Eldritch Tales

by H. P. Lovecraft

  All this wore on Georgina’s nerves, but not by any means so gravely as her brother’s continued lassitude itself. The duration of the state alarmed her, and little by little she lost the air of cheerfulness which had so provoked the clinic-man. Herself skilled in medicine, she found the doctor’s condition highly unsatisfactory from an alienist’s point of view; and she now feared as much from his absence of interest and activity as she had formerly feared from his fanatical zeal and overstudy. Was lingering melancholy about to turn the once brilliant man of intellect into an innocuous imbecile?

  Then, toward the end of May, came the sudden change. Georgina always recalled the smallest details connected with it; details as trivial as the box delivered to Surama the day before, postmarked Algiers, and emitting a most unpleasant odour; and the sharp, sudden thunderstorm, rare in the extreme for California, which sprang up that night as Surama chanted his rituals behind his locked basement door in a droning chest-voice louder and more intense than usual.

  It was a sunny day, and she had been in the garden gathering flowers for the dining-room. Re-entering the house, she glimpsed her brother in the library, fully dressed and seated at the table, alternately consulting the notes in his thick observation book, and making fresh entries with brisk assured strokes of the pen. He was alert and vital, and there was a satisfying resilience about his movements as he now and then turned a page, or reached for a book from the rear of the great table. Delighted and relieved, Georgina hastened to deposit her flowers in the dining-room and return; but when she reached the library again she found that her brother was gone.

  She knew, of course, that he must be in the clinic at work, and rejoiced to think that his old mind and purpose had snapped back into place. Realising it would be of no use to delay the luncheon for him, she ate alone and set aside a bite to be kept warm in case of his return at an odd moment. But he did not come. He was making up for lost time, and was still in the great stout-planked clinic when she went for a stroll through the rose-arbour.

  As she walked among the fragrant blossoms she saw Surama fetching animals for the test. She wished she could notice him less, for he always made her shudder; but her very dread had sharpened her eyes and ears where he was concerned. He always went hatless around the yard, and the total hairlessness of his head enhanced his skeleton-like aspect horribly. Now she heard a faint chuckle as he took a small monkey from its cage against the wall and carried it to the clinic, his long, bony fingers pressing so cruelly into its furry sides that it cried out in frightened anguish. The sight sickened her, and brought her walk to an end. Her inmost soul rebelled at the ascendancy this creature had gained over her brother, and she reflected bitterly that the two had almost changed places as master and servant.

  Night came without Clarendon’s return to the house, and Georgina concluded that he was absorbed in one of his very longest sessions, which meant total disregard of time. She hated to retire without a talk with him about his sudden recovery; but finally, feeling it would be futile to wait up, she wrote a cheerful note and propped it before his chair on the library table; then started resolutely for bed.

  She was not quite asleep when she heard the outer door open and shut. So it had not been an all-night session after all! Determined to see that her brother had a meal before retiring she rose, slipped on a robe, and descended to the library, halting only when she heard voices from behind the half-opened door. Clarendon and Surama were talking, and she waited till the clinic-man might go.

  Surama, however, shewed no inclination to depart; and indeed, the whole heated tenor of the discourse seemed to bespeak absorption and promise length. Georgina, though she had not meant to listen, could not help catching a phrase now and then, and presently became aware of a sinister undercurrent which frightened her very much without being wholly clear to her. Her brother’s voice, nervous, incisive, held her notice with disquieting persistence.

  ‘But anyway,’ he was saying, ‘we haven’t enough animals for another day, and you know how hard it is to get a decent supply at short notice. It seems silly to waste so much effort on comparative trash when human specimens could be had with just a little extra care.’

  Georgina sickened at the possible implication, and caught at the hall rack to steady herself. Surama was replying in that deep, hollow tone which seemed to echo with the evil of a thousand ages and a thousand planets.

