed a dozen—a score—a not sorry for the echoing shriek moldy spot before the fireplace. As kept me from going mad. I had hundred—aspects; grinning, as it which clove through the barriers of I turned, I dreaded what I was to drilled myself in preparation for the sank to the ground on a body that dream and flung me to a sharp and see; for the scream had been in my crucial moment, and blind training melted like tallow, in the caricatured startled awakeness in which every uncle’s voice, and I knew not saved me. Recognizing the bubbling likeness of legions strange and yet actual object before my eyes stood against what menace I should have evil as no substance reachable by not strange. out with more than natural clearness to defend him and myself. matter or material chemistry, and I saw the features of the Harris and reality. Yet after all, the sight was worse therefore ignoring the flame-thrower line, masculine and feminine, adult than I had dreaded. There are horrors which loomed on my left, I threw and infantile, and other features old beyond horrors, and this was one of on the current of the Crookes tube and young, coarse and refined, V. those nuclei of all dreamable apparatus, and focussed toward that familiar and unfamiliar. For a second had been lying with my face hideousness which the cosmos saves scene of immortal blasphemousness there flashed a degraded counterfeit away from my uncle’s chair, so to blast an accursed and unhappy the strongest ether radiations which of a miniature of poor mad Rhoby that in this sudden flash of few. Out of the fungus-ridden earth man’s art can arouse from the spaces Harris that I had seen in the School awakeningI I saw only the door to steamed up a vaporous corpse-light, and fluids of nature. There was a of Design museum, and another time the street, the window, and the wall yellow and diseased, which bubbled bluish haze and a frenzied sputtering, I thought I caught the raw-boned and floor and ceiling toward the and lapped to a gigantic height in and the yellowish phosphorescence image of Mercy Dexter as I recalled north of the room, all photo- vague outlines half human and half grew dimmer to my eyes. But I saw her from a painting in Carrington graphed with morbid vividness on monstrous, through which I could the dimness was only that of contrast, Harris’s house. It was frightful my brain in a light brighter than see the chimney and fireplace and that the waves from the machine beyond conception; toward the last, the glow of the fungi or the rays beyond. It was all eyes—wolfish and had no effect whatever. when a curious blend of servant and from the street outside. It was not a mocking—and the rugose insect-like Then, in the midst of that demo- baby visages flickered close to the strong or even a fairly strong light; head dissolved at the top to a thin niac spectacle, I saw a fresh horror fungous floor where a pool of certainly not nearly strong enough stream of mist which curled putridly which brought cries to my lips and greenish grease was spreading, it to read an average book by. But it about and finally vanished up the sent me fumbling and staggering seemed as though the shifting cast a shadow of myself and the cot chimney. I say that I saw this thing, toward that unlocked door to the features fought against themselves on the floor, and had a yellowish, but it is only in conscious retrospec- quiet street, careless of what and strove to form contours like penetrating force that hinted at tion that I ever definitely traced its abnormal terrors I loosed upon the those of my uncle’s kindly face. I like things more potent than lumi- damnable approach to form. At the world, or what thoughts or judg- to think that he existed at that nosity. This I perceived with time, it was to me only a seething, ments of men I brought down upon moment, and that he tried to bid me unhealthy sharpness despite the dimly phosphorescent cloud of my head. In that dim blend of blue farewell. It seems to me I hiccupped fact that two of my other senses fungous loathsomeness, enveloping and yellow the form of my uncle had a farewell from my own parched were violently assailed. For on my and dissolving to an abhorrent plas- commenced a nauseous liquefaction throat as I lurched out into the street; ears rang the reverberations of that ticity the one object on which all my whose essence eludes all description, a thin stream of grease following me shocking scream, while my nostrils attention was focussed. That object and in which there played across his through the door to the rain- revolted at the stench which filled was my uncle—the venerable Elihu vanishing face such changes of drenched sidewalk. 320 321 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1924 • The SHUNNED HOUSE

he rest is shadowy and horror, if indeed it had been real. of inner earth are not good for There was a rift where a part of the monstrous. There was no Matter it seemed not to be, nor ether, mankind, and this seemed to me one substance was folded over. The one in the soaking street, nor anything else conceivable by of them. exposed area was huge and roughly Tand in all the world there was no mortal mind. What, then, but some My hand shook perceptibly, but cylindrical; like a mammoth soft one I dared tell. I walked aimlessly exotic emanation; some vampirish still I delved; after a while standing blue-white stovepipe doubled in two, south past College Hill and the vapor such as Exeter rustics tell of in the large hole I had made. With its largest part some two feet in Athenæum, down Hopkins Street, as lurking over certain churchyards? the deepening of the hole, which was diameter. Still more I scraped, and and over the bridge to the business This I felt was the clue, and again I about six feet square, the evil smell then abruptly I leaped out of the section where tall buildings seemed looked at the floor before the fire- increased; and I lost all doubt of my hole and away from the filthy thing; to guard me as modern material place where the mold and niter had imminent contact with the hellish frantically unstopping and tilting things guard the world from taken strange forms. thing whose emanations had cursed the heavy carboys, and precipitating ancient and unwholesome wonder. In ten minutes my mind was the house for over a century and a their corrosive contents one after Then gray dawn unfolded wetly made up, and taking my hat I set out half. I wondered what it would look another down that charnel gulf and from the east, silhouetting the for home, where I bathed, ate, and like—what its form and substance upon the unthinkable abnormality archaic hill and its venerable stee- gave by telephone an order for a would be, and how big it might have whose titan elbow I had seen. ples, and beckoning me to the place pickax, a spade, a military gas-mask, waxed through long ages of life- where my terrible work was still and six carboys of sulfuric acid, all sucking. At length I climbed out of he blinding maelstrom of unfinished. And in the end I went, to be delivered the next morning at the hole and dispersed the heaped-up greenish-yellow vapor wet, hatless, and dazed in the the cellar door of the shunned house dirt, then arranging the great carboys which surged tempestu- morning light, and entered that in Benefit Street. After that I tried of acid around and near two sides, Tously up from that hole as the awful door in Benefit Street which to sleep; and failing, passed the hours so that when necessary I might floods of acid descended, will never I had left ajar, and which still swung in reading and in the composition empty them all down the aperture leave my memory. All along the hill cryptically in full sight of the early of inane verses to counteract my in quick succession. After that I people tell of the yellow day, when householders to whom I dared not mood. dumped earth only along the other virulent and horrible fumes arose speak. At eleven a.m. the next day I two sides; working more slowly and from the factory waste dumped in The grease was gone, for the commenced digging. It was sunny donning my gas-mask as the smell the Providence River, but I know moldy floor was porous. And in front weather, and I was glad of that. I was grew. I was nearly unnerved at my how mistaken they are as to the of the fireplace was no vestige of the still alone, for as much as I feared proximity to a nameless thing at the source. They tell, too, of the hideous giant doubled-up form traced in the unknown horror I sought, there bottom of a pit. roar which at the same time came niter. I looked at the cot, the chairs, was more fear in the thought of Suddenly my spade struck some- from some disordered water-pipe the instruments, my neglected hat, telling anybody. Later I told Harris thing softer than earth. I shuddered, or gas main underground—but and the yellowed straw hat of my only through sheer necessity, and and made a motion as if to climb again I could correct them if I uncle. Dazedness was uppermost, because he had heard odd tales from out of the hole, which was now as dared. It was unspeakably shocking, and I could scarcely recall what was old people which disposed him ever deep as my neck. Then courage and I do not see how I lived through dream and what was reality. Then so little toward belief. As I turned returned, and I scraped away more it. I did faint after emptying the thought trickled back, and I knew up the stinking black earth in front dirt in the light of the electric torch fourth carboy, which I had to that I had witnessed things more of the fireplace, my spade causing a I had provided. The surface I uncov- handle after the fumes had began horrible than I had dreamed. Sitting viscous yellow ichor to ooze from ered was fishy and glassy—a kind of to penetrate my mask; but when I down, I tried to conjecture as nearly the white fungi which it severed, I semi-putrid congealed jelly with recovered I saw that the hole was as sanity would let me just what had trembled at the dubious thoughts of suggestions of translucency. I scraped emitting no fresh vapors. happened, and how I might end the what I might uncover. Some secrets further, and saw that it had form. The two remaining carboys I 322 323 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

emptied down without particular result, and after a time I felt it safe to shovel the earth back into the pit. It was twilight before I was done, but fear had gone out of the place. The dampness was less fetid, and all the strange fungi had withered to a kind of harmless grayish powder which blew ash-like along the floor. One of earth’s nethermost terrors had perished for ever; and if there be a hell, it had received at last the 1925: demon soul of an unhallowed thing. And as I patted down the last spadeful of mold, I shed the first of The YEAR in EXILE. the many tears with which I have paid unaffected tribute to my beloved [return to table of contents] uncle’s memory. The next spring no more pale grass and strange weeds came up in the shunned house’s terraced garden, or H.P. Lovecraft, 1925 was became almost unbearable, and the and shortly afterward Carrington probably the most miserable corresponding loathing for New Harris rented the place. It is still year of his life to date. Sonia York—and for its incomprehen- spectral, but its strangeness fasci- Fhad left for Cincinnati, and sible ethnic minorities and neigh- nates me, and I shall find mixed with although she returned frequently borhoods, which Lovecraft took to my relief a queer regret when it is for visits and attempted to move referring to as “mongrels” and torn down to make way for a tawdry back, the nuclear Lovecraft family “bastard races.” It was during this shop or vulgar apartment building. was essentially lost and gone. To time that the depressive, neophobic The barren old trees in the yard have make matters worse, on one of her side of his personality was at its begun to bear small, sweet apples, return trips she took him shopping ickiest, and his ethnic chauvinism and last year the birds nested in their and outfitted him with new suits; reached levels that are painful to gnarled boughs. within a few weeks thieves had modern readers, no matter what broken into his apartment and their ethnicity might be. stolen nearly everything but the In fairness, it’s important to note clothes on his back. Ten months that Lovecraft’s hostility to later he was still fuming about this, “non-Nordics,” as he called them, and it seems to have pushed him seems to have been solely applied over into a dark place of rage and rhetorically and in the abstract sense, hatred for New York. After about and not to actual individuals. the middle of 1925, Lovecraft’s According to Frank Belknap Long, yearning for a return to Providence had he come upon, say, a Chinese

324 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

man injured in the street, he would Nonetheless, the year was rela- have raced to his aid with no less tively productive. He leveraged his care and solicitude than if the injured growing loathing of New York to party had been a blond Teuton. He produce “The Horror at Red Hook,” was able and frequently willing to “He,” and “In the Vault.” rant about “the Jews,” even in the It’s also worth noting that he presence of his Jewish wife. sketched out the initial plan for his Nonetheless, 1925 saw Lovecraft’s most famous story, “The Call of xenophobia and racism at its very Cthulhu,” in 1925—although he worst, and it got bad. He seems to wouldn’t actually write the story until have, at least in part, transferred the following year, after his return much of his disappointment and to Providence. disgust over his entire New York Another project that took up a experience onto the ethnic commu- great deal of his time was a 30,000- The HORROR at RED HOOK. nities he found there. word research project titled With Sonia out of town, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” [return to table of contents] Lovecraft’s job search faded to a which he was writing for a fellow desultory shadow of what it had amateur-press publisher. It would been. Essentially, he had given up. take him eight months of solid work, There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and He also lost all the sleekness that and would not make him a nickel. move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes Sonia had painstakingly put into But it’s worth noting that 30,000 return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not him, dropping back to 146 pounds words and eight months are about yet dead. again by June on a diet of bread, the right length for a thesis project — Arthur Machen baked beans and cheese. for a master’s degree. Lovecraft, in It wasn’t all horrible, though. the course of researching and his astonishing lapse, staring Lovecraft’s greatest pleasure during compiling this mammoth essay, I. queerly for a second at the tallest this year was the “Kalem Club,” the learned as much or more than the ot many weeks ago, on a of the buildings before him, and literary circle of pulpy writers with average master’s candidate picks up street corner in the village then, with a series of terrified, whom he palled around (so named in the course of a two-year program. of Pascoag, Rhode Island, hysterical shrieks, breaking into a because everyone’s name started with And the difference in narrative a tall, heavily built, and whole- frantic run which ended in a N stumble and fall at the next either a K, an L or an M: George power, mastery of subtext, and overall some-looking pedestrian furnished Willard Kirk, Reinhardt Kleiner and quality between pre-“Supernatural much speculation by a singular crossing. Picked up and dusted off Herman Charles Koenig; Frank Horror in Literature” Lovecraft lapse of behaviour. He had, it by ready hands, he was found to be Belknap Long, Samuel Loveman, stories and those he penned after appears, been descending the hill conscious, organically unhurt, and and H.P. Lovecraft; and Henry completing the project is, once one’s by the road from Chepachet; and evidently cured of his sudden Everett McNeil and James Ferdinand attention is called to it, stark and encountering the compact section, nervous attack. He muttered some Morton). On the other hand, the obvious—although there are other had turned to his left into the main shamefaced explanations involving Kalem Club sometimes proved as factors that likely contributed to the thoroughfare where several modest a strain he had undergone, and much of a pain as a pleasure, as the change in his style. business blocks convey a touch of with downcast glance turned back other writers would drop by at odd the urban. At this point, without up the Chepachet road, trudging hours when he was trying to work. visible provocation, he committed out of sight without once looking 326 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

behind him. It was a strange inci- paid in fright, bruises, and humili- afield in the forty-two years of his Review—even write a truly inter- dent to befall so large, robust, ation for his disobedience. life, and set him in strange places for esting story of New York low life; normal-featured, and capa- So much the gossips of a Dublin University man born in a and now, looking back, he perceived ble-looking a man, and the Chepachet and Pascoag knew; and Georgian villa near Phoenix Park. that cosmic irony had justified the strangeness was not lessened by so much, also, the most learned And now, as he reviewed the prophet’s words while secretly the remarks of a bystander who specialists believed. But Malone had things he had seen and felt and confuting their flippant meaning. had recognised him as the boarder at first told the specialists much apprehended, Malone was content The horror, as glimpsed at last, could of a well-known dairyman on the more, ceasing only when he saw that to keep unshared the secret of what not make a story—for like the book outskirts of Chepachet. utter incredulity was his portion. could reduce a dauntless fighter to cited by Poe’s Germany authority, He was, it developed, a New Thereafter he held his peace, a quivering neurotic; what could “es lässt sich nicht lesen—it does not York police detective named Thomas protesting not at all when it was make old brick slums and seas of permit itself to be read.” F. Malone, now on a long leave of generally agreed that the collapse of dark, subtle faces a thing of night- absence under medical treatment certain squalid brick houses in the mare and eldritch portent. It would after some disproportionately Red Hook section of Brooklyn, and not be the first time his sensations II. arduous work on a gruesome local the consequent death of many brave had been forced to bide uninter- o Malone the sense of case which accident had made officers, had unseated his nervous preted—for was not his very act of latent mystery in existence dramatic. There had been a collapse equilibrium. He had worked too plunging into the polyglot abyss of was always present. In of several old brick buildings during hard, all said, in trying to clean up New York’s underworld a freak youthT he had felt the hidden beauty a raid in which he had shared, and those nests of disorder and violence; beyond sensible explanation? What and ecstasy of things, and had been something about the wholesale loss certain features were shocking could he tell the prosaic of the a poet; but poverty and sorrow and of life, both of prisoners and of his enough, in all conscience, and the antique witcheries and grotesque exile had turned his gaze in darker companions, had peculiarly appalled unexpected tragedy was the last marvels discernible to sensitive eyes directions, and he had thrilled at him. As a result, he had acquired an straw. amidst the poison cauldron where the imputations of evil in the world acute and anomalous horror of any This was a simple explanation all the varied dregs of unwholesome around. Daily life had for him buildings even remotely suggesting which everyone could understand, ages mix their venom and perpetuate come to be a phantasmagoria of the ones which had fallen in, so that and because Malone was not a their obscene terrors? He had seen macabre shadow-studies, now glit- in the end mental specialists forbade simple person he perceived that he the hellish green flame of secret tering and leering with concealed him the sight of such things for an had better let it suffice. To hint to wonder in this blatant, evasive welter rottenness as in Beardsley’s best indefinite period. A police surgeon unimaginative people of a horror of outward greed and inward blas- manner, now hinting terrors with relatives in Chepachet had put beyond all human conception—a phemy, and had smiled gently when behind the commonest shapes and forward that quaint hamlet of horror of houses and blocks and all the New Yorkers he knew scoffed objects as in the subtler and less wooden colonial houses as an ideal cities leprous and cancerous with evil at his experiment in police work. obvious work of Gustave Doré. He spot for the psychological convales- dragged from elder worlds—would They had been very witty and would often regard it as merciful cence; and thither the sufferer had be merely to invite a padded cell cynical, deriding his fantastic pursuit that most persons of high intelli- gone, promising never to venture instead of a restful rustication, and of unknowable mysteries and gence jeer at the inmost mysteries; among the brick-lined streets of Malone was a man of sense despite assuring him that in these days New for, he argued, if superior minds larger villages till duly advised by his mysticism. He had the Celt’s far York held nothing but cheapness were ever placed in fullest contact the Woonsocket specialist with vision of weird and hidden things, and vulgarity. One of them had with the secrets preserved by whom he was put in touch. This but the logician’s quick eye for the wagered him a heavy sum that he ancient and lowly cults, the walk to Pascoag for magazines had outwardly unconvincing; an could not—despite many poignant resultant abnormalities would soon been a mistake, and the patient had amalgam which had led him far things to his credit in the Dublin not only wreck the world, but 328 329 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

threaten the very integrity of the clear-eyed mariners on the lower obscure vice to murder and mutila- houses. They chilled and fascinated universe. All this reflection was no streets and homes of taste and tion in their most abhorrent guises. him more than he dared confess to doubt morbid, but keen logic and a substance where the larger houses That these visible affairs are not his associates on the force, for he deep sense of humour ably offset it. line the hill. One can trace the relics more frequent is not to the neigh- seemed to see in them some Malone was satisfied to let his of this former happiness in the trim bourhood’s credit, unless the power monstrous thread of secret conti- notions remain as half-spied and shapes of the buildings, the occa- of concealment be an art demanding nuity; some fiendish, cryptical, and forbidden visions to be lightly sional graceful churches, and the credit. More people enter Red Hook ancient pattern utterly beyond and played with; and hysteria came evidences of original art and back- than leave it—or at least, than leave below the sordid mass of facts and only when duty flung him into a ground in bits of detail here and it by the landward side—and those habits and haunts listed with such hell of revelation too sudden and there—a worn flight of steps, a who are not loquacious are the like- conscientious technical care by the insidious to escape. battered doorway, a wormy pair of liest to leave. police. They must be, he felt inwardly, He had for some time been decorative columns or pilasters, or Malone found in this state of the heirs of some shocking and detailed to the Butler Street station a fragment of once green space with things a faint stench of secrets more primordial tradition; the sharers of in Brooklyn when the Red Hook bent and rusted iron railing. The terrible than any of the sins debased and broken scraps from matter came to his notice. Red Hook houses are generally in solid blocks, denounced by citizens and bemoaned cults and ceremonies older than is a maze of hybrid squalor near the and now and then a many-win- by priests and philanthropists. He mankind. Their coherence and defi- ancient waterfront opposite dowed cupola arises to tell of days was conscious, as one who united niteness suggested it, and it shewed Governor’s Island, with dirty high- when the households of captains imagination with scientific knowl- in the singular suspicion of order ways climbing the hill from the and ship-owners watched the sea. edge, that modern people under which lurked beneath their squalid wharves to that higher ground where From this tangle of material and lawless conditions tend uncannily disorder. He had not read in vain the decayed lengths of Clinton and spiritual putrescence the blasphe- to repeat the darkest instinctive such treatises as Miss Murray’s Court streets lead off toward the mies of an hundred dialects assail patterns of primitive half-ape Witch-Cult in Western Europe; and Borough Hall. Its houses are mostly the sky. Hordes of prowlers reel savagery in their daily life and ritual knew that up to recent years there of brick, dating from the first quarter shouting and singing along the lanes observances; and he had often had certainly survived among peas- to the middle of the nineteenth and thoroughfares, occasional furtive viewed with an anthropologist’s ants and furtive folk a frightful and century, and some of the obscurer hands suddenly extinguish lights shudder the chanting, cursing clandestine system of assemblies and alleys and byways have that alluring and pull down curtains, and swarthy, processions of blear-eyed and pock- orgies descended from dark religions antique flavour which conventional sin-pitted faces disappear from marked young men which wound antedating the Aryan world, and reading leads us to call “Dickensian.” windows when visitors pick their their way along in the dark small appearing in popular legends as The population is a hopeless tangle way through. Policemen despair of hours of morning. One saw groups Black Masses and Witches’ Sabbaths. and enigma; Syrian, Spanish, Italian, order or reform, and seek rather to of these youths incessantly; some- That these hellish vestiges of old and Negro elements impinging upon erect barriers protecting the outside times in leering vigils on street Turanian-Asiatic magic and fertil- one another, and fragments of world from the contagion. The clang corners, sometimes in doorways ity-cults were even now wholly dead Scandinavian and American belts of the patrol is answered by a kind playing eerily on cheap instruments he could not for a moment suppose, lying not far distant. It is a babel of of spectral silence, and such pris- of music, sometimes in stupefied and he frequently wondered how sound and filth, and sends out oners as are taken are never commu- dozes or indecent dialogues around much older and how much blacker strange cries to answer the lapping nicative. Visible offences are as cafeteria tables near Borough Hall, than the very worst of the muttered of oily waves at its grimy piers and varied as the local dialects, and run and sometimes in whispering tales some of them might really be. the monstrous organ litanies of the the gamut from the smuggling of converse around dingy taxicabs harbour whistles. Here long ago a rum and prohibited aliens through drawn up at the high stoops of brighter picture dwelt, with diverse stages of lawlessness and crumbling and closely shuttered old 330 331 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

streets, but to most of the recent and “Samaël.” The court action suffered to depart unhindered; and III. population he was merely a queer, revealed that he was using up his the paid detectives of the Suydams, t was the case of Robert corpulent old fellow whose income and wasting his principal in Corlears, and Van Brunts were with- Suydam which took Malone to unkempt white hair, stubbly beard, the purchase of curious tomes drawn in resigned disgust. the heart of things in Red shiny black clothes, and gold- imported from London and Paris, It was here that an alliance of Hook. Suydam was a lettered headed cane earned him an amused and in the maintenance of a squalid Federal inspectors and police, I glance and nothing more. Malone basement flat in the Red Hook Malone with them, entered the case. recluse of ancient Dutch family, possessed originally of barely inde- did not know him by sight till duty district where he spent nearly every The law had watched the Suydam pendent means, and inhabiting the called him to the case, but had night, receiving odd delegations of action with interest, and had in many spacious but ill-preserved mansion heard of him indirectly as a really mixed rowdies and foreigners, and instances been called upon to aid the which his grandfather had built in profound authority on mediaeval apparently conducting some kind of private detectives. In this work it Flatbush when that village was superstition, and had once idly ceremonial service behind the green developed that Suydam’s new asso- little more than a pleasant group of meant to look up an out-of-print blinds of secretive windows. ciates were among the blackest and colonial cottages surrounding the pamphlet of his on the Kabbalah Detectives assigned to follow him most vicious criminals of Red Hook’s steepled and ivy-clad Reformed and the Faustus legend, which a reported strange cries and chants devious lanes, and that at least a third Church with its iron-railed yard of friend had quoted from memory. and prancing of feet filtering out of them were known and repeated Netherlandish gravestones. In his Suydam became a “case” when from these nocturnal rites, and shud- offenders in the matter of thievery, lonely house, set back from his distant and only relatives sought dered at their peculiar ecstasy and disorder, and the importation of Martense Street amidst a yard of court pronouncements on his sanity. abandon despite the commonness illegal immigrants. Indeed, it would venerable trees, Suydam had read Their action seemed sudden to the of weird orgies in that sodden not have been too much to say that and brooded for some six decades outside world, but was really under- section. When, however, the matter the old scholar’s particular circle except for a period a generation taken only after prolonged observa- came to a hearing, Suydam managed coincided almost perfectly with the before, when he had sailed for the tion and sorrowful debate. It was to preserve his liberty. Before the worst of the organised cliques which Old World and remained there out based on certain odd changes in his judge his manner grew urbane and smuggled ashore certain nameless of sight for eight years. He could speech and habits; wild references reasonable, and he freely admitted and unclassified Asian dregs wisely afford no servants, and would to impending wonders, and unac- the queerness of demeanour and turned back by Ellis Island. In the admit but few visitors to his abso- countable hauntings of disreputable extravagant cast of language into teeming rookeries of Parker Place— lute solitude, eschewing close Brooklyn neighbourhoods. He had which he had fallen through exces- since renamed—where Suydam had friendships and receiving his rare been growing shabbier and shabbier sive devotion to study and research. his basement flat, there had grown acquaintances in one of the three with the years, and now prowled He was, he said, engaged in the up a very unusual colony of unclas- ground-floor rooms which he kept about like a veritable mendicant; investigation of certain details of sified slant-eyed folk who used the in order—a vast, high-ceiled library seen occasionally by humiliated European tradition which required Arabic alphabet but were eloquently whose walls were solidly packed friends in subway stations, or the closest contact with foreign repudiated by the great mass of with tattered books of ponderous, loitering on the benches around groups and their songs and folk Syrians in and around Atlantic archaic, and vaguely repellent Borough Hall in conversation with dances. The notion that any low Avenue. They could all have been aspect. The growth of the town and groups of swarthy, evil-looking secret society was preying upon him, deported for lack of credentials, but its final absorption in the Brooklyn strangers. When he spoke it was to as hinted by his relatives, was obvi- legalism is slow-moving, and one district had meant nothing to babble of unlimited powers almost ously absurd, and shewed how sadly does not disturb Red Hook unless Suydam, and he had come to mean within his grasp, and to repeat with limited was their understanding of publicity forces one to. less and less to the town. Elderly knowing leers such mystical words him and his work. Triumphing with These creatures attended a people still pointed him out on the or names as “Sephiroth,” “Ashmodai,” his calm explanations, he was tumbledown stone church, used 332 333 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

Wednesdays as a dance-hall, which combined with flashy American underworld pursuits, of which three entire houses and permanently reared its Gothic buttresses near the clothing, appeared more and more smuggling and “bootlegging” were harbouring many of his queer vilest part of the waterfront. It was numerously among the loafers and the least indescribable. They had companions. He spent but little time nominally Catholic; but priests nomad gangsters of the Borough come in steamships, apparently now at his Flatbush home, appar- throughout Brooklyn denied the Hall section; till at length it was tramp freighters, and had been ently going and coming only to place all standing and authenticity, deemed necessary to compute their unloaded by stealth on moonless obtain and return books; and his face and policemen agreed with them numbers, ascertain their sources and nights in rowboats which stole and manner had attained an when they listened to the noises it occupations, and find if possible a under a certain wharf and followed appalling pitch of wildness. Malone emitted at night. Malone used to way to round them up and deliver a hidden canal to a secret subterra- twice interviewed him, but was each fancy he heard terrible cracked bass them to the proper immigration nean pool beneath a house. This time brusquely repulsed. He knew notes from a hidden organ far under- authorities. To this task Malone was wharf, canal, and house Malone nothing, he said, of any mysterious ground when the church stood assigned by agreement of Federal could not locate, for the memories plots or movements, and had no idea empty and unlighted, whilst all and city forces, and as he commenced of his informants were exceedingly how the Kurds could have entered observers dreaded the shrieking and his canvass of Red Hook he felt confused, while their speech was to or what they wanted. His business drumming which accompanied the poised upon the brink of nameless a great extent beyond even the was to study undisturbed the folklore visible services. Suydam, when ques- terrors, with the shabby, unkempt ablest interpreters; nor could he of all the immigrants of the district; tioned, said he thought the ritual figure of Robert Suydam as arch- gain any real data on the reasons a business with which policemen was some remnant of Nestorian fiend and adversary. for their systematic importation. had no legitimate concern. Malone Christianity tinctured with the They were reticent about the exact mentioned his admiration for Shamanism of Thibet. Most of the spot from which they had come, Suydam’s old brochure on the people, he conjectured, were of IV. and were never sufficiently off Kabbalah and other myths, but the Mongoloid stock, originating some- olice methods are varied and guard to reveal the agencies which old man’s softening was only where in or near Kurdistan—and ingenious. Malone, through had sought them out and directed momentary. He sensed an intrusion, Malone could not help recalling that unostentatious rambles, their course. Indeed, they devel- and rebuffed his visitor in no uncer- Kurdistan is the land of the Yezidis, Pcarefully casual conversations, well- oped something like acute fright tain way; till Malone withdrew last survivors of the Persian timed offers of hip-pocket liquor, when asked the reasons for their disgusted, and turned to other chan- devil-worshippers. However this and judicious dialogues with presence. Gangsters of other breeds nels of information. may have been, the stir of the frightened prisoners, learned many were equally taciturn, and the most What Malone would have Suydam investigation made it certain isolated facts about the movement that could be gathered was that unearthed could he have worked that these unauthorised newcomers whose aspect had become so some god or great priesthood had continuously on the case, we shall were flooding Red Hook in menacing. The newcomers were promised them unheard-of powers never know. As it was, a stupid increasing numbers; entering indeed Kurds, but of a dialect and supernatural glories and ruler- conflict between city and Federal through some marine conspiracy obscure and puzzling to exact ships in a strange land. authority suspended the investiga- unreached by revenue officers and philology. Such of them as worked The attendance of both tions for several months, during harbour police, overrunning Parker lived mostly as dock-hands and newcomers and old gangsters at which the detective was busy with Place and rapidly spreading up the unlicenced pedlars, though Suydam’s closely guarded nocturnal other assignments. But at no time hill, and welcomed with curious frequently serving in Greek restau- meetings was very regular, and the did he lose interest, or fail to stand fraternalism by the other assorted rants and tending corner news police soon learned that the erst- amazed at what began to happen to denizens of the region. Their squat stands. Most of them, however, had while recluse had leased additional Robert Suydam. Just at the time figures and characteristic squinting no visible means of support; and flats to accommodate such guests as when a wave of kidnappings and physiognomies, grotesquely were obviously connected with knew his password; at last occupying disappearances spread its excitement 334 335 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

over New York, the unkempt scholar diet had made possible to him. Less wall above the pulpit; an ancient more the Butler Street station sent embarked upon a metamorphosis as and less was he seen at Red Hook, incantation which he had once stum- its men over Red Hook for clues, startling as it was absurd. One day and more and more did he move in bled upon in Dublin college days, discoveries, and criminals. Malone he was seen near Borough Hall with the society to which he was born. and which read, literally translated, was glad to be on the trail again, and clean-shaved face, well-trimmed hair, Policemen noted a tendency of the “O friend and companion of took pride in a raid on one of and tastefully immaculate attire, and gangsters to congregate at the old night, thou who rejoicest in the Suydam’s Parker Place houses. There, on every day thereafter some obscure stone church and dance-hall instead baying of dogs and spilt blood, who indeed, no stolen child was found, improvement was noticed in him. of at the basement flat in Parker wanderest in the midst of shades despite the tales of screams and the He maintained his new fastidious- Place, though the latter and its recent among the tombs, who longest for red sash picked up in the areaway; ness without interruption, added to annexes still overflowed with noxious blood and bringest terror to mortals, but the paintings and rough inscrip- it an unwonted sparkle of eye and life. Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced tions on the peeling walls of most crispness of speech, and began little Then two incidents occurred— moon, look favourably on our of the rooms, and the primitive by little to shed the corpulence which wide enough apart, but both of sacrifices!” chemical laboratory in the attic, all had so long deformed him. Now intense interest in the case as Malone When he read this he shud- helped to convince the detective that frequently taken for less than his age, envisaged it. One was a quiet dered, and thought vaguely of the he was on the track of something he acquired an elasticity of step and announcement in the Eagle of Robert cracked bass organ notes he fancied tremendous. The paintings were buoyancy of demeanour to match Suydam’s engagement to Miss he had heard beneath the church on appalling—hideous monsters of the new tradition, and shewed a Cornelia Gerritsen of Bayside, a certain nights. He shuddered again every shape and size, and parodies curious darkening of the hair which young woman of excellent position, at the rust around the rim of a metal on human outlines which cannot be somehow did not suggest dye. As the and distantly related to the elderly basin which stood on the altar, and described. The writing was in red, months passed, he commenced to bridegroom-elect; whilst the other paused nervously when his nostrils and varied from Arabic to Greek, dress less and less conservatively, and was a raid on the dance-hall church seemed to detect a curious and Roman, and Hebrew letters. Malone finally astonished his new friends by by city police, after a report that the ghastly stench from somewhere in could not read much of it, but what renovating and redecorating his face of a kidnapped child had been the neighbourhood. That organ he did decipher was portentous and Flatbush mansion, which he threw seen for a second at one of the base- memory haunted him, and he cabbalistic enough. One frequently open in a series of receptions, ment windows. Malone had partic- explored the basement with partic- repeated motto was in a sort of summoning all the acquaintances he ipated in this raid, and studied the ular assiduity before he left. The Hebraised Hellenistic Greek, and could remember, and extending a place with much care when inside. place was very hateful to him; yet suggested the most terrible special welcome to the fully forgiven Nothing was found—in fact, the after all, were the blasphemous daemon-evocations of the relatives who had so lately sought building was entirely deserted when panels and inscriptions more than Alexandrian decadence: his restraint. Some attended through visited—but the sensitive Celt was mere crudities perpetrated by the curiosity, others through duty; but vaguely disturbed by many things ignorant? HEL · HELOYM · SOTHER · all were suddenly charmed by the about the interior. There were crudely By the time of Suydam’s wedding EMMANVEL · SABAOTH · AGLA dawning grace and urbanity of the painted panels he did not like— the kidnapping epidemic had · TETRAGRAMMATON · AGYROS former hermit. He had, he asserted, panels which depicted sacred faces become a popular newspaper scandal. · OTHEOS · ISCHYROS · accomplished most of his allotted with peculiarly worldly and sardonic Most of the victims were young chil- ATHANATOS · IEHOVA · VA · work; and having just inherited some expressions, and which occasionally dren of the lowest classes, but the ADONAI · SADAY · HOMOVSION property from a half-forgotten took liberties that even a layman’s increasing number of disappearances · MESSIAS · ESCHEREHEYE. European friend, was about to spend sense of decorum could scarcely had worked up a sentiment of the his remaining years in a brighter countenance. Then, too, he did not strongest fury. Journals clamoured Circles and pentagrams loomed second youth which ease, care, and relish the Greek inscription on the for action from the police, and once on every hand, and told indubitably 336 337 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

of the strange beliefs and aspirations to old world wonders. By night the IT. The open porthole, just before Captain and doctor looked at of those who dwelt so squalidly here. outer harbour was cleared, and late he turned on the lights, was clouded each other, and the latter whispered In the cellar, however, the strangest passengers watched the stars twin- for a second with a certain phospho- something to the former. Finally thing was found—a pile of genuine kling above an unpolluted ocean. rescence, and for a moment there they nodded rather helplessly and gold ingots covered carelessly with Whether the tramp steamer or seemed to echo in the night outside led the way to the Suydam state- a piece of burlap, and bearing upon the scream was first to gain atten- the suggestion of a faint and hellish room. The doctor directed the their shining surfaces the same weird tion, no one can say. Probably they tittering; but no real outline met the captain’s glance away as he unlocked hieroglyphics which also adorned were simultaneous, but it is of no eye. As proof, the doctor points to the door and admitted the strange the walls. During the raid the police use to calculate. The scream came his continued sanity. seamen, nor did he breathe easily till encountered only a passive resistance from the Suydam stateroom, and Then the tramp steamer claimed they filed out with their burden after from the squinting Orientals that the sailor who broke down the door all attention. A boat put off, and a an unaccountably long period of swarmed from every door. Finding could perhaps have told frightful horde of swart, insolent ruffians in preparation. It was wrapped in nothing relevant, they had to leave things if he had not forthwith gone officers’ dress swarmed aboard the bedding from the berths, and the all as it was; but the precinct captain completely mad—as it is, he shrieked temporarily halted Cunarder. They doctor was glad that the outlines wrote Suydam a note advising him more loudly than the first victims, wanted Suydam or his body—they were not very revealing. Somehow to look closely to the character of and thereafter ran simpering about had known of his trip, and for certain the men got the thing over the side his tenants and protégés in view of the vessel till caught and put in reasons were sure he would die. The and away to their tramp steamer the growing public clamour. irons. captain’s deck was almost a pande- without uncovering it. The Cunarder The ship’s doctor who entered monium; for at the instant, between started again, and the doctor and a the stateroom and turned on the the doctor’s report from the state- ship’s undertaker sought out the V. lights a moment later did not go room and the demands of the men Suydam stateroom to perform what hen came the June wedding mad, but told nobody what he saw from the tramp, not even the wisest last services they could. Once more and the great sensation. till afterward, when he corresponded and gravest seaman could think what the physician was forced to reticence Flatbush was gay for the with Malone in Chepachet. It was to do. Suddenly the leader of the and even to mendacity, for a hellish Thour about high noon, and murder—strangulation—but one visiting mariners, an Arab with a thing had happened. When the pennanted motors thronged the need not say that the claw-mark on hatefully negroid mouth, pulled forth undertaker asked him why he had streets near the old Dutch church Mrs. Suydam’s throat could not have a dirty, crumpled paper and handed drained off all of Mrs. Suydam’s where an awning stretched from come from her husband’s or any it to the captain. It was signed by blood, he neglected to affirm that he door to highway. No local event other human hand, or that upon the Robert Suydam, and bore the had not done so; nor did he point to ever surpassed the Suydam- white wall there flickered for an following odd message. the vacant bottle-spaces on the rack, Gerritsen nuptials in tone and instant in hateful red a legend which, or to the odour in the sink which scale, and the party which escorted later copied from memory, seems to In case of sudden or unexplained shewed the hasty disposition of the bride and groom to the Cunard have been nothing less than the fear- accident or death on my part, please bottles’ original contents. The Pier was, if not exactly the smartest, some Chaldee letters of the word deliver me or my body unquestioningly pockets of those men—if men they at least a solid page from the Social “LILITH.” One need not mention into the hands of the bearer and his were—had bulged damnably when Register. At five o’clock adieux these things because they vanished associates. Everything, for me, and they left the ship. Two hours later, were waved, and the ponderous so quickly—as for Suydam, one perhaps for you, depends on absolute and the world knew by radio all that liner edged away from the long could at least bar others from the compliance. Explanations can come it ought to know of the horrible pier, slowly turned its nose seaward, room until one knew what to think later—do not fail me now. affair. discarded its tug, and headed for oneself. The doctor has distinctly —ROBERT SUYDAM the widening water spaces that led assured Malone that he did not see 338 339 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

pungent incense. But spattered which, coiling sentiently about the pestilence. Here cosmic sin had VI. blood was everywhere, and Malone paralysed detective, dragged him entered, and festered by unhallowed hat same June evening, shuddered whenever he saw a through the aperture and down rites had commenced the grinning without having heard a brazier or altar from which the unmeasured spaces filled with whis- march of death that was to rot us all word from the sea, Malone smoke was still rising. pers and wails, and gusts of mocking to fungous abnormalities too hideous Twas desperately busy among the He wanted to be in several places laughter. for the grave’s holding. Satan here alleys of Red Hook. A sudden stir at once, and decided on Suydam’s Of course it was a dream. All held his Babylonish court, and in the seemed to permeate the place, and basement flat only after a messenger the specialists have told him so, and blood of stainless childhood the as if apprised by “grapevine tele- had reported the complete emptiness he has nothing to prove the contrary. leprous limbs of phosphorescent graph” of something singular, the of the dilapidated dance-hall church. Indeed, he would rather have it thus; Lilith were laved. Incubi and denizens clustered expectantly The flat, he thought, must hold some for then the sight of old brick slums succubae howled praise to Hecate, around the dance-hall church and clue to a cult of which the and dark foreign faces would not eat and headless moon-calves bleated the houses in Parker Place. Three scholar had so obviously become the so deeply into his soul. But at the to the Magna Mater. Goats leaped children had just disappeared— centre and leader; and it was with time it was all horribly real, and to the sound of thin accursed flutes, blue-eyed Norwegians from the real expectancy that he ransacked nothing can ever efface the memory and Ægypans chased endlessly after streets toward Gowanus—and the musty rooms, noted their vaguely of those nighted crypts, those titan misshapen fauns over rocks twisted there were rumours of a mob charnel odour, and examined the arcades, and those half-formed like swollen toads. Moloch and forming among the sturdy Vikings curious books, instruments, gold shapes of hell that strode gigantically Ashtaroth were not absent; for in of that section. Malone had for ingots, and glass-stoppered bottles in silence holding half-eaten things this quintessence of all damnation weeks been urging his colleagues to scattered carelessly here and there. whose still surviving portions the bounds of consciousness were attempt a general cleanup; and at Once a lean, black-and-white cat screamed for mercy or laughed with let down, and man’s fancy lay open last, moved by conditions more edged between his feet and tripped madness. Odours of incense and to vistas of every realm of horror and obvious to their common sense him, overturning at the same time a corruption joined in sickening every forbidden dimension that evil than the conjectures of a Dublin beaker half full of a red liquid. The concert, and the black air was alive had power to mould. The world and dreamer, they had agreed upon a shock was severe, and to this day with the cloudy, semi-visible bulk of Nature were helpless against such final stroke. The unrest and menace Malone is not certain of what he shapeless elemental things with eyes. assaults from unsealed wells of night, of this evening had been the saw; but in dreams he still pictures Somewhere dark sticky water was nor could any sign or prayer check deciding factor, and just about that cat as it scuttled away with lapping at onyx piers, and once the the Walpurgis-riot of horror which midnight a raiding party recruited certain monstrous alterations and shivery tinkle of raucous little bells had come when a sage with the from three stations descended upon peculiarities. Then came the locked pealed out to greet the insane titter hateful key had stumbled on a horde Parker Place and its environs. cellar door, and the search for some- of a naked phosphorescent thing with the locked and brimming coffer Doors were battered in, stragglers thing to break it down. A heavy stool which swam into sight, scrambled of transmitted daemon-lore. arrested, and candlelighted rooms stood near, and its tough seat was ashore, and climbed up to squat leer- Suddenly a ray of physical light forced to disgorge unbelievable more than enough for the antique ingly on a carved golden pedestal in shot through these phantasms, and throngs of mixed foreigners in panels. A crack formed and enlarged, the background. Malone heard the sound of oars figured robes, mitres, and other and the whole door gave way—but Avenues of limitless night amidst the blasphemies of things inexplicable devices. Much was lost from the other side; whence poured seemed to radiate in every direction, that should be dead. A boat with a in the melee, for objects were a howling tumult of ice-cold wind till one might fancy that here lay the lantern in its prow darted into sight, thrown hastily down unexpected with all the stenches of the bottom- root of a contagion destined to made fast to an iron ring in the slimy shafts, and betraying odours dead- less pit, and whence reached a sicken and swallow cities, and engulf stone pier, and vomited forth several ened by the sudden kindling of sucking force not of earth or heaven, nations in the foetor of hybrid dark men bearing a long burden 340 341 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

swathed in bedding. They took it to hazy, and doubtful of his place in footfalls of a running figure. The below, sending up a parting gleam the naked phosphorescent thing on this or in any world. Then he turned, footfalls approached, and Malone of carven gold as it sank heavily to the carved golden pedestal, and the faltered, and sank down on the cold raised himself to his elbow to look. undreamable gulfs of lower Tartarus. thing tittered and pawed at the damp stone, gasping and shivering The luminosity of the crypt, In that instant, too, the whole scene bedding. Then they unswathed it, as the daemon organ croaked on, lately diminished, had now slightly of horror faded to nothingness and propped upright before the and the howling and drumming and increased; and in that devil-light before Malone’s eyes; and he fainted pedestal the gangrenous corpse of a tinkling of the mad procession grew there appeared the fleeing form of amidst a thunderous crash which corpulent old man with stubbly fainter and fainter. that which should not flee or feel or seemed to blot out all the evil beard and unkempt white hair. The Vaguely he was conscious of breathe—the glassy-eyed, gangre- universe. phosphorescent thing tittered again, chanted horrors and shocking croak- nous corpse of the corpulent old and the men produced bottles from ings afar off. Now and then a wail man, now needing no support, but their pockets and anointed its feet or whine of ceremonial devotion animated by some infernal sorcery VII. with red, whilst they afterward gave would float to him through the black of the rite just closed. After it raced alone’s dream, experi- the bottles to the thing to drink arcade, whilst eventually there rose the naked, tittering, phosphorescent enced in full before he from. the dreadful Greek incantation thing that belonged on the carven knew of Suydam’s death All at once, from an arcaded whose text he had read above the pedestal, and still farther behind Mand transfer at sea, was curiously avenue leading endlessly away, there pulpit of that dance-hall church. panted the dark men, and all the supplemented by some odd reali- came the daemoniac rattle and “O friend and companion of dread crew of sentient loathsome- ties of the case; though that is no wheeze of a blasphemous organ, night, thou who rejoicest in the nesses. The corpse was gaining on reason why anyone should believe choking and rumbling out the baying of dogs (here a hideous howl its pursuers, and seemed bent on a it. The three old houses in Parker mockeries of hell in a cracked, burst forth) and spilt blood (here definite object, straining with every Place, doubtless long rotten with sardonic bass. In an instant every nameless sounds vied with morbid rotting muscle toward the carved decay in its most insidious form, moving entity was electrified; and shriekings) who wanderest in the golden pedestal, whose necromantic collapsed without visible cause forming at once into a ceremonial midst of shades among the tombs, importance was evidently so great. while half the raiders and most of procession, the nightmare horde (here a whistling sigh occurred) who Another moment and it had reached the prisoners were inside; and of slithered away in quest of the longest for blood and bringest terror its goal, whilst the trailing throng both the greater number were sound—goat, satyr, and Ægypan, to mortals, (short, sharp cries from laboured on with more frantic speed. instantly killed. Only in the base- incubus, succuba and lemur, twisted myriad throats) Gorgo, (repeated as But they were too late, for in one ments and cellars was there much toad and shapeless elemental, response) Mormo, (repeated with final spurt of strength which ripped saving of life, and Malone was dog-faced howler and silent strutter ecstasy) thousand-faced moon, tendon from tendon and sent its lucky to have been deep below the in darkness—all led by the abomi- (sighs and flute notes) look favour- noisome bulk floundering to the house of Robert Suydam. For he nable naked phosphorescent thing ably on our sacrifices!” floor in a state of jellyish dissolution, really was there, as no one is that had squatted on the carved As the chant closed, a general the staring corpse which had been disposed to deny. They found him golden throne, and that now strode shout went up, and hissing sounds Robert Suydam achieved its object unconscious by the edge of a night- insolently bearing in its arms the nearly drowned the croaking of the and its triumph. The push had been black pool, with a grotesquely glassy-eyed corpse of the corpulent cracked bass organ. Then a gasp as tremendous, but the force had held horrible jumble of decay and bone, old man. The strange dark men from many throats, and a babel of out; and as the pusher collapsed to identifiable through dental work as danced in the rear, and the whole barked and bleated words—“Lilith, a muddy blotch of corruption the the body of Suydam, a few feet column skipped and leaped with Great Lilith, behold the pedestal he had pushed tottered, away. The case was plain, for it was Dionysiac fury. Malone staggered Bridegroom!” More cries, a clamour tipped, and finally careened from its hither that the smugglers’ under- after them a few steps, delirious and of rioting, and the sharp, clicking onyx base into the thick waters ground canal led; and the men who 342 343 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • The HORROR at RED HOOK

took Suydam from the ship had The kidnapping epidemic, very heart. But he is content to rest silent file from abyss to abyss, none knows brought him home. They them- clearly, had been traced home; in Chepachet, calming his nervous whence or whither, pushed on by selves were never found, or at least though only two of the surviving system and praying that time may blind laws of biology which they never identified; and the ship’s prisoners could by any legal thread gradually transfer his terrible expe- may never understand. As of old, doctor is not yet satisfied with the be connected with it. These men are rience from the realm of present more people enter Red Hook than simple certitudes of the police. now in prison, since they failed of reality to that of picturesque and leave it on the landward side, and Suydam was evidently a leader conviction as accessories in the actual semi-mythical remoteness. there are already rumours of new in extensive man-smuggling opera- murders. The carved golden pedestal Robert Suydam sleeps beside his canals running underground to tions, for the canal to his house was or throne so often mentioned by bride in Greenwood Cemetery. No certain centres of traffic in liquor but one of several subterranean Malone as of primary occult impor- funeral was held over the strangely and less mentionable things. channels and tunnels in the neigh- tance was never brought to light, released bones, and relatives are The dance-hall church is now bourhood. There was a tunnel from though at one place under the grateful for the swift oblivion which mostly a dance-hall, and queer faces this house to a crypt beneath the Suydam house the canal was overtook the case as a whole. The have appeared at night at the dance-hall church; a crypt accessible observed to sink into a well too deep scholar’s connexion with the Red windows. Lately a policeman from the church only through a for dredging. It was choked up at Hook horrors, indeed, was never expressed the belief that the filled-up narrow secret passage in the north the mouth and cemented over when emblazoned by legal proof; since his crypt has been dug out again, and wall, and in whose chambers some the cellars of the new houses were death forestalled the inquiry he for no simply explainable purpose. singular and terrible things were made, but Malone often speculates would otherwise have faced. His own Who are we to combat poisons older discovered. The croaking organ was on what lies beneath. The police, end is not much mentioned, and the than history and mankind? Apes there, as well as a vast arched chapel satisfied that they had shattered a Suydams hope that posterity may danced in Asia to those horrors, and with wooden benches and a strangely dangerous gang of maniacs and recall him only as a gentle recluse the cancer lurks secure and spreading figured altar. The walls were lined man-smugglers, turned over to the who dabbled in harmless magic and where furtiveness hides in rows of with small cells, in seventeen of Federal authorities the unconvicted folklore. decaying brick. which—hideous to relate—solitary Kurds, who before their deportation As for Red Hook—it is always Malone does not shudder prisoners in a state of complete were conclusively found to belong the same. Suydam came and went; without cause—for only the other idiocy were found chained, including to the Yezidi clan of devil-worship- a terror gathered and faded; but the day an officer overheard a swarthy four mothers with infants of disturb- pers. The tramp ship and its crew evil spirit of darkness and squalor squinting hag teaching a small child ingly strange appearance. These remain an elusive mystery, though broods on amongst the mongrels in some whispered patois in the shadow infants died soon after exposure to cynical detectives are once more the old brick houses, and prowling of an areaway. He listened, and the light; a circumstance which the ready to combat its smuggling and bands still parade on unknown thought it very strange when he doctors thought rather merciful. rum-running ventures. Malone errands past windows where lights heard her repeat over and over again, Nobody but Malone, among those thinks these detectives shew a sadly and twisted faces unaccountably “O friend and companion of who inspected them, remembered limited perspective in their lack of appear and disappear. Age-old night, thou who rejoicest in the the sombre question of old Delrio: wonder at the myriad unexplainable horror is a hydra with a thousand baying of dogs and spilt blood, who “An sint unquam daemones incubi details, and the suggestive obscurity heads, and the cults of darkness are wanderest in the midst of shades et succubae, et an ex tali congressu of the whole case; though he is just rooted in blasphemies deeper than among the tombs, who longest for proles nasci queat?” as critical of the newspapers, which the well of Democritus. The soul of blood and bringest terror to mortals, Before the canals were filled up saw only a morbid sensation and the beast is omnipresent and trium- Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced they were thoroughly dredged, and gloated over a minor sadist cult phant, and Red Hook’s legions of moon, look favourably on our yielded forth a sensational array of which they might have proclaimed blear-eyed, pockmarked youths still sacrifices!” sawed and split bones of all sizes. a horror from the universe’s very chant and curse and howl as they 344 345

