The Horror in the Museum

by H. P. Lovecraft

  Despite the assistant’s statement that no dog had been in the museum, Jones glanced nervously at the three small windows of the basement workroom—narrow, horizontal rectangles close to the grass-grown pavement, with grimy panes that stared repulsively and incuriously like the eyes of dead fish. To their left a worn flight of steps led to an opaque and heavily bolted door. Some impulse urged him to crouch low on the damp, broken cobblestones and peer in, on the chance that the thick green shades, worked by long cords that hung down to a reachable level, might not be drawn. The outer surfaces were thick with dirt, but as he rubbed them with his handkerchief he saw there was no obscuring curtain in the way of his vision.

  So shadowed was the cellar from the inside that not much could be made out, but the grotesque working paraphernalia now and then loomed up spectrally as Jones tried each of the windows in turn. It seemed evident at first that no one was within; yet when he peered through the extreme right-hand window—the one nearest the entrance alley—he saw a glow of light at the farther end of the apartment which made him pause in bewilderment. There was no reason why any light should be there. It was an inner side of the room, and he could not recall any gas or electric fixture near that point. Another look defined the glow as a large vertical rectangle, and a thought occurred to him. It was in that direction that he had always noticed the heavy plank door with the abnormally large padlock—the door which was never opened, and above which was crudely smeared that hideous cryptic symbol from the fragmentary records of forbidden elder magic. It must be open now—and there was a light inside. All his former speculations as to where that door led, and as to what lay behind it, were now renewed with trebly disquieting force.

  Jones wandered aimlessly around the dismal locality till close to six o’clock, when he returned to the museum to make the call on Rogers. He could hardly tell why he wished so especially to see the man just then, but there must have been some subconscious misgivings about that terribly unplaceable canine scream of the afternoon, and about the glow of light in that disturbing and usually unopened inner doorway with the heavy padlock. The attendants were leaving as he arrived, and he thought that Orabona—the dark foreign-looking assistant—eyed him with something like sly, repressed amusement. He did not relish that look—even though he had seen the fellow turn it on his employer many times.

  The vaulted exhibition room was ghoulish in its desertion, but he strode quickly through it and rapped at the door of the office and workroom. Response was slow in coming, though there were footsteps inside. Finally, in response to a second knock, the lock rattled, and the ancient six-panelled portal creaked reluctantly open to reveal the slouching, feverish-eyed form of George Rogers. From the first it was clear that the showman was in an unusual mood. There was a curious mixture of reluctance and actual gloating in his welcome, and his talk at once veered to extravagances of the most hideous and incredible sort.

  Surviving elder gods—nameless sacrifices—the other than artificial nature of some of the alcove horrors—all the usual boasts, but uttered in a tone of peculiarly increasing confidence. Obviously, Jones reflected, the poor fellow’s madness was gaining on him. From time to time Rogers would send furtive glances toward the heavy, padlocked inner door at the end of the room, or toward a piece of coarse burlap on the floor not far from it, beneath which some small object appeared to be lying. Jones grew more nervous as the moments passed, and began to feel as hesitant about mentioning the afternoon’s oddities as he had formerly been anxious to do so.

  Rogers’ sepulchrally resonant bass almost cracked under the excitement of his fevered rambling.

  “Do you remember,” he shouted, “what I told you about that ruined city in Indo-China where the Tcho-Tchos lived? You had to admit I’d been there when you saw the photographs, even if you did think I made that oblong swimmer in darkness out of wax. If you’d seen it writhing in the underground pools as I did….

  “Well, this is bigger still. I never told you about this, because I wanted to work out the later parts before making any claim. When you see the snapshots you’ll know the geography couldn’t have been faked, and I fancy I have another way of proving that It isn’t any waxed concoction of mine. You’ve never seen it, for the experiments wouldn’t let me keep It on exhibition.”

  The showman glanced queerly at the padlocked door.

