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The Picture in the House
Lovecraft, Howard Phillips
Published:
1920
Categorie(s):
Fiction, Short Stories
Source:
http://en.wikisource.org
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About Lovecraft:
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of fantasy, horror
and science fiction. He is notable for blending elements of science fiction
and horror; and for popularizing "cosmic horror": the notion that some
concepts, entities or experiences are barely comprehensible to human
minds, and those who delve into such risk their sanity. Lovecraft has be-
come a cult figure in the horror genre and is noted as creator of the
"Cthulhu Mythos," a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a
"pantheon" of nonhuman creatures, as well as the famed Necronomicon,
a grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works typically had a
tone of "cosmic pessimism," regarding mankind as insignificant and
powerless in the universe. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his
life, and his works, particularly early in his career, have been criticized as
occasionally ponderous, and for their uneven quality. Nevertheless,
Lovecraft’s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he
is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers
of the 20th Century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though of-
ten indirect. Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Lovecraft:
•
(1926)
•
(1931)
•
(1928)
•
(1934)
•
(1931)
•
(1936)
•
(1930)
•
(1927)
•
(1938)
•
(1932)
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Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the cata-
combs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries.
They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter
down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten
cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their
shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited is-
lands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unut-
terable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems
most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England;
for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and ig-
norance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.
Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses re-
mote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy
slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hun-
dred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines
have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost
hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of
shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blink-
ing through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the
memory of unutterable things.
In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like
the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief
which exiled them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness
for freedom. There the scions of a conquering race indeed flourished free
from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery
to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlight-
enment of civilization, the strength of these Puritans turned into singular
channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-repression, and struggle for
life with relentless Nature, there came to them dark furtive traits from
the prehistoric depths of their cold Northern heritage. By necessity prac-
tical and by philosophy stern, these folks were not beautiful in their sins.
Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek
concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in
what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the back-
woods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days, and they are
not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps
them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down
these houses, for they must often dream.
It was to a time-battered edifice of this description that I was driven
one afternoon in November, 1896, by a rain of such chilling copiousness
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that any shelter was preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for
some time amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of cer-
tain genealogical data; and from the remote, devious, and problematical
nature of my course, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle des-
pite the lateness of the season. Now I found myself upon an apparently
abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham, over-
taken by the storm at a point far from any town, and confronted with no
refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building which blinked
with bleared windows from between two huge leafless elms near the
foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it is from the remnant of a road, this
house none the less impressed me unfavorably the very moment I espied
it. Honest, wholesome structures do not stare at travellers so slyly and
hauntingly, and in my genealogical researches I had encountered le-
gends of a century before which biased me against places of this kind.
Yet the force of the elements was such as to overcome my scruples, and I
did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy rise to the closed
door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive.
I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet
as I approached it I was not so sure, for though the walks were indeed
overgrown with weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little too
well to argue complete desertion. Therefore instead of trying the door I
knocked, feeling as I did so a trepidation I could scarcely explain. As I
waited on the rough, mossy rock which served as a door-step, I glanced
at the neighboring windows and the panes of the transom above me, and
noticed that although old, rattling, and almost opaque with dirt, they
were not broken. The building, then, must still be inhabited, despite its
isolation and general neglect. However, my rapping evoked no response,
so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and found the door
unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the
plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly
hateful odor. I entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the door behind
me. Ahead rose a narrow staircase, flanked by a small door probably
leading to the cellar, while to the left and right were closed doors leading
to rooms on the ground floor.
Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left, and
crossed into a small low-ceiled chamber but dimly lighted by its two
dusty windows and furnished in the barest and most primitive possible
way. It appeared to be a kind of sitting-room, for it had a table and sever-
al chairs, and an immense fireplace above which ticked an antique clock
on a mantel. Books and papers were very few, and in the prevailing
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gloom I could not readily discern the titles. What interested me was the
uniform air of archaism as displayed in every visible detail. Most of the
houses in this region I had found rich in relics of the past, but here the
antiquity was curiously complete; for in all the room I could not discover
a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had the furnishings
been less humble, the place would have been a collector's paradise.
As I surveyed this quaint apartment, I felt an increase in that aversion
first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that I
feared or loathed, I could by no means define; but something in the
whole atmosphere seemed redolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant
crudeness, and of secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to
sit down, and wandered about examining the various articles which I
had noticed. The first object of my curiosity was a book of medium size
lying upon the table and presenting such an antediluvian aspect that I
marvelled at beholding it outside a museum or library. It was bound in
leather with metal fittings, and was in an excellent state of preservation;
being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in an abode so
lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even greater,
for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta's account of the Congo
region, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and printed at
Frankfurt in 1598. I had often heard of this work, with its curious illus-
trations by the brothers De Bry, hence for a moment forgot my uneasi-
ness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were in-
deed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descrip-
tions, and represented negroes with white skins and Caucasian features;
nor would I soon have closed the book had not an exceedingly trivial cir-
cumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my sensation of disquiet.
What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume
tended to fall open of itself at Plate XII, which represented in gruesome
detail a butcher's shop of the cannibal Anziques. I experienced some
shame at my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing neverthe-
less disturbed me, especially in connection with some adjacent passages
descriptive of Anzique gastronomy.
I had turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its meagre lit-
erary contents - an eighteenth century Bible, a "Pilgrim's Progress" of like
period, illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and printed by the
almanack-maker Isaiah Thomas, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather's
"Magnalia Christi Americana," and a few other books of evidently equal
age - when my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of
walking in the room overhead. At first astonished and startled,
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