Collected Fiction Volume 3 (1931-1936): A Variorum Edition

by H. P. Lovecraft

  Large pieces predominated—armlets, tiaras, and elaborate pendants—but rings and lesser items were numerous. The raised or incised designs—partly conventional and partly with a curious marine motif—were wrought in a style of tremendous distinctiveness and of utter dissimilarity to the art traditions of any race or epoch I knew about. This other-worldly character was emphasised by the oddness of the precious alloy, whose general effect was suggested in several colour-plates. Something about these pictured things fascinated me intensely—almost disproportionately—and I resolved to see as many original specimens as possible both at Innsmouth and in shops and museums elsewhere. Yet there was a distinct element of repulsion mixed with the fascination; proceeding, perhaps, from the evil and silly old legends about the founder of the business which the ticket-agent had told me.

  [p. 17:]

  The door of the Marsh retail office was open, and I walked in with considerable expectancy. The interior was shabby and ill-lighted, but contained a large number of display cases of solid and capable workmanship. A youngish man came forward to meet me, and as I studied his face a fresh wave of disturbance passed over me. He was not unhandsome, but there was something subtly bizarre and aberrant about his features and vocal timbre. I could not stifle a keen sudden aversion, and acquired an unexplained reluctance to seem like any sort of curious investigator. Before I knew it I found myself telling the fellow that I was a jewellery buyer for a Cleveland firm, and preparing myself to shew a merely professional interest in what I should see.

  It was hard, though, to carry out this policy. The clerk switched on more lights and began to lead me from case to case, but when I beheld the glittering marvels before me I could scarcely walk steadily or talk coherently. It took no excessive sensivitiveness to beauty to make one literally gasp at the strange, alien loveliness of these opulent objects, and as I gazed fascinatedly I saw how little justice even the colour-plates[9] had done them. Even now I can hardly describe what I saw—though those who own such pieces or have seen them in shops and museums can supply the missing data. The massed effect of so many elaborate samples was what produced my especial feeling of awe and unrest. For somehow or other, these singular grotesques and arabesques did not seem to be the product of any earthly handiwork—least of all a factory only a stone’s throw away. The patterns and traceries all hinted of remote spaces and unimaginable abysses, and the aquatic nature of the occasional pictorial items added to the general unearthliness. Some of the fabulous monsters filled me with an uncomfortable sense of dark pseudo-memory which I tried

  [p. 21:]

  the taint and blasphemy of furtive Innsmouth. He, like me, was a normal being outside the pall of decay and normally terrified by it. But because he was so inextricably close to the thing, he had been broken in a way that I was not yet broken.

  Shaking off the hands of the firemen who sought to detain him, the ancient rose to his feet and greeted me as if I were an acquaintance. The grocery youth had told me where most of Uncle Zadok’s liquor was obtained, and without a word I began leading him in that direction—through the Square and around into Eliot Street. His step was astonishingly brisk for one of his age and bibulousness, and I marvelled at the original strength of his constitution. My haste to leave Innsmouth had abated for the moment, and I felt instead a queer curiosity to dip into this mumbling patriarch’s chaotic store of extravagant myth.

  When we had bought a quart of whiskey in the rear of a dismal variety store, I led Uncle Zadok along South Street to the utterly abandoned section of the waterfront, and still farther southward to a point where even the fishermen on the distant breakwater could not see us, where I knew we could talk undisturbed. For some reason or other he seemed to dislike this arrangement—casting nervous glances out to sea in the direction of Devil Reef—but the lure of the whiskey was too strong for him to resist. After we had found a seat on the edge of a rotting wharf I gave him a pull at the bottle and waited for it to take effect. Naturally I graduated the doses very carefully, for I did not wish the old man’s loquacity to turn into a stupor. As he grew more mellow, I began to venture some remarks and inquiries about Innsmouth, and was really startled by the terrible and sincere portentousness of his lowered voice. He did not seem as crazy as his wild tales would indicate, and I found myself shuddering even when I could not believe his fantastic inventions. I hardly wondered at the naive credulity of superstitious Father Iwanicki.

