Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922

by H. P. Lovecraft

  THE UNITED AMATEUR

  OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE UNITED AMATEUR PRESS ASSOCIATION

  VOLUME XVI GEORGETOWN, ILL., NOVEMBER, 1916 NUMBER 4

  THE ALCHEMIST

  High up, crowning the grassy summit of a swelling mound whose sides arewooded near the base with the gnarled trees of the primeval forest,stands the old chateau of my ancestors. For centuries its loftybattlements have frowned down upon the wild and rugged countrysideabout, serving as a home and stronghold for the proud house whosehonoured line is older even than the moss-grown castle walls. Theseancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumblingunder the slow yet mighty pressure of time, formed in the ages offeudalism one of the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in allFrance. From its machicolated parapets and mounted battlements Barons,Counts, and even Kings had been defied, yet never had its spacious hallsresounded to the footstep of the invader.

  But since those glorious years all is changed. A poverty but littleabove the level of dire want, together with a pride of name that forbidsits alleviation by the pursuits of commercial life, have prevented thescions of our line from maintaining their estates in pristine splendour;and the falling stones of the walls, the overgrown vegetation in theparks, the dry and dusty moat, the ill-paved courtyards, and topplingtowers without, as well as the sagging floors, the worm-eaten wainscots,and the faded tapestries within, all tell a gloomy tale of fallengrandeur. As the ages passed, first one, then another of the four greatturrets were left to ruin, until at last but a single tower housed thesadly reduced descendants of the once mighty lords of the estate.

  It was in one of the vast and gloomy chambers of this remaining towerthat I, Antoine, last of the unhappy and accursed Comtes de C----, firstsaw the light of day, ninety long years ago. Within these walls, andamongst the dark and shadowy forests, the wild ravines and grottoes ofthe hillside below, were spent the first years of my troubled life. Myparents I never knew. My father had been killed at the age ofthirty-two, a month before I was born, by the fall of a stone somehowdislodged from one of the deserted parapets of the castle, and my motherhaving died at my birth, my care and education devolved solely upon oneremaining servitor, an old and trusted man of considerable intelligence,whose name I remember as Pierre. I was an only child, and the lack ofcompanionship which this fact entailed upon me was augmented by thestrange care exercised by my aged guardian in excluding me from thesociety of the peasant children whose abodes were scattered here andthere upon the plains that surround the base of the hill. At the time,Pierre said that this restriction was imposed upon me because my noblebirth placed me above association with such plebeian company. Now I knowthat its real object was to keep from my ears the idle tales of thedread curse upon our line, that were nightly told and magnified by thesimple tenantry as they conversed in hushed accents in the glow of theircottage hearths.

  Thus isolated, and thrown upon my own resources, I spent the hours of mychildhood in poring over the ancient tomes that filled theshadow-haunted library of the chateau, and in roaming without aim orpurpose through the perpetual dusk of the spectral wood that clothes thesides of the hill near its foot. It was perhaps an effect of suchsurroundings that my mind early acquired a shade of melancholy. Thosestudies and pursuits which partake of the dark and occult in nature moststrongly claimed my attention.

  Of my own race I was permitted to learn singularly little, yet whatsmall knowledge of it I was able to gain, seemed to depress me much.Perhaps it was at first only the manifest reluctance of my old preceptorto discuss with me my paternal ancestry that gave rise to the terrorwhich I ever felt at the mention of my great house, yet as I grew out ofchildhood, I was able to piece together disconnected fragments ofdiscourse, let slip from the unwilling tongue which had begun to falterin approaching senility, that had a sort of relation to a certaincircumstance which I had always deemed strange, but which now becamedimly terrible. The circumstance to which I allude is the early age atwhich all the Comtes of my line had met their end. Whilst I had hithertoconsidered this but a natural attribute of a family of short-lived men,I afterward pondered long upon these premature deaths, and began toconnect them with the wanderings of the old man, who often spoke of acurse which for centuries had prevented the lives of the holders of mytitle from much exceeding the span of thirty-two years. Upon mytwenty-first birthday, the aged Pierre gave to me a family documentwhich he said had for many generations been handed down from father toson, and continued by each possessor. Its contents were of the moststartling nature, and its perusal confirmed the gravest of myapprehensions. At this time, my belief in the supernatural was firm anddeep-seated, else I should have dismissed with scorn the incrediblenarrative unfolded before my eyes.