  ‘Steady, steady – what a child you are with your haste and impatience! You crowd things so! When you’ve lived as I have, so that a whole life will seem only an hour, you won’t be so fretful about a day or week or month! You work too fast. You’ve plenty of specimens in the cages for a full week if you’ll only go at a sensible rate. You might even begin on the older material if you’d be sure not to overdo it.’

  ‘Never mind my haste!’ the reply was snapped out sharply; ‘I have my own methods. I don’t want to use our material if I can help it, for I prefer them as they are. And you’d better be careful of them anyway – you know; ‘the knives those sly dogs carry.’

  Surama’s deep chuckle came.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. The brutes eat, don’t they? Well, I can get you one any time you need it. But go slow – with the boy gone, there are only eight, and now that you’ve lost San Quentin it’ll be hard to get new ones by the wholesale. I’d advise you to start in on Tsanpo – he’s the least use to you as he is, and—’

  But that was all Georgina heard. Transfixed by a hideous dread from the thoughts this talk excited, she nearly sank to the floor where she stood, and was scarcely able to drag herself up the stairs and into her room. What was the evil monster Surama planning? Into what was he guiding her brother? What monstrous circumstances lay behind these cryptic sentences? A thousand phantoms of darkness and menace danced before her eyes, and she flung herself upon the bed without hope of sleep. One thought above the rest stood out with fiendish prominence, and she almost screamed aloud as it beat itself into her brain with renewed force. Then Nature, kinder than she expected, intervened at last. Closing her eyes in a dead faint, she did not awake till morning, nor did any fresh nightmare come to join the lasting one which the overheard words had brought.

  With the morning sunshine came a lessening of the tension. What happens in the night when one is tired often reaches the consciousness in distorted forms, and Georgina could see that her brain must have given strange colour to scraps of common medical conversation. To suppose her brother – only son of the gentle Frances Schuyler Clarendon – guilty of savage sacrifices in the name of science would be to do an injustice to their blood, and she decided to omit all mention of her trip downstairs, lest Alfred ridicule her fantastic notions.

  When she reached the breakfast table she found that Clarendon was already gone, and regretted that not even this second morning had given her a chance to congratulate him on his revived activity. Quietly taking the breakfast served by stone-deaf old Margarita, the Mexican cook, she read the morning paper and seated herself with some needlework by the sitting-room window overlooking the great yard. All was silent out there, and she could see that the last of the animal cages had been emptied. Science was served, and the lime-pit held all that was left of the once pretty and lively little creatures. This slaughter had always grieved her, but she had never complained, since she knew it was all for humanity. Being a scientist’s sister, she used to say to herself, was like being the sister of a soldier who kills to save his countrymen from their foes.

  After luncheon Georgina resumed her post by the window, and had been busily sewing for some time when the sound of a pistol shot from the yard caused her to look out in alarm. There, not far from the clinic, she saw the ghastly form of Surama, a revolver in his hand, and his skull-face twisted into a strange expression as he chuckled at a cowering figure robed in black silk and carrying a long Tibetan knife. It was the servant Tsanpo, and as she recognised the shrivelled face Georgina remembered horribly what she had overheard the night before. The sun flashed on the polished bl
ade, and suddenly Surama’s revolver spat once more. This time the knife flew from the Mongol’s hand, and Surama glanced greedily at his shaking and bewildered prey.

  Then Tsanpo, glancing quickly at his unhurt hand and at the fallen knife, sprang nimbly away from the stealthily approaching clinic-man and made a dash for the house. Surama, however, was too swift for him, and caught him in a single leap, seizing his shoulder and almost crushing him. For a moment the Tibetan tried to struggle, but Surama lifted him like an animal by the scruff of the neck and bore him off toward the clinic. Georgina heard him chuckling and taunting the man in his own tongue, and saw the yellow face of the victim twist and quiver with fright. Suddenly realising against her own will what was taking place, a great horror mastered her and she fainted for the second time within twenty-four hours.

