Just what happened is unknown, for not only was my own mind unseated by the strange and hideous thing, but others were tainted with a forgetfulness which can mean nothing if not madness. They have said, I know not for what reason, that I never had a friend;[49] but that art, philosophy, and insanity had filled all my tragic life. The lodgers and police on that night soothed me, and the doctor administered something to quiet me, nor did anyone see what a nightmare event had taken place. My stricken friend moved them to no pity, but what they found on the couch in the studio made them give me a praise which sickened me, and now a fame which I spurn in despair as I sit for hours, bald, grey-bearded, shrivelled,[50] palsied, drug-crazed, and broken, adoring and praying to the object they found.
For they deny that I sold the last of my statuary, and point with ecstasy at the thing which the shining[51] shaft of light left cold, petrified, and unvocal. It is all that remains of my friend; the friend who led me on to madness and wreckage; a[52] godlike head of such marble as only old Hellas could yield, young with the youth that is outside time, and with beauteous bearded face, curved,[53] smiling lips, Olympian brow, and dense locks waving and poppy-crowned. They say that that haunting memory-face is modelled[54] from my own, as it was at twenty-five;[55] but upon the marble base is carven a single name in the letters of Attica—‘ΥΠΝΟΣ.[56]
Notes
Editor’s Note: A single-spaced T.Ms. surfaced after my first corrected edition of this text (1986). It appears to date prior to the first publication of the story—National Amateur (May 1923)—but bears some revisions in HPL’s handwriting (including the dedication) that postdate that appearance, and perhaps also the Weird Tales (May–June–July 1924) appearance. But HPL must have prepared a double-spaced T.Ms. for Weird Tales, and this hypothetical T.Ms. seems to have embodied a few revisions from the existing T.Ms.; but in my judgment, the paragraph divisions introduced in the Weird Tales text are the result of editorial tampering, as was the case with other stories published in Weird Tales at this time. The Arkham House editions prior to mine follow the Weird Tales text.
Texts: A = T.Ms. (private hands); B = National Amateur 45, No. 5 (May 1923): 1–3; C = Weird Tales 4, No. 2 (May–June–July 1924): 33–35; D = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 160–66. Copy-text: A.
1. To S. L.] om. B, C, D [added in pen in A]
2. “Apropos . . . danger.”] “Apropos . . . danger.” C; Apropos . . . danger. D
3. —Baudelaire.] —BAUDELAIRE A, B; —BAUDELAIRE C; BAUDELAIRE D
4. gods,] Gods, B
5. therefrom,] there /from, B
6. he] he B, C, D [underscore added in pen in A]
7. which] wihch B
8. mine.] mine! C, D
9. centre] center B, C, D
10. beautiful; ] beautiful; B, C, D
11. grey] gray C, D
12. godlike.] god-/like. ¶ C; god-like. ¶ D
13. ardour] ardor C, D
14. chiselled] chiseled C, D
15. him,] him B
16. immortalise] immortalize B, C, D
17. connexion] connection C, D
18. little,] little D
19. sensations; ] sensations; B, C, D [underscore added in pen in A]
20. plungings or soarings; ] plungings or soarings; B, C, D [underscore added in pen in A]
21. aërially] aerially A, B, C, D
22. tearing] tearing B, C, D [underscore added in pen in A]
23. or] of B, C, D
24. vapours.] vapors. ¶ C, D
25. conquests] conquest D
26. warfare in unmentionable] om. D
27. known.] known. ¶ C, D
28. too youthful] too-youthful C, D
29. sticky,] sticky D
30. fellow-dreamer,] fellow dreamer, D
31. features.] features. ¶ C, D
32. sound] sounnd B
33. lapsed.] lapsed. ¶ C, D
34. the] om. C, D
35. us.] us. ¶ C, D
36. morning.] morning. ¶ C, D
37. menace.] menace. ¶ C, D
38. our] the A, B
39. and . . . all] and, . . . all, C, D
40. local] locale C, D
41. clamouring,] clamoring, C, D
42. from the northeast.] from the northeast. B
43. heard, . . . saw; ] heard, . . . saw; B, C, D [underscore added in pen in A]
44. innermost,] innermost A, B, C, D
45. inflexible] flexible A, B, C, D
46. me.] me. ¶ C, D
47. I too] I, too, C, D
48. and] om. C, D
49. friend;] friend, A, B
50. grey-bearded, shrivelled,] grey-beared, shrivelled, B; gray-bearded, shriveled, C, D
51. shining] whining B, C
52. a] and C
53. curved,] curved A, B
54. modelled] modeled C, D
55. twenty-five;] twenty-five, A, B
56. ‘ΥΠΝΟΣ.] ΥΠΝΟΣ. A; HYPNOS. B, C, D
What the Moon Brings
I hate the moon—I am afraid of it—for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved[1] it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous.