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here is nothing more physician Dr. Davis, who died years absurd, as I view it, than ago. It was generally stated that the that conventional associa- affliction and shock were results of Ttion of the homely and the whole- an unlucky slip whereby Birch had some which seems to pervade the locked himself for nine hours in the psychology of the multitude. receiving tomb of Peck Valley Mention a bucolic Yankee setting, Cemetery, escaping only by crude a bungling and thick-fibred village and disastrous mechanical means; undertaker, and a careless mishap but while this much was undoubt- in a tomb, and no average reader edly true, there were other and can be brought to expect more than blacker things which the man used a hearty albeit grotesque phase of to whisper to me in his drunken comedy. God knows, though, that delirium toward the last. He confided the prosy tale which George Birch’s in me because I was his doctor, and death permits me to tell has in it because he probably felt the need of aspects beside which some of our confiding in someone else after darkest tragedies are light. Davis died. He was a bachelor, Birch acquired a limitation and wholly without relatives. changed his business in 1881, yet Birch, before 1881, had been the never discussed the case when he village undertaker of Peck Valley; could avoid it. Neither did his old and was a very calloused and H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • In the VAULT

primitive specimen even as such together flimsier and ungainlier drinking by which he later tried to Sawyer was not a lovable man, and specimens go. The practices I heard caskets, or disregard more flagrantly forget certain things. He was just many stories were told of his almost attributed to him would be unbe- the needs of the rusty lock on the dizzy and careless enough to annoy inhuman vindictiveness and tena- lievable today, at least in a city; and tomb door which he slammed open his sensitive horse, which as he drew cious memory for wrongs real or even Peck Valley would have shud- and shut with such nonchalant it viciously up at the tomb neighed fancied. To him Birch had felt no dered a bit had it known the easy abandon. and pawed and tossed its head, much compunction in assigning the care- ethics of its mortuary artist in such At last the spring thaw came, as on that former occasion when the lessly made coffin which he now debatable matters as the ownership and graves were laboriously prepared rain had vexed it. The day was clear, pushed out of the way in his quest of costly “laying-out” apparel invis- for the nine silent harvests of the but a high wind had sprung up; and for the Fenner casket. ible beneath the casket’s lid, and the grim reaper which waited in the Birch was glad to get to shelter as It was just as he had recognised degree of dignity to be maintained tomb. Birch, though dreading the he unlocked the iron door and old Matt’s coffin that the door in posing and adapting the unseen bother of removal and interment, entered the side-hill vault. Another slammed to in the wind, leaving him members of lifeless tenants to began his task of transference one might not have relished the damp, in a dusk even deeper than before. containers not always calculated with disagreeable April morning, but odorous chamber with the eight The narrow transom admitted only sublimest accuracy. Most distinctly ceased before noon because of a carelessly placed coffins; but Birch the feeblest of rays, and the overhead Birch was lax, insensitive, and profes- heavy rain that seemed to irritate his in those days was insensitive, and ventilation funnel virtually none at sionally undesirable; yet I still think horse, after having laid but one was concerned only in getting the all; so that he was reduced to a he was not an evil man. He was mortal tenement to its permanent right coffin for the right grave. He profane fumbling as he made his merely crass of fibre and function— rest. That was Darius Peck, the had not forgotten the criticism halting way among the long boxes thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, nonagenarian, whose grave was not aroused when Hannah Bixby’s rela- toward the latch. In this funereal as his easily avoidable accident far from the tomb. Birch decided tives, wishing to transport her body twilight he rattled the rusty handles, proves, and without that modicum that he would begin the next day to the cemetery in the city whither pushed at the iron panels, and of imagination which holds the with little old Matthew Fenner, they had moved, found the casket of wondered why the massive portal average citizen within certain limits whose grave was also near by; but Judge Capwell beneath her had grown so suddenly recalcitrant. fixed by taste. actually postponed the matter for headstone. In this twilight too, he began to Just where to begin Birch’s story three days, not getting to work till The light was dim, but Birch’s realise the truth and to shout loudly I can hardly decide, since I am no Good Friday, the 15th. Being sight was good, and he did not get as if his horse outside could do more practiced teller of tales. I suppose without superstition, he did not heed Asaph Sawyer’s coffin by mistake, than neigh an unsympathetic reply. one should start in the cold the day at all; though ever afterward although it was very similar. He had, For the long-neglected latch was December of 1880, when the ground he refused to do anything of impor- indeed, made that coffin for Matthew obviously broken, leaving the careless froze and the cemetery delvers found tance on that fateful sixth day of the Fenner; but had cast it aside at last undertaker trapped in the vault, a they could dig no more graves till week. Certainly, the events of that as too awkward and flimsy, in a fit victim of his own oversight. spring. Fortunately the village was evening greatly changed George of curious sentimentality aroused by The thing must have happened small and the death rate low, so that Birch. recalling how kindly and generous at about three-thirty in the after- it was possible to give all of Birch’s On the afternoon of Friday, the little old man had been to him noon. Birch, being by temperament inanimate charges a temporary April 15th, then, Birch set out for during his bankruptcy five years phlegmatic and practical, did not haven in the single antiquated the tomb with horse and wagon to before. He gave old Matt the very shout long; but proceeded to grope receiving tomb. The undertaker grew transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. best his skill could produce, but was about for some tools which he doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, That he was not perfectly sober, he thrifty enough to save the rejected recalled seeing in a corner of the and seemed to outdo even himself subsequently admitted; though he specimen, and to use it when Asaph tomb. It is doubtful whether he was in carelessness. Never did he knock had not then taken to the wholesale Sawyer died of a malignant fever. touched at all by the horror and 348 349 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • In the VAULT

exquisite weirdness of his position, above the door. Only the coffins have as certain a surface as possible. Undisturbed by oppressive reflec- but the bald fact of imprisonment themselves remained as potential In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly tions on the time, the place, and the so far from the daily paths of men stepping-stones, and as he consid- to touch to select the right one, and company beneath his feet, he phil- was enough to exasperate him thor- ered these he speculated on the best indeed came upon it almost by acci- osophically chipped away the stony oughly. His day’s work was sadly mode of transporting them. Three dent, since it tumbled into his hands brickwork; cursing when a fragment interrupted, and unless chance pres- coffin-heights, he reckoned, would as if through some odd volition after hit him in the face, and laughing ently brought some rambler hither, permit him to reach the transom; he had unwittingly placed it beside when one struck the increasingly he might have to remain all night or but he could do better with four. The another on the third layer. excited horse that pawed near the longer. The pile of tools soon boxes were fairly even, and could be The tower at length finished, cypress tree. In time the hole grew reached, and a hammer and chisel piled up like blocks; so he began to and his aching arms rested by a pause so large that he ventured to try his selected, Birch returned over the compute how he might most stably during which he sat on the bottom body in it now and then, shifting coffins to the door. The air had use the eight to rear a scalable plat- step of his grim device, Birch about so that the coffins beneath begun to be exceedingly unwhole- form four deep. As he planned, he cautiously ascended with his tools him rocked and creaked. He would some; but to this detail he paid no could not but wish that the units of and stood abreast of the narrow not, he found, have to pile another attention as he toiled, half by feeling, his contemplated staircase had been transom. The borders of the space on his platform to make the proper at the heavy and corroded metal of more securely made. Whether he were entirely of brick, and there height; for the hole was on exactly the latch. He would have given much had imagination enough to wish they seemed little doubt but that he could the right level to use as soon as its for a lantern or bit of candle; but were empty, is strongly to be doubted. shortly chisel away enough to allow size might permit. lacking these, bungled semi-sight- Finally he decided to lay a base his body to pass. As his hammer It must have been midnight at lessly as best he might. of three parallel with the wall, to blows began to fall, the horse outside least when Birch decided he could When he perceived that the place upon this two layers of two whinnied in a tone which may have get through the transom. Tired and latch was hopelessly unyielding, at each, and upon these a single box to been encouraging and to others may perspiring despite many rests, he least to such meagre tools and under serve as the platform. This arrange- have been mocking. In either case it descended to the floor and sat a such tenebrous conditions as these, ment could be ascended with a would have been appropriate; for the while on the bottom box to gather Birch glanced about for other minimum of awkwardness, and unexpected tenacity of the easy- strength for the final wriggle and possible points of escape. The vault would furnish the desired height. looking brickwork was surely a leap to the ground outside. The had been dug from a hillside, so that Better still, though, he would utilise sardonic commentary on the vanity hungry horse was neighing repeat- the narrow ventilation funnel in the only two boxes of the base to support of mortal hopes, and the source of a edly and almost uncannily, and he top ran through several feet of earth, the superstructure, leaving one free task whose performance deserved vaguely wished it would stop. He making this direction utterly useless to be piled on top in case the actual every possible stimulus. was curiously unelated over his to consider. Over the door, however, feat of escape required an even Dusk fell and found Birch still impending escape, and almost the high, slit-like transom in the greater altitude. And so the prisoner toiling. He worked largely by feeling dreaded the exertion, for his form brick facade gave promise of possible toiled in the twilight, heaving the now, since newly gathered clouds had the indolent stoutness of early enlargement to a diligent worker; unresponsive remnants of mortality hid the moon; and though progress middle age. As he remounted the hence upon this his eyes long rested with little ceremony as his miniature was still slow, he felt heartened at splitting coffins he felt his weight as he racked his brains for means to Tower of Babel rose course by course. the extent of his encroachments on very poignantly; especially when, reach it. There was nothing like a Several of the coffins began to split the top and bottom of the aperture. upon reaching the topmost one, he ladder in the tomb, and the coffin under the stress of handling, and he He could, he was sure, get out by heard that aggravated crackle which niches on the sides and rear—which planned to save the stoutly built midnight—though it is character- bespeaks the wholesale rending of Birch seldom took the trouble to casket of little Matthew Fenner for istic of him that this thought was wood. He had, it seems, planned in use—afforded no ascent to the space the top, in order that his feet might untinged with eerie implications. vain when choosing the stoutest 350 351 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • In the VAULT

coffin for the platform; for no sooner not walk, it appeared, and the his horrible experience. He was certain chance allusions such as was his full bulk again upon it than emerging moon must have witnessed oddly anxious to know if Birch were “Friday,” “Tomb,” “Coffin,” and the rotting lid gave way, jouncing a horrible sight as he dragged his sure—absolutely sure—of the iden- words of less obvious concatenation. him two feet down on a surface bleeding ankles toward the cemetery tity of that top coffin of the pile; how His frightened horse had gone home, which even he did not care to lodge; his fingers clawing the black he had chosen it, how he had been but his frightened wits never quite imagine. Maddened by the sound, mould in brainless haste, and his certain of it as the Fenner coffin in did that. He changed his business, or by the stench which billowed body responding with that the dusk, and how he had distin- but something always preyed upon forth even to the open air, the waiting maddening slowness from which one guished it from the inferior duplicate him. It may have been just fear, and horse gave a scream that was too suffers when chased by the phantoms coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. it may have been fear mixed with a frantic for a neigh, and plunged of nightmare. There was evidently, Would the firm Fenner casket have queer belated sort of remorse for madly off through the night, the however, no pursuer; for he was alone caved in so readily? Davis, an bygone crudities. His drinking, of wagon rattling crazily behind it. and alive when Armington, the old-time village practitioner, had of course, only aggravated what it was Birch, in his ghastly situation, lodge-keeper, answered his feeble course seen both at the respective meant to alleviate. was now too low for an easy scramble clawing at the door. funerals, as indeed he had attended When Dr. Davis left Birch that out of the enlarged transom; but Armington helped Birch to the both Fenner and Sawyer in their last night he had taken a lantern and gathered his energies for a deter- outside of a spare bed and sent his illnesses. He had even wondered, at gone to the old receiving tomb. The mined try. Clutching the edges of little son Edwin for Dr. Davis. The Sawyer’s funeral, how the vindictive moon was shining on the scattered the aperture, he sought to pull afflicted man was fully conscious, farmer had managed to lie straight brick fragments and marred facade, himself up, when he noticed a queer but would say nothing of any conse- in a box so closely akin to that of the and the latch of the great door retardation in the form of an quence; merely muttering such diminutive Fenner. yielded readily to a touch from the apparent drag on both his ankles. In things as “Oh, my ankles!,” “Let go!,” After a full two hours Dr. Davis outside. Steeled by old ordeals in another moment he knew fear for or “Shut in the tomb.” Then the left, urging Birch to insist at all times dissecting rooms, the doctor entered the first time that night; for struggle doctor came with his medicine-case that his wounds were caused entirely and looked about, stifling the nausea as he would, he could not shake clear and asked crisp questions, and by loose nails and splintering wood. of mind and body that everything of the unknown grasp which held removed the patient’s outer clothing, What else, he added, could ever in in sight and smell induced. He cried his feet in relentless captivity. shoes, and socks. The wounds—for any case be proved or believed? But aloud once, and a little later gave a Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, both ankles were frightfully lacerated it would be well to say as little as gasp that was more terrible than a shot through his calves; and in his about the Achilles’ tendons—seemed could be said, and to let no other cry. Then he fled back to the lodge mind was a vortex of fright mixed to puzzle the old physician greatly, doctor treat the wounds. Birch and broke all the rules of his calling with an unquenchable materialism and finally almost to frighten him. heeded this advice all the rest of his by rousing and shaking his patient, that suggested splinters, loose nails, His questioning grew more than life till he told me his story; and and hurling at him a succession of or some other attribute of a breaking medically tense, and his hands shook when I saw the scars—ancient and shuddering whispers that seared into wooden box. Perhaps he screamed. as he dressed the mangled members; whitened as they then were—I the bewildered ears like the hissing At any rate he kicked and squirmed binding them as if he wished to get agreed that he was wise in so doing. of vitriol. frantically and automatically whilst the wounds out of sight as quickly He always remained lame, for the “It was Asaph’s coffin, Birch, just his consciousness was almost eclipsed as possible. great tendons had been severed; but as I thought! I knew his teeth, with in a half-swoon. For an impersonal doctor, Davis’ I think the greatest lameness was in the front ones missing on the upper Instinct guided him in his ominous and awestruck cross-exam- his soul. His thinking processes, once jaw—never, for God’s sake, show wriggle through the transom, and in ination became very strange indeed so phlegmatic and logical, had those wounds! The body was pretty the crawl which followed his jarring as he sought to drain from the weak- become ineffaceably scarred; and it badly gone, but if ever I saw vindic- thud on the damp ground. He could ened undertaker every least detail of was pitiful to note his response to tiveness on any face—or former 352 353 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

face…. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a year ago last August…. He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself. God, what a rage! I’d hate to have it aimed at me! “Why did you do it, Birch? He was a scoundrel, and I don’t blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin, but you always did go too HE.

damned far! Well enough to skimp [return to table of contents] on the thing some way, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was. “I’ll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. You kicked hard, for Asaph’s coffin was on the saw him on a sleepless night town, I had seen it in the sunset from floor. His head was broken in, and when I was walking desper- a bridge, majestic above its waters, everything was tumbled about. I’ve ately to save my soul and my its incredible peaks and pyramids seen sights before, but there was one vision.I My coming to New York rising flowerlike and delicate from thing too much here. An eye for an had been a mistake; for whereas I pools of violet mist to play with the eye! Great heavens, Birch, but you had looked for poignant wonder flaming clouds and the first stars of got what you deserved. The skull and inspiration in the teeming evening. Then it had lighted up turned my stomach, but the other labyrinths of ancient streets that window by window above the shim- was worse—those ankles cut neatly twist endlessly from forgotten mering tides where lanterns nodded off to fit Matt Fenner’s cast-aside courts and squares and waterfronts and glided and deep horns bayed coffin!” to courts and squares and water- weird harmonies, and had itself fronts equally forgotten, and in the become a starry firmament of dream, Cyclopean modern towers and redolent of faery music, and one with pinnacles that rise blackly the marvels of Carcassonne and Babylonian under waning moons, I Samarcand and El Dorado and all had found instead only a sense of glorious and half-fabulous cities. horror and oppression which Shortly afterward I was taken threatened to master, paralyze, and through those antique ways so dear annihilate me. to my fancy—narrow, curving alleys The disillusion had been gradual. and passages where rows of red Coming for the first time upon the Georgian brick blinked with 354 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • HE

small-paned dormers above pillared though something of resigned tran- for which the poet far within me addressed me. His form was very doorways that had looked on gilded quillity came back as I gradually cried out. slight; thin almost to cadaverous- sedans and paneled coaches—and formed the habit of keeping off the The man came upon me at ness; and his voice proved phenom- in the first flush of realization of streets by day and venturing abroad about two one cloudy August enally soft and hollow, though not these long-wished things I thought only at night, when darkness calls morning, as I was threading a series particularly deep. He had, he said, I had indeed achieved such treasures forth what little of the past still of detached courtyards; now acces- noticed me several times at my as would make me in time a poet. hovers wraith-like about, and old sible only through the unlighted wanderings; and inferred that I But success and happiness were white doorways remember the stal- hallways of intervening buildings, resembled him in loving the vestiges not to be. Garish daylight showed wart forms that once passed through but once forming parts of a contin- of former years. Would I not like only squalor and alienage and the them. With this mode of relief I uous network of picturesque alleys. the guidance of one long practiced noxious elephantiasis of climbing, even wrote a few poems, and still I had heard of them by vague rumor, in these explorations, and possessed spreading stone where the moon refrained from going home to my and realized that they could not be of local information profoundly had hinted of loveliness and elder people lest I seem to crawl back upon any map of today; but the fact deeper than any which an obvious magic; and the throngs of people ignobly in defeat. that they were forgotten only newcomer could possibly have that seethed through the flume-like Then, on a sleepless night’s endeared them to me, so that I had gained? streets were squat, swarthy strangers walk, I met the man. It was in a sought them with twice my usual As he spoke, I caught a glimpse with hardened faces and narrow grotesque hidden courtyard of the eagerness. Now that I had found of his face in the yellow beam from eyes, shrewd strangers without Greenwich section, for there in my them, my eagerness was again a solitary attic window. It was a dreams and without kinship to the ignorance I had settled, having redoubled; for something in their noble, even a handsome elderly scenes about them, who could never heard of the place as the natural arrangement dimly hinted that they countenance; and bore the marks of mean aught to a blue-eyed man of home of poets and artists. The might be only a few of many such, a lineage and refinement unusual the old folk, with the love of fair archaic lanes and houses and unex- with dark, dumb counterparts for the age and place. Yet some green lanes and white New England pected bits of square and court had wedged obscurely betwixt high quality about it disturbed me almost village steeples in his heart. indeed delighted me, and when I blank walls and deserted rear tene- as much as its features pleased me— So instead of the poems I had found the poets and artists to be ments, or lurking lamplessly behind perhaps it was too white, or too hoped for, there came only a shud- loud-voiced pretenders whose archways unbetrayed by hordes of expressionless, or too much out of dering blackness and ineffable lone- quaintness is tinsel and whose lives the foreign-speaking or guarded by keeping with the locality, to make liness; and I saw at last a fearful are a denial of all that pure beauty furtive and uncommunicative artists me feel easy or comfortable. truth which no one had ever dared which is poetry and art, I stayed on whose practises do not invite Nevertheless I followed him; for in to breathe before—the unwhisper- for love of these venerable things. I publicity or the light of day. those dreary days my quest for able secret of secrets—the fact that fancied them as they were in their He spoke to me without invi- antique beauty and mystery was all this city of stone and stridor is not prime, when Greenwich was a placid tation, noting my mood and glances that I had to keep my soul alive, and a sentient perpetuation of Old New village not yet engulfed by the town; as I studied certain knockered door- I reckoned it a rare favor of Fate to York as London is of Old London and in the hours before dawn, when ways above iron-railed steps, the fall in with one whose kindred seek- and Paris of Old Paris, but that it is all the revellers had slunk away, I pallid glow of traceried transoms ings seemed to have penetrated so in fact quite dead, its sprawling body used to wander alone among their feebly lighting my face. His own much farther than mine. imperfectly embalmed and infested cryptical windings and brood upon face was in shadow, and he wore a Something in the night with queer animate things which the curious arcana which genera- wide-brimmed hat which somehow constrained the cloaked man to have nothing to do with it as it was tions must have deposited there. blended perfectly with the out-of- silence and for a long hour he led in life. Upon making this discovery This kept my soul alive, and gave date cloak he affected; but I was me forward without needless words; I ceased to sleep comfortably; me a few of those dreams and visions subtly disquieted even before he making only the briefest of 356 357 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • HE

comments concerning ancient uphill—more steeply than I thought pediments, a delightful Doric times, I have not scrupled to ascer- names and dates and changes, and possible in this part of New York— cornice, and a magnificently carved tain their ways, and adopt their dress directing my progress very largely and the upper end was blocked overmantel with scroll-and-urn top. and manners; an indulgence which by gestures as we squeezed through squarely by the ivy-clad wall of a Above the crowded bookshelves at offends none if practised without interstices, tiptoed through corri- private estate, beyond which I could intervals along the walls were well- ostentation. It hath been my good dors, clambered over brick walls, see a pale cupola, and the tops of wrought family portraits; all fortune to retain the rural seat of my and once crawled on hands and trees waving against a vague light- tarnished to an enigmatical dimness, ancestors, swallowed though it was knees through a low, arched passage ness in the sky. In this wall was a and bearing an unmistakable likeness by two towns, first Greenwich, which of stone whose immense length and small, low-arched gate of nail- to the man who now motioned me built up hither after 1800, then New tortuous twistings effaced at last studded black oak, which the man to a chair beside the graceful York, which joined on near 1830. every hint of geographical location proceeded to unlock with a Chippendale table. Before seating There were many reasons for the I had managed to preserve. The ponderous key. Leading me within, himself across the table from me, my close keeping of this place in my things we saw were very old and he steered a course in utter blackness host paused for a moment as if in family, and I have not been remiss marvelous, or at least they seemed over what seemed to be a gravel path, embarrassment; then, tardily in discharging such obligations. The so in the few straggling rays of light and finally up a flight of stone steps removing his gloves, wide-brimmed squire who succeeded to it in 1768 by which I viewed them, and I shall to the door of the house, which he hat, and cloak, stood theatrically studied sartain arts and made sartain never forget the tottering Ionic unlocked and opened for me. revealed in full mid-Georgian discoveries, all connected with influ- columns and fluted pilasters and We entered, and as we did so I costume from queued hair and neck ences residing in this particular plot urn-headed iron fenceposts and grew faint from a reek of infinite ruffles to knee-breeches, silk hose, of ground, and eminently desarving flaring-linteled windows and deco- mustiness which welled out to meet and the buckled shoes I had not of the strongest guarding. Some rative fanlights that appeared to us, and which must have been the previously noticed. Now slowly curious effects of these arts and grow quainter and stranger the fruit of unwholesome centuries of sinking into a lyre-back chair, he discoveries I now purpose to show deeper we advanced into this inex- decay. My host appeared not to commenced to eye me intently. you, under the strictest secrecy; and haustible maze of unknown notice this, and in courtesy I kept Without his hat he took on an I believe I may rely on my judgement antiquity. silent as he piloted me up a curving aspect of extreme age which was of men enough to have no distrust We met no person, and as time stairway, across a hall, and into a scarcely visible before, and I of either your interest or your passed the lighted windows became room whose door I heard him lock wondered if this unperceived mark fidelity.” fewer and fewer. The streetlights we behind us. Then I saw him pull the of singular longevity were not one He paused, but I could only nod first encountered had been of oil, curtains of the three small-paned of the sources of my disquiet. When my head. I have said that I was and of the ancient lozenge pattern. windows that barely showed them- he spoke at length, his soft, hollow, alarmed, yet to my soul nothing was Later I noticed some with candles; selves against the lightening sky; and carefully muffled voice not infre- more deadly than the material and at last, after traversing a horrible after which he crossed to the mantel, quently quavered; and now and then daylight world of New York, and unlighted court where my guide had struck flint and steel, lighted two I had great difficulty in following whether this man were a harmless to lead with his gloved hand through candles of a candelabrum of twelve him as I listened with a thrill of eccentric or a wielder of dangerous total blackness to a narrow wooded sconces, and made a gesture enjoining amazement and half-disavowed arts, I had no choice save to follow gate in a high wall, we came upon a soft-toned speech. alarm which grew each instant. him and slake my sense of wonder fragment of alley lit only by lanterns In this feeble radiance I saw that “You behold, Sir,” my host began, on whatever he might have to offer. in front of every seventh house— we were in a spacious, well-furnished “a man of very eccentrical habits for So I listened. unbelievably Colonial tin lanterns and paneled library dating from the whose costume no apology need be “To—my ancestor,” he softly with conical tops and holes punched first quarter of the Eighteenth offered to one with your wit and continued, “there appeared to reside in the sides. This alley led steeply Century, with splendid doorway inclinations. Reflecting upon better some very remarkable qualities in 358 359 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • HE

the will of mankind; qualities having colloquial—and with the familiar blackness outside. For a moment I I saw the steeples of what was then a little-suspected dominance not speech of another day. He went on. saw nothing save a myriad of tiny all of New York; Trinity and St. Paul’s only over the acts of one’s self and “But you must know, Sir, that dancing lights, far, far before me. and the Brick Church dominating of others, but over every variety of what—the squire—got from those Then, as if in response to an insidious their sisters, and a faint haze of wood force and substance in Nature, and mongrel savages was but a small part motion of my host’s hand, a flash of smoke hovering over the whole. I over many elements and dimensions of the larning he came to have. He heat-lightning played over the scene, breathed hard, but not so much from deemed more universal than Nature had not been at Oxford for nothing, and I looked out upon a sea of luxu- the sight itself as from the possibil- herself. May I say that he flouted the nor talked to no account with an riant foliage—foliage unpolluted, ities my imagination terrifiedly sanctity of things as great as space ancient chymist and astrologer in and not the sea of roofs to be conjured up. and time and that he put to strange Paris. He was, in fine, made sensible expected by any normal mind. On “Can you—dare you—go far?” I uses the rites of sartain half-breed that all the world is but the smoke my right the Hudson glittered wick- spoke with awe and I think he shared red Indians once encamped upon of our intellects; past the bidding of edly, and in the distance ahead I saw it for a second, but the evil grin this hill? These Indians showed the vulgar, but by the wise to be the unhealthy shimmer of a vast salt returned. choler when the place was built, and puffed out and drawn in like any marsh constellated with nervous “Far? What I have seen would were plaguey pestilent in asking to cloud of prime Virginia tobacco. fireflies. The flash died, and an evil blast ye to a mad statue of stone! visit the grounds at the full of the What we want, we may make about smile illumined the waxy face of the Back, back—forward, forward—look moon. For years they stole over the us; and what we don’t want, we may aged necromancer. ye puling lackwit!” wall each month when they could, sweep away. I won’t say that all this “That was before my time— And as he snarled the phrase and by stealth performed sartain acts. is wholly true in body, but ’tis suffi- before the new squire’s time. Pray let under his breath he gestured anew Then, in ’68, the new squire catched cient true to furnish a very pretty us try again.” bringing to the sky a flash more them at their doings, and stood still spectacle now and then. You, I I was faint, even fainter than the blinding than either which had come at what he saw. Thereafter he conceive, would be tickled by a better hateful modernity of that accursed before. For full three seconds I could bargained with them and exchanged sight of sartain other years than your city had made me. glimpse that pandemoniac sight, and the free access of his grounds for the fancy affords you; so be pleased to “Good God!” I whispered, “can in those seconds I saw a vista which exact inwardness of what they did, hold back any fright at what I design you do that for any time?” And as he will ever afterward torment me in larning that their grandfathers got to show. Come to the window and nodded, and bared the black stumps dreams. I saw the heavens verminous part of their custom from red ances- be quiet.” of what had once been yellow fangs, with strange flying things, and tors and part from an old Dutchman My host now took my hand to I clutched at the curtains to prevent beneath them a hellish black city of in the time of the States-General. draw me to one of the two windows myself from falling. But he steadied giant stone terraces with impious And pox on him, I’m afeared the on the long side of the malodorous me with that terrible, ice-cold claw, pyramids flung savagely to the moon, squire must have sarved them room, and at the first touch of his and once more made his insidious and devil-lights burning from monstrous bad rum—whether or ungloved fingers I turned cold. His gesture. unnumbered windows. And not by intent—for a week after he flesh, though dry and firm, was of Again the lightning flashed— swarming loathsomely on aerial larnt the secret he was the only man the quality of ice; and I almost shrank but this time upon a scene not wholly galleries I saw the yellow, squint-eyed living that knew it. You, Sir, are the away from his pulling. But again I strange. It was Greenwich, the people of that city, robed horribly in first outsider to be told there is a thought of the emptiness and horror Greenwich that used to be, with here orange and red, and dancing insanely secret, and split me if I’d have risked of reality, and boldly prepared to and there a roof or row of houses as to the pounding of fevered kettle- tampering that much with—the follow whithersoever I might be led. we see it now, yet with lovely green drums, the clatter of obscene crotala, powers—had ye not been so hot after Once at the window, the man lanes and fields and bits of grassy and the maniacal moaning of muted bygone things.” drew apart the yellow silk curtains common. The marsh still glittered horns whose ceaseless dirges rose I shuddered as the man grew and directed my stare into the beyond, but in the farther distance and fell undulantly like the wave of 360 361 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1925 • HE

an unhallowed ocean of bitumen. yours—han’t I kept your pox-rotted with eyes, impotently trying to therein. I now felt the floor of this I saw this vista, I say, and heard magic safe—ye swilled yourselves wriggle across the sinking floor in lower room giving as that of the as with the mind’s ear the blasphe- sick, curse ye, and yet must needs my direction, and occasionally emit- upper chamber had done, and once mous domdaniel of cacophony blame the squire—let go, you! ting feeble little spits of immortal a crashing above had been followed which companioned it. It was the Unhand that latch—I’ve naught for malice. Now swift and splintering by the fall past the west window of shrieking fulfilment of all the horror ye here—” blows assailed the sickly panels, and some thing which must have been which that corpse-city had ever At this point three slow and very I saw the gleam of a tomahawk as it the cupola. Now liberated for the stirred in my soul, and forgetting deliberate raps shook the panels of cleft the rending wood. I did not instant from the wreckage, I rushed every injunction to silence I screamed the door, and a white foam gathered move, for I could not; but watched through the hall to the front door and screamed and screamed as my at the mouth of the frantic . dazedly as the door fell in pieces to and finding myself unable to open nerves gave way and the walls quiv- His fright, turning to steely despair, admit a colossal, shapeless influx of it, seized a chair and broke a window, ered about me. left room for a resurgence of his rage inky substance starred with shining, climbing frenziedly out upon the Then, as the flash subsided, I against me; and he staggered a step malevolent eyes. It poured thickly, unkempt lawn where moon light saw that my host was trembling too; toward the table on whose edge I like a flood of oil bursting a rotten danced over yard-high grass and a look of shocking fear half-blotting was steadying myself. The curtains, bulkhead, overturned a chair as it weeds. The wall was high and all the from his face the serpent distortion still clutched in his right hand as his spread, and finally flowed under the gates were locked but moving a pile of rage which my screams had left clawed out at me, grew taut and table and across the room to where of boxes in a corner I managed to excited. He tottered, clutched at the finally crashed down from their lofty the blackened head with the eyes still gain the top and cling to the great curtains as I had done before, and fastenings; admitting to the room a glared at me. Around that head it stone urn set there. wriggled his head wildly, like a flood of that full moonlight which closed, totally swallowing it up, and About me in my exhaustion I hunted animal. God knows he had the brightening of the sky had in another moment it had begun to could see only strange walls and cause, for as the echoes of my presaged. In those greenish beams recede; bearing away its invisible windows and old gambrel roofs. The screaming died away there came the candles paled, and a new burden without touching me, and steep street of my approach was another sound so hellishly suggestive semblance of decay spread over the flowing again out that black doorway nowhere visible, and the little I did that only numbed emotion kept me musk-reeking room with its wormy and down the unseen stairs, which see succumbed rapidly to a mist that sane and conscious. It was the steady, paneling, sagging floor, battered creaked as before, though in reverse rolled in from the river despite the stealthy creaking of the stairs beyond mantel, rickety furniture, and ragged order. glaring moonlight. Suddenly the urn the locked door, as with the ascent draperies. It spread over the old man, Then the floor gave way at last, to which I clung began to tremble, of a barefoot or skin-shod horde; too, whether from the same source and I slid gaspingly down into the as if sharing my own lethal dizziness; and at last the cautious, purposeful or because of his fear and vehemence, nighted chamber below, choking and in another instant my body was rattling of the brass latch that glowed and I saw him shrivel and blacken with cobwebs and half-swooning plunging downward to I knew not in the feeble candlelight. The old as he lurched near and strove to rend with terror. The green moon, shining what fate. man clawed and spat at me through me with vulturine talons. Only his through broken windows, showed the moldy air, and barked things in eyes stayed whole, and they glared me the hall door half open; and as I he man who found me said his throat as he swayed with the with a propulsive, dilated incandes- rose from the plaster-strewn floor that I must have crawled a yellow curtain he clutched. cence which grew as the face around and twisted myself free from the long way despite my broken “The full moon—damn ye— them charred and dwindled. sagged ceiling, I saw sweep past it an Tbones, for a trail of blood stretched ye… ye yelping dog—ye called ’em, The rapping was now repeated awful torrent of blackness, with off as far as he dared look. The and they’ve come for me! Moccasined with greater insistence, and this time scores of baleful eyes glowing in it. gathering rain soon effaced this feet—dead men—Gad sink ye, ye bore a hint of metal. The black thing It was seeking the door to the cellar, link with the scene of my ordeal, red devils, but I poisoned no rum o’ facing me had become only a head and when it found it, vanished and reports could state no more 362 363 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

than that I had appeared from a place unknown, at the entrance to a little black court off Perry Street. I never sought to return to those tenebrous labyrinths, nor would I direct any sane man thither if I could. Of who or what that ancient creature was, I have no idea; but I repeat that the city is dead and full of unsus- pected horrors. Whither he has gone, I do not know; but I have gone home to the pure New England lanes up 1926: which fragrant sea-winds sweep at evening. BACK in SPACE, BACK in TIME.

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.P. Lovecraft’s exile in planning on accompanying him, but New York City ended, it stayed behind for a job interview; seems, just in time; fellow she rejoined him shortly. KalemH Club member Samuel Unfortunately, upon her arrival, Loveman reports that he had taken Lovecraft’s two aunts firmly to carrying a small bottle of poison informed her that neither they nor with him at all times (although H.P. would tolerate the scandal of biographer J.T. Joshi is very skep- her, as his wife, working outside the tical of this claim). But at the end home. That sort of modern flapper of March, his aunt Lillian wrote lifestyle was fine in New York, they him that a small duplex in told her, but in Providence it was Providence was available for rent, not—especially when it involved a and would he like for her to secure scion of the Phillips family. it for them—with her in one side, Thus, Lovecraft was forced to and him in the other? choose between offending his aunts He most certainly would. and driving away his wife. He “Whoopee! Bang!! ’Rah!!” he wrote, remained silent, letting the power with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “I struggle play out as it would, and in can’t believe it—too good to be true!” the end the aunts won. His marriage, So on April 17, Lovecraft was already in rough shape, was now on his way home. Sonia had been unquestionably over, and he seems

364 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

to have accepted that—although it the young August Derleith, a prolific would be a while before Sonia would. and precocious writer of commercial During the move from New fiction and historical nonfiction, York, Lovecraft was still toiling away whose influence over Lovecraft’s on his “master’s thesis”—“Supernat- literary legacy after his death would ural Horror in Literature.” This, be extensive and controversial. along with the various processes of Toward the end of the year, settling in, kept him very busy for Lovecraft started on a Lord the first half of 1926, although he Dunsany-inspired dream-fantasy did find time in February of that story, in the style of “The Silver Key,” year to dash off “Cool Air,” a tale which took flight beneath his pen. very similar to earlier Poe-inspired By the time he brought it to a close short stories but noticeably smoother, early the following year, he found it tighter and better controlled than had grown into a 38,000-word his previous work. “Cool Air” is the novella—the longest thing he had COOL AIR. first post-“Supernatural Horror in yet written. This was The Dream- Fiction” story, and it marks the start Quest of Unknown Kadath—probably [return to table of contents] of the golden age of Lovecraft’s Lovecraft’s most polarizing work; work. his fans tend to either feel it’s his The second half of 1926 saw a best work, or his worst. relative explosion of literary output. ou ask me to explain why I metropolis, and in the teeming midst First, Lovecraft completed his most am afraid of a draught of of a shabby and commonplace room- famous story, the legendary 12,000- cool air; why I shiver more ing-house with a prosaic landlady word novelette “Call of Cthulhu,” thanY others upon entering a cold and two stalwart men by my side. In which he’d outlined just before room, and seem nauseated and the spring of 1923 I had secured leaving New York. He finished the repelled when the chill of evening some dreary and unprofitable maga- year off with “Pickman’s Model,” creeps through the heat of a mild zine work in the city of New York; “The Strange High House in the autumn day. There are those who and being unable to pay any substan- Mist,” and “The Silver Key.” All of say I respond to cold as others do to tial rent, began drifting from one them show a really startling increase a bad odour, and I am the last to cheap boarding establishment to in craftsmanship over Lovecraft’s deny the impression. What I will another in search of a room which work of the year before. Whether do is to relate the most horrible might combine the qualities of this is because of his joy and relief circumstance I ever encountered, decent cleanliness, endurable at finally being back home in and leave it to you to judge whether furnishings, and very reasonable Providence, or insights gleaned from or not this forms a suitable expla- price. It soon developed that I had his extensive studies for “Supernatural nation of my peculiarity. only a choice between different evils, Horror in Literature,” or both, is a It is a mistake to fancy that but after a time I came upon a house question still up for debate. horror is associated inextricably with in West Fourteenth Street which It was shortly after Lovecraft’s darkness, silence, and solitude. I disgusted me much less than the return to Providence that he first found it in the glare of mid-after- others I had sampled. struck up his correspondence with noon, in the clangour of a The place was a four-story 366 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • COOL AIR

mansion of brownstone, dating to the basement to tell the landlady; rather baseless eccentricity. There is, main living quarters lay in the apparently from the late forties, and and was assured by her that the I reflected tritely, an infinite deal of spacious adjoining room whose fitted with woodwork and marble trouble would quickly be set right. pathos in the state of an eminent convenient alcoves and large contig- whose stained and sullied splendour “Doctair Muñoz,” she cried as person who has come down in the uous bathroom permitted him to argued a descent from high levels of she rushed upstairs ahead of me, “he world. hide all dressers and obtrusive util- tasteful opulence. In the rooms, large have speel hees chemicals. He ees I might never have known Dr. itarian devices. Dr. Muñoz, most and lofty, and decorated with impos- too seeck for doctair heemself— Muñoz had it not been for the heart certainly, was a man of birth, culti- sible paper and ridiculously ornate seecker and seecker all the time—but attack that suddenly seized me one vation, and discrimination. stucco cornices, there lingered a he weel not have no othair for help. forenoon as I sat writing in my room. The figure before me was short depressing mustiness and hint of He ees vairy queer in hees seeck- Physicians had told me of the danger but exquisitely proportioned, and obscure cookery; but the floors were ness—all day he take funnee- of those spells, and I knew there was clad in somewhat formal dress of clean, the linen tolerably regular, and smelling baths, and he cannot get no time to be lost; so remembering perfect cut and fit. A high-bred face the hot water not too often cold or excite or warm. All hees own house- what the landlady had said about of masterful though not arrogant turned off, so that I came to regard work he do—hees leetle room are the invalid’s help of the injured expression was adorned by a short it as at least a bearable place to hiber- full of bottles and machines, and he workman, I dragged myself upstairs iron-grey full beard, and an old-fash- nate till one might really live again. do not work as doctair. But he was and knocked feebly at the door above ioned pince-nez shielded the full, The landlady, a slatternly, almost great once—my fathair in Barcelona mine. My knock was answered in dark eyes and surmounted an aqui- bearded Spanish woman named have hear of heem—and only joost good English by a curious voice line nose which gave a Moorish Herrero, did not annoy me with now he feex a arm of the plumber some distance to the right, asking touch to a physiognomy otherwise gossip or with criticisms of the late- that get hurt of sudden. He nevair my name and business; and these dominantly Celtiberian. Thick, well- burning electric light in my third- go out, only on roof, and my boy things being stated, there came an trimmed hair that argued the punc- floor front hall room; and my Esteban he breeng heem hees food opening of the door next to the one tual calls of a barber was parted fellow-lodgers were as quiet and and laundry and mediceens and I had sought. gracefully above a high forehead; uncommunicative as one might chemicals. My Gawd, the sal-am- A rush of cool air greeted me; and the whole picture was one of desire, being mostly Spaniards a little moniac that man use for keep heem and though the day was one of the striking intelligence and superior above the coarsest and crudest grade. cool!” hottest of late June, I shivered as I blood and breeding. Only the din of street cars in the Mrs. Herrero disappeared up the crossed the threshold into a large Nevertheless, as I saw Dr. thoroughfare below proved a serious staircase to the fourth floor, and I apartment whose rich and tasteful Muñoz in that blast of cool air, I felt annoyance. returned to my room. The ammonia decoration surprised me in this nest a repugnance which nothing in his I had been there about three ceased to drip, and as I cleaned up of squalor and seediness. A folding aspect could justify. Only his lividly weeks when the first odd incident what had spilled and opened the couch now filled its diurnal role of inclined complexion and coldness occurred. One evening at about eight window for air, I heard the landlady’s sofa, and the mahogany furniture, of touch could have afforded a phys- I heard a spattering on the floor and heavy footsteps above me. Dr. sumptuous hangings, old paintings, ical basis for this feeling, and even became suddenly aware that I had Muñoz I had never heard, save for and mellow bookshelves all bespoke these things should have been excus- been smelling the pungent odour of certain sounds as of some gaso- a gentleman’s study rather than a able considering the man’s known ammonia for some time. Looking line-driven mechanism; since his boarding-house bedroom. I now saw invalidism. It might, too, have been about, I saw that the ceiling was wet step was soft and gentle. I wondered that the hall room above mine—the the singular cold that alienated me; and dripping; the soaking apparently for a moment what the strange “leetle room” of bottles and machines for such chilliness was abnormal on proceeding from a corner on the side affliction of this man might be, and which Mrs. Herrero had so hot a day, and the abnormal always toward the street. Anxious to stop whether his obstinate refusal of mentioned—was merely the labo- excites aversion, distrust, and fear. the matter at its source, I hastened outside aid were not the result of a ratory of the doctor; and that his But repugnance was soon 368 369 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • COOL AIR

forgotten in admiration, for the enhancement of these qualities pulsations had fled. I was touched air increased, and with my aid he strange physician’s extreme skill at retain a kind of nervous animation by his account of the aged Dr. Torres amplified the ammonia piping of his once became manifest despite the despite the most serious impair- of Valencia, who had shared his room and modified the pumps and ice-coldness and shakiness of his ments, defects, or even absences in earlier experiments and nursed him feed of his refrigerating machine till bloodless-looking hands. He clearly the battery of specific organs. He through the great illness of eighteen he could keep the temperature as understood my needs at a glance, might, he half jestingly said, some years before, whence his present low as 34 degrees or 40 degrees, and and ministered to them with a day teach me to live—or at least to disorders proceeded. No sooner had finally even 28 degrees; the bath- master’s deftness; the while reas- possess some kind of conscious exis- the venerable practitioner saved his room and laboratory, of course, being suring me in a finely modulated tence—without any heart at all! For colleague than he himself succumbed less chilled, in order that water might though oddly hollow and timbreless his part, he was afflicted with a to the grim enemy he had fought. not freeze, and that chemical voice that he was the bitterest of complication of maladies requiring Perhaps the strain had been too processes might not be impeded. sworn enemies to death, and had a very exact regimen which included great; for Dr. Muñoz made it whis- The tenant adjoining him sunk his fortune and lost all his constant cold. Any marked rise in peringly clear—though not in complained of the icy air from friends in a lifetime of bizarre exper- temperature might, if prolonged, detail—that the methods of healing around the connecting door, so I iment devoted to its bafflement and affect him fatally; and the frigidity had been most extraordinary, helped him fit heavy hangings to extirpation. Something of the benev- of his habitation—some 55 or 56 involving scenes and processes not obviate the difficulty. A kind of olent fanatic seemed to reside in him, degrees Fahrenheit—was main- welcomed by elderly and conserva- growing horror, of outré and morbid and he rambled on almost garru- tained by an absorption system of tive Galens. cast, seemed to possess him. He lously as he sounded my chest and ammonia cooling, the gasoline As the weeks passed, I observed talked of death incessantly, but mixed a suitable draught of drugs engine of whose pumps I had often with regret that my new friend was laughed hollowly when such things fetched from the smaller laboratory heard in my own room below. indeed slowly but unmistakably as burial or funeral arrangements room. Evidently he found the society Relieved of my seizure in a losing ground physically, as Mrs. were gently suggested. of a well-born man a rare novelty in marvellously short while, I left the Herrero had suggested. The livid All in all, he became a discon- this dingy environment, and was shivery place a disciple and devotee aspect of his countenance was inten- certing and even gruesome moved to unaccustomed speech as of the gifted recluse. After that I sified, his voice became more hollow companion; yet in my gratitude for memories of better days surged over paid him frequent overcoated calls; and indistinct, his muscular motions his healing I could not well abandon him. listening while he told of secret were less perfectly coordinated, and him to the strangers around him, His voice, if queer, was at least researches and almost ghastly results, his mind and will displayed less resil- and was careful to dust his room and soothing; and I could not even and trembling a bit when I examined ience and initiative. Of this sad attend to his needs each day, muffled perceive that he breathed as the the unconventional and astonish- change he seemed by no means in a heavy ulster which I bought fluent sentences rolled urbanely out. ingly ancient volumes on his shelves. unaware, and little by little his especially for the purpose. I likewise He sought to distract my mind from I was eventually, I may add, almost expression and conversation both did much of his shopping, and my own seizure by speaking of his cured of my disease for all time by took on a gruesome irony which gasped in bafflement at some of the theories and experiments; and I his skillful ministrations. It seems restored in me something of the chemicals he ordered from druggists remember his tactfully consoling me that he did not scorn the incanta- subtle repulsion I had originally felt. and laboratory supply houses. about my weak heart by insisting tions of the mediaevalists, since he He developed strange caprices, An increasing and unexplained that will and consciousness are believed these cryptic formulae to acquiring a fondness for exotic spices atmosphere of panic seemed to rise stronger than organic life itself, so contain rare psychological stimuli and Egyptian incense till his room around his apartment. The whole that if a bodily frame be but origi- which might conceivably have smelled like the vault of a sepulchred house, as I have said, had a musty nally healthy and carefully preserved, singular effects on the substance of Pharaoh in the Valley of Kings. At odour; but the smell in his room was it may through a scientific a nervous system from which organic the same time his demands for cold worse—and in spite of all the spices 370 371 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • COOL AIR

and incense, and the pungent chem- undelivered and unopened. His The frigidity of the apartment intelligent mechanics. I had done all icals of the now incessant baths aspect and voice became utterly was now sensibly diminishing, and I could, and hoped I was in time. which he insisted on taking unaided. frightful, and his presence almost at about 5 a.m. the doctor retired to Black terror, however, had I perceived that it must be connected unbearable. One September day an the bathroom, commanding me to preceded me. The house was in utter with his ailment, and shuddered unexpected glimpse of him induced keep him supplied with all the ice I turmoil, and above the chatter of when I reflected on what that an epileptic fit in a man who had could obtain at all-night drug stores awed voices I heard a man praying ailment might be. Mrs. Herrero come to repair his electric desk lamp; and cafeterias. As I would return in a deep basso. Fiendish things were crossed herself when she looked at a fit for which he prescribed effec- from my sometimes discouraging in the air, and lodgers told over the him, and gave him up unreservedly tively whilst keeping himself well trips and lay my spoils before the beads of their rosaries as they caught to me; not even letting her son out of sight. That man, oddly closed bathroom door, I could hear the odour from beneath the doctor’s Esteban continue to run errands for enough, had been through the terrors a restless splashing within, and a closed door. The lounger I had hired, him. When I suggested other physi- of the Great War without having thick voice croaking out the order it seems, had fled screaming and cians, the sufferer would fly into as incurred any fright so thorough. for “More—more!” At length a warm mad-eyed not long after his second much of a rage as he seemed to dare Then, in the middle of October, day broke, and the shops opened one delivery of ice; perhaps as a result of to entertain. He evidently feared the the horror of horrors came with by one. I asked Esteban either to excessive curiosity. He could not, of physical effect of violent emotion, stupefying suddenness. One night help with the ice-fetching whilst I course, have locked the door behind yet his will and driving force waxed about eleven the pump of the refrig- obtained the pump piston, or to him; yet it was now fastened, rather than waned, and he refused erating machine broke down, so that order the piston while I continued presumably from the inside. There to be confined to his bed. The lassi- within three hours the process of with the ice; but instructed by his was no sound within save a nameless tude of his earlier ill days gave place ammonia cooling became impos- mother, he absolutely refused. sort of slow, thick dripping. to a return of his fiery purpose, so sible. Dr. Muñoz summoned me by Finally I hired a seedy-looking Briefly consulting with Mrs. that he seemed about to hurl defi- thumping on the floor, and I worked loafer whom I encountered on the Herrero and the workmen despite a ance at the death-daemon even as desperately to repair the injury while corner of Eighth Avenue to keep the fear that gnawed my inmost soul, I that ancient enemy seized him. The my host cursed in a tone whose life- patient supplied with ice from a little advised the breaking down of the pretence of eating, always curiously less, rattling hollowness surpassed shop where I introduced him, and door; but the landlady found a way like a formality with him, he virtually description. My amateur efforts, applied myself diligently to the task to turn the key from the outside with abandoned; and mental power alone however, proved of no use; and when of finding a pump piston and some wire device. We had previously appeared to keep him from total I had brought in a mechanic from a engaging workmen competent to opened the doors of all the other collapse. neighbouring all-night garage, we install it. The task seemed intermi- rooms on that hall, and flung all the He acquired a habit of writing learned that nothing could be done nable, and I raged almost as violently windows to the very top. Now, noses long documents of some sort, which till morning, when a new piston as the hermit when I saw the hours protected by handkerchiefs, we trem- he carefully sealed and filled with would have to be obtained. The slipping by in a breathless, foodless blingly invaded the accursed south injunctions that I transmit them moribund hermit’s rage and fear, round of vain telephoning, and a room which blazed with the warm after his death to certain persons swelling to grotesque proportions, hectic quest from place to place, sun of early afternoon. whom he named—for the most part seemed likely to shatter what hither and thither by subway and A kind of dark, slimy trail led lettered East Indians, but including remained of his failing physique, and surface car. About noon I encoun- from the open bathroom door to the a once celebrated French physician once a spasm caused him to clap his tered a suitable supply house far hall door, and thence to the desk, now generally thought dead, and hands to his eyes and rush into the downtown, and at approximately where a terrible little pool had accu- about whom the most inconceivable bathroom. He groped his way out 1:30 p.m. arrived at my board- mulated. Something was scrawled things had been whispered. As it with face tightly bandaged, and I ing-place with the necessary para- there in pencil in an awful, blind happened, I burned all these papers never saw his eyes again. phernalia and two sturdy and hand on a piece of paper hideously 372 373 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS smeared as though by the very claws he minded my letter and nursed me that traced the hurried last words. back. And the organs never would Then the trail led to the couch and work again. It had to be done my ended unutterably. way—artificial preservation—for What was, or had been, on the you see I died that time eighteen couch I cannot and dare not say here. years ago.” But this is what I shiveringly puzzled out on the stickily smeared paper before I drew a match and burned it to a crisp; what I puzzled out in terror as the landlady and two mechanics rushed frantically from that hellish place to babble their .

incoherent stories at the nearest [return to table of contents] police station. The nauseous words seemed well-nigh incredible in that yellow sunlight, with the clatter of cars and motor trucks ascending clamorously from crowded Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival… a survival of a hugely remote period when… consciousness was manifested, Fourteenth Street, yet I confess that perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing I believed them then. Whether I humanity… forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying believe them now I honestly do not memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and know. There are things about which kinds… — Algernon Blackwood it is better not to speculate, and all that I can say is that I hate the smell of ammonia, and grow faint at a (Found Among the Papers of the each straining in its own direction, draught of unusually cool air. Late Francis Wayland Thurston, of have hitherto harmed us little; but “The end,” ran that noisome Boston) some day the piecing together of scrawl, “is here. No more ice—the dissociated knowledge will open up man looked and ran away. Warmer such terrifying vistas of reality, and every minute, and the tissues can’t I. of our frightful position therein, last. I fancy you know—what I said that we shall either go mad from the horror in clay. about the will and the nerves and the revelation or flee from the the preserved body after the organs he most merciful thing in deadly light into the peace and ceased to work. It was good theory, the world, I think, is the safety of a new dark age. but couldn’t keep up indefinitely. inability of the human Theosophists have guessed at There was a gradual deterioration I Tmind to correlate all its contents. the awesome grandeur of the cosmic had not foreseen. Dr. Torres knew, We live on a placid island of igno- cycle wherein our world and human but the shock killed him. He couldn’t rance in the midst of black seas of race form transient incidents. They stand what he had to do—he had to infinity, and it was not meant that have hinted at strange survival in get me in a strange, dark place when we should voyage far. The sciences, terms which would freeze the blood 374 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

if not masked by a bland optimism. the waterfront to the deceased’s disturbance of an old man’s peace of The writing accompanying this But it is not from them that there home in Williams Street. Physicians mind. oddity was, aside from a stack of came the single glimpse of forbidden were unable to find any visible The bas-relief was a rough rect- press cuttings, in Professor Angell’s aeons which chills me when I think disorder, but concluded after angle less than an inch thick and most recent hand; and made no of it and maddens me when I dream perplexed debate that some obscure about five by six inches in area, obvi- pretension to literary style. What of it. That glimpse, like all dread lesion of the heart, induced by the ously of modern origin. Its designs, seemed to be the main document glimpses of truth, flashed out from brisk ascent of so steep a hill by so however, were far from modern in was headed “CTHULHU CULT” an accidental piecing together of elderly a man, was responsible for atmosphere and suggestion; for, in characters painstakingly printed separated things—in this case an old the end. At the time I saw no reason although the vagaries of cubism and to avoid the erroneous reading of a newspaper item and the notes of a to dissent from this dictum, but futurism are many and wild, they do word so unheard-of. This manuscript dead professor. I hope that no one latterly I am inclined to wonder— not often reproduce that cryptic was divided into two sections, the else will accomplish this piecing-out; and more than wonder. regularity which lurks in prehistoric first of which was headed “1925— certainly, if I live, I shall never know- As my great-uncle’s heir and writing. And writing of some kind Dream and Dream Work of H. A. ingly supply a link in so hideous a executor, for he died a childless the bulk of these designs seemed Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Providence, chain. I think that the professor, too, widower, I was expected to go over certainly to be; though my memory, R. I.,” and the second, “Narrative of intended to keep silent regarding the his papers with some thoroughness; despite much familiarity with the Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 part he knew, and that he would have and for that purpose moved his papers and collections of my uncle, Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at destroyed his notes had not sudden entire set of files and boxes to my failed in any way to identify this 1908 A. A. S. Mtg.—Notes on Same, death seized him. quarters in Boston. Much of the particular species, or even hint at its & Prof. Webb’s Acct.” The other My knowledge of the thing material which I correlated will be remotest affiliations. manuscript papers were all brief began in the winter of 1926-27 with later published by the American Above these apparent hiero- notes, some of them accounts of the the death of my great-uncle, George Archaeological Society, but there was glyphics was a figure of evidently queer dreams of different persons, Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus one box which I found exceedingly pictorial intent, though its impres- some of them citations from theo- of Semitic Languages in Brown puzzling, and which I felt much sionistic execution forbade a very sophical books and magazines University, Providence, Rhode Island. averse from showing to other eyes. clear idea of its nature. It seemed to (notably W. Scott-Elliot’s Atlantis Professor Angell was widely known It had been locked, and I did not be a sort of monster, or symbol repre- and the Lost Lemuria), and the rest as an authority on ancient inscrip- find the key till it occurred to me to senting a monster, of a form which comments on long-surviving secret tions, and had frequently been examine the personal ring which the only a diseased fancy could conceive. societies and hidden cults, with refer- resorted to by the heads of promi- professor carried always in his pocket. If I say that my somewhat extrava- ences to passages in such mytholog- nent museums; so that his passing Then, indeed, I succeeded in opening gant imagination yielded simulta- ical and anthropological source-books at the age of ninety-two may be it, but when I did so seemed only to neous pictures of an octopus, a as Frazer’s Golden Bough and Miss recalled by many. Locally, interest be confronted by a greater and more dragon, and a human caricature, I Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western was intensified by the obscurity of closely locked barrier. For what could shall not be unfaithful to the spirit Europe. The cuttings largely alluded the cause of death. The professor had be the meaning of the queer clay of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head to outré mental illness and outbreaks been stricken whilst returning from bas-relief and the disjointed jottings, surmounted a grotesque and scaly of group folly or mania in the spring the Newport boat; falling suddenly, ramblings and cuttings which I body with rudimentary wings; but of 1925. as witnesses said, after having been found? Had my uncle, in his latter it was the general outline of the The first half of the principal jostled by a nautical-looking negro years, become credulous of the most whole which made it most shock- manuscript told a very peculiar tale. who had come from one of the queer superficial impostures? I resolved to ingly frightful. Behind the figure was It appears that on 1 March 1925, a dark courts on the precipitous hill- search out the eccentric sculptor a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean thin, dark young man of neurotic side which formed a short cut from responsible for this apparent architectural background. and excited aspect had called upon 376 377 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