  When consciousness returned, the golden light of late afternoon was flooding the room. Georgina, picking up her fallen work-basket and scattered materials, was lost in a daze of doubt; but finally felt convinced that the scene which had overcome her must have been all too tragically real. Her worst fears, then, were horrible truths. What to do about it, nothing in her experience could tell her; and she was vaguely thankful that her brother did not appear. She must talk to him, but not now. She could not talk to anybody now. And, thinking shudderingly of the monstrous happening behind those barred clinic windows, she crept into bed for a long night of anguished sleeplessness.

  Rising haggardly on the following day, Georgina saw the doctor for the first time since his recovery. He was bustling about pre-occupiedly, circulating between the house and the clinic, and paying little attention to anything besides his work. There was no chance for the dreaded interview, and Clarendon did not even notice his sister’s worn-out aspect and hesitant manner.

  In the evening she heard him in the library, talking to himself in a fashion most unusual for him, and she felt that he was under a great strain which might culminate in the return of his apathy. Entering the room, she tried to calm him without referring to any trying subject, and forced a steadying cup of bouillon upon him. Finally she asked gently what was distressing him, and waited anxiously for his reply, hoping to hear that Surama’s treatment of the poor Tibetan had horrified and outraged him.

  There was a note of fretfulness in his voice as he responded.

  ‘What’s distressing me? Good God, Georgina, what isn’t? Look at the cages and see if you have to ask again! Cleaned out – milked dry – not a cursed specimen left; and a line of the most important bacterial cultures incubating in their tubes without a chance to do an ounce of good! Days’ work wasted – whole programme set back – it’s enough to drive a man mad! How shall I ever get anywhere if I can’t scrape up some decent subjects?’

  Georgina stroked his forehead.

  ‘I think you ought to rest a while, Al dear.’

  He moved away.

  ‘Rest? That’s good! That’s damn good! What else have I been doing but resting and vegetating and staring blankly into space for the last fifty or a hundred or a thousand years? Just as I manage to shake off the clouds, I have to run short of material – and then I’m told to lapse back again into drooling stupefaction! God! And all the while some sneaking thief is probably working with my data and getting ready to come out ahead of me with the credit for my own work. I’ll lose by a neck – some fool with the proper specimens will get the prize, when one week more with even half-adequate facilities would see me through with flying colours!’

  His voice rose querulously, and there was an overtone of mental strain which Georgina did not like. She answered softly, yet not so softly as to hint at the soothing of a psychopathic case.

  ‘But you’re killing yourself with this worry and tension, and if you’re dead, how can you do your work?’

  He gave a smile that was almost a sneer.

  ‘I guess a week or a month – all the time I need – wouldn’t quite finish me, and it doesn’t much matter what becomes of me or any other individual in the end. Science is what must be served – science – the austere cause of human knowledge. I’m like the monkeys and birds and guinea-pigs I use – just a cog in the machine, to be used to the advantage of the whole. They had to be killed – I may have to be killed – what of it? Isn’t the cause we serve worth that and more?’

  Georgina sighed. For a moment she wondered whether, after all, this ceaseless round of slaughter really was worth while.

  ‘But are you absolutely sure your discovery will be enough of a boon to humanity to warrant these sacrifices?’

  Clarendon’s eyes flashed dangerously.

  ‘Humanity! What the deuce is humanity? Science! Dolts! Just individuals over and over again! Humanity is made for preachers to whom it means the blindly credulous. Humanity is made for the predatory rich to whom it speaks in terms of dollars and cents. Humanity is made for the politician to whom it signifies collective power to be used to his advantage. What is humanity? Nothing! Thank God that crude illusion doesn’t last! What a grown man worships is truth – knowledge – science – light – the rending of the veil and the pushing back of the shadow. Knowledge, the juggernaut! There is death in our own ritual. We must kill – dissect – destroy – and all for the sake of discovery – the worship of the ineffable light. The goddess Science demands it. We test a doubtful poison by killing. How else? No thought for self – just knowledge – the effect must be known.’

  His voice trailed off in a kind of temporary exhaustion, and Georgina shuddered slightly.

  ‘But this is horrible, Al! You shouldn’t think of it that way!’