It was in the spectral summer when the moon shone down on the old garden where I wandered; the spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas of foliage that bring wild and many-coloured dreams. And as I walked by the shallow crystal stream I saw unwonted ripples tipped with yellow light, as if those placid waters were drawn on in resistless currents to strange oceans that are not in the world. Silent and sparkling, bright and baleful, those moon-cursed waters hurried I knew not whither; whilst from the embowered banks white lotos blossoms[2] fluttered one by one in the opiate night-wind and dropped despairingly into the stream, swirling away horribly under the arched, carven bridge, and staring back with the sinister resignation of calm, dead faces.
And as I ran along the shore, crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feet and maddened ever by the fear of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces, I saw that the garden had no end under that moon; for where by day the walls were, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow-litten stream past grassy banks and under grotesque bridges of marble. And the lips of the dead lotos-faces whispered sadly, and bade me follow, nor did I cease my steps till the stream became a river, and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds and beaches of gleaming sand the shore of a vast and nameless sea.
Upon that sea the hateful moon shone, and over its unvocal waves weird perfumes brooded.[3] And as I saw therein the lotos-faces vanish, I longed for nets that I might capture them and learn from them the secrets which the moon had brought upon the night. But when the moon went over to the west and the[4] still tide ebbed from the sullen shore, I saw in that light old spires that the waves almost uncovered, and white columns gay with festoons of green seaweed. And knowing that to this sunken place all the dead had come, I trembled and did not wish again to speak with the lotos-faces.
Yet when I saw afar out in the sea[5] a black condor descend from the sky to seek rest on a vast reef, I would fain have questioned him, and asked him of those whom I had known when they were alive. This I would have asked him had he not been so far away, but he was very far, and could not be seen at all when he drew nigh that gigantic reef.
So I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead, dripping city. And as I watched, my nostrils tried to close against the perfume-conquering stench of the world’s dead; for truly, in this unplaced and forgotten spot had all the flesh of the churchyards gathered for puffy sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon.
Over those horrors the evil moon now hung very low, but the puffy worms of the sea need no moon to feed by. And as I watched the ripples that told of the writhing of worms beneath, I felt a new chill from afar out whither the condor had flown, as if my flesh had caught a horror before my eyes had seen it.
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Nor had my flesh trembled without cause, for when I raised my eyes I saw that the waters had ebbed very low, shewing much of the vast reef whose rim I had seen before. And when I saw that this[6] reef was but the black basalt crown of a shocking eikon whose monstrous forehead now shone[7] in the dim moonlight and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shrieked lest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that leering and treacherous yellow moon.
And to escape this relentless thing I plunged gladly and unhesitatingly[8] into the stinking shallows where amidst weedy walls and sunken streets fat sea-worms feast upon the world’s dead.
Notes
Editor’s Note: The surviving A.Ms. is HPL’s original draft, written in pencil on the back of correspondence to him. The first appearance (National Amateur, May 1923) derives from the A.Ms., as does (surprisingly) the Arkham House edition.
Texts: A = A.Ms. (JHL); B = National Amateur 45, No. 5 (May 1923): 9; C = Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Arkham House, 1943), 4–5. Copy-text: A.