  The paper carried me back to the days of the thirteenth century, whenthe old castle in which I sat had been a feared and impregnablefortress. It told of a certain ancient man who had once dwelt on ourestates, a person of no small accomplishments, though little above therank of peasant; by name, Michel, usually designated by the surname ofMauvais, the Evil, on account of his sinister reputation. He had studiedbeyond the custom of his kind, seeking such things as the Philosopher'sStone, or the Elixir of Eternal Life, and was reputed wise in theterrible secrets of Black Magic and Alchemy. Michel Mauvais had one son,named Charles, a youth as proficient as himself in the hidden arts, andwho had therefore been called Le Sorcier, or the Wizard. This pair,shunned by all honest folk, were suspected of the most hideouspractices. Old Michel was said to have burnt his wife alive as asacrifice to the Devil, and the unaccountable disappearances of manysmall peasant children were laid at the dreaded door of these two. Yetthrough the dark natures of the father and the son ran one redeeming rayof humanity; the evil old man loved his offspring with fierce intensity,whilst the youth had for his parent a more than filial affection.

  One night the castle on the hill was thrown into the wildest confusionby the vanishment of young Godfrey, son to Henri, the Comte. A searchingparty, headed by the frantic father, invaded the cottage of thesorcerers and there came upon old Michel Mauvais, busy over a huge andviolently boiling cauldron. Without certain cause, in the ungovernedmadness of fury and despair, the Comte laid hands on the aged wizard,and ere he released his murderous hold his victim was no more. Meanwhilejoyful servants were proclaiming aloud the finding of young Godfrey in adistant and unused chamber of the great edifice, telling too late thatpoor Michel had been killed in vain. As the Comte and his associatesturned away from the lowly abode of the alchemists, the form of CharlesLe Sorcier appeared through the trees. The excited chatter of themenials standing about told him what had occurred, yet he seemed atfirst unmoved at his father's fate. Then, slowly advancing to meet theComte, he pronounced in dull yet terrible accents the curse that everafterward haunted the house of C----.

  "May ne'er a noble of thy murd'rous line Survive to reach a greater age than thine!"

  spake he, when, suddenly leaping backwards into the black wood, he drewfrom his tunic a phial of colourless liquid which he threw in the faceof his father's slayer as he disappeared behind the inky curtain of thenight. The Comte died without utterance, and was buried the next day,but little more than two and thirty years from the hour of his birth. Notrace of the assassin could be found, though relentless bands ofpeasants scoured the neighboring woods and the meadow-land around thehill.

  Thus time and the want of a reminder dulled the memory of the curse inthe minds of the late Comte's family, so that when Godfrey, innocentcause of the whole tragedy and now bearing the title, was killed by anarrow whilst hunting, at the age of thirty-two, there were no thoughtssave those of grief at his demise. But when, years afterward, the nextyoung Comte, Robert by name, was found dead in a nearby field from noapparent cause, the peasants told in whispers that their seigneur hadbut lately passed his thirty-second birthday when surprised by earlydeath. Louis, son to Robert, was found drowned in the moat at the samefateful age, and thus down through the centuries ran the o
minouschronicle; Henris, Roberts, Antoines, and Armands snatched from happyand virtuous lives when a little below the age of their unfortunateancestor at his murder.

  That I had left at most but eleven years of further existence was madecertain to me by the words which I read. My life, previously held atsmall value, now became dearer to me each day, as I delved deeper anddeeper into the mysteries of the hidden world of black magic. Isolatedas I was, modern science had produced no impression upon me, and Ilaboured as in the Middle Ages, as wrapt as had been old Michel andyoung Charles themselves in the acquisition of demonological andalchemical learning. Yet read as I might, in no manner could I accountfor the strange curse upon my line. In unusually rational moments, Iwould even go so far as to seek a natural explanation, attributing theearly deaths of my ancestors to the sinister Charles Le Sorcier and hisheirs; yet having found upon careful inquiry that there were no knowndescendants of the alchemist, I would fall back to my occult studies,and once more endeavour to find a spell that would release my house fromits terrible burden. Upon one thing I was absolutely resolved. I shouldnever wed, for since no other branches of my family were in existence, Imight thus end the curse with myself.