Professor Angell bearing the singular rejoinder, which impressed my uncle which the youth had found himself obscure sort of fever and taken to clay bas-relief, which was then enough to make him recall and working, chilled and clad only in his the home of his family in Waterman exceedingly damp and fresh. His card record it verbatim, was of a fantas- nightclothes, when waking had Street. He had cried out in the night, bore the name of Henry Anthony tically poetic cast which must have stolen bewilderingly over him. My arousing several other artists in the Wilcox, and my uncle had recog- typified his whole conversation, and uncle blamed his old age, Wilcox building, and had manifested since nized him as the youngest son of an which I have since found highly afterward said, for his slowness in then only alternations of uncon- excellent family slightly known to characteristic of him. He said, “It is recognizing both hieroglyphics and sciousness and delirium. My uncle him, who had latterly been studying new, indeed, for I made it last night pictorial design. Many of his ques- at once telephoned the family, and sculpture at the Rhode Island School in a dream of strange cities; and tions seemed highly out of place to from that time forward kept close of Design and living alone at the dreams are older than brooding Tyre, his visitor, especially those which watch of the case; calling often at Fleur-de-Lys Building near that or the contemplative Sphinx, or tried to connect the latter with the Thayer Street office of Dr. Tobey, institution. Wilcox was a precocious garden-girdled Babylon.” strange cults or societies; and Wilcox whom he learned to be in charge. youth of known genius but great It was then that he began that could not understand the repeated The youth’s febrile mind, apparently, eccentricity, and had from childhood rambling tale which suddenly played promises of silence which he was was dwelling on strange things; and excited attention through the strange upon a sleeping memory and won offered in exchange for an admission the doctor shuddered now and then stories and odd dreams he was in the the fevered interest of my uncle. of membership in some widespread as he spoke of them. They included habit of relating. He called himself There had been a slight earthquake mystical or paganly religious body. not only a repetition of what he had “psychically hypersensitive,” but the tremor the night before, the most When Professor Angell became formerly dreamed, but touched staid folk of the ancient commercial considerable felt in New England convinced that the sculptor was wildly on a gigantic thing “miles city dismissed him as merely “queer.” for some years; and Wilcox’s imag- indeed ignorant of any cult or system high” which walked or lumbered Never mingling much with his kind, inations had been keenly affected. of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor about. He at no time fully described he had dropped gradually from social Upon retiring, he had had an unprec- with demands for future reports of this object, but occasional frantic visibility, and was now known only edented dream of great Cyclopean dreams. This bore regular fruit, for words, as repeated by Dr. Tobey, to a small group of aesthetes from cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung after the first interview the manu- convinced the professor that it must other towns. Even the Providence monoliths, all dripping with green script records daily calls of the young be identical with the nameless Art Club, anxious to preserve its ooze and sinister with latent horror. man, during which he related star- monstrosity he had sought to depict conservatism, had found him quite Hieroglyphics had covered the walls tling fragments of nocturnal imagery in his dream-sculpture. Reference to hopeless. and pillars, and from some undeter- whose burden was always some this object, the doctor added, was On the occasion of the visit, ran mined point below had come a voice terrible Cyclopean vista of dark and invariably a prelude to the young the professor’s manuscript, the that was not a voice; a chaotic sensa- dripping stone, with a subterrene man’s subsidence into lethargy. His sculptor abruptly asked for the tion which only fancy could trans- voice or intelligence shouting temperature, oddly enough, was not benefit of his host’s archaeological mute into sound, but which he monotonously in enigmatical greatly above normal; but the whole knowledge in identifying the hiero- attempted to render by the almost sense-impacts uninscribable save as condition was otherwise such as to glyphics on the bas-relief. He spoke unpronounceable jumble of letters, gibberish. The two sounds most suggest true fever rather than mental in a dreamy, stilted manner which “Cthulhu fhtagn.” frequently repeated are those disorder. suggested pose and alienated This verbal jumble was the key rendered by the letters “Cthulhu” and On 2 April at about 3 p.m. every sympathy; and my uncle showed to the recollection which excited and “R’lyeh.” trace of Wilcox’s malady suddenly some sharpness in replying, for the disturbed Professor Angell. He ques- On 23 March, the manuscript ceased. He sat upright in bed, aston- conspicuous freshness of the tablet tioned the sculptor with scientific continued, Wilcox failed to appear; ished to find himself at home and implied kinship with anything but minuteness; and studied with almost and inquiries at his quarters revealed completely ignorant of what had archaeology. Young Wilcox’s frantic intensity the bas-relief on that he had been stricken with an happened in dream or reality since 378 379 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

the night of 22 March. Pronounced earth”—gave an almost completely last. One case, which the note serious native unrest towards the end well by his physician, he returned to negative result, though scattered describes with emphasis, was very of March. Voodoo orgies multiply his quarters in three days; but to cases of uneasy but formless sad. The subject, a widely known in Haiti, and African outposts report Professor Angell he was of no further nocturnal impressions appear here architect with leanings towards ominous mutterings. American offi- assistance. All traces of strange and there, always between 23 March theosophy and occultism, went cers in the Philippines find certain dreaming had vanished with his and 2 April—the period of young violently insane on the date of young tribes bothersome about this time, recovery, and my uncle kept no Wilcox’s delirium. Scientific men Wilcox’s seizure, and expired several and New York policemen are mobbed record of his night-thoughts after a were little more affected, though four months later after incessant scream- by hysterical Levantines on the night week of pointless and irrelevant cases of vague description suggest ings to be saved from some escaped of 22-23 March. The west of Ireland, accounts of thoroughly usual visions. fugitive glimpses of strange land- denizen of hell. Had my uncle too, is full of wild rumour and Here the first part of the manu- scapes, and in one case there is referred to these cases by name legendry, and a fantastic painter script ended, but references to certain mentioned a dread of something instead of merely by number, I should named Ardois-Bonnot hangs a blas- of the scattered notes gave me much abnormal. have attempted some corroboration phemous Dream Landscape in the material for thought—so much, in It was from the artists and poets and personal investigation; but as it Paris spring salon of 1926. And so fact, that only the ingrained skepti- that the pertinent answers came, and was, I succeeded in tracing down numerous are the recorded troubles cism then forming my philosophy I know that panic would have broken only a few. All of these, however, bore in insane asylums that only a miracle can account for my continued loose had they been able to compare out the notes in full. I have often can have stopped the medical frater- distrust of the artist. The notes in notes. As it was, lacking their original wondered if all the objects of the nity from noting strange parallelisms question were those descriptive of letters, I half suspected the compiler professor’s questioning felt as puzzled and drawing mystified conclusions. the dreams of various persons of having asked leading questions, as did this fraction. It is well that no A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; covering the same period as that in or of having edited the correspon- explanation shall ever reach them. and I can at this date scarcely which young Wilcox had had his dence in corroboration of what he The press cuttings, as I have envisage the callous rationalism with strange visitations. My uncle, it had latently resolved to see. That is intimated, touched on cases of panic, which I set them aside. But I was seems, had quickly instituted a prodi- why I continued to feel that Wilcox, mania, and eccentricity during the then convinced that young Wilcox giously far-flung body of inquiries somehow cognizant of the old data given period. Professor Angell must had known of the older matters amongst nearly all the friends whom which my uncle had possessed, had have employed a cutting bureau, for mentioned by the professor. he could question without imperti- been imposing on the veteran scien- the number of extracts was tremen- nence, asking for nightly reports of tist. These responses from aesthetes dous, and the sources scattered their dreams, and the dates of any told a disturbing tale. From 28 throughout the globe. Here was a II. notable visions for some time past. February to 2 April a large propor- nocturnal suicide in London, where The reception of his request seems tion of them had dreamed very a lone sleeper had leaped from a the tale of inspector to have been varied; but he must, at bizarre things, the intensity of the window after a shocking cry. Here legrasse. the very least, have received more dreams being immeasurably the likewise a rambling letter to the he older matters which had responses than any ordinary man stronger during the period of the editor of a paper in South America, made the sculptor’s dream could have handled without a secre- sculptor’s delirium. Over a fourth of where a fanatic deduces a dire future and bas-relief so significant tary. This original correspondence those who reported anything, from visions he has seen. A dispatch to my uncle formed the subject of was not preserved, but his notes reported scenes and half-sounds not from California describes a theoso- T the second half of his long manu- formed a thorough and really signif- unlike those which Wilcox had phist colony as donning white robes script. Once before, it appears, icant digest. Average people in described; and some of the dreamers en masse for some “glorious fulfil- Professor Angell had seen the society and business—New confessed acute fear of the gigantic ment” which never arrives, whilst hellish outlines of the nameless England’s traditional “salt of the nameless thing visible towards the items from India speak guardedly of 380 381 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

monstrosity, puzzled over the considerations. The statuette, idol, of exquisitely artistic workmanship. baffling; and no member present, unknown hieroglyphics, and heard fetish, or whatever it was, had been It represented a monster of vaguely despite a representation of half the the ominous syllables which can be captured some months before in the anthropoid outline, but with an octo- world’s expert learning in this field, rendered only as “Cthulhu”; and all wooden swamps south of New pus-like head whose face was a mass could form the least notion of even this in so stirring and horrible a Orleans during a raid on a supposed of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking their remotest linguistic kinship. connection that it is small wonder voodoo meeting; and so singular and body, prodigious claws on hind and They, like the subject and material, he pursued young Wilcox with hideous were the rites connected fore feet, and long, narrow wings belonged to something horribly queries and demands for data. with it, that the police could not but behind. This thing, which seemed remote and distinct from mankind This earlier experience had come realize that they had stumbled on a instinct with a fearsome and unnat- as we know it; something frightfully in 1908, seventeen years before, when dark cult totally unknown to them, ural malignancy, was of a somewhat suggestive of old and unhallowed the American Archaeological Society and infinitely more diabolic than bloated corpulence, and squatted cycles of life in which our world and held its annual meeting in St. Louis. even the blackest of the African evilly on a rectangular block or our conceptions have no part. Professor Angell, as befitted one of voodoo circles. Of its origin, apart pedestal covered with undecipher- And yet, as the members sever- his authority and attainments, had from the erratic and unbelievable able characters. The tips of the wings ally shook their heads and confessed had a prominent part in all the delib- tales extorted from the captured touched the back edge of the block, defeat at the inspector’s problem, erations, and was one of the first to members, absolutely nothing was to the seat occupied the centre, whilst there was one man in that gathering be approached by the several be discovered; hence the anxiety of the long, curved claws of the who suspected a touch of bizarre outsiders who took advantage of the the police for any antiquarian lore doubled-up, crouching hind legs familiarity in the monstrous shape convocation to offer questions for which might help them to place the gripped the front edge and extended and writing, and who presently told correct answering and problems for frightful symbol, and through it track a quarter of the way down towards with some diffidence of the odd trifle expert solution. down the cult to its fountain-head. the bottom of the pedestal. The he knew. This person was the late The chief of these outsiders, and Inspector Legrasse was scarcely cephalopod head was bent forward, William Channing Webb, professor in a short time the focus of interest prepared for the sensation which his so that the ends of the facial feelers of anthropology in Princeton for the entire meeting, was a offering created. One sight of the brushed the backs of huge fore-paws University, and an explorer of no commonplace-looking middle-aged thing had been enough to throw the which clasped the croucher’s elevated slight note. man who had travelled all the way assembled men of science into a state knees. The aspect of the whole was Professor Webb had been from New Orleans for certain special of tense excitement, and they lost no abnormally lifelike, and the more engaged, forty-eight years before, in information unobtainable from any time in crowding around him to gaze subtly fearful because its source was a tour of Greenland and Iceland in local source. His name was John at the diminutive figure whose utter so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, search of some Runic inscriptions Raymond Legrasse, and he was by strangeness and air of genuinely and incalculable age was unmistak- which he failed to unearth; and profession an inspector of police. abysmal antiquity hinted so potently able; yet not one link did it show whilst high up on the West With him he bore the subject of his at unopened and archaic vistas. No with any known type of art belonging Greenland coast had encountered a visit, a grotesque, repulsive, and recognized school of sculpture had to civilization’s youth—or indeed to singular tribe or cult of degenerate apparently very ancient stone statu- animated this terrible object, yet any other time. Eskimos whose religion, a curious ette whose origin he was at a loss to centuries and even thousands of years Totally separate and apart, its form of devil-worship, chilled him determine. seemed recorded in its dim and very material was a mystery; for the with its deliberate bloodthirstiness It must not be fancied that greenish surface of unplaceable stone. soapy, greenish-black stone with its and repulsiveness. It was a faith of Inspector Legrasse had the least The figure, which was finally golden or iridescent flecks and stri- which other Eskimos knew little, interest in archaeology. On the passed slowly from man to man for ations resembled nothing familiar to and which they mentioned only with contrary, his wish for enlightenment close and careful study, was between geology or mineralogy. The charac- shudders, saying that it had come was prompted by purely professional seven and eight inches in height, and ters along the base were equally down from horribly ancient aeons 382 383 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

before ever the world was made. Louisiana swamp-priests had they had ever known; and some of another inch towards the scene of Besides nameless rites and human chanted to their kindred idols was their women and children had disap- unholy worship, so Inspector sacrifices there were certain queer something very like this—the peared since the malevolent tom-tom Legrasse and his nineteen colleagues hereditary rituals addressed to a word-divisions being guessed at from had begun its incessant beating far plunged on unguided into black supreme elder devil or tornasuk; and traditional breaks in the phrase as within the black haunted woods arcades of horror that none of them of this Professor Webb had taken a chanted aloud: where no dweller ventured. There had ever trod before. careful phonetic copy from an aged “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu were insane shouts and harrowing The region now entered by the angekok or wizard-priest, expressing R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” screams, soul-chilling chants and police was one of traditionally evil the sounds in Roman letters as best Legrasse had one point in dancing devil-flames; and, the fright- repute, substantially unknown and he knew how. But just now of prime advance of Professor Webb, for ened messenger added, the people untraversed by white men. There significance was the fetish which this several among his mongrel prisoners could stand it no more. were legends of a hidden lake cult had cherished, and around which had repeated to him what older cele- So a body of twenty police, filling unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which they danced when the aurora leaped brants had told them the words two carriages and an automobile, had dwelt a huge, formless white polypus high over the ice cliffs. It was, the meant. This text, as given, ran some- set out in the late afternoon with the thing with luminous eyes; and squat- professor stated, a very crude bas-re- thing like this: shivering squatter as a guide. At the ters whispered that bat-winged devils lief of stone, comprising a hideous “In his house at R’lyeh dead end of the passable road they flew up out of caverns in inner earth picture and some cryptic writing. Cthulhu waits dreaming.” alighted, and for miles splashed on to worship it at midnight. They said And as far as he could tell, it was a And now, in response to a general in silence through the terrible cypress it had been there before D’Iberville, rough parallel in all essential features and urgent demand, Inspector woods where day never came. Ugly before La Salle, before the Indians, of the bestial thing now lying before Legrasse related as fully as possible roots and malignant hanging nooses and before even the wholesome the meeting. his experience with the swamp of Spanish moss beset them, and now beasts and birds of the woods. It was These data, received with worshippers; telling a story to which and then a pile of dank stones or nightmare itself, and to see it was to suspense and astonishment by the I could see my uncle attached fragments of a rotting wall intensi- die. But it made men dream, and so assembled members, proved doubly profound significance. It savoured of fied by its hint of morbid habitation they knew enough to keep away. The exciting to Inspector Legrasse; and the wildest dreams of myth-maker a depression which every malformed present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on he began at once to ply his informant and theosophist, and disclosed an tree and every fungous islet combined the merest fringe of this abhorred with questions. Having noted and astonishing degree of cosmic imag- to create. At length the squatter area, but that location was bad copied an oral ritual among the ination among such half-castes and settlement, a miserable huddle of enough; hence perhaps the very place swamp cult-worshippers his men had pariahs as might be least expected to huts, hove in sight; and hysterical of the worship had terrified the arrested, he besought the professor possess it. dwellers ran out to cluster around squatters more than the shocking to remember as best he might the On 1 November 1907, there had the group of bobbing lanterns. The sounds and incidents. syllables taken down amongst the come to New Orleans police a frantic muffled beat of tom-toms was now Only poetry or madness could diabolist Eskimos. There then summons from the swamp and faintly audible far, far ahead; and a do justice to the noises heard by followed an exhaustive comparison lagoon country to the south. The curdling shriek came at infrequent Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on of details, and a moment of really squatters there, mostly primitive but intervals when the wind shifted. A through the black morass towards awed silence when both detective good-natured descendants of reddish glare, too, seemed to filter the red glare and the muffled and scientist agreed on the virtual Lafitte’s men, were in the grip of through the pale undergrowth tom-toms. There are vocal qualities identity of the phrase common to stark terror from an unknown thing beyond endless avenues of forest peculiar to men, and vocal qualities two hellish rituals so many worlds which had stolen upon them in the night. Reluctant even to be left alone peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible of distance apart. What, in substance, night. It was voodoo, apparently, but again, each one of the cowed squat- to hear the one when the source both the Eskimo wizards and the voodoo of a more terrible sort than ters refused point-blank to advance should yield the other. Animal fury 384 385 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

and orgiastic licence here whipped of ten scaffolds set up at regular Legrasse was able to count some wastes and dark places all over the themselves to demoniac heights by intervals with the flame-girt mono- forty-seven sullen prisoners, whom world until the time when the great howls and squawking ecstasies that lith as a centre hung, head downward, he forced to dress in haste and fall priest Cthulhu, from his dark house tore and reverberated through those the oddly marred bodies of the help- into line between two rows of in the mighty city of R’lyeh under nighted woods like pestilential less squatters who had disappeared. policemen. Five of the worshippers the waters, should rise and bring the tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now It was inside this circle that the ring lay dead, and two severely wounded earth again beneath his sway. Some and then the less organized ulula- of worshippers jumped and roared, ones were carried away on impro- day he would call, when the stars tions would cease, and from what the general direction of the mass vised stretchers by their fellow-pris- were ready, and the secret cult would seemed a well-drilled chorus of motion being from left to right in oners. The image on the monolith, always be waiting to liberate him. hoarse voices would rise in singsong endless bacchanale between the ring of course, was carefully removed and Meanwhile no more must be chant that hideous phrase or ritual: of bodies and the ring of fire. carried back by Legrasse. told. There was a secret which even “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu It may have been only imagina- Examined at headquarters after torture could not extract. Mankind R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” tion and it may have been only a trip of intense strain and weariness, was not absolutely alone among the Then the men, having reached echoes which induced one of the the prisoners all proved to be men conscious things of earth, for shapes a spot where the trees were thinner, men, an excitable Spaniard, to fancy of a very low, mixed-blooded, and came out of the dark to visit the came suddenly in sight of the spec- he heard antiphonal responses to the mentally aberrant type. Most were faithful few. But these were not the tacle itself. Four of them reeled, one ritual from some far and unillumined seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes Great Old Ones. No man had ever fainted, and two were shaken into a spot deeper within the wood of and mulattos, largely West Indians seen the Old Ones. The carven idol frantic cry which the mad cacophony ancient legendry and horror. This or Brava Portuguese from the Cape was great Cthulhu, but none might of the orgy fortunately deadened. man, Joseph D. Galvez, I later met Verde Islands, gave a colouring of say whether or not the others were Legrasse dashed swamp water on and questioned; and he proved voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. precisely like him. No one could read the face of the fainting man, and all distractingly imaginative. He indeed But before many questions were the old writing now, but things were stood trembling and nearly hypno- went so far as to hint of the faint asked, it became manifest that some- told by word of mouth. The chanted tized with horror. beating of great wings, and of a thing far deeper and older than negro ritual was not the secret—that was In a natural glade of the swamp glimpse of shining eyes and a moun- fetishism was involved. Degraded never spoken aloud, only whispered. stood a grassy island of perhaps an tainous white bulk beyond the and ignorant as they were, the crea- The chant meant only this: “In his acre’s extent, clear of trees and toler- remotest trees—but I suppose he had tures held with surprising consis- house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits ably dry. On this now leaped and been hearing too much native tency to the central idea of their dreaming.” twisted a more indescribable horde superstition. loathsome faith. Only two of the prisoners were of human abnormality than any but Actually, the horrified pause of They worshipped, so they said, found sane enough to be hanged, a Sime or an Angarola could paint. the men was of comparatively brief the Great Old Ones who lived ages and the rest were committed to Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn duration. Duty came first; and before there were any men, and who various institutions. All denied a part were braying, bellowing and writhing although there must have been nearly came to the young world out of the in the ritual murders, and averred about a monstrous ringshaped a hundred mongrel celebrants in the sky. These Old Ones were gone now, that the killing had been done by bonfire; in the centre of which, throng, the police relied on their inside the earth and under the sea; Black-Winged Ones which had revealed by occasional rifts in the firearms and plunged determinedly but their dead bodies had told their come to them from their immemo- curtain of flame, stood a great granite into the nauseous rout. For five secrets in dreams to the first men, rial meeting-place in the haunted monolith some eight feet in height; minutes the resultant din and chaos who formed a cult which had never wood. But of those mysterious allies on top of which, incongruous in its were beyond description. Wild blows died. This was that cult, and the pris- no coherent account could ever be diminutiveness, rested the noxious were struck, shots were fired, and oners said it had always existed and gained. What the police did extract carven statuette. From a wide circle escapes were made; but in the end always would exist, hidden in distant came mainly from an immensely 386 387 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

aged mestizo named Castro, who outside must serve to liberate Their the prophecy of their return. And with strange aeons even death claimed to have sailed to strange bodies. The spells that preserved In the elder time chosen men may die. ports and talked with undying leaders them intact likewise prevented Them had talked with the entombed Old of the cult in the mountains of China. from making an initial move, and Ones in dreams, but then something Legrasse, deeply impressed and Old Castro remembered bits of They could only lie awake in the dark had happened. The great stone city not a little bewildered, had inquired hideous legend that paled the spec- and think whilst uncounted millions R’lyeh, with its monoliths and sepul- in vain concerning the historic affil- ulations of theosophists and made of years rolled by. They knew all that chres, had sunk beneath the waves; iations of the cult. Castro, apparently, man and the world seem recent and was occurring in the universe, for and the deep waters, full of the one had told the truth when he said that transient indeed. There had been Their mode of speech was trans- primal mystery through which not it was wholly secret. The authorities aeons when other Things ruled on mitted thought. Even now They even thought can pass, had cut off at Tulane University could shed no the earth, and They had had great talked in Their tombs. When, after the spectral intercourse. But memory light upon either cult or image, and cities. Remains of Them, he said the infinities of chaos, the first men never died, and high priests said that now the detective had come to the deathless Chinamen had told him, came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the city would rise again when the highest authorities in the country were still to be found as Cyclopean the sensitive among them by stars were right. Then came out of and met with no more than the stones on islands in the Pacific. They moulding their dreams; for only thus the earth the black spirits of earth, Greenland tale of Professor Webb. all died vast epochs of time before could Their language reach the fleshy mouldy and shadowy, and full of dim The feverish interest aroused at men came, but there were arts which minds of mammals. rumours picked up in caverns the meeting by Legrasse’s tale, could revive Them when the stars Then, whispered Castro, those beneath forgotten sea-bottoms. But corroborated as it was by the statu- had come round again to the right first men formed the cult around of them old Castro dared not speak ette, is echoed in the subsequent positions in the cycle of eternity. small idols which the Great Ones much. He cut himself off hurriedly, correspondence of those who They had, indeed, come themselves showed them; idols brought in dim and no amount of persuasion or attended, although scant mention from the stars, and brought Their eras from dark stars. That cult would subtlety could elicit more in this occurs in the formal publication of images with Them. never die till the stars came right direction. The size of the Old Ones, the society. Caution is the first care These Great Old Ones, Castro again, and the secret priests would too, he curiously declined to mention. of those accustomed to face occa- continued, were not composed alto- take great Cthulhu from His tomb Of the cult, he said that he thought sional charlatanry and imposture. gether of flesh and blood. They had to revive His subjects and resume the centre lay amid the pathless Legrasse for some time lent the shape—for did not this star-fash- His rule of earth. The time would deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the image to Professor Webb, but at the ioned image prove it?—but that be easy to know, for then mankind City of Pillars, dreams hidden and latter’s death it was returned to him shape was not made of matter. When would have become as the Great Old untouched. It was not allied to the and remains in his possession, where the stars were right, They could Ones; free and wild and beyond good European witch-cult, and was virtu- I viewed it not long ago. It is truly a plunge from world to world through and evil, with laws and morals ally unknown beyond its members. terrible thing, and unmistakably akin the sky; but when the stars were thrown aside and all men shouting No book had ever really hinted of it, to the dream-sculpture of young wrong, They could not live. But and killing and revelling in joy. Then though the deathless Chinamen said Wilcox. although They no longer lived, They the liberated Old Ones would teach that there were double meanings in That my uncle was excited by would never really die. They all lay them new ways to shout and kill and the Necronomicon of the mad Arab the tale of the sculptor I did not in stone houses in Their great city revel and enjoy themselves, and all Abdul Alhazred which the initiated wonder, for what thoughts must arise of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of the earth would flame with a holo- might read as they chose, especially upon hearing, after a knowledge of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resur- caust of ecstasy and freedom. the much-discussed couplet: what Legrasse had learned of the rection when the stars and the earth Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate cult, of a sensitive young man, who might once more be ready for Them. rites, must keep alive the memory of That is not dead which can eternal had dreamed not only the figure and But at that time some force from those ancient ways and shadow forth lie, exact hieroglyphics of the 388 389 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

swamp-found image and the scattered about that his genius is again I strove to think of some way talked with Legrasse and others of Greenland devil tablet, but had come indeed profound and authentic. He in which he could possibly have that old-time raiding-party, saw the in his dreams upon at least three of will, I believe, be heard from some received the weird impressions. frightful image, and even questioned the precise words of the formula time as one of the great decadents; He talked of his dreams in a such of the mongrel prisoners as still uttered alike by Eskimo diabolists for he has crystallized in clay and strangely poetic fashion, making me survived. Old Castro, unfortunately, and mongrel Louisianans? Professor will one day mirror in marble those see with terrible vividness the damp had been dead for some years. What Angell’s instant start on an investi- nightmares and phantasies which Cyclopean city of slimy green I now heard so graphically at first gation of the utmost thoroughness Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and stone—whose geometry, he oddly hand, though it was really no more was eminently natural; though Clark Ashton Smith makes visible said, was all wrong—and hear with than a detailed confirmation of what privately I suspected young Wilcox in verse and in painting. frightened expectancy the ceaseless, my uncle had written, excited me of having heard of the cult in some Dark, frail, and somewhat half-mental calling from under- afresh; for I felt sure that I was on indirect way, and of having invented unkempt in aspect, he turned ground: “Cthulhu fhtagn, Cthulhu the track of a very real, very secret, a series of dreams to heighten and languidly at my knock and asked me fhtagn.” and very ancient religion whose continue the mystery at my uncle’s my business without rising. When I These words had formed part of discovery would make me an anthro- expense. The dream-narratives and told him who I was, he displayed that dread ritual which told of dead pologist of note. My attitude was cuttings collected by the professor some interest; for my uncle had Cthulhu’s dream-vigil in his stone still one of absolute materialism, as were, of course, strong corroboration; excited his curiosity in probing his vault at R’lyeh, and I felt deeply I wish it still were; and I discounted but the rationalism of my mind and strange dreams, yet had never moved despite my rational beliefs. with a most inexplicable perversity the extravagance of the whole subject explained the reason for the study. I Wilcox, I was sure, had heard of the the coincidence of the dream notes led me to adopt what I thought the did not enlarge his knowledge in this cult in some casual way, and had soon and odd cuttings collected by most sensible conclusions. So, after regard, but sought with some subtlety forgotten it amidst the mass of his Professor Angell. thoroughly studying the manuscript to draw him out. equally weird reading and imagining. One thing which I began to again and correlating the theosoph- In a short time I became Later, by virtue of its sheer impres- suspect, and which I now fear I know, ical and anthropological notes with convinced of his absolute sincerity, siveness, it had found subconscious is that my uncle’s death was far from the cult narrative of Legrasse, I made for he spoke of the dreams in a expression in dreams, in the bas-re- natural. He fell on a narrow hill a trip to Providence to see the manner none could mistake. They lief, and in the terrible statue I now street leading up from an ancient sculptor and give him the rebuke I and their subconscious residuum had beheld; so that his imposture upon waterfront swarming with foreign thought proper for so boldly influenced his art profoundly, and my uncle had been a very innocent mongrels, after a careless push from imposing upon a learned and aged he showed me a morbid statue whose one. The youth was of a type, at once a negro sailor. I did not forget the man. contours almost made me shake with slightly affected and slightly ill-man- mixed blood and marine pursuits of Wilcox still lived alone in the the potency of its black suggestion. nered, which I could never like; but the cult-members in Louisiana, and Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas He could not recall having seen the I was willing enough now to admit would not be surprised to learn of Street, a hideous Victorian imitation original of this thing except in his both his genius and his honesty. I secret methods and poison needles of seventeenth century Breton archi- own dream bas-relief, but the outlines took leave of him amicably, and wish as ruthless and as anciently known tecture which flaunts its stuccoed had formed themselves insensibly him all the success his talent as the cryptic rites and beliefs. front amidst the lovely Colonial under his hands. It was, no doubt, promises. Legrasse and his men, it is true, have houses on the ancient hill, and under the giant shape he had raved of in The matter of the cult still been let alone; but in Norway a the very shadow of the finest delirium. That he really knew remained to fascinate me, and at certain seaman who saw things is Georgian steeple in America. I found nothing of the hidden cult, save from times I had visions of personal fame dead. Might not the deeper inquiries him at work in his rooms, and at once what my uncle’s relentless catechism from researches into its origin and of my uncle after encountering the conceded from the specimens had let fall, he soon made clear; and connections. I visited New Orleans, sculptor’s data have come to sinister 390 391 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

ears? I think Professor Angell died conceivable foreign parts; and the steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N.Z., half-castes. Being ordered peremptorily because he knew too much, or picture was a half-tone cut of a which was sighted April 12th in S. to turn back, Capt. Collins refused; because he was likely to learn too hideous stone image almost identical Latitude 34° 21’, W. Longitude 152° whereupon the strange crew began to much. Whether I shall go as he did with that which Legrasse had found 17’, with one living and one dead man fire savagely and without warning remains to be seen, for I have learned in the swamp. aboard. upon the schooner with a peculiarly much now. Eagerly clearing the sheet of its The Vigilant left Valparaiso March heavy battery of brass cannon forming precious contents, I scanned the item 25th, and on April 2nd was driven part of the yacht’s equipment. in detail; and was disappointed to considerably south of her course by excep- The Emma’s men showed fight, says III. find it of only moderate length. tionally heavy storms and monster the survivor, and though the schooner What it suggested, however, was of waves. On April 12th the derelict was began to sink from shots beneath the the madness from the sea. portentous significance to my flag- sighted; and though apparently deserted, water-line they managed to heave was found upon boarding to contain alongside their enemy and board her, f heaven ever wishes to grant ging quest; and I carefully tore it out one survivor in a half-delirious condi- grappling with the savage crew on the me a boon, it will be a total for immediate action. It read as tion and one man who had evidently yacht’s deck, and being forced to kill effacing of the results of a mere follows: been dead for more than a week. them all, the number being slightly chance which fixed my eye on a I MYSTERY DERELICT The living man was clutching a superior, because of their particularly certain stray piece of shelf-paper. It FOUND AT SEA horrible stone idol of unknown origin, abhorrent and desperate though rather was nothing on which I would —— about one foot in height, regarding clumsy mode of fighting. naturally have stumbled in the Vigilant Arrives With Helpless whose nature authorities at Sydney Three of the Emma’s men, including course of my daily round, for it was Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow. University, the Royal Society, and the Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, an old number of an Australian —— Museum in College Street all profess were killed; and the remaining eight journal, the Sydney Bulletin for ONE SURVIVOR AND complete bafflement, and which the under Second Mate Johansen proceeded April 18, 1925. It had escaped even DEAD MAN FOUND ABOARD. survivor says he found in the cabin of to navigate the captured yacht, going the cutting bureau which had at —— the yacht, in a small carved shrine of ahead in their original direction to see the time of its issuance been avidly Tale of Desperate Battle and common pattern. if any reason for their ordering back collecting material for my uncle’s Deaths at Sea. This man, after recovering his had existed. research. —— senses, told an exceedingly strange story The next day, it appears, they raised I had largely given over my Rescued Seaman Refuses of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf and landed on a small island, although inquiries into what Professor Angell Particulars of Strange Johansen, a Norwegian of some intel- none is known to exist in that part of called the “Cthulhu Cult,” and was Experience. ligence, and had been second mate of the ocean; and six of the men somehow visiting a learned friend in Paterson, —— the two-masted schooner Emma of died ashore, though Johansen is queerly New Jersey, the curator of a local Odd Idol Found in His Auckland, which sailed for Callao reticent about this part of his story, and museum and a mineralogist of note. Possession. February 20th with a complement of speaks only of their falling into a rock Examining one day the reserve spec- —— eleven men. chasm. imens roughly set on the storage INQUIRY TO FOLLOW. The Emma, he says, was delayed Later, it seems, he and one shelves in a rear room of the museum, —— and thrown widely south of her course companion boarded the yacht and tried my eye was caught by an odd picture The Morrison Co.’s freighter by the great storm of March 1st, and to manage her, but were beaten about in one of the old papers spread Vigilant, bound from Valparaiso, on March 22nd, in S. Latitude 49° 51’ by the storm of April 2nd. beneath the stones. It was the Sydney arrived this morning at its wharf in W. Longitude 128° 34’, encountered the From that time till his rescue on the Bulletin I have mentioned, for my Darling Harbour, having in tow the Alert, manned by a queer and evil- 12th the man remembers little, and he friend had wide affiliations in all battled and disabled but heavily armed looking crew of Kanakas and does not even recall when William 392 393 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

Briden, his companion, died. Briden’s of all, what deep and more than whatever monstrous menace had workmanship, and with the same death reveals no apparent cause, and natural linkage of dates was this begun its siege of mankind’s soul. utter mystery, terrible antiquity, and was probably due to excitement or which gave a malign and now unde- That evening, after a day of unearthly strangeness of material exposure. niable significance to the various hurried cabling and arranging, I bade which I had noted in Legrasse’s Cable advices from Dunedin report turns of events so carefully noted by my host adieu and took a train for smaller specimen. Geologists, the that the Alert was well known there as my uncle? San Francisco. In less than a month curator told me, had found it a an island trader, and bore an evil repu- March 1st—or February 28th I was in Dunedin; where, however, monstrous puzzle; for they vowed tation along the waterfront. It was according to the International Date I found that little was known of the that the world held no rock like it. owned by a curious group of half-castes Line—the earthquake and storm strange cult-members who had Then I thought with a shudder of whose frequent meetings and night trips had come. From Dunedin the Alert lingered in the old sea-taverns. what Old Castro had told Legrasse to the woods attracted no little curiosity; and her noisome crew had darted Waterfront scum was far too about the Old Ones; “They had and it had set sail in great haste just eagerly forth as if imperiously common for special mention; though come from the stars, and had brought after the storm and earth tremors of summoned, and on the other side of there was vague talk about one Their images with Them.” March 1st. the earth poets and artists had begun inland trip these mongrels had made, Shaken with such a mental reso- Our Auckland correspondent gives to dream of a strange, dank during which faint drumming and lution as I had never before known, the Emma and her crew an excellent Cyclopean city whilst a young red flame were noted on the distant I now resolved to visit Mate Johansen reputation, and Johansen is described sculptor had moulded in his sleep hills. In Auckland I learned that in Oslo. Sailing for London, I reem- as a sober and worthy man. the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. Johansen had returned with yellow barked at once for the Norwegian The admiralty will institute an March 23rd the crew of the Emma hair turned white after a perfunctory capital; and one autumn day landed inquiry on the whole matter beginning landed on an unknown island and and inconclusive questioning at at the trim wharves in the shadow tomorrow, at which every effort will left six men dead; and on that date Sydney, and had thereafter sold his of the Egeberg. Johansen’s address, be made to induce Johansen to speak the dreams of sensitive men assumed cottage in West Street and sailed I discovered, lay in the Old Town of more freely than he has done hitherto. a heightened vividness and darkened with his wife to his old home in Oslo. King Harold Haardrada, which kept with dread of a giant monster’s Of his stirring experience he would alive the name of Oslo during all the This was all, together with the malign pursuit, whilst an architect tell his friends no more than he had centuries that the greater city picture of the hellish image; but what had gone mad and a sculptor had told the admiralty officials, and all masqueraded as “Christiana.” I made a train of ideas it started in my mind! lapsed suddenly into delirium! And they could do was to give me his the brief trip by taxicab, and knocked Here were new treasuries of data on what of this storm of April 2nd—the Oslo address. with palpitant heart at the door of the Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that date on which all dreams of the dank After that I went to Sydney and a neat and ancient building with it had strange interests at sea as well city ceased, and Wilcox emerged talked profitlessly with seamen and plastered front. A sad-faced woman as on land. What motive prompted unharmed from the bondage of members of the vice-admiralty court. in black answered my summons, and the hybrid crew to order back the strange fever? What of all this—and I saw the Alert, now sold and in I was stung with disappointment Emma as they sailed about with their of those hints of old Castro about commercial use, at Circular Quay in when she told me in halting English hideous idol? What was the the sunken, star-born Old Ones and Sydney Cove, but gained nothing that Gustaf Johansen was no more. unknown island on which six of the their coming reign; their faithful cult from its non-committal bulk. The He had not long survived his Emma’s crew had died, and about and their mastery of dreams? Was I crouching image with its cuttlefish return, said his wife, for the doings which the mate Johansen was so tottering on the brink of cosmic head, dragon body, scaly wings, and at sea in 1925 had broken him. He secretive? What had the vice-admi- horrors beyond man’s power to bear? hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved had told her no more than he told ralty’s investigation brought out, and If so, they must be horrors of the in the Museum at Hyde Park; and the public, but had left a long manu- what was known of the noxious cult mind alone, for in some way the I studied it long and well, finding it script—of “technical matters” as he in Dunedin? And most marvelous second of April had put a stop to a thing of balefully exquisite said—written in English, evidently 394 395 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

in order to guard her from the peril favoured by a nightmare cult ready from the dark stars. There lay great anything right or proper for this of casual perusal. During a walk and eager to loose them upon the Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in earth, and impious with horrible through a narrow lane near the world whenever another earthquake green slimy vaults and sending out images and hieroglyphs. I mention Gothenburg dock, a bundle of papers shall heave their monstrous stone at last, after cycles incalculable, the his talk about angles because it falling from an attic window had city again to the sun and air. thoughts that spread fear to the suggests something Wilcox had told knocked him down. Two Lascar Johansen’s voyage had begun just dreams of the sensitive and called me of his awful dreams. He said that sailors at once helped him to his feet, as he told it to the vice-admiralty. imperiously to the faithful to come the geometry of the dream-place he but before the ambulance could The Emma, in ballast, had cleared on a pilgrimage of liberation and saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, reach him he was dead. Physicians Auckland on February 20th, and had restoration. All this Johansen did and loathsomely redolent of spheres found no adequate cause in the end, felt the full force of that earth- not suspect, but God knows he soon and dimensions apart from ours. and laid it to heart trouble and a quake-born tempest which must saw enough! Now an unlettered seaman felt the weakened constitution. I now felt have heaved up from the sea-bottom I suppose that only a single same thing whilst gazing at the gnawing at my vitals that dark terror the horrors that filled men’s dreams. mountain-top, the hideous mono- terrible reality. which will never leave me till I, too, Once more under control, the ship lith-crowned citadel whereon great Johansen and his men landed at am at rest, “accidentally” or other- was making good progress when Cthulhu was buried, actually a sloping mud-bank on this wise. Persuading the widow that my held up by the Alert on March 22nd, emerged from the waters. When I monstrous Acropolis, and clambered connection with her husband’s “tech- and I could feel the mate’s regret as think of the extent of all that may slipperily up over titan oozy blocks nical matters” was sufficient to entitle he wrote of her bombardment and be brooding down there I almost which could have been no mortal me to his manuscript, I bore the sinking. Of the swarthy cult-fiends wish to kill myself forthwith. staircase. The very sun of heaven document away and began to read on the Alert he speaks with signif- Johansen and his men were awed by seemed distorted when viewed it on the London boat. icant horror. There was some pecu- the cosmic majesty of this dripping through the polarising miasma It was a simple, rambling liarly abominable quality about them Babylon of elder daemons, and must welling out from this sea-soaked thing—a naïve sailor’s effort at a which made their destruction seem have guessed without guidance that perversion, and twisted menace and post-facto diary—and strove to recall almost a duty, and Johansen shows it was nothing of this or of any sane suspense lurked leeringly in those day by day that last awful voyage. I ingenuous wonder at the charge of planet. Awe at the unbelievable size crazily elusive angles of carven rock cannot attempt to transcribe it ruthlessness brought against his of the greenish stone blocks, at the where a second glance showed verbatim in all its cloudiness and party during the proceedings of the dizzying height of the great carven concavity after the first showed redundance, but I will tell its gist court of inquiry. Then, driven ahead monolith, and at the stupefying convexity. enough to show why the sound of by curiosity in their captured yacht identity of the colossal statues and Something very like fright had the water against the vessel’s sides under Johansen’s command, the men bas-reliefs with the queer image come over all the explorers before became so unendurable to me that sight a great stone pillar sticking out found in the shrine on the Alert, is anything more definite than rock I stopped my ears with cotton. of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47° 9’, poignantly visible in every line of and ooze and weed was seen. Each Johansen, thank God, did not W. Longitude 126° 43’, come upon the mate’s frightened description. would have fled had he not feared know quite all, even though he saw a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, Without knowing what futurism the scorn of the others, and it was the city and the Thing, but I shall and weedy Cyclopean masonry is like, Johansen achieved something only half-heartedly that they never sleep calmly again when I which can be nothing less than the very close to it when he spoke of the searched—vainly, as it proved—for think of the horrors that lurk cease- tangible substance of earth’s supreme city; for instead of describing any some portable souvenir to bear away. lessly behind life in time and in terror—the nightmare corpse-city definite structure or building, he It was Rodriguez the Portuguese space, and of those unhallowed blas- of R’lyeh, that was built in measure- dwells only on broad impressions of who climbed up the foot of the phemies from elder stars which less aeons behind history by the vast, vast angles and stone surfaces— monolith and shouted of what he dream beneath the sea, known and loathsome shapes that seeped down surfaces too great to belong to had found. The rest followed him, 396 397 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The CALL of CTHULHU

and looked curiously at the immense darkness almost material. That tene- of innocent sailors had done by acci- strokes of cosmic potency. Briden carved door with the now familiar brousness was indeed a positive dent. After vigintillions of years great looked back and went mad, laughing squid-dragon bas-relief. It was, quality; for it obscured such parts of Cthulhu was loose again, and shrilly as he kept on laughing at Johansen said, like a great barn-door; the inner walls as ought to have been ravening for delight. intervals till death found him one and they all felt that it was a door revealed, and actually burst forth like Three men were swept up by the night in the cabin whilst Johansen because of the ornate lintel, threshold, smoke from its aeon-long imprison- flabby claws before anybody turned. was wandering deliriously. and jambs around it, though they ment, visibly darkening the sun as it God rest them, if there be any rest But Johansen had not given out could not decide whether it lay flat slunk away into the shrunken and in the universe. They were Donovan, yet. Knowing that the Thing could like a trap-door or slantwise like an gibbous sky on flapping membra- Guerrera, and Angstrom. Parker surely overtake the Alert until steam outside cellar-door. As Wilcox would neous wings. The odour rising from slipped as the other three were was fully up, he resolved on a have said, the geometry of the place the newly opened depths was intol- plunging frenziedly over endless desperate chance; and, setting the was all wrong. One could not be sure erable, and at length the quick-eared vistas of green-crusted rock to the engine for full speed, ran light- that the sea and the ground were Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, boat, and Johansen swears he was ning-like on deck and reversed the horizontal, hence the relative posi- slopping sound down there. Everyone swallowed up by an angle of masonry wheel. There was a mighty eddying tion of everything else seemed phan- listened, and everyone was listening which shouldn’t have been there; an and foaming in the noisome brine, tasmally variable. still when It lumbered slobberingly angle which was acute, but behaved and as the steam mounted higher Briden pushed at the stone in into sight and gropingly squeezed as if it were obtuse. So only Briden and higher the brave Norwegian several places without result. Then Its gelatinous green immensity and Johansen reached the boat, and drove his vessel head on against the Donovan felt over it delicately through the black doorway into the pulled desperately for the Alert as pursuing jelly which rose above the around the edge, pressing each point tainted outside air of that poison city the mountainous monstrosity unclean froth like the stern of a separately as he went. He climbed of madness. flopped down the slimy stones and daemon galleon. The awful squid- interminably along the grotesque Poor Johansen’s handwriting hesitated, floundering at the edge of head with writhing feelers came stone moulding—that is, one would almost gave out when he wrote of the water. nearly up to the bowsprit of the call it climbing if the thing was not this. Of the six men who never Steam had not been suffered to sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on after all horizontal—and the men reached the ship, he thinks two go down entirely, despite the depar- relentlessly. There was a bursting as wondered how any door in the perished of pure fright in that ture of all hands for the shore; and of an exploding bladder, a slushy universe could be so vast. Then, very accursed instant. The Thing cannot it was the work of only a few nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a softly and slowly, the acre-great lintel be described—there is no language moments of feverish rushing up and stench as of a thousand opened began to give inward at the top; and for such abysms of shrieking and down between wheel and engines to graves, and a sound that the chron- they saw that it was balanced. immemorial lunacy, such eldritch get the Alert under way. Slowly, icler could not put on paper. For an Donovan slid or somehow contradictions of all matter, force, amidst the distorted horrors of that instant the ship was befouled by an propelled himself down or along the and cosmic order. A mountain indescribable scene, she began to acrid and blinding green cloud, and jamb and rejoined his fellows, and walked or stumbled. God! What churn the lethal waters; whilst on then there was only a venomous everyone watched the queer reces- wonder that across the earth a great the masonry of that charnel shore seething astern; where—God in sion of the monstrously carven architect went mad, and poor Wilcox that was not of earth the titan Thing heaven!—the scattered plasticity of portal. In this phantasy of prismatic raved with fever in that telepathic from the stars slavered and gibbered that nameless sky-spawn was nebu- distortion it moved anomalously in instant? The Thing of the idols, the like Polypheme cursing the fleeing lously recombining in its hateful a diagonal way, so that all the rules green, sticky spawn of the stars, had ship of Odysseus. Then, bolder than original form, whilst its distance of matter and perspective seemed awaked to claim his own. The stars the storied Cyclops, great Cthulhu widened every second as the Alert upset. were right again, and what an age-old slid greasily into the water and began gained impetus from its mounting The aperture was black with a cult had failed to do by design, a band to pursue with vast wave-raising steam. 398 399 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

That was all. After that Johansen universe has to hold of horror, and only brooded over the idol in the even the skies of spring and the cabin and attended to a few matters flowers of summer must ever after- of food for himself and the laughing ward be poison to me. But I do not maniac by his side. He did not try think my life will be long. As my to navigate after the first bold flight, uncle went, as poor Johansen went, for the reaction had taken something so I shall go. I know too much, and out of his soul. Then came the storm the cult still lives. of April 2nd, and a gathering of the Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, clouds about his consciousness. again in that chasm of stone which There is a sense of spectral whirling has shielded him since the sun was through liquid gulfs of infinity, of young. His accursed city is sunken dizzying rides through reeling once more, for the Vigilant sailed universes on a comet’s tail, and of over the spot after the April storm; hysterical plunges from the pit to but his ministers on earth still bellow PICKMAN’S MODEL. the moon and from the moon back and prance and slay around idol- again to the pit, all livened by a cach- capped monoliths in lonely places. [return to table of contents] innating chorus of the distorted, He must have been trapped by the hilarious elder gods and the green, sinking whilst within his black abyss, bat-winged mocking imps of or else the world would by now be Tartarus. screaming with fright and frenzy. ou needn’t think I’m crazy, writing me like a grieved parent Out of that dream came rescue— Who knows the end? What has risen Eliot—plenty of others when you heard I’d begun to cut the the Vigilant, the vice-admiralty may sink, and what has sunk may have queerer prejudices Art Club and keep away from court, the streets of Dunedin, and rise. Loathsomeness waits and thanY this. Why don’t you laugh at Pickman. Now that he’s disappeared the long voyage back home to the dreams in the deep, and decay Oliver’s grandfather, who won’t I go round to the club once in a old house by the Egeberg. He could spreads over the tottering cities of ride in a motor? If I don’t like that while, but my nerves aren’t what they not tell—they would think him mad. men. A time will come—but I must damned subway, it’s my own busi- were. He would write of what he knew not and cannot think! Let me pray ness; and we got here more quickly No, I don’t know what’s become before death came, but his wife must that, if I do not survive this manu- anyhow in the taxi. We’d have had of Pickman, and I don’t like to guess. not guess. Death would be a boon if script, my executors may put caution to walk up the hill from Park Street You might have surmised I had some only it could blot out the before audacity and see that it meets if we’d taken the car. inside information when I dropped memories. no other eye. I know I’m more nervous than him—and that’s why I don’t want to That was the document I read, I was when you saw me last year, but think where he’s gone. Let the police and now I have placed it in the tin you don’t need to hold a clinic over find what they can—it won’t be box beside the bas-relief and the it. There’s plenty of reason, God much, judging from the fact that papers of Professor Angell. With it knows, and I fancy I’m lucky to be they don’t know yet of the old North shall go this record of mine—this sane at all. Why the third degree? End place he hired under the name test of my own sanity, wherein is You didn’t use to be so inquisitive. of Peters. I’m not sure that I could pieced together that which I hope Well, if you must hear it, I don’t find it again myself—not that I’d may never be pieced together again. know why you shouldn’t. Maybe you ever try, even in broad daylight! I have looked upon all that the ought to, anyhow, for you kept Yes, I do know, or am afraid I 400 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • PICKMAN’S MODEL

know, why he maintained it. I’m memories of fright, and the proper sheer hell into a set of features or a achievement. As you know, the club coming to that. And I think you’ll colour contrasts and lighting effects twist of expression. And before Goya wouldn’t exhibit it, and the Museum understand before I’m through why to stir the dormant sense of strange- you have to go back to the mediaeval of Fine Arts wouldn’t accept it as a I don’t tell the police. They would ness. I don’t have to tell you why a chaps who did the gargoyles and gift; and I can add that nobody ask me to guide them, but I couldn’t Fuseli really brings a shiver while a chimaeras on Notre Dame and Mont would buy it, so Pickman had it right go back there even if I knew the way. cheap ghost-story frontispiece Saint-Michel. They believed all sorts in his house till he went. Now his There was something there—and merely makes us laugh. There’s of things—and maybe they saw all father has it in Salem—you know now I can’t use the subway or (and something those fellows catch— sorts of things, too, for the Middle Pickman comes of old Salem stock, you may as well have your laugh at beyond life—that they’re able to Ages had some curious phases. I and had a witch ancestor hanged in this, too) go down into cellars any make us catch for a second. Doré remember your asking Pickman 1692. more. had it. Sime has it. Angarola of yourself once, the year before you I got into the habit of calling on I should think you’d have known Chicago has it. And Pickman had went away, wherever in thunder he Pickman quite often, especially after I didn’t drop Pickman for the same it as no man ever had it before or—I got such ideas and visions. Wasn’t I began making notes for a mono- silly reasons that fussy old women hope to Heaven—ever will again. that a nasty laugh he gave you? It graph on weird art. Probably it was like Dr. Reid or Joe Minot or Don’t ask me what it is they see. was partly because of that laugh that his work which put the idea into my Rosworth did. Morbid art doesn’t You know, in ordinary art, there’s all Reid dropped him. Reid, you know, head, and anyhow, I found him a shock me, and when a man has the the difference in the world between had just taken up comparative mine of data and suggestions when genius Pickman had I feel it an the vital, breathing things drawn pathology, and was full of pompous I came to develop it. He showed me honour to know him, no matter what from Nature or models and the arti- “inside stuff ” about the biological or all the paintings and drawings he direction his work takes. Boston ficial truck that commercial small evolutionary significance of this or had about; including some never had a greater painter than fry reel off in a bare studio by rule. that mental or physical symptom. pen-and-ink sketches that would, I Richard Upton Pickman. I said it at Well, I should say that the really He said Pickman repelled him more verily believe, have got him kicked first and I say it still, and I never weird artist has a kind of vision and more every day, and almost out of the club if many of the swerved an inch, either, when he which makes models, or summons frightened him towards the last— members had seen them. Before long showed that “Ghoul Feeding.” That, up what amounts to actual scenes that the fellow’s features and expres- I was pretty nearly a devotee, and you remember, was when Minot cut from the spectral world he lives in. sion were slowly developing in a way would listen for hours like a him. Anyhow, he manages to turn out he didn’t like, in a way that wasn’t schoolboy to art theories and phil- You know, it takes profound art results that differ from the pretend- human. He had a lot of talk about osophic speculations wild enough to and profound insight into Nature to er’s mince-pie dreams in just about diet, and said Pickman must be qualify him for the Danvers asylum. turn out stuff like Pickman’s. Any the same way that the life painter’s abnormal and eccentric to the last My hero-worship, coupled with the magazine-cover hack can splash results differ from the concoctions degree. I suppose you told Reid, if fact that people generally were paint around wildly and call it a of a correspondence-school you and he had any correspondence commencing to have less and less to nightmare or a Witches’ Sabbath or cartoonist. If I had ever seen what over it, that he’d let Pickman’s paint- do with him, made him get very a portrait of the devil, but only a Pickman saw—but no! Here, let’s ings get on his nerves or harrow up confidential with me; and one great painter can make such a thing have a drink before we get any his imagination. I know I told him evening he hinted that if I were fairly really scare or ring true. That’s deeper. God, I wouldn’t be alive if that myself—then. close-mouthed and none too squea- because only a real artist knows the I’d ever seen what that man—if he But keep in mind that I didn’t mish, he might show me something actual anatomy of the terrible or the was a man—saw ! drop Pickman for anything like this. rather unusual—something a bit physiology of fear—the exact sort You recall that Pickman’s forte On the contrary, my admiration for stronger than anything he had in the of lines and proportions that connect was faces. I don’t believe anybody him kept growing; for that “Ghoul house. up with latent instincts or hereditary since Goya could put so much of Feeding” was a tremendous “You know,” he said, “there are 402 403 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • PICKMAN’S MODEL

things that won’t do for Newbury Hill, with Cotton Mather looking and wise man could know—faugh! well as beauty from life, so I did some Street—things that are out of place sanctimoniously on. Mather, damn And to think of today in contrast, exploring in places where I had here, and that can’t be conceived him, was afraid somebody might with such pale-pink brains that even reason to know terror lives. here, anyhow. It’s my business to succeed in kicking free of this a club of supposed artists gets shud- “I’ve got a place that I don’t catch the overtones of the soul, and accursed cage of monotony—I wish ders and convulsions if a picture goes believe three living Nordic men you won’t find those in a parvenu set someone had laid a spell on him or beyond the feelings of a Beacon besides myself have ever seen. It isn’t of artificial streets on made land. sucked his blood in the night! Street tea-table! so very far from the elevated as Back Bay isn’t Boston—it isn’t “I can show you a house he lived “The only saving grace of the distance goes, but it’s centuries away anything yet, because it’s had no time in, and I can show you another one present is that it’s too damned stupid as the soul goes. I took it because of to pick up memories and attract local he was afraid to enter in spite of all to question the past very closely. the queer old brick well in the spirits. If there are any ghosts here, his fine bold talk. He knew things What do maps and records and cellar—one of the sort I told you they’re the tame ghosts of a salt he didn’t dare put into that stupid guide-books really tell of the North about. The shack’s almost tumbling marsh and a shallow cove; and I want Magnalia or that puerile Wonders End? Bah! At a guess I’ll guarantee down so that nobody else would live human ghosts—the ghosts of beings of the Invisible World. Look here, to lead you to thirty or forty alleys there, and I’d hate to tell you how highly organized enough to have do you know the whole North End and networks of alleys north of little I pay for it. The windows are looked on hell and known the once had a set of tunnels that kept Prince Street that aren’t suspected boarded up, but I like that all the meaning of what they saw. certain people in touch with each by ten living beings outside of the better, since I don’t want daylight for “The place for an artist to live other’s houses, and the burying foreigners that swarm them. And what I do. I paint in the cellar, where is the North End. If any aesthete ground, and the sea? Let them pros- what do those Dagoes know of their the inspiration is thickest, but I’ve were sincere, he’d put up with the ecute and persecute above ground— meaning? No, Thurber, these ancient other rooms furnished on the ground slums for the sake of the massed things went on every day that they places are dreaming gorgeously and floor. A Sicilian owns it, and I’ve traditions. God, man! Don’t you couldn’t reach, and voices laughed over-flowing with wonder and terror hired it under the name of Peters. realize that places like that weren’t at night that they couldn’t place! and escapes from the commonplace, “Now, if you’re game, I’ll take merely made, but actually grew? “Why, man, out of ten surviving and yet there’s not a living soul to you there tonight. I think you’d enjoy Generation after generation lived houses built before 1700 and not understand or profit by them. Or the pictures, for, as I said, I’ve let and felt and died there, and in days moved since I’ll wager that in eight rather, there’s only one living soul— myself go a bit there. It’s no vast when people weren’t afraid to live I can show you something queer in for I haven’t been digging around in tour—I sometimes do it on foot, for and feel and die. Don’t you know the cellar. There’s hardly a month the past for nothing! I don’t want to attract attention with there was a mill on Copp’s Hill in that you don’t read of workmen “See here, you’re interested in a taxi in such a place. We can take 1632, and that half the present finding bricked-up arches and wells this sort of thing. What if I told you the shuttle at the South Station for streets were laid out by 1650? I can leading nowhere in this or that old that I’ve got another studio up there, Battery Street, and after that the show you houses that have stood two place as it comes down—you could where I can catch the night-spirit of walk isn’t much.” centuries and a half and more; houses see one near Henchman Street from antique horror and paint things that Well, Eliot, there wasn’t much that have witnessed what would the elevated last year. There were I couldn’t even think of in Newbury for me to do after that harangue but make a modern house crumble into witches and what their spells Street? Naturally I don’t tell those to keep myself from running instead powder. What do moderns know of summoned; pirates and what they cursed old maids at the club—with of walking for the first vacant cab life and the forces behind it? You call brought in from the sea; smugglers; Reid, damn him, whispering even as we could sight. We changed to the the Salem witchcraft a delusion, but privateers—and I tell you, people it is that I’m a sort of monster bound elevated at the South Station, and I’ll wager my four-times-great- knew how to live, and how to enlarge down the toboggan of reverse evolu- at about twelve o’clock had climbed grandmother could have told you the bounds of life, in the old time! tion. Yes, Thurber, I decided long down the steps at Battery Street and things. They hanged her on Gallows This wasn’t the only world a bold ago that one must paint terror as struck along the old waterfront past 404 405 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • PICKMAN’S MODEL