1. loved] loved, B
2. lotos blossoms] lotos-blossoms B, C
3. brooded.] breeded. C
4. moon went . . . and the] om. B
5. saw afar . . . sea] saw, far . . . sea, B
6. this] the C
7. shone] shown C
8. unhesitatingly] unhesitantly C
Azathoth
When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s[1] flowering meads; when learning stripped earth[2] of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away for ever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.
Of the name and abode of this man but little is written, for they were of the waking world only; yet it is said that both were obscure. It is enough to know that he dwelt in a city of high walls where sterile twilight reigned, and that he toiled all day among shadow and turmoil, coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not on the fields and groves but on a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair. From that casement one might see only walls and windows, except sometimes when one leaned far out and peered aloft at the small stars that passed. And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities. After years he began to call the slow-sailing stars by name, and to follow them in fancy when they glided regretfully out of sight; till at length his vision opened to many secret vistas whose existence no common eye suspects. And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher’s window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder.[3]
There came to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold; vortices of dust and fire, swirling out of the ultimate spaces and heavy with perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, litten by suns that the eye may never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and sea-nymphs of unrememberable deeps. Noiseless infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without even touching the body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in men’s calendars the tides of far spheres bare[4] him gently to join the dreams for which he longed; the dreams that men have lost. And in the course of many cycles they tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise shore; a green shore fragrant with lotus-blossoms and starred by red camalotes.[5]
Notes
Editor’s Note: The surviving A.Ms. is HPL’s original draft. It was followed accurately enough in the two posthumous appearances. My text prints some passages that were deleted in the A.Ms.
Texts: A = A.Ms. (JHL); B = Leaves No. 2 (1938): 107; C = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 335–36. Copy-text: A.
1. spring’s] Spring’s B
2. earth] Earth B
3. wonder.] wonder. ¶ Thereafter the nights of the dreamer were spent in strange places, and amidst unheard-of splendours. In boats of darkness he sailed to fortunate isles, and on one of them built a palace where he ruled as Miral, King of the Isles [deleted]; ¶ He had been sleeping when space came to claim him. Very suddenly had the skies swelled down, for as the dreamer sat leaning out [deleted] A
4. bare] bore B, C
5. camalotes.] camalates. C
The Hound
In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and a faint,[1] distant baying as of [2] some gigantic hound. It is not dream—it is not, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.[3] St. John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and such is my knowledge that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the same way. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch phantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.[4]
May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Wearied with the commonplaces of a prosaic world,[5] where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St. John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. The enigmas of the symbolists and the ecstasies of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon[6] of its diverting novelty and appeal.[7] Only the sombre philosophy of the decadents could hold[8] us, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.
I cannot reveal the details of our shocking expeditions, or catalogue even partly the worst of the trophies adorning the nameless museum we prepared in the great stone house where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled an universe of terror and decay to excite our jaded sensibilities. It was a secret room, far, far[9] underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the lines of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Through these pipes came at will the odours[10] our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funereal lilies,[11] sometimes the narcotic incense[12] of imagined Eastern shrines of the kingly dead, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!—the frightful, soul-upheaving stenches of the uncovered grave.
Around the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the taxidermist’s art, and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the world. Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the fresh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.[13] Statues and paintings there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St. John and myself. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnamable[14] drawings which it was rumoured[15] Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.[16] There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, and wood-wind, on which St. John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity
and cacodaemoniacal ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. It is of this loot in particular that I must not speak—thank God I had the courage to destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself![17]
The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. We were no vulgar ghouls, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and moonlight. These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or a clumsy manipulation of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the earth. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St. John was always the leader, and he it was who led the way at last to that mocking, that[18] accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.
By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard? I think it was the dark rumour[19] and legendry, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulchre. I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the odours[20] of mould, vegetation, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and[21] worst of all, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound which we could neither see nor definitely place. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this selfsame spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some unspeakable beast.