  As I drew near the age of thirty, old Pierre was called to the landbeyond. Alone I buried him beneath the stones of the courtyard aboutwhich he had loved to wander in life. Thus was I left to ponder onmyself as the only human creature within the great fortress, and in myutter solitude my mind began to cease its vain protest against theimpending doom, to become almost reconciled to the fate which so many ofmy ancestors had met. Much of my time was now occupied in theexploration of the ruined and abandoned halls and towers of the oldchateau, which in youth fear had caused me to shun, and some of whichold Pierre had once told me had not been trodden by human foot for overfour centuries. Strange and awsome were many of the objects Iencountered. Furniture, covered by the dust of ages and crumbling withthe rot of long dampness met my eyes. Cobwebs in a profusion neverbefore seen by me were spun everywhere, and huge bats flapped their bonyand uncanny wings on all sides of the otherwise untenanted gloom.

  Of my exact age, even down to days and hours, I kept a most carefulrecord, for each movement of the pendulum of the massive clock in thelibrary tolled off so much more of my doomed existence. At length Iapproached that time which I had so long viewed with apprehension. Sincemost of my ancestors had been seized some little while before theyreached the exact age of the Comte Henri at his end, I was every momenton the watch for the coming of the unknown death. In what strange formthe curse should overtake me, I knew not; but I was resolved at leastthat it should not find me a cowardly or a passive victim. With newvigour I applied myself to my examination of the old chateau and itscontents.

  It was upon one of the longest of all my excursions of discovery in thedeserted portion of the castle, less than a week before that fatal hourwhich I felt must mark the utmost limit of my stay on earth, beyondwhich I could have not even the slightest hope of continuing to drawbreath, that I came upon the culminating event of my whole life. I hadspent the better part of the morning in climbing up and down half ruinedstaircases in one of the most dilapidated of the ancient turrets. As theafternoon progressed, I sought the lower levels, descending into whatappeared to be either a mediaeval place of confinement, or a morerecently excavated storehouse for gunpowder. As I slowly traversed thenitre-encrusted passageway at the foot of the last staircase, the pavingbecame very damp, and soon I saw by the light of my flickering torchthat a blank, water-stained wall impeded my journey. Turning to retracemy steps, my eye fell upon a small trap-door with a ring, which laydirectly beneath my feet. Pausing, I succeeded with difficulty inraising it, whereupon there was revealed a black aperture, exhalingnoxious fumes which caused my torch to sputter, and disclosing in theunsteady glare the top of a flight of stone steps. As soon as the torch,which I lowered into the repellent depths, burned freely and steadily, Icommenced my descent. The steps were many, and led to a narrowstone-flagged passage which I knew must be far underground. This passageproved of great length, and terminated in a massive oaken door,dripping with the moisture of the place, and stoutly resisting all myattempts to open it. Ceasing after a time my efforts in this direction,I had proceeded back some distance toward the steps, when there suddenlyfell to my experience one of the most profound and maddening shockscapable of reception by the human mind. Without warning, =I heard theheavy door behind me creak slowly open upon its rusted hinges=. Myimmediate sensations are incapable of analysis. To be confronted in aplace as thoroughly deserted as I had deemed the old castle withevidence of the presence of man or spirit, produced in my brain a horrorof the most acute description. When at last I turned and faced the seatof the sound, my eyes must have started from their orbits at the sightthat they beheld. There in the ancient Gothic doorway stood a humanfigure. It was that of a man clad in a skull-cap and long mediaevaltunic of dark colour. His long hair and flowing beard were of a terribleand intense black hue, and of incredible profusion. His forehead, highbeyond the usual dimensions; his cheeks, deep sunken and heavily linedwith wrinkles; and his hands, long, claw-like and gnarled, were of sucha deathly, marble-like whiteness as I have never elsewhere seen in man.His figure, lean to the proportions of a skeleton, was strangely bentand almost lost within the voluminous folds of his peculiar garment. Butstrangest of all were his eyes; twin caves of abysmal blackness;profound in expression of understanding, yet inhuman in degree ofwickedness. These were now fixed upon me, piercing my soul with theirhatred, and rooting me to the spot whereon I stood. At last the figurespoke in a rumbling voice that chilled me through with its dullhollowness and latent malevolence. The language in which the discoursewas clothed was that debased form of Latin in use amongst the morelearned men of the Middle Ages, and made familiar to me by my prolongedresearches into the works of the old alchemists and demonologists. Theapparition spoke of the curse which had hovered over my house, told meof my coming end, dwelt on the wrong perpetrated by my ancestor againstold Michel Mauvais, and gloated over the revenge of Charles Le Sorcier.He told me how the young Charles had escaped into the night, returningin after years to kill Godfrey the heir with an arrow just as heapproached the age which had been his father's at his assassination; howhe had secretly returned to the estate and established himself, unknown,in the even then deserted subterranean chamber whose doorway now framedthe hideous narrator; how he had seized Robert, son of Godfrey, in afield, forced poison down his throat and left him to die at the age ofthirty-two, thus maintaining the foul provisions of his vengeful curse.At this point I was left to imagine the solution of the greatest mysteryof all, how the curse had been fulfilled since that time when Charles LeSorcier must in the course of nature have died, for the man digressedinto an account of the deep alchemical studies of the two wizards,father and son, speaking most particularly of the researches of CharlesLe Sorcier concerning the elixir which should grant to him who partookof it eternal life and youth.