Constitution Wharf. I didn’t keep Now, Eliot, I’m what the man kind of unpleasant rubberiness. Ugh! changeling, I suppose—you know track of the cross streets, and can’t in the street would call fairly “hard- I can see them now! Their occupa- the old myth about how the weird tell you yet which it was we turned boiled,” but I’ll confess that what I tions—well, don’t ask me to be too people leave their spawn in cradles up, but I know it wasn’t Greenough saw on the walls of that room gave precise. They were usually feed- in exchange for the human babes Lane. me a bad turn. They were his pictures, ing—I won’t say on what. They were they steal. Pickman was showing When we did turn, it was to you know—the ones he couldn’t sometimes shown in groups in ceme- what happens to those stolen climb through the deserted length paint or even show in Newbury teries or underground passages, and babes—how they grow up—and of the oldest and dirtiest alley I ever Street—and he was right when he often appeared to be in battle over then I began to see a hideous rela- saw in my life, with crum- said he had “let himself go.” Here— their prey—or rather, their trea- tionship in the faces of the human bling-looking gables, broken small- have another drink—I need one sure-trove. And what damnable and non-human figures. He was, in paned windows, and archaic anyhow! expressiveness Pickman sometimes all his gradations of morbidity chimneys that stood out half-disin- There’s no use in my trying to gave the sightless faces of this between the frankly non-human and tegrated against the moonlit sky. I tell you what they were like, because charnel booty! Occasionally the the degradedly human, establishing don’t believe there were three houses the awful, the blasphemous horror, things were shown leaping through a sardonic linkage and evolution. in sight that hadn’t been standing in and the unbelievable loathsomeness open windows at night, or squatting The dog-things were developed Cotton Mather’s time—certainly I and moral foetor came from simple on the chests of sleepers, worrying from mortals! glimpsed at least two with an over- touches quite beyond the power of at their throats. One canvas showed And no sooner had I wondered hang, and once I thought I saw a words to classify. There was none of a ring of them baying about a hanged what he made of their own young peaked roof-line of the almost the exotic technique you see in witch on Gallows Hill, whose dead as left with mankind in the form of forgotten pre-gambrel type, though Sidney Sime, none of the trans-Sa- face held a close kinship to theirs. changelings, than my eye caught a antiquarians tell us there are none turnian landscapes and lunar fungi But don’t get the idea that it was picture embodying that very thought. left in Boston. that Clark Ashton Smith uses to all this hideous business of theme It was that of an ancient Puritan From that alley, which had a dim freeze the blood. The backgrounds and setting which struck me faint. interior—a heavily beamed room light, we turned to the left into an were mostly old churchyards, deep I’m not a three-year-old kid, and I’d with lattice windows, a settle, and equally silent and still narrower alley woods, cliffs by the sea, brick tunnels, seen much like this before. It was clumsy seventeenth-century furni- with no light at all: and in a minute ancient panelled rooms, or simple the faces, Eliot, those accursed faces, ture, with the family sitting about made what I think was an obtuse-an- vaults of masonry. Copp’s Hill that leered and slavered out of the while the father read from the gled bend towards the right in the Burying Ground, which could not canvas with the very breath of life! Scriptures. Every face but one dark. Not long after this Pickman be many blocks away from this very By God, man, I verily believe they showed nobility and reverence, but produced a flashlight and revealed house, was a favourite scene. were alive! That nauseous wizard that one reflected the mockery of an antediluvian ten-panelled door The madness and monstrosity had waked the fires of hell in the pit. It was that of a young man that looked damnably worm-eaten. lay in the figures in the foreground— pigment, and his brush had been a in years, and no doubt belonged to Unlocking it, he ushered me into a for Pickman’s morbid art was nightmare-spawning wand. Give me a supposed son of that pious father, barren hallway with what was once pre-eminently one of demoniac that decanter, Eliot! but in essence it was the kin of the splendid dark-oak panelling— portraiture. These figures were There was one thing called “The unclean things. It was their change- simple, of course, but thrillingly seldom completely human, but often Lesson”—Heaven pity me, that I ling—and in a spirit of supreme suggestive of the times of Andros approached humanity in varying ever saw it! Listen—can you fancy irony Pickman had given the features and Phipps and the Witchcraft. degree. Most of the bodies, while a squatting circle of nameless a very perceptible resemblance to his Then he took me through a door on roughly bipedal, had a forward dog-like things in a churchyard own. the left, lighted an oil lamp, and told slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. teaching a small child how to feed By this time Pickman had me to make myself at home. The texture of the majority was a like themselves? The price of a lighted a lamp in an adjoining room 406 407 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • PICKMAN’S MODEL

and was politely holding open the monsters creeping in through holes of their very greatness. Their art was open space at hand, revealing the door for me; asking me if I would and rifts in the masonry and grin- the art that convinced—when we circular brick curb of what was care to see his “modern studies.” I ning as they squatted behind barrels saw the pictures we saw the demons evidently a great well in the earthen hadn’t been able to give him much or furnaces and waited for their first themselves and were afraid of them. floor. We walked nearer, and I saw of my opinions—I was too speech- victim to descend the stairs. And the queer part was, that that it must be five feet across, with less with fright and loathing—but I One disgusting canvas seemed Pickman got none of his power from walls a good foot thick and some six think he fully understood and felt to depict a vast cross-section of the use of selectiveness or bizarrerie. inches above the ground level—solid highly complimented. And now I Beacon Hill, with ant-like armies of Nothing was blurred, distorted, or work of the seventeenth century, or want to assure you again, Eliot, that the mephitic monsters squeezing conventionalized; outlines were I was much mistaken. That, Pickman I’m no mollycoddle to scream at themselves through burrows that sharp and lifelike, and details were said, was the kind of thing he had anything which shows a bit of depar- honeycombed the ground. Dances almost painfully defined. And the been talking about—an aperture of ture from the usual. I’m middle-aged in the modern cemeteries were freely faces! the network of tunnels that used to and decently sophisticated, and I pictured, and another conception It was not any mere artist’s inter- undermine the hill. I noticed idly guess you saw enough of me in somehow shocked me more than all pretation that we saw; it was pande- that it did not seem to be bricked France to know I’m not easily the rest—a scene in an unknown monium itself, crystal clear in stark up, and that a heavy disc of wood knocked out. Remember, too, that vault, where scores of the beasts objectivity. That was it, by Heaven! formed the apparent cover. Thinking I’d just about recovered my wind and crowded about one who had a well- The man was not a fantaisiste or of the things this well must have gotten used to those frightful known Boston guidebook and was romanticist at all—he did not even been connected with if Pickman’s pictures which turned colonial New evidently reading aloud. All were try to give us the churning, prismatic wild hints had not been mere rhet- England into a kind of annex of hell. pointing to a certain passage, and ephemera of dreams, but coldly and oric, I shivered slightly; then turned Well, in spite of all this, that next every face seemed so distorted with sardonically reflected some stable, to follow him up a step and through room forced a real scream out of me, epileptic and reverberant laughter mechanistic, and well-established a narrow door into a room of fair and I had to clutch at the doorway that I almost thought I heard the horror-world which he saw fully, size, provided with a wooden floor to keep from keeling over. The other fiendish echoes. The title of the brilliantly, squarely, and unfalteringly. and furnished as a studio. An acet- chamber had shown a pack of ghouls picture was, “Holmes, Lowell and God knows what that world can ylene gas outfit gave the light neces- and witches over-running the world Longfellow Lie Buried in Mount have been, or where he ever glimpsed sary for work. of our forefathers, but this one Auburn.” the blasphemous shapes that loped The unfinished pictures on brought the horror right into our As I gradually steadied myself and trotted and crawled through it; easels or propped against the walls own daily life! and got readjusted to this second but whatever the baffling source of were as ghastly as the finished ones God, how that man could paint! room of deviltry and morbidity, I his images, one thing was plain. upstairs, and showed the painstaking There was a study called “Subway began to analyse some of the points Pickman was in every sense—in methods of the artist. Scenes were Accident,” in which a flock of the in my sickening loathing. In the first conception and in execution—a blocked out with extreme care, and vile things were clambering up from place, I said to myself, these things thorough, painstaking, and almost pencilled guide lines told of the some unknown catacomb through a repelled because of the utter inhu- scientific realist. minute exactitude which Pickman crack in the floor of the Boston manity and callous crudity they My host was now leading the used in getting the right perspective Street subway and attacking a crowd showed in Pickman. The fellow must way down the cellar to his actual and proportions. The man was of people on the platform. Another be a relentless enemy of all mankind studio, and I braced myself for some great—I say it even now, knowing showed a dance on Copp’s Hill to take such glee in the torture of hellish efforts among the unfinished as much as I do. A large camera on among the tombs with the back- brain and flesh and the degradation canvases. As we reached the bottom a table excited my notice, and ground of today. Then there were of the mortal tenement. In the of the damp stairs he turned his Pickman told me that he used it in any number of cellar views, with second place, they terrified because flash-light to a corner of the large taking scenes for backgrounds, so 408 409 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • PICKMAN’S MODEL

that he might paint them from drooling lips. It wasn’t the scaly claws listening, I fancied I heard a faint asset by way of atmosphere and photographs in the studio instead of nor the mould-caked body nor the scurrying sound somewhere, and a colour.” carting his oufit around the town for half-hooved feet—none of these, series of squeals or beats in a direc- Well, Eliot, that was the end of this or that view. He thought a though any one of them might well tion I couldn’t determine. I thought the night’s adventure. Pickman had photograph quite as good as an have driven an excitable man to of huge rats and shuddered. Then promised to show me the place, and actual scene or model for sustained madness. there came a subdued sort of clatter Heaven knows he had done it. He work, and declared he employed It was the technique, Eliot—the which somehow set me all in goose- led me out of that tangle of alleys in them regularly. cursed, the impious, the unnatural flesh—a furtive, groping kind of another direction, it seems, for when There was something very technique! As I am a living being, I clatter, though I can’t attempt to we sighted a lamp-post we were in disturbing about the nauseous never elsewhere saw the actual breath convey what I mean in words. It was a half-familiar street with monoto- sketches and half-finished monstros- of life so fused into a canvas. The like heavy wood falling on stone or nous rows of mingled tenement ities that leered round from every monster was there—it glared and brick—wood on brick—what did blocks and old houses. Charter side of the room, and when Pickman gnawed and gnawed and glared— that make me think of? Street, it turned out to be, but I was suddenly unveiled a huge canvas on and I knew that only a suspension It came again, and louder. There too flustered to notice just where we the side away from the light I could of Nature’s laws could ever let a man was a vibration as if the wood had hit it. We were too late for the not for my life keep back a loud paint a thing like that without a fallen farther than it had fallen elevated, and walked back downtown scream—the second I had emitted model—without some glimpse of before. After that followed a sharp through Hanover Street. I remember that night. It echoed and echoed the nether world which no mortal grating noise, a shouted gibberish that wall. We switched from Tremont through the dim vaultings of that unsold to the Fiend has ever had. from Pickman, and the deafening up Beacon, and Pickman left me at ancient and nitrous cellar, and I had Pinned with a thumb-tack to a discharge of all six chambers of a the corner of Joy, where I turned off. to choke back a flood of reaction vacant part of the canvas was a piece revolver, fired spectacularly as a lion I never spoke to him again. that threatened to burst out as of paper now badly curled up—prob- tamer might fire in the air for effect. Why did I drop him? Don’t be hysterical laughter. Merciful Creator! ably, I thought, a photograph from A muffled squeal or squawk, and a impatient. Wait till I ring for coffee. Eliot, but I don’t know how much which Pickman meant to paint a thud. Then more wood and brick We’ve had enough of the other stuff, was real and how much was feverish background as hideous as the night- grating, a pause, and the opening of but I for one need something. No—it fancy. It doesn’t seem to me that mare it was to enhance. I reached the door—at which I’ll confess I wasn’t the paintings I saw in that earth can hold a dream like that! out to uncurl and look at it, when started violently. Pickman reap- place; though I’ll swear they were It was a colossal and nameless suddenly I saw Pickman start as if peared with his smoking weapon, enough to get him ostracised in blasphemy with glaring red eyes, and shot. He had been listening with cursing the bloated rats that infested nine-tenths of the homes and clubs it held in bony claws a thing that peculiar intensity ever since my the ancient well. of Boston, and I guess you won’t had been a man, gnawing at the head shocked scream had waked unaccus- “The deuce knows what they wonder now why I have to steer clear as a child nibbles at a stick of candy. tomed echoes in the dark cellar, and eat, Thurber,” he grinned, “for those of subways and cellars. It was— Its position was a kind of crouch, now he seemed struck with a fright archaic tunnels touched graveyard something I found in my coat the and as one looked one felt that at which, though not comparable to and witch-den and sea-coast. But next morning. You know, the any moment it might drop its present my own, had in it more of the phys- whatever it is, they must have run curled-up paper tacked to the prey and seek a juicier morsel. But ical than of the spiritual. He drew a short, for they were devilish anxious frightful canvas in the cellar; the damn it all, it wasn’t even the fiendish revolver and motioned me to silence, to get out. Your yelling stirred them thing I thought was a photograph subject that made it such an immortal then stepped out into the main cellar up, I fancy. Better be cautious in of some scene he meant to use as a fountain-head of all panic—not that, and closed the door behind him. these old places—our rodent friends background for that monster. That nor the dog face with its pointed I think I was paralysed for an are the one drawback, though I last scare had come while I was ears, bloodshot eyes, flat nose, and instant. Imitating Pickman’s sometimes think they’re a positive reaching to uncurl it, and it seems I 410 411 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

had vacantly crumpled it into my pocket. But here’s the coffee—take it black, Eliot, if you’re wise. Yes, that paper was the reason I dropped Pickman; Richard Upton Pickman, the greatest artist I have ever known—and the foulest being that ever leaped the bounds of life into the pits of myth and madness. Eliot—old Reid was right. He wasn’t strictly human. Either he was born in strange shadow, or he’d found a way to unlock the forbidden gate. It’s all the same now, for he’s gone— back into the fabulous darkness he The STRANGE HIGH HOUSE in the MIST. loved to haunt. Here, let’s have the chandelier going. [return to table of contents] Don’t ask me to explain or even conjecture about what I burned. Don’t ask me, either, what lay behind that mole-like scrambling Pickman n the morning, mist comes up all earth, and the solemn bells of was so keen to pass off as rats. There from the sea by the cliffs buoys tolled free in the aether of are secrets, you know, which might beyond Kingsport. White and faery. have come down from old Salem Ifeathery it comes from the deep to Now north of archaic Kingsport times, and Cotton Mather tells even its brothers the clouds, full of the crags climb lofty and curious, stranger things. You know how dreams of dank pastures and caves terrace on terrace, till the northern- damned lifelike Pickman’s paintings of Leviathan. And later, in still most hangs in the sky like a gray were—how we all wondered where summer rains on the steep roofs of frozen wind-cloud. Alone it is, a he got those faces. poets, the clouds scatter bits of bleak point jutting in limitless space, Well—that paper wasn’t a those dreams, that men shall not for there the coast turns sharp where photograph of any background, after live without rumor of old strange the great Miskatonic pours out of all. What it showed was simply the secrets, and wonders that planets the plains past Arkham, bringing monstrous being he was painting on tell planets alone in the night. woodland legends and little quaint that awful canvas. It was the model When tales fly thick in the grottoes memories of New England’s hills. he was using—and its background of tritons, and conchs in seaweed The sea-folk of Kingsport look up was merely the wall of the cellar cities blow wild tunes learned from at that cliff as other sea-folk look up studio in minute detail. But by God, the Elder Ones, then great eager at the pole-star, and time the night’s Eliot, it was a photograph from life! mists flock to heaven laden with watches by the way it hides or shows lore, and oceanward eyes on the the Great Bear, Cassiopeia and the rocks see only a mystic whiteness, Dragon. Among them it is one with as if the cliff ’s rim were the rim of the firmament, and truly, it is hidden 412 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The STRANGE HIGH HOUSE in the MIST

from them when the mist hides the years, but can not prove their heresy which had sheltered so many gener- unknown—he swore a great oath to stars or the sun. to any real Kingsporter. Even the ations of sturdy sea-folk. And he even scale that avoided northern cliff and Some of the cliffs they love, as Terrible Old Man who talks to talked with the Terrible Old Man, visit the abnormally antique gray that whose grotesque profile they call leaden pendulums in bottles, buys who was not fond of strangers, and cottage in the sky. Very plausibly his Father Neptune, or that whose groceries with centuried Spanish was invited into his fearsomely saner self argued that the place must pillared steps they term “The gold, and keeps stone idols in the archaic cottage where low ceilings be tenanted by people who reached Causeway”; but this one they fear yard of his antediluvian cottage in and wormy panelling hear the echoes it from inland along the easier ridge because it is so near the sky. The Water Street can only say these of disquieting soliloquies in the dark beside the Miskatonic’s estuary. Portuguese sailors coming in from a things were the same when his small hours. Probably they traded in Arkham, voyage cross themselves when they grandfather was a boy, and that must Of course it was inevitable that knowing how little Kingsport liked first see it, and the old Yankees have been inconceivable ages ago, Olney should mark the gray unvisited their habitation or perhaps being believe it would be a much graver when Belcher or Shirley or Pownall cottage in the sky, on that sinister unable to climb down the cliff on matter than death to climb it, if or Bernard was Governor of His northward crag which is one with the Kingsport side. Olney walked indeed that were possible. Majesty’s Province of the the mists and the firmament. Always out along the lesser cliffs to where Nevertheless there is an ancient Massachusetts-Bay. over Kingsport it hung, and always the great crag leaped insolently up house on that cliff, and at evening Then one summer there came a its mystery sounded in whispers to consort with celestial things, and men see lights in the small-paned philosopher into Kingsport. His through Kingsport’s crooked alleys. became very sure that no human feet windows. name was Thomas Olney, and he The Terrible Old Man wheezed a could mount it or descend it on that The ancient house has always taught ponderous things in a college tale that his father had told him, of beetling southern slope. East and been there, and people say One by Narragansett Bay. With stout wife lightning that shot one night up from north it rose thousands of feet dwells within who talks with the and romping children he came, and that peaked cottage to the clouds of perpendicular from the water so only morning mists that come up from his eyes were weary with seeing the higher heaven; and Granny Orne, the western side, inland and toward the deep, and perhaps sees singular same things for many years, and whose tiny gambrel-roofed abode in Arkham, remained. things oceanward at those times thinking the same well-disciplined Ship Street is all covered with moss One early morning in August when the cliff ’s rim becomes the rim thoughts. He looked at the mists and ivy, croaked over something her Olney set out to find a path to the of all earth, and solemn buoys toll from the diadem of Father Neptune, grandmother had heard at second- inaccessible pinnacle. He worked free in the white aether of faery. This and tried to walk into their white hand, about shapes that flapped out northwest along pleasant back roads, they tell from hearsay, for that forbid- world of mystery along the titan steps of the eastern mists straight into the past Hooper’s Pond and the old brick ding crag is always unvisited, and of The Causeway. Morning after narrow single door of that unreach- powder-house to where the pastures natives dislike to train telescopes on morning he would lie on the cliffs able place—for the door is set close slope up to the ridge above the it. Summer boarders have indeed and look over the world’s rim at the to the edge of the crag toward the Miskatonic and give a lovely vista of scanned it with jaunty binoculars, cryptical aether beyond, listening to ocean, and glimpsed only from ships Arkham’s white Georgian steeples but have never seen more than the spectral bells and the wild cries of at sea. across leagues of river and meadow. gray primeval roof, peaked and shin- what might have been gulls. Then, At length, being avid for new Here he found a shady road to gled, whose eaves come nearly to the when the mist would lift and the sea strange things and held back by Arkham, but no trail at all in the gray foundations, and the dim yellow stand out prosy with the smoke of neither the Kingsporter’s fear nor the seaward direction he wished. Woods light of the little windows peeping steamers, he would sigh and descend summer boarder’s usual indolence, and fields crowded up to the high out from under those eaves in the to the town, where he loved to thread Olney made a very terrible resolve. bank of the river’s mouth, and bore dusk. These summer people do not the narrow olden lanes up and down Despite a conservative training—or not a sign of man’s presence; not even believe that the same One has lived hill, and study the crazy tottering because of it, for humdrum lives a stone wall or a straying cow, but in the ancient house for hundreds of gables and odd-pillared doorways breed wistful longings of the only the tall grass and giant trees and 414 415 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The STRANGE HIGH HOUSE in the MIST

tangles of briars that the first Indian gray as the rock, and high peak heard the windows opening, first on room seemed green with a dim might have seen. As he climbed standing bold against the milky white the north side opposite him, and then aqueous light, and Olney saw that slowly east, higher and higher above of the seaward vapors. And he on the west just around the corner. the far windows to the east were not the estuary on his left and nearer and perceived that there was no door on Next would come the south windows, open, but shut against the misty nearer the sea, he found the way this landward end, but only a couple under the great low eaves on the side aether with dull panes like the growing in difficulty till he wondered of small lattice windows with dingy where he stood; and it must be said bottoms of old bottles. how ever the dwellers in that disliked bull’s-eye panes leaded in seven- that he was more than uncomfortable That bearded host seemed place managed to reach the world teenth century fashion. All around as he thought of the detestable house young, yet looked out of eyes steeped outside, and whether they came him was cloud and chaos, and he on one side and the vacancy of upper in the elder mysteries; and from the often to market in Arkham. could see nothing below the white- air on the other. When a fumbling tales of marvelous ancient things he Then the trees thinned, and far ness of illimitable space. He was came in the nearer casements he related, it must be guessed that the below him on his right he saw the alone in the sky with this queer and crept around to the west again, flat- village folk were right in saying he hills and antique roofs and spires of very disturbing house; and when he tening himself against the wall beside had communed with the mists of the Kingsport. Even Central Hill was a sidled around to the front and saw the now opened windows. It was sea and the clouds of the sky ever dwarf from this height, and he could that the wall stood flush with the plain that the owner had come home; since there was any village to watch just make out the ancient graveyard cliff ’s edge, so that the single narrow but he had not come from the land, his taciturn dwelling from the plain by the Congregational Hospital door was not to be reached save from nor from any balloon or airship that below. And the day wore on, and still beneath which rumor said some the empty aether, he felt a distinct could be imagined. Steps sounded Olney listened to rumors of old times terrible caves or burrows lurked. terror that altitude could not wholly again, and Olney edged round to the and far places, and heard how the Ahead lay sparse grass and scrub explain. And it was very odd that north; but before he could find a kings of Atlantis fought with the blueberry bushes, and beyond them shingles so worm-eaten could survive, haven a voice called softly, and he slippery blasphemies that wriggled the naked rock of the crag and the or bricks so crumbled still form a knew he must confront his host. out of rifts in ocean’s floor, and how thin peak of the dreaded gray cottage. standing chimney. Stuck out of the west window the pillared and weedy temple of Now the ridge narrowed, and Olney As the mist thickened, Olney was a great black-bearded face whose Poseidon is still glimpsed at midnight grew dizzy at his loneness in the sky, crept around to the windows on the eyes were phosphorescent with the by lost ships, who knew by its sight south of him the frightful precipice north and west and south sides, imprint of unheard-of sights. But that they are lost. Years of the Titans above Kingsport, north of him the trying them but finding them all the voice was gentle, and of a quaint were recalled, but the host grew timid vertical drop of nearly a mile to the locked. He was vaguely glad they olden kind, so that Olney did not when he spoke of the dim first age river’s mouth. Suddenly a great were locked, because the more he shudder when a brown hand reached of chaos before the gods or even the chasm opened before him, ten feet saw of that house the less he wished out to help him over the sill and into Elder Ones were born, and when the deep, so that he had to let himself to get in. Then a sound halted him. that low room of black oak wainscots other gods came to dance on the peak down by his hands and drop to a He heard a lock rattle and a bolt and carved Tudor furnishings. The of Hatheg-Kla in the stony desert slanting floor, and then crawl peril- shoot, and a long creaking follow as man was clad in very ancient near Ulthar, beyond the River Skai. ously up a natural defile in the oppo- if a heavy door were slowly and garments, and had about him an It was at this point that there site wall. So this was the way the folk cautiously opened. This was on the unplaceable nimbus of sea-lore and came a knocking on the door; that of the uncanny house journeyed oceanward side that he could not see, dreams of tall galleons. Olney does ancient door of nail-studded oak betwixt earth and sky! where the narrow portal opened on not recall many of the wonders he beyond which lay only the abyss of When he climbed out of the blank space thousands of feet in the told, or even who he was; but says white cloud. Olney started in fright, chasm a morning mist was gathering, misty sky above the waves. that he was strange and kindly, and but the bearded man motioned him but he clearly saw the lofty and Then there was heavy, deliberate filled with the magic of unfathomed to be still, and tiptoed to the door to unhallowed cottage ahead; walls as tramping in the cottage, and Olney voids of time and space. The small look out through a very small 416 417 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The STRANGE HIGH HOUSE in the MIST

peephole. What he saw he did not homage. Trident-bearing Neptune far places in his eyes. He could not and complained that the drains were like, so pressed his fingers to his lips was there, and sportive tritons and recall what he had dreamed in the impossibly bad. They have a trim and tiptoed around to shut and lock fantastic nereids, and upon dolphins’ skyperched hut of that still name- bungalow now at Bristol Highlands, all the windows before returning to backs was balanced a vast crenulate less hermit, or say how he had crept where no tall crags tower, and the the ancient settle beside his guest. shell wherein rode the gay and awful down that crag untraversed by other neighbors are urban and modern. Then Olney saw lingering against form of primal Nodens, Lord of the feet. Nor could he talk of these But in Kingsport strange tales the translucent squares of each of the Great Abyss. And the conchs of the matters at all save with the Terrible are abroad, and even the Terrible Old little dim windows in succession a tritons gave weird blasts, and the Old Man, who afterward mumbled Man admits a thing untold by his queer black outline as the caller nereids made strange sounds by queer things in his long white grandfather. For now, when the wind moved inquisitively about before striking on the grotesque resonant beard; vowing that the man who sweeps boisterous out of the north leaving; and he was glad his host had shells of unknown lurkers in black came down from that crag was not past the high ancient house that is not answered the knocking. For there seacaves. Then hoary Nodens reached wholly the man who went up, and one with the firmament, there is are strange objects in the great abyss, forth a wizened hand and helped that somewhere under that gray broken at last that ominous, brooding and the seeker of dreams must take Olney and his host into the vast shell, peaked roof, or amidst inconceiv- silence ever before the bane of care not to stir up or meet the wrong whereat the conchs and the gongs able reaches of that sinister white Kingsport’s maritime cotters. And ones. set up a wild and awesome clamor. mist, there lingered still the lost old folk tell of pleasing voices heard Then the shadows began to And out into the limitless aether spirit of him who was Thomas singing there, and of laughter that gather; first little furtive ones under reeled that fabulous train, the noise Olney. swells with joys beyond earth’s joys; the table, and then bolder ones in the of whose shouting was lost in the And ever since that hour, through and say that at evening the little low dark panelled corners. And the echoes of thunder. dull dragging years of grayness and windows are brighter than formerly. bearded man made enigmatical weariness, the philosopher has They say, too, that the fierce aurora gestures of prayer, and lit tall candles ll night in Kingsport they labored and eaten and slept and done comes oftener to that spot, shining in curiously wrought brass candle- watched that lofty cliff uncomplaining the suitable deeds of blue in the north with visions of sticks. Frequently he would glance at when the storm and the a citizen. Not any more does he long frozen worlds while the crag and the the door as if he expected some one, Amists gave them glimpses of it, and for the magic of farther hills, or sigh cottage hang black and fantastic and at length his glance seemed when toward the small hours the for secrets that peer like green reefs against wild coruscations. And the answered by a singular rapping which little dim windows went dark they from a bottomless sea. The sameness mists of the dawn are thicker, and must have followed some very ancient whispered of dread and disaster. of his days no longer gives him sailors are not quite so sure that all and secret code. This time he did not And Olney’s children and stout sorrow and well-disciplined thoughts the muffled seaward ringing is that even glance through the peep-hole, wife prayed to the bland proper god have grown enough for his imagina- of the solemn buoys. but swung the great oak bar and shot of Baptists, and hoped that the tion. His good wife waxes stouter Worst of all, though, is the shriv- the bolt, unlatching the heavy door traveller would borrow an umbrella and his children older and prosier elling of old fears in the hearts of and flinging it wide to the stars and and rubbers unless the rain stopped and more useful, and he never fails Kingsport’s young men, who grow the mist. by morning. Then dawn swam to smile correctly with pride when prone to listen at night to the north And then to the sound of obscure dripping and mist-wreathed out of the occasion calls for it. In his glance wind’s faint distant sounds. They harmonies there floated into that the sea, and the buoys tolled solemn there is not any restless light, and if swear no harm or pain can inhabit room from the deep all the dreams in vortices of white aether. And at he ever listens for solemn bells or far that high peaked cottage, for in the and memories of earth’s sunken noon elfin horns rang over the elfin horns it is only at night when new voices gladness beats, and with Mighty Ones. And golden flames ocean as Olney, dry and lightfooted, old dreams are wandering. He has them the tinkle of laughter and played about weedy locks, so that climbed down from the cliffs to never seen Kingsport again, for his music. What tales the sea-mists may Olney was dazzled as he did them antique Kingsport with the look of family disliked the funny old houses bring to that haunted and 418 419 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

northernmost pinnacle they do not evilly appropriate crag so close to the know, but they long to extract some gentle hills and valleys of quiet, hint of the wonders that knock at simple fisher folk. This they do not the cliff-yawning door when clouds wish, for to plain people things not are thickest. And patriarchs dread of earth are unwelcome; and besides, lest some day one by one they seek the Terrible Old Man often recalls out that inaccessible peak in the sky, what Olney said about a knock that and learn what centuried secrets hide the lone dweller feared, and a shape beneath the steep shingled roof seen black and inquisitive against the which is part of the rocks and the mist through those queer translucent stars and the ancient fears of windows of leaded bull’s-eyes. Kingsport. That those venturesome All these things, however, the youths will come back they do not Elder Ones only may decide; and doubt, but they think a light may be meanwhile the morning mist still gone from their eyes, and a will from comes up by that lovely vertiginous The SILVER KEY. their hearts. And they do not wish peak with the steep ancient house, quaint Kingsport with its climbing that gray, low-eaved house where [return to table of contents] lanes and archaic gables to drag list- none is seen but where evening less down the years while voice by brings furtive lights while the north voice the laughing chorus grows wind tells of strange revels. White stronger and wilder in that unknown and feathery it comes from the deep hen Randolph Carter they are, and talked with too many and terrible eyrie where mists and to its brothers the clouds, full of was thirty he lost the people. Well-meaning philosophers the dreams of mists stop to rest on dreams of dank pastures and caves key of the gate of had taught him to look into the their way from the sea to the skies. of Leviathan. And when tales fly dreams.W Prior to that time he had logical relations of things, and They do not wish the souls of thick in the grottoes of tritons, and made up for the prosiness of life by analyse the processes which shaped their young men to leave the pleasant conchs in seaweed cities blow wild nightly excursions to strange and his thoughts and fancies. Wonder hearths and gambrel-roofed taverns tunes learned from the Elder Ones, ancient cities beyond space, and had gone away, and he had forgotten of old Kingsport, nor do they wish then great eager vapors flock to lovely, unbelievable garden lands that all life is only a set of pictures the laughter and song in that high heaven laden with lore; and across ethereal seas; but as middle in the brain, among which there is rocky place to grow louder. For as Kingsport, nestling uneasy in its age hardened upon him he felt no difference betwixt those born of the voice which has come has brought lesser cliffs below that awesome those liberties slipping away little real things and those born of inward fresh mists from the sea and from hanging sentinel of rock, sees ocean- by little, until at last he was cut off dreamings, and no cause to value the the north fresh lights, so do they say ward only a mystic whiteness, as if altogether. No more could his one above the other. Custom had that still other voices will bring more the cliff ’s rim were the rim of all galleys sail up the river Oukranos dinned into his ears a superstitious mists and more lights, till perhaps earth, and the solemn bells of the past the gilded spires of Thran, or reverence for that which tangibly the olden gods (whose existence they buoys tolled free in the aether of his elephant caravans tramp and physically exists, and had made hint only in whispers for fear the faery. through perfumed jungles in Kled, him secretly ashamed to dwell in Congregational parson shall hear) where forgotten palaces with visions. Wise men told him his may come out of the deep and from veined ivory columns sleep lovely simple fancies were inane and unknown Kadath in the cold waste and unbroken under the moon. childish, and even more absurd and make their dwelling on that He had read much of things as because their actors persist in 420 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The SILVER KEY

fancying them full of meaning and chalcedony, which he dimly remem- primal race confronting the gods of fear and blind piety for those purpose as the blind cosmos grinds bered from his dreams; and under unknown. It wearied Carter to see of license and anarchy. aimlessly on from nothing to some- their guidance he cultivated a pains- how solemnly people tried to make Carter did not taste deeply of thing and from something back to taking sense of pity and tragedy. earthly reality out of old myths these modern freedoms; for their nothing again, neither heeding nor Once in a while, though, he which every step of their boasted cheapness and squalor sickened a knowing the wishes or existence of could not help seeing how shallow, science confuted, and this misplaced spirit loving beauty alone while his the minds that flicker for a second fickle, and meaningless all human seriousness killed the attachment he reason rebelled at the flimsy logic now and then in the darkness. aspirations are, and how emptily our might have kept for the ancient with which their champions tried to They had chained him down to real impulses contrast with those creeds had they been content to offer gild brute impulse with a sacredness things that are, and had then pompous ideals we profess to hold. the sonorous rites and emotional stripped from the idols they had explained the workings of those Then he would have recourse to the outlets in their true guise of ethereal discarded. He saw that most of them, things till mystery had gone out of polite laughter they had taught him fantasy. in common with their cast-off the world. When he complained, to use against the extravagance and But when he came to study those priestcraft, could not escape from and longed to escape into twilight artificiality of dreams; for he saw who had thrown off the old myths, the delusion that life has a meaning realms where magic moulded all the that the daily life of our world is he found them even more ugly than apart from that which men dream little vivid fragments and prized every inch as extravagant and arti- those who had not. They did not into it; and could not lay aside the associations of his mind into vistas ficial, and far less worthy of respect know that beauty lies in harmony, crude notion of ethics and obliga- of breathless expectancy and because of its poverty in beauty and and that loveliness of life has no tions beyond those of beauty, even unquenchable delight, they turned its silly reluctance to admit its own standard amidst an aimless cosmos when all Nature shrieked of its him instead toward the new-found lack of reason and purpose. In this save only its harmony with the unconsciousness and impersonal prodigies of science, bidding him way he became a kind of humorist, dreams and the feelings which have unmorality in the light of their scien- find wonder in the atom’s vortex and for he did not see that even humour gone before and blindly moulded tific discoveries. Warped and bigoted mystery in the sky’s dimensions. And is empty in a mindless universe our little spheres out of the rest of with preconceived illusions of justice, when he had failed to find these devoid of any true standard of chaos. They did not see that good freedom, and consistency, they cast boons in things whose laws are consistency or inconsistency. and evil and beauty and ugliness are off the old lore and the old way with known and measurable, they told In the first days of his bondage only ornamental fruits of perspective, the old beliefs; nor ever stopped to him he lacked imagination, and was he had turned to the gentle churchly whose sole value lies in their linkage think that that lore and those ways immature because he preferred faith endeared to him by the naïve to what chance made our fathers were the sole makers of their present dream-illusions to the illusions of trust of his fathers, for thence think and feel, and whose finer thoughts and judgments, and the our physical creation. stretched mystic avenues which details are different for every race sole guides and standards in a mean- So Carter had tried to do as seemed to promise escape from life. and culture. Instead, they either ingless universe without fixed aims others did, and pretended that the Only on closer view did he mark the denied these things altogether or or stable points of reference. Having common events and emotions of starved fancy and beauty, the stale transferred them to the crude, vague lost these artificial settings, their lives earthy minds were more important and prosy triteness, and the owlish instincts which they shared with the grew void of direction and dramatic than the fantasies of rare and delicate gravity and grotesque claims of solid beasts and peasants; so that their interest; till at length they strove to souls. He did not dissent when they truth which reigned boresomely and lives were dragged malodorously out drown their ennui in bustle and told him that the animal pain of a overwhelmingly among most of its in pain, ugliness, and disproportion, pretended usefulness, noise and stuck pig or dyspeptic ploughman professors; or feel to the full the yet filled with a ludicrous pride at excitement, barbaric display and in real life is a greater thing than the awkwardness with which it sought having escaped from something no animal sensation. When these things peerless beauty of Narath with its to keep alive as literal fact the more unsound than that which still palled, disappointed, or grew hundred carven gates and domes of outgrown fears and guesses of a held them. They had traded the false nauseous through revulsion, they 422 423 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The SILVER KEY

cultivated irony and bitterness, and his mental life. That is, none but his as dry and inflexible as those of wild-minded ancestor. But these found fault with the social order. grandfather and great-uncle science, yet without even the slender horrors took him only to the edge Never could they realize that their Christopher could, and they were palliative of truth to redeem them. of reality, and were not of the true brute foundations were as shifting long dead. Gross stupidity, falsehood, and dream country he had known in and contradictory as the gods of their Then he began once more the muddled thinking are not dream; youth; so that at fifty he despaired elders, and that the satisfaction of writing of books, which he had left and form no escape from life to a of any rest or contentment in a world one moment is the bane of the next. off when dreams first failed him. But mind trained above their own level. grown too busy for beauty and too Calm, lasting beauty comes only in here, too, was there no satisfaction So Carter bought stranger books and shrewd for dreams. a dream, and this solace the world or fulfillment; for the touch of earth sought out deeper and more terrible Having perceived at last the had thrown away when in its worship was upon his mind, and he could not men of fantastic erudition; delving hollowness and futility of real things, of the real it threw away the secrets think of lovely things as he had done into arcana of consciousness that few Carter spent his days in retirement, of childhood and innocence. of yore. Ironic humor dragged down have trod, and learning things about and in wistful disjointed memories Amidst this chaos of hollowness all the twilight minarets he reared, the secret pits of life, legend, and of his dream-filled youth. He and unrest Carter tried to live as and the earthy fear of improbability immemorial antiquity which thought it rather silly that he both- befitted a man of keen thought and blasted all the delicate and amazing disturbed him ever afterward. He ered to keep on living at all, and got good heritage. With his dreams flowers in his faery gardens. The decided to live on a rarer plane, and from a South American acquain- fading under the ridicule of the age convention of assumed pity spilt furnished his Boston home to suit tance a very curious liquid to take he could not believe in anything, but mawkishness on his characters, while his changing moods; one room for him to oblivion without suffering. the love of harmony kept him close the myth of an important reality and each, hung in appropriate colours, Inertia and force of habit, however, to the ways of his race and station. significant human events and furnished with befitting books and caused him to defer action; and he He walked impassive through the emotions debased all his high fantasy objects, and provided with sources lingered indecisively among thoughts cities of men, and sighed because no into thin-veiled allegory and cheap of the proper sensations of light, of old times, taking down the strange vista seemed fully real; because every social satire. His new were heat, sound, taste, and odour. hangings from his walls and refitting flash of yellow sunlight on tall roofs successful as his old ones had never Once he heard of a man in the the house as it was in his early and every glimpse of balustraded been; and because he knew how south, who was shunned and feared boyhood—purple panes, Victorian plazas in the first lamps of evening empty they must be to please an for the blasphemous things he read furniture, and all. served only to remind him of dreams empty herd, he burned them and in prehistoric books and clay tablets With the passage of time he he had once known, and to make ceased his writing. They were very smuggled from India and Arabia. became almost glad he had lingered, him homesick for ethereal lands he graceful novels, in which he urbanely Him he visited, living with him and for his relics of youth and his cleavage no longer knew how to find. Travel laughed at the dreams he lightly sharing his studies for seven years, from the world made life and sophis- was only a mockery; and even the sketched; but he saw that their till horror overtook them one tication seem very distant and unreal; Great War stirred him but little, sophistication had sapped all their midnight in an unknown and archaic so much so that a touch of magic though he served from the first in life away. graveyard, and only one emerged and expectancy stole back into his the Foreign Legion of France. For a It was after this that he culti- where two had entered. Then he nightly slumbers. For years those while he sought friends, but soon vated deliberate illusion, and dabbled went back to Arkham, the terrible slumbers had known only such grew weary of the crudeness of their in the notions of the bizarre and the witch-haunted old town of his fore- twisted reflections of every-day emotions, and the sameness and eccentric as an antidote for the fathers in New England, and had things as the commonest slumbers earthiness of their visions. He felt commonplace. Most of these, experiences in the dark, amidst the know, but now there returned a vaguely glad that all his relatives were however, soon showed their poverty hoary willows and tottering gambrel flicker of something stranger and distant and out of touch with him, and barrenness; and he saw that the roofs, which made him seal forever wilder; something of vaguely for they would not have understood popular doctrines of occultism are certain pages in the diary of a awesome imminence which took the 424 425 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The SILVER KEY

form of tensely clear pictures from key was indeed only a dim legend, years, and with the mingled wills of that held the old Carter place he had his childhood days, and made him and Randolph Carter’s father had all his fathers were pulling him not seen in over forty years. think of little inconsequential things never known such a box existed. It toward some hidden and ancestral Afternoon was far gone when he he had long forgotten. He would was bound in rusty iron, and no source. Then he knew he must go reached the foot, and at the bend often awake calling for his mother means was provided for working into the past and merge himself with half way up he paused to scan the and grandfather, both in their graves the formidable lock. Carter vaguely old things, and day after day he outspread countryside golden and a quarter of a century. understood that he would find thought of the hills to the north glorified in the slanting floods of Then one night his grandfather within it some key to the lost gate where haunted Arkham and the magic poured out by a western sun. reminded him of the key. The grey of dreams, but of where and how to rushing Miskatonic and the lonely All the strangeness and expectancy old scholar, as vivid as in life, spoke use it his grandfather had told him rustic homestead of his people lay. of his recent dreams seemed present long and earnestly of their ancient nothing. In the brooding fire of autumn in this hushed and unearthly land- line, and of the strange visions of the An old servant forced the carven Carter took the old remembered way scape, and he thought of the delicate and sensitive men who lid, shaking as he did so at the past graceful lines of rolling hill and unknown solitudes of other planets composed it. He spoke of the flame- hideous faces leering from the black- stone-walled meadow, distant vale as his eyes traced out the velvet and eyed Crusader who learnt wild ened wood, and at some unplaced and hanging woodland, curving road deserted lawns shining undulant secrets of the Saracens that held him familiarity. Inside, wrapped in a disc- and nestling farmstead, and the between their tumbled walls, and captive; and of the first Sir Randolph oloured parchment, was a huge key crystal windings of the Miskatonic, clumps of faery forest setting off far Carter who studied magic when of tarnished silver covered with cryp- crossed here and there by rustic lines of purple hills beyond hills, and Elizabeth was queen. He spoke, too, tical arabesques; but of any legible bridges of wood or stone. At one the spectral wooded valley dipping of that Edmund Carter who had just explanation there was none. The bend he saw the group of giant elms down in shadow to dank hollows escaped hanging in the Salem witch- parchment was voluminous, and held among which an ancestor had oddly where trickling waters crooned and craft, and who had placed in an only the strange hieroglyphs of an vanished a century and a half before, gurgled among swollen and distorted antique box a great silver key handed unknown tongue written with an and shuddered as the wind blew roots. down from his ancestors. Before antique reed. Carter recognized the meaningly through them. Then there Something made him feel that Carter awaked, the gentle visitant characters as those he had seen on was the crumbling farmhouse of old motors did not belong in the realm had told him where to find that box; a certain papyrus scroll belonging to Goody Fowler the witch, with its he was seeking, so he left his car at that carved oak box of archaic that terrible scholar of the South little evil windows and great roof the edge of the forest, and putting wonder whose grotesque lid no hand who had vanished one midnight in sloping nearly to the ground on the the great key in his coat pocket had raised for two centuries. a nameless cemetery. The man had north side. He speeded up his car as walked on up the hill. Woods now always shivered when he read this he passed it, and did not slacken till engulfed him utterly, though he n the dust and shadows of the scroll, and Carter shivered now. he had mounted the hill where his knew the house was on a high knoll great attic he found it, remote But he cleaned the key, and kept mother and her fathers before her that cleared the trees except to the and forgotten at the back of a it by him nightly in its aromatic box were born, and where the old white north. He wondered how it would drawerI in a tall chest. It was about of ancient oak. His dreams were house still looked proudly across the look, for it had been left vacant and a foot square, and its Gothic carv- meanwhile increasing in vividness, road at the breathlessly lovely untended through his neglect since ings were so fearful that he did not and though showing him none of panorama of rocky slope and verdant the death of his strange great-uncle marvel no person since Edmund the strange cities and incredible valley, with the distant spires of Christopher thirty years before. In Carter had dared to open it. It gave gardens of the old days, were Kingsport on the horizon, and hints his boyhood he had revelled through forth no noise when shaken, but assuming a definite cast whose of the archaic, dream-laden sea in long visits there, and had found was mystic with the scent of unre- purpose could not be mistaken. They the farthest background. weird marvels in the woods beyond membered spices. That it held a were calling him back along the Then came the steeper slope the orchard. 426 427 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The SILVER KEY

Shadows thickened around him, a-settin’ moonin’ raound that A swaying lantern came around the upper timberlot if Uncle Chris for the night was near. Once a gap snake-den in the upper timberlot!… the black bend, and old Benijah had not caught him and forced him in the trees opened up to the right, Hey yew, Ran… dee!” pounced on the silent and bewil- into his chair by the breakfast table. so that he saw off across leagues of Randolph Carter stopped in the dered form of the pilgrim. He looked impatiently around the twilight meadow and spied the old pitch darkness and rubbed his hand “Durn ye, boy, so thar ye be! low-pitched room with the rag Congregational steeple on Central across his eyes. Something was queer. Ain’t ye got a tongue in yer head, carpet and exposed beams and Hill in Kingsport; pink with the last He had been somewhere he ought that ye can’t answer a body! I ben corner-posts, and smiled only when flush of day, the panes of the little not to be; had strayed very far away callin’ this haff hour, an’ ye must a the orchard boughs scratched at the round windows blazing with to places where he had not belonged, heerd me long ago! Dun’t ye know leaded panes of the rear window. The reflected fire. Then, when he was in and was now inexcusably late. He yer Aunt Marthy’s all a-fidget over trees and the hills were close to him, deep shadow again, he recalled with had not noticed the time on the yer bein’ off arter dark? Wait till I and formed the gates of that timeless a start that the glimpse must have Kingsport steeple, though he could tell yer Uncle Chris when he gits realm which was his true country. come from childish memory alone, easily have made it out with his hum! Ye’d orta know these here Then, when he was free, he felt since the old white church had long pocket telescope; but he knew his woods ain’t no fitten place to be in his blouse pocket for the key; and been torn down to make room for lateness was something very strange traipsin’ this hour! They’s things being reassured, skipped off across the Congregational Hospital. He and unprecedented. He was not sure abroad what dun’t do nobody no the orchard to the rise beyond, where had read of it with interest, for the he had his little telescope with him, good, as my gran’-sir knowed afur the wooded hill climbed again to paper had told about some strange and put his hand in his blouse pocket me. Come, Mister Randy, or Hannah heights above even the treeless knoll. burrows or passages found in the to see. No, it was not there, but there wunt keep supper no longer!” The floor of the forest was mossy rocky hill beneath. was the big silver key he had found So Randolph Carter was and mysterious, and great lichened Through his puzzlement a voice in a box somewhere. Uncle Chris marched up the road where rocks rose vaguely here and there in piped, and he started again at its had told him something odd once wondering stars glimmered through the dim light like Druid monoliths familiarity after long years. Old about an old unopened box with a high autumn boughs. And dogs among the swollen and twisted Benijah Corey had been his Uncle key in it, but Aunt Martha had barked as the yellow light of small- trunks of a sacred grove. Once in his Christopher’s hired man, and was stopped the story abruptly, saying it paned windows shone out at the ascent Randolph crossed a rushing aged even in those far-off times of was no kind of thing to tell a child farther turn, and the Pleiades twin- stream whose falls a little way off his boyhood visits. Now he must be whose head was already too full of kled across the open knoll where a sang runic incantations to the lurking well over a hundred, but that piping queer fancies. He tried to recall just great gambrel roof stood black fauns and aegipans and dryads. voice could come from no one else. where he had found the key, but against the dim west. Aunt Martha Then he came to the strange He could distinguish no words, yet something seemed very confused. was in the doorway, and did not scold cave in the forest slope, the dreaded the tone was haunting and unmis- He guessed it was in the attic at too hard when Benijah shoved the “snake-den” which country folk takable. To think that “Old Benijy” home in Boston, and dimly remem- truant in. She knew Uncle Chris well shunned, and away from which should still be alive! bered bribing Parks with half his enough to expect such things of the Benijah had warned him again and “Mister Randy! Mister Randy! week’s allowance to help him open Carter blood. Randolph did not again. It was deep; far deeper than Wharbe ye? D’ye want to skeer yer the box and keep quiet about it; but show his key, but ate his supper in anyone but Randolph suspected, for Aunt Marthy plumb to death? Hain’t when he remembered this, the face silence and protested only when the boy had found a fissure in the she tuld ye to keep nigh the place in of Parks came up very strangely, as bedtime came. He sometimes farthermost black corner that led to the arternoon an’ git back afur dark? if the wrinkles of long years had dreamed better when awake, and he a loftier grotto beyond—a haunting Randy! Ran… dee!… He’s the fallen upon the brisk little Cockney. wanted to use that key. sepulchral place whose granite walls beatin’est boy fer runnin’ off in the “Ran… dee! Ran… dee! Hi! Hi! In the morning Randolph was held a curious illusion of conscious woods I ever see; haff the time Randy!” up early, and would have run off to artifice. On this occasion he crawled 428 429 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The SILVER KEY

in as usual, lighting his way with Carter had years before let fall whose characters no linguist or their singular labyrinths, and I matches filched from the sitting- some careless word of undoubted palaeographer has been able to deci- believe I know how to interpret this room matchsafe, and edging through connection with what was then far pher or identify. Rain had long rumour. Certainly, I look forward the final crevice with an eagerness in the future. He did not himself effaced any possible footprints, impatiently to the sight of that great hard to explain even to himself. He understand these words, or know though Boston investigators had silver key, for in its cryptical could not tell why he approached why certain things made him feel something to say about evidences arabesques there may stand symbol- the farther wall so confidently, or certain emotions; but fancied that of disturbances among the fallen ised all the aims and mysteries of a why he instinctively drew forth the some unremembered dream must timbers of the Carter place. It was, blindly impersonal cosmos. great silver key as he did so. But on be responsible. It was as early as they averred, as though someone he went, and when he danced back 1897 that he turned pale when had groped about the ruins at no to the house that night he offered some traveller mentioned the distant period. A common white no excuses for his lateness, nor French town of Belloy-en-Santerre, handkerchief found among forest heeded in the least the reproofs he and friends remembered it when rocks on the hillside beyond cannot gained for ignoring the noon-tide he was almost mortally wounded be identified as belonging to the dinner-horn altogether. there in 1916, while serving with missing man. the Foreign Legion in the Great There is talk of apportioning ow it is agreed by all the War. Randolph Carter’s estate among his distant relatives of Carter’s relatives talk much of heirs, but I shall stand firmly against Randolph Carter that these things because he has lately this course because I do not believe somethingN occurred to heighten disappeared. His little old servant he is dead. There are twists of time his imagination in his tenth year. Parks, who for years bore patiently and space, of vision and reality, His cousin, Ernest B. Aspinwall, with his vagaries, last saw him on which only a dreamer can divine; Esq., of Chicago, is fully ten years the morning he drove off alone in and from what I know of Carter I his senior; and distinctly recalls a his car with a key he had recently think he has merely found a way to change in the boy after the autumn found. Parks had helped him get the traverse these mazes. Whether or of 1883. Randolph had looked on key from the old box containing it, not he will ever come back, I cannot scenes of fantasy that few others and had felt strangely affected by say. He wanted the lands of dream can ever have beheld, and stranger the grotesque carvings on the box, he had lost, and yearned for the days still were some of the qualities and by some other odd quality he of his childhood. Then he found a which he showed in relation to very could not name. When Carter left, key, and I somehow believe he was mundane things. He seemed, in he had said he was going to visit his able to use it to strange advantage. fine, to have picked up an odd gift old ancestral country around I shall ask him when I see him, of prophecy; and reacted unusually Arkham. for I expect to meet him shortly in to things which, though at the time Half way up Elm Mountain, on a certain dream-city we both used without meaning, were later found the way to the ruins of the old to haunt. It is rumoured in Ulthar, to justify the singular impressions. Carter place, they found his motor beyond the River Skai, that a new In subsequent decades as new set carefully by the roadside; and in king reigns on the opal throne of inventions, new names, and new it was a box of fragrant wood with Ilek-Vad, that fabulous town of events appeared one by one in the carvings that frightened the coun- turrets atop the hollow cliffs of glass book of history, people would now trymen who stumbled on it. The overlooking the twilight sea wherein and then recall wonderingly how box held only a queer parchment the bearded and finny Gnorri build 430 431

The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH.