  Notes

  Editor’s Note: This text derives from the versos of the A.Ms. of the story (JHL). It was first printed, as “Discarded Draught: The Shadow over Innsmouth,” in Acolyte 2, No. 2 (Spring 1944): 3–7. It is unclear who prepared the text of this appearance. It was then reprinted in Something about Cats and Other Pieces (Arkham House, 1949), 176–84, and several later editions. Only divergences from the A.Ms. are presented here.

  Text: A = A.Ms.

  1. train,] train A

  2. guide-books] guidebooks A

  3. Captain] Capt. A

  4. eight] 8 A

  5. daemons.] demons. A

  6. ‘white trash’] “white trash” A

  7. nineteenth] 19th A

  8. Portuguese] Portugese A

  9. colour-plates] colour plates A

  The Evil Clergyman

  I was shewn[1] into the attic chamber by a grave, intelligent-looking man with quiet clothes and an iron-grey[2] beard, who spoke to me in this fashion:

  “Yes, he lived here—but I don’t advise your doing anything. Your curiosity makes you irresponsible. We never come here at night, and it’s only because of his will that we keep it this way. You know what he did. That abominable society took charge at last, and we don’t know where he is buried. There was no way the law or anything else could reach the society.

  “I hope you won’t stay till after dark. And I beg of you to let that thing on the table—the thing that looks like a match-box—alone. We don’t know what it is, but we suspect it has something to do with what he did. We even avoid looking at it very steadily.”

  After a time the man left me alone in the attic room. It was very dingy and dusty, and only primitively furnished, but it had a neatness which shewed[3] it was not a slum-denizen’s quarters. There were shelves full of theological and classical books, and another bookcase containing treatises on magic—Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, Trithemius, Hermes Trismegistus, Borellus, and others in strange alphabets whose titles I could not decipher. The furniture was very plain. There was a door, but it led only into a closet. The only egress was the aperture in the floor up to which the crude, steep staircase led. The windows were of bull’s-eye pattern, and the black oak beams bespoke unbelievable antiquity. Plainly, this house was of the Old World. I seemed to know where I was, but cannot recall what I then knew. Certainly the town was not London. My impression is of a small seaport.

  The small object on the table fascinated me intensely. I seemed to know what to do with it, for I drew a pocket electric light—or what looked like one—out of my pocket and nervously tested its flashes. The light was not white but violet, and seemed less like true light than like some radio-active bombardment. I recall that I did not regard it as a common flashlight—indeed, I had a common flashlight in another pocket.

  It was getting dark, and the ancient roofs and chimney-pots outside looked very queer through the bull’s-eye window-panes. Finally I summoned up courage and propped the small object up on the table against a book—then turned the rays of the peculiar violet light upon it. The light seemed now to be more like a rain or hail of small violet particles than like a continuous beam. As the particles struck the glassy surface at the centre[4] of the strange device, they seemed to produce a crackling noise like the sputtering of a vacuum tube through which sparks are passed. The dark glassy surface displayed a pinkish glow, and a vague white shape seemed to be taking form at its centre.[5] Then I noticed that I was not alone in the room—and put the ray-projector back in my pocket.

  But the newcomer did not speak—nor
did I hear any sound whatever during all the immediately following moments. Everything was shadowy pantomime, as if seen at a vast distance through some intervening haze—although on the other hand the newcomer and all subsequent comers loomed large and close, as if both near and distant, according to some abnormal geometry.

