THE
OUTSIDER
By H. P.
Lovecraft
That
night the Baron dreamt of many a wo;
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and
form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmared.
Keats
Unhappy is he to whom the
memories of childhood bring only fear and
sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours
in vast and
dismal chambers with brown
hangings and maddening rows of antique
books, or upon awed watches in
twilight groves of grotesque,
gigantic, and vine-encumbered
trees that silently wave twisted
branches far aloft. Such a lot the gods gave to me--to me; the
dazed, the disappointed; the
barren, the broken. And yet I am
strangely content and cling
desperately to those sere memories, when
my mind momentarily threatens to
reach beyond to _the other_.
I know not where I was born, save
that the castle was infinitely old
and infinitely horrible, full of
dark passages and having high
ceilings where the eye could find
only cobwebs and shadows. The
stones in the crumbling corridors
seemed always hideously damp; there
was an accursed smell everywhere,
as of the piled-up corpses of dead
generations. It was never light, so that I used sometimes
to light
candles and gaze steadily at them
for relief, nor was there any sun
outdoors, since the terrible
trees grew high above the topmost
accessible tower. There was one black tower which reached above
the
trees into the unknown outer sky,
but that was partly ruined and
could not be ascended save by a
well-nigh impossible climb up the
sheer wall, stone by stone.
I must have lived years in this
place, but I cannot measure the time.
Beings must have cared for my
needs, yet I can not recall any person
except myself, or anything alive
but the noiseless rats and bats and
spiders. I think that whoever nursed me must have been
shockingly
aged, since my first conception
of a living person was that of
something mockingly like myself,
yet distorted, shriveled, and
decaying like the castle. To me there was nothing grotesque in the
bones and skeletons that strewed
some of the stone crypts deep down
among the foundations. I fantastically associated these things with
everyday events, and thought them
more natural than the colored
pictures of living beings which I
found in many of the moldy books.
From such books I learned all
that I know. No teacher urged or
guided me, and I do not recall
hearing any human voice in all those
years--not even my own; for
although I had read of speech, I had
never thought to try to speak
aloud. My aspect was a matter equally
unthought of, for there were no
mirrors in the castle, and I merely
regarded myself by instinct as
akin to the youthful figures I saw
drawn and painted in the
books. I felt conscious of youth because
I
remembered so little.
Outside, across the putrid moat
and under the dark mute trees, I
would often lie and dream for
hours about what I read in the books;
and would longingly picture
myself amidst gay crowds in the sunny
world beyond the endless
forest. Once I tried to escape from the
forest, but as I went farther
from the castle the shade grew denser
and the air was filled with
brooding fear; so I ran frantically back
lest I lose my way in a labyrinth
of nighted silence.
So through endless twilights I
dreamed and waited, though I knew not
what I waited for. Then in the shadowy solitude my longing for
light
grew so frantic that I could rest
no more, and I lifted entreating
hands to the single black ruined
tower that reached above the forest
into the unknown outer sky. And at last I resolved to scale that
tower, fall though I might; since
it were better to glimpse the sky
and perish, than to live without
ever beholding day.
In the dank twilight I climbed
the worn and aged stone stairs till I
reached the level where they
ceased, and thereafter clung perilously
to small footholds leading
upward. Ghastly and terrible was that
dead, stairless cylinder of rock;
black, ruined, and deserted, and
sinister with startled bats whose
wings made no noise. But more
ghastly and terrible still was
the slowness of my progress; for climb
as I might, the darkness overhead
grew no thinner, and a new chill as
of haunted and venerable mold
assailed me. I shivered as I wondered
why I did not reach the light,
and would have looked down had I
dared. I fancied that night had come suddenly upon
me, and vainly
groped with one free hand for a
window embrasure, that I might peer
out and above, and try to judge
the height I had attained.
All at once, after an infinity of
awesome, sightless crawling up that
concave and desperate precipice,
I felt my head touch a solid thing,
and I knew I must have gained the
roof, or at least some kind of
floor. In the darkness I raised my free hand and
tested the barrier,
finding it stone and
immovable. Then came a deadly circuit of
the
tower, clinging to whatever holds
the slimy wall could give; till
finally my testing hand found the
barrier yielding, and I turned
upward again, pushing the slab or
door with my head as I used both
hands in my fearful ascent.