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hree times Randolph hung about it as clouds about a Carter dreamed of the fabulous unvisited mountain; and marvelous city, and three as Carter stood breathless and Ttimes was he snatched away while expectant on that balustraded still he paused on the high terrace parapet there swept up to him the above it. All golden and lovely it poignancy and suspense of blazed in the sunset, with walls, almost-vanished memory, the pain temples, colonnades and arched of lost things and the maddening bridges of veined marble, silver-bas- need to place again what once had ined fountains of prismatic spray in been an awesome and momentous broad squares and perfumed place. gardens, and wide streets marching He knew that for him its between delicate trees and blos- meaning must once have been som-laden urns and ivory statues in supreme; though in what cycle or gleaming rows; while on steep incarnation he had known it, or northward slopes climbed tiers of whether in dream or in waking, he red roofs and old peaked gables could not tell. Vaguely it called up harbouring little lanes of grassy glimpses of a far forgotten first cobbles. It was a fever of the gods, a youth, when wonder and pleasure fanfare of supernal trumpets and a lay in all the mystery of days, and clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery dawn and dusk alike strode forth H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

prophetic to the eager sound of lutes At length, sick with longing for final peril which gibbers unmention- wood, whose low prodigious oaks and song, unclosing fiery gates those glittering sunset streets and ably outside the ordered universe, twine groping boughs and shine dim toward further and surprising cryptical hill lanes among ancient where no dreams reach; that last with the phosphorescence of strange marvels. But each night as he stood tiled roofs, nor able sleeping or amorphous blight of nethermost fungi, dwell the furtive and secretive on that high marble terrace with the waking to drive them from his mind, confusion which blasphemes and Zoogs; who know many obscure curious urns and carven rail and Carter resolved to go with bold bubbles at the centre of all infinity— secrets of the dream world and a few looked off over that hushed sunset entreaty whither no man had gone the boundless daemon sultan of the waking world, since the wood city of beauty and unearthly imma- before, and dare the icy deserts , whose name no lips dare at two places touches the lands of nence he felt the bondage of dream’s through the dark to where unknown speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily men, though it would be disastrous tyrannous gods; for in no wise could Kadath, veiled in cloud and crowned in inconceivable, unlighted chambers to say where. Certain unexplained he leave that lofty spot, or descend with unimagined stars, holds secret beyond time amidst the muffled, rumours, events, and vanishments the wide marmoreal flights flung and nocturnal the onyx castle of the maddening beating of vile drums occur among men where the Zoogs endlessly down to where those Great Ones. and the thin, monotonous whine of have access, and it is well that they streets of elder witchery lay outspread In light slumber he descended accursed flutes; to which detestable cannot travel far outside the world and beckoning. the seventy steps to the cavern of pounding and piping dance slowly, of dreams. But over the nearer parts When for the third time he flame and talked of this design to awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic of the dream world they pass freely, awakened with those flights still the bearded priests of Nasht and Ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, flitting small and brown and unseen undescended and those hushed Kaman-Thah. And the priests shook tenebrous, mindless Other gods and bearing back piquant tales to sunset streets still untraversed, he their pshent-bearing heads and whose soul and messenger is the beguile the hours around their prayed long and earnestly to the vowed it would be the death of his crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. hearths in the forest they love. Most hidden gods of dream that brood soul. They pointed out that the Great Of these things was Carter of them live in burrows, but some capricious above the clouds on Ones had shown already their wish, warned by the priests Nasht and inhabit the trunks of the great trees; unknown Kadath, in the cold waste and that it is not agreeable to them Kaman-Thah in the cavern of flame, and although they live mostly on where no man treads. But the gods to be harassed by insistent pleas. but still he resolved to find the gods fungi it is muttered that they have made no answer and shewed no They reminded him, too, that not on unknown Kadath in the cold also a slight taste for meat, either relenting, nor did they give any only had no man ever been to waste, wherever that might be, and physical or spiritual, for certainly favouring sign when he prayed to Kadath, but no man had ever to win from them the sight and many dreamers have entered that them in dream, and invoked them suspected in what part of space it remembrance and shelter of the wood who have not come out. Carter, sacrificially through the bearded may lie; whether it be in the dream- marvellous sunset city. He knew that however, had no fear; for he was an priests of Nasht and Kaman-Thah, lands around our own world, or in his journey would be strange and old dreamer and had learnt their whose cavern-temple with its pillar those surrounding some unguessed long, and that the Great Ones would fluttering language and made many of flame lies not far from the gates companion of Fomalhaut or be against it; but being old in the a treaty with them; having found of the waking world. It seemed, Aldebaran. If in our dreamland, it land of dream he counted on many through their help the splendid city however, that his prayers must have might conceivably be reached, but useful memories and devices to aid of Celephaïs in Ooth-Nargai beyond been adversely heard, for after even only three human souls since time him. So asking a formal blessing of the Tanarian Hills, where reigns half the first of them he ceased wholly began had ever crossed and recrossed the priests and thinking shrewdly the year the great King Kuranes, a to behold the marvellous city; as if the black impious gulfs to other on his course, he boldly descended man he had known by another name his three glimpses from afar had dreamlands, and of that three, two the seven hundred steps to the Gate in life. Kuranes was the one soul who been mere accidents or oversights, had come back quite mad. There of Deeper Slumber and set out had been to the star-gulfs and and against some hidden plan or were, in such voyages, incalculable through the Enchanted Wood. returned free from madness. wish of the gods. local dangers; as well as that shocking In the tunnels of that twisted Threading now the low 434 435 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

phosphorescent aisles between those others, which had grown from a seed and set out through the phospho- the edge of the wood, and the gigantic trunks, Carter made flut- dropt down by someone on the rescent wood for the other side, strengthening glow told him it was tering sounds in the manner of the moon; and as Carter drank it cere- where the rushing Skai flows down the twilight of morning. Over fertile Zoogs, and listened now and then moniously a very strange colloquy from the slopes of Lerion, and plains rolling down to the Skai he for responses. He remembered one began. The Zoogs did not, unfortu- Hatheg and Nir and Ulthar dot the saw the smoke of cottage chimneys, particular village of the creatures was nately, know where the peak of plain. Behind him, furtive and and on every hand were the hedges in the centre of the wood, where a Kadath lies, nor could they even say unseen, crept several of the curious and ploughed fields and thatched circle of great mossy stones in what whether the cold waste is in our Zoogs; for they wished to learn what roofs of a peaceful land. Once he was once a clearing tells of older and dream world or in another. Rumours might befall him, and bear back the stopped at a farmhouse well for a more terrible dwellers long forgotten, of the Great Ones came equally from legend to their people. The vast oaks cup of water, and all the dogs barked and toward this spot he hastened. all points; and one might only say grew thicker as he pushed on beyond affrightedly at the inconspicuous He traced his way by the grotesque that they were likelier to be seen on the village, and he looked sharply Zoogs that crept through the grass fungi, which always seem better high mountain peaks than in valleys, for a certain spot where they would behind. At another house, where nourished as one approaches the since on such peaks they dance remi- thin somewhat, standing quite dead people were stirring, he asked ques- dread circle where elder beings niscently when the moon is above or dying among the unnaturally tions about the gods, and whether danced and sacrificed. Finally the and the clouds beneath. dense fungi and the rotting mould they danced often upon Lerion; but great light of those thicker fungi Then one very ancient Zoog and mushy logs of their fallen the farmer and his wife would only revealed a sinister green and grey recalled a thing unheard-of by the brothers. There he would turn make the Elder Sign and tell him vastness pushing up through the roof others; and said that in Ulthar, sharply aside, for at that spot a the way to Nir and Ulthar. of the forest and out of sight. This beyond the River Skai, there still mighty slab of stone rests on the At noon he walked through the was the nearest of the great ring of lingered the last copy of those incon- forest floor; and those who have one broad high street of Nir, which stones, and Carter knew he was close ceivably old Pnakotic Manuscripts dared approach it say that it bears he had once visited and which to the Zoog village. Renewing his made by waking men in forgotten an iron ring three feet wide. marked his farthest former travels fluttering sound, he waited patiently; boreal kingdoms and borne into the Remembering the archaic circle of in this direction; and soon afterward and was at last rewarded by an land of dreams when the hairy great mossy rocks, and what it was he came to the great stone bridge impression of many eyes watching cannibal Gnophkehs overcame possibly set up for, the Zoogs do not across the Skai, into whose central him. It was the Zoogs, for one sees many-templed Olathoe and slew all pause near that expansive slab with piece the masons had sealed a living their weird eyes long before one can the heroes of the land of Lomar. its huge ring; for they realise that all human sacrifice when they built it discern their small, slippery brown Those manuscripts he said, told which is forgotten need not neces- thirteen-hundred years before. Once outlines. much of the gods, and besides, in sarily be dead, and they would not on the other side, the frequent pres- Out they swarmed, from hidden Ulthar there were men who had seen like to see the slab rise slowly and ence of cats (who all arched their burrow and honeycombed tree, till the signs of the gods, and even one deliberately. backs at the trailing Zoogs) revealed the whole dim-litten region was alive old priest who had scaled a great Carter detoured at the proper the near neighborhood of Ulthar; with them. Some of the wilder ones mountain to behold them dancing place, and heard behind him the for in Ulthar, according to an ancient brushed Carter unpleasantly, and by moonlight. He had failed, though frightened fluttering of some of the and significant law, no man may kill one even nipped loathsomely at his his companion had succeeded and more timid Zoogs. He had known a cat. Very pleasant were the suburbs ear; but these lawless spirits were perished namelessly. they would follow him, so he was of Ulthar, with their little green soon restrained by their elders. The So Randolph Carter thanked not disturbed; for one grows accus- cottages and neatly fenced farms; Council of Sages, recognizing the the Zoogs, who fluttered amicably tomed to the anomalies of these and still pleasanter was the quaint visitor, offered a gourd of fermented and gave him another gourd of prying creatures. town itself, with its old peaked roofs sap from a haunted tree unlike the moon-tree wine to take with him, It was twilight when he came to and overhanging upper stories and 436 437 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

numberless chimney-pots and by the Other Gods from Outside, talkative. Robbed of his reserve, poor parentage, for the gods so dislike to narrow hill streets where one can see whom it is better not to discuss. At Atal babbled freely of forbidden be known among men that none can old cobbles whenever the graceful least twice in the world’s history the things; telling of a great image be found who has seen their faces cats afford space enough. Carter, the Other Gods set their seal upon reported by travellers as carved on wittingly; a thing which Carter real- cats being somewhat dispersed by Earth’s primal granite; once in ante- the solid rock of the mountain ized even as he sought to scale the half-seen Zoogs, picked his way diluvian times, as guessed from a Ngranek, on the isle of Oriab in the Kadath. But they would have queer directly to the modest Temple of the drawing in those parts of the Southern Sea, and hinting that it lofty thoughts misunderstood by Elder Ones where the priests and Pnakotic Manuscripts too ancient may be a likeness which Earth’s gods their fellows, and would sing of far old records were said to be; and once to be read, and once on Hatheg-Kla once wrought of their own features places and gardens so unlike any within that venerable circular tower when Barzai the Wise tried to see in the days when they danced by known even in the dreamland that of ivied stone—which crowns Earth’s gods dancing by moonlight. moonlight on that mountain. And common folk would call them fools; Ulthar’s highest hill—he sought out So, Atal said, it would be much better he hiccoughed likewise that the and from all this one could perhaps the patriarch Atal, who had been up to let all gods alone except in tactful features of that image are very learn old secrets of Kadath, or gain the forbidden peak Hatheg-Kla in prayers. strange, so that one might easily hints of the marvellous sunset city the stony desert and had come down Carter, though disappointed by recognize them, and that they are which the gods held secret. And again alive. Atal’s discouraging advice and by sure signs of the authentic race of more, one might in certain cases Atal, seated on an ivory dais in the meagre help to be found in the the gods. seize some well-loved child of a god a festooned shrine at the top of the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Now the use of all this in finding as hostage; or even capture some temple, was fully three centuries old; Cryptical Books of Hsan, did not the gods became at once apparent young god himself, disguised and but still very keen of mind and wholly despair. First he questioned to Carter. It is known that in disguise dwelling amongst men with a comely memory. From him Carter learned the old priest about that marvellous the younger among the Great Ones peasant maiden as his bride. many things about the gods, but sunset city seen from the railed often espouse the daughters of men, Atal, however, did not know how mainly that they are indeed only terrace, thinking that perhaps he so that around the borders of the to find Ngranek on its isle of Oriab; Earth’s gods, ruling feebly our own might find it without the gods’ aid; cold waste wherein stands Kadath and recommended that Carter follow dreamland and having no power or but Atal could tell him nothing. the peasants must all bear their the singing Skai under its bridges habitation elsewhere. They might, Probably, Atal said, the place blood. This being so, the way to find down to the Southern Sea; where Atal said, heed a man’s prayer if in belonged to his especial dream world that waste must be to see the stone no burgess of Ulthar has ever been, good humour; but one must not and not to the general land of vision face on Ngranek and mark the but whence the merchants come in think of climbing to their onyx that many know; and conceivably it features; then, having noted them boats or with long caravans of mules stronghold atop Kadath in the cold might be on another planet. In that with care, to search for such features and two-wheeled carts. There is a waste. It was lucky that no man knew case Earth’s gods could not guide among living men. Where they are great city there, Dylath-Leen, but where Kadath towers, for the fruits him if they would. But this was not plainest and thickest, there must the in Ulthar its reputation is bad of ascending it would be very grave. likely, since the stopping of the gods dwell nearest; and whatever because of the black three-banked Atal’s companion Barzai the Wise dreams shewed pretty clearly that it stony waste lies back of the villages galleys that sail to it with rubies from had been drawn screaming into the was something the Great Ones in that place must be that wherein no clearly named shore. The traders sky for climbing merely the known wished to hide from him. stands Kadath. that come from those galleys to deal peak of Hatheg-Kla. With unknown Then Carter did a wicked thing, Much of the Great Ones might with the jewellers are human, or Kadath, if ever found, matters would offering his guileless host so many be learnt in such regions, and those nearly so, but the rowers are never be much worse; for although Earth’s draughts of the moon-wine which with their blood might inherit little beheld; and it is not thought whole- gods may sometimes be surpassed the Zoogs had given him that the memories very useful to a seeker. some in Ulthar that merchants by a wise mortal, they are protected old man became irresponsibly They might not know their should trade with black ships from 438 439 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

unknown places whose rowers goading one onward toward boatmen’s songs came from the unknown shore, and the townsfolk cannot be exhibited. unknown perils. Then twilight fell, placid river. The country was very dreaded to see it dock. The mouths By the time he had given this and the pink walls of the plastered beautiful, with green hedges and of the men who came from it to trade information Atal was very drowsy, gables turned violet and mystic, and groves and picturesque peaked were too wide, and the way their and Carter laid him gently on a little yellow lights floated up one by cottages and octagonal windmills. turbans were humped up in two couch of inlaid ebony and gathered one from old lattice windows. And On the seventh day a blur of points above their foreheads was in his long beard decorously on his sweet bells pealed in the temple smoke rose on the horizon ahead, especially bad taste. And their shoes chest. As he turned to go, he observed tower above, and the first star winked and then the tall black towers of were the shortest and queerest ever that no suppressed fluttering softly above the meadows across the Dylath-Leen, which is built mostly seen in the Six Kingdoms. But worst followed him, and wondered why Skai. With the night came song, and of basalt. Dylath-Leen with its thin of all was the matter of the unseen the Zoogs had become so lax in their Carter nodded as the lutanists angular towers looks in the distance rowers. Those three banks of oars curious pursuit. Then he noticed all praised ancient days from beyond like a bit of the Giant’s Causeway, moved too briskly and accurately the sleek complacent cats of Ulthar the filigreed balconies and tesselated and its streets are dark and unin- and vigorously to be comfortable, licking their chops with unusual courts of simple Ulthar. And there viting. There are many dismal and it was not right for a ship to stay gusto, and recalled the spitting and might have been sweetness even in sea-taverns near the myriad wharves, in port for weeks while the merchants caterwauling he had faintly heard, the voices of Ulthar’s many cats, but and all the town is thronged with traded, yet to give no glimpse of its in lower parts of the temple while that they were mostly heavy and the strange seamen of every land on crew. It was not fair to the tavern- absorbed in the old priest’s conver- silent from strange feasting. Some earth and of a few which are said to keepers of Dylath-Leen, or to the sation. He recalled, too, the evilly of them stole off to those cryptical be not on earth. Carter questioned grocers and butchers, either; for not hungry way in which an especially realms which are known only to cats the oddly robed men of that city a scrap of provisions was ever sent impudent young Zoog had regarded and which villagers say are on the about the peak of Ngranek on the aboard. The merchants took only a small black kitten in the cobbled moon’s dark side, whither the cats isle of Oriab, and found that they gold and stout black slaves from Parg street outside. And because he loved leap from tall housetops, but one knew of it well. across the river. That was all they nothing on earth more than small small black kitten crept upstairs and Ships came from Baharna on ever took, those unpleasantly black kittens, he stooped and petted sprang in Carter’s lap to purr and that island, one being due to return featured merchants and their unseen the sleek cats of Ulthar as they licked play, and curled up near his feet when thither in only a month, and Ngranek rowers; never anything from the their chops, and did not mourn he lay down at last on the little couch is but two days’ zebra-ride from that butchers and grocers, but only gold because those inquisitive Zoogs whose pillows were stuffed with port. But few had seen the stone face and the fat black men of Parg whom would escort him no farther. fragrant, drowsy herbs. of the god, because it is on a very they bought by the pound. And the It was sunset now, so Carter difficult side of Ngranek, which odours from those galleys which the stopped at an ancient inn on a steep n the morning Carter joined a overlooks only sheer crags and a south wind blew in from the wharves little street overlooking the lower caravan of merchants bound valley of sinister lava. Once the gods are not to be described. Only by town. And as he went out on the for Dylath-Leen with the spun were angered with men on that side, constantly smoking strong thagweed balcony of his room and gazed down woolI of Ulthar and the cabbages of and spoke of the matter to the Other could even the hardiest denizen of at the sea of red tiled roofs and Ulthar’s busy farms. And for six Gods. the old sea-taverns bear them. cobbled ways and the pleasant fields days they rode with tinkling bells It was hard to get this informa- Dylath-Leen would never have beyond, all mellow and magical in on the smooth road beside the tion from the traders and sailors in tolerated the black galleys had such the slanted light, he swore that Skai; stopping some nights at the Dylath-Leen’s sea taverns, because rubies been obtainable elsewhere, Ulthar would be a very likely place inns of little quaint fishing towns, they mostly preferred to whisper of but no mine in all Earth’s dreamland to dwell in always, were not the and on other nights camping under the black galleys. One of them was was known to produce their like. memory of a greater sunset city ever the stars while snatches of due in a week with rubies from its Of these things Dylath-Leen’s 440 441 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

cosmopolitan folk chiefly gossiped merchants with humped turbans and last thing he saw was that dark strokes of those unseen rowers below. whilst Carter waited patiently for short feet clumped steathily ashore odious face convulsed with evil And before the day was done Carter the ship from Baharna, which might to seek the bazaars of the jewellers. laughter and something quite saw that the steersman could have bear him to the isle whereon carven Carter observed them closely, and unspeakable where one of the two no other goal than the Basalt Pillars Ngranek towers lofty and barren. disliked them more the longer he frontal puffs of that orange turban of the West, beyond which simple Meanwhile he did not fail to seek looked at them. Then he saw them had become disarranged with the folk say splendid Cathuria lies, but through the haunts of far travellers drive the stout black men of Parg up shakings of that epileptic mirth. which wise dreamers well know are for any tales they might have the gangplank grunting and sweating the gates of a monstrous cataract concerning Kadath in the cold waste into that singular galley, and arter next had conscious- wherein the oceans of earth’s dream- or a marvellous city of marble walls wondered in what lands—or if in ness amidst horrible land drop wholly to abysmal noth- and silver fountains seen below any lands at all—those fat pathetic odours beneath a tent-like ingness and shoot through the empty terraces in the sunset. Of these creatures might be destined to serve. Cawning on the deck of a ship, with spaces toward other worlds and other things, however, he learned nothing; And on the third evening of that the marvellous coasts of the stars and the awful voids outside the though he once thought that a galley’s stay one of the uncomfort- Southern Sea flying by in unnat- ordered universe where the daemon certain old slant-eyed merchant able merchants spoke to him, ural swiftness. He was not chained, sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in looked queerly intelligent when the smirking sinfully and hinting of what but three of the dark sardonic chaos amid pounding and piping cold waste was spoken of. This man he had heard in the taverns of merchants stood grinning nearby, and the hellish dancing of the Other was reputed to trade with the Carter’s quest. He appeared to have and the sight of those humps in Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and horrible stone villages on the icy knowledge too secret for public their turbans made him almost as mindless, with their soul and desert plateau of Leng, which no telling; and although the sound of faint as did the stench that filtered messenger Nyarlathotep. healthy folk visit and whose evil fires his voice was unbearably hateful, up through the sinister hatches. He Meanwhile the three sardonic are seen at night from afar. He was Carter felt that the lore of so far a saw slip past him the glorious lands merchants would give no word of even rumoured to have dealt with traveller must not be overlooked. He and cities of which a fellow- their intent, though Carter well that High-Priest Not To Be bade him therefore be his guest in dreamer of earth—a light- knew that they must be leagued with Described, which wears a yellow locked chambers above, and drew house-keeper in ancient those who wished to hold him from silken mask over its face and dwells out the last of the Zoogs’ moon-wine Kingsport—had often discoursed his quest. It is understood in the all alone in a prehistoric stone to loosen his tongue. The strange in the old days, and recognized the land of dream that the Other Gods monastery. That such a person might merchant drank heavily, but smirked templed terraces of Zak, abode of have many agents moving among well have had nibbling traffick with unchanged by the draught. Then he forgotten dreams; the spires of men; and all these agents, whether such beings as may conceivably dwell drew forth a curious bottle with wine infamous Thalarion, that daemon- wholly human or slightly less than in the cold waste was not to be of his own, and Carter saw that the city of a thousand wonders where human, are eager to work the will doubted, but Carter soon found that bottle was a single hollowed ruby, the eidolon Lathi reigns; the of those blind and mindless things it was no use questioning him. grotesquely carved in patterns too charnel gardens of Zura, land of in return for the favour of their Then the black galley slipped fabulous to be comprehended. He pleasures unattained, and the twin hideous soul and messenger, the into the harbour past the basalt wale offered his wine to his host, and headlands of crystal, meeting above crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. So and the tall lighthouse, silent and though Carter took only the least in a resplendent arch, which guard Carter inferred that the merchants alien, and with a strange stench that sip, he felt the dizziness of space and the harbour of Sona-Nyl, blessed of the humped turbans, hearing of the south wind drove into the town. the fever of unimagined jungles. All land of fancy. his daring search for the Great Ones Uneasiness rustled through the the while the guest had been smiling Past all these gorgeous lands the in their castle of Kadath, had decided taverns along that waterfront, and more and more broadly, and as malodourous ship flew unwhole- to take him away and deliver him to after a while the dark wide-mouthed Carter slipped into blankness the somely, urged by the abnormal Nyarlathotep for whatever nameless 442 443 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

bounty might be offered for such a of the brink. Then with a queer columns there seemed to be some mourned the folly which had made prize. What might be the land of whistle and plunge the leap was dark and inner meaning which did him sip the curious wine of that those merchants in our known taken, and Carter felt the terrors of not invite solution. And what the merchant with the humped turban. universe or in the eldritch spaces nightmare as earth fell away and the structure and proportions of the As the coast drew nearer, and the outside, Carter could not guess; nor great boat shot silent and comet-like olden worshippers could have been, hideous stench of that city grew could he imagine at what hellish into planetary space. Never before Carter steadily refused to stronger, he saw upon the jagged trysting-place they would meet the had he known what shapeless black conjecture. hills many forests, some of whose crawling chaos to give him up and things lurk and caper and flounder When the ship rounded the trees he recognized as akin to that claim their reward. He knew, all through the aether, leering and edge, and sailed over those lands solitary moon-tree in the enchanted however, that no beings as nearly grinning at such voyagers as may unseen by man, there appeared in wood of earth, from whose sap the human as these would dare approach pass, and sometimes feeling about the queer landscape certain signs of small brown Zoogs ferment their the ultimate nighted throne of the with slimy paws when some moving life, and Carter saw many low, broad, curious wine. daemon Azathoth in the formless object excites their curiosity. These round cottages in fields of grotesque Carter could now distinguish central void. are the nameless larvae of the Other whitish fungi. He noticed that these moving figures on the noisome At the set of sun the merchants Gods, and like them are blind and cottages had no windows, and wharves ahead, and the better he saw licked their excessively wide lips and without mind, and possessed of thought that their shape suggested them the worse he began to fear and glared hungrily and one of them singular hungers and thirsts. the huts of Esquimaux. Then he detest them. For they were not men went below and returned from some But that offensive galley did not glimpsed the oily waves of a sluggish at all, or even approximately men, hidden and offensive cabin with a aim as far as Carter had feared, for sea, and knew that the voyage was but great greyish-white slippery pot and basket of plates. Then they he soon saw that the helmsman was once more to be by water—or at least things which could expand and squatted close together beneath the steering a course directly for the through some liquid. The galley contract at will, and whose principal awning and ate the smoking meat moon. The moon was a crescent struck the surface with a peculiar shape—though it often changed— that was passed around. But when shining larger and larger as they sound, and the odd elastic way the was that of a sort of toad without they gave Carter a portion, he found approached it, and shewing its waves received it was very perplexing any eyes, but with a curious vibrating something very terrible in the size singular craters and peaks uncom- to Carter. mass of short pink tentacles on the and shape of it; so that he turned fortably. The ship made for the edge, They now slid along at great end of its blunt, vague snout. These even paler than before and cast that and it soon became clear that its speed, once passing and hailing objects were waddling busily about portion into the sea when no eye destination was that secret and another galley of kindred form, but the wharves, moving bales and crates was on him. And again he thought mysterious side which is always generally seeing nothing but that and boxes with preternatural of those unseen rowers beneath, and turned away from earth, and which curious sea and a sky that was black strength, and now and then hopping of the suspicious nourishment from no fully human person, save perhaps and star-strewn even though the sun on or off some anchored galley with which their far too mechanical the dreamer Snireth-Ko, has ever shone scorchingly in it. long oars in their forepaws. And now strength was derived. beheld. The close aspect of the moon There presently rose ahead the and then one would appear driving It was dark when the galley as the galley drew near proved very jagged hills of a leprous-looking a herd of clumping slaves, which passed betwixt the Basalt Pillars of disturbing to Carter, and he did not coast, and Carter saw the thick indeed were approximate human the West and the sound of the ulti- like the size and shape of the ruins unpleasant grey towers of a city. The beings with wide mouths like those mate cataract swelled portentous which crumbled here and there. The way they leaned and bent, the merchants who traded in Dylath- from ahead. And the spray of that dead temples on the mountains were manner in which they were clustered, Leen; only these herds, being cataract rose to obscure the stars, so placed that they could have glori- and the fact that they had no without turbans or shoes or clothing, and the deck grew damp, and the fied no suitable or wholesome gods, windows at all, was very disturbing did not seem so very human after vessel reeled in the surging current and in the symmetries of the broken to the prisoner; and he bitterly all. Some of the slaves—the fatter 444 445 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

ones, whom a sort of overseer would be unloaded and crated and shipped were stationed slaves bearing realms which are known only to cats, pinch experimentally—were inland in those obnoxious drays. torches. and to which the elders among cats unloaded from ships and nailed in When the galley landed at a In a detestable square a sort of repair by stealth nocturnally, crates which workers pushed into greasy-looking quay of spongy rock procession was formed; ten of the springing from high housetops. the low warehouses or loaded on a nightmare horde of toad-things toad-things and twenty-four almost Verily, it is to the moon’s dark side great lumbering vans. wiggled out of the hatches, and two human torch-bearers, eleven on that they go to leap and gambol on Once a van was hitched and of them seized Carter and dragged either side, and one each before and the hills and converse with ancient driven off, and the fabulous thing him ashore. The smell and aspect of behind. Carter was placed in the shadows, and here amidst that which drew it was such that Carter that city are beyond telling, and middle of the line; five toad-things column of foetid things Carter heard gasped, even after having seen the Carter held only scattered images of ahead and five behind, and one their homely, friendly cry, and other monstrosities of that hateful the tiled streets and black doorways almost-human torch-bearer on thought of the steep roofs and warm place. Now and then a small herd of and endless precipices of grey vertical either side of him. Certain of the hearths and little lighted windows slaves dressed and turbaned like the walls without windows. At length toad-things produced disgustingly of home. dark merchants would be driven he was dragged within a low doorway carven flutes of ivory and made Now much of the speech of cats aboard a galley, followed by a great and made to climb infinite steps in loathsome sounds. To that hellish was known to Randolph Carter, and crew of the slippery toad-things as pitch blackness. It was, apparently, piping the column advanced out of in this far terrible place he uttered officers, navigators, and rowers. And all one to the toad-things whether the tiled streets and into nighted the cry that was suitable. But that Carter saw that the almost-human it were light or dark. The odour of plains of obscene fungi, soon he need not have done, for even as creatures were reserved for the more the place was intolerable, and when commencing to climb one of the his lips opened he heard the chorus ignominious kinds of servitude Carter was locked into a chamber lower and more gradual hills that lay wax and draw nearer, and saw swift which required no strength, such as and left alone he scarcely had behind the city. That on some shadows against the stars as small steering and cooking, fetching and strength to crawl around and ascer- frightful slope or blasphemous graceful shapes leaped from hill to carrying, and bargaining with men tain its form and dimensions. It was plateau waited, hill in gathering legions. The call of on the earth or other planets where circular, and about twenty feet across. Carter could not doubt; and he the clan had been given, and before they traded. These creatures must wished that the suspense might soon the foul procession had time even to have been convenient on earth, for rom then on time ceased to be over. The whining of those be frightened a cloud of smothering they were truly not unlike men when exist. At intervals food was impious flutes was shocking, and he fur and a phalanx of murderous claws dressed and carefully shod and pushed in, but Carter would would have given worlds for some were tidally and tempestuously upon turbaned, and could haggle in the notF touch it. What his fate would even half-normal sound; but these it. The flutes stopped, and there were shops of men without embarrass- be, he did not know; but he felt toad-things had no voices, and the shrieks in the night. Dying ment or curious explanations. But that he was held for the coming of slaves did not talk. almost-humans screamed, and cats most of them, unless lean or ill-fa- that frightful soul and messenger Then through that star-specked spit and yowled and roared, but the voured, were unclothed and packed of infinity’s Other Gods, the darkness there did come a normal toad-things made never a sound as in crates and drawn off in lumbering crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. sound. It rolled from the higher hills, their stinking green ichor oozed lorries by fabulous things. Finally, after an unguessed span of and from all the jagged peaks around fatally upon that porous earth with Occasionally other beings were hours or days, the great stone door it was caught up and echoed in a the obscene fungi. unloaded and crated; some very like swung wide again, and Carter was swelling pandaemoniac chorus. It It was a stupendous sight while these semi-humans, some not so shoved down the stairs and out was the midnight yell of the cat, and the torches lasted, and Carter had similar, and some not similar at all. into the red-litten streets of that Carter knew at last that the old never before seen so many cats. And he wondered if any of the poor fearsome city. It was night on the village folk were right when they Black, grey, and white; yellow, tiger, stout black men of Parg were left to moon, and all through the town made low guesses about the cryptical and mixed; common, Persian, and 446 447 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

Manx; Thibetan, Angora, and between him and the warriors. generals, the cats rose and assumed was the last to leave, and as Carter Egyptian; all were there in the fury Carter now spoke with the a closer formation, crowding protect- shook his paw he said he would be of battle, and there hovered over leaders in the soft language of cats, ingly around Carter and preparing able to get home by cockcrow. When them some trace of that profound and learned that his ancient friend- to take the great leap through space dawn came, Carter went downstairs and inviolate sanctity which made ship with the species was well known back to the housetops of our earth and learned that a week had elapsed their goddess great in the temples and often spoken of in the places and its dreamland. The old since his capture and leaving. There of Bubastis. They would leap seven where cats congregate. He had not field-marshal advised Carter to let was still nearly a fortnight to wait strong at the throat of an almost- been unmarked in Ulthar when he himself be borne along smoothly for the ship bound toward Oriab, human or the pink tentacled snout passed through, and the sleek old and passively in the massed ranks of and during that time he said what of a toad-thing and drag it down cats had remembered how he patted furry leapers, and told him how to he could against the black galleys savagely to the fungous plain, where them after they had attended to the spring when the rest sprang and land and their infamous ways. Most of myriads of their fellows would surge hungry Zoogs who looked evilly at gracefully when the rest landed. He the townsfolk believed him; yet so over it and into it with the frenzied a small black kitten. And they also offered to deposit him in any fond were the jewellers of great claws and teeth of a divine battle- recalled, too, how he had welcomed spot he desired, and Carter decided rubies that none would wholly fury. Carter had seized a torch from the very little kitten who came to on the city of Dylath-Leen whence promise to cease trafficking with the a stricken slave, but was soon over- see him at the inn, and how he had the black galley had set out; for he wide-mouthed merchants. If aught borne by the surging waves of his given it a saucer of rich cream in the wished to sail thence for Oriab and of evil ever befalls Dylath-Leen loyal defenders. Then he lay in the morning before he left. The grand- the carven crest Ngranek, and also through such traffick, it will not be utter blackness hearing the clangour father of that very little kitten was to warn the people of the city to have his fault. of war and the shouts of the victors, the leader of the army now assem- no more traffick with black galleys, In about a week the desiderate and feeling the soft paws of his bled, for he had seen the evil proces- if indeed that traffick could be tact- ship put in by the black wale and tall friends as they rushed to and fro over sion from a far hill and recognized fully and judiciously broken off. lighthouse, and Carter was glad to him in the fray. the prisoner as a sworn friend of his Then, upon a signal, the cats all see that she was a barque of whole- At last awe and exhaustion kind on earth and in the land of leaped gracefully with their friend some men, with painted sides and closed his eyes, and when he opened dream. packed securely in their midst; while yellow lateen sails and a grey captain them again it was upon a strange A yowl now came from the in a black cave on an unhallowed in silken robes. Her cargo was the scene. The great shining disc of the farther peak, and the old leader summit of the moon-mountains still fragrant resin of Oriab’s inner groves, earth, thirteen times greater than paused abruptly in his conversation. vainly waited the crawling chaos and the delicate pottery baked by that of the moon as we see it, had It was one of the army’s outposts, Nyarlathotep. the artists of Baharna, and the risen with floods of weird light over stationed on the highest of the The leap of the cats through strange little figures carved from the lunar landscape; and across all mountains to watch the one foe space was very swift; and being Ngranek’s ancient lava. For this they those leagues of wild plateau and which Earth’s cats fear; the very large surrounded by his companions were paid in the wool of Ulthar and ragged crest there squatted one and peculiar cats from Saturn, who Carter did not see this time the great the iridescent textiles of Hatheg and endless sea of cats in orderly array. for some reason have not been obliv- black shapelessnesses that lurk and the ivory that the black men carve Circle on circle they reached, and ious of the charm of our moon’s dark caper and flounder in the abyss. across the river in Parg. Carter made two or three leaders out of the ranks side. They are leagued by treaty with Before he fully realised what had arrangements with the captain to go were licking his face and purring to the evil toad-things, and are noto- happened he was back in his familiar to Baharna and was told that the him consolingly. Of the dead slaves riously hostile to our earthly cats; so room at the inn at Dylath-Leen, and voyage would take ten days. And and toad-things there were not many that at this juncture a meeting would the stealthy, friendly cats were during his week of waiting he talked signs, but Carter thought he saw one have been a somewhat grave matter. pouring out of the window in much with that captain of Ngranek, bone a little way off in the open space After a brief consultation of streams. The old leader from Ulthar and was told that very few had seen 448 449 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

the carven face thereon; but that ship was about to pass over the the greater part; and such was its whose name is not remembered. As most travellers are content to learn weedy walls and broken columns of lonely and impressive place on that the ship drew into the harbour at its legends from old people and a sunken city too old for memory, far hill that it may have been a evening the twin beacons Thon and lava-gatherers and image-makers in and that when the water was clear temple or a monastery. Some phos- Thal gleamed a welcome, and in all Baharna and afterward say in their one could see so many moving phorescent fish inside it gave the the million windows of Baharna’s far homes that they have indeed shadows in that deep place that small round windows an aspect of terraces mellow lights peeped out beheld it. The captain was not even simple folk disliked it. He admitted, shining, and Carter did not blame quietly and gradually as the stars sure that any person now living had moreover, that many ships had been the sailors much for their fears. Then peep out overhead in the dusk, till beheld that carven face, for the lost in that part of the sea; having by the watery moonlight he noticed that steep and climbing seaport wrong side of Ngranek is very diffi- been hailed when quite close to it, an odd high monolith in the middle became a glittering constellation cult and barren and sinister, and but never seen again. of that central court, and saw that hung between the stars of heaven there are rumours of caves near the That night the moon was very something was tied to it. And when and the reflections of those stars in peak wherein dwell the night-gaunts. bright, and one could see a great way after getting a telescope from the the still harbour. But the captain did not wish to say down in the water. There was so little captain’s cabin he saw that that just what a night-gaunt might be wind that the ship could not move bound thing was a sailor in the silk he captain, after landing, like, since such cattle are known to much, and the ocean was very calm. robes of Oriab, head downward and made Carter a guest in his haunt most persistently the dreams Looking over the rail Carter saw without any eyes, he was glad that a own small house on the of those who think too often of many fathoms deep the dome of the rising breeze soon took the ship Tshores of Yath where the rear of the them. Then Carter asked that great temple, and in front of it an ahead to more healthy parts of the town slopes down to it; and his captain about unknown Kadath in avenue of unnatural sphinxes leading sea. wife and servants brought strange the cold waste, and the marvellous to what was once a public square. The next day they spoke with a toothsome foods for the traveller’s sunset city, but of these the good Dolphins sported merrily in and out ship with violet sails bound for Zar, delight. And in the days after that man could truly tell nothing. of the ruins, and porpoises revelled in the land of forgotten dreams, with Carter asked for rumours and Carter sailed out of Dylath- clumsily here and there, sometimes bulbs of strange coloured lilies for legends of Ngranek in all the Leen one early morning when the coming to the surface and leaping cargo. And on the evening of the taverns and public places where tide turned, and saw the first rays of clear out of the sea. As the ship eleventh day they came in sight of lava-gatherers and image-makers sunrise on the thin angular towers drifted on a little the floor of the the isle of Oriab with Ngranek rising meet, but could find no one who of that dismal basalt town. And for ocean rose in hills, and one could jagged and snow-crowned in the had been up the higher slopes or two days they sailed eastward in clearly mark the lines of ancient distance. Oriab is a very great isle, seen the carven face. Ngranek was sight of green coasts, and saw often climbing streets and the washed- and its port of Baharna a mighty a hard mountain with only an the pleasant fishing towns that down walls of myriad little houses. city. The wharves of Baharna are of accursed valley behind it, and climbed up steeply with their red Then the suburbs appeared, and porphyry, and the city rises in great besides, one could never depend on roofs and chimney-pots from old finally a great lone building on a hill, stone terraces behind them, having the certainty that night-gaunts are dreaming wharves and beaches of simpler architecture than the streets of steps that are frequently altogether fabulous. where nets lay drying. But on the other structures, and in much better arched over by buildings and the When the captain sailed back third day they turned sharply south repair. It was dark and low and bridges between buildings. There is to Dylath-Leen Carter took quarters where the roll of water was stronger, covered four sides of a square, with a great canal which goes under the in an ancient tavern opening on an and soon passed from sight of any a tower at each corner, a paved court whole city in a tunnel with granite alley of steps in the original part of land. On the fifth day the sailors in the centre, and small curious gates and leads to the inland lake of the town, which is built of brick and were nervous, but the captain apol- round windows all over it. Probably Yath, on whose farther shore are the resembles the ruins of Yath’s farther ogized for their fears, saying that the it was of basalt, though weeds draped vast clay-brick ruins of a primal city shore. Here he laid his plans for the 450 451 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

ascent of Ngranek, and correlated to camp there at night, he tethered gaping arch low in the wall of an old The next day he rose with the all that he had learned from the his zebra to a curious pillar before a temple, with steps leading down into lava-gatherers and exchanged fare- lava-gatherers about the roads crumbling wall and laid his blanket darkness farther than he could peer. wells as they rode west and he rode thither. The keeper of the tavern was in a sheltered corner beneath some His course now lay uphill east on a zebra he bought of them. a very old man, and had heard so carvings whose meaning none could through wilder and partly wooded Their older men gave him blessings many legends that he was a great decipher. Around him he wrapped country, and he saw only the huts of and warnings, and told him he had help. He even took Carter to an another blanket, for the nights are charcoal-burners and the camp of better not climb too high on upper room in that ancient house cold in Oriab; and when upon those who gathered resin from the Ngranek, but while he thanked them and shewed him a crude picture awaking once he thought he felt the groves. The whole air was fragrant heartily he was in no wise dissuaded. which a traveller had scratched on wings of some insect brushing his with balsam, and all the magah birds For still did he feel that he must find the clay wall in the old days when face he covered his head altogether sang blithely as they flashed their the gods on unknown Kadath; and men were bolder and less reluctant and slept in peace till roused by the seven colours in the sun. Near sunset win from them a way to that to visit Ngranek’s higher slopes. The magah birds in distant resin groves. he came on a new camp of lava-gath- haunting and marvellous city in the old tavern-keeper’s great-grandfa- The sun had just come up over erers returning with laden sacks from sunset. By noon, after a long uphill ther had heard from his great-grand- the great slope whereon leagues of Ngranek’s lower slopes; and here he ride, he came upon some abandoned father that the traveller who primal brick foundations and worn also camped, listening to the songs brick villages of the hill-people who scratched that picture had climbed walls and occasional cracked pillars and tales of the men, and overhearing had once dwelt thus close to Ngranek Ngranek and seen the carven face, and pedestals stretched down deso- what they whispered about a and carved images from its smooth here drawing it for others to behold, late to the shore of Yath, and Carter companion they had lost. He had lava. Here they had dwelt till the but Carter had very great doubts, looked about for his tethered zebra. climbed high to reach a mass of fine days of the old tavernkeeper’s grand- since the large rough features on the Great was his dismay to see that lava above him, and at nightfall did father, but about that time they felt wall were hasty and careless, and docile beast stretched prostrate not return to his fellows. When they that their presence was disliked. wholly overshadowed by a crowd of beside the curious pillar to which it looked for him the next day they Their homes had crept even up the little companion shapes in the worst had been tied, and still greater was found only his turban, nor was there mountain’s slope, and the higher they possible taste, with horns and wings he vexed on finding that the steed any sign on the crags below that he built the more people they would and claws and curling tails. was quite dead, with its blood all had fallen. They did not search any miss when the sun rose. At last they At last, having gained all the sucked away through a singular more, because the old man among decided it would be better to leave information he was likely to gain in wound in its throat. His pack had them said it would be of no use. altogether, since things were some- the taverns and public places of been disturbed, and several shiny No one ever found what the times glimpsed in the darkness Baharna, Carter hired a zebra and knickknacks taken away, and all night-gaunts took, though those which no one could interpret favour- set out one morning on the road by round on the dusty soil’ were great beasts themselves were so uncertain ably; so in the end all of them went Yath’s shore for those inland parts webbed footprints for which he as to be almost fabulous. Carter down to the sea and dwelt in wherein towers stony Ngranek. On could not in any way account. The asked them if night-gaunts sucked Baharna, inhabiting a very old his right were rolling hills and legends and warnings of lava-gath- blood and liked shiny things and left quarter and teaching their sons the pleasant orchards and neat little erers occurred to him, and he thought webbed footprints, but they all shook old art of image-making which to stone farmhouses, and he was much of what had brushed his face in the their heads negatively and seemed this day they carry on. It was from reminded of those fertile fields that night. Then he shouldered his pack frightened at his making such an these children of the exiled hill- flank the Skai. By evening he was and strode on toward Ngranek, inquiry. When he saw how taciturn people that Carter had heard the near the nameless ancient ruins on though not without a shiver when they had become he asked them no best tales about Ngranek when Yath’s farther shore, and though old he saw close to him as the highway more, but went to sleep in his searching through Baharna’s ancient lava-gatherers had warned him not passed through the ruins a great blanket. taverns. 452 453 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

All this time the great gaunt side sapling and wrapping himself well cropping out, and now and then the was indeed no cul-de-sac, but that of Ngranek was looming up higher in his blankets before going to sleep. nest of a condor in a crevice. Finally it led steeply on in an arc which and higher as Carter approached it. And all through the night a voonith there was nothing at all but the bare would, unless suddenly interrupted There were sparse trees on the lower howled distantly from the shore of rock, and had it not been very rough or deflected, bring him after a few slopes and feeble shrubs above them, some hidden pool, but Carter felt and weathered, he could scarcely hours’ climbing to that unknown and then the bare hideous rock rose no fear of that amphibious terror, have ascended farther. Knobs, ledges, southern slope overlooking the deso- spectral into the sky, to mix with since he had been told with certainty and pinnacles, however, helped late crags and the accursed valley of frost and ice and eternal snow. Carter that not one of them dares even greatly; and it was cheering to see lava. As new country came into view could see the rifts and ruggedness approach the slope of Ngranek. occasionally the sign of some below him he saw that it was bleaker of that sombre stone, and did not In the clear sunshine of morning lava-gatherer scratched clumsily in and wilder than those seaward lands welcome the prospect of climbing Carter began the long ascent, taking the friable stone, and know that he had traversed. The mountain’s it. In places there were solid streams his zebra as far as that useful beast wholesome human creatures had side, too, was somewhat different; of lava, and scoriac heaps that littered could go, but tying it to a stunted been there before him. After a being here pierced by curious cracks slopes and ledges. Ninety aeons ago, ash tree when the floor of the thin certain height the presence of man and caves not found on the straighter before even the gods had danced wood became too steep. Thereafter was further shewn by handholds and route he had left. Some of these were upon its pointed peak, that mountain he scrambled up alone; first through footholds hewn where they were above him and some beneath him, had spoken with fire and roared with the forest with its ruins of old villages needed, and by little quarries and all opening on sheerly perpendicular the voices of the inner thunders. in overgrown clearings, and then excavations where some choice vein cliffs and wholly unreachable by the Now it towered all silent and sinister, over the tough grass where anaemic or stream of lava had been found. In feet of man. The air was very cold bearing on the hidden side that shrubs grew here and there. He one place a narrow ledge had been now, but so hard was the climbing secret titan image whereof rumour regretted coming clear of the trees, chopped artificially to an especially that he did not mind it. Only the told. And there were caves in that since the slope was very precipitous rich deposit far to the right of the increasing rarity bothered him, and mountain, which might be empty and the whole thing rather dizzying. main line of ascent. Once or twice he thought that perhaps it was this and alone with elder darkness, or At length he began to discern all the Carter dared to look around, and which had turned the heads of other might—if legend spoke truly—hold countryside spread out beneath him was almost stunned by the spread of travellers and excited those absurd horrors of a form not to be surmised. whenever he looked about; the landscape below. All the island tales of night-gaunts whereby they The ground sloped upward to deserted huts of the image-makers, betwixt him and the coast lay open explained the loss of such climbers the foot of Ngranek, thinly covered the groves of resin trees and the to his sight, with Baharna’s stone as fell from these perilous paths. He with scrub oaks and ash trees, and camps of those who gathered from terraces and the smoke of its chim- was not much impressed by travellers’ strewn with bits of rock, lava, and them, the woods where prismatic neys mystical in the distance. And tales, but had a good curved scimitar ancient cinder. There were the magahs nest and sing, and even a beyond that the illimitable Southern in case of any trouble. All lesser charred embers of many camps, hint very far away of the shores of Sea with all its curious secrets. thoughts were lost in the wish to see where the lava-gatherers were wont Yath and of those forbidding ancient Thus far there had been much that carven face which might set him to stop, and several rude altars which ruins whose name is forgotten. He winding around the mountain, so on the track of the gods atop they had built either to propitiate found it best not to look around, and that the farther and carven side was unknown Kadath. the Great Ones or to ward off what kept on climbing and climbing till still hidden. Carter now saw a ledge At last, in the fearsome iciness they dreamed of in Ngranek’s high the shrubs became very sparse and running upward and to the left of upper space, he came round fully passes and labyrinthine caves. At there was often nothing but the which seemed to head the way he to the hidden side of Ngranek and evening Carter reached the farther- tough grass to cling to. wished, and this course he took in saw in infinite gulfs below him the most pile of embers and camped for Then the soil became meagre, the hope that it might prove contin- lesser crags and sterile abysses of lava the night, tethering his zebra to a with great patches of bare rock uous. After ten minutes he saw it which marked the olden wrath of 454 455 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

the Great Ones. There was unfolded, mountain slanted back strongly, and downward at sunset in the scyptic But dusk was now thick, and the too, a vast expanse of country to the even gave him space to lean and rest. silences of that upper world from great carven face looked down even south; but it was a desert land He felt from the chill that he whose dark lava it was divinely hewn sterner in shadow. Perched on that without fair fields or cottage chim- must be near the snow line, and of old, the marvel is so strong that ledge night found the seeker; and in neys, and seemed to have no ending. looked up to see what glittering none may escape it. the blackness he might neither go No trace of the sea was visible on pinnacles might be shining in that Here, too, was the added marvel down nor go up, but only stand and this side, for Oriab is a great island. late ruddy sunlight. Surely enough, of recognition; for although he had cling and shiver in that narrow place Black caverns and odd crevices were there was the snow uncounted thou- planned to search all dreamland over till the day came, praying to keep still numerous on the sheer vertical sands of feet above, and below it a for those whose likeness to this face awake lest sleep loose his hold and cliffs, but none of them was acces- great beetling crag like that he had might mark them as the god’s chil- send him down the dizzy miles of sible to a climber. There now loomed just climbed; hanging there forever dren, he now knew that he need not air to the crags and sharp rocks of aloft a great beetling mass which in bold outline. And when he saw do so. Certainly, the great face carven the accursed valley. The stars came hampered the upward view, and that crag he gasped and cried out on that mountain was of no strange out, but save for them there was only Carter was for a moment shaken aloud, and clutched at the jagged sort, but the kin of such as he had black nothingness in his eyes; noth- with doubt lest it prove impassable. rock in awe; for the titan bulge had seen often in the taverns of the ingness leagued with death, against Poised in windy insecurity miles not stayed as earth’s dawn had shaped seaport Celephaïs which lies in whose beckoning he might do no above earth, with only space and it, but gleamed red and stupendous Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian more than cling to the rocks and death on one side and only slippery in the sunset with the carved and Hills and is ruled over by that King lean back away from an unseen brink. walls of rock on the other, he knew polished features of a god. Kuranes whom Carter once knew in The last thing of earth that he saw for a moment the fear that makes Stern and terrible shone that waking life. Every year sailors with in the gloaming was a condor soaring men shun Ngranek’s hidden side. face that the sunset lit with fire. How such a face came in dark ships from close to the westward precipice He could not turn round, yet the sun vast it was no mind can ever measure, the north to trade their onyx for the beside him, and darting screaming was already low. If there were no way but Carter knew at once that man carved jade and spun gold and little away when it came near the cave aloft, the night would find him could never have fashioned it. It was red singing birds of Celephaïs, and whose mouth yawned just out of crouching there still, and the dawn a god chiselled by the hands of the it was clear that these could be no reach. would not find him at all. gods, and it looked down haughty others than the half-gods he sought. Suddenly, without a warning But there was a way, and he saw and majestic upon the seeker. Where they dwelt, there must the sound in the dark, Carter felt his it in due season. Only a very expert Rumour had said it was strange and cold waste lie close, and within it curved scimitar drawn stealthily out dreamer could have used those not to be mistaken, and Carter saw unknown Kadath and its onyx castle of his belt by some unseen hand. imperceptible footholds, yet to that it was indeed so; for those long for the Great Ones. So to Celephaïs Then he heard it clatter down over Carter they were sufficient. narrow eyes and long-lobed ears, and he must go, far distant from the isle the rocks below. And between him Surmounting now the outward- that thin nose and pointed chin, all of Oriab, and in such parts as would and the Milky Way he thought he hanging rock, he found the slope spoke of a race that is not of men take him back to Dylath-Teen and saw a very terrible outline of some- above much easier than that below, but of gods. up the Skai to the bridge by Nir, and thing noxiously thin and horned and since a great glacier’s melting had He clung overawed in that lofty again into the enchanted wood of tailed and bat-winged. Other things, left a generous space with loam and and perilous eyrie, even though it the Zoogs, whence the way would too, had begun to blot out patches ledges. To the left a precipice was this which he had expected and bend northward through the garden of stars west of him, as if a flock of dropped straight from unknown come to find; for there is in a god’s lands by Oukranos to the gilded vague entities were flapping thickly heights to unknown depths, with a face more of marvel than prediction spires of Thran, where he might find and silently out of that inaccessible cave’s dark mouth just out of reach can tell, and when that face is vaster a galleon bound over the Cerenarian cave in the face of the precipice. above him. Elsewhere, however, the than a great temple and seen looking Sea. Then a sort of cold rubbery arm 456 457 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

seized his neck and something else higher than man may reckon, and silently. When Carter tried to trace A man he had known in seized his feet, and he was lifted guarding terrible valleys where the their flight he found he could not, Boston—a painter of strange pictures inconsiderately up and swung about Dholes crawl and burrow nastily. But since even the Peaks of Throk had with a secret studio in an ancient in space. Another minute and the Carter preferred to look at them than faded out of sight. There was nothing and unhallowed alley near a grave- stars were gone, and Carter knew at his captors, which were indeed anywhere but blackness and horror yard—had actually made friends that the night-gaunts had got him. shocking and uncouth black things and silence and bones. with the ghouls and had taught him They bore him breathless into with smooth, oily, whale-like Now Carter knew from a certain to understand the simpler part of that cliffside cavern and through surfaces, unpleasant horns that source that he was in the vale of their disgusting meeping and glib- monstrous labyrinths beyond. When curved inward toward each other, Pnoth, where crawl and burrow the bering. This man had vanished at he struggled, as at first he did by bat wings whose beating made no enormous Dholes; but he did not last, and Carter was not sure but that instinct, they tickled him with delib- sound, ugly prehensile paws, and know what to expect, because no one he might find him now, and use for eration. They made no sound at all barbed tails that lashed needlessly has ever seen a Dhole or even guessed the first time in dreamland that themselves, and even their membra- and disquietingly. And worst of all, what such a thing may be like. far-away English of his dim waking nous wings were silent. They were they never spoke or laughed, and Dholes are known only by dim life. In any case, he felt he could frightfully cold and damp and slip- never smiled because they had no rumour, from the rustling they make persuade a ghoul to guide him out pery, and their paws kneaded one faces at all to smile with, but only a amongst mountains of bones and of Pnoth; and it would be better to detestably. Soon they were plunging suggestive blankness where a face the slimy touch they have when they meet a ghoul, which one can see, hideously downward through incon- ought to be. All they ever did was wriggle past one. They cannot be than a Dhole, which one cannot see. ceivable abysses in a whirling, clutch and fly and tickle; that was seen because they creep only in the So Carter walked in the dark, giddying, sickening rush of dank, the way of night-gaunts. dark. Carter did not wish to meet a and ran when he thought he heard tomb-like air; and Carter felt they As the band flew lower the Peaks Dhole, so listened intently for any something among the bones under- were shooting into the ultimate of Throk rose grey and towering on sound in the unknown depths of foot. Once he bumped into a stony vortex of shrieking and daemonic all sides, and one saw clearly that bones about him. Even in this fear- slope, and knew it must be the base madness. He screamed again and nothing lived on that austere and some place he had a plan and an of one of Throk’s peaks. Then at last again, but whenever he did so the impressive granite of the endless objective, for whispers of Pnoth were he heard a monstrous rattling and black paws tickled him with greater twilight. At still lower levels the not unknown to one with whom he clatter which reached far up in the subtlety. Then he saw a sort of grey death-fires in the air gave out, and had talked much in the old days. In air, and became sure he had come phosphorescence about, and guessed one met only the primal blackness brief, it seemed fairly likely that this nigh the crag of the ghouls. He was they were coming even to that inner of the void save aloft where the thin was the spot into which all the not sure he could be heard from this world of subterrene horror of which peaks stood out goblin-like. Soon ghouls of the waking world cast the valley miles below, but realised that dim legends tell, and which is litten the peaks were very far away, and refuse of their feastings; and that if the inner world has strange laws. As only by the pale death-fire where- nothing about but great rushing he but had good luck he might he pondered he was struck by a flying with reeks the ghoulish air and the winds with the dankness of nether- stumble upon that mighty crag taller bone so heavy that it must have been primal mists of the pits at earth’s most grottoes in them. Then in the even than Throk’s peaks which a skull, and therefore realising his core. end the night-gaunts landed on a marks the edge of their domain. nearness to the fateful crag he sent At last far below him he saw floor of unseen things which felt like Showers of bones would tell him up as best he might that meeping faint lines of grey and ominous layers of bones, and left Carter all where to look, and once found he cry which is the call of the ghoul. pinnacles which he knew must be alone in that black valley. To bring could call to a ghoul to let down a Sound travels slowly, so it was the fabled Peaks of Throk. Awful him thither was the duty of the ladder; for strange to say, he had a some time before he heard an and sinister they stand in the haunted night-gaunts that guard Ngranek; very singular link with these terrible answering glibber. But it came at disc of sunless and eternal depths; and this done, they flapped away creatures. last, and before long he was told that 458 459 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

