From: jv@irus.rri.uwo.ca (Jeffrey Verhagen)
Subject: LOVECRAFT-STORIES
Organization: none
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 15:49:04 GMT


Included are the following Lovecraft stories:

  Nyarlathotep
  Polaris
  The Evil Clergyman

Have fun,
Jeff...

-------

                           Nyarlathotep
                                by
                         H. P. Lovecraft
                              (1920)

 Nyarlathotep .... the crawling chaos .... I am the  last  ....  I
 will tell the audient void ....

 I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months  ago.
 The  general  tension  was horrible. To a season of political and
 social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension  of
 hideous  physical  danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing,
 such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible  phan-
 tasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale
 and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no
 one  dared  consciously  repeat or acknowledge to himself that he
 had heard.  A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out
 of  the  abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made
 men shiver in dark and lonely places.  There was a  demoniac  al-
 teration  in  the  sequence  of  the  seasons - the autumnal heat
 lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps
 the  universe  had  passed  from the control of the known gods or
 forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

 And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he  was,
 none  could  tell,  but he was of the old native blood and looked
 like a Pharoah. The fellahin knelt when they saw him,  yet  could
 not  say  why.  He  said  he had risen up out of the blackness of
 twenty-seven centuries, and  that  he  had  heard  messages  from
 places not on this planet.

 Into  the  lands  of  civilization  came  Nyarlathotep,  swarthy,
 slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass
 and metal and combining them into instruments  yet  stranger.  He
 spoke  much  of  the sciences - of electricity and psychology and
 gave exhibitions of power which sent spectators away  speechless,
 yet  which  swelled  his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised
 one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And  where  Nyar-
 lathotep  went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with
 screams of nightmare.  Never before had the screams of  nightmare
 been  such  a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they
 could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities
 might  less  horribly  disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glim-
 mered on green waters gliding under  bridges,  and  old  steeples
 crumbling against a sickly sky.

 I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city  -  the  great,  the
 old,  the  terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told
 me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his
 revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost
 mysteries. My friend  said  they  were  horrible  and  impressive
 beyond  my  most  fevered  imaginings;  that what was thrown on a
 screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlatho-
 tep  dared prophesy, and in the sputter of sparks there was taken
 from men that which had never been taken before yet  shewed  only
 in  the  eyes.  And  I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew
 Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

 It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night  with  the
 restless  crowds  to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night
 and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed  on
 the  screen,  I  saw  hooded  forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil
 faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw  the  world
 battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from
 ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling  around  the  dim-
 ming,  cooling  sun.  Then the sparks played amazingly around the
 heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst  shadows
 more  grotesque  than  I  can tell came out and squatted on their
 heads. And when I, who was colder and more  scientific  than  the
 rest,  mumbled  a trembling protest about "imposture" and "static
 electricity", Nyarlathotep drove  us  all  out,  down  the  dizzy
 stairs  into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed
 aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could  be  afraid;  and
 others  screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that
 the city was exactly the same, and  still  alive;  and  when  the
 electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over
 again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

 I believe we felt something coming down from the  greenish  moon,
 for  when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious
 involuntary marching formations and seemed to know  our  destina-
 tions  though  we  dared not think of them. Once we looked at the
 pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by glass,  with
 scarce a line of rusted metal to shew where the tramways had run.
 And again we saw a tram-car, lone, windowless,  dilapidated,  and
 almost  on  its  side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could
 not find the third tower by  the  river,  and  noticed  that  the
 silhouette  of  the  second  tower was ragged at the top. Then we
 split up into narrow columns, each of which  seemed  drawn  in  a
 different  direction.  One  disappeared  in a narrow alley to the
 left, leaving only the echo of a shocked moan. Another filed down
 a  weed-choked  subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was
 mad. My own column  was  sucked  toward  the  open  country,  and
 presently  I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as
 we stalked out of the dark moor, we beheld around us the  hellish
 moon-glitter  of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept
 asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all  the  blacker
 for  its  glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as
 it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I  lingered  behind,  for  the
 black  rift in the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought
 I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as  my  com-
 panions  vanished;  but  my  power  to  linger  was slight. As if
 beckoned by those who had gone before, I half-floated between the
 titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vor-
 tex of the unimaginable.

 Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods  that  were
 can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are
 not hands, and whirled blindly past the ghastly midnights of rot-
 ting  creation,  corpses  of dead worlds with sores that were ci-
 ties, charnel winds that brush the pallid  stars  and  make  them
 flicker  low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things;
 half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest  on  nameless
 rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres
 of light and darkness.  And through this revolting  graveyard  of
 the  universe  the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin,
 monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes  from  inconceivable,  un-
 lighted  chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping
 whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly,  and  absurdly  the  gigantic,
 tenebrous  ultimate  gods  -  the blind, voiceless, mindless gar-
 goyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

-------

                              Polaris
                                by
                          H. P. Lovecraft
                              (1918)

 Into the North Window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with  un-
 canny  light.  All through the long hellish hours of blackness it
 shines there. And in the autumn of the year, when the winds  from
 the  north curse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swamp
 mutter things to one another in the small hours  of  the  morning
 under  the  horned  waning  moon, I sit by the casement and watch
 that star. Down from the heights reels the glittering  Cassiopeia
 as  the hours wear on, while Charles' Wain lumbers up from behind
 the vapour-soaked swamp trees that sway in the night  wind.  Just
 before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetary on the
 low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in  the
 mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same
 place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watch-
 ing  eye  which tries to convey some strange message, yet recalls
 nothing save that it once had a  message  to  convey.  Sometimes,
 when it is cloudy, I can sleep.

 Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when  over  the
 swamp played the shocking coruscations of the daemon light. After
 the beam came clouds, and then I slept.

 And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the
 first time.  Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau
 in a hollow betwixt strange peaks. Of  ghastly  marble  were  its
 walls  and  its towers, its columns, domes, and pavements. In the
 marble streets were marble pillars, the upper parts of which were
 carven into the images of grave bearded men. The air was warm and
 stirred not. And overhead, scarce ten degrees  from  the  zenith,
 glowed  that watching Pole Star. Long did I gaze on the city, but
 the day came not. When the red Aldebaran, which  blinked  low  in
 the  sky  but  never set, had crawled a quarter of the way around
 the horizon, I saw light and motion in  the  houses  and  in  the
 streets.  Forms  strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar,
 walked abroad and under the horned waning moon men talked  wisdom
 in a tongue which I understood, though it was unlike any language
 I had ever known. And when the red  Aldebaran  had  crawled  more
 than  half-way  around the horizon, there were again darkness and
 silence.

 When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven
 the vision of the city, and within my soul had arisen another and
 vaguer recollection, of whose nature  I  was  not  then  certain.
 Thereafter,  on  the  cloudy nights when I could sleep, I saw the
 city often; sometimes under the hot yellow rays of  a  sun  which
 did not set, but which wheeled low around the horizon. And on the
 clear nights the Pole Star leered as never before.

 Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on
 the  strange  plateau  betwixt strange peaks. At first content to
 view the scene as an all-observant uncorporeal  presence,  I  now
 desired to define my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongst
 the grave men who conversed each day in the  public  squares.   I
 said  to myself, "This is no dream, for by what means can I prove
 the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone  and
 brick  south  of  the  sinister swamp and the cemetary on the low
 hillock, where the Pole Star peeps  into  my  north  window  each
 night?"

 One night as I listened to the discourse in the large square con-
 taining  many  statues, I felt a change; and perceived that I had
 at last a bodily form.  Nor was I a stranger in  the  streets  of
 Olathoe,  which  lies on the plateau of Sarkia, betwixt the peaks
 Noton and Kadiphonek. It was my friend Alos who  spoke,  and  his
 speech  was  one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of a
 true man and patriot. That night had the  news  come  of  Daikos'
 fall,  and  of  the advance of the Inutos; squat, hellish, yellow
 fiends who five years ago had appeared out of the unknown west to
 ravage  the  confines  of our kingdom, and to besiege many of our
 towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of the moun-
 tains,  their  way  now lay open to the plateau, unless every ci-
 tizen could resist with the strength of ten men.  For  the  squat
 creatures  were mighty in the arts of war, and knew not the scru-
 ples of honour which held back our tall, grey-eyed men  of  Lomar
 from ruthless conquest.

 Alos, my friend was commander of all the forces on  the  plateau,
 and  in him lay the last hope of our country. On this occasion he
 spoke of the perils to be faced and exhorted the men of  Olathoe,
 bravest  of  the  Lomarians,  to  sustain the traditions of their
 ancestors, who when forced to move southward  from  Zobna  before
 the  advance  of  a great ice sheet (even as our descendents must
 some day flee from the land of Lomar) valiantly and  victoriously
 swept  aside the hairy, long-armed, cannibal Gnophkehs that stood
 in their way. To me Alos denied a warrior's part, for I was  fee-
 ble  and  given to strange faintings when subjected to stress and
 hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite  the
 long  hours  I  gave  each  day  to  the  study  of  the Pnakotic
 manuscripts and the  wisdom  of  the  Zobnarian  Fathers;  so  my
 friend,  desiring  not  to  doom me to inaction, rewarded me with
 that duty which was second  to  nothing  in  importance.  To  the
 watchtower  of  Thapnen he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of
 our army. Should the Inutos attempt to gain the  citadel  by  the
 narrow  pass  behind  the  peak  Noton  and  thereby surprise the
 garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which would  warn  the
 waiting solders and save the town from immediate disaster.

 Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed
 in  the passes below. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and
 fatigue, for I had not slept in many days;  yet  was  my  purpose
 firm,  for  I  loved my native land of Lomar, and the marble city
 Olathoe that lies betwixt the peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek.

 But as I stood in the  tower's  topmost  chamber,  I  beheld  the
 horned  waning  moon, red and sinister, quivering through the va-
 pours that hovered over the distant valley of Banof. And  through
 an  opening  in the roof glittered the pale Pole Star, fluttering
 as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter. Methought  its
 spirit  whispered  evil  counsel,  soothing me to traitorous som-
 nolence with a damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over
 and over:

                Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,
                   Six and twenty thousand years
                   Have revolv'd, and I return
                   To the spot where now I burn.
                   Other stars anon shall rise
                    To the axis of the skies;
              Stars that soothe and stars that bless
                    With a sweet forgetfulness:
                    Only when my round is o'er
                 Shall the past disturb thy door.

 Vainly did I struggle with  my  drowsiness,  seeking  to  connect
 these  strange  words  with  some  lore  of the skies which I had
 learnt from the Pnakotic manuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling,
 drooped  to  my  breast,  and  when  next I looked up it was in a
 dream, with the Pole Star grinning at me through  a  window  from
 over  the horrible swaying trees of a dream swamp. And I am still
 dreaming.

 In my shame and despair I sometimes scream  frantically,  begging
 the dream-creatures around me to waken me ere the Inutos steal up
 the pass behind the peak Noton and take the citadel by  surprise;
 but these creatures are daemons, for they laugh at me and tell me
 that I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst I sleep,  and  whilst
 the  squat  yellow  foe  may be creeping silently upon us. I have
 failed in my duty and have betrayed the marble city of Olathoe; I
 have  proven  false  to  Alos, my friend and commander. But still
 these shadows of my dreams deride me. They say there is  no  land
 of  Lomar,  save in my nocturnal imaginings; that in these realms
 where the Pole Star shines high, and  red  Aldebaran  crawls  low
 around  the  horizon, there has been naught save ice and snow for
 thousands of years, and never a man save squat, yellow creatures,
 blighted by the cold, whom they call "Esquimaux."

 And as I writhe in my guilty agony,  frantic  to  save  the  city
 whose  peril every moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off
 this unnatural dream of a house of stone and  brick  south  of  a
 sinister  swamp  and  a cemetary on a low hillock, the Pole Star,
 evil and monstrous, leers down  from  the  black  vault,  winking
 hideously  like  an  insane  watching eye which strives to convey
 some message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message
 to convey.

-------

                        The Evil Clergyman
                                by
                         H. P. Lovecraft

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

 `Yes, he lived here - but I don't  advise  your  doing  anything.
 Your  curiousity  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 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 showed 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  furni-
 ture  was  very  plain.  There was a door, but it led only into a
 closet.  The only egress was an 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 radioactive 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  out-
 side  looked  very queer through the bull's-eye window panes. Fi-
 nally 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 now seemed 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  center  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 center. 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 whatev-
 er  during  all the immediately following moments. Everything was
 in 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 spec-
 tacles with steel bows. His build and lower facial features  were
 like  other clergymen I had seen, but he had a vastly hight fore-
 head, 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 be-
 fore  I knew it he was casting all his magical books into a fire-
 place 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 and emitting in-
 describably  hideous  odours as the strangely hieroglyphed leaves
 and wormy binding 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-breaches of
 a  bishop.  Though  I  could  hear nothing, I could see 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  expres-
 sion,  but I could see his right hand shaking as he tried to grip
 the back of the chair. The bishop pointed to the empty  case  and
 to  the  fireplace  (where  the  flames  had  died  down amidst a
 charred, noncommittal mass), and seemed filled  with  a  peculiar
 loathing.  The  first-comer  then  gave a wry smile a reached out
 with his left hand towards the small object on the table.  Every-
 one then seemed frightened.  The procession of clerics began fil-
 ing 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. Real-
 izing 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 towards 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. 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 a 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,  flail-
 ing  his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backward. I saw
 he was edging towards 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 towards 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,  ap-
 parently)  farthest in the lead saw me - and stood paralyzed. 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  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 him-
 self. You ought not to have made him come back. You know what  he
 wants.  But  you musn'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 badly off as you might be - but you  must
 get out of here at once and stay away.  You'd better thank Heaven
 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 mir-
 ror up at the other end of the room, and I'm going to take you up
 to it. You'll get a shock - though you will  see  nothing  repul-
 sive.'

 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 (ie - 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 rim-
 less, 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!