  His enthusiasm had seemed for the moment to remove from his terribleeyes the hatred that had at first so haunted them, but suddenly thefiendish glare returned, and with a shocking sound like the hissing of aserpent, the stranger raised a glass phial with the evident intent ofending my life as had Charles Le Sorcier, six hundred years before,ended that of my ancestor. Prompted by some preserving instinct ofself-defense, I broke through the spell that had hitherto held meimmovable, and flung my now dying torch at the creature who menaced myexistence. I heard the phial break harmlessly against the stones of thepassage as the tunic of the strange man caught fire and lit the horridscene with a ghastly radiance. The shriek of fright and impotent maliceemitted by the would-be assassin proved too much for my already shakennerves, and I fell prone upon the slimy floor in a total faint.

  When at last my senses returned, all was frightfully dark, and my mindremembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding more;yet curiosity overmastered all. Who, I asked myself, was this man ofevil, and how came he within the castl
e walls? Why should he seek toavenge the death of poor Michel Mauvais, and how had the curse beencarried on through all the long centuries since the time of Charles LeSorcier? The dread of years was lifted off my shoulders, for I knew thathe whom I had felled was the source of all my danger from the curse; andnow that I was free, I burned with the desire to learn more of thesinister thing which had haunted my line for centuries, and made of myown youth one long-continued nightmare. Determined upon furtherexploration, I felt in my pockets for flint and steel, and lit theunused torch which I had with me. First of all, the new light revealedthe distorted and blackened form of the mysterious stranger. The hideouseyes were now closed. Disliking the sight, I turned away and entered thechamber beyond the Gothic door. Here I found what seemed much like analchemist's laboratory. In one corner was an immense pile of a shiningyellow metal that sparkled gorgeously in the light of the torch. It mayhave been gold, but I did not pause to examine it, for I was strangelyaffected by that which I had undergone. At the farther end of theapartment was an opening leading out into one of the many wild ravinesof the dark hillside forest. Filled with wonder, yet now realizing howthe man had obtained access to the chateau, I proceeded to return. I hadintended to pass by the remains of the stranger with averted face, butas I approached the body, I seemed to hear emanating from it a faintsound, as though life were not yet wholly extinct. Aghast, I turned toexamine the charred and shrivelled figure on the floor.

  Then all at once the horrible eyes, blacker even than the seared face inwhich they were set, opened wide with an expression which I was unableto interpret. The cracked lips tried to frame words which I could notwell understand. Once I caught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and againI fancied that the words "years" and "curse" issued from the twistedmouth. Still I was at a loss to gather the purport of his disconnectedspeech. At my evident ignorance of his meaning, the pitchy eyes oncemore flashed malevolently at me, until, helpless as I saw my opponent tobe, I trembled as I watched him.

  Suddenly the wretch, animated with his last burst of strength, raisedhis hideous head from the damp and sunken pavement. Then, as I remained,paralyzed with fear, he found his voice and in his dying breath screamedforth those words which have ever afterward haunted my days and mynights. "Fool," he shrieked, "can you not guess my secret? Have you nobrain whereby you may recognize the will which has through six longcenturies fulfilled the dreadful curse upon your house? Have I not toldyou of the great elixir of eternal life? Know you not how the secret ofAlchemy was solved? I tell you, it is I! I! =I! that have lived for sixhundred years to maintain my revenge=, FOR I AM CHARLES LE SORCIER!"

  H. P. LOVECRAFT.