a rope ladder would be lowered. The whose vertical side he could not gravestones, broken urns, and ears of earth’s gods and they were wait for this was very tense, since glimpse; and hours later he saw a grotesque fragments of monu- banished to caverns below. Only a there was no telling what might not curious face peering over it as a ments—and Carter realised with great trap door of stone with an iron have been stirred up among those gargoyle peers over a parapet of some emotion that he was probably ring connects the abyss of the earth- bones by his shouting. Indeed, it was Notre Dame. This almost made him nearer the waking world than at any ghouls with the enchanted wood, not long before he actually did hear lose his hold through faintness, but other time since he had gone down and this the Gugs are afraid to open a vague rustling afar off. As this a moment later he was himself again; the seven hundred steps from the because of a curse. That a mortal thoughtfully approached, he became for his vanished friend Richard cavern of flame to the Gate of dreamer could traverse their cavern more and more uncomfortable; for Pickman had once introduced him Deeper Slumber. realm and leave by that door is he did not wish to move away from to a ghoul, and he knew well their There, on a tombstone of 1768 inconceivable; for mortal dreamers the spot where the ladder would canine faces and slumping forms and stolen from the Granary Burying were their former food, and they come. Finally the tension grew unmentionable idiosyncrasies. So he Ground in Boston, sat a ghoul which have legends of the toothsomeness almost unbearable, and he was about had himself well under control when was once the artist Richard Upton of such dreamers even though to flee in panic when the thud of that hideous thing pulled him out Pickman. It was naked and rubbery, banishment has restricted their diet something on the newly heaped of the dizzy emptiness over the edge and had acquired so much of the to the ghasts, those repulsive beings bones nearby drew his notice from of the crag, and did not scream at ghoulish physiognomy that its which die in the light, and which the other sound. It was the ladder, the partly consumed refuse heaped human origin was already obscure. live in the vaults of Zin and leap on and after a minute of groping he had at one side or at the squatting circles But it still remembered a little long hind legs like kangaroos. it taut in his hands. But the other of ghouls who gnawed and watched English, and was able to converse So the ghoul that was Pickman sound did not cease, and followed curiously. with Carter in grunts and monosyl- advised Carter either to leave the him even as he climbed. He had gone He was now on a dim-litten lables, helped out now and then by abyss at Sarkomand, that deserted fully five feet from the ground when plain whose sole topographical the glibbering of ghouls. When it city in the valley below Leng where the rattling beneath waxed emphatic, features were great boulders and the learned that Carter wished to get to black nitrous stairways guarded by and was a good ten feet up when entrances of burrows. The ghouls the enchanted wood and from there winged diarote lions lead down from something swayed the ladder from were in general respectful, even if to the city Celephaïs in Ooth-Nargai dreamland to the lower gulfs, or to below. At a height which must have one did attempt to pinch him while beyond the Tanarian Hills, it seemed return through a churchyard to the been fifteen or twenty feet he felt several others eyed his leanness rather doubtful; for these ghouls of waking world and begin the quest his whole side brushed by a great speculatively. Through patient glib- the waking world do no business in anew down the seventy steps of light slippery length which grew alter- bering he made inquiries regarding the graveyards of upper dreamland slumber to the cavern of flame and nately convex and concave with his vanished friend, and found he (leaving that to the red-footed the seven hundred steps to the Gate wriggling; and hereafter he climbed had become a ghoul of some prom- wamps that are spawned in dead of Deeper Slumber and the desperately to escape the unendur- inence in abysses nearer the waking cities), and many things intervene enchanted wood. This, however, did able nuzzling of that loathsome and world. A greenish elderly ghoul betwixt their gulf and the enchanted not suit the seeker; for he knew overfed Dhole whose form no man offered to conduct him to Pickman’s wood, including the terrible kingdom nothing of the way from Leng to might see. present habitation, so despite a of the Gugs. Ooth-Nargai, and was likewise For hours he climbed with natural loathing he followed the The Gugs, hairy and gigantic, reluctant to awake lest he forget all aching and blistered hands, seeing creature into a capacious burrow and once reared stone circles in that he had so far gained in this dream. again the grey death-fire and Throk’s crawled after him for hours in the wood and made strange sacrifices to It was disastrous to his quest to uncomfortable pinnacles. At last he blackness of rank mould. They the Other Gods and the crawling forget the august and celestial faces discerned above him the projecting emerged on a dim plain strewn with chaos Nyarlathotep, until one night of those seamen from the north who edge of the great crag of the ghouls, singular relics of earth—old an abomination of theirs reached the traded onyx in Celephaïs, and who, 460 461 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

being the sons of gods, must point for those denizens of the upper abyss the cemetery, rose a sheer perpen- had merely slipped past him as he the way to the cold waste and Kadath who hunt and prey on them. The dicular cliff at whose base an slept, so that their strength and where the Great Ones dwell. ghasts try to come out when the immense and forbidding cavern savagery were still unimpaired and After much persuasion the ghoul Gugs sleep and they attack ghouls yawned. This the ghouls told Carter would remain so till they had found consented to guide his guest inside as readily as Gugs, for they cannot to avoid as much as possible, since and disposed of a victim. It was very the great wall of the Gugs’ kingdom. discriminate. They are very primitive, it was the entrance to the unhal- unpleasant to see those filthy and There was one chance that Carter and eat one another. The Gugs have lowed vaults of Zin where Gugs hunt disproportioned animals which soon might be able to steal through that a sentry at a narrow in the vaults of ghasts in the darkness. And truly, numbered about fifteen, grubbing twilight realm of circular stone Zin, but he is often drowsy and is that warning was soon well justified; about and making their kangaroo towers at an hour when the giants sometimes surprised by a party of for the moment a ghoul began to leaps in the grey twilight where titan would be all gorged and snoring ghasts. Though ghasts cannot live creep toward the towers to see if the towers and monoliths arose, but it indoors, and reach the central tower in real light, they can endure the grey hour of the Gugs’ resting had been was still more unpleasant when they with the sign of Koth upon it, which twilight of the abyss for hours. rightly timed, there glowed in the spoke among themselves in the has the stairs leading up to that stone So at length Carter crawled gloom of that great cavern’s mouth coughing gutturals of ghasts. And trap door in the enchanted wood. through endless burrows with three first one pair of yellowish-red eyes yet, horrible as they were, they were Pickman even consented to lend helpful ghouls bearing the slate and then another, implying that the not so horrible as what presently three ghouls to help with a tomb- gravestone of Col. Nepemiah Derby, Gugs were one sentry less, and that came out of the cave after them with stone lever in raising the stone door; obit 1719, from the Charter Street ghasts have indeed an excellent disconcerting suddenness. for of ghouls the Gugs are somewhat Burying Ground in Salem. When sharpness of smell. So the ghoul It was a paw, fully two feet and afraid, and they often flee from their they came again into open twilight returned to the burrow and motioned a half across, and equipped with own colossal graveyards when they they were in a forest of vast lichened his companions to be silent. It was formidable talons. After it came see them feasting there. monoliths reaching nearly as high best to leave the ghasts to their own another paw, and after that a great He also advised Carter to as the eye could see and forming the devices, and there was a possibility black-furred arm to which both of disguise as a ghoul himself; shaving modest gravestones of the Gugs. On that they might soon withdraw, since the paws were attached by short the beard he had allowed to grow the right of the hole out of which they must naturally be rather tired forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, (for ghouls have none), wallowing they wriggled, and seen through after coping with a Gug sentry in and the head of the awakened Gug naked in the mould to get the correct aisles of monoliths, was a stupendous the black vaults. After a moment sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into surface, and loping in the usual vista of cyclopean round towers something about the size of a small view. The eyes jutted two inches slumping way, with his clothing mounting up illimitable into the grey horse hopped out into the grey from each side, shaded by bony carried in a bundle as if it were a air of inner earth. This was the great twilight, and Carter turned sick at protuberances overgrown with coarse choice morsel from a tomb. They city of the Gugs, whose doorways the aspect of that scabrous and hairs. But the head was chiefly would reach the city of Gugs— are thirty feet high. Ghouls come unwholesome beast, whose face is terrible because of the mouth. That which is coterminous with the whole here often, for a buried Gug will feed so curiously human despite the mouth had great yellow fangs and kingdom—through the proper a community for almost a year, and absence of a nose, a forehead, and ran from the top to the bottom of burrows, emerging in a cemetery not even with the added peril it is better other important particulars. the head, opening vertically instead far from the stair-containing Tower to burrow for Gugs than to bother Presently three other ghasts of horizontally. of Koth. They must beware, however, with the graves of men. Carter now hopped out to join their fellow, and But before that unfortunate Gug of a large cave near the cemetery; for understood the occasional titan a ghoul glibbered softly at Carter could emerge from the cave and rise this is the mouth of the vaults of bones he had felt beneath him in the that their absence of battle-scars was to his full twenty feet, the vindictive Zin, and the vindictive ghasts are vale of Pnoth. a bad sign. It proved that they had ghasts were upon him. Carter feared always on watch there murderously Straight ahead, and just outside not fought the Gug sentry at all, but for a moment that he would give an 462 463 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

alarm and arouse all his kin, till a scale. At last, however, they came to steps. It was very depressing to the slab-bearing ghouls poised their ghoul softly glibbered that Gugs a somewhat open space before a reflect that the silent pursuing Gugs weapon for a desperate blow. have no voice but talk by means of tower even vaster than the rest; above would not be heard at all, but would Presently two yellowish-red eyes facial expression. The battle which whose colossal doorway was fixed a come very suddenly and shockingly flashed into view, and the panting then ensued was truly a frightful one. monstrous symbol in bas-relief in the dark upon the climbers. Nor of the ghast became audible above From all sides the venomous ghasts which made one shudder without could the traditional fear of Gugs its clattering. As it hopped down to rushed feverishly at the creeping knowing its meaning. This was the for ghouls be depended upon in that the step above the ghouls, they Gug, nipping and tearing with their central tower with the sign of Koth, peculiar place where the advantages wielded the ancient gravestone with muzzles, and mauling murderously and those huge stone steps just lay so heavily with the Gugs. There prodigious force, so that there was with their hard pointed hooves. All visible through the dusk within were was also some peril from the furtive only a wheeze and a choking before the time they coughed excitedly, the beginning of the great flight and venomous ghasts, which the victim collapsed in a noxious screaming when the great vertical leading to upper dreamland and the frequently hopped up onto the tower heap. mouth of the Gug would occasion- enchanted wood. during the sleep hour of the Gugs. There seemed to be only this ally bite into one of their number, There now began a climb of If the Gugs slept long, and the one animal, and after a moment of so that the noise of the combat interminable length in utter black- ghasts returned soon from their deed listening the ghouls tapped Carter would surely have aroused the ness: made almost impossible by the in the cavern, the scent of the as a signal to proceed again. As sleeping city had not the weakening monstrous size of the steps, which climbers might easily be picked up before, they were obliged to aid him; of the sentry begun to transfer the were fashioned for Gugs, and were by those loathsome and ill-disposed and he was glad to leave that place action farther and farther within the therefore nearly a yard high. Of their things; in which case it would almost of carnage where the ghast’s uncouth cavern. As it was, the tumult soon number Carter could form no just be better to be eaten by a Gug. remains sprawled invisible in the receded altogether from sight in the estimate, for he soon became so Then, after aeons of climbing, blackness. blackness, with only occasional evil worn out that the tireless and elastic there came a cough from the dark- At last the ghouls brought their echoes to mark its continuance. ghouls were forced to aid him. All ness above; and matters assumed a companion to a halt; and feeling Then the most alert of the through the endless climb there very grave and unexpected turn. above him, Carter realised that the ghouls gave the signal for all to lurked the peril of detection and It was clear that a ghast, or great stone trap door was reached at advance, and Carter followed the pursuit; for though no Gug dares perhaps even more, had strayed into last. To open so vast a thing loping three out of the forest of lift the stone door to the forest that tower before the coming of completely was not to be thought monoliths and into the dark noisome because of the Great One’s curse, Carter and his guides; and it was of, but the ghouls hoped to get it up streets of that awful city whose there are no such restraints equally clear that this peril was very just enough to slip the gravestone rounded towers of cyclopean stone concerning the tower and the steps, close. After a breathless second the under as a prop, and permit Carter soared up beyond the sight. Silently and escaped ghasts are often chased, leading ghoul pushed Carter to the to escape through the crack. They they shambled over that rough rock even to the very top. So sharp are wall and arranged his kinfolk in the themselves planned to descend again pavement, hearing with disgust the the ears of Gugs, that the bare feet best possible way, with the old slate and return through the city of the abominable muffled snortings from and hands of the climbers might tombstone raised for a crushing blow Gugs, since their elusiveness was great black doorways which marked readily be heard when the city whenever the enemy might come in great, and they did not know the way the slumber of the Gugs. awoke; and it would of course take sight. Ghouls can see in the dark, so overland to spectral Sarkomand with Apprehensive of the ending of the but little time for the striding giants, the party was not as badly off as its lion-guarded gate to the abyss. rest hour, the ghouls set a somewhat accustomed from their ghast-hunts Carter would have been alone. In Mighty was the straining of rapid pace; but even so the journey in the vaults of Zin to seeing without another moment the clatter of those three ghouls at the stone of was no brief one, for distances in light, to overtake their smaller and hooves revealed the downward the door above them, and Carter that town of giants are on a great slower quarry on those cyclopean hopping of at least one beast, and helped push with as much strength 464 465 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

as he had. They judged the edge next a deep relief and sense of repose sending his gratitude to the beast nearer he made out the accents of a the top of the staircase to be the right Carter lay quietly on the thick which once was Pickman; but tense and heated discussion; and one, and to this they bent all the grotesque fungi of the enchanted could not help sighing with before long became conscious of force of their disreputably nourished wood while his guides squatted near pleasure when they left. For a ghoul matters which he viewed with the muscles. After a few moments a in the manner that ghouls rest. is a ghoul, and at best an unpleasant greatest concern. For a war on the crack of light appeared; and Carter, companion for man. After that cats was under debate in that sover- to whom that task had been eird as was that Carter sought a forest pool and eign assembly of Zoogs. It all came entrusted, slipped the end of the old enchanted wood cleansed himself of the mud of from the loss of the party which had gravestone in the aperture. There through which he had nether earth, thereupon reassuming sneaked after Carter to Ulthar, and now ensued a mighty heaving; but faredW so long ago, it was verily a the clothes he had so carefully which the cats had justly punished progress was very slow, and they had haven and a delight after those carried. for unsuitable intentions. The matter of course to return to their first posi- gulfs he had now left behind. There It was now night in that redoubt- had long rankled; and now, or at least tion every time they failed to turn was no living denizen about, for able wood of monstrous trees, but within a month, the marshalled the slab and prop the portal open. Zoogs shun the mysterious door in because of the phosphorescence one Zoogs were about to strike the whole Suddenly their desperation was fear and Carter at once consulted might travel as well as by day; where- feline tribe in a series of surprise magnified a thousand fold by a with his ghouls about their future fore Carter set out upon the well- attacks, taking individual cats or sound on the steps below them. It course. To return through the tower known route toward Celephaïs, in groups of cats unawares, and giving was only the thumping and rattling they no longer dared, and the Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian not even the myriad cats of Ulthar of the slain ghast’s hooved body as waking world did not appeal to Hills. And as he went he thought of a proper chance to drill and mobilise. it rolled down to lower levels; but of them when they learned that they the zebra he had left tethered to an This was the plan of the Zoogs, and all the possible causes of that body’s must pass the priests Nasht and ash-tree on Ngranek in far-away Carter saw that he must foil it before dislodgement and rolling, none was Kaman-Thah in the cavern of Oriab so many aeons ago, and leaving upon his mighty quest. in the least reassuring. Therefore, flame. So at length they decided to wondered if any lava-gatherers had Very quietly therefore did knowing the ways of Gugs, the return through Sarkomand and its fed and released it. And he wondered, Randolph Carter steal to the edge ghouls set to with something of a gate of the abyss, though of how to too, if he would ever return to of the wood and send the cry of the frenzy; and in a surprisingly short get there they knew nothing. Carter Baharna and pay for the zebra that cat over the starlit fields. And a great time had the door so high that they recalled that it lies in the valley was slain by night in those ancient grimalkin in a nearby cottage took were able to hold it still whilst Carter below Leng, and recalled likewise ruins by Yath’s shore, and if the old up the burden and relayed it across turned the slab and left a generous that he had seen in Dylath-Leen a tavernkeeper would remember him. leagues of rolling meadow to warriors opening. They now helped Carter sinister, slant-eyed old merchant Such were the thoughts that came large and small, black, grey, tiger, through, letting him climb up to reputed to trade on Leng, therefore to him in the air of the regained white, yellow, and mixed, and it their rubbery shoulders and later he advised the ghouls to seek out upper dreamland. echoed through Nir and beyond the guiding his feet as he clutched at the Dylath-Leen, crossing the fields to But presently his progress was Skai even into Ulthar, and Ulthar’s blessed soil of the upper dreamland Nir and the Skai and following the halted by a sound from a very large numerous cats called in chorus and outside. Another second and they river to its mouth. This they at once hollow tree. He had avoided the fell into a line of march. It was fortu- were through themselves, knocking resolved to do, and lost no time in great circle of stones, since he did nate that the moon was not up, so away the gravestone and closing the loping off, since the thickening of not care to speak with Zoogs just that all the cats were on earth. great trap door while a panting the dusk promised a full night now; but it appeared from the Swiftly and silently leaping, they became audible beneath. Because of ahead for travel. And Carter shook singular fluttering in that huge tree sprang from every hearth and the Great One’s curse no Gug might the paws of those repulsive beasts, that important councils were in housetop and poured in a great furry ever emerge from that portal, so with thanking them for their help and session elsewhere. Upon drawing sea across the plains to the edge of 466 467 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

the wood. Carter was there to greet was very little resistance among the only for the safety it afforded, but golden fields that stretched myste- them, and the sight of shapely, furtive and curious brown Zoogs. because he liked the graceful rious beside a willow-fringed river, wholesome cats was indeed good for They saw that they were beaten in companionship of cats. So in the and the cats went back into the his eyes after the things he had seen advance, and turned from thoughts midst of a pleasant and playful regi- wood. and walked with in the abyss. He of vengeance to thoughts of present ment, relaxed after the successful was glad to see his venerable friend self-preservation. performance of its duty, Randolph ell did the traveller and one-time rescuer at the head of Half the cats now seated them- Carter walked with dignity through know those garden Ulthar’s detachment, a collar of rank selves in a circular formation with that enchanted and phosphorescent lands that lie betwixt around his sleek neck, and whiskers the captured Zoogs in the centre, wood of titan trees, talking of his theW wood of the Cerenerian Sea, bristling at a martial angle. Better leaving open a lane down which were quest with the old general and his and blithely did he follow the still, as a sub-lieutenant in that army marched the additional captives grandson whilst others of the band singing river Oukianos that marked was a brisk young fellow who proved rounded up by the other cats in other indulged in fantastic gambols or his course. The sun rose higher to be none other than the very little parts of the wood. Terms were chased fallen leaves that the wind over gentle slopes of grove and kitten at the inn to whom Carter discussed at length, Carter acting as drove among the fungi of that lawn, and heightened the colours had given a saucer of rich cream on interpreter, and it was decided that primeval floor. And the old cat said of the thousand flowers that starred that long-vanished morning in the Zoogs might remain a free tribe that he had heard much of unknown each knoll and dangle. A blessed Ulthar. He was a strapping and on condition of rendering to the cats Kadath in the cold waste, but did haze lies upon all this region, promising cat now, and purred as he a large tribute of grouse, quail, and not know where it was. As for the wherein is held a little more of the shook hands with his friend. His pheasants from the less fabulous marvellous sunset city, he had not sunlight than other places hold, grandfather said he was doing very parts of the forest. Twelve young even heard of that, but would gladly and a little more of the summer’s well in the army, and that he might Zoogs of noble families were taken relay to Carter anything he might humming music of birds and bees; well expect a captaincy after one as hostages to be kept in the Temple later learn. so that men walk through it as more campaign. of Cats at Ulthar, and the victors He gave the seeker some pass- through a faery place, and feel Carter now outlined the peril of made it plain that any disappear- words of great value among the cats greater joy and wonder than they the cat tribe, and was rewarded by ances of cats on the borders of the of dreamland, and commended him ever afterward remember. deep-throated purrs of gratitude Zoog domain would be followed by especially to the old chief of the cats By noon Carter reached the from all sides. Consulting with the consequences highly disastrous to in Celephaïs, whither he was bound. jasper terraces of Kiran which slope generals, he prepared a plan of Zoogs. These matters disposed of, That old cat, already slightly known down to the river’s edge and bear instant action which involved the assembled cats broke ranks and to Carter, was a dignified maltese; that temple of loveliness wherein the marching at once upon the Zoog permitted the Zoogs to slink off one and would prove highly influential King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far council and other known strong- by one to their respective homes, in any transaction. realm on the twilight sea once a year holds of Zoogs; forestalling their which they hastened to do with It was dawn when they came to in a golden palanquin to pray to the surprise attacks and forcing them to many a sullen backward glance. the proper edge of the wood, and god of Oukianos, who sang to him terms before the mobilization of The old cat general now offered Carter bade his friends a reluctant in youth when he dwelt in a cottage their army of invasion. Thereupon Carter an escort through the forest farewell. The young sub-lieutenant by its banks. All of jasper is that without a moment’s loss that great to whatever border he wished to he had met as a small kitten would temple, and covering an acre of ocean of cats flooded the enchanted reach, deeming it likely that the have followed him had not the old ground with its walls and courts, its wood and surged around the council Zoogs would harbour dire resent- general forbidden it, but that austere seven pinnacled towers, and its inner tree and the great stone circle. ment against him for the frustration patriarch insisted that the path of shrine where the river enters through Flutterings rose to panic pitch as the of their warlike enterprise. This offer duty lay with the tribe and the army. hidden channels and the god sings enemy saw the newcomers and there he welcomed with gratitude; not So Carter set out alone over the softly in the night. Many times the 468 469 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

moon hears strange music as it flaming in the sunset the thousand mysterious streets and linger in the with long, narrow eyes, long-lobed shines on those courts and terraces gilded spires of Thran. Lofty beyond bazaars where the wares of the ornate ears, thin noses, and pointed chins and pinnacles, but whether that belief are the alabaster walls of that galleons were sold. Then into that who came in dark ships from the music be the song of the god or the incredible city, sloping inward toward incredible city he walked; through a north and traded onyx for the carved chant of the cryptical priests, none the top and wrought in one solid wall so thick that the gate was a jade and spun gold and little red but the King of Ilek-Vad may say; piece by what means no man knows, tunnel, and thereafter amidst curved singing birds of Celephaïs. Of these for only he had entered the temple for they are more ancient than and undulant ways winding deep men the sailors knew not much, save or seen the priests. Now, in the memory. Yet lofty as they are with and narrow between the heavenward that they talked but seldom and drowsiness of day, that carven and their hundred gates and two hundred towers. Lights shone through grated spread a kind of awe about them. delicate fane was silent, and Carter turrets, the clustered towers within, and balconied windows, and the Their land, very far away, was heard only the murmur of the great all white beneath their golden spires, sound of lutes and pipes stole timid called Inquanok, and not many stream and the hum of the birds and are loftier still; so that men on the from inner courts where marble people cared to go thither because bees as he walked onward under the plain around see them soaring into fountains bubbled. Carter knew his it was a cold twilight land, and said enchanted sun. the sky, sometimes shining clear, way, and edged down through darker to be close to unpleasant Leng; All that afternoon the pilgrim sometimes caught at the top in streets to the river, where at an old although high impassable mountains wandered on through perfumed tangles of cloud and mist, and some- sea tavern he found the captains and towered on the side where Leng was meadows and in the lee of gentle times clouded lower down with their seamen he had known in myriad thought to lie, so that none might riverward hills bearing peaceful utmost pinnacles blazing free above other dreams. There he bought his say whether this evil plateau with its thatched cottages and the shrines of the vapours. And where Thran’s passage to Celephaïs on a great green horrible stone villages and unmen- amiable gods carven from jasper or gates open on the river are great galleon, and there he stopped for the tionable monastery were really there, chrysoberyl. Sometimes he walked wharves of marble, with ornate night after speaking gravely to the or whether the rumour were only a close to the bank of Oukianos and galleons of fragrant cedar and cala- venerable cat of that inn, who fear that timid people felt in the whistled to the sprightly and irides- mander riding gently at anchor, and blinked dozing before an enormous night when those formidable barrier cent fish of that crystal stream, and strange bearded sailors sitting on hearth and dreamed of old wars and peaks loomed black against a rising at other times he paused amidst the casks and bales with the hieroglyphs forgotten gods. moon. Certainly, men reached Leng whispering rushes and gazed at the of far places. Landward beyond the In the morning Carter boarded from very different oceans. Of other great dark wood on the farther side, walls lies the farm country, where the galleon bound for Celephaïs, and boundaries of Inquanok those sailors whose trees came down clear to the small white cottages dream between sat in the prow as the ropes were cast had no notion, nor had they heard water’s edge. In former dreams he little hills, and narrow roads with off and the long sail down to the of the cold waste and unknown had seen quaint lumbering buopoths many stone bridges wind gracefully Cerenerian Sea begun. For many Kadath save from vague unplaced come shyly out of that wood to drink, among streams and gardens. leagues the banks were much as they report. And of the marvellous sunset but now he could not glimpse any. Down through this verdant land were above Thran, with now and city which Carter sought they knew Once in a while he paused to watch Carter walked at evening, and saw then a curious temple rising on the nothing at all. So the traveller asked a carnivorous fish catch a fishing twilight float up from the river to farther hills toward the right, and a no more of far things, but bided his bird, which it lured to the water by the marvellous golden spires of drowsy village on the shore, with time till he might talk with those showing its tempting scales in the Thran. And just at the hour of dusk steep red roofs and nets spread in strange men from cold and twilight sun, and grasped by the beak with he came to the southern gate, and the sun. Mindful of his search, Carter Inquanok who are the seed of such its enormous mouth as the winged was stopped by a red-robed sentry questioned all the mariners closely gods as carved their features on hunter sought to dart down upon it. till he had told three dreams beyond about those whom they had met in Ngranek. Toward evening he mounted a belief, and proved himself a dreamer the taverns of Celephaïs, asking the Late in the day the galleon low grassy rise and saw before him worthy to walk up Thran’s steep names and ways of the strange men reached those bends of the river 470 471 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

which traverse the perfumed jungles so that the city is not sought except into sight the glittering minarets of temple or the palace or the citadel, of Kied. Here Carter wished he for barter, but is prized for the solid that fabulous town, and the untar- but stayed by the seaward wall might disembark, for in those tropic work of its artisans. The wharves of nished marble walls with their among traders and sailors. And when tangles sleep wondrous palaces of Hlanith are of oak, and there the bronze statues, and the great stone it was too late for rumours and ivory, lone and unbroken, where once galleon made fast while the captain bridge where Naraxa joins the sea. legends he sought out an ancient dwelt fabulous monarchs of a land traded in the taverns. Carter also Then rose the gentle hills behind tavern he knew well, and rested with whose name is forgotten. Spells of went ashore, and looked curiously the town, with their groves and dreams of the gods on unknown the Elder Ones keep those places upon the rutted streets where gardens of asphodels and the small Kadath whom he sought. unharmed and undecayed, for it is wooden ox carts lumbered and shrines and cottages upon them; and The next day he searched all written that there may one day be feverish merchants cried their wares far in the background the purple along the quays for some of the need of them again; and elephant vacuously in the bazaars. The sea ridge of the Tanarians, potent and strange mariners of Inquanok, but caravans have glimpsed them from taverns were all close to the wharves mystical, behind which lay forbidden was told that none were now in port, afar by moonlight, though none on cobbled lanes salted with the ways into the waking world and their galley not being due from the dares approach them closely because spray of high tides, and seemed toward other regions of dream. north for full two weeks. He found, of the guardians to which their exceedingly ancient with their low The harbour was full of painted however, one Thorabonian sailor wholeness is due. But the ship swept black-beamed ceilings and case- galleys, some of which were from who had been to Inquanok and had on, and dusk hushed the hum of the ments of greenish bull’s-eye panes. the marble cloud-city of Serannian, worked in the onyx quarries of that day, and the first stars above blinked Ancient sailors in those taverns that lies in ethereal space beyond twilight place; and this sailor said answers to the early fireflies on the talked much of distant ports, and where the sea meets the sky, and there was certainly a descent to the banks as that jungle fell far behind, told many stories of the curious men some of which were from more north of the peopled region, which leaving only its fragrance as a from twilight Inquanok, but had substantial parts of dreamland. everybody seemed to fear and shun. memory that it had been. And all little to add to what the seamen of Among these the steersman threaded The Thorabonian opined that this through the night that galleon the galleon had told. Then at last, his way up to the spice-fragrant desert led around the utmost rim of floated on past mysteries unseen and after much unloading and loading, wharves, where the galleon made impassable peaks into Leng’s unsuspected. Once a lookout the ship set sail once more over the fast in the dusk as the city’s million horrible plateau, and that this was reported fires on the hills to the east, sunset sea, and the high walls and lights began to twinkle out over the why men feared it; though he but the sleepy captain said they had gables of Hlanith grew less as the water. Ever new seemed this death- admitted there were other vague better not be looked at too much, last golden light of day lent them a less city of vision, for here time has tales of evil presences and nameless since it was highly uncertain just wonder and beauty beyond any that no power to tarnish or destroy. As it sentinels. Whether or not this could who or what had lit them. men had given them. has always been is still the turquoise be the fabled waste wherein unknown In the morning the river had Two nights and two days the of Nath-Horthath, and the eighty Kadath stands he did not know; but broadened out greatly, and Carter galleon sailed over the Cerenerian orchid-wreathed priests are the same it seemed unlikely that those pres- saw by the houses along the banks Sea, sighting no land and speaking who builded it ten thousand years ences and sentinels, if indeed they that they were close to the vast but one other vessel. Then near ago. Shining still is the bronze of the existed, were stationed for nought. trading city of Hlanith on the sunset of the second day there great gates, nor are the onyx pave- On the following day Carter Cerenerian Sea. Here the walls are loomed up ahead the snowy peak of ments ever worn or broken. And the walked up the Street of the Pillars of rugged granite, and the houses Aran with its gingko-trees swaying great bronze statues on the walls to the turquoise temple and talked peakedly fantastic with beamed and on the lower slope, and Carter knew look down on merchants and camel with the High-Priest. Though Nath- plastered gables. The men of Hlanith that they were come to the land of drivers older than fable, yet without Horthath is chiefly worshipped in are more like those of the waking Ooth-Nargai and the marvellous one grey hair in their forked beards. Celephaïs, all the Great Ones are world than any others in dreamland; city of Celephaïs. Swiftly there came Carter did not once seek out the mentioned in diurnal prayers; and 472 473 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

the priest was reasonably versed in Inquanok, on whose dark ships no dead; but he had done the next best grey chief of the cats adieu, he did their moods. Like Atal in distant cat will go. thing and dreamed a small tract of not seek the terraced palace of rose Ulthar, he strongly advised against It seems that these men have an such countryside in the region east crystal but walked out the eastern any attempts to see them; declaring aura not of earth about them, though of the city where meadows roll gate and across the daisied fields that they are testy and capricious, that is not the reason why no cat will gracefully up from the sea-cliffs to toward a peaked gable which he and subject to strange protection sail on their ships. The reason for the foot of the Tanarian Hills. There glimpsed through the oaks of a park from the mindless Other Gods from this is that Inquanok holds shadows he dwelt in a grey Gothic manor- sloping up to the sea-cliffs. And in Outside, whose soul and messenger which no cat can endure, so that in house of stone looking on the sea, time he came to a great hedge and is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. all that cold twilight realm there is and tried to think it was ancient a gate with a little brick lodge, and Their jealous hiding of the marvel- never a cheering purr or a homely Trevor Towers, where he was born when he rang the bell there hobbled lous sunset city shewed clearly that mew. Whether it be because of and where thirteen generations of to admit him no robed and annointed they did not wish Carter to reach it, things wafted over the impassable his forefathers had first seen the lackey of the palace, but a small and it was doubtful how they would peaks from hypothetical Leng, or light. And on the coast nearby he stubby old man in a smock who regard a guest whose object was to because of things filtering down had built a little Cornish fishing spoke as best he could in the quaint see them and plead before them. No from the chilly desert to the north, village with steep cobbled ways, tones of far Cornwall. And Carter man had ever found Kadath in the none may say; but it remains a fact settling therein such people as had walked up the shady path between past, and it might be just as well if that in that far land there broods a the most English faces, and seeking trees as near as possible to England’s none ever found it in the future. Such hint of outer space which cats do ever to teach them the dear remem- trees, and climbed the terraces rumours as were told about that onyx not like, and to which they are more bered accents of old Cornwall fishers. among gardens set out as in Queen castle of the Great Ones were not sensitive than men. Therefore they And in a valley not far off he had Anne’s time. At the door, flanked by by any means reassuring. will not go on the dark ships that reared a great Norman Abbey whose stone cats in the old way, he was met Having thanked the orchid- seek the basalt quays of Inquanok. tower he could see from his window, by a whiskered butler in suitable crowned High-Priest, Carter left the The old chief of the cats also placing around it in the churchyard livery; and was presently taken to temple and sought out the bazaar of told him where to find his friend grey stones with the names of his the library where Kuranes, Lord of the sheep-butchers, where the old King Kuranes, who in Carter’s latter ancestors carved thereon, and with Ooth-Nargai and the Sky around chief of Celephaïs’ cats dwelt sleek dreams had reigned alternately in a moss somewhat like Old England’s Serannian, sat pensive in a chair by and contented. That grey and digni- the rose-crystal Palace of the Seventy moss. For though Kuranes was a the window looking on his little fied being was sunning himself on Delights at Celephaïs and in the monarch in the land of dream, with seacoast village and wishing that his the onyx pavement, and extended a turreted cloud-castle of sky-floating all imagined pomps and marvels, old nurse would come in and scold languid paw as his caller approached. Serannian. It seemed that he could splendours and beauties, ecstasies him because he was not ready for But when Carter repeated the pass- no more find content in those places, and delights, novelties and excite- that hateful lawn-party at the vicar’s, words and introductions furnished but had formed a mighty longing ments at his command, he would with the carriage waiting and his him by the old cat general of Ulthar, for the English cliffs and downlands gladly have resigned forever the mother nearly out of patience. the furry patriarch became very of his boyhood; where in little whole of his power and luxury and Kuranes, clad in a dressing gown cordial and communicative; and told dreaming villages England’s old freedom for one blessed day as a of the sort favoured by London much of the secret lore known to songs hover at evening behind lattice simple boy in that pure and quiet tailors in his youth, rose eagerly to cats on the seaward slopes of Ooth- windows, and where grey church England, that ancient, beloved meet his guest; for the sight of an Nargai. Best of all, he repeated towers peep lovely through the England which had moulded his Anglo-Saxon from the waking world several things told him furtively by verdure of distant valleys. He could being and of which he must always was very dear to him, even if it was the timid waterfront cats of not go back to these things in the be immutably a part. a Saxon from Boston, Massachusetts, Celephaïs about the men of waking world because his body was So when Carter bade that old instead of from Cornwall. And for 474 475 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

long they talked of old times, having Celephaïs and the land of Ooth- things he told Randolph Carter, but moving were those airs and tales much to say because both were old Nargai, and for the freedom and still the seeker held to his purpose. that one might guess their wonders dreamers and well versed in the colour and high experience of life And in the end they parted each from the faces of those who wonders of incredible places. devoid of its chains, and conventions, with his own conviction, and Carter listened, even though the words Kuranes, indeed, had been out and stupidities. But now that he was went back through the bronze gate came to common ears only as beyond the stars in the ultimate void, come into that city and that land, into Celephaïs and down the Street strange cadence and obscure and was said to be the only one who and was the king thereof, he found of Pillars to the old sea wall, where melody. had ever returned sane from such a the freedom and the vividness all too he talked more with the mariners of For a week the strange seamen voyage. soon worn out, and monotonous for far ports and waited for the dark ship lingered in the taverns and traded At length Carter brought up the want of linkage with anything firm from cold and twilight Inquanok, in the bazaars of Celephaïs, and subject of his quest, and asked of his in his feelings and memories. He whose strange-faced sailors and before they sailed Carter had taken host those questions he had asked was a king in Ooth-Nargai, but onyx-traders had in them the blood passage on their dark ship, telling of so many others. Kuranes did not found no meaning therein, and of the Great Ones. them that he was an old onyx miner know where Kadath was, or the drooped always for the old familiar and wishful to work in their quarries. marvellous sunset city; but he did things of England that had shaped ne starlit evening when That ship was very lovely and know that the Great Ones were very his youth. All his kingdom would the Pharos shone splendid cunningly wrought, being of teak- dangerous creatures to seek out, and he give for the sound of Cornish over the harbour the wood with ebony fittings and trac- that the Other Gods had strange church bells over the downs, and all longed-forO ship put in, and strange- eries of gold, and the cabin in which ways of protecting them from imper- the thousand minarets of Celephais faced sailors and traders appeared the traveller lodged had hangings of tinent curiosity. He had learned for the steep homely roofs of the one by one and group by group in silk and velvet. One morning at the much of the Other Gods in distant village near his home. So he told his the ancient taverns along the sea turn of the tide the sails were raised parts of space, especially in that guest that the unknown sunset city wall. It was very exciting to see and the anchor lifted, and as Carter region where form does not exist, might not hold quite that content again those living faces so like the stood on the high stern he saw the and coloured gases study the inner- he sought, and that perhaps it had godlike features of Ngranek, but sunrise-blazing walls and bronze most secrets. The violet gas S’ngac better remain a glorious and half-re- Carter did not hasten to speak with statues and golden minarets of had told him terrible things of the membered dream. For he had visited the silent seamen. He did not know ageless Celephaïs sink into the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep, and Carter often in the old waking days, how much of pride and secrecy and distance, and the snowy peak of had warned him never to approach and knew well the lovely New dim supernal memory might fill Mount Man grow smaller and the central void where the daemon England slopes that had given him those children of the Great Ones, smaller. By noon there was nothing sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in birth. and was sure it would not be wise in sight save the gentle blue of the the dark. At the last, he was very certain, to tell them of his quest or ask too Cerenerian Sea, with one painted Altogether, it was not well to the seeker would long only for the closely of that cold desert stretching galley afar off bound for that realm meddle with the Elder Ones; and if early remembered scenes; the glow north of their twilight land. They of Serannian where the sea meets they persistently denied all access to of Beacon Hill at evening, the tall talked little with the other folk in the sky. the marvellous sunset city, it were steeples and winding hill streets of those ancient sea taverns; but And the night came with better not to seek that city. quaint Kingsport, the hoary gambrel would gather in groups in remote gorgeous stars, and the dark ship Kuranes furthermore doubted roofs of ancient and witch-haunted comers and sing among themselves steered for Charles’ Wain and the whether his guest would profit aught Arkham, and the blessed meads and the haunting airs of unknown Little Bear as they swung slowly by coming to the city even were he valleys where stone walls rambled places, or chant long tales to one round the pole. And the sailors sang to gain it. He himself had dreamed and white farmhouse gables peeped another in accents alien to the rest strange songs of unknown places, and yearned long years for lovely out from bowers of verdure. These of dreamland. And so rare and and they stole off one by one to the 476 477 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

forecastle while the wistful watchers such prodigious lumps and blocks name. The seamen prayed and distant Ngranek. On a hill in the murmured old chants and leaned that the sight of their chiselled chanted till the noise was out of centre rose a sixteen-angled tower over the rail to glimpse the luminous vacancies struck terror to all who earshot, and Carter dreamed terrible greater than all the rest and bearing fish playing in bowers beneath the beheld. Who had mined those dreams within dreams in the small a high pinnacled belfry resting on a sea. Carter went to sleep at midnight, incredible blocks, and whither they hours. flattened dome. This, the seamen and rose in the glow of a young had been transported, no man might Two mornings after that there said, was the Temple of the Elder morning, marking that the sun say; but it was thought best not to loomed far ahead and to the east a Ones, and was ruled by an old High- seemed farther south than was its trouble that quarry, around which line of great grey peaks whose tops Priest sad with inner secrets. wont. And all through that second such inhuman memories might were lost in the changeless clouds of At intervals the clang of a day he made progress in knowing conceivably cling. So it was left all that twilight world. And at the sight strange bell shivered over the onyx the men of the ship, getting them alone in the twilight, with only the of them the sailors sang glad songs, city, answered each time by a peal of little by little to talk of their cold raven and the rumoured Shantak- and some knelt down on the deck mystic music made up of horns, viols, twilight land, of their exquisite onyx bird to brood on its immensities. to pray, so that Carter knew they and chanting voices. And from a row city, and of their fear of the high and When Carter heard of this quarry were come to the land of Inquanok of tripods on a galley round the high impassable peaks beyond which he was moved to deep thought, for and would soon be moored to the dome of the temple there burst flares Leng was said to be. They told him he knew from old tales that the basalt quays of the great town of flame at certain moments; for the how sorry they were that no cats Great Ones’ castle atop unknown bearing that land’s name. Toward priests and people of that city were would stay in the land of Inquanok, Kadath is of onyx. noon a dark coastline appeared, and wise in the primal mysteries, and and how they thought the hidden Each day the sun wheeled lower before three o’clock there stood out faithful in keeping the rhythms of nearness of Leng was to blame for and lower in the sky, and the mists against the north the bulbous domes the Great Ones as set forth in scrolls it. Only of the stony desert to the overhead grew thicker and thicker. and fantastic spires of the onyx city. older than the Pnakotic Manuscripts. north they would not talk. There was And in two weeks there was not any Rare and curious did that archaic As the ship rode past the great something disquieting about that sunlight at all, but only a weird grey city rise above its walls and quays, basalt breakwater into the harbour desert, and it was thought expedient twilight shining through a dome of all of delicate black with scrolls, flut- the lesser noises of the city grew not to admit its existence. eternal cloud by day, and a cold star- ings, and arabesques of inlaid gold. manifest, and Carter saw the slaves, On later days they talked of the less phosphorescence from the Tall and many-windowed were the sailors, and merchants on the docks. quarries in which Carter said he was underside of that cloud by night. On houses, and carved on every side with The sailors and merchants were of going to work. There were many of the twentieth day a great jagged rock flowers and patterns whose dark the strange-faced race of the gods, them, for all the city of Inquanok in the sea was sighted from afar, the symmetries dazzled the eye with a but the slaves were squat, slant-eyed was builded of onyx, whilst great first land glimpsed since Man’s beauty more poignant than light. folk said by rumour to have drifted polished blocks of it were traded in snowy peak had dwindled behind Some ended in swelling domes that somehow across or around the Rinar, Ogrothan, and Celephaïs and the ship. Carter asked the captain tapered to a point, others in terraced impassable peaks from the valleys at home with the merchants of the name of that rock, but was told pyramids whereon rose clustered beyond Leng. The wharves reached Thraa, Flarnek, and Kadatheron, for that it had no name and had never minarets displaying every phase of wide outside the city wall and bore the beautiful wares of those fabulous been sought by any vessel because strangeness and imagination. The upon them all manner of merchan- ports. And far to the north, almost of the sounds that came from it at walls were low, and pierced by dise from the galleys anchored there, in the cold desert whose existence night. And when, after dark, a dull frequent gates, each under a great while at one end were great piles of the men of Inquanok did not care and ceaseless howling arose from arch rising high above the general onyx both carved and uncarved to admit, there was an unused quarry that jagged granite place, the trav- level and capped by the head of a awaiting shipment to the far markets greater than all the rest; from which eller was glad that no stop had been god chiselled with that same skill of Rinar, Ograthan and Celephaïs. had been hewn in forgotten times made, and that the rock had no displayed in the monstrous face on It was not yet evening when the 478 479 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

dark ship anchored beside a jutting trade with the horrible stone villages beautiful beyond words; and nothing steam rises. And all the seven quay of stone, and all the sailors and of Leng which no healthy folk visit was more splendid than the massive columns strut peculiarly in single traders filed ashore and through the and whose evil fires are seen at night heights of the great central Temple file, legs thrown far forward without arched gate into the city. The streets from afar, and even to have dealt of the Elder Ones with its sixteen bending the knees, down the walks of that city were paved with onyx with that High-Priest Not To Be carven sides, its flattened dome, and that lead to the seven lodges, wherein and some of them were wide and Described, which wears a yellow its lofty pinnacled belfry, overtop- they disappear and do not appear straight whilst others were crooked silken mask over its face and dwells ping all else, and majestic whatever again. It is said that subterrene paths and narrow. The houses near the all alone in a prehistoric stone its foreground. And always to the connect the lodges with the temple, water were lower than the rest, and monastery. This man had seemed to east, far beyond the city walls and and that the long files of priests bore above their curiously arched shew a queer gleam of knowing the leagues of pasture land, rose the return through them; nor is it doorways certain signs of gold said when Carter asked the traders of gaunt grey sides of those topless and unwhispered that deep flights of to be in honour of the respective Dylath-Leen about the cold waste impassable peaks across which onyx steps go down to mysteries that small gods that favoured each. The and Kadath; and somehow his pres- hideous Leng was said to lie. are never told. But only a few are captain of the ship took Carter to ence in dark and haunted Inquanok, The captain took Carter to the those who hint that the priests in an old sea tavern where flocked the so close to the wonders of the north, mighty temple, which is set with its the masked and hooded columns are mariners of quaint countries, and was not a reassuring thing. He walled garden in a great round plaza not human beings. promised that he would next day slipped wholly out of sight before whence the streets go as spokes from Carter did not enter the temple, shew him the wonders of the twilight Carter could speak to him, and a wheel’s hub. The seven arched gates because none but the Veiled King is city, and lead him to the taverns of sailors later said that he had come of that garden, each having over it a permitted to do that. But before he the onyx-miners by the northern with a yak caravan from some point carven face like those on the city’s left the garden the hour of the bell wall. And evening fell, and little not well determined, bearing the gates, are always open, and the came, and he heard the shivering bronze lamps were lighted, and the colossal and rich-flavoured eggs of people roam reverently at will down clang deafening above him, and the sailors in that tavern sang songs of the rumoured Shantak-bird to trade the tiled paths and through the little wailing of the horns and viols and remote places. But when from its for the dextrous jade goblets that lanes lined with grotesque termini voices loud from the lodges by the high tower the great bell shivered merchants brought from Ilarnek. and the shrines of modest gods. And gates. And down the seven great over the city, and the peal of the On the following morning the there are fountains, pools, and basins walks stalked the long files of bowl- horns and viols and voices rose cryp- ship-captain led Carter through the there to reflect the frequent blaze of bearing priests in their singular way, tical in answer thereto, all ceased onyx streets of Inquanok, dark under the tripods on the high balcony, all giving to the traveller a fear which their songs or tales and bowed silent their twilight sky. The inlaid doors of onyx and having in them small human priests do not often give. till the last echo died away. For there and figured house-fronts, carven luminous fish taken by divers from When the last of them had vanished is a wonder and a strangeness on the balconies and crystal-paned oriels the lower bowers of ocean. When he left that garden, noting as he did twilight city of Inquanok, and men all gleamed with a sombre and the deep clang from the temple so a spot on the pavement over fear to be lax in its rites lest a doom polished loveliness; and now and belfry shivers over the garden and which the bowls had passed. Even and a vengeance lurk unsuspectedly then a plaza would open out with the city, and the answer of the horns the ship-captain did not like that close. black pillars, colonnades, and the and viols and voices peals out from spot, and hurried him on toward the Far in the shadows of that tavern statues of curious beings both human the seven lodges by the garden gates, hill whereon the Veiled King’s palace Carter saw a squat form he did not and fabulous. Some of the vistas there issue from the seven doors of rises many-domed and marvellous. like, for it was unmistakably that of down long and unbending streets, the temple long columns of masked The ways to the onyx palace are the old slant-eyed merchant he had or through side alleys and over and hooded priests in black, bearing steep and narrow, all but the broad seen so long before in the taverns of bulbous domes, spires, and at arm’s length before them great curving one where the king and his Dylath-Leen, who was reputed to arabesqued roofs, were weird and golden bowls from which a curious companions ride on yaks or in 480 481 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

yak-drawn chariots. Carter and his spread like a veil over that incredible father of Shantaks in the king’s dome he followed that rising road, which guide climbed up an alley that was garden. No other human presence is fed in the dark). was somewhat narrower than the all steps, between inlaid walls bearing was there, and Carter was glad it was The next day, saying that he great highway, and which now led strange signs in gold, and under so. Then they turned and descended wished to look over all the various through a region with more rocks balconies and oriels whence some- again the onyx alley of steps, for the mines for himself and to visit the than tilled fields. And by evening times floated soft strains of music palace itself no visitor may enter; and scattered farms and quaint onyx the low hills on his left had risen or breaths of exotic fragrance. Always it is not well to look too long and villages of Inquanok, Carter hired a into sizable black cliffs, so that he ahead loomed those titan walls, steadily at the great central dome, yak and stuffed great leathern knew he was close to the mining mighty buttresses, and clustered and since it is said to house the archaic saddle-bags for a journey. Beyond country. All the while the great bulbous domes for which the Veiled father of all the rumoured Shantak- the Gate of the Caravans the road gaunt sides of the impassable King’s palace is famous; and at length birds, and to send out queer dreams lay straight betwixt tilled fields, with mountains towered afar off at his they passed under a great black arch to the curious. many odd farmhouses crowned by right, and the farther he went, the and emerged in the gardens of the After that the captain took low domes. At some of these houses worse tales he heard of them from monarch’s pleasure. There Carter Carter to the north quarter of the the seeker stopped to ask questions; the scattered farmers and traders paused in faintness at so much town, near the Gate of the Caravans, once finding a host so austere and and drivers of lumbering onyx- beauty, for the onyx terraces and where are the taverns of the yak-mer- reticent, and so full of an unplaced carts along the way. colonnaded walks, the gay porterres chants and the onyx-miners. And majesty like to that in the huge On the second night he camped and delicate flowering trees espal- there, in a low-ceiled inn of quar- features on Ngranek, that he felt in the shadow of a large black crag, iered to golden lattices, the brazen rymen, they said farewell; for busi- certain he had come at last upon one tethering his yak to a stake driven urns and tripods with cunning ness called the captain whilst Carter of the Great Ones themselves, or in the ground. He observed the bas-reliefs, the pedestalled and was eager to talk with miners about upon one with full nine-tenths of greater phosphorescence of the almost breathing statues of veined the north. There were many men in their blood, dwelling amongst men. clouds at this northerly point, and black marble, the basalt-bottomed that inn, and the traveller was not And to that austere and reticent more than once thought he saw dark lagoon’s tiled fountains with lumi- long in speaking to some of them; cotter he was careful to speak very shapes outlined against them. And nous fish, the tiny temples of irides- saying that he was an old miner of well of the gods, and to praise all the on the third morning he came in cent singing birds atop carven onyx, and anxious to know somewhat blessings they had ever accorded sight of the first onyx quarry, and columns, the marvellous scrollwork of Inquanok’s quarries. But all that him. greeted the men who there laboured of the great bronze gates, and the he learned was not much more than with picks and chisels. Before blossoming vines trained along every he knew before, for the miners were hat night Carter camped in evening he had passed eleven quar- inch of the polished walls all joined timid and evasive about the cold a roadside meadow beneath ries; the land being here given over to form a sight whose loveliness was desert to the north and the quarry a great lygath-tree to which altogether to onyx cliffs and boul- beyond reality, and half-fabulous that no man visits. They had fears The tied his yak, and in the morning ders, with no vegetation at all, but even in the land of dreams. There it of fabled emissaries from around the resumed his northward pilgrimage. only great rocky fragments scattered shimmered like a vision under that mountains where Leng is said to lie, At about ten o’clock he reached the about a floor of black earth, with the grey twilight sky, with the domed and of evil presences and nameless small-domed village of Urg, where grey impassable peaks always rising and fretted magnificence of the sentinels far north among the scat- traders rest and miners tell their gaunt and sinister on his right. The palace ahead, and the fantastic tered rocks. And they whispered also tales, and paused in its taverns till third night he spent in a camp of silhouette of the distant impassable that the rumoured Shantak-birds noon. It is here that the great quarry men whose flickering fires peaks on the right. And ever the are no wholesome things; it being caravan road turns west toward cast weird reflections on the polished small birds and the fountains sang, indeed for the best that no man has Selarn, but Carter kept on north by cliffs to the west. And they sang while the perfume of rare blossoms ever truly seen one (for that fabled the quarry road. All the afternoon many songs and told many tales, 482 483 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

shewing such strange knowledge of rock would make him think uncom- deep down within earth’s bowels its broadening in front till he knew he the olden days and the habits of gods fortably of the rumoured Shantak- lower delvings yawned. It was no must soon emerge on the cold and that Carter could see they held many bird. But in the main he was alone quarry of man, and the concave sides dreaded desert to the north. The latent memories of their sires the with his shaggy steed, and it troubled were scarred with great squares, yards gaunt grey flanks of the distant Great Ones. They asked him whither him to observe that this excellent wide, which told of the size of the impassable peaks were again visible he went, and cautioned him not to yak became more and more reluctant blocks once hewn by nameless hands above the right-hand crags, and go too far to the north; but he replied to advance, and more and more and chisels. High over its jagged rim ahead were the rocks and boulders that he was seeking new cliffs of disposed to snort affrightedly at any huge ravens flapped and croaked, of an open space which was clearly onyx, and would take no more risks small noise along the route. and vague whirrings in the unseen a foretaste of the dark arid limitless than were common among prospec- The path now contracted depths told of bats or urhags or less plain. And once more those hoof- tors. In the morning he bade them between sable and glistening walls, mentionable presences haunting the beats sounded in his ears, plainer adieu and rode on into the darkening and began to display an even greater endless blackness. There Carter than before, but this time giving north, where they had warned him steepness than before. It was a bad stood in the narrow way amidst the terror instead of encouragement he would find the feared and unvis- footing, and the yak often slipped twilight with the rocky path sloping because he realised that they were ited quarry whence hands older than on the stony fragments strewn down before him; tall onyx cliffs on not the frightened hoofbeats of his men’s hands had wrenched prodi- thickly about. In two hours Carter his right that led on as far as he could fleeing yak. The beats were ruthless gious blocks. But he did not like it saw ahead a definite crest, beyond see and tall cliffs on the left chopped and purposeful, and they were when, turning back to wave a last which was nothing but dull grey sky, off just ahead to make that terrible behind him. farewell, he thought he saw and blessed the prospect of a level and unearthly quarry. Carter’s pursuit of the yak approaching the camp that squat or downward course. To reach this All at once the yak uttered a cry became now a flight from an unseen and evasive old merchant with crest, however, was no easy task; for and burst from his control, leaping thing, for though he dared not glance slanting eyes, whose conjectured the way had grown nearly perpen- past him and darting on in a panic over his shoulder he felt that the traffick with Leng was the gossip of dicular, and was perilous with loose till it vanished down the narrow presence behind him could be distant Dylath-Leen. black gravel and small stones. slope toward the north. Stones nothing wholesome or mentionable. After two more quarries the Eventually Carter dismounted and kicked by its flying hooves fell over His yak must have heard or felt it inhabited part of Inquanok seemed led his dubious yak; pulling very hard the brink of the quarry and lost first, and he did not like to ask to end, and the road narrowed to a when the animal balked or stumbled, themselves in the dark without any himself whether it had followed him steeply rising yak-path among and keeping his own footing as best sound of striking bottom; but Carter from the haunts of men or had forbidding black cliffs. Always on he might. Then suddenly he came ignored the perils of that scanty path floundered up out of that black the right towered the gaunt and to the top and saw beyond, and as he raced breathlessly after the quarry pit. Meanwhile the cliffs had distant peaks, and as Carter climbed gasped at what he saw. flying steed. Soon the left-behind been left behind, so that the farther and farther into this untra- The path indeed led straight cliffs resumed their course, making oncoming night fell over a great versed realm he found it grew darker ahead and slightly down, with the the way once more a narrow lane; waste of sand and spectral rocks and colder. Soon he perceived that same lines of high natural walls as and still the traveller leaped on after wherein all paths were lost. He could there were no prints of feet or hooves before; but on the left hand there the yak whose great wide prints told not see the hoofprints of his yak, but on the black path beneath, and real- opened out a monstrous space, vast of its desperate flight. always from behind him there came ised that he was indeed come into acres in extent, where some archaic Once he thought he heard the that detestable clopping; mingled strange and deserted ways of elder power had riven and rent the native hoofbeats of the frightened beast, now and then with what he fancied time. Once in a while a raven would cliffs of onyx in the form of a giant’s and doubled his speed from this were titanic flappings and whirrings. croak far overhead, and now and quarry. Far back into the solid prec- encouragement. He was covering That he was losing ground seemed then a flapping behind some vast ipice ran that cyclopean gouge, and miles, and little by little the way was unhappily clear to him, and he knew 484 485 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

he was hopelessly lost in this broken from their shadowy caps great forms up behind him, leaving the lean yak and know that they float only from and blasted desert of meaningless whose motions were no delusion. to be led away northward toward the the cold desert plateau which healthy rocks and untravelled sands. Only Winged and whirring, those forms ring of carven mountains by one of folk never visit; that haunted place those remote and impassable peaks grew larger each moment, and the the incredible bird colossi. of evil and mystery which is Leng. on the right gave him any sense of traveller knew his stumbling was at There now followed a hideous Around the feeble fires dark direction, and even they were less an end. They were not any birds or whirl through frigid space, endlessly forms were dancing, and Carter was clear as the grey twilight waned and bats known elsewhere on earth or in up and eastward toward the gaunt curious as to what manner of beings the sickly phosphorescence of the dreamland, for they were larger than grey flanks of those impassable they might be; for no healthy folk clouds took its place. elephants and had heads like a mountains beyond which Leng was have ever been to Leng, and the place Then dim and misty in the dark- horse’s. Carter knew that they must said to be. Far above the clouds they is known only by its fires and stone ling north before him he glimpsed be the Shantak-birds of ill rumour, flew, till at last there lay beneath huts as seen from afar. Very slowly a terrible thing. He had thought it and wondered no more what evil them those fabled summits which and awkwardly did those forms leap, for some moments a range of black guardians and nameless sentinels the folk of Inquanok have never seen, and with an insane twisting and mountains, but now he saw it was made men avoid the boreal rock and which lie always in high vortices bending not good to behold; so that something more. The phosphores- desert. And as he stopped in final of gleaming mist. Carter beheld Carter did not wonder at the cence of the brooding clouds shewed resignation he dared at last to look them very plainly as they passed monstrous evil imputed to them by it plainly, and even silhouetted parts behind him, where indeed was trot- below, and saw upon their topmost vague legend, or the fear in which of it as vapours glowed behind. How ting the squat slant-eyed trader of peaks strange caves which made him all dreamland holds their abhorrent distant it was he could not tell, but evil legend, grinning astride a lean think of those on Ngranek; but he frozen plateau. As the Shantak flew it must have been very far. It was yak and leading on a noxious horde did not question his captor about lower, the repulsiveness of the thousands of feet high, stretching in of leering Shantaks to whose wings these things when he noticed that dancers became tinged with a certain a great concave arc from the grey still clung the rime and nitre of the both the man and the horse-headed hellish familiarity; and the prisoner impassable peaks to the unimagined nether pits. Shantak appeared oddly fearful of kept straining his eyes and racking westward spaces, and had once Trapped though he was by fabu- them, hurrying past nervously and his memory for clues to where he indeed been a ridge of mighty onyx lous and hippocephalic winged shewing great tension until they had seen such creatures before. hills. But now these hills were hills nightmares that pressed around in were left far in the rear. They leaped as though they had no more, for some hand greater than great unholy circles, Randolph The Shantak now flew lower, hooves instead of feet, and seemed man’s had touched them. Silent they Carter did not lose consciousness. revealing beneath the canopy of to wear a sort of wig or headpiece squatted there atop the world like Lofty and horrible those titan cloud a grey barren plain whereon with small horns. Of other clothing wolves or ghouls, crowned with gargoyles towered above him, while at great distances shone little feeble they had none, but most of them clouds and mists and guarding the the slant-eyed merchant leaped fires. As they descended there were quite furry. Behind they had secrets of the north forever. All in a down from his yak and stood grin- appeared at intervals lone huts of dwarfish tails, and when they glanced great half circle they squatted, those ning before the captive. Then the granite and bleak stone villages upward he saw the excessive width dog-like mountains carven into man motioned Carter to mount one whose tiny windows glowed with of their mouths. Then he knew what monstrous watching statues, and of the repugnant Shantaks, helping pallid light. And there came from they were, and that they did not wear their right hands were raised in him up as his judgement struggled those huts and villages a shrill any wigs or headpieces after all. For menace against mankind. with his loathing. It was hard work droning of pipes and a nauseous the cryptic folk of Leng were of one It was only the flickering light ascending, for the Shantak-bird has rattle of crotala which proved at once race with the uncomfortable of the clouds that made their mitred scales instead of feathers, and those that Inquanok’s people are right in merchants of the black galleys that double heads seem to move, but as scales are very slippery. Once he was their geographic rumours. For trav- traded rubies at Dylath-Leen; those Carter stumbled on he saw arise seated, the slant-eyed man hopped ellers have heard such sounds before, not quite human merchants who are 486 487 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

the slaves of the monstrous moon- nothing human, and Carter surmised within the circle of standing rocks could tell from the frescoes that this things! They were indeed the same from old tales that he was indeed and into the low arched doorway of was none other than the lone name- dark folk who had shanghaied Carter come to that most dreadful and that windowless stone monastery. less rock he had seen when sailing on their noisome galley so long ago, legendary of all places, the remote There were no lights inside, but the to Inquanok; that grey accursed rock and whose kith he had seen driven and prehistoric monastery wherein evil merchant lit a small clay lamp which Inquanok’s seamen shun, and in herds about the unclean wharves dwells uncompanioned the High- bearing morbid bas-reliefs and from which vile howlings reverberate of that accursed lunar city, with the Priest Not To Be Described, which prodded his prisoner on through all through the night. leaner ones toiling and the fatter wears a yellow silken mask over its mazes of narrow winding corridors. And in those frescoes was shewn ones taken away in crates for other face and prays to the Other Gods On the walls of the corridors were the great seaport and capital of the needs of their polypous and amor- and their crawling chaos printed frightful scenes older than almost-humans; proud and pillared phous masters. Now he saw where Nyarlathotep. history, and in a style unknown to betwixt the cliffs and the basalt such ambiguous creatures came The loathsome bird now settled the archaeologists of earth. After wharves, and wondrous with high from, and shuddered at the thought to the ground, and the slant-eyed countless aeons their pigments were fanes and carven places. Great that Leng must be known to these man hopped down and helped his brilliant still, for the cold and dryness gardens and columned streets led formless abominations from the captive alight. Of the purpose of his of hideous Leng keep alive many from the cliffs and from each of the moon. seizure Carter now felt very sure; for primal things. Carter saw them fleet- six sphinx-crowned gates to a vast But the Shantak flew on past clearly the slant-eyed merchant was ingly in the rays of that dim and central plaza, and in that plaza was the fires and the stone huts and the an agent of the darker powers, eager moving lamp, and shuddered at the a pair of winged colossal lions less than human dancers, and soared to drag before his masters a mortal tale they told. guarding the top of a subterrene over sterile hills of grey granite and whose presumption had aimed at Through those archaic frescoes staircase. Again and again were those dim wastes of rock and ice and snow. the finding of unknown Kadath and Leng’s annals stalked; and the huge winged lions shewn, their Day came, and the phosphorescence the saying of a prayer before the faces horned, hooved, and wide-mouthed mighty flanks of diarite glistening of low clouds gave place to the misty of the Great Ones in their onyx almost-humans danced evilly amidst in the grey twilight of the day and twilight of that northern world, and castle. It seemed likely that this forgotten cities. There were scenes the cloudy phosphorescence of the still the vile bird winged meaningly merchant had caused his former of old wars, wherein Leng’s night. And as Carter stumbled past through the cold and silence. At capture by the slaves of the moon- almost-humans fought with the their frequent and repeated pictures times the slant-eyed man talked with things in Dylath-Leen, and that he bloated purple spiders of the neigh- it came to him at last what indeed his steed in a hateful and guttural now meant to do what the rescuing bouring vales; and there were scenes they were, and what city it was that language, and the Shantak would cats had baffled; taking the victim also of the coming of the black the almost-humans had ruled so answer with tittering tones that to some dread rendezvous with galleys from the moon, and of the anciently before the coming of the rasped like the scratching of ground monstrous Nyarlathotep and telling submission of Leng’s people to the black galleys. There could be no glass. All this while the land was with what boldness the seeking of polypous and amorphous blasphe- mistake, for the legends of dream- getting higher, and finally they came unknown Kadath had been tried. mies that hopped and floundered land are generous and profuse. to a wind-swept table-land which Leng and the cold waste north of and wriggled out of them. Those Indubitably that primal city was no seemed the very roof of a blasted and Inquanok must be close to the Other slippery greyish-white blasphemies less a place than storied Sarkomand, tenantless world. There, all alone in Gods, and there the passes to Kadath they worshipped as gods, nor ever whose ruins had bleached for a the hush and the dusk and the cold, are well guarded. complained when scores of their best million years before the first true rose the uncouth stones of a squat The slant-eyed man was small, and fatted males were taken away in human saw the light, and whose twin windowless building, around which but the great hippocephalic bird was the black galleys. The monstrous titan lions guard eternally the steps a circle of crude monoliths stood. In there to see he was obeyed; so Carter moon-beasts made their camp on a that lead down from dreamland to all this arrangement there was followed where he led, and passed jagged isle in the sea, and Carter the Great Abyss. 488 489 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