  The newcomer was a thin, dark man of medium height attired in the clerical garb of the Anglican church. He was apparently about thirty years old, with a sallow, olive complexion and fairly good features, but an abnormally high forehead. His black hair was well cut and neatly brushed, and he was clean-shaven though blue-chinned with a heavy growth of beard. He wore rimless spectacles with steel bows. His build and lower facial features were like other clergymen I had seen, but he had a vastly higher forehead, and was darker and more intelligent-looking—also more subtly and concealedly evil-looking. At the present moment—having just lighted a faint oil lamp—he looked nervous, and before I knew it he was casting all his magical books into a fireplace on the window side of the room (where the wall slanted sharply) which I had not noticed before. The flames devoured the volumes greedily—leaping up in strange colours[6] and emitting indescribably hideous odours[7] as the strangely hieroglyphed leaves and wormy bindings succumbed to the devastating element. All at once I saw there were others in the room—grave-looking men in clerical costume, one of whom wore the bands and knee-breeches of a bishop. Though I could hear nothing, I could see that they were bringing a decision of vast import to the first-comer. They seemed to hate and fear him at the same time, and he seemed to return these sentiments. His face set itself into a grim expression, but I could see his right hand shaking as he tried to grip the back of a chair. The bishop pointed to the empty case and to the fireplace (where the flames had died down amidst a charred, non-committal mass), and seemed filled with a peculiar loathing. The first-comer then gave a wry smile and reached out with his left hand toward the small object on the table. Everyone then seemed frightened. The procession of clerics began filing down the steep stairs through the trap-door in the floor, turning and making menacing gestures as they left. The bishop was last to go.

  The first-comer now went to a cupboard on the inner side of the room and extracted a coil of rope. Mounting a chair, he attached one end of the rope to a hook in the great exposed central beam of black oak, and began making a noose with the other end. Realising[8] he was about to hang himself, I started forward to dissuade or save him. He saw me and ceased his preparations, looking at me with a kind of triumph which puzzled and disturbed me. He slowly stepped down from the chair and began gliding toward me with a positively wolfish grin on his dark, thin-lipped face.

  I felt somehow in deadly peril, and drew out the peculiar ray-projector as a weapon of defence.[9] Why I thought it could help me, I do not know. I turned it on—full in his face, and saw the sallow features glow first with violet and then with pinkish light. His expression of wolfish exultation began to be crowded aside by a look of profound fear—which did not, however, wholly displace the exultation. He stopped in his tracks—then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backward. I saw he was edging toward the open stair-well in the floor, and tried to shout a warning, but he did not hear me. In another instant he had lurched backward through the opening and was lost to view.

  I found difficulty in moving toward the stair-well, but when I did get there I found no crushed body on the floor below. Instead there was a clatter of people coming up with lanterns, for the spell of phantasmal silence had broken, and I once more heard sounds and saw figures as normally tri-dimensional. Something had evidently drawn a crowd to this place. Had there been a noise I had not heard? Presently the two people (simple villagers, apparently) farthest in the lead saw me—and stood paralysed.[10] One of them shrieked loudly and reverberantly:

  “Ahrrh! . . . It be ’ee, zur? Again?”

  Then they all turned and fled frantically. All, that is, but one. When the crowd was gone I saw the grave-bearded man who had brought me to this place—standing alone with a lantern. He was gazing at me gaspingly and fascinatedly, but did not seem afraid. Then he began to ascend the stairs, and joined me in the attic. He spoke:

  “So you didn’t let it alone! I’m sorry. I know what has happened. It happened once before, but the man got frightened and shot himself. You ought not to have made him come back. You know what he wants. But you mustn’t get frightened like the other man he got. Something very strange and terrible has happened to you, but it didn’t get far enough to hurt your mind and personality. If you’ll keep cool, and accept the need for making certain radical readjustments in your life, you can keep right on enjoying the world, and the fruits of your scholarship. But you can’t live here—and I don’t think you’ll wish to go back to London. I’d advise America.

  “You mustn’t try anything more with that—thing. Nothing can be put back now. It would only make matters worse to do—or summon—anything. You are not as badly off as you might be—but you must get out of here at once and stay away. You’d better thank heaven[11] it didn’t go further. . . .