  “It all comes from that long ritual in the eighth Pnakotic fragment. When I got it figured out I saw it could have only one meaning. There were things in the north before the land of Lomar— before mankind existed—and this was one of them. It took us all the way to Alaska, and up the Noatak from Fort Morton, but the thing was there as we knew it would be. Great Cyclopean ruins, acres of them. There was less left than we had hoped for, but after three million years what could one expect? And weren’t the Esquimau legends all in the right direction? We couldn’t get one of the beggars to go with us, and had to sledge all the way back to Nome for Americans. Orabona was no good up in that climate—it made him sullen and hateful.

  “I’ll tell you later how we found It. When we got the ice blasted out of the pylons of the central ruin the stairway was just as we knew it would be. Some carvings still there, and it was no trouble keeping the Yankees from following us in. Orabona shivered like a leaf—you’d never think it from the damned insolent way he struts around here. He knew enough of the Elder Lore to be properly afraid. The eternal light was gone, but our torches shewed enough. We saw the bones of others who had been before us—aeons ago, when the climate was warm. Some of these bones were of things you couldn’t even imagine. At the third level down we found the ivory throne the fragments said so much about—and I may as well tell you it wasn’t empty.

  “The thing on that throne didn’t move—and we knew then that It needed the nourishment of sacrifice. But we didn’t want to wake It then. Better to get It to London first. Orabona and I went to the surface for the big box, but when we had packed it we couldn’t get It up the three flights of steps. These steps weren’t made for human beings, and their size bothered us. Anyway, it was devilish heavy. We had to have the Americans down to get It out. They weren’t anxious to go into the place, but of course the worst thing was safely inside the box. We told them it was a batch of ivory carvings—archaeological stuff; and after seeing the carved throne they probably believed us. It’s a wonder they didn’t suspect hidden treasure and demand a share. They must have told queer tales around Nome later on; though I doubt if they ever went back to those ruins, even for the ivory throne.”

  Rogers paused, felt around in his desk, and produced an envelope of good-sized photographic prints. Extracting one and laying it face down before him, he handed the rest to Jones. The set was certainly an odd one: ice-clad hills, dog sledges, men in furs, and vast tumbled ruins against a background of snow—ruins whose bizarre outlines and enormous stone blocks could hardly be accounted for. One flashlight view shewed an incredible interior chamber with wild carvings and a curious throne whose proportion could not have been designed for a human occupant. The carvings on the gigantic masonry—high walls and peculiar vaulting overhead— were mainly symbolic, and involved both wholly unknown designs and certain hieroglyphs darkly cited in obscene legends. Over the throne loomed the same dreadful symbol which was now painted on the workroom wall above the padlocked plank door. Jones darted a nervous glance at the closed portal. Assuredly, Rogers had been to strange places and had seen strange things. Yet this mad interior picture might easily be a fraud—taken from a very clever stage setting. One must not be too credulous. But Rogers was continuing:

  “Well, we shipped the box from Nome and got to London without any trouble. That was the first time we’d ever brought back anything that had a chance of coming alive. I didn’t put It on display, because there were more important things to do for It. It needed the nourishment of sacrifice, for It was a god. Of course I couldn’t get It the sort of sacrifices which It used to Have in It’s day, for such things don’t exist now. But there wer
e other things which might do. The blood is the life, you know. Even the lemurs and elementals that are older than the earth will come when the blood of men or beasts is offered under the right conditions.”

  The expression on the narrator’s face was growing very alarming and repulsive, so that Jones fidgeted involuntarily in his chair. Rogers seemed to notice his guest’s nervousness, and continued with a distinctly evil smile.

  “It was last year that I got It, and ever since then I’ve been trying rites and sacrifices. Orabona hasn’t been much help, for he was always against the idea of waking It. He hates It—probably because he’s afraid of what It will come to mean. He carries a pistol all the time to protect himself—fool, as if there were human protection against It! If I ever see him draw that pistol, I’ll strangle him. He wanted me to kill It and make an effigy of It. But I’ve stuck by my plans, and I’m coming out on top in spite of all the cowards like Orabona and damned sniggering sceptics like you, Jones! I’ve chanted the rites and made certain sacrifices, and last week the transition came. The sacrifice was—received and enjoyed!”