Other views shewed the gaunt that one could grasp details only to escape from what squatted on that made the attempt. Those he now grey peaks dividing Leng from little by little. At the farther end was golden throne. He knew that hope- saw were even more horrible than Inquanok, and the monstrous a high stone dais reached by five less labyrinths of stone lay betwixt those he had seen then, and he knew Shantak-birds that build nests on steps; and there on a golden throne him and the cold table-land outside, he was not in the corridors leading the ledges half way up. And they sat a lumpish figure robed in yellow and that even on that table-land the outside. In time he became quite shewed likewise the curious caves silk figured with red and having a noxious Shantek still waited; yet in sure he was not followed, and slack- near the very topmost pinnacles, and yellow silken mask over its face. To spite of all this there was in his mind ened his pace somewhat; but scarce how even the boldest of the Shantaks this being the slant-eyed man made only the instant need to get away had he breathed in half relief when fly screaming away from them. certain signs with his hands, and the from that wriggling, silk-robed a new peril beset him. His lamp was Carter had seen those caves when lurker in the dark replied by raising monstrosity. waning, and he would soon be in he passed over them, and had noticed a disgustingly carven flute of ivory The slant-eyed man had set the pitch blackness with no means of their likeness to the caves on in silk-covered paws and blowing curious lamp upon one of the high sight or guidance. Ngranek. Now he knew that the certain loathsome sounds from and wickedly stained altar-stones by When the light was all gone he likeness was more than a chance one, beneath its flowing yellow mask. the pit, and had moved forward groped slowly in the dark, and prayed for in these pictures were shewn their This colloquy went on for some time, somewhat to talk to the High-Priest to the Great Ones for such help as fearsome denizens; and those and to Carter there was something with his hands. Carter, hitherto they might afford. At times he felt bat-wings, curving horns, barbed sickeningly familiar in the sound of wholly passive, now gave that man the stone floor sloping up or down, tails, prehensile paws and rubbery that flute and the stench of the a terrific push with all the wild and once he stumbled over a step for bodies were not strange to him. He malodorous place. It made him think strength of fear, so that the victim which no reason seemed to exist. had met those silent, flitting and of a frightful red-litten city and of toppled at once into that gaping well The farther he went the damper it clutching creatures before; those the revolting procession that once which rumour holds to reach down seemed to be, and when he was able mindless guardians of the Great filed through it; of that, and of an to the hellish Vaults of Zin where to feel a junction or the mouth of a Abyss whom even the Great Ones awful climb through lunar country- Gugs hunt ghasts in the dark. In side passage he always chose the way fear, and who own not Nyarlathotep side beyond, before the rescuing rush almost the same second he seized which sloped downward the least. but hoary Nodens as their lord. For of earth’s friendly cats. He knew that the lamp from the altar and darted He believed, though, that his general they were the dreaded night-gaunts, the creature on the dais was without out into the frescoed labyrinths, course was down; and the vault-like who never laugh nor smile because doubt the High-Priest Not To Be racing this way and that as chance smell and incrustations on the greasy they have no faces, and who flop Described, of which legend whispers determined and trying not to think walls and floor alike warned him he unendingly in the dark betwixt the such fiendish and abnormal possi- of the stealthy padding of shapeless was burrowing deep in Leng’s Vale of Pnath and the passes to the bilities, but he feared to think just paws on the stones behind him, or unwholesome table-land. outer world. what that abhorred High-Priest of the silent wrigglings and crawlings But there was not any warning The slant-eyed merchant had might be. which must be going on back there of the thing which came at last; only now prodded Carter into a great Then the figured silk slipped a in lightless corridors. the thing itself with its terror and domed space whose walls were trifle from one of the greyish-white After a few moments he shock and breath-taking chaos. One carved in shocking bas-reliefs, and paws, and Carter knew what the regretted his thoughtless haste, and moment he was groping slowly over whose centre held a gaping circular noisome High-Priest was. And in wished he had tried to follow back- the slippery floor of an almost level pit surrounded by six malignly that hideous second, stark fear drove ward the frescoes he had passed on place, and the next he was shooting stained stone altars in a ring. There him to something his reason would the way in. True, they were so dizzily downward in the dark was no light in this vast evil-smelling never have dared to attempt, for in confused and duplicated that they through a burrow which must have crypt, and the small lamp of the all his shaken consciousness there could not have done him much good, been well-nigh vertical. sinister merchant shone so feebly was room only for one frantic will but he wished none the less he had Of the length of that hideous 490 491 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

sliding he could never be sure, but with fallen blocks and odd debris Randolph Carter when a new crept forward again instead of it seemed to take hours of delirious that lay around. He wished no impression began beating upon his retreating. Once in crossing an open nausea and ecstatic frenzy. Then he follower from Leng’s hateful monas- mind. All this while there had street he wriggled worm-like on his realized he was still, with the phos- tery, for along the way ahead would stretched before him the great stomach, and in another place he phorescent clouds of a northern lurk enough of other dangers. Of corpse-like width of fabled had to rise to his feet to avoid making night shining sickly above him. All how to get from Sarkomand to the Sarkomand with its black broken a noise among heaps of fallen marble. around were crumbling walls and peopled parts of dreamland he knew pillars and crumbling sphinx- But always he succeeded in avoiding broken columns, and the pavement nothing at all; nor could he gain crowned gates and titan stones and discovery, so that in a short time he on which he lay was pierced by strag- much by descending to the grottoes monstrous winged lions against the had found a spot behind a titan pillar gling grass and wrenched asunder of the ghouls, since he knew they sickly glow of those luminous night where he could watch the whole by frequent shrubs and roots. Behind were no better informed than he. clouds. Now he saw far ahead and green-litten scene of action. There him a basalt cliff rose topless and The three ghouls which had helped on the right a glow that no clouds around a hideous fire fed by the perpendicular; its dark side sculp- him through the city of Gugs to the could account for, and knew he was obnoxious stems of lunar fungi, there tured into repellent scenes, and outer world had not known how to not alone in the silence of that dead squatted a stinking circle of the toad- pierced by an arched and carven reach Sarkomand in their journey city. The glow rose and fell fitfully, like moonbeasts and their almost- entrance to the inner blacknesses out back, but had planned to ask old flickering with a greenish tinge human slaves. Some of these slaves of which he had come. Ahead traders in Dylath-Leen. He did not which did not reassure the watcher. were heating curious iron spears in stretched double rows of pillars, and like to think of going again to the And when he crept closer, down the the leaping flames, and at intervals the fragments and pedestals of subterrene world of Gugs and risking littered street and through some applying their white-hot points to pillars, that spoke of a broad and once more that hellish tower of Koth narrow gaps between tumbled walls, three tightly trussed prisoners that bygone street; and from the urns and with its Cyclopean steps leading to he perceived that it was a campfire lay writhing before the leaders of the basins along the way he knew it had the enchanted wood, yet he felt he near the wharves with many vague party. From the motions of their been a great street of gardens. Far might have to try this course if all forms clustered darkly around it; and tentacles Carter could see that the off at its end the pillars spread to else failed. Over Leng’s plateau past a lethal odour hanging heavily over blunt-snouted moonbeasts were mark a vast round plaza, and in that the lone monastery he dared not go all. Beyond was the oily lapping of enjoying the spectacle hugely, and open circle there loomed gigantic unaided; for the High-Priest’s emis- the harbour water with a great ship vast was his horror when he suddenly under the lurid night clouds a pair saries must be many, while at the riding at anchor, and Carter paused recognised the frantic meeping and of monstrous things. Huge winged journey’s end there would no doubt in stark terror when he saw that the knew that the tortured ghouls were lions of diarite they were, with black- be the Shantaks and perhaps other ship was indeed one of the dreaded none other than the faithful trio ness and shadow between them. Full things to deal with. If he could get black galleys from the moon. which had guided him safely from twenty feet they reared their a boat he might sail back to Inquanok Then, just as he was about to the abyss, and had thereafter set out grotesque and unbroken heads, and past the jagged and hideous rock in creep back from that detestable from the enchanted wood to find snarled derisive on the ruins around the sea, for the primal frescoes in the flame, he saw a stirring among the Sarkomand and the gate to their them. And Carter knew right well monastery labyrinth had shewn that vague dark forms and heard a pecu- native deeps. what they must be, for legend tells this frightful place lies not far from liar and unmistakable sound. It was The number of malodorous of only one such twain. They were Sarkomand’s basalt quays. But to the frightened meeping of a ghoul, moonbeasts about that greenish fire the changeless guardians of the find a boat in this aeon-deserted city and in a moment it had swelled to was very great, and Carter saw that Great Abyss, and these dark ruins was no probable thing, and it did not a veritable chorus of anguish. he could do nothing now to save his were in truth primordial Sarkomand. appear likely that he could ever make Secure as he was in the shadow former allies. Of how the ghouls had Carter’s first act was to close and one. of monstrous ruins, Carter allowed been captured he could not guess; barricade the archway in the cliff Such were the thoughts of his curiosity to conquer his fear, and but fancied that the grey toadlike 492 493 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

blasphemies had heard them inquire night clouds, but he manfully did he realize any change when he their passenger upon his feet, after- in Dylath-Leen concerning the way persisted toward them and presently stopped moving altogether as some- ward withdrawing a little and to Sarkomand and had not wished crept round to their faces, knowing thing quietly seized him from forming a hunched semicircle on the them to approach so closely the it was on that side he would find the behind. He was flying very rapidly ground while the ghouls greeted the hateful plateau of Leng and the mighty darkness which they guard. through the air before a malevolent newcomer. High-Priest Not To Be Described. Ten feet apart crouched the mock- tickling told him that the rubbery Carter glibbered his message For a moment he pondered on what ing-faced beasts of diarite, brooding night-gaunts had performed their rapidly and explicitly to the grotesque he ought to do, and recalled how on cyclopean pedestals whose sides duty. company, and four of them at once near he was to the gate of the ghouls’ were chiselled in fearsome bas-re- Awaked to the fact that he was departed through different burrows black kingdom. Clearly it was wisest liefs. Betwixt them was a tiled court in the cold, damp clutch of the face- to spread the news to others and to creep east to the plaza of twin with a central space which had once less flutterers, Carter remembered gather such troops as might be avail- lions and descend at once to the gulf, been railed with balusters of onyx. the password of the ghouls and glib- able for a rescue. After a long wait where assuredly he would meet no Midway in this space a black well bered it as loudly as he could amidst a ghoul of some importance horrors worse than those above, and opened, and Carter soon saw that the wind and chaos of flight. appeared, and made significant signs where he might soon find ghouls he had indeed reached the yawning Mindless though night-gaunts are to the night-gaunts, causing two of eager to rescue their brethren and gulf whose crusted and mouldy stone said to be, the effect was instanta- the latter to fly off into the dark. perhaps to wipe out the moonbeasts steps lead down to the crypts of neous; for all tickling stopped at Thereafter there were constant from the black galley. It occurred to nightmare. once, and the creatures hastened to accessions to the hunched flock of him that the portal, like other gates Terrible is the memory of that shift their captive to a more comfort- night-gaunts on the plain, till at to the abyss, might be guarded by dark descent in which hours wore able position. Thus encouraged length the slimy soil was fairly black flocks of night-gaunts; but he did themselves away whilst Carter Carter ventured some explanations; with them. Meanwhile fresh ghouls not fear these faceless creatures now. wound sightlessly round and round telling of the seizure and torture of crawled out of the burrows one by He had learned that they are bound down a fathomless spiral of steep three ghouls by the moonbeasts, and one, all glibbering excitedly and by solemn treaties with the ghouls, and slippery stairs. So worn and of the need of assembling a party to forming in crude battle array not far and the ghoul which was Pickman narrow were the steps, and so greasy rescue them. The night-gaunts, from the huddled night-gaunts. In had taught him how to glibber a with the ooze of inner earth, that though inarticulate, seemed to time there appeared that proud and password they understood. the climber never quite knew when understand what was said; and influential ghoul which was once the So Carter began another silent to expect a breathless fall and shewed greater haste and purpose in artist Richard Pickman of Boston, crawl through the ruins, edging hurtling down to the ultimate pits; their flight. and to him Carter glibbered a very slowly toward the great central plaza and he was likewise uncertain just Suddenly the dense blackness full account of what had occurred. and the winged lions. It was ticklish when or how the guardian night- gave place to the grey twilight of The erstwhile Pickman, pleased to work, but the moonbeasts were gaunts would suddenly pounce upon inner earth, and there opened up greet his ancient friend again, seemed pleasantly busy and did not hear the him, if indeed there were any ahead one of those flat sterile plains very much impressed, and held a slight noises which he twice made stationed in this primeval passage. on which ghouls love to squat and conference with other chiefs a little by accident among the scattered All about him was a stifling odour gnaw. Scattered tombstones and apart from the growing throng. stones. At last he reached the open of nether gulfs, and he felt that the osseous fragments told of the deni- Finally, after scanning the ranks space and picked his way among the air of these choking depths was not zens of that place; and as Carter gave with care, the assembled chiefs all stunned trees and vines that had made for mankind. In time he a loud meep of urgent summons, a meeped in unison and began glib- grown up therein. The gigantic lions became very numb and somnolent, score of burrows emptied forth their bering orders to the crowds of ghouls loomed terrible above him in the moving more from automatic leathery, dog-like tenants. The and night-gaunts. A large detach- sickly glow of the phosphorescent impulse than from reasoned will; nor night-gaunts now flew low and set ment of the horned flyers vanished 494 495 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

at once, while the rest grouped them- whirring columns and swept on over and soon the hapless creatures were faces had aroused much comment; selves two by two on their knees with the bleak ruins toward the evil flame. borne silently away into the Great but they had persisted in asking the extended forelegs, awaiting the Carter was now beside Pickman in Abyss, to be distributed impartially way to Sarkomand until at last an approach of the ghouls one by one. the front rank of ghouls, and saw as amongst the Dholes, Gugs, ghasts old traveller was able to tell them. As each ghoul reached the pair of they approached the noisome camp and other dwellers in darkness whose Then they knew that only a ship for night-gaunts to which he was that the moonbeasts were totally modes of nourishment are not pain- Lelag-Leng would serve their assigned, he was taken up and borne unprepared. The three prisoners lay less to their chosen victims. purpose, and prepared to wait away into the blackness; till at last bound and inert beside the fire, while Meanwhile the three bound ghouls patiently for such a vessel. the whole throng had vanished save their toadlike captors slumped had been released and consoled by But evil spies had doubtless for Carter, Pickman, and the other drowsily about in no certain order. their conquering kinsfolk, whilst reported much; for shortly a black chiefs, and a few pairs of night- The almost-human slaves were various parties searched the neigh- galley put into port, and the wide- gaunts. Pickman explained that asleep, even the sentinels shirking a borhood for possible remaining mouthed ruby merchants invited the night-gaunts are the advance guard duty which in this realm must have moonbeasts, and boarded the evil- ghouls to drink with them in a and battle steeds of the ghouls, and seemed to them merely smelling black galley at the wharf to tavern. Wine was produced from one that the army was issuing forth to perfunctory. make sure that nothing had escaped of those sinister bottles grotesquely Sarkomand to deal with the moon- The final swoop of the night- the general defeat. Surely enough, carven from a single ruby, and after beasts. Then Carter and the ghoulish gaunts and mounted ghouls was very the capture had been thorough, for that the ghouls found themselves chiefs approached the waiting sudden, each of the greyish toadlike not a sign of further life could the prisoners on the black galley as bearers and were taken up by the blasphemies and their almost-human victors detect. Carter, anxious to Carter had found himself. This time, damp, slippery paws. Another slaves being seized by a group of preserve a means of access to the rest however, the unseen rowers steered moment and all were whirling in night-gaunts before a sound was of dreamland, urged them not to sink not for the moon but for antique wind and darkness; endlessly up, up, made. The moonbeasts, of course, the anchored galley; and this request Sarkomand; bent evidently on taking up to the gate of the winged and the were voiceless; and even the slaves was freely granted out of gratitude their captives before the High-Priest special ruins of primal Sarkomand. had little chance to scream before for his act in reporting the plight of Not To Be Described. They had When, after a great interval, rubbery paws choked them into the captured trio. On the ship were touched at the jagged rock in the Carter saw again the sickly light of silence. Horrible were the writhings found some very curious objects and northern sea which Inquanok’s mari- Sarkomand’s nocturnal sky, it was to of those great jellyfish abnormalities decorations, some of which Carter ners shun, and the ghouls had there behold the great central plaza as the sardonic night-gaunts clutched cast at once into the sea. seen for the first time the red masters swarming with militant ghouls and them, but nothing availed against Ghouls and night-gaunts now of the ship; being sickened despite night-gaunts. Day, he felt sure, must the strength of those black prehensile formed themselves in separate their own callousness by such be almost due; but so strong was the talons. When a moonbeast writhed groups, the former questioning their extremes of malign shapelessness army that no surprise of the enemy too violently, a night-gaunt would rescued fellow anent past happen- and fearsome odour. There, too, were would be needed. The greenish flare seize and pull its quivering pink ings. It appeared that the three had witnessed the nameless pastimes of near the wharves still glimmered tentacles; which seemed to hurt so followed Carter’s directions and the toadlike resident garrison-such faintly, though the absence of much that the victim would cease its proceeded from the enchanted wood pastimes as give rise to the ghoulish meeping shewed that the struggles. Carter expected to see to Dylath-Leen by way of Nir and night-howlings which men fear. torture of the prisoners was over for much slaughter, but found that the the Skai, stealing human clothes at After that had come the landing at the nonce. Softly glibbering direc- ghouls were far subtler in their plans. a lonely farmhouse and loping as ruined Sarkomand and the begin- tions to their steeds and to the flock They glibbered certain simple orders closely as possible in the fashion of ning of the tortures, whose contin- of riderless night-gaunts ahead, the to the night-gaunts which held the a man’s walk. In Dylath-Leen’s uance the present rescue had ghouls presently rose in wide captives, trusting the rest to instinct; taverns their grotesque ways and prevented. 496 497 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

Future plans were next discussed, howlings meant. It was not thought driving nameless and fabulous night-gaunts their simple instruc- the three rescued ghouls suggesting best to attempt an attack by night, horrors hitched to lumbering lorries. tions, while the ship drew very near a raid on the jagged rock and the so the ship lay to under the phos- There was a small stone town hewn to the ominous and malodorous extermination of the toadlike phorescent clouds to wait for the out of the vertical cliff above the wharves. Presently a fresh stir rose garrison there. To this, however, the dawn of a greyish day. When the wharves, with the start of a winding along the waterfront, and Carter saw night-gaunts objected; since the light was ample and the howlings road that spiralled out of sight that the motions of the galley had prospect of flying over water did not still the rowers resumed their toward higher ledges of the rock. Of begun to excite suspicion. Evidently please them. Most of the ghouls strokes, and the galley drew closer what lay inside that prodigious peak the steersman was not making for favoured the design, but were at a and closer to that jagged rock of granite none might say, but the the right dock, and probably the loss how to follow it without the whose granite pinnacles clawed things one saw on the outside were watchers had noticed the difference help of the winged night-gaunts. fantastically at the dull sky. The far from encouraging. between the hideous ghouls and the Thereupon Carter, seeing that they sides of the rock were very steep; At sight of the incoming galley almost-human slaves whose places could not navigate the anchored but on ledges here and there could the crowds on the wharves displayed they were taking. Some silent alarm galley, offered to teach them the use be seen the bulging walls of queer much eagerness; those with eyes must have been given, for almost at of the great banks of oars; to which windowless dwellings, and the low staring intently, and those without once a horde of the mephitic moon- proposal they eagerly assented. railings guarding travelled high- eyes wriggling their pink tentacles beasts began to pour from the little Grey day had now come, and roads. No ship of men had ever expectantly. They did not, of course, black doorways of the windowless under that leaden northern sky a come so near the place, or at least, realize that the black ship had houses and down the winding road picked detachment of ghouls filed had never come so near and changed hands; for ghouls look at the right. A rain of curious javelins into the noisome ship and took their departed again; but Carter and the much like the horned and hooved struck the galley as the prow hit the seats on the rowers’ benches. Carter ghouls were void of fear and kept almost-humans, and the night- wharf felling two ghouls and slightly found them fairly apt at learning, inflexibly on, rounding the eastern gaunts were all out of sight below. wounding another; but at this point and before night had risked several face of the rock and seeking the By this time the leaders had fully all the hatches were thrown open to experimental trips around the wharves which the rescued trio formed a plan; which was to loose emit a black cloud of whirring night- harbour. Not till three days later, described as being on the southern the night-gaunts as soon as the gaunts which swarmed over the town however, did he deem it safe to side within a harbour formed of wharf was touched, and then to sail like a flock of horned and cyclopean attempt the voyage of conquest. steep headlands. directly away, leaving matters wholly bats. Then, the rowers trained and the The headlands were prolonga- to the instincts of those almost-mind- The jellyish moonbeasts had night-gaunts safely stowed in the tions of the island proper, and came less creatures. Marooned on the rock, procured a great pole and were trying forecastle, the party set sail at last; so closely together that only one ship the horned flyers would first of all to push off the invading ship, but Pickman and the other chiefs gath- at a time might pass between them. seize whatever living things they when the night-gaunts struck them ering on deck and discussing models There seemed to be no watchers on found there, and afterward, quite they thought of such things no more. of approach and procedure. the outside, so the galley was steered helpless to think except in terms of It was a very terrible spectacle to see boldly through the flume-like strait the homing instinct, would forget those faceless and rubbery ticklers n the very first night the and into the stagnant putrid harbour their fears of water and fly swiftly at their pastime, and tremendously howlings from the rock beyond. Here, however, all was bustle back to the abyss; bearing their impressive to watch the dense cloud were heard. Such was and activity; with several ships lying noisome prey to appropriate desti- of them spreading through the town theirO timbre that all the galley’s at anchor along a forbidding stone nations in the dark, from which not and up the winding roadway to the crew shook visibly; but most of all quay, and scores of almost-human much would emerge alive. reaches above. Sometimes a group trembled the three rescued ghouls slaves and moonbeasts by the water- The ghoul that was Pickman of the black flutterers would drop a who knew precisely what those front handling crates and boxes or now went below and gave the toadlike prisoner from aloft by 498 499 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

mistake, and the manner in which burdens, the galley put back into the were found terrible carven altars and lost all interest in them. Carter did the victim would burst was highly harbour betwixt the grey headlands; doubtfully stained fonts and shrines not try to carry any away, since he offensive to the sight and smell. and all the hideous company landed for the worship of things more knew too much about those which When the last of the night-gaunts and roamed curiously over the monstrous than the wild gods atop had mined them. had left the galley the ghoulish denuded rock with its towers and Kadath. From the rear of one great Suddenly there came an excited leaders glibbered an order of with- eyries and fortresses chiselled from temple stretched a low black passage meeping from the sentries on the drawal, and the rowers pulled quietly the solid stone. which Carter followed far into the wharves, and all the loathsome out of the harbour between the grey Frightful were the secrets uncov- rock with a torch till he came to a foragers turned from their tasks to headlands while still the town was ered in those evil and windowless lightless domed hall of vast propor- stare seaward and cluster round the a chaos of battle and conquest. crypts; for the remnants of unfin- tions, whose vaultings were covered waterfront. Betwixt the grey head- The Pickman ghoul allowed ished pastimes were many, and in with demoniac carvings and in lands a fresh black galley was rapidly several hours for the night-gaunts various stages of departure from their whose centre yawned a foul and advancing, and it would be but a to make up their rudimentary minds primal state. Carter put out of the bottomless well like that in the moment before the almost-humans and overcome their fear of flying way certain things which were after hideous monastery of Leng where on deck would perceive the invasion over the sea, and kept the galley a fashion alive, and fled precipitately broods alone the High-Priest Not of the town and give the alarm to standing about a mile off the jagged from a few other things about which To Be Described. On the distant the monstrous things below. rock while he waited, and dressed he could not be very positive. The shadowy side, beyond the noisome Fortunately the ghouls still bore the the wounds of the injured men. stench-filled houses were furnished well, he thought he discerned a small spears and javelins which Carter had Night fell, and the grey twilight gave mostly with grotesque stools and door of strangely wrought bronze; distributed amongst them; and at place to the sickly phosphorescence benches carven from moon-trees, but for some reason he felt an unac- his command, sustained by the being of low clouds, and all the while the and were painted inside with name- countable dread of opening it or even that was Pickman, they now formed leaders watched the high peaks of less and frantic designs. Countless approaching it, and hastened back a line of battle and prepared to that accursed rock for signs of the weapons, implements, and orna- through the cavern to his unlovely prevent the landing of the ship. night-gaunts’ flight. Toward morning ments lay about, including some allies as they shambled about with Presently a burst of excitement on a black speck was seen hovering large idols of solid ruby depicting an ease and abandon he could the galley told of the crew’s discovery timidly over the top-most pinnacle, singular beings not found on the scarcely feel. The ghouls had of the changed state of things, and and shortly afterward the speck had earth. These latter did not, despite observed the unfinished pastimes of the instant stoppage of the vessel become a swarm. Just before their material, invite either appro- the moonbeasts, and had profited in proved that the superior numbers of daybreak the swarm seemed to priation or long inspection; and their fashion. They had also found the ghouls had been noted and taken scatter, and within a quarter of an Carter took the trouble to hammer a hogshead of potent moon-wine, into account. After a moment of hour it had vanished wholly in the five of them into very small pieces. and were rolling it down to the hesitation the new comers silently distance toward the northeast. Once The scattered spears and javelins he wharves for removal and later use in turned and passed out between the or twice something seemed to fall collected, and with Pickman’s diplomatic dealings, though the headlands again, but not for an from the thick swarm into the sea; approval distributed among the rescued trio, remembering its effect instant did the ghouls imagine that but Carter did not worry, since he ghouls. Such devices were new to on them in Dylath-Leen, had the conflict was averted. Either the knew from observation that the the doglike lopers, but their relative warned their company to taste none dark ship would seek reinforcements toadlike moonbeasts cannot swim. simplicity made them easy to master of it. Of rubies from lunar mines or the crew would try to land else- At length, when the ghouls were after a few concise hints. there was a great store, both rough where on the island; hence a party satisfied that all the night-gaunts The upper parts of the rock held and polished, in one of the vaults of scouts was at once sent up toward had left for Sarkomand and the more temples than private homes, near the water; but when the ghouls the pinnacle to see what the enemy’s Great Abyss with their doomed and in numerous hewn chambers found they were not good to eat they course would be. 500 501 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

In a very few minutes the ghoul Meanwhile the frightful detach- helped greatly in the earlier stages swimming in the ocean. Several returned breathless to say that the ments of the moonbeasts and of the combat. Then, when the moonbeasts washed on rocks or reefs moonbeasts and almost-humans almost-humans had lumbered up to western battle was over, the victo- were speedily put out of the way. were landing on the outside of the the top of the headlands and were rious survivors hastened across to Finally, the moonbeast galley more easterly of the rugged grey shockingly silhouetted on either side the aid of their hard-pressed fellows; being safely in the distance and the headlands, and ascending by hidden against the grey twilight sky. The turning the tide and forcing the invading land army concentrated in paths and ledges which a goat could thin hellish flutes of the invaders invaders back again along the narrow one place, Carter landed a consid- scarcely tread in safety. Almost had now begun to whine, and the ridge of the headland. The erable force on the eastern headland immediately afterward the galley general effect of those hybrid, almost-humans were by this time all in the enemy’s rear; after which the was sighted again through the half-amorphous processions was as slain, but the last of the toadlike fight was short-lived indeed. flume-like strait, but only for a nauseating as the actual odour given horrors fought desperately with the Attacked from both sides, the second. Then a few moments later, off by the toadlike lunar blasphemies. great spears clutched in their noisome flounderers were rapidly a second messenger panted down Then the two parties of the ghouls powerful and disgusting paws. The cut to pieces or pushed into the sea, from aloft to say that another party swarmed into sight and joined the time for javelins was now nearly past, till by evening the ghoulish chiefs was landing on the other headland; silhouetted panorama. Javelins began and the fight became a hand-to- agreed that the island was again clear both being much more numerous to fly from both sides, and the hand contest of what few spearmen of them. The hostile galley, mean- than the size of the galley would swelling meeps of the ghouls and could meet upon that narrow ridge. while, had disappeared; and it was seem to allow for. The ship itself, the bestial howls of the almost-hu- As fury and recklessness decided that the evil jagged rock had moving slowly with only one sparsely mans gradually joined the hellish increased, the number falling into better be evacuated before any over- manned tier of oars, soon hove in whine of the flutes to form a frantick the sea became very great. Those whelming horde of lunar horrors sight betwixt the cliffs, and lay to in and indescribable chaos of daemon striking the harbour met nameless might be assembled and brought the foetid harbour as if to watch the cacophony. Now and then bodies fell extinction from the unseen bubblers, against the victors. coming fray and stand by for any from the narrow ridges of the head- but of those striking the open sea So by night Pickman and Carter possible use. lands into the sea outside or the some were able to swim to the foot assembled all the ghouls and counted By this time Carter and Pickman harbour inside, in the latter case of the cliffs and land on tidal rocks, them with care, finding that over a had divided the ghouls into three being sucked quickly under by while the hovering galley of the fourth had been lost in the day’s parties, one to meet each of the two certain submarine lurkers whose enemy rescued several moonbeasts. battles. The wounded were placed invading columns and one to remain presence was indicated only by The cliffs were unscalable except on bunks in the galley, for Pickman in the town. The first two at once prodigious bubbles. where the monsters had debarked, always discouraged the old ghoulish scrambled up the rocks in their For half an hour this dual battle so that none of the ghouls on the custom of killing and eating one’s respective directions, while the third raged in the sky, till upon the west rocks could rejoin their battle-line. own wounded, and the able-bodied was subdivided into a land party and cliff the invaders were completely Some were killed by javelins from troops were assigned to the oars or a sea party. The sea party, commanded annihilated. On the east cliff, the hostile galley or from the moon- to such other places as they might by Carter, boarded the anchored however, where the leader of the beasts above, but a few survived to most usefully fill. Under the low galley and rowed out to meet the moonbeast party appeared to be be rescued. phosphorescent clouds of night the under-manned galley of the present, the ghouls had not fared so When the security of the land galley sailed, and Carter was not newcomers; whereat the latter well; and were slowly retreating to parties seemed assured, Carter’s sorry to be departing from the island retreated through the strait to the the slopes of the pinnacle proper. galley sallied forth between the of unwholesome secrets, whose open sea. Carter did not at once Pickman had quickly ordered rein- headlands and drove the hostile ship lightless domed hall with its bottom- pursue it, for he knew he might be forcements for this front from the far out to sea; pausing to rescue such less well and repellent bronze door needed more acutely near the town. party in the town, and these had ghouls as were on the rocks or still lingered restlessly in his fancy. 502 503 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

Dawn found the ship in sight of To Be Described; how even the but bow only to potent and archaic considered the wish of the earthly Sarkomand’s ruined quays of basalt, Great Ones fear them, and how their Nodens. traveller. The ghoul that was where a few night-gaunt sentries ruler is not the crawling chaos A flock of ten or fifteen night- Pickman glibbered gravely with his still waited, squatting like black Nyarlathotep at all, but hoary and gaunts, Carter glibbered, would fellows and in the end Carter was horned gargoyles on the broken immemorial Nodens, Lord of the surely be enough to keep any combi- offered far more than he had at most columns and crumbling sphinxes of Great Abyss. nation of Shantaks at a distance, expected. As he had aided the ghouls that fearful city which lived and died All these things Carter glibbered though perhaps it might be well to in their conquest of the moonbeasts, before the years of man. to the assembled ghouls, and pres- have some ghouls in the party to so would they aid him in his daring The ghouls made camp amongst ently outlined that request which he manage the creatures, their ways voyage to realms whence none had the fallen stones of Sarkomand, had in mind and which he did not being better known to their ghoulish ever returned; lending him not despatching a messenger for enough think extravagant considering the allies than to men. The party could merely a few of their allied night- night-gaunts to serve them as steeds. services he had so lately rendered land him at some convenient point gaunts, but their entire army as then Pickman and the other chiefs were the rubbery doglike lopers. He within whatever walls that fabulous encamped, veteran fighting ghouls effusive in their gratitude for the aid wished very much, he said, for the onyx citadel might have, waiting in and newly assembled night-gaunts Carter had lent them. Carter now services of enough night-gaunts to the shadows for his return or his alike, save only a small garrison for began to feel that his plans were bear him safely through the aft past signal whilst he ventured inside the the captured black galley and such indeed maturing well, and that he the realm of Shantaks and carven castle to give prayer to the gods of spoils as had come from the jagged would be able to command the help mountains, and up into the cold earth. If any ghouls chose to escort rock in the sea. They would set out of these fearsome allies not only in waste beyond the returning tracks him into the throne-room of the through the aft whenever he might quitting this part of dreamland, but of any other mortal. He desired to Great Ones, he would be thankful, wish, and once arrived on Kadath a in pursuing his ultimate quest for fly to the onyx castle atop unknown for their presence would add weight suitable train of ghouls would attend the gods atop unknown Kadath, and Kadath in the cold waste to plead and importance to his plea. He him in state as he placed his petition the marvellous sunset city they so with the Great Ones for the sunset would not, however, insist upon this before earth’s gods in their onyx strangely withheld from his slum- city they denied him, and felt sure but merely wished transportation to castle. bers. Accordingly he spoke of these that the night-gaunts could take him and from the castle atop unknown Moved by a gratitude and satis- things to the ghoulish leaders; telling thither without trouble; high above Kadath; the final journey being faction beyond words, Carter made what he knew of the cold waste the perils of the plain, and over the either to the marvellous sunset city plans with the ghoulish leaders for wherein Kadath stands and of the hideous double heads of those carven itself, in case the gods proved favour- his audacious voyage. The army monstrous Shantaks and the moun- sentinel mountains that squat eter- able, or back to the earthward Gate would fly high, they decided, over tains carven into double-headed nally in the grey dusk. For the horned of Deeper Slumber in the Enchanted hideous Leng with its nameless images which guard it. He spoke of and faceless creatures there could be Wood in case his prayers were monastery and wicked stone villages; the fear of Shantaks for night- no danger from aught of earth since fruitless. stopping only at the vast grey peaks gaunts, and of how the vast hippo- the Great Ones themselves dread Whilst Carter was speaking all to confer with the Shantak- cephalic birds fly screaming from them. And even were unexpected the ghouls listened with great atten- frightening night-gaunts whose the black burrows high up on the things to come from the Other tion, and as the moments advanced burrows honeycombed their gaunt grey peaks that divide Gods, who are prone to oversee the the sky became black with clouds of summits. They would then, according Inquanok from hateful Leng. He affairs of earth’s milder gods, the those night-gaunts for which to what advice they might receive spoke, too, of the things he had night-gaunts need not fear; for the messengers had been sent. The from those denizens, choose their learned concerning night-gaunts outer hells are indifferent matters to winged steeds settled in a semicircle final course; approaching unknown from the frescoes in the windowless such silent and slippery flyers as own around the ghoulish army, waiting Kadath either through the desert of monastery of the High-Priest Not not Nyarlathotep for their master, respectfully as the doglike chieftains carven mountains north of Inquanok, 504 505 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

or through the more northerly swept batlike over the sterile land- rumoured abnormalities of propor- past winds of dubious scent and reaches of repulsive Leng itself. scape, passing the feeble fires of the tion in those trackless leagues sounds of dubious import; ever in Doglike and soulless as they are, the unwholesome stone villages at a beyond, and recalled vague whispers thickest darkness, and covering such ghouls and night-gaunts had no great altitude, and pausing not at of a realm where night broods eter- prodigious spaces that Carter dread of what those untrodden all to mark the morbid twistings of nally; but of definite data they had wondered whether or not they could deserts might reveal; nor did they the hooved, horned almost-hu- nothing to give. So Carter and his still be within earth’s dreamland. feel any deterring awe at the thought mans that dance and pipe eternally party thanked them kindly; and, Then suddenly the clouds of Kadath towering alone with its therein. Once they saw a Shantak- crossing the topmost granite pinna- thinned and the stars shone spec- onyx castle of mystery. bird flying low over the plain, but cles to the skies of Inquanok, trally above. All below was still black, when it saw them it screamed dropped below the level of the phos- but those pallid beacons in the sky bout midday the ghouls noxiously and flapped off to the phorescent night clouds and beheld seemed alive with a meaning and and night-gaunts prepared north in grotesque panic. in the distance those terrible squat- directiveness they had never for flight, each ghoul At dusk they reached the jagged ting gargoyles that were mountains possessed elsewhere. It was not that Aselecting a suitable pair of horned grey peaks that form the barrier of till some titan hand carved fright the figures of the constellations were steeds to bear him. Carter was Inquanok, and hovered about these into their virgin rock. different, but that the same familiar placed well up toward the head of strange caves near the summits There they squatted in a hellish shapes now revealed a significance the column beside Pickman, and in which Carter recalled as so frightful half-circle, their legs on the desert they had formerly failed to make front of the whole a double line of to the Shantaks. At the insistent sand and their mitres piercing the plain. Everything focussed toward riderless night-gaunts was provided meeping of the ghoulish leaders luminous clouds; sinister, wolflike, the north; every curve and asterism as a vanguard. At a brisk meep there issued forth from each lofty and double-headed, with faces of of the glittering sky became part of from Pickman the whole shocking burrow a stream of horned black fury and right hands raised, dully a vast design whose function was to army rose in a nightmare cloud flyers with which the ghouls and and malignly watching the rim of hurry first the eye and then the above the broken columns and night-gaunts of the party conferred man’s world and guarding with whole observer onward to some crumbling sphinxes of primordial at length by means of ugly gestures. horror the reaches of a cold northern secret and terrible goal of conver- Sarkomand; higher and higher, till It soon became clear that the best world that is not man’s. From their gence beyond the frozen waste that even the great basalt cliff behind course would be that over the cold hideous laps rose evil Shantaks of stretched endlessly ahead. Carter the town was cleared, and the cold, waste north of Inquanok, for Leng’s elephantine bulk, but these all fled looked toward the east where the sterile table-land of Leng’s outskirts northward reaches are full of unseen with insane titters as the vanguard great ridge of barrier peaks had laid open to sight. Still higher flew pitfalls that even the night-gaunts of night-gaunts was sighted in the towered along all the length of the black host, till even this table- dislike; abysmal influences centering misty sky. Northward above those Inquanok and saw against the stars land grew small beneath them; and in certain white hemispherical build- gargoyle mountains the army flew, a jagged silhouette which told of its as they worked northward over the ings on curious knolls, which and over leagues of dim desert where continued presence. It was more wind-swept plateau of horror common folklore associates unpleas- never a landmark rose. Less and less broken now, with yawning clefts and Carter saw once again with a antly with the Other Gods and their luminous grew the clouds, till at fantastically erratic pinnacles; and shudder the circle of crude mono- crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. length Carter could see only black- Carter studied closely the suggestive liths and the squat windowless Of Kadath the flutterers of the ness around him; but never did the turnings and inclinations of that building which he knew held that peaks knew almost nothing, save that winged steeds falter, bred as they grotesque outline, which seemed to frightful silken-masked blasphemy there must be some mighty marvel were in earth’s blackest crypts, and share with the stars some subtle from whose clutches he had so toward the north, over which the seeing not with any eyes, but with northward urge. narrowly escaped. This time no Shantaks and the carven mountains the whole dank surface of their slip- They were flying past at a descent was made as the army stand guard. They hinted at pery forms. On and on they flew, tremendous speed, so that the 506 507 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

watcher had to strain hard to catch of the party was fixed on the rift semicircle north of Inquanok, with the wings of the night-gaunts were details; when all at once he beheld where it would presently appear in right hands uplifted. They had duties not flapping any more. The horned just above the line of the topmost full-length silhouette. Gradually the to perform, and were not remiss. But and faceless steeds had folded their peaks a dark and moving object huge thing above the peaks neared it was horrible that they never spoke, membranous appendages, and were against the stars, whose course the gap, slightly slackening its speed and never even made a sound in resting quite passive in the chaos of exactly paralleled that of his own as if conscious of having outdis- walking. wind that whirled and chuckled as bizarre party. The ghouls had like- tanced the ghoulish army. For Meanwhile the ghoul that was it bore them on. A force not of earth wise glimpsed it, for he heard their another minute suspense was keen, Pickman had glibbered an order to had seized on the army, and ghouls low glibbering all about him, and for and then the brief instant of full the night-gaunts, and the whole and night-gaunts alike were power- a moment he fancied the object was silhouette and revelation came; army soared higher into the air. Up less before a current which pulled a gigantic Shantak, of a size vastly bringing to the lips of the ghouls an toward the stars the grotesque madly and relentlessly into the north greater than that of the average spec- awed and half-choked meep of column shot, till nothing stood out whence no mortal had ever returned. imen. Soon, however, he saw that cosmic fear, and to the soul of the any longer against the sky; neither At length a lone pallid light was seen this theory would not hold; for the traveller a chill that never wholly left the grey granite ridge that was still on the skyline ahead, thereafter shape of the thing above the moun- it. For the mammoth bobbing shape nor the carven mitred mountains rising steadily as they approached, tains was not that of any hippoce- that overtopped the ridge was only that walked. All was blackness and having beneath it a black mass phalic bird. Its outline against the a head—a mitred double head—and beneath as the fluttering legion that blotted out the stars. Carter saw stars, necessarily vague as it was, below it in terrible vastness loped surged northward amidst rushing that it must be some beacon on a resembled rather some huge mitred the frightful swollen body that bore winds and invisible laughter in the mountain, for only a mountain could head, or pair of heads infinitely it; the mountain-high monstrosity aether, and never a Shantak or less rise so vast as seen from so prodi- magnified; and its rapid bobbing that walked in stealth and silence; mentionable entity rose from the gious a height in the air. flight through the sky seemed most the hyaena-like distortion of a giant haunted wastes to pursue them. The Higher and higher rose the light peculiarly a wingless one. Carter anthropoid shape that trotted blackly farther they went, the faster they and the blackness beneath it, till all could not tell which side of the against the sky, its repulsive pair of flew, till soon their dizzying speed the northern sky was obscured by mountains it was on, but soon cone-capped heads reaching half way seemed to pass that of a rifle ball and the rugged conical mass. Lofty as perceived that it had parts below the to the zenith. approach that of a planet in its orbit. the army was, that pale and sinister parts he had first seen, since it Carter did not lose conscious- Carter wondered how with such beacon rose above it, towering blotted out all the stars in places ness or even scream aloud, for he was speed the earth could still stretch monstrous over all peaks and where the ridge was deeply cleft. an old dreamer; but he looked behind beneath them, but knew that in the concernments of earth, and tasting Then came a wide gap in the him in horror and shuddered when land of dream dimensions have the atomless aether where the cryp- range, where the hideous reaches of he saw that there were other strange properties. That they were tical moon and the mad planets reel. transmontane Leng were joined to monstrous heads silhouetted above in a realm of eternal night he felt No mountain known of man was the cold waste on this side by a low the level of the peaks, bobbing along certain, and he fancied that the that which loomed before them. The pass through which the stars shone stealthily after the first one. And constellations overhead had subtly high clouds far below were but a wanly. Carter watched this gap with straight in the rear were three of the emphasized their northward focus; fringe for its foothills. The groping intense care, knowing that he might mighty mountain shapes seen full gathering themselves up as it were dizziness of topmost air was but a see outlined against the sky beyond against the southern stars, tiptoeing to cast the flying army into the void girdle for its loins. Scornful and it the lower parts of the vast thing wolflike and lumberingly, their tall of the boreal pole, as the folds of a spectral climbed that bridge betwixt that flew undulantly above the mitres nodding thousands of feet in bag are gathered up to cast out the earth and heaven, black in eternal pinnacles. The object had now the aft. The carven mountains, then, last bits of substance therein. night, and crowned with a pshent of floated ahead a trifle, and every eye had not stayed squatting in that rigid Then he noticed with terror that unknown stars whose awful and 508 509 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

significant outline grew every They were rising abruptly now, and then came the deeper blackness of gods in their home or on their moment clearer. Ghouls meeped in it was plain that the focus of their inmost things as a huge arched portal mountains. And with his hideous wonder as they saw it, and Carter flight was the onyx castle where the engulfed the column. Vortices of escort he had half hoped to defy shivered in fear lest all the hurtling pale light shone. So close was the cold wind surged dankly through even the Other Gods if need were, army be dashed to pieces on the great black mountain that its sides sightless labyrinths of onyx, and knowing as he did that ghouls have unyielding onyx of that cyclopean sped by them dizzily as they shot Carter could never tell what no masters, and that night-gaunts cliff. upward, and in the darkness they Cyclopean stairs and corridors lay own not Nyarlathotep but only Higher and higher rose the light, could discern nothing upon it. Vaster silent along the route of his endless archaic Nodens for their lord. But till it mingled with the loftiest orbs and vaster loomed the tenebrous aerial twisting. Always upward led now he saw that supernal Kadath of the zenith and winked down at towers of the nighted castle above, the terrible plunge in darkness, and in its cold waste is indeed girt with the flyers with lurid mockery. All the and Carter could see that it was well- never a sound, touch or glimpse dark wonders and nameless senti- north beneath it was blackness now; nigh blasphemous in its immensity. broke the dense pall of mystery. nels, and that the Other Gods are dread, stony blackness from infinite Well might its stones have been Large as the army of ghouls and of a surety vigilant in guarding the depths to infinite heights, with only quarried by nameless workmen in night-gaunts was, it was lost in the mild, feeble gods of earth. Void as that pale winking beacon perched that horrible gulf rent out of the rock prodigious voids of that more than they are of lordship over ghouls unreachably at the top of all vision. in the hill pass north of Inquanok, earthly castle. And when at last there and night-gaunts, the mindless, Carter studied the light more closely, for such was its size that a man on suddenly dawned around him the shapeless blasphemies of outer and saw at last what lines its inky its threshold stood even as air out lurid light of that single tower room space can yet control them when background made against the stars. on the steps of earth’s loftiest fortress. whose lofty window had served as a they must; so that it was not in There were towers on that titan The pshent of unknown stars above beacon, it took Carter long to discern state as a free and potent master of mountaintop; horrible domed towers the myriad domed turrets glowed the far walls and high, distant ceiling, dreamers that Randolph Carter in noxious and incalculable tiers and with a sallow, sickly flare, so that a and to realize that he was indeed not came into the Great Ones’ throne- clusters beyond any dreamable work- kind of twilight hung about the again in the boundless air outside. room with his ghouls. Swept and manship of man; battlements and murky walls of slippery onyx. The herded by nightmare tempests terraces of wonder and menace, all pallid beacon was now seen to be a andolph Carter had hoped from the stars, and dogged by limned tiny and black and distant single shining window high up in to come into the throne- unseen horrors of the northern against the starry pshent that glowed one of the loftiest towers, and as the room of the Great Ones waste, all that army floated captive malevolently at the uppermost rim helpless army neared the top of the withR poise and dignity, flanked and and helpless in the lurid light, of sight. Capping that most measure- mountain Carter thought he followed by impressive lines of dropping numbly to the onyx floor less of mountains was a castle beyond detected unpleasant shadows flitting ghouls in ceremonial order, and when by some voiceless order the all mortal thought, and in it glowed across the feebly luminous expanse. offering his prayer as a free and winds of fright dissolved. the daemon-light. Then Randolph It was a strangely arched window, of potent master among dreamers. He Before no golden dais had Carter knew that his quest was done, a design wholly alien to earth. had known that the Great Ones Randolph Carter come, nor was and that he saw above him the goal The solid rock now gave place themselves are not beyond a there any august circle of crowned of all forbidden steps and audacious to the giant foundations of the mortal’s power to cope with, and and haloed beings with narrow eyes, visions; the fabulous, the incredible monstrous castle, and it seemed that had trusted to luck that the Other long-lobed ears, thin nose, and home of the Great Ones atop the speed of the party was somewhat Gods and their crawling chaos pointed chin whose kinship to the unknown Kadath. abated. Vast walls shot up, and there Nyarlathotep would not happen to carven face on Ngranek might stamp Even as he realised this thing, was a glimpse of a great gate through come to their aid at the crucial them as those to whom a dreamer Carter noticed a change in the course which the voyagers were swept. All moment, as they had so often done might pray. Save for the one tower of the helplessly wind-sucked party. was night in the titan courtyard, and before when men sought out earth’s room the onyx castle atop Kadath 510 511 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