  “I’m going to prepare you as bluntly as I can. There’s been a certain change—in your personal appearance. He always causes that. But in a new country you can get used to it. There’s a mirror up at the other end of the room, and I’m going to take you to it. You’ll get a shock—though you will see nothing repulsive.”

  I was now shaking with a deadly fear, and the bearded man almost had to hold me up as he walked me across the room to the mirror, the faint lamp (i.e., that formerly on the table, not the still fainter lantern he had brought) in his free hand. This is what I saw in the glass:

  A thin, dark man of medium stature attired in the clerical garb of the Anglican church, apparently about thirty, and with rimless, steel-bowed glasses glistening beneath a sallow, olive forehead of abnormal height.

  It was the silent first-comer who had burned his books.

  For all the rest of my life, in outward form, I was to be that man!

  Editor’s Note: This text is derived from a letter to Bernard Austin Dwyer, probably written in the summer or fall of 1933. The original A.L.S. has not surfaced, and the letter does not exist even as a transcript in the Arkham House Transcripts. Dwyer submitted the text to Weird Tales, where it was published as “The Wicked Clergyman.” August Derleth reprinted the text under its present title in several editions.

  Texts: A = Weird Tales 33, No. 4 (April 1939): 135–37 (as “The Wicked Clergyman”); B = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 297–301. Copy-text: A.

  Notes

  1. shewn] shown A, B

  2. iron-grey] iron-gray A, B

  3. shewed] showed A, B

  4. centre] center A, B

  5. centre.] center. A, B

  6. colours] colors A, B

  7. odours] odors A, B

  8. Realising] Realizing A, B

  9. defence.] defense. A, B

  10. paralysed.] paralyzed. A, B

  11. heaven] Heaven A, B

  [Cigarette Characterizations]

  The oddly unnatural face disclosed by the match’s glow gave even this common cigarette an indefinable strangeness. Its newly lit[1] point pulsed in a feverish rhythm curiously unlike the puffs of the normal smoker, and when it blazed brightest one could see the whole white cylinder protruding like a fungoid excrescence from the thin, pallid lips. The smoke, when glimpsed, seemed to weave fantastic designs; and a long ash appeared with anomalous rapidity.

  Notes

  Editor’s Note: This brief item was published in Fantasy Magazine (June 1934), as part of a series commissioned by the magazine’s editor, Julius Schwartz, in which leading science fiction and weird authors—including Ralph Milne Farley, David H. Keller, Clark Ashton Smith, Harl Vincent, E. E. Smith, Otis Adelbert Kline, and Stanton A. Coblentz—were asked to parody to their own styles in describing a cigarette.

  Text: A = Fantasy Magazine 3, No. 4 (June 1934), 15–16, 32.

  1. newly
lit] newly-lit A

  Of Evill Sorceries done in New England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape[1]

  But, not to speak at too great Length upon so horrid a Matter, I will add onlie what is commonly reported concerning an Happening in New Plymouth, fifty Years since, when Mr. Bradford was Governour. ’Tis said, one Richard Billington, being instructed partly by evill Books, and partly by an antient Wonder-Worker amongst ye Indian Salvages, so fell away from good Christian Practice that he not only lay’d claim to Immortality in the Flesh, but sett up in the Woods a Place of Dagon, namely great Ring of Stones, inside which he say’d Prayers to ye Divell, and sung certain Rites of Magick abominable by Scripture. This being brought to the Notice of ye Magistrates, he deny’d all blasphemous Dealings; but not long after he privately shew’d great Fear about some Thing he had call’d out of the Sky at Night. There were in that year seven slayings in ye Woods near to Richard Billington’s Stones, those slain being crushed and half-melted in a Fashion outside all Experience. Upon Talk of a Tryall, Billington dropt out of Sight, nor was any clear Word of him ever after heard.