  Rogers actually licked his lips, while Jones held himself uneasily rigid. The showman paused and rose, crossing the room to the piece of burlap at which he had glanced so often. Bending down, he took hold of one corner as he spoke again.

  “You’ve laughed enough at my work—now it’s time for you to get some facts. Orabona tells me you heard a dog screaming around here this afternoon. Do you know what that meant?”

  Jones started. For all his curiosity he would have been glad to get out without further light on the point which had so puzzled him. But Rogers was inexorable, and began to lift the square of burlap. Beneath it lay a crushed, almost shapeless mass which Jones was slow to classify. Was it a once-living thing which some agency had flattened, sucked dry of blood, punctured in a thousand places, and wrung into a limp, broken-boned heap of grotesqueness? After a moment Jones realised what it must be. It was what was left of a dog—a dog, perhaps of considerable size and whitish colour. Its breed was past recognition, for distortion had come in nameless and hideous ways. Most of the hair was burned off as by some pungent acid, and the exposed, bloodless skin was riddled by innumerable circular wounds or incisions. The form of torture necessary to cause such results was past imagining.

  Electrified with a pure loathing which conquered his mounting disgust, Jones sprang up with a cry.

  “You damned sadist—you madman—you do a thing like this and dare to speak to a decent man!”

  Rogers dropped the burlap with a malignant sneer and faced his oncoming guest. His words held an unnatural calm.

  “Why, you fool, do you think I did this? Let us admit that the results are unbeautiful from our limited human standpoint. What of it? It is not human and does not pretend to be. To sacrifice is merely to offer. I gave the dog to It. What happened is It’s work, not mine. It needed the nourishment of the offering, and took it in It’s own way. But let me shew you what It looks like.”

  As Jones stood hesitating, the speaker returned to his desk and took up the photograph he had laid face down without shewing. Now he extended it with a curious look. Jones took it and glanced at it in an almost mechanical way. After a moment the visitor’s glance became sharper and more absorbed, for the utterly satanic force of the object depicted had an almost hypnotic effect. Certainly, Rogers had outdone himself in modelling the eldritch nightmare which the camera had caught. The thing was a work of sheer, infernal genius, and Jones wondered how the public would react when it was placed on exhibition. So hideous a thing had no right to exist—probably the mere contemplation of it, after it was done, had completed the unhinging of its maker’s mind and led him to worship it with brutal sacrifices. Only a stout sanity could resist the insidious suggestion that the blasphemy was—or had once been— some morbid and exotic form of actual life.

  The thing in the picture squatted or was balanced on what appeared to be a clever reproduction of the monstrously carved throne in the other curious photograph. To describe it with any ordinary vocabulary would be impossible, for nothing even roughly corresponding to it has ever come within the imagination of sane mankind. It represented something meant perhaps to be roughly connected with the vertebrates of this planet—though one could not be too sure of that. Its bulk was Cyclopean, for even squatted it towered to almost twice the height of Orabona, who was shewn beside it. Looking sharply, one might trace its approximations toward the bodily features of the higher vertebrates.

  There was an almost globular torso, with six long, sinuous limbs terminating in crab-like claws. From the upper end a subsidiary globe bulged forward bubble-like; its triangle of three staring, fishy eyes, its foot-long and evidently flexible proboscis, and a distended lateral system analogous to gills, suggesting that it was a head. Most of the body was covered with what at first appeared to be fur, but which on closer examination proved to be a dense growth of dark, slender tentacles or sucking filaments, each tipped with a mouth suggesting the head of an asp. On the head and below the proboscis the tentacles tended to be longer and thicker, and marked with spiral stripes—suggesting the traditional serpent-locks of Medusa. To say that such a thing could have an expression seems paradoxical; yet Jones felt that that triangle of bulging fish-eyes and that obliquely poised proboscis all bespoke a blend of hate, greed, and sheer cruelty incomprehensible to mankind because mixed with other emotions not of the world or this solar system. Into this bestial abnormality, he reflected, Rogers must have poured at once all his malignant insanity and all his uncanny sculptural genius. The thing was incredible—and yet the photograph proved that it existed.