was dark, and the masters were not had died chucklingly away Randolph left hands grasped long thin silver have grunted as they rolled and there. Carter had come to unknown Carter saw that he was alone. trumpets which they blew in turn. tumbled mindlessly to the sound of Kadath in the cold waste, but he had Whither, why and how the ghouls Armlets and anklets of gold they thin flutes in the black ultimate not found the gods. Yet still the lurid and night-gaunts had been snatched had, and between each pair of anklets void where broods the daemon- light glowed in that one tower room from sight was not for him to divine. stretched a golden chain that held sultan whose name no lips dare whose size was so little less than that He knew only that he was suddenly its wearer to a sober gait. That they speak aloud. of all outdoors, and whose distant alone, and that whatever unseen were true black men of earth’s “When Barzai the Wise climbed walls and roof were so nearly lost to powers lurked mockingly around dreamland was at once apparent, but Hatheg-Kla to see the Greater Ones sight in thin, curling mists. Earth’s him were no powers of earth’s it seemed less likely that their rites dance and howl above the clouds in gods were not there, it was true, but friendly dreamland. Presently from and costumes were wholly things of the moonlight he never returned. of subtler and less visible presences the chamber’s uttermost reaches a our earth. Ten feet from Carter the The Other Gods were there, and there could be no lack. Where the new sound came. This, too, was a columns stopped, and as they did so they did what was expected. Zenig mild gods are absent, the Other rhythmic trumpeting; but of a kind each trumpet flew abruptly to its of Aphorat sought to reach unknown Gods are not unrepresented; and far removed from the three raucous bearer’s thick lips. Wild and ecstatic Kadath in the cold waste, and his certainly, the onyx castle of castles blasts which had dissolved his goodly was the blast that followed, and skull is now set in a ring on the little was far from tenantless. In what cohorts. In this low fanfare echoed wilder still the cry that chorused just finger of one whom I need not name. outrageous form or forms terror all the wonder and melody of ethe- after from dark throats somehow “But you, Randolph Carter, have would next reveal itself Carter could real dream; exotic vistas of unimag- made shrill by strange artifice. braved all things of earth’s dream- by no means imagine. He felt that ined loveliness floating from each Then down the wide lane land, and burn still with the flame his visit had been expected, and strange chord and subtly alien betwixt the two columns a lone of quest. You came not as one curious, wondered how close a watch had all cadence. Odours of incense came to figure strode; a tall, slim figure with but as one seeking his due, nor have along been kept upon him by the match the golden notes; and over- the young face of an antique Pharaoh, you failed ever in reverence toward crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. It is head a great light dawned, its colours gay with prismatic robes and the mild gods of earth. Yet have these Nyarlathotep, horror of infinite changing in cycles unknown to crowned with a golden pshent that gods kept you from the marvellous shapes and dread soul and messenger earth’s spectrum, and following the glowed with inherent light. Close sunset city of your dreams, and of the Other Gods, that the fungous song of the trumpets in weird up to Carter strode that regal figure; wholly through their own small moonbeasts serve; and Carter symphonic harmonies. Torches whose proud carriage and smart covetousness; for verily, they craved thought of the black galley that had flared in the distance, and the beat features had in them the fascination the weird loveliness of that which vanished when the tide of battle of drums throbbed nearer amidst of a dark god or fallen archangel, and your fancy had fashioned, and vowed turned against the toadlike abnor- waves of tense expectancy. around whose eyes there lurked the that henceforward no other spot malities on the jagged rock in the Out of the thinning mists and languid sparkle of capricious humour. should be their abode. sea. the cloud of strange incenses filed It spoke, and in its mellow tones “They are gone from their castle Reflecting upon these things, he twin columns of giant black slaves there rippled the wild music of on unknown Kadath to dwell in your was staggering to his feet in the with loin-cloths of iridescent silk. Lethean streams. marvellous city. All through its midst of his nightmare company Upon their heads were strapped vast palaces of veined marble they revel when there rang without warning helmet-like torches of glittering andolph Carter,” said by day, and when the sun sets they through that pale-litten and limitless metal, from which the fragrance of the voice, “you have go out in the perfumed gardens and chamber the hideous blast of a obscure balsams spread in fumous come to see the Great watch the golden glory on temples daemon trumpet. Three times pealed spirals. In their right hands were “ROnes whom it is unlawful for men and colonnades, arched bridges and that frightful brazen scream, and crystal wands whose tips were carven to see. Watchers have spoken of silver-basined fountains, and wide when the echoes of the third blast into leering chimaeras, while their this thing, and the Other Gods streets with blossom-laden urns and 512 513 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

ivory statues in gleaming rows. And uttermost night may pursue; and flower-fragrant Common and the hushed stony slopes and low ivied when night comes they climb tall only you can send the selfish Great great dome on the hill and the tangle cottages in the lee of huge boulders terraces in the dew, and sit on carved Ones gently out of your marvellous of gables and chimneys in the violet in Rhode Island’s back country. benches of porphyry scanning the sunset city, back through the valley where the many-bridged Scent of the sea and fragrance of the stars, or lean over pale balustrades northern twilight to their wonted Charles flows drowsily. These things fields; spell of the dark woods and to gaze at the town’s steep northward place atop unknown Kadath in the you saw, Randolph Carter, when joy of the orchards and gardens at slopes, where one by one the little cold waste. your nurse first wheeled you out in dawn. These, Randolph Carter, are windows in old peaked gables shine “So, Randolph Carter, in the the springtime, and they will be the your city; for they are yourself. New softly out with the calm yellow light name of the Other Gods I spare you last things you will ever see with eyes England bore you, and into your soul of homely candles. and charge you to seek that sunset of memory and of love. And there she poured a liquid loveliness which “The gods love your marvellous city which is yours, and to send is antique Salem with its brooding cannot die. This loveliness, moulded, city, and walk no more in the ways thence the drowsy truant gods for years, and spectral Marblehead crystallised, and polished by years of of the gods. They have forgotten the whom the dream world waits. Not scaling its rocky precipices into past memory and dreaming, is your high places of earth, and the moun- hard to find is that roseal fever of centuries! And the glory of Salem’s terraced wonder of elusive sunsets; tains that knew their youth. The the gods, that fanfare of supernal towers and spires seen afar from and to find that marble parapet with earth has no longer any gods that trumpets and clash of immortal Marblehead’s pastures across the curious urns and carven rail, and are gods, and only the Other Ones cymbals, that mystery whose place harbour against the setting sun. descend at last these endless balus- from outer space hold sway on unre- and meaning have haunted you “There is Providence quaint and traded steps to the city of broad membered Kadath. Far away in a through the halls of waking and the lordly on its seven hills over the blue squares and prismatic fountains, you valley of your own childhood, gulfs of dreaming, and tormented harbour, with terraces of green need only to turn back to the Randolph Carter, play the heedless you with hints of vanished memory leading up to steeples and citadels thoughts and visions of your wistful Great Ones. You have dreamed too and the pain of lost things awesome of living antiquity, and Newport boyhood. well, O wise arch-dreamer, for you and momentous. Not hard to find is climbing wraithlike from its “Look! through that window have drawn dream’s gods away from that symbol and relic of your days dreaming breakwater. Arkham is shine the stars of eternal night. Even the world of all men’s visions to that of wonder, for truly, it is but the there, with its moss-grown gambrel now they are shining above the which is wholly yours; having stable and eternal gem wherein all roofs and the rocky rolling meadows scenes you have known and cher- builded out of your boyhood’s small that wonder sparkles crystallised to behind it; and antediluvian Kingsport ished, drinking of their charm that fancies a city more lovely than all light your evening path. Behold! It hoary with stacked chimneys and they may shine more lovely over the the phantoms that have gone before. is not over unknown seas but back deserted quays and overhanging gardens of dream. There is Antares— “It is not well that earth’s gods over well-known years that your gables, and the marvel of high cliffs he is winking at this moment over leave their thrones for the to quest must go; back to the bright and the milky-misted ocean with the roofs of Tremont Street, and you spin on, and their realm for the strange things of infancy and the tolling buoys beyond. could see him from your window on Others to sway in the dark manner quick sun-drenched glimpses of “Cool vales in Concord, cobbled Beacon Hill. Out beyond those stars of Others. Fain would the powers magic that old scenes brought to lands in Portsmouth, twilight bends yawn the gulfs from whence my from outside bring chaos and horror wide young eyes. of rustic New Hampshire roads mindless masters have sent me. to you, Randolph Carter, who are “For know you, that your gold where giant elms half hide white Some day you too may traverse them, the cause of their upsetting, but that and marble city of wonder is only farmhouse walls and creaking well- but if you are wise you will beware they know it is by you alone that the the sum of what you have seen and sweeps. Gloucester’s salt wharves such folly; for of those mortals who gods may be sent back to their world. loved in youth. It is the glory of and Truro’s windy willows. Vistas of have been and returned, only one In that half-waking dreamland Boston’s hillside roofs and western distant steepled towns and hills preserves a mind unshattered by the which is yours, no power of windows aflame with sunset, of the beyond hills along the North Shore, pounding, clawing horrors of the 514 515 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH

void. Terrors and blasphemies gnaw “When you draw nigh the city “Then will the marvellous sunset that loathly and hippocephalic at one another for space, and there steer for the same high parapet city be yours to cherish and inhabit scaled bird. The stars danced is more evil in the lesser ones than whence of old you scanned the for ever, and once more will earth’s mockingly, almost shifting now in the greater; even as you know from outspread glory, prodding the gods rule the dreams of men from and then to form pale signs of the deeds of those who sought to Shantak till he cry aloud. That cry their accustomed seat. Go now—the doom that one might wonder one deliver you into my hands, whilst I the Great Ones will hear and know casement is open and the stars await had not seen and feared before; and myself harboured no wish to shatter as they sit on their perfumed terraces, outside. Already your Shantak ever the winds of nether howled of you, and would indeed have helped and there will come upon them such wheezes and titters with impatience. vague blackness and loneliness you hither long ago had I not been a homesickness that all of your city’s Steer for Vega through the night, beyond the cosmos. elsewhere busy, and certain that you wonders will not console them for but turn when the singing sounds. Then through the glittering would yourself find the way. Shun the absence of Kadath’s grim castle Forget not this warning, lest horrors vault ahead there fell a hush of then, the outer hells, and stick to the and the pshent of eternal stars that unthinkable suck you into the gulf portent, and all the winds and calm, lovely things of your youth. crowns it. of shrieking and ululant madness. horrors slunk away as night things Seek out your marvellous city and “Then must you land amongst Remember the Other Gods; they slink away before the dawn. drive thence the recreant Great them with the Shantak, and let them are great and mindless and terrible, Trembling in waves that golden Ones, sending them back gently to see and touch that noisome and and lurk in the outer voids. They are wisps of nebula made weirdly visible, those scenes which are of their own hippocephalic bird; meanwhile good gods to shun. there rose a timid hint of far-off youth, and which wait uneasy for discoursing to them of unknown “Hei! Aa-shanta ’nygh! You are melody, droning in faint chords that their return. Kadath, which you will so lately have off! Send back earth’s gods to their our own universe of stars knows not. “Easier even then the way of dim left, and telling them how its bound- haunts on unknown Kadath, and And as that music grew, the Shantak memory is the way I will prepare for less halls are lovely and unlighted, pray to all space that you may never raised its ears and plunged ahead, you. See! There comes hither a where of old they used to leap and meet me in my thousand other and Carter likewise bent to catch monstrous Shantak, led by a slave revel in supernal radiance. And the forms. Farewell, Randolph Carter, each lovely strain. It was a song, but who for your peace of mind had best Shantak will talk to them in the and beware; for I am Nyarlathotep, not the song of any voice. Night and keep invisible. Mount and be ready— manner of Shantaks, but it will have the Crawling Chaos.” the spheres sang it, and it was old there! Yogash the Black will help you no powers of persuasion beyond the when space and Nyarlathotep and on the scaly horror. Steer for that recalling of elder days. nd Randolph Carter, the Other Gods were born. brightest star just south of the “Over and over must you speak gasping and dizzy on his Faster flew the Shantak, and zenith—it is Vega, and in two hours to the wandering Great Ones of hideous Shantak, shot lower bent the rider, drunk with the will be just above the terrace of your their home and youth, till at last they screaminglyA into space toward the marvel of strange gulfs, and whirling sunset city. Steer for it only till you will weep and ask to be shewn the cold blue glare of boreal Vega; in the crystal coils of outer magic. hear a far-off singing in the high returning path they have forgotten. looking but once behind him at the Then came too late the warning of aether. Higher than that lurks Thereat can you loose the waiting clustered and chaotic turrets of the the evil one, the sardonic caution of madness, so rein your Shantak when Shantak, sending him skyward with onyx nightmare wherein still the daemon legate who had bidden the first note lures. Look then back the homing cry of his kind; hearing glowed the lone lurid light of that the seeker beware the madness of to earth, and you will see shining the which the Great Ones will prance window above the air and the that song. Only to taunt had deathless altar-flame of Ired-Naa and jump with antique mirth, and clouds of earth’s dreamland. Great Nyarlathotep marked out the way from the sacred roof of a temple. forthwith stride after the loathly bird polypous horrors slid darkly past, to safety and the marvellous sunset That temple is in your desiderate in the fashion of gods, through the and unseen bat wings beat multitu- city; only to mock had that black sunset city, so steer for it before you deep gulfs of heaven to Kadath’s dinous around him, but still he messenger revealed the secret of heed the singing and are lost. familiar towers and domes. clung to the unwholesome mane of these truant gods whose steps he 516 517 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS 1926 • The DREAM-QUEST of UNKNOWN KADATH could so easily lead back at will. For Azathoth gnaws shapeless and the blackness where sightless feelers Then in the slow creeping course madness and the void’s wild ravenous amidst the muffled, pawed and slimy snouts jostled and of eternity the utmost cycle of the vengeance are Nyarlathotep’s only maddening beat of vile drums and nameless things tittered and tittered cosmos churned itself into another gifts to the presumptuous; and fran- the thin, monotonous whine of and tittered. But the image and the futile completion, and all things tick though the rider strove to turn accursed flutes. thought had come, and Randolph became again as they were unreck- his disgusting steed, that leering, Onward—onward—through the Carter knew clearly that he was oned kalpas before. Matter and light tittering Shantak coursed on impet- screaming, cackling, and blackly dreaming and only dreaming, and were born anew as space once had uous and relentless, flapping its great populous gulfs—and then from that somewhere in the background known them; and comets, suns and slippery wings in malignant joy and some dim blessed distance there the world of waking and the city of worlds sprang flaming into life, headed for those unhallowed pits came an image and a thought to his infancy still lay. Words came though nothing survived to tell that whither no dreams reach; that last Randolph Carter the doomed. Too again— “You need only turn back they had been and gone, been and amorphous blight of nether-most well had Nyarlathotep planned his to the thoughts and visions of your gone, always and always, back to no confusion where bubbles and blas- mocking and his tantalising, for he wistful boyhood.” Turn—turn— first beginning. phemes at infinity’s centre the mind- had brought up that which no gusts blackness on every side, but And there was a firmament less daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose of icy terror could quite efface. Randolph Carter could turn. again, and a wind, and a glare of name no lips dare speak aloud. Home—New England—Beacon Thick though the rushing night- purple light in the eyes of the falling Unswerving and obedient to the Hill—the waking world. mare that clutched his senses, dreamer. There were gods and pres- foul legate’s orders, that hellish bird “For know you, that your gold Randolph Carter could turn and ences and wills; beauty and evil, and plunged onward through shoals of and marble city of wonder is only move. He could move, and if he the shrieking of noxious night shapeless lurkers and caperers in the sum of what you have seen and chose he could leap off the evil robbed of its prey. For through the darkness, and vacuous herds of loved in youth… the glory of Boston’s Shantak that bore him hurtlingly unknown ultimate cycle had lived a drifting entities that pawed and hillside roofs and western windows doomward at the orders of thought and a vision of a dreamer’s groped and groped and pawed; the aflame with sunset; of the flower-fra- Nyarlathotep. He could leap off and boyhood, and now there were remade nameless larvae of the Other Gods, grant Common and the great dome dare those depths of night that a waking world and an old cherished that are like them blind and without on the hill and the tangle of gables yawned interminably down, those city to body and to justify these mind, and possessed of singular and chimneys in the violet valley depths of fear whose terrors yet could things. Out of the void S’ngac the hungers and thirsts. where the many-bridged Charles not exceed the nameless doom that violet gas had pointed the way, and Onward unswerving and relent- flows drowsily… this loveliness, lurked waiting at chaos’ core. He archaic Nodens was bellowing his less, and tittering hilariously to moulded, crystallised, and polished could turn and move and leap—he guidance from unhinted deeps. watch the chuckling and hysterics by years of memory and dreaming, could—he would—he would—he Stars swelled to dawns, and into which the risen song of night is your terraced wonder of elusive would. dawns burst into fountains of gold, and the spheres had turned, that sunsets; and to find that marble Off that vast hippocephalic carmine, and purple, and still the eldritch scaly monster bore its help- parapet with curious urns and carven abomination leaped the doomed and dreamer fell. Cries rent the aether less rider; hurtling and shooting, rail, and descend at last those endless desperate dreamer, and down as ribbons of light beat back the cleaving the uttermost rim and span- balustraded steps to the city of broad through endless voids of sentient fiends from outside. And hoary ning the outermost abysses; leaving squares and prismatic fountains, you blackness he fell. Aeons reeled, Nodens raised a howl of triumph behind the stars and the realms of need only to turn back to the universes died and were born again, when Nyarlathotep, close on his matter, and darting meteor-like thoughts and visions of your wistful stars became nebulae and nebulae quarry, stopped baffled by a glare through stark formlessness toward boyhood.” became stars, and still Randolph that seared his formless hunt- those inconceivable, unlighted Onward—onward—dizzily Carter fell through those endless ing-horrors to grey dust. Randolph chambers beyond time wherein onward to ultimate doom through voids of sentient blackness. Carter had indeed descended at last 518 519 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

the wide marmoreal flights to his marvellous city, for he was come again to the fair New England world that had wrought him.

o to the organ chords of morning’s myriad whistles, and dawn’s blaze thrown Sdazzling through purple panes by the great gold dome of the State House on the hill, Randolph Carter leaped shoutingly awake within his Boston room. Birds sang in hidden gardens and the perfume of trel- lised vines came wistful from HISTORY of the NECRONOMICON. arbours his grandfather had reared. Beauty and light glowed from [return to table of contents] classic mantel and carven cornice and walls grotesquely figured, while a sleek black cat rose yawning from hearthside sleep that his master’s riginal title Al Azif—azif marvels are told by those who start and shriek had disturbed. And being the word used by pretend to have penetrated it. In his vast infinities away, past the Gate Arabs to designate that last years Alhazred dwelt in of Deeper Slumber and the nocturnalO sound (made by insects) Damascus, where the Necronomicon enchanted wood and the garden suppos’d to be the howling of (Al Azif) was written, and of his final lands and the Cerenarian Sea and daemons. death or disappearance (738 A.D.) the twilight reaches of Inquanok, Composed by Abdul Alhazred, many terrible and conflicting things the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan strode brooding into the onyx is said to have flourished during the (12th cent. biographer) to have been castle atop unknown Kadath in the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa seized by an invisible monster in cold waste, and taunted insolently 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of broad daylight and devoured horribly the mild gods of earth whom he Babylon and the subterranean secrets before a large number of fright- had snatched abruptly from their of Memphis and spent ten years frozen witnesses. Of his madness scented revels in the marvellous alone in the great southern desert of many things are told. He claimed to sunset city. Arabia—the Roba el Khaliyeh or have seen fabulous Irem, or City of “Empty Space” of the ancients—and Pillars, and to have found beneath “Dahna” or “Crimson” desert of the the ruins of a certain nameless desert modern Arabs, which is held to be town the shocking annals and secrets inhabited by protective evil spirits of a race older than mankind. He and monsters of death. Of this desert was only an indifferent Moslem, many strange and unbelievable worshipping unknown entities

520 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Museum under lock and key, while Cthulhu. another (17th cent.) is in the In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A gained a considerable tho’ surrepti- seventeenth-century edition is in the tious circulation amongst the philos- Widener Library at Harvard, and in ophers of the age, was secretly the library of Miskatonic University translated into Greek by Theodorus at Arkham. Also in the library of the Philetas of Constantinople under University of Buenos Aires. the title Necronomicon. For a century Numerous other copies probably it impelled certain experimenters to exist in secret, and a fifteenth-cen- terrible attempts, when it was tury one is persistently rumoured to suppressed and burnt by the patri- form part of the collection of a cele- arch Michael. After this it is only brated American millionaire. A still heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus vaguer rumour credits the preserva- Wormius made a Latin translation tion of a sixteenth-century Greek AFTERWORD. later in the Middle Ages, and the text in the Salem family of Pickman; Latin text was printed twice—once but if it was so preserved, it vanished [return to table of contents] in the fifteenth century in black- with the artist R. U. Pickman, who letter (evidently in Germany) and disappeared early in 1926. The book once in the seventeenth (prob. is rigidly suppressed by the author- Spanish)—both editions being ities of most countries, and by all without identifying marks, and branches of organised ecclesiasti- he close of 1926 saw Something else had happened located as to time and place by cism. Reading leads to terrible Howard Phillips Lovecraft just around this time, too. You can internal typographical evidence only. consequences. It was from rumours back in the city of his birth, see the early signs of it in his late The work both Latin and Greek was of this book (of which relatively few Tvery much committed to never 1926 writings, especially “The Call banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, of the general public know) that leaving it again. His sense of having of Cthulhu.” Lovecraft’s storytelling shortly after its Latin translation, Robert W. Chambers is said to have come home had placed him back was undergoing a subtle shift from which called attention to it. The derived the idea of his early novel in the community and given him a the old familiar tales of supernatural Arabic original was lost as early as The King in Yellow. real sense of appreciation for it. terror and ghostly horror, into some- Wormius’ time, as indicated by his Moreover, he had just completed a thing more material, more plausible, prefatory note; and no sight of the colossal research project that had more real. For the rest of his writing Greek copy—which was printed in left him with an intuitive sense of career, with only a few exceptions, Italy between 1500 and 1550—has his craft. He would live just 10 Lovecraft would be at pains to pen been reported since the burning of more years, all of them in stories in which the horror stems not a certain Salem man’s library in 1692. Providence. They would be the from a fear of ghosts or wizards or An English translation made by Dr. best years of his literary life, demons, but from the realization Dee was never printed, and exists peppered with darkly ominous that the material universe is full of only in fragments recovered from masterpieces such as “The Color beings, dimensions, laws and entities the original manuscript. Of the Latin out of Space,” The Case of Charles that transcend human understanding texts now existing one (15th cent.) Dexter Ward, and At the Mountains and that care less about the fate of is known to be in the British of Madness. the entire human race than we do 522 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

about the fate of an ant crawling That work will, of course, be across the sidewalk. His genre was presented in Volume II of this subtly shifting from the familiar two-volume omnibus set. ghostly tales of an Edgar Allan Poe, to something truly new—to a darker, colder kind of . After “The Call of Cthulhu,” nothing would ever quite be the same, and some of Lovecraft’s closest friends— including, most famously, August Derleith—would find that his new philosophy made them very Appendix: uncomfortable. In the first 36 years of his life, Lovecraft had seen more of life than • The ALCHEMIST. one would expect such a reclusive, coddled character to see. Born into • SWEET ERMENGARDE; or, luxury and privilege, he had The HEART of a COUNTRY GIRL. throughout his life watched it slowly ebb away, leaving only a sense of impoverished aristocracy in its wake. Time had taken from him first his beloved grandfather; then his grand- n the Appendix to this volume it should be included in this father’s fortune; then his mother; of the Lovecraft Omnibus collection. and, finally, his beloved home town. collection, we are including The second is a work of satire As L. Sprague de Camp points out two stories that don’t exactly fit titled, in the grand melodramatic in his biography of Lovecraft, this I style of a 19th-century , the parameters for this book, but may have inspired in his work that are important to include “Sweet Ermangarde; or, The Heart odd sense that one gets of harkening nonetheless. of a Country Girl,” and written back 200 years to a golden age before The first is “The Alchemist.” under the pseudonym “Percy the American Revolution, because This story is technically juvenilia, Simple.” the farther back Lovecraft looked in and therefore outside the purview This story is unique in that no his own life, the better things were. of this collection. However, it is the one seems to have any idea when it He could not, of course, go back in most professional of Lovecraft’s was actually written; most scholars time, as Randolph Carter does in juvenilia, and is the story that, theorize it’s from the 1919-1921 era; “The Silver Key.” But by coming reprinted a decade after it was yet it reads like a spoof of one of the home to Providence, he’d done the written, brought him to the atten- lightweight yarns of Fred Jackson, next best thing—gone back in tion of the amateur-press commu- the author whose syrupy romance space—and now he was ready to nity and got him started on his tales in The Argosy had first brought settle in and do the best work of his career as a weird-fiction writer. In Lovecraft out of his shell and into life. light of these circumstances, we felt the world of amateur journalism 524 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

when he launched into that spirited Lovecraft’s work that it’s hard to and poetic exchange of denuncia- know quite what to do with it. We tions in the letters-to-the-editor have therefore opted to present it section. The “Jackson War,” as biog- here, in the Appendix. rapher De Camp jocosely calls it, broke out in 1913 and raged on in the pages of The Argosy for a year, or at most two; it seems unlikely that Lovecraft would have carried the torch of this lighthearted poetic feud for seven years before suddenly developing an urge, seemingly out of nowhere, to write a satire of Jackson’s style. It is true that the references to The ALCHEMIST. bootlegging and the 18th [return to table of contents] Amendment in the story suggest it was written sometime after the Volstead Act passed in 1919. However, bootlegging in Vermont was going on long before the igh up, crowning the and mounted battlements barons, Volstead Act in the state’s several grassy summit of a counts, and even kings had been dry counties; in 1906 a Franklin swelling mound whose defied, yet never had its spacious County shopkeeper’s son was jailed sides are wooded near the base halls resounded to the footsteps of H the invader. for three years for selling bootleg with the gnarled trees of the liquor laced with wood alcohol, primeval forest, stands the old But since those glorious years killing three customers. This suggests chateau of my ancestors. For centu- all is changed. A poverty but little a third possibility—that it was ries its lofty battlements have above the level of dire want, together written in 1913 or 1914 and then frowned down upon the wild and with a pride of name that forbids its pulled out and hastily freshened up rugged countryside about, serving alleviation by the pursuits of for publication in a friend’s amateur- as a home and stronghold for the commercial life, have prevented the press journal in the early 1920s. proud house whose honoured line scions of our line from maintaining If such is the case, and “Sweet is older even than the moss-grown their estates in pristine splendour; Ermengarde” was originally written castle walls. These ancient turrets, and the falling stones of the walls, three to four years before Lovecraft stained by the storms of genera- the overgrown vegetation in the first launched his weird-fiction tions and crumbling under the parks, the dry and dusty moat, the career, it’s best thought of as a forma- slow yet mighty pressure of time, ill-paved courtyards, and toppling tive work, like “The Alchemist.” formed in the ages of feudalism towers without, as well as the sagging But whatever the real story is, one of the most dreaded and floors, the worm-eaten wainscots, the style of “Sweet Ermengarde” is formidable fortresses in all France. and the faded tapestries within, all so out of sync with the rest of From its machicolated parapets tell a gloomy tale of fallen grandeur. 526 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • The ALCHEMIST (1908)

As the ages passed, first one, then my ears the idle tales of the dread the Comtes of my line had met their in the terrible secrets of Black Magic another of the four great turrets were curse upon our line, that were nightly end. Whilst I had hitherto consid- and Alchemy. Michel Mauvais had left to ruin, until at last but a single told and magnified by the simple ered this but a natural attribute of a one son, named Charles, a youth as tower housed the sadly reduced tenantry as they conversed in hushed family of short-lived men, I after- proficient as himself in the hidden descendants of the once mighty lords accents in the glow of their cottage ward pondered long upon these arts, and who had therefore been of the estate. hearths. premature deaths, and began to called Le Sorcier, or the Wizard. It was in one of the vast and Thus isolated, and thrown upon connect them with the wanderings This pair, shunned by all honest folk, gloomy chambers of this remaining my own resources, I spent the hours of the old man, who often spoke of were suspected of the most hideous tower that I, Antoine, last of the of my childhood in poring over the a curse which for centuries had practices. Old Michel was said to unhappy and accursed Comtes de ancient tomes that filled the shad- prevented the lives of the holders of have burnt his wife alive as a sacrifice C——, first saw the light of day, ow-haunted library of the chateau, my title from much exceeding the to the Devil, and the unaccountable ninety long years ago. Within these and in roaming without aim or span of thirty-two years. Upon my disappearances of many small walls, and amongst the dark and purpose through the perpetual dusk twenty-first birthday, the aged Pierre peasant children were laid at the shadowy forests, the wild ravines and of the spectral wood that clothes the gave to me a family document which dreaded door of these two. Yet grottoes of the hillside below, were side of the hill near its foot. It was he said had for many generations through the dark natures of the spent the first years of my troubled perhaps an effect of such surround- been handed down from father to father and the son ran one redeeming life. My parents I never knew. My ings that my mind early acquired a son, and continued by each possessor. ray of humanity; the evil old man father had been killed at the age of shade of melancholy. Those studies Its contents were of the most star- loved his offspring with fierce inten- thirty-two, a month before I was and pursuits which partake of the tling nature, and its perusal sity, whilst the youth had for his born, by the fall of a stone somehow dark and occult in Nature most confirmed the gravest of my appre- parent a more than filial affection. dislodged from one of the deserted strongly claimed my attention. hensions. At this time, my belief in One night the castle on the hill parapets of the castle; and my mother Of my own race I was permitted the supernatural was firm and deep- was thrown into the wildest confu- having died at my birth, my care and to learn singularly little, yet what seated, else I should have dismissed sion by the vanishment of young education devolved solely upon one small knowledge of it I was able to with scorn the incredible narrative Godfrey, son to Henri the Comte. remaining servitor, an old and trusted gain, seemed to depress me much. unfolded before my eyes. A searching party, headed by the man of considerable intelligence, Perhaps it was at first only the mani- The paper carried me back to frantic father, invaded the cottage of whose name I remember as Pierre. fest reluctance of my old preceptor the days of the thirteenth century, the sorcerers and there came upon I was an only child, and the lack of to discuss with me my paternal when the old castle in which I sat old Michel Mauvais, busy over a companionship which this fact ancestry that gave rise to the terror had been a feared and impregnable huge and violently boiling cauldron. entailed upon me was augmented by which I ever felt at the mention of fortress. It told of a certain ancient Without certain cause, in the ungov- the strange care exercised by my aged my great house; yet as I grew out of man who had once dwelt on our erned madness of fury and despair, guardian in excluding me from the childhood, I was able to piece estates, a person of no small accom- the Comte laid hands on the aged society of the peasant children whose together disconnected fragments of plishments, though little above the wizard, and ere he released his abodes were scattered here and there discourse, let slip from the unwilling rank of peasant; by name, Michel, murderous hold his victim was no upon the plains that surround the tongue which had begun to falter in usually designated by the surname more. Meanwhile joyful servants base of the hill. At the time, Pierre approaching senility, that had a sort of Mauvais, the Evil, on account of were proclaiming the finding of said that this restriction was imposed of relation to a certain circumstance his sinister reputation. He had young Godfrey in a distant and upon me because my noble birth which I had always deemed strange, studied beyond the custom of his unused chamber of the great edifice, placed me above association with but which now became dimly kind, seeking such things as the telling too late that poor Michel had such plebeian company. Now I know terrible. The circumstance to which Philosopher’s Stone, or the Elixir of been killed in vain. As the Comte that its real object was to keep from I allude is the early age at which all Eternal Life, and was reputed wise and his associates turned away from 528 529 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • The ALCHEMIST (1908)

the lowly abode of the alchemists, in whispers that their seigneur had I was absolutely resolved. I should approached that time which I had the form of Charles Le Sorcier but lately passed his thirty-second never wed, for since no other so long viewed with apprehension. appeared through the trees. The birthday when surprised by early branches of my family were in exis- Since most of my ancestors had been excited chatter of the menials death. Louis, son to Robert, was tence, I might thus end the curse seized some little while before they standing about told him what had found drowned in the moat at the with myself. reached the exact age of Comte occurred, yet he seemed at first same fateful age, and thus down As I drew near the age of thirty, Henri at his end, I was every moment unmoved at his father’s fate. Then, through the centuries ran the old Pierre was called to the land on the watch for the coming of the slowly advancing to meet the Comte, ominous chronicle; Henris, Roberts, beyond. Alone I buried him beneath unknown death. In what strange he pronounced in dull yet terrible Antoines, and Armands snatched the stones of the courtyard about form the curse should overtake me, accents the curse that ever afterward from happy and virtuous lives when which he had loved to wander in life. I knew not; but I was resolved, at haunted the house of C——. little below the age of their unfor- Thus was I left to ponder on myself least, that it should not find me a “May ne’er a noble of thy tunate ancestor at his murder. as the only human creature within cowardly or a passive victim. With murd’rous line—Survive to reach a That I had left at most but the great fortress, and in my utter new vigour I applied myself to my greater age than thine!” spake he, eleven years of further existence was solitude my mind began to cease its examination of the old chateau and when, suddenly leaping backwards made certain to me by the words vain protest against the impending its contents. into the black wood, he drew from which I read. My life, previously held doom, to become almost reconciled It was upon one of the longest his tunic a phial of colourless liquid at small value, now became dearer to the fate which so many of my of all my excursions of discovery in which he threw into the face of his to me each day, as I delved deeper ancestors had met. Much of my time the deserted portion of the castle, father’s slayer as he disappeared and deeper into the mysteries of the was now occupied in the exploration less than a week before that fatal behind the inky curtain of the night. hidden world of black magic. Isolated of the ruined and abandoned halls hour which I felt must mark the The Comte died without utterance, as I was, modern science had and towers of the old chateau, which utmost limit of my stay on earth, and was buried the next day, but little produced no impression upon me, in youth fear had caused me to shun, beyond which I could have not even more than two and thirty years from and I laboured as in the Middle and some of which, old Pierre had the slightest hope of continuing to the hour of his birth. No trace of the Ages, as rapt as had been old Michel once told me, had not been trodden draw breath, that I came upon the assassin could be found, though and young Charles themselves in the by human foot for over four centu- culminating event of my whole life. relentless bands of peasants scoured acquisition of daemonological and ries. Strange and awesome were I had spent the better part of the the neighbouring woods and the alchemical learning. Yet read as I many of the objects I encountered. morning in climbing up and down meadow-land around the hill. might, in no manner could I account Furniture, covered by the dust of ages half-ruined staircases in one of the Thus time and the want of a for the strange curse upon my line. and crumbling with the rot of long most dilapidated of the ancient reminder dulled the memory of the In unusually rational moments, I dampness, met my eyes. Cobwebs in turrets. As the afternoon progressed, curse in the minds of the late Comte’s would even go so far as to seek a a profusion never before seen by me I sought the lower levels, descending family, so that when Godfrey, inno- natural explanation, attributing the were spun everywhere, and huge bats into what appeared to be either a cent cause of the whole tragedy and early deaths of my ancestors to the flapped their bony and uncanny mediaeval place of confinement, or now bearing the title, was killed by sinister Charles Le Sorcier and his wings on all sides of the otherwise a more recently excavated storehouse an arrow whilst hunting, at the age heirs; yet having found upon careful untenanted gloom. for gunpowder. As I slowly traversed of thirty-two, there were no thoughts inquiry that there were no known Of my exact age, even down to the nitre-encrusted passageway at save those of grief at his demise. But descendants of the alchemist, I days and hours, I kept a most careful the foot of the last staircase, the when, years afterward, the next would fall back to occult studies, and record, for each movement of the paving became very damp, and soon young Comte, Robert by name, was once more endeavour to find a spell pendulum of the massive clock in I saw by the light of my flickering found dead in a nearby field from that would release my house from the library told off so much more of torch that a blank, water-stained wall no apparent cause, the peasants told its terrible burden. Upon one thing my doomed existence. At length I impeded my journey. Turning to 530 531 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • The ALCHEMIST (1908)

retrace my steps, my eye fell upon a There in the ancient Gothic doorway revenge of Charles Le Sorcier. He ended that of my ancestor. Prompted small trap-door with a ring, which stood a human figure. It was that of told how the young Charles had by some preserving instinct of lay directly beneath my feet. Pausing, a man clad in a skull-cap and long escaped into the night, returning in self-defence, I broke through the I succeeded with difficulty in raising mediaeval tunic of dark colour. His after years to kill Godfrey the heir spell that had hitherto held me it, whereupon there was revealed a long hair and flowing beard were of with an arrow just as he approached immovable, and flung my now dying black aperture, exhaling noxious a terrible and intense black hue, and the age which had been his father’s torch at the creature who menaced fumes which caused my torch to of incredible profusion. His forehead, at his assassination; how he had my existence. I heard the phial break sputter, and disclosing in the high beyond the usual dimensions; secretly returned to the estate and harmlessly against the stones of the unsteady glare the top of a flight of his cheeks, deep-sunken and heavily established himself, unknown, in the passage as the tunic of the strange stone steps. As soon as the torch, lined with wrinkles; and his hands, even then deserted subterranean man caught fire and lit the horrid which I lowered into the repellent long, claw-like, and gnarled, were of chamber whose doorway now scene with a ghastly radiance. The depths, burned freely and steadily, I such a deathly, marble-like whiteness framed the hideous narrator; how shriek of fright and impotent malice commenced my descent. The steps as I have never elsewhere seen in he had seized Robert, son of Godfrey, emitted by the would-be assassin were many, and led to a narrow man. His figure, lean to the propor- in a field, forced poison down his proved too much for my already stone-flagged passage which I knew tions of a skeleton, was strangely throat, and left him to die at the age shaken nerves, and I fell prone upon must be far underground. The bent and almost lost within the volu- of thirty-two, thus maintaining the the slimy floor in a total faint. passage proved of great length, and minous folds of his peculiar garment. foul provisions of his vengeful curse. When at last my senses returned, terminated in a massive oaken door, But strangest of all were his eyes; At this point I was left to imagine all was frightfully dark, and my mind dripping with the moisture of the twin caves of abysmal blackness, the solution of the greatest mystery remembering what had occurred, place, and stoutly resisting all my profound in expression of under- of all, how the curse had been shrank from the idea of beholding attempts to open it. Ceasing after a standing, yet inhuman in degree of fulfilled since that time when more; yet curiosity overmastered all. time my efforts in this direction, I wickedness. These were now fixed Charles Le Sorcier must in the Who, I asked myself, was this man had proceeded back some distance upon me, piercing my soul with their course of Nature have died, for the of evil, and how came he within the toward the steps, when there hatred, and rooting me to the spot man digressed into an account of the castle walls? Why should he seek to suddenly fell to my experience one whereon I stood. At last the figure deep alchemical studies of the two avenge the death of poor Michel of the most profound and maddening spoke in a rumbling voice that wizards, father and son, speaking Mauvais, and how had the curse been shocks capable of reception by the chilled me through with its dull most particularly of the researches carried on through all the long human mind. Without warning, I hollowness and latent malevolence. of Charles Le Sorcier concerning centuries since the time of Charles heard the heavy door behind me The language in which the discourse the elixir which should grant to him Le Sorcier? The dread of years was creak slowly open upon its rusted was clothed was that debased form who partook of it eternal life and lifted from my shoulders, for I knew hinges. My immediate sensations of Latin in use amongst the more youth. that he whom I had felled was the are incapable of analysis. To be learned men of the Middle Ages, His enthusiasm had seemed for source of all my danger from the confronted in a place as thoroughly and made familiar to me by my the moment to remove from his curse; and now that I was free, I deserted as I had deemed the old prolonged researches into the works terrible eyes the hatred that had at burned with the desire to learn more castle with evidence of the presence of the old alchemists and daemon- first so haunted them, but suddenly of the sinister thing which had of man or spirit, produced in my ologists. The apparition spoke of the the fiendish glare returned, and with haunted my line for centuries, and brain a horror of the most acute curse which had hovered over my a shocking sound like the hissing of made of my own youth one long-con- description. When at last I turned house, told me of my coming end, a serpent, the stranger raised a glass tinued nightmare. Determined upon and faced the seat of the sound, my dwelt on the wrong perpetrated by phial with the evident intent of further exploration, I felt in my eyes must have started from their my ancestor against old Michel ending my life as had Charles Le pockets for flint and steel, and lit the orbits at the sight that they beheld. Mauvais, and gloated over the Sorcier, six hundred years before, unused torch which I had with me. 532 533 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS

First of all, the new light revealed speech. At my evident ignorance of the distorted and blackened form of his meaning, the pitchy eyes once the mysterious stranger. The hideous more flashed malevolently at me, eyes were now closed. Disliking the until, helpless as I saw my opponent sight, I turned away and entered the to be, I trembled as I watched him. chamber beyond the Gothic door. Suddenly the wretch, animated Here I found what seemed much with his last burst of strength, raised like an alchemist’s laboratory. In one his hideous head from the damp and corner was an immense pile of a sunken pavement. Then, as I shining yellow metal that sparkled remained, paralysed with fear, he gorgeously in the light of the torch. found his voice and in his dying It may have been gold, but I did not breath screamed forth those words pause to examine it, for I was which have ever afterward haunted strangely affected by that which I my days and my nights. “Fool,” he had undergone. At the farther end shrieked, “can you not guess my SWEET ERMENGARDE; or, of the apartment was an opening secret? Have you no brain whereby The HEART of a COUNTRY GIRL. leading out into one of the many you may recognise the will which wild ravines of the dark hillside has through six long centuries [return to table of contents] forest. Filled with wonder, yet now fulfilled the dreadful curse upon your realising how the man had obtained house? Have I not told you of the access to the chateau, I proceeded to great elixir of eternal life? Know you By Percy Simple (pseudonym) return. I had intended to pass by the not how the secret of Alchemy was remains of the stranger with averted solved? I tell you, it is I! I! I! that as mendacious all reports to the face, but as I approached the body, have lived for six hundred years to I. effect that she was thirty. She had I seemed to hear emanating from it maintain my revenge, FOR I AM a simple rustic maid. large black eyes, a prominent a faint sound, as though life were CHARLES LE SORCIER!” Roman nose, light hair which was not yet wholly extinct. Aghast, I rmengarde Stubbs was the never dark at the roots except when turned to examine the charred and beauteous blonde daughter the local drugstore was short on shrivelled figure on the floor. Then of Hiram Stubbs, a poor supplies, and a beautiful but inex- all at once the horrible eyes, blacker but honest farmer-bootlegger of E pensive complexion. She was about even than the seared face in which Hogton, Vt. Her name was origi- five feet, 5.33 inches tall, weighed they were set, opened wide with an nally Ethyl Ermengarde, but her 115.47 pounds on her father’s copy expression which I was unable to father persuaded her to drop the scales—also off them—and was interpret. The cracked lips tried to praenomen after the passage of the adjudged most lovely by all the frame words which I could not well 18th Amendment, averring that it village swains who admired her understand. Once I caught the name made him thirsty by reminding father’s farm and liked his liquid of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I him of ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH. crops. fancied that the words “years” and His own products contained Ermengarde’s hand was sought “curse” issued from the twisted mostly methyl or wood alcohol, in matrimony by two ardent lovers. mouth. Still I was at a loss to gather CH3OH. Ermengarde confessed ’Squire Hardman, who had a the purport of his disconnected to sixteen summers, and branded 534 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • SWEET ERMENGARDE (1914?)

mortgage on the old home, was very you will some day be mine! It is true Stubbs while his stricken spouse rich and elderly. He was dark and that I am poor, but have I not youth II. merely glowered, “I am sure the cruelly handsome, and always rode and strength to fight my way to child’s affections are elsewhere horseback and carried a riding-crop. fame? This I can do only for you, and the villain placed.” Long had he sought the radiant dear Ethyl—pardon me, still pursued her. “She must be mine!” sternly Ermengarde, and now his ardour Ermengarde—my only, my most ut these tender passages, snapped the sinister ’Squire. “I will was fanned to fever heat by a secret precious—” sacred though was their make her love me—none shall resist known to him alone—for upon the But here he paused to wipe his fervour, did not pass unob- my will! Either she becomes muh humble acres of Farmer Stubbs he eyes and mop his brow, and the fair Bserved by profane eyes; for crouched wife or the old homestead goes!” had discovered a vein of rich one responded: “Jack—my angel—at in the bushes and gritting his teeth And with a sneer and flick of his GOLD!! last—I mean, this is so unexpected was the dastardly ’Squire Hardman! riding-crop ’Squire Hardman strode “Aha!” said he, “I will win the and quite unprecedented! I had never When the lovers had finally strolled out into the night. maiden ere her parent knows of his dreamed that you entertained senti- away he leapt out into the lane, Scarce had he departed, when unsuspected wealth, and join to my ments of affection in connexion with viciously twirling his moustache there entered by the back door the fortune a greater fortune still!” And one so lowly as Farmer Stubbs’ and riding-crop, and kicking an radiant lovers, eager to tell the senior so he began to call twice a week child—for I am still but a child! Such unquestionably innocent cat who Stubbses of their new-found happi- instead of once as before. is your natural nobility that I had was also out strolling. ness. Imagine the universal conster- But alas for the sinister designs feared—I mean thought—you would “Curses!” he cried—Hardman, nation which reigned when all was of a villain—’Squire Hardman was be blind to such slight charms as I not the cat—“I am foiled in my plot known! Tears flowed like white ale, not the only suitor for the fair one. possess, and that you would seek to get the farm and the girl! But Jack till suddenly Jack remembered he Close by the village dwelt another, your fortune in the great city; there Manly shall never succeed! I am a was the hero and raised his head, the handsome Jack Manly, whose meeting and wedding one of those man of power—and we shall see!” declaiming in appropriately virile curly yellow hair had won the sweet more comely damsels whose splen- Thereupon he repaired to the accents: Ermengarde’s affection when both dour we observe in fashion books. humble Stubbs’ cottage, where he “Never shall the fair Ermengarde were toddling youngsters at the “But, Jack, since it is really I found the fond father in the still- be offered up to this beast as a sacri- village school. Jack had long been whom you adore, let us waive all cellar washing bottles under the fice while I live! I shall protect her— too bashful to declare his passion, needless circumlocution. Jack—my supervision of the gentle wife and she is mine, mine, mine—and then but one day while strolling along a darling—my heart has long been mother, Hannah Stubbs. Coming some! Fear not, dear father- and shady lane by the old mill with susceptible to your manly graces. I directly to the point, the villain mother-to-be—I will defend you all! Ermengarde, he had found courage cherish an affection for thee— spoke: You shall have the old home to utter that which was within his consider me thine own and be sure “Farmer Stubbs, I cherish a still—”adverb, not noun, although heart. to buy the ring at Perkins’ hardware tender affection of long standing for Jack was by no means out of “O light of my life,” said he, “my store where they have such nice your lovely offspring, Ethyl sympathy with Stubbs’ kind of farm soul is so overburdened that I must imitation diamonds in the window.” Ermengarde. I am consumed with produce—“and I shall lead to the speak! Ermengarde, my ideal [he “Ermengarde, me love!” love, and wish her hand in matri- altar the beauteous Ermengarde, pronounced it i-deel!], life has become “Jack—my precious!” mony. Always a man of few words, loveliest of her sex! To perdition with an empty thing without you. Beloved “My darling!” I will not descend to euphemism: the cruel ’Squire and his ill-gotten of my spirit, behold a suppliant “My own!” Give me the girl or I will foreclose gold—the right shall always win, kneeling in the dust before thee. “My Gawd!” the mortgage and take the old and a hero is always in the right! I Ermengarde—oh, Ermengarde, raise home!” will go to the great city and there [Curtain] me to an heaven of joy and say that “But, Sir,” pleaded the distracted make a fortune to save you all ere 536 537 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • SWEET ERMENGARDE (1914?)

the mortgage fall due! Farewell, my “Aha, my proud beauty,” quoth Ermengarde, let her go home, and was in the night that she went, love—I leave you now in tears, but he, “I have ye in me power, and went home himself to plot new leaving a note for her parents, I shall return to pay off the mortgage sooner or later I will break that will crimes and invent new modes of sniffing the familiar mash for the and claim you as my bride!” of thine! Meanwhile think of your villainy. last time, and kissing the cat “Jack, my protector!” poor old father and mother as turned The days wore on, and the goodbye—touching stuff! On the “Ermie, my sweet roll! Dearest!” out of hearth and home and Stubbses grew very sad over the train Algernon became sleepy and “Darling!—and don’t forget that wandering helpless through the coming loss of their home, and still slumped down in his seat, allowing ring at Perkins’.” meadows!” nobody seemed able to do anything a paper to fall out of his pocket by “Oh!” “Oh, spare them, spare them!” about it. One day a party of hunters accident. Ermengarde, taking “Ah!” said the maiden. from the city chanced to stray over advantage of her supposed position “Never… ha ha ha ha!” leered the old farm, and one of them found as a bride-elect, picked up the [Curtain] the brute. the gold!! Hiding his discovery from folded sheet and read its perfumed And so the cruel days sped on, his companions, he feigned rattle- expanse—when lo! she almost while all in ignorance young Jack snake-bite and went to the Stubbs’ fainted! It was a love letter from III. Manly was seeking fame and fortune cottage for aid of the usual kind. another woman!! in the great city. Ermengarde opened the door and “Perfidious deceiver!” she whis- a dastardly act. saw him. He also saw her, and in that pered at the sleeping Algernon, “so ut the resourceful ’Squire moment resolved to win her and the this is all that your boasted fidelity Hardman was not so easily IV. gold. “For my old mother’s sake I amounts to! I am done with you for to be foiled. Close by the must”—he cried loudly to himself. all eternity!” village lay a disreputable settlement subtle villainy. “No sacrifice is too great!” So saying, she pushed him out B the window and settled down for a of unkempt shacks, populated by a ne day as ’Squire Hardman shiftless scum who lived by thieving sat in the front parlour of much needed rest. and other odd jobs. Here the his expensive and palatial V. devilish villain secured two accom- home, indulging in his favourite O the city chap. VI. plices—ill-favoured fellows who pastime of gnashing his teeth and were very clearly no gentlemen. swishing his riding-crop, a great lgernon Reginald Jones And in the night the evil three thought came to him; and he was a polished man of the alone in the great city. broke into the Stubbs cottage and cursed aloud at the statue of Satan world from the great city, hen the noisy train abducted the fair Ermengarde, on the onyx mantelpiece. andA in his sophisticated hands our pulled into the dark taking her to a wretched hovel in “Fool that I am!” he cried. “Why poor little Ermengarde was as a station at the city, poor the settlement and placing her did I ever waste all this trouble on mere child. One could almost Whelpless Ermengarde was all alone under the charge of Mother Maria, the girl when I can get the farm by believe that sixteen-year-old stuff. without the money to get back to a hideous old hag. Farmer Stubbs simply foreclosing? I never thought Algy was a fast worker, but never Hogton. “Oh why,” she sighed in was quite distracted, and would of that! I will let the girl go, take the crude. He could have taught innocent regret, “didn’t I take his have advertised in the papers if the farm, and be free to wed some fair Hardman a thing or two about pocketbook before I pushed him cost had been less than a cent a city maid like the leading lady of finesse in sheiking. Thus only a out? Oh well, I should worry! He word for each insertion. that burlesque troupe which played week after his advent to the Stubbs told me all about the city so I can Ermengarde was firm, and never last week at the Town Hall!” family circle, where he lurked like easily earn enough to get home if wavered in her refusal to wed the And so he went down to the the vile serpent that he was, he had not to pay off the mortgage!” villain. settlement, apologised to persuaded the heroine to elope! It But alas for our little 538 539 H.P. LOVECRAFT: The COMPLETE OMNIBUS APPENDIX • SWEET ERMENGARDE (1914?)

heroine—work is not easy for a VII. and dismay. But hark! What is this? some tall thinking. How could she greenhorn to secure, so for a week Footsteps sound on the old gravel get away with the sixteen-year-old she was forced to sleep on park happy ever afterward. walk, and who should appear but our stuff if she had been stolen twen- benches and obtain food from the hero, Jack Manly—worn and seedy, ty-eight years ago? And if she was ne day the wealthy heiress bread-line. Once a wily and wicked but radiant of face. Seeking at once not Stubbs’ daughter the gold would Ermengarde S. Van Itty person, perceiving her helplessness, the downcast villain, he said: never be hers. Mrs. Van Itty was rich, hired a new second assis- offered her a position as dish-washer “’Squire—lend me a ten-spot, but ’Squire Hardman was richer. So, tant chauffeur. Struck by some- in a fashionable and depraved O will you? I have just come back from approaching the dejected villain, she thing familiar in his face, she cabaret; but our heroine was true to the city with my beauteous bride, inflicted upon him the last terrible looked again and gasped. Lo! it was her rustic ideals and refused to work the fair Bridget Goldstein, and need punishment. none other than the perfidious in such a gilded and glittering palace something to start things on the old “’Squire, dear,” she murmured, Algernon Reginald Jones, whom of frivolity—especially since she was farm.” Then turning to the Stubbses, “I have reconsidered all. I love you she had pushed from a car window offered only $3.00 per week with he apologised for his inability to pay and your naïve strength. Marry me on that fateful day! He had meals but no board. She tried to look off the mortgage as agreed. at once or I will have you prosecuted survived—this much was almost up Jack Manly, her one-time lover, “Don’t mention it,” said for that kidnapping last year. immediately evident. Also, he had but he was nowhere to be found. Ermengarde, “prosperity has come Foreclose your mortgage and enjoy wed the other woman, who had run Perchance, too, he would not have to us, and I will consider it sufficient with me the gold your cleverness away with the milkman and all the known her; for in her poverty she payment if you will forget forever discovered. Come, dear!” money in the house. Now wholly had perforce become a brunette the foolish fancies of our And the poor dub did. humbled, he asked forgiveness of again, and Jack had not beheld her childhood.” our heroine, and confided to her in that state since school days. All this time Mrs. Van Itty had [The End] the whole tale of the gold on her One day she found a neat but been sitting in the motor waiting for father’s farm. Moved beyond words, costly purse in the park; and after Ermengarde; but as she lazily eyed she raised his salary a dollar a seeing that there was not much in the sharp-faced Hannah Stubbs a month and resolved to gratify at it, took it to the rich lady whose card vague memory started from the back last that always unquenchable proclaimed her ownership. Delighted of her brain. Then it all came to her, anxiety to relieve the worry of the beyond words at the honesty of this and she shrieked accusingly at the old folks. So one bright day forlorn waif, the aristocratic Mrs. agrestic matron. Ermengarde motored back to Van Itty adopted Ermengarde to “You—you—Hannah Smith—I Hogton and arrived at the farm just replace the little one who had been know you now! Twenty-eight years as ’Squire Hardman was fore- stolen from her so many years ago. ago you were my baby Maude’s nurse closing the mortgage and ordering “How like my precious Maude,” she and stole her from the cradle!! the old folks out. sighed, as she watched the fair Where, oh, where is my child?” Then “Stay, villain!” she cried, flashing brunette return to blondeness. And a thought came as the lightning in a colossal roll of bills. “You are foiled so several weeks passed, with the old a murky sky. “Ermengarde—you say at last! Here is your money—now folks at home tearing their hair and she is your daughter.... She is mine! go, and never darken our humble the wicked ’Squire Hardman chuck- Fate has restored to me my old door again!” ling devilishly. chee-ild—my tiny Maudie! Then followed a joyous reunion, Ermengarde—Maude—come to whilst the ’Squire twisted his mous- your mother’s loving arms!!!” tache and riding-crop in bafflement But Ermengarde was doing 540 541 Other Pulp-Lit Productions titles Robert E. Howard’s CONAN the CIMMERIAN BARBARIAN: you might enjoy: •Hardcover (860 pages)

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