There was no light revealed
above, and as my hands went higher I knew
that my climb was for the nonce
ended; since the slab was the
trap-door of an aperture leading
to a level stone surface of greater
circumference than the lower
tower, no doubt the floor of some lofty
and capacious observation
chamber. I crawled through carefully,
and
tried to prevent the heavy slab
from falling back into place, but
failed in the latter
attempt. As I lay exhausted on the stone
floor
I heard the eery echoes of its
fall, but hoped when necessary to pry
it up again.
Believing I was now at a
prodigious height, far above the accursed
branches of the wood, I dragged
myself up from the floor and fumbled
about for windows, that I might
look for the first time upon the sky,
and the moon and stars of which I
had read. But on every hand I was
disappointed; since all that I
found were vast shelves of marble,
bearing odious oblong boxes of
disturbing size. More and more I
reflected; and wondered what
hoary secrets might abide in this high
apartment so many eons cut off
from the castle below. Then
unexpectedly my hands came upon a
doorway, where hung a portal of
stone, rough with strange
chiseling. Trying it, I found it locked;
and with a supreme burst of
strength I overcame all obstacles and
dragged it open inward. As I did so there came to me the purest
ecstasy I have ever known; for
shining tranquilly through an ornate
grating of iron, and down a short
stone passageway of steps that
ascended from the newly-found
doorway, was the radiant full moon,
which I had never before seen
save in dreams and in vague visions I
dared not call memories.
Fancying now that I had attained
the very pinnacle of the castle, I
commenced to rush up the few
steps beyond, the door; but the sudden
veiling of the moon by a cloud
caused me to stumble, and I felt my
way more slowly in the dark. It was still very dark when I reached
the grating--which I tried
carefully and found unlocked, but which I
did not open for fear of falling
from the amazing height to which I
had climbed. Then the moon came out.
Most demoniacal of all shocks is
that of the abysmally unexpected and
grotesquely unbelievable. Nothing I had before undergone could
compare in terror with what I now
saw; with the bizarre marvels that
sight implied. The sight itself was as simple as it was
stupefying,
for it was merely this: instead
of a dizzying prospect of tree tops
seen from a lofty eminence, there
stretched around me on the level
through the grating nothing less
than _the solid ground_, decked and
diversified by marble slabs and
columns, and overshadowed by an
ancient stone church, whose
ruined spire gleamed spectrally in the
moonlight.
Half unconscious, I opened the
grating and staggered out upon the
white gravel path that stretched
away in two directions. My mind,
stunned and chaotic as it was,
still held the frantic craving for
light; and not even the fantastic
wonder which had happened could
stay my course. I neither knew nor cared whether my
experience was
insanity, dreaming, or magic; but
was determined to gaze on
brilliance and gayety at any
cost.
I knew not who I was or what I
was, or what my surroundings might be;
though as I continued to stumble
along I became conscious of a kind
of fearsome latent memory that
made my progress not wholly
fortuitous. I passed under an arch out of that region of
slabs and
columns, and wandered through the
open country; sometimes following
the visible road, but sometimes
leaving it curiously to tread across
meadows where only occasional
ruins bespoke the ancient presence of a
forgotten road.
Once I swam across a swift river
where crumbling, mossy masonry told
of a bridge long vanished.
Over two hours must have passed
before I reached what seemed to be my
goal, a venerable ivied castle in
a thickly wooded park, maddeningly
familiar, yet full of perplexing
strangeness to me. I saw the moat
was filled in, and that some of
the well-known towers were
demolished; whilst new wings
existed to confuse the beholder. But
what I observed with chief
interest and delight were the open
windows--gorgeously ablaze with
light and sending forth sound of the
gayest revelry. Advancing to one of these I looked in and saw
an
oddly dressed company, indeed;
making merry, and speaking brightly to
one another. I had never, seemingly, heard human speech
before and
could guess only vaguely what was
said. Some of the faces seemed to
hold expressions that brought up
incredibly remote recollections,
others were utterly alien.
I now stepped through the low
window into the brilliantly lighted
room, stepping as I did so from
my single bright moment of hope to my
blackest convulsion of despair
and realization. The nightmare was
quick to come, for as I entered,
there occurred immediately one of
the most terrifying
demonstrations I had ever conceived.