  Clarendon cackled sardonically, in a manner which stirred odd and repugnant associations in his sister’s mind.

  ‘Horrible? You think what I say is horrible? You ought to hear Surama! I tell you, things were known to the priests of Atlantis that would have you drop dead of fright if you heard a hint of them. Knowledge was knowledge a hundred thousand years ago, when our especial forbears were shambling about Asia as speechless semi-apes! They know something of it in the Hoggar region – there are rumours in the farther uplands of Tibet – and once I heard an old man in China calling on Yog-Sothoth—’

  He turned pale, and made a curious sign in the air with his extended forefinger. Georgina felt genuinely alarmed, but became somewhat calmer as his speech took a less fantastic form.

  ‘Yes, it may be horrible, but it’s glorious too. The pursuit of knowledge, I mean. Certainly, there’s no slovenly sentiment connected with it. Doesn’t Nature kill – constantly and remorselessly – and are any but fools horrified at the struggle? Killings are necessary. They are the glory of science. We learn something from them, and we can’t sacrifice learning to sentiment. Hear the sentimentalists howl against vaccination! They fear it will kill the child. Well, what if it does? How else can we discover the laws of disease concerned? As a scientist’s sister you ought to know better than to prate sentiment. You ought to help my work instead of hindering it!’

  ‘But, Al,’ protested Georgina, ‘I haven’t the slightest intention of hindering your work. Haven’t I always tried to help as much as I could? I am ignorant, I suppose, and can’t help very actively; but at least I’m proud of you – proud for my own sake and for the family’s sake – and I’ve always tried to smooth the way. You’ve given me credit for that many a time.’

  Clarendon looked at her keenly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said jerkily as he rose and strode from the room, ‘you’re right. You’ve always tried to help as best you knew. You may yet have a chance to help still more.’

  Georgina, seeing him disappear through the front door, followed him into the yard. Some distance away a lantern was shining through the trees, and as they approached it they saw Surama bending over a large object stretched on the ground. Clarendon, advancing, gave a short grunt; but when Georgina saw what it was she rushed up with a shriek. It was Dick, the great St Bernard, and he was lying still with reddened eyes and protruding tongue.

  ‘He’s sick,
Al!’ she cried. ’do something for him, quick!’

  The doctor looked at Surama, who had uttered something in a tongue unknown to Georgina.

  ‘Take him to the clinic,’ he ordered; ‘I’m afraid Dick’s caught the fever.’

  Surama took up the dog as he had taken poor Tsanpo the day before, and carried him silently to the building near the mall. He did not chuckle this time, but glanced at Clarendon with what appeared to be real anxiety. It almost seemed to Georgina that Surama was asking the doctor to save her pet.

  Clarendon, however, made no move to follow, but stood still for a moment and then sauntered slowly toward the house. Georgina, astonished at such callousness, kept up a running fire of entreaties on Dick’s behalf, but it was of no use. Without paying the slightest attention to her pleas he made directly for the library and began to read in a large old book which had lain face down on the table. She put her hand on his shoulder as he sat there, but he did not speak or turn his head. He only kept on reading, and Georgina, glancing curiously over his shoulder, wondered in what strange alphabet this brass-bound tome was written.

  In the cavernous parlour across the hall, sitting alone in the dark a quarter of an hour later, Georgina came to her decision. Something was gravely wrong – just what, and to what extent, she scarcely dared formulate to herself – and it was time that she called in some stronger force to help her. Of course it must be James. He was powerful and capable, and his sympathy and affection would shew him the right thing to do. He had known Al always, and would understand.

  It was by this time rather late, but Georgina had resolved on action. Across the hall the light still shone from the library, and she looked wistfully at the doorway as she quietly donned a hat and left the house. Outside the gloomy mansion and forbidding grounds, it was only a short walk to Jackson Street, where by good luck she found a carriage to take her to the Western Union telegraph office. There she carefully wrote out a message to James Dalton in Sacramento, asking him to come at once to San Francisco on a matter of the greatest importance to them all.