The Outsider, Pickman's Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Silver Key
The Outsider, Pickman’s Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Silver KeyThe OutsiderPickman’s ModelThe Rats in the WallsThe Silver KeyCopyright
The Outsider, Pickman’s Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Silver
Key
H. P. Lovecraft
The Outsider
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, and
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 cannot 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, shrivelled,
and decaying like the castle. To me there was nothing grotesque in
the bones and skeletons that strowed some of the stone crypts deep
down among the foundations. I fantastically associated these things
with every-day events, and thought them more natural than the
coloured pictures of living beings which I found in many of the
mouldy 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 more filled with brooding fear; so that 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 mould 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 eerie echoes of its fall, but hoped when necessary to pry it
open 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 aeons cut off from the castle
below. Then unexpectedly my hands came upon a doorway, where hung a
portal of stone, rough with strange chiselling. Trying it, I found
it locked; but 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 daemoniacal 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 treetops seen from a lofty eminence, there stretched around me
on a 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 gaiety 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 that 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 realisation. 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 clamour 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 be lurking 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 cannot 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 mouldy,
disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even
more.
I was almost paralysed, 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 loathsomely into them,
refused to close; though they were mercifully blurred, and shewed
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 agonisingly aware of the nearness