Scarcely had I crossed the sill
when there descended upon the whole
company a sudden and unheralded
fear of hideous intensity, distorting
every face and evoking the most
horrible screams from nearly every
throat.
Flight was universal, and in the
clamor and panic several fell in a
swoon and were dragged away by
their madly fleeing companions. Many
covered their eyes with their
hands, and plunged blindly and
awkwardly in their race to
escape, overturning furniture and
stumbling against the walls
before they managed to reach one of the
many doors.
The cries were shocking; and as I
stood in the brilliant apartment
alone and dazed, listening to
their vanishing echoes, I trembled at
the thought of what might lurk
near me unseen. At a casual
inspection the room seemed
deserted, but when I moved toward one of
the alcoves I thought I detected
a presence there--a hint of motion
beyond the golden-arched doorway
leading to another and somewhat
similar room. As I approached the arch I began to perceive
the
presence more clearly; and then,
with the first and last sound I ever
uttered--a ghastly ululation that
revolted me almost as poignantly as
its noxious cause--I beheld in
full, frightful vividness the
inconceivable, indescribable, and
unmentionable monstrosity which had
by its simple appearance changed
a merry company to a herd of
delirious fugitives.
I can not even hint what it was
like, for it was a compound of all
that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome,
abnormal, and detestable. It
was the ghoulish shade of decay,
antiquity, and desolation; the
putrid, dripping eidolon of
unwholesome revelation, the awful baring
of that which the merciful earth
should always hide. God knows it
was not of this world--or no
longer of this world--yet to my horror I
saw in its eaten-away and
bone-revealing outlines a leering,
abhorrent travesty on the human
shape; and in its moldy,
disintegrating apparel an
unspeakable quality that chilled me even
more.
I was almost paralyzed, but not
too much so to make a feeble effort
toward flight; a backward stumble
which failed to break the spell in
which the nameless, voiceless
monster held me. My eyes, bewitched by
the glassy orbs which stared
loathesomely into them, refused to
close; though they were
mercifully blurred, and showed the terrible
object but indistinctly after the
first shock. I tried to raise my
hand to shut out the sight, yet
so stunned were my nerves that my arm
could not fully obey my
will. The attempt, however, was enough
to
disturb my balance; so that I had
to stagger forward several steps to
avoid falling. As I did so I became suddenly and agonizingly
aware
of the nearness of the carrion
thing, whose hideous hollow breathing
I half fancied I could hear. Nearly mad, I found myself yet able to
throw out a hand to ward off the
fetid apparition which pressed so
close; when in one cataclysmic
second of cosmic nightmarishness and
hellish accident _my fingers
touched the rotting outstretched paw of
the monster beneath the golden
arch_.
I did not shriek, but all the
fiendish ghouls that ride the
night-wind shrieked for me as in
that second there crashed down upon
my mind a single and fleeting
avalanche of soul-annihilating memory.
I knew in that second all that
had been; I remembered beyond the
frightful castle and the trees,
and recognized the altered edifice in
which I now stood; I recognized,
most terrible of all, the unholy
abomination that stood leering
before me as I withdrew my sullied
fingers from its own.
But in the cosmos there is balm
as well as bitterness, and that balm
is nepenthe.
In the supreme horror of that
second I forget what had horrified me,
and the burst of black memory
vanished in a chaos of echoing images.
In a dream I fled from that
haunted and accursed pile, and ran
swiftly and silently in the
moonlight.
When I returned to the churchyard
place of marble and went down the
steps I found the stone trap-door
immovable; but I was not sorry, for
I had hated the antique castle
and the trees. Now I ride with the
mocking and friendly ghouls on
the night-wind, and play by day
amongst the catacombs of
Nephren-Ka in the sealed and unknown valley
of Hadoth by the Nile. I know that light is not for me, save that of
the moon over the rock tombs of
Neb, nor any gayety save the unnamed
feasts of Nitokris beneath the
Great Pyramid; yet in my new wildness
and freedom I almost welcome the
bitterness of alienage.
For although nepenthe has calmed
me, I know always that I am an
outsider; a stranger in this
century and among those who are still
men. This I have known ever since I stretched out
my fingers to the
abomination within the great
gilded frame; stretched out my fingers
and touched _a cold and
unyielding surface of polished glass_.