  Rogers interrupted his reveries.

  “Well—what do you think of It? Now do you wonder what crushed the dog and sucked it dry with a million mouths? It needed nourishment— and It will need more. It is a god, and I am the first priest of It’s latter-day hierarchy la! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!”

  Jones lowered the photograph in disgust and pity.

  “See here, Rogers, this won’t do. There are limits, you know. It’s a great piece of work, and all that, but it isn’t good for you. Better not see it any more—let Orabona break it up, and try to forget about it. And let me tear this beastly picture up, too.”

  With a snarl, Rogers snatched the photograph and returned it to the desk.

  “Idiot—you—and you still think It’s all a fraud! You still think I made It, and you still think my figures are nothing but lifeless wax! Why, damn you, you’re a worse clod than a wax image yourself! But I’ve got proof this time, and you’re going to know! Not just now, for It is resting after the sacrifice—but later. Oh, yes—you will not doubt the power of It then.”

  As Rogers glanced toward the padlocked inner door Jones retrieved his hat and stick from a nearby bench.

  “Very well, Rogers, let it be later. I must be going now, but I’ll call around tomorrow afternoon. Think my advice over and see if it doesn’t sound sensible. Ask Orabona what he thinks, too.”

  Rogers actually bared his teeth in wild-beast fashion.

  “Must be going now, eh? Afraid, after all! Afraid, for all your bold talk! You say the effigies are only wax, and yet you run away when I begin to prove that they aren’t. You’re like the fellows who take my standing bet that they daren’t spend the night in the museum—they come boldly enough, but after an hour they shriek and hammer to get out! Want me to ask Orabona, eh? You two—always against me! You want to break down the coming earthly reign of It!”

  Jones preserved his calm.

  “No, Rogers—there’s nobody against you. And I’m not afraid of your figures, either, much as I admire your skill. But we’re both a bit nervous tonight, and I fancy some rest will do us good.”

  Again Rogers checked his guest’s departure.

  “Not afraid, eh?—then why are you so anxious to go? Look here —do you or don’t you dare to stay alone here in the dark? What’s your hurry if you don’t believe i
n It?”

  Some new idea seemed to have struck Rogers, and Jones eyed him closely.

  “Why, I’ve no special hurry—but what would be gained by my staying here alone? What would it prove? My only objection is that it isn’t very comfortable for sleeping. What good would it do either of us?”

  This time it was Jones who was struck with an idea. He continued in a tone of conciliation.

  “See here, Rogers—I’ve just asked you what it would prove if I stayed, when we both know. It would prove that your effigies are just effigies, and that you oughtn’t to let your imagination go the way it’s been going lately. Suppose I do stay. If I stick it out till morning, will you agree to take a new view of things—go on a vacation for three months or so and let Orabona destroy that new thing of yours? Come, now—isn’t that fair?”

  The expression on the showman’s face was hard to read. It was obvious that he was thinking quickly, and that of sundry conflicting emotions, malign triumph was getting the upper hand. His voice held a choking quality as he replied.

  “Fair enough! If you do stick it out, I’ll take your advice. But stick you must. We’ll go out for dinner and come back. I’ll lock you in the display room and go home. In the morning I’ll come down ahead of Orabona—he comes half an hour before the rest—and see how you are. But don’t try it unless you are very sure of your scepticism. Others have backed out—you have that chance. And I suppose a pounding on the outer door would always bring a constable. You may not like it so well after a while—you’ll be in the same building, though not in